Community Service Read online

  Community Service

  Dusty Miller

  This Smashwords edition copyright 2014 Dusty Miller and Long Cool One Books

  Design: J. Thornton

  ISBN 978-1-927957-15-8

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person living or deceased, or to any places or events, is purely coincidental. Names, places, settings, characters and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. The author’s moral rights to the proceeds of this work have been asserted.

  Table of Contents

  Order in the Court

  Piddling Along in Traffic

  The Voice Beside Her Ear

  About the Author

  Community Service

  Dusty Miller

  Act One

  Order in the Court

  “Order in the court, order in the court.”

  The noise fell to a dull hum.

  “All right. Whatcha got for me, Rick?”

  Richard Mathers, the court clerk, in his usual stentorian tone, read off the name, the offence, the date and the time. He read the docket number. He looked out inquiringly, searching the faces and looking over the heads of the mob.

  A man was there at the back of the crowd, the cheap seats in the bleachers as she thought of them sometimes, and he approached the low, wooden gate leading to the inner sanctum. He stood at the brink, as it were. Unusually for the venue, he was wearing a suit and tie, charcoal jacket with lighter pants, and dark brown shoes. The tie was a bright sunshine yellow and there were small grey diamonds patterned on it. Kind of cute. He was just the right age for her. Her innards squirmed on the thought, just as they always did. Those thoughts were coming less frequently these days, but then she knew she was kind of burned-out lately and didn’t much care who knew it.

  “Yeah. That’s me.”

  “Mister Albert Wilson?”

  “Yup, all present and accounted-for.”

  She suppressed a smile.

  “Are you represented by an attorney today, Mister Wilson?”

  Judge Marion Carter examined the defendant.

  “No, Your Honour.’

  He seemed well-formed and not unintelligent. He was a man in his mid-forties.

  There had been some doubt about his attendance to court. At his last appearance he’d been a half an hour late, as she recalled. All in a day’s work, and the fact he had showed up, breathless and dressed for some sort of seasonal construction job, had helped at the time. He seemed to have a pretty good head on his shoulders, she thought. Not his fault the bus was late, right? She let him go again on his own recognizance and a promise to appear, which he had just now honoured.

  It was one of the usual wretched things, a pretty good guy in a spot of trouble. These were the cases she disliked most.

  “You are charged with being a public nuisance, possession of a small amount of marijuana, being intoxicated in a public place, making lewd and lascivious remarks for the purposes of soliciting sex, and breaches of terms of bail. Do you understand these charges, sir?”

  “Yep.” He looked around and possibly rolled his eyes to his peers, but it was all small stuff and he knew that much.

  A small titter ran through the courtroom.

  The gentleman turned back and stood up a little straighter, now all serious of face.

  The public prosecutor, Mr. James Wilfried, a thirtyish man of round, black-framed spectacles and particularly un-humorous personality, appeared to be all set to go.

  “The defendant was found to be drunk and disorderly by Constables Reid and Sigmundt, on Major Street, at approximately eleven-oh-five, p.m. On the night in question. At the time of the incident, he was expected to be in his residence as of ten p.m. and to abstain from drinking or other forms of intoxication. This especially applies in public places. However, if officers had knocked on his door to verify his whereabouts, and detected or had probable cause to suspect the presence of drugs or alcohol, it would still be an offence.”

  “Mister Wilson.”

  “One would have thought a little evidence might have been introduced. I would have liked to confront my accusers.”

  “So what happened, Mister Wilson?”

  “As I explained at the time, I was out of work. My landlord changed the locks and piled all my stuff up on the street. I was trying to salvage something from the mess, if it please the court, and I really had nowhere else to go.”

  “Had you been drinking?”

  “I’ll take the fifth on that one, Your Honour—in the absence of my accusers.” Why would he ever provide them evidence when they didn’t have any?

  She nodded. Not stupid, which bore out her previous impressions. He also wasn’t a serious criminal type. This wasn’t a way of life for him, based on his record, which was minimal. Some other previous small infraction. That part was completely boring and so she didn’t dwell on it.

  “What about these lewd and lascivious remarks?”

  “Ma’am?”

  “What did you say, and to whom did you say it?” She spoke slowly, enunciating carefully, but there was no question of his hearing ability.

  He had the grace to blush a little.

  “One of the bitches was undercover, Your Honour.” The impression given was that he was admitting that he might have said a few things, without caring to specify further.

  “And yet you couldn’t pay the rent.”

  “I had the money in my pocket, Your Honour. Two days late, but I had it.”

  There were giggles and chuckles from the assembled, those awaiting their own trial, loved ones, lawyers, stragglers, the odd homeless guy in for the roof over their heads and some entertainment, and others unidentifiable.

  Wilfried spoke up.

  “I believe he is referring to Constable Sigmundt, Your Honour, a decorated officer, who was admittedly dressed as a lady of, er, ill repute…she was acting in her role as bait, in a roving sting operation conducted periodically by our local force.”

  Marion bit her lip, listening carefully to tone and facts.

  “The constables are in Courtroom Four speaking on another matter, and are presently unavailable, Your Honour. But if the defendant wishes, we can have him bound over until another time. Your Honour, it would be incumbent upon the defendant, under circumstances such as he describes, to notify the police and then to attend to the approved homeless shelter, as directed by police or court services.”

  “Which I did!” Mister Wilson had a point, but the prosecutor seemed adamant. “Motion to dismiss, Your Honour.”

  “That sort of thing has to be properly written and presented, Mister Wilson.” God, even Wilfried was getting into the act, thought Marion.

  Unfortunately, Wilson hadn’t followed established procedures. On the other hand, it was only eleven-oh-five. Wilson couldn’t produce an eviction notice, the only evidence Wilfried was likely to accept.

  She waggled her head, reading the report again.

  Wilfried was up for reelection, and wasn’t exactly a shoe-in by media reports and polls.

  The youngster consulted his handy pocket calendar.

  “…perhaps September twenty-sixth? Twenty-fifteen?”

  She regarded the defendant politely.

  “Sir?”

  “No le contendre, if it please the Court.” He looked thoroughly disgusted,
defeated by a system that just didn’t care.

  She nodded, vaguely.

  The system didn’t care, all too frequently. So why make things worse for yourself? It was an attitude not unfamiliar to her, and one that always threw the burden back heavily onto her shoulders. He was running a game on her, or was he? She had to consider the social environment and his personal circumstances as well. She wondered how much he really knew about courts.

  He’d obviously been expecting a real trial, a knock-‘em-down and drag-‘em-out fight where he planned to give as good as he got. He was prepared to fight them on their own ground!

  As seen on TV.

  Nice.

  That was sort of impressive. It also implied that he’d been around a bit, or did it? There were too many cop-and-courtroom dramas nowadays.

  She liked to see a customer with some self-respect. It made their chances so much better for reform and rehabilitation. It sounded like bullshit as soon as she had the thought. There wasn’t much wrong with the man for the system to fix. That was just bigger bullshit.

  However, it very much did please the court, as time was a-wasting and they were burning daylight, as her dear old daddy used to say.

  “Guilty as charged. You are sentenced to time served—” The man had waited a week in jail before making bail and his original arraignment. “And, let’s see here. Two hundred hours of community service.”

  The man had this look on his face.

  “Sir? You have a problem with that?”

  Face darkening, the gentleman stared at her and then shook his head in a kind of disgust, but the fact was, by one point of view, she was doing the best she could for him. Unfortunately, the law was the law and terms of bail and things like that were to be respected.

  Most of them thought she was a cold, hard bitch anyways—she had always known that, right from the start. It was something one had to accept. There would always be that flag up on the wall behind her. She had taken an oath, and one she could not lightly break. Still, there were ways, and she had some leeway in spite of mandatory sentencing requirements.

  “Okay, sir. The clerk will have some papers for you to sign and you will be contacted with regards to your place and nature of employment for the duration of the two hundred hours. Is there anything you don’t understand?”

  The man just glowered at her and then finally, eyes dropping, he shook his head and looked over at Richard, who waved him over to his little desk by the side of her rostrum.

  All the man had to do was to sign it and then he could go quietly.

  ***

  It was Saturday morning and Marion was still in her housecoat. She stepped to the front door to check if the paper had been delivered yet. Although it was just after eight, the boy was sometimes late. Sometimes the little twerp bounced it off her bedroom window at six-thirty a.m., and surely this was much better.

  Opening the door, she put a foot on the porch and leaned out, turning as the mailbox was to her right. Something was not right.

  “Oh!” She squawked and her hand flew up to her bosom. “Oh, dear.”

  “Ah. Sorry Ma’am.” A tall, calm-looking gentleman loomed above her, wringing his baseball hat and looking discomfited. “Ah, I’m here about the work program.”

  “What?”

  “The work program.” In the ensuing five days the judge had completely forgotten Mister Wilson, but Albert recognized her immediately. “You’re my assignment for Saturdays.”

  Albert recognized her instantly. His heart sank. His back was a little stiff and sore this morning and he hadn’t eaten much lately. Not in the last couple of days, anyway.

  “Ah.” She shrunk back a little in the doorway. “Oh. That’s right.”

  She had, like a good little citizen, and a shining example to her community, signed up for something of the sort. A local NGO, a charitable organization that operated food banks, soup kitchens and rehabilitation programs of one ilk or another, had contacted her.

  And of course the bloody fellow had to show up at the crack of dawn. Marion had sort of thought it wasn’t going to happen because it had been so long since she’d signed up. She’d completely forgotten about it. All the applicants were properly screened of course, or so she had been assured. There was some shortage of suitable placements for people. She knew that much.

  “All right, come in.” Marion had suggested gardening on her application form, it was either that or clean out the basement and the garage and she wouldn’t wish that on herself, let alone some challenged individual from the off-the-street program.

  “Salvatore Doyle set it up.” The man stepped in, peering a little in the sudden dimness. “He told me this was your day.”

  She still had the curtains closed. Marion hustled over and opened up the living room curtains, opposite the entryway as Albert stood waiting. Marion turned and looked at him brightly, not seeing any real significance in his sudden intake of breath. The sun was right behind her and now she could get a better look at him and have a moment to think.

  “Gardening, gardening, gardening.” She looked like a proper idiot with that one. “Ah, Doyle, eh. I didn’t know he was involved in the program.”

  “He’s my probie. Two hundred hours of community service.”

  “Ah, okay.” Her eyes went back and forth and then came up to him.

  “Ah, so, ah, I’ll just go in the garage and, ah, find some shovels and stuff?”

  She nodded brightly. He seemed to know more about it than she did at this exact moment.

  Pointing, in response to her nod, Albert moved to a door off to his left. It was a split-level house, with a two-car garage dominating the front elevation.

  She nodded, still relatively speechless. He had been between her and a long mirror beside the door.

  “The switch is just inside the door.” Marion was peering fixedly past Mister Wilson, for surely this could be no one else, only she hadn’t got her contacts in yet.

  She was transfixed by the sight of her body’s sharp silhouette, brightly limned from behind by the harsh glare of the early-morning sun, through the thin white cotton of her nightie.

  He must have seen practically everything.

  Her heart palpitated somewhat when the significance of all this sank in, but he was definitely gone. She could hear him clunking and banging around out there and sooner or later he was going to come back and ask a question.

  Clothes.

  She would need clothes for this. Marion bolted for the bedroom, slightly giddy and with all sorts of thoughts rushing through her head.

  ***

  Gardening, gardening, gardening…what in the hell do I know about gardening? Not much, on the spur of the moment.

  Shorts, that was it. A grubby old man’s shirt, big and loose, some sandals or something, and she had better get out there. Ah, yes, sunglasses and a hat of some description. She settled for a straw hat with a narrow, up-turned brim.

  Screw the bra, this is really something.

  Albert was waiting for her out in front of the garage door. To her embarrassment the Cudlows drove past in their charcoal grey monstrosity of a vehicle. Their eyebrows were twitching and they seemed unable to tear their eyes away from the unusual sight of a strange man, wearing work clothes on a Saturday morning in this neighbourhood.

  And he looked like he was ready to go to work, too. She sighed at her own thoughts, and transferring them to the Cudlows might not be entirely fair. She was the one that was all shook up.

  Albert, not quite knowing what she wanted, had a spade, a shovel, small hand tools, he had the weed-whacker leaning up inside the garage door.

  “Oh, very good then.” She stood there looking at the tools. “I have to be honest with you.”

  “Ah, what’s that?”

  “I don’t really know where to start.”

  He grinned, his ugly parting look from court day long since forgotten.

  “Well, why don’t we take a look around then, Ma’am?”

  ***
<
br />   As she took the fellow around in the backyard, and then along the front, showing him the ornamental shrubs, the bedding plants, the accents and the structures, the contrast or what should have been if the place was in a better state, he nodded and said one or two nice things.

  He quickly suggested weeding, which she agreed to. If nothing else, it was a big and not very pleasant job, and he was only here for four hours or so he said. She didn’t really question it. Spring was well-advanced and quite frankly she had been procrastinating.

  “All righty then.” She said it confidently enough.

  Marion desperately needed her coffee, her paper, and a shower, in approximately that order.

  It was pretty much the same on any given Saturday or Sunday.

  She was surprised by how dependent she was on her little routine, as she patted him on his hard and surprisingly high-off-the-ground bicep, turned and went into the house to get her own drab and miserable little life back into some semblance of order.

  ***

  She watched him briefly through a crack in her bedroom window curtains, thinking she really ought to get moving. He was down on hands and knees. But he had set to with a will, and at least had some idea of what he was doing if the little piles of dead greenery stacked here and there along her herbaceous border were anything to go by. Not that she could see well enough from here to see what they were. Turning away, she caught a furtive look in the mirror of her vanity table.

  She smiled superciliously at herself in passing.

  Bitch. You’d better put some eyes in.