I Deleted The Department's Financial Records on Friday

This week’s events include the following snippet of conversation:

The Judge:  “Thanks for the candy.”

Me:  “Thanks for not sending me to jail.”

You know those bits of paper that the sheriff brings you now and then?  The one’s with the funny little Latin name?  Subpeonas?  Subpeonae?  Muchos Subpeonos?   

A deputy visited my office a couple of weeks ago with one of those little mandates clutched in his meaty little mitt.  My presence was ordered for a upcoming proceeding in the northernmost county of the jurisdiction.  

After a week and a day spent out of the office for training and a holiday that I had forgotten the county observed, (Who’s off for Columbus Day, anyway?  Hell, the banks barely even take that holiday.) I decided to go straight on to my office in the southernmost county on Tuesday morning, rather than stopping to check in with my main office, in the middle-most county.  The middle county office is the one that had the subpoena sitting right in the middle of my desk so I would be sure and see it first thing when I got to work.  

The only thing that saved me for stern judicial rebuke was that the defense attorney also forgot about the hearing.  And instead of using my tactic of confessing to one’s own special brand of dumbassery and apologizing profusely, he chose to try blaming the Judge’s secretary for not notifying him of the hearing.  That didn’t work out so well for him.  

I owe that lawyer some flowers.  

That’s how my Tuesday morning went.  Tuesday afternoon started with me driving back to work following lunch with the court reporter, who’d made it home from all the way across the district after the aborted hearing.  We stuffed our faces and when I got back to the office afterwards, there was a pickup and a stock trailer parked across the street, next to city hall.  That’s normally where I park when I return from lunch, so this time I parked next to my office.

Half an hour later, I got a call from the Chief of Police.  

The Chief shares a first name with Supergirl.  But that, coupled with a penchant for law and order, is where the resemblance ends.  She is short and solid - compact.  Her close-cropped, mousy, brown hair is turning grey at a pretty quick clip.   She wears a heavy gun belt, a shapeless uniform the color of her hair and large plastic-framed glasses.  

And she’s got a hell of a voice.  

When this woman opens her mouth, Lee Marvin comes pouring out.  Lee Marvin with a horribly draggy Texas drawl.  I kid you not.  Lee-effing-Marvin.

I’d seen her earlier that morning.  She came by to give me some papers to deliver to the District Attorney.  I’m sort of like the pony express for offense reports and such.  This morning the Chief had a cold and sounded like Lee Marvin with corks stuffed in her nostrils.  She was taking a sick day and heading home.  

When I answered the phone, she drawled my name and said, “I realize we have much more important stuff to worry about in this town.  I really do.  But I’ve had a complaint that your car is parked illegally.”  

“Well,” I said.  I thought about it for a moment.  “I suppose my car is parked illegally.”  The ‘as if it really matters’ remained unspoken but not unheard.

She paused for a beat.  “Yeah.”  

“Ok,” I sighed.  “I’ll go out and move it.”

“Thank you, so much.”  She sniffled.  “You’re a doll.”  

Lispy Lee Marvin just called me a doll and hung up the phone.  I had to smile.  

I stood, stretched the kinks out of my shoulders and went outside, car keys dangling from my fingers.  Stepping to the curb, I looked left.  Then I looked right.  Then, since my office is on the corner at a four-way stop sign, I looked in front of and behind me.  

Then I looked in all four directions again, just to make sure.  

Mine was the only vehicle for at least two blocks in any direction.  

I sighed, grasped the keys more securely and stepped off the curb.  Once I opened the door of my criminally positioned vehicle, I firmly planted my posterior in the driver’s seat.  I buckled the shoulder belt, adjusted my mirrors and looked both ways.  Just in case.  

Then I executed a Shriner-worthy U-turn and whipped the thing across the street and into a legally parked position at the curb right across the street from my office.  I got out of the car, and stepped back up on the curb, listening to the silence of the empty streets.  

And then I went back to work.