Chasing justice, p.1
Chasing Justice, page 1
PRAISE FOR
Chasing Justice
“ With Chasing Justice, accomplished historical novelist G.J. Berger makes an impressive debut in the conspiracy thriller genre. In a league with the best of Grisham and Baldacci.”
—Dan Pollock,
author of Lair of the Fox and Duel of Assassins
“ A brilliant legal thriller, well-crafted characters, and the abuse of governmental power results in a riveting, tension-filled tale. Chasing Justice is a must-read. Expect a rollercoaster ride as decency and goodness struggle to triumph over morally corrupt brokers of evil.”
—Laura Taylor,
6-Time Romantic Times Award Winner
“ G.J. makes his characters real people you will cheer on as they fight to make good come out of a nasty criminal conspiracy with national implications.”
—p.d.r. lindsay,
author of Tizzie, Bittersweet, Jacob’s Justice
OTHER BOOKS BY
G.J. Berger
Four Nails—
History’s Greatest Elephant and
His Extraordinary Trainer
South of Burnt Rocks—
West of The Moon
PRAISE FOR
Four Nails
“ [R]ichly imagined . . . much to savor here.”
—Publishers Weekly 2/13/2019
“ Four Nails is a satisfying historical . . . a big book packed with history and adventure.”
—One of four novels recommended in
“Pack-Your-Suitcase Reads,” Huffington Post, April 2016
“ Berger’s epic historical fiction . . . A highly entertaining, sophisticated look . . . through the eyes of an unlikely hero.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“ The result is a fast-paced and richly entertaining . . . The fact that the author not only manages to work in a love story . . . but also makes it feel natural rather than forced is just an added bonus. Recommended.”
—Historical Novel Society Review, August 1, 2016.
PRAISE FOR
South of Burnt Rocks
“ [W]ell researched and engrossing novel . . . considerably enlivened by Berger’s outstanding talent for stirring set pieces and gripping action sequences.”
—Historical Novel Society Review, Aug. 1, 2015
“ In Berger’s captivating debut historical fiction, a young Iberian-Celtic she-warrior makes a stand against the invading Roman army . . . A wonderfully crafted balance of Roman-era drama and the fierceness of battle.”
—Kirkus Reviews
CHASING
JUSTICE
A LEGAL THRILLER
by
G.J. BERGER
FROM THE TINY ACORN . . .
GROWS THE MIGHTY OAK
www.AcornPublishingLLC.com
For information, address:
Acorn Publishing, LLC
3943 Irvine Blvd. Ste. 218
Irvine, CA 92602
Chasing Justice
Copyright © 2022 G.J. Berger
Edited by Laura Taylor
Cover design by Damonza
Interior design and formatting by Debra Cranfield Kennedy
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from the author.
Anti-Piracy Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of a copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN-13: 979-8-88528-025-9 (hardcover)
ISBN-13: 979-8-88528-024-2 (paperback)
To Michael Cowett,
A lawyer’s lawyer and a great friend.
“ [I]t’s an unjust world,
and virtue is triumphant
only in theatrical performances.”
—W. S. Gilbert, The Mikado
Chapter One
Angela 1986
M
y roommate mumbled, “Can’t. You go. Must sleep.” So, before daylight I made one of those no-big-deal-at-the-time decisions. I ran alone in the backcountry.
At an unpainted wooden three-mile sign, a thin trail of dirt and pine needles veered off the fire road and rose around a forest bend. The familiar sounds of leaves shushing, the fast tap-tap of a woodpecker and other birds welcomed in the day. I looked around once, twice, and took the narrower path up the mountain.
The cool night air still dozing in the lodgepole pines gave way to a meadow flanked by gray rocks under a fast-rising sun. Out in the open where the path leveled, I raced wind gusts and then looped up to a remote chair lift base and back down to Aspen. Nine miles and all of it above eight thousand feet, nothing else felt this good and cleared my mind this well.
In the village on the nearly empty sidewalk, I eased into a walk and let the sun warm me.
“Hello, young lady.” I must have jerked a bit, hadn’t noticed him until he spoke. “Mercy, I did not mean to startle you.”
The stranger sat upright on a bench in the shade behind a low wrought-iron fence in front of Aspen’s courthouse, which was closed on this Sunday. Dressed in a gray suit with a black tie, maybe he had once been a lawyer and now, in the fog of his late years, couldn’t stay away. That possibility tugged at me for an instant until I noticed his deep-set eyes. The power in those eyes made me want to look away, to leave, but held me too. His hair, neatly trimmed and parted on the left side, was full and white, and the ends of his white mustache curved up into handlebars. His voice was level and younger than that white hair, than the rest of him.
I said, “That’s okay. I just didn’t expect anyone here, not today, this early.”
He turned and pointed over his shoulder at the tall statue of chrome above the main entrance of the courthouse building. “Do you know her?”
“Yes. That’s Lady Justice.” Some afternoons before my shift at Elk Burgers, I had passed under her on my way to the largest courtroom and the quiet tension of a murder trial, a trial still going.
“Do you see what is wrong with her?”
I searched fast for any flaw. Under her robe, she had long lines with small firm breasts, but strong, athletic enough to fight any man. The raised left arm held scales to compare the weight of the evidence—guilty and not—in each opposing pan. The right hand clasped the hilt of a long sword out of its scabbard. As soon as guilt had been proven, justice must be swift. I knew that much about the statue’s message. “Nothing wrong with her. She looks great.”
“Well, where’s the blindfold?”
The old man was right. This Lady Justice looked straight ahead out of eyes wide open. No blindfold cord tied down her thick curly hair.
“A master sculptor in Germany fashioned this one and a twin statue at a courthouse down south. By the time someone over here noticed, it was too late to make corrections.” He paused, then said, “Lady Justice ought to peek at the accused and the accuser, and sometimes ought to decide before that arduous ritual of weighing evidence, don’t you think?”
Nothing had prepared me for this, not for him or his questions. I pulled something out of some college course a while back. “Juries get it right most times . . . don’t they?”
“Ah, perhaps. But only if all the evidence makes its way onto those scales, only if the blindfold comes off.”
I chuckled at my next thought. “Juries don’t have blindfolds. They do see everything.”
“That’s an interesting observation. Well, I must be going now.” He extended his hands, palms up, as if saying with those hands, whatever will be will be. “So long, until we meet again, talk again.” His eyes clicked off, lost their power to hold me.
I didn’t stay one second longer, didn’t look back. His strangeness got to me, so out of place in this town of hard young bodies, tourists, and residents with their massive second or third homes strewn over the hillsides.
5
Early on Monday, the bench was gone with no marks from its legs on the evenly mown grass. Had yesterday’s run jumbled my brain? Had someone slipped something into my water bottle? Lady Justice stands there all right, no blindfold. I didn’t make that up. Or did I? Her face of chrome and the big sword brought up paintings of a warrior readying for hand-to-hand combat. That’s me if I curled my hair and owned a long sword. I laughed out loud. Don’t think so, not where I’m heading—not as a One L at Stanford.
Late that Thursday, the jury in the murder trial returned a not-guilty verdict for the beer-fueled bar fight ending with one dead. The verdict jolted me. The defendant had bashed the now dead man with a bar stool when the victim was on his way down. Maybe the jurors didn’t care as much as I did, maybe some key evidence didn’t get onto the scales.
Over the rest of that summer, I saw no more signs of the old man or his bench. Some late afternoons when the sky grayed up and a chill wind blew from the north, his final words crept in, until we meet again, talk again. Somehow, I knew we would meet again, talk again. And that chilled me even more.
Chapter Two
Angela, August 2010
I
n the big courtroom across the back hall from my chambers, more than fifty lawyers stirred like stockyard cattle. They checked the wall clock, their watches and smartphones. A few quietly asked the bailiff if the judge was here, when she might appear.
I was their judge. A long black robe gave me the power to settle them, listen to their earnest comments and probe a bit. Then I’d rule and send them off happy or dreading that next call with their clients—but not without Mora. Only she, my court reporter, could put on-the-record the words uttered by anyone. Mora had phoned and said she’d be ten minutes late. That was forty minutes ago.
High time to go out there and say something. I slipped into my robe, zipped it nearly all the way up, and headed out.
Mora opened the hallway door an instant before me and scurried over to her little desk in her little office just off our shared waiting area. While talking fast, she shed her purse, iPhone with its cord and ear piece, a paperback novel and water bottle. “Sorry, Judge. Trolley troubles, on Friday morning again. On top of that, cops are keeping everyone away from the criminal courts and my shortcut. Had to go all the way around.”
“Good morning. It’s all right. We’ll manage.”
“Oh, thanks, Judge. Thanks for understanding.” Mora grabbed her transcription machine and looked at me, the tilt of her head signaling, I’m ready, let’s go.
I followed five beats behind and then waited in the open doorway at the back of my courtroom. My bailiff’s strong low voice rang out, “All rise. In the presence of the flags of the United States of America and the State of California, Department 63 of the San Diego Superior Court, the Honorable Judge Angela B. Cornwell presiding, is now in session. Please be seated and come to order.”
After six years, that opening call and all that came with it still got to me—everyone standing up at once, the sounds of clothes shifting, the spring-loaded seats flipping up, the quieting while my bailiff spoke, and the many faces looking hard at me. For each ruling in every case I tried to get it right, to be the Honorable Judge, to show even the whining, broken, substance-abusing lawyers some respect.
I stepped in fast, up the three steps and into my chair on the raised platform. “Good morning.”
A chorus of lusty, “Good morning, Your Honor,” answered, as if each lawyer wanted to be sure I picked out that one voice.
The papers, along with fat casebooks tagged by me with colored flags, for the first batch of this morning’s twenty-three hearings, sat fort-like in three stacks to my left and right. If needed, I worked better flipping back and forth through real law books, not pages on a computer screen.
I looked over the gallery, every seat taken, even jury box seats. “Sorry for being late. Next time, this Court will cut a little slack when any of you is late. It will be this Court’s first ever I-Owe-You. We’ll keep today’s list of appearances until we’ve given each of you one make-up.”
Rolling laughter and “thank yous” responded. How funny and kind this robe makes me.
I leaned over to my clerk, Ms. Patterson, sitting down to my right, and mouthed, “Number eleven, thirty minutes each side, hmm?” Earlier this morning, Ms. Patterson had taken down how long the lawyers on every case wanted to talk to me, to “argue” in legal jargon, and noted the times on today’s case list. I said into my mic, “Number eleven, Hollenbeck versus All-American Insurance Company. I’ve read the papers. Five minutes per side.”
Seven lawyers sidled through the half gate in the low barrier separating the gallery from the counsel tables, the jury box, and my podium. A lectern separated Susan Hollenbeck’s solo lawyer standing at his table from the opposing six standing around their table. That many lawyers with their helpers and client rep appearing for the insurance company didn’t surprise me. This case could turn ugly in front of a jury.
In the legal papers for today, Susan’s lawyer had painted her as a mother of three, dying too young of uterine cancer while All-American refused to pay six hundred thousand dollars in medical bills. The lawsuit claimed that her bought-and-paid-for insurance coverage should have allowed her to stay in the family home and protect her meager savings, all used up before she qualified for state-sponsored poor-person coverage. Her lawyer claimed, if All-American had honored its obligations from the start, Susan might not now be terminal.
The insurance company papers asked me to dismiss that lawsuit today and months before any live witnesses could testify and a jury could decide. The contract of insurance plainly did exclude coverage for any condition known by Susan and not disclosed in her application. All-American claimed Susan said nothing about her alarming symptoms in that application.
It would be too easy to send All-American packing today and let a jury decide later. But what if Susan had not applied for this policy until too late and had kept quiet about her symptoms? I had to keep my Lady Justice blinders on and do what the law commanded, and the law said—
Odd movements from my bailiff, usually just sitting quietly, shoved their way into view. He was out of his chair, held his radio phone against his ear and whispered at it, whispered some more, looking up at me the whole time.
I said to the seven lawyers standing at attention, “Here’s what I’d like to do first—”
My bailiff holstered his phone, quickly moved up closer and stared at me with a shrug that said he didn’t want to interrupt but had to. A second uniformed bailiff entered through the main double doors. Loud—too loud—crowd noises came in with him from the wide public hallway outside. This one, legs spread and hand on his holstered pistol, stood with his back to the door. No one would try to get past him, in or out. My bailiff hovered over Ms. Patterson and mumbled something I didn’t hear.
I stalled. “We only need at counsel table the lawyers who’ll argue this morning. Why don’t you gentlemen—”
Ms. Patterson came part way up my three steps and, a cupped hand by her mouth, said, “May our bailiff speak with you, Judge?”
I said loudly, “We’re off the record. Excuse us.” I got out of my chair and descended the steps.
My bailiff said with quiet urgency, “We’re ordered to clear this courtroom, Your Honor. Have to get IDs of everyone here.”
“Someone forget a big briefcase?”
“No briefcase, Your Honor. We must clear the floor, the whole building.”
“What’s going on?”
“We’ll take care of it, Your Honor. We’ll release them one by one and get proper IDs. You’ll have to clear the floor, too, and Mora and Ms. Patterson.”
He had ignored my question. He never did that. “Why are you, we, doing this?”
“I’m not sure how much I can say, Your Honor. It’s still an active situation.”
“Give me something I can tell these folks.”
He glanced down and breathed once, deeply. “Ah . . . Judge Brookfeld is dead, dead in his chambers. It’s messy down there, bad crime scene, maybe—”
Melvin Brookfeld, mother of Jesus. I felt blood rise into my ears and cheeks, questions piling in. Dear Melvin, supposed to be on vacation. I interrupted. “He’s a friend, and I know he’s out of town. You sure?”
“Your Honor, it’s him. More than one of us bailiffs had eyes on his body. We’re pretty sure it’s safe in the main hallways, elevators, escalators, and out to the street.”
“You’re only pretty sure it’s safe?”
“Got the main halls and exits covered. San Diego P.D. is helping. I . . . I . . . I’m not saying . . . but whoever did this . . . could be in one of the back hallways, maybe mixing in.” He glanced around at the faces locked on us. “Ah . . . if Judge Brookfeld did it to himself, we need to get all witness statements anyway.”
“Okay then. You and your helper better get to the exit and do this fast.”
Back on my bench, I grabbed the top of my big leather chair and remained standing, knees flexed—double trouble if I passed out. Had to sound confident, unruffled. “Ladies and Gentlemen,” my first words came out okay, “there’s a public safety issue with a courtroom.” Bit of a mess down there . . . pretty sure safe . . . “Purely as a precaution, we must clear this floor. My calendar clerk will contact you about a new hearing date, and we’ll send you a notice. As you leave, please check with one of these bailiffs. They’ll want to see your Bar card or driver’s license and match you with our attendance sheets you signed. Let’s start with the back row and then the next row and so on.”
