& Tiaras tonight.
‘Hi, Harmony,’ she said sweetly when she’d finally made her way on the attorney line up to the clerk’s desk. ‘How are you? How’s your hubby feeling? I heard half of Probation is down with the flu. And it’s almost June. What’s with that?’
Harmony, the clerk with the name befitting either a stripper or a Life Coach, stared blankly at Daria as if she were a total stranger, not a Division Chief who’d appeared in her courtroom dozens of times before. And with whom she’d had dozens of — obviously meaningless — conversations. Her bulging eyes, which were lined like a dead body at a TV crime scene with black liner, blinked twice. Finally it clicked — at least that she had a husband. ‘Good, he’s good, thank God! Wow! No, no flu. What page you on, hon?’
So much for charm and chit-chat. ‘Twenty-two. Lunders. Talbot Lunders. Has the defense checked in yet?’
Harmony leafed through her master calendar. ‘Oh yeah. A while ago. But I got a lot ahead of you now, State; I can’t let you be cutting the line. So you’re gonna be number thirteen, hon.’ She frowned and wagged a black talon to stop the words she knew were coming. ‘And yes, that is the best I can do, even though, I know, I know, it’s an unlucky number, but somebody’s gotta be it.’ Harmony finished with a dismissive sigh, before turning her head to address the lawyer behind Daria. ‘What page you on, hon?’
Next! It was like getting served slop on a school lunch line. Daria begrudgingly waded into the pack of prosecutors. Thirteen was better than forty-four, but it still meant a long afternoon, although, she thought, as she surveyed the courtroom, her detective didn’t appear to be on time anyway. This was her first case with City of Miami Detective Manny Alvarez. Last week he’d been forty-five minutes late for his pre-file without offering up so much as a lame excuse why. Although he had brought her a café con leche and some weird pastry that oozed pink goo, along with a stack of reports that he’d already actually written — something most cops didn’t get around to doing before the third discovery demand, and only after you screamed at them — she was still ticked off. And she was going to be really mad if he pulled the same stunt today, even if he did wind up beating the judge to the bench.
She peered at the degenerates that filled the jury box to see if her defendant had been brought out yet. He hadn’t. Based on the mug shot clipped to the top of her file, she could expect the ladies in the courtroom to collectively start panting when Corrections ushered him through the door. She wondered if he’d be as striking in person, having fermented in a jail cell for the past couple of weeks.
Standing up against the wall on the prosecutorial side of the courtroom was her friend Lizette, a Domestics prosecutor, who was waving her over as if she were hailing a cab in rush hour. ‘So what happened to you yesterday, mami?’ Lizette demanded when Daria squeezed in next to her.
‘Don’t start,’ Daria replied. Most of the young, single prosecutors in the office had spent Monday’s unofficial start to summer sipping mojitos and sangria by the pool at the Clevelander on South Beach. Judging by the comments she’d fielded all morning, she was the only one who’d missed it. ‘I was at my brother’s all weekend. Dang, you’re tan. Did you fall asleep on a tanning bed or something, Liz? You look like Snooki.’
Lizette waved a hand in front of her face. ‘I’m Columbian. I got this on the walk across the parking lot,’ she shot back with a Spanish accent that became more pronounced whenever she got flustered or was in front of a Hispanic judge. ‘You missed a good time, girl.’
‘Don’t envy me. I spent the past three days babysitting triplets.’
Lizette curled her lip like she’d smelled two-day-old fish. ‘Triplets?’
‘Three-year-old triplets. My brother and his wife went on a cruise to the Bahamas. So while you were working on that tan you deny intentionally working on, I was cutting up hot dogs and watching Disney flicks. Oh, and potty training.’
The curl grew into a grimace.
‘Of course they’re boys, so that means none of ’em can aim for shit. We’re talking the ceiling, the walls, the door — anywhere but the bowl. They’re cute and I love them to pieces, but, man, do I feel old. I was stressed the whole time. Couldn’t sleep. Always afraid one of ’em might slip out in the middle of the night, ride out of town like Paul Revere, naked on top of the Great Dane, waving a Pull-Up in his hand.’
‘Great Dane?’
‘Her name’s Petunia. She’s shy.’
‘I won’t even watch my sister’s fish.’
‘Oh, and an albino ferret that the kids like to lock in the dryer.’
‘I’ve heard enough.’
‘I think my whacked mother’s plan backfired. Instead of rushing out to find myself a husband and jump-start a family, I might go celibate.’ Daria sniffed at her arm. ‘Do I smell like grape jelly to you? I don’t know what they put in that shit, but it stays in your system. I’m sweating it out of my pores. That and peanut butter. And my shoes are sticking to everything.’
Lizette nodded. ‘You’re right. I would never advocate celibacy, but you’re not the mommy type. Good thing you don’t need a man to have fun.’
‘That’s not a real concern right now for me, anyway; it’s easy to give up what you’re not getting.’ Daria frowned before adding, ‘Thanks for the mommy comment. I can be warm and fuzzy, you know.’
Lizette shrugged. ‘Whatever. So who’re you here on?’
‘On today’s menu we have one Talbot Alastair Lunders.’
‘What kind of name is that?’
‘A family one, I suppose.’
‘Obviously not a Miami family. I’m guessing that someone with not one, but two, obnoxious Anglo names must come from money.’
‘You’re right. Young Talbot is of the Palm Beach Lunders.’
‘Who are the Palm Beach Lunders?’
‘Daddy apparently owns some luxury soap company. Or so I’ve been warned.’
‘What company is that?’
‘Dial.’
Lizette’s eyes went wide. ‘No shit. Really?’
Daria laughed. ‘No, not really. Some spa brand I never heard of.’
Lizette surveyed the jury box. ‘All of the boys today look like they come from the projects, not Palm Beach.’
‘Oh, Talbot’s not out yet,’ Daria replied, flashing Lizette the mug shot. The tan playboy with the highlighted, shaggy hairdo and mesmerizing hazel eyes looked more like a brooding Dolce & Gabbana model in his booking photo than a murderer. ‘You’ll probably start drooling when Corrections brings him in. Maybe even consider a career on the Dark Side.’
Lizette sucked in a breath. ‘If you could guarantee all of my client’s would look like that, I’d enter pleas on their behalf. What crime did poor-little-hot-rich boy commit?’
‘Murder.’
Lizette
