First Offense (2 page)

“Yeah,” Sawyer said, his face ashen. “You mean you can just walk in my house anytime you want? Isn’t that a violation of my constitutional rights?”

“What constitutional rights?” Ann said harshly. “You’re on probation now, Jimmy, you don’t have any rights.”

As she headed down the aisle. Glen Hopkins fell in beside her. “Can you believe it?” she said. “Hillstorm did it again. I wanted this guy supervised, but I didn’t want to be handcuffed to him for life. That stupid old fart.”

Outside the courtroom, Ann stopped and turned to face the district attorney. “And your office simply has to stop busting felony drug charges down to misdemeanors. Sawyer had a ton of dope on him, and an extensive juvenile record, and he ends up convicted on a paraphernalia charge.” She gave him a querulous look. Normally he hated to settle for a lesser count. “Give me a break. Glen. Why don’t you just give the guy a medal and the address of every elementary school in the city so he can ply his trade? He’s a damn dealer.”

She looked over and saw that Jimmy Sawyer had trailed closely behind and was listening to every word they said. Their eyes met briefly before Ann turned her back on him. A moment later, she heard Sawyer’s chains and spurs clanking down the hallway.

“It was his first adult offense,” Hopkins said softly, his eyes following Sawyer down the hall. When he turned his gaze onto Ann, his voice was unusually sharp. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do. Tell me one person who works harder at putting these people away than I do, huh? But you have to look at the big picture, Ann. We’ve got four murder trials in progress, seven rapes, and God knows how many gang-related shootings and stabbings. We can’t take the time to try every first offense that comes through the doors any more than you can supervise them.” He frowned as he recalled something, then went on. “I thought you’d be overjoyed that I asked for summary probation. You really threw me for a loop in there, Ann.”

Ann stepped back, a bit off balance. They had frequently debated the inadequacies of the criminal justice system, yet Glen had never fired off like this. As in the courtroom, he was always cool and loose, making his points effortlessly. Ann was the one who got hot and started hammering at him, just as she was about to do now.

“That’s a crock and you know it. By the time a person gets his first conviction—not his first arrest, mind you, but his first actual conviction—he may have committed dozens of crimes. Just look at Sawyer’s juvenile record.”

“It’s sealed, Ann,” he said, shrugging, regaining his cool. “You know we can’t use it. Most of the charges were dismissed anyway. Look, if you don’t want to deal with Sawyer, just carry the case on the books and ignore him. That’s what all the other probation officers do.”

“Well, I certainly don’t,” Ann said, her eyes narrowing. “Sawyer will be sorry he was ever born by the time I get through with him. I’m going to crawl right up his asshole. Hillstorm wants him supervised? Believe me, he’ll be supervised. If he so much as dispenses an aspirin, I’ll drag him back to court.” As Ann leaned back against the wall, though, she looked at her lover and saw his face shift into hard lines. Suddenly she realized she had been pushing him too hard. “I’m sorry. Glen. I just needed to let off steam.” She laughed. “Guess I’d make a lousy prosecutor. Good thing I never went to law school. If I lost a case, I might go over and punch someone out.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, not really listening, rubbing his temple as if he had a headache.

Ann became concerned. “Are you all right? Is something bothering you? You seem…”

Glen loosened the knot on his tie, grimacing as he did so, as if he wanted to yank it off. “I’m fine, Ann.”

She saw a glint of perspiration across his forehead and upper lip. “Well, you don’t look fine.”

“It’s Delvecchio,” Glen said sourly.

Ann waited until four or five people passed. “I thought that case was going well. Did something happen?”

Hopkins raised his eyes and shook his head. “Fielder declined to file on the homicides: insufficient evidence.” Robert Fielder was Glen’s boss, the elected district attorney of Ventura County.

Ann put her hand over her mouth in dismay. Randy Delvecchio was on trial for raping four women, all in their sixties or seventies. Although they had as yet to prove it, the district attorney’s office and the Ventura police department were certain he was responsible for two unsolved homicides, also of elderly women. They had been brutal, savage slayings, and Glen was determined to put this man away. His fervor was understandable, Ann had thought, for he was very close to his elderly mother, a justice on the Colorado supreme court.

A sea of people swirled around as another court spilled out for the day. Wanting privacy, Ann took Glen’s hand and led him across the hall, through a heavy steel door to the landing of the fire stairs.

“You’re going to get convictions on the rapes, though?” she said, her voice echoing in the stairwell. “Isn’t that what you told me just the other day?”

“I want the homicides, Ann. I can’t let maniacs kill people and get away with it.”

“It’s just a case. Glen,” she said, trying to get him to look at her. Just then she noticed that Glen’s hair had fallen forward onto his forehead, and she reached over and tenderly brushed it away.

“It’s not just a case,” he said, flinging his hand up to brush her away. “One of the victims was my high school English teacher. Shit, these women are the same age as my mother.”

No wonder he was tense and distracted, Ann thought, wanting to comfort him. Because she was handling Delvecchio on an underlying offense, a violation of probation, and would also be assigned the presentence report following conviction, Ann was not only familiar with the case, she would have considerable influence at sentencing. “Just get the rapes,” she said firmly. “With the enhancements for the weapons and a recommendation for consecutive sentences on the sodomies, I’ll recommend at least twenty years.”

“He’ll be out in ten years,” Glen responded. “And that’s if he gets the full boat. The judge may impose the midterm and then he’ll be out in five years. Delvecchio’s only twenty-six, Ann.”

She moved closer and ran her fingers along the lapels of his jacket, wanting to coax him out of his funk. “He’ll get the max. Glen. The court always follows my recommendations. You know that. He was even on probation at the time of the rapes. That’s an aggravating factor.” Seeing the tension in his face ease, Ann carried it a step further. “And don’t forget, he’s an African-American with an established record.”

Glen smiled weakly. “You really believe the court imposes higher sentences on minorities, don’t you?”

“Of course,” Ann said. “I know it for a fact, Glen, and it makes me sick, but hey, when they’re guilty of crimes as nasty as these, it can work in our favor.”

The smile on his face expanded, one comer of his lip curling up and exposing a tooth.

Luring him on, Ann idly trailed her hand over the metal railing for the stairs, then ran it down the side of her neck, stopping right over her breasts. “Guys like Jimmy Sawyer glide through the system because they’re white or their families have the bucks to buy a first-rate defense,” she said, her hand now circling her breasts seductively. “But believe me, Delvecchio is going to sit in prison for a long time.”

Even though Glen was still smiling, he shook his head. “You’re wrong, Ann. The only reason minorities get stiffer sentences is that they commit more serious crimes. Hey, I believe in the system, remember?”

“Yeah,” Ann said playfully, “you’re the last Boy Scout. You showed me that on the beach last week.” With her foot, she kicked the toe of his boot.

Glen chuckled. “I’d rather be the last Boy Scout than the Angel of Death. I hear that’s what they call you at the jail.”

Ann stiffened. “Where did you hear that?”

“From one of the deputies. He says you go over there and sweet-talk those animals, get them to tell you all kinds of incriminating shit. Then you turn around and use it to aggravate their sentences. Is that true?”

“Of course not,” she said quickly. “My God, they’re criminals. I wouldn’t be surprised at anything they say about me.”

Glen tilted his head and winked. “Oh, come on, Ann. I know it’s true.”

Ann tried to keep a straight face, even though she wanted to break out laughing. She was cautious, however, about admitting her private war on crime: getting criminals to talk, tell her things they had never told anyone else. It was a skill she had honed for years. Defense attorneys frequently tried to cry entrapment, but not one of Ann’s cases had ever been overturned on appeal. Just as some officers generated hostility and apprehension, Ann had a disarming, innocent way about her that garnered trust almost from the moment she walked into an interview room.

She was turning to leave when Glen pulled her into his arms. “I need you, Ann,” he said in an urgent tone she was starting to know well.

“I have to get back to work,” she said, her breath catching in her throat, memories of the last time they had made love igniting her body. Glen had taken her to the movies and slid his hand up her dress. By the time they’d walked out of the theater, Ann was both wildly excited and mortified at the thought that someone might have seen them. Glen had driven straight to the beach and talked her into making love in the open.

Conservative Ann, who people said looked like a schoolteacher in her pastel sweaters and white cotton blouses, had discovered a side of herself she’d never known existed. And Glen made it all seem so natural. Hemmed in a stuffy courtroom all day was agonizing, he told her. Passion should be spontaneous, even a little dangerous—not delegated to a bedroom.

“You don’t have to go back to work,” he said, his voice low and sexy.

“I have a report to dictate,” Ann said, gently pushing him away.

“Please, Ann, I want you,” he said, placing his hands on her buttocks and pressing her even closer to his body. “You’re begging for it,” he said, emitting a husky laugh. “You should see the look on your face.”

“No, Glen,” she protested, looking up and meeting his mouth and then trying to slip away. “Don’t do this…not here.”

“I can’t wait,” he said, keeping her close, his eyes dancing in anticipation. “No one’s going to see us.”

She could feel his chest expanding and contracting, feel his erection through her clothing. She should never have brought him here, never acted so suggestively. It was just so new and exciting, she thought, this feeling, this man.

Fingers tickled the back of her thighs. Hands slid the hem of her skirt over her nylons covertly, an inch at a time. Ann felt the cold surface of the wall against her buttocks through her panty hose as he raised her skirt to her waist.

“I hate panty hose,” Glen panted, his fingers inside now, ripping right through the nylons to reach the spot between her legs, touching her, stroking her.

“Please, Glen,” Ann said, torn now between her urge to run and her growing desire to do anything and everything he wanted.

He kissed her neck again along her collarbone, then sucked her left breast right through her silk blouse, leaving a small wet spot. Ann laughed nervously. “You’re incorrigible.”

Opening his jacket. Glen leaned his torso into her and pulled her head gently onto his shoulder. The sound of their clothes rustled up and down the stairwell. He began rubbing the small of her back. “Relax, Ann. Look at me. I like to watch your face when you get turned on.”

Ann’s mouth was open and her eyes closed. If she didn’t open them, she thought, then she could possibly forget where they were. “I can’t,” she protested, her eyes springing open. “Someone’s going to see us.”

“Yes, you can,” he whispered. “You loved it the other night on the beach.”

“Not here,” she said, eyeing the surroundings. Everything in the stairwell was painted gray, like the interior of a battleship, ugly, industrial. Huge rolled ducts laced across the ceiling. They must have just painted the whole area recently, because Ann could smell the paint.

“Oh,” she exclaimed, feeling him push inside her.

Lifting her legs, Glen held them as he moved inside her slowly and sensuously. “I adore you, Ann,” he said, finding her eyes and probing there. “You know what turns me on the most?”

“Mmmmm,” was the only sound she could make. His words were falling around her while she responded with her body, pushing forward to meet him.

“You look so prim and proper…that little gap between your front teeth.” Ann’s legs were locked around his waist now, and he placed a palm over her stomach, right above her pubic hair. “But down here you’re hot,” he said sensuously. “Incredibly hot.”

Holding her breath, Ann was adrift, her inhibitions stifled by her state of arousal. She didn’t cry out, but she felt a jolt of liquid pleasure and her body trembled and then stiffened. Silent and intent. Glen began moving faster, her lower body striking the wall again and again until he exploded inside her.

All at once Ann heard a noise and looked up just as the door leading out into the corridor slowly closed. “Glen…” she said, panic rising.

Ignoring her, he kissed her on the mouth and pinned her arms against the wall, chuckling while she tried to twist away. Then he released her arms and sighed, running his fingers through his hair and looking around in a daze.

“Christ, Glen, someone opened the door. Someone saw us.” She shoved her skirt down, saw her nylons in shreds where he had ripped them. “The door just closed. Why did I let you talk me into doing this?” she said, her face flushed and damp with perspiration.

“Great, wasn’t it?” Glen said, slumping back against the wall. Then he saw the alarm in her eyes and became alert. “Are you serious? Someone saw us?” He quickly zipped up his pants, shoving his shirttail in at the same time. “Who? Did you recognize them?” His tie had been flipped over his shoulder, and he pulled it back down, smoothed his hair, and straightened his jacket. “You just imagined it.”

“No, Glen,” Ann insisted. “I saw the door closing. If it was closing, it had to have been open. It’s too heavy to open by itself.”

She glared at him as she would at an errant child.