Poetic Justice. Andrea J. Johnson

the free show.

      “Then he asked what I did during the break. I told him I was helping Mr. Stevenson, who’d insisted on following me into the clerk’s office to make sure we had a proper safety system in place for storing evidence. I agreed because I couldn’t have my office blamed for missing evidence after that stunt you and the corporal tried to pull.” Maggie spun her chair to face me.

      “Oh, no.” James’s voice came out dazed. Maggie had removed her chest from his view.

      “What stunt?” I paused my work to bore straight into her eyes. “Are you saying the tampering he found on the evidence envelope was a stunt? Corporal North was trying to help—”

      “Well,” she drawled, “Mr. Stevenson didn’t seem to think it was helpful or polite that Corporal North told you and not him. He was on his phone in a heartbeat calling the State Police about North. I would have hung around and gathered an earful, but I had to run back to the courtroom to talk with Mr. Harriston about his—”

      “Maggs, none of this sounds stressful, and I can’t imagine you didn’t have fun telling Detective Daniels every detail.” I inclined my head toward my coworker. “You definitely managed to make things entertaining for James.”

      James jumped to attention and averted his gaze from Maggie’s chest, but his incoherent response and the scarlet hue of his normally paper white skin made it clear he hadn’t been listening.

      “Now, I hate to play the ace in a game of misery poker, but I had to spend my evening rehashing a friend’s death,” I said.

      Maggie avoided my gaze, so I stared at James until he pulled himself together.

      “Someone we loved died within the walls of our workplace. I think that’s worth us enduring any inconveniences that might come our way. You don’t see me complaining.”

      “Oh, hush up. I know you’re used to walking on water around here, but you’d be well advised to keep that self-righteous attitude to yourself now.” Maggie’s comely features formed the same flirtatious smile she’d given James earlier, but the pleasantness didn’t reach her eyes—those clouded over with something wrathful.

      “Ain’t nobody saying they don’t feel bad about what happened,” she cooed. “I was just trying to make a point about how my integrity is being called into question, but here you come, as usual, trying to steal the spotlight by flashing around your relationship with the judge.”

      “Really, Maggs? You’re quibbling over friendships?” My voice grew taut to cover my frustration. If anything, I’d always downplayed my relationship with Ms. Freddie to avoid reactions like hers. “Judge Wannamaker loved all of us and treated everyone here as her equal. We should be willing to do whatever it takes, regardless of the consequences, to help the police figure out what happened and why.”

      I swiveled my chair away from her in an attempt to end the conversation and resume binding pages, but her words stopped me.

      “Easy for you to say, Little Miss First on the Scene.” She didn’t raise her voice, but the timbre carried enough bravado that James gasped.

      “What’s that supposed to mean? How did you know I found—” I gaped at Maggie and James, who was sitting in a desk chair between us.

      Surely, he could see the storm brewing and would jump in to back me up. But no. He poked out his lips like a nervous duck and rolled himself out of the line of fire.

      “Darling, I’m just saying maybe you should take a good hard look at yourself because you’re not the innocent lamb you claim to be. I wouldn’t try to play that pity card if I were you.”

      My jaw tightened as my anger swelled. “Where do you come off telling me how to behave?”

      At that moment, the door to the office flew open, and Candi backed her way into the room. Her hands were full with two thick files and her steno machine.

      Maggie must have seen this as an opportunity to make me look bad in front of my supervisor because she jumped to her feet, ramped up the sweetness, and poured on the drama. “I’m just saying. You were the only one in there with the judge’s body. Folks might take that the wrong way…or at least that’s how those news reporters wanted to spin things when I was out there with them this morning.”

      I was speechless.

      But, to my surprise, James was the one who spoke for me. “You’ve crossed the line, Maggie.” The bass in his voice meant business. “I think you need to leave.”

      Maggie shimmied her shoulders at James and shot me a priggish pout. I fired a look of contempt back at her and remained frozen in my seat until she was out the door.

      An antsy quietness descended as if we were all waiting for the room to decompress.

      Candi stood in the middle of the office juggling her things. She looked from me to the door to James. “You know what? I totally didn’t mean to pick up these files.” She put down her steno machine and hit herself in the forehead like a ditz. “Could you return them, please? Thanks.”

      James shuffled toward her and reached for the folders.

      “The top one goes to the civil unit and the other goes back to the criminal file room.”

      She was being diplomatic again, and this time James had to have known it. I turned to stare at the file cabinet and fax machine by the window. I wanted to hide my face for fear it would betray my relief for the rescue and my embarrassment for needing it.

      “Do people really think I had something to do with all this?”