The Brass Verdict

after twelve would be too late. The DA’s Offices literally empty during the lunch hour, the inhabitants seeking sunlight, fresh air and sustenance outside the CCB. I told the receptionist I had an appointment with Giorgetti and she made a call. Then she buzzed the door lock and told me to go back.
    Giorgetti had a small, windowless office with most of the floor space taken up by cardboard file boxes. It was the same way in every prosecutor’s office I had ever been in, big or small. She was at her desk but was hidden behind a wall of stacked motions and files. I carefully reached over the wall to shake her hand.
    “How’s it going, Joanne?”
    “Not bad, Mickey. How about you?”
    “I’m doing okay.”
    “You just got a lot of cases, I hear.”
    “Yeah, quite a few.”
    The conversation was stilted. I knew she and Maggie were tight, and there was no telling whether my ex-wife had opened up to her about my difficulties in the past year.
    “So you’re here for Wyms?”
    “That’s right. I didn’t even know I had the case till this morning.”
    She handed me a file with an inch-thick stack of documents in it.
    “What do you think happened to Jerry’s file?” she asked.
    “I think maybe the killer took it.”
    She made a cringing face.
    “Weird. Why would the killer take this file?”
    “Probably unintended. The file was in Jerry’s briefcase along with his laptop, and the killer just took the whole thing.”
    “Hmmm.”
    “Well, is there anything unusual about this case? Anything that would have made Jerry a target?”
    “I don’t think so. Just your usual everyday crazy-with-a-gun sort of thing.”
    I nodded.
    “Have you heard anything about a federal grand jury taking a look at the state courts?”
    She knitted her eyebrows.
    “Why would they be looking at this case?”
    “I’m not saying they were. I’ve been out of the loop for a while. I was wondering what you’ve heard.”
    She shrugged.
    “Just the usual rumors on the gossip circuit. Seems like there’s always a federal investigation of something.”
    “Yeah.”
    I said nothing else, hoping she would fill me in on the rumor. But she didn’t and it was time to move on.
    “The hearing today is to set a trial date?” I asked.
    “Yes, but I assume you’ll want a continuance so you can get up to speed.”
    “Well, let me go look at the file during lunch and I’ll let you know if that’s what the plan is.”
    “Okay, Mickey. But just so you know. I won’t oppose a continuance, considering what happened with Jerry.”
    “Thanks, CoJo.”
    She smiled as I used the name her young basketball players called her by at the Y.
    “You seen Maggie lately?” she asked.
    “Saw her last night when I went to pick up Hayley. She seems to be doing okay. Have you seen her?”
    “Just at basketball practice. But she usually sits there with her nose in a file. We used to go out after with the girls to Hamburger Hamlet but Maggie’s been too busy.”
    I nodded. She and Maggie had been foxhole buddies since day one, coming up through the ranks of the prosecutor’s office. Competitors but not competitive with each other. But time goes by and distances work their way into any relationship.
    “Well, I’ll take this and look it all over,” I said. “The hearing’s with Friedman at two, right?”
    “Yeah, two. I’ll see you then.”
    “Thanks for doing this, Joanne.”
    “No problem.”
    I left the DA’s Office and waited ten minutes to get on an elevator with the lunch crowd. The last one on, I rode down with my face two inches from the door. I hated the elevators more than anything else in the entire Criminal Courts Building.
    “Hey, Haller.”
    It was a voice from behind me. I didn’t recognize it but it was too crowded for me to turn around to see who it was.
    “What?”
    “Heard you scored all of Vincent’s cases.”
    I wasn’t going to discuss my business in a crowded elevator. I didn’t respond. We finally hit bottom, and the doors spread open. I stepped out and looked back for the person who had spoken.
    It was Dan Daly, another defense attorney who was part of a coterie of lawyers who took in Dodgers games occasionally and martinis routinely at Four Green Fields. I had missed the last season of booze and baseball.
    “How ya doin’, Dan?”
    We shook hands, an indication of how long it had been since we’d seen each other.
    “So, who’d you grease?”
    He said it with a smile but I could tell there was something