Paradise Interrupted (Carole Ann Gibson Mysteries) - Hardcover

Mickelbury, Penny

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684859912 ISBN 13: 9780684859910

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 2001

Synopsis

Called to the tropical Isle de Paix to help the new government build roads and improve communications, Carole Ann Gibson soon finds herself embroiled in corruption and running for her own life.

About this title

About the Author:

Penny Mickelbury began her journalism career in 1970 in Athens, Georgia, as the first Black reporter for the Athens Banner-Herald. She is a recent recipient of the prestigious Prix du Roman d¹Adventures Award for her Carole Ann Gibson mystery series, which includes The Step Between, Where to Choose, and One Must Wait (a selection of the Literary Guild Book Club). Mickelbury is also the author of the books Keeping Secrets and Night Songs. She lives in Los Angeles, California.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Chapter One

As judges went, Esteban Villa de los Campos was considerably better than the worst of them, and in the same league, if, perhaps, at a lower rung, than the best of what the bench had to offer. What set him apart most strikingly from the other judges was that he was brash, fearless, and willing to intimidate and threaten -- witnesses and lawyers alike -- when it suited his purposes. Not many lawyers would enumerate those qualities as ones to admire in a judge; but then, Carole Ann Gibson reminded herself, she was as different from most lawyers as Steve Campos was from most judges. And the truth of the matter was that qualities such as intellectualism and scholarship and erudition more often were feigned than achieved anyway. Besides, there wasn't much call for scholarship and erudition in D.C. Superior Court, and DCSC is where Steve Campos reigned.

Carole Ann was only marginally interested in what was going on in the courtroom. She was a criminal defense attorney by profession, but earned her living as a partner in a lucrative international security consulting firm. She practiced law occasionally -- to keep her hand in, as her business partner, Jake Graham, liked to phrase it -- and because, only occasionally, she missed it. Her presence this day in Steve Campos's courtroom was on behalf of an accountant accused of helping the owner of a chain of high-end jewelry stores, who also happened to be a major importer of cocaine, launder millions of dollars in drug money. Her client, the accountant, hadn't known about the drugs and she was looking forward to the challenge of proving that at trial. Today was a status call that would take all of five minutes. When her case got called. She glanced at her watch and wondered whether she'd be on time for her one o'clock lunch meeting.

As usual, D.C. Superior Court was overburdened. Judge Campos plowed through the packed docket as rapidly as humanly -- and legally -- possible, with his usual blend of temerity and theatrics...and a display of his legendary temper: A defense attorney called him "Judge Campus." The judge whipped off his glasses and glared down at the harried lawyer. "If you can't read, mister, and if you can't speak even ghetto Spanish, then at least have enough sense to ask my clerk how to say 'Campos.' It's not nearly as tough as 'Esteban.'" The lawyer wilted like an orchid in the sun and the judge, still glaring, smacked his glasses back on his face. He'd permitted the Anglicization of his name when, as a teen, he'd grown tired of having it butchered -- albeit unintentionally -- by a population largely unfamiliar with non-Anglo names. The judge, a native of the Mexican barrios of East Los Angeles, had been sent to live with his college-educated, government-employed aunt in D.C. after his first gang-related arrest at the age of fifteen. That was twenty-eight years ago.

Carole Ann knew the judge's background and history because she'd tried several cases before him in the past and had seen him in action and had been both fascinated and impressed: black robe notwithstanding, Steve Campos remained a gang-banger in attitude, if not in practice. The fact that they shared a hometown had bred in Carole Ann an unspoken but proprietary regard for the prickly jurist. He'd threatened, more than once, to charge her with contempt and send her to jail, and she smiled inwardly as she recalled that she'd deserved his ire. She herself was not adverse to the employment of harassment or intimidation in the defense of her clients.

Though she had observed the exchange between Judge Campos and the linguistically deficient lawyer with an amused detachment, she was slightly surprised that there still were lawyers unfamiliar with the Campos way of doing things. He dispatched half a dozen cases with his usual mixture of impatience and sympathy for the often unprepared and overworked civil service barristers, a lack of sympathy for the career criminal, and compassion for the woman or man overwhelmed by the exigencies of life in a city like Washington, all with an overlay of easy, if ironic, humor.

Then came District of Columbia v. Denis St. Almain. She watched with heightened interest, first as Fritz Barber strode through the gate to the defense table, and then as a manacled Denis St. Almain was led into the courtroom from the almost invisible door behind the judge's bench.

He was a very small man, though nobody with common sense or eyesight would make the mistake of thinking him frail; and as he drew closer, Carole Ann found herself slightly surprised to note that he was probably in his early thirties. Most drug dealers were younger simply because few lived to become thirty-something, and Denis St. Almain was one of the most discussed drug dealers in town. As infamous as his high-priced attorney, and as regal in his bearing.

He finally reached the defense table. There was no word or other sign of acknowledgment between counsel and client. St. Almain stood erect and silent beside Fritz Barber, who towered over him.

"I have several motions, Judge," Barber began as soon as his client was beside him.

"I'm sure you do, Mr. Barber, and I'm just as sure that I don't want to hear any of them because I'm also sure that I've heard them all before. Am I correct?"

"That's not the point, Judge. The point is I have a right to make them."

"And I have a right to dismiss them, which I'm doing if they're the same ones you've been rephrasing and reintroducing for the last month and a half. I'm setting a trial date for Mr. St. Almain of -- "

Barber interrupted. "I think you owe it to my client, Judge, to at least hear the reason for my bail reduction motion."

"If you interrupt me again, Mr. Barber, you'll spend the next twenty-four hours in the cell with your client. And there is no reason compelling enough for me to reduce this defendant's bail, given the government's evidence."

"Quel dommage. You are making a very grave error." Denis St. Almain's words were spoken loudly enough to be heard throughout the courtroom, though he had not yelled or screamed; and despite the implied threat of the words, there was an eerie lack of passion contained in them. In fact, the tone almost was sorrowful. But the words sparked the crowd. Several voices called out in anger, in English and in French, and a woman wept and moaned and cried out. St. Almain's head whipped around. His eyes, searchlights, roamed the crowd and stopped. "Be quiet, Maman. Do not beg him for mercy. You disgrace yourself and me."

"Sit down and shut up, Mr. St. Almain!" Judge Campos called out in a voice that would have been heard down the hallway had the courtroom door been open, pounding his flat hand on the table instead of wielding the gavel, and making a much more impressive sound. "And everybody related to Mr. St. Almain, sit down and shut up! And I'll say that for you in French in case you didn't understand my English. And do not get up or speak up again, any of you, because if you do, you all will spend the next twenty-four hours in jail. And that goes for you, too, Mr. Barber."

Fritz Barber popped up like toast, his face alive with wild-eyed disbelief turning quickly to anger.

"You'd better sit down, Mr. Barber, and remain seated until I give you leave to rise. This is my courtroom and I'm in charge and in here, we do it my way. Kinda like the army. But then," and he paused dramatically and looked out over the courtroom, eyes traveling from side to side, front to back, and coming to rest on defense attorney Fritz Barber, "I don't imagine anybody in here has any firsthand familiarity with the army."

The bailiff lifted his head and squared his shoulders and the movement captured judicial attention. "Duly noted, Mr. Bailiff," the judge said with a tinge of honest reverence, before returning his attention to the defense table. "I hold you

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0684859912
• ISBN 13: 9780684859910
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288