8. The Hearing Begins

Chief Gomez’s hearing before the Police and Fire Commission of the City of Highland Isle begins on May 9 in one of the municipal courtrooms where misdemeanor proceedings are also conducted. The prosecutor is the city attorney, Marc Hess, who got the job when Amity first assumed office. Rik, who’s had cases with Marc for years, says Marc is a complete straight shooter who took the position because he never enjoyed private practice, especially hustling for clients. When Marc was appointed, Amity said all the standard things about giving him complete independence, but Marc, according to Rik, has pretty much held her to it. There’s no question, for instance, that the mayor would have preferred that Marc not bring a complaint in the Chief’s case—and certainly that he not go to hearing until after the election in November. But Marc said that with three sworn statements in hand, he had no choice but to proceed.

The Chief sits on the other side of Rik in her dress uniform, looking very much as she did when I first met her, including too much makeup for my taste. I asked her when she arrived if she was nervous, and she said, ‘As fuck.’ She’s already made two trips to the Ladies and has told me that she preferred facing a gun on the street to this, where she has no control over anything. Instead, she must remain mute and, as Rik has advised, show no visible reaction to the proceedings.

Pops practiced mostly in the beautiful courtrooms of the old federal courthouse, which have intricate woodwork and dramatic frescoes in the plaster and pillars rising to three-story ceilings. The municipal courtroom is what you get with justice on the cheap. The place feels as confined as a sauna, so small that you wonder if there’s enough oxygen to keep the participants and spectators from passing out. There’s a nice blond wood bench, elevated about a foot, with a projecting shelf, where the lawyers stand, literally in the judge’s face. Just a few steps back, in the well of the courtroom, sit the two attorneys’ tables, in matching yellowish wood, no more than ten feet apart. A short wood partition separates the spectators, but they will be so close to the lawyers that Rik has instructed me to write notes, rather than whisper to him, since there’s a good chance the onlookers would be able to overhear us.

Up on the bench now is not a judge but the three members of the Police and Fire Commission, seated elbow to elbow. The Reverend Cletus Dalrymple, the pastor of the AME Baptist Church here in town, is in the center. The Rev has got a kind of glow about him; he’s a handsome older fellow with a gleaming scalp between the wide white tufts over his ears. I’ve seen him do his stuff at funerals and weddings, and he’s one great talker who can get pretty wound up as he goes on, although Rik says that we should expect him to say very little here, where he tends to be tight-lipped. Some of the white cops expected the worst from the Rev when Amity appointed him to head the commission several years ago, but it turned out that the Rev’s brother is a police chief out in Delaware, and there are also plenty of Black officers in his congregation. He is, like Marc, a down-the-middle kind of guy who understands that police officers have a hard job, that they deal with a lot of genuinely awful and dangerous people, and that, in response, they live by assumptions that have often led them to terrorize the poor community.

Although everybody looks to the Rev for guidance, there are two other members of the commission. The only one who really counts is a very thin white lady with a drawn face and drab gray hair, Mrs. Helen Langenhalter. Her arms appear as thin as pipe cleaners in the sleeves of her shirtwaist dress. She is a lawyer, still practicing, mostly doing tax work. She looks like she is scared of everything and could be blown away in a gust, but Rik says she’s a kind of brainiac who knows all the relevant laws, including the Rules of Evidence. The third member, Josea Altabese, a big fat dude, was a cop himself back in the day and now operates a fire- and burglar-alarm company. Rik says Altabese sometimes feels obliged to speak up so he’s not mistaken for a statue. He then says something so remarkably dumb that for a second no one in the room can speak or even breathe. He then shuts up and follows the lead of the other two.

The courtroom is full. The last of the COVID restrictions have been relaxed, but about a quarter of the folks here are wearing masks. The national reporters, who did a lot of ooh-la-la-ing when the charges first leaked, lost interest shortly after that and have disappeared. But there is still a line of local journalists in the front row, including reporters from all three Kindle County TV stations, the two newspapers and several websites. Roe Findlay is in the forward pew on the other side, his iPad mini on his lap. Roe is from the FBI’s public corruption squad and led the investigations into a number of my aunt’s and grandfather’s clients. He’s a chubby red-faced guy who seems bothered that he’s losing his hair, which he’s always dabbing back into place. I liked a lot of the Bureau agents more than I expected to, when I delivered documents to them or came over to pick up subpoenas that Pops had agreed to accept. Most were extremely polite. Several were actually friendly. But not Roe. He’s smug and couldn’t quite keep from curling his lip whenever he saw me. I’m sure he thought I’d never get another job once Pops’s firm disbanded, so I make it a point to go say hi before I sit down beside Rik at the respondent’s table. Steven DeLoria, the mayor’s election opponent, is in the back, looking completely camera ready—flawless suit, tie, even makeup. He’ll go use his phone in the hallway as soon as the hearing starts, but he wants to be here to make a statement of outrage for the media when the hearing recesses.

Rik and I have been in overdrive the last couple days. I actually kind of love trial prep. It reminds me of getting ready for athletic competition—lots of practice on moves and plays, and then going home the day before and trying to forget what’s ahead. That night, I would tell myself ‘Don’t think about it’ in a kind of bleat that eventually put me to sleep until the morning, when my dad would come in to shake me awake with a loud, ‘Game on!’ My adrenal glands would fire up at once, so that my vision jumped and my bloodstream seemed to sizzle.

Just as the Rev grabs hold of the gavel to commence the hearing, my phone vibrates in my pocket. I slide it out enough to see the screen. I have a text from Tonya. ‘The Easter bunny left you a present on the front seat of your car. Make sure you check it out. PS. Lock your doors! There’s some joker who thinks it’s funny to steal cars out of the City Hall lot.’ I tuck the phone away as soon as the Rev starts speaking.

“All right,” he says and recites the name of the case and its number for the record. These days, there aren’t court reporters for this kind of administrative matter. Instead, a digital recorder is capturing the feed from all the microphones. If anybody ever needs a transcript—which we will if things go shitty for the Chief and she gets indicted—the audio recording can be fed into a computer, which will create one.

“The Commissioners have read the Complaint. The Respondent, Chief Lucia Gomez-Barrera”—the Rev pronounces the name precisely, rolling his r’s—“has filed a general denial by way of an Answer. Does either party wish to make an opening statement? If not, I’ll ask Mr. Hess to call his first witness.”

The Rev barely takes a breath after asking about openings. All three of the commissioners serve as volunteers and have full-time day jobs. Like a lot of municipal boards, we are meeting at night. It’s 6 p.m. and we won’t go past 9:00. If need be, the hearings can also be held on weekends, but the Rev has no patience for the usual lawyerly shenanigans that slow down the proceedings, especially in golf season.

Marc, however, feels obliged to lay out for the record the agreements he has made with the US Attorney’s Office. Marc’s decision to proceed with the hearing led to a kind of legal food fight. Not only was the mayor aggravated, but so was the US Attorney, Moses Appleton, who I sorta/kinda know through Pops and my aunt. Moses showed up at City Hall to explain to Marc that holding a hearing could compromise the federal grand jury investigation, because the three pivotal witnesses would be exposed to cross-examination, where they might say a lot of stupid stuff. Marc held the same line with Moses that he had taken with the mayor. His only concession, recently made, was that he agreed not to force the Chief to testify, which would have granted her the equivalent of use immunity, a move that would have basically trashed any chance for the Feds to bring an indictment. Rik, of course, would love that and says that the Chief will testify whenever she’s ordered to do so. If she isn’t, Rik says she can’t risk self-incrimination, and won’t be able to present her defense until the grand jury investigation is over. The Reverend says all of this is premature, which irritates both Marc and Rik, who don’t want the rug pulled out from under them later. Everybody repeats themselves at greater length. As a result, by the time the first witness is finally called, the lawyers and the commissioners are all pissed with one another.

That witness is Walter Cornish. Chronologically, Primo DeGrassi’s testimony should come before, but Marc clearly thinks Cornish will do better on the stand. Like everywhere else, in court first impressions matter. Cornish is a shorter guy, with a Prince Valiant mane of gray hair. He wears a blue sport coat, which he could never button across his belly, jeans and—I notice as he rolls bowlegged up to the stand—tooled cowboy boots. That seems to say it all. A big-city guy who thinks he’s cool as a cowpoke. He settles on the stand and gives somebody in the crowd a tight little smile: ‘I’ve got this under control.’ I look behind me to see who Walt is grinning at and half recognize a wasted-looking older guy seated a few rows back who’s working over a piece of chewing gum. It takes me a second to place him. Moritz Vojczek. The man himself. He must have come straight from a business meeting, because he’s in a suit and tie.

Cornish states his name and says he retired after twenty-five years of service on the HI force, achieving the rank of sergeant.

“When were you promoted to sergeant?” Marc asks. Hess is taller, Black, heavyset, with a thick mustache that could just as well be a smear of greasepaint. He’s been super nice whenever I’ve come to his office to pick up or deliver documents.

“Say April 1, 2020.”

“And were you promoted after agreeing to have sex with Chief Gomez?”

Rik objects that the question is leading, and after Mrs. Langenhalter whispers in his ear, the Rev says, “Let’s take this part of the story step by step.”

Rik has told me that Marc does not like trial work. He is smart and handles a few hearings when he has to, but he prefers to farm out most real litigation to private firms. However, spending $500 an hour for outside lawyers is not a great news bite in an election year, especially on a case that the mayor wants to lose. Given Marc’s relative lack of experience, Rik expects him to make mistakes now and then, like the question he just asked.

“Do you know Lucia Gomez-Barrera?” asks Marc.

“Sure.”

“Can you point her out for the record?”

“Stipulated,” says Rik, meaning he won’t go through the usual routine where Cornish lifts his hand and the Chief stands.

“How did you know Chief Gomez?”

“Superior officer. She was my sergeant at one point, not long after she came on, you know, and then she went up the chain.”

“And what was the nature of your relationship?”

“Professional. On the job. That’s it.”

“And, turning to early 2020, had you applied for promotion?”

“Right. I applied, I tested. I was number one on the list.”

“And did you have an encounter with the Chief in March of 2020?”

“I did.”

“Do you recall the exact date?”

“March 6. The next Friday night was my son’s birthday. And after that the bar was closed cause of COVID.”

“Can you describe your encounter with Chief Gomez?”

“Sure. I was sitting around in a tavern called the Saloon, at Fourth and Madison, here in HI, kind of, you know, celebrating the end of the week, and the Chief comes up and asks if she could talk to me.”

“Had you noticed when she came in?”

“Not really.”

“Did you have a conversation with the Chief?”

“Sure.”

“And was anyone else present?”

“There was a lot of guys sitting around. I know Primo heard her.”

“Primo is who?”

“Primo DeGrassi.”

“Was he an officer on the HI force?”

“Sergeant. Had about thirty days left before retirement. I was testing for the spot he’d leave.”

Rik stands. “Commissioners, may I ask Mr. Hess to clarify that Primo DeGrassi, this corroborating witness, is also a complainant in this matter?”

Marc shrugs and says, “That’s true.”

“Convenient,” says Rik.

Marc gives out a contemptuous little groan and asks to strike the comment, which Rik withdraws before the Rev gets a chance to rule.

“And did you have a conversation with the Chief?” Marc asks Cornish.

“Yeah. I don’t know, we walked about ten feet away and she just come out with, ‘I want you to take me home so we can party.’”

“And what was your reaction?”

“I mean, I was kind of shocked. That wasn’t how I thought of her or anything. Not somebody who, you know, I considered in that vein.”

“And what did you say to her?”

“Well, I mean, what could I say? I knew damn well that if she wanted to roadblock my promotion, she could. It’s not like I’m a virgin or anything. But that wasn’t how I was dreaming of spending my evening.” There are a few snickers in the spectators’ section, and Walter blinks and adds, “Just sayin.”

“And how did you respond to the Chief?”

“I think I said okay and ‘Let me finish my beer.’ I wanted a minute to think.”

“But did you eventually agree?”

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“Like I said. I thought I’d have a pig’s chance of getting promoted if I refused.”

“When did you depart from the Saloon?”

“Maybe ten minutes later. After she told me we were going to party.”

“And where did you go?”

“The Chief’s house over on Summit.”

“Who drove?”

“I did.”

“Do you recall seeing anyone as you left?”

“I know the waitress, Kelsey Something, says she saw us, but I don’t really remember that. That was a surprise to me.”

“And did you in fact have a sexual encounter with the Chief at her house?”

“Yep. We had another drink and then you know—” The back of his hand zips off into space.

“And what happened after that?”

“I left. You know. It was all pretty strange.”

“And did Chief Gomez say anything when you left?”

“I think she said something like, ‘Thanks, Walt. It was a good time. I’ll remember this.’”

“And were you in fact promoted?”

“I was.”

“When did you get notice of that?”

“Couple weeks later.”

“And did you ever discuss what had happened with the Chief with anybody?”

“Just Primo.”

Marc looks over at Jennifer, a law student who’s interning in the city attorney’s office, and then says, “Nothing further.”

The Rev, who’s got prostate problems, says, “Let’s take five minutes before cross.”

I run out to the Cadillac and grab the envelope Tonya left there. There are about six pages inside. I read them over quickly and laugh out loud and dash back in, but the Rev and the other commissioners are already on the bench and Rik is on his feet in front of Cornish, ready to begin his cross-examination.

Rik is wearing a blue suit and white shirt, but it’s finally warmed up, and given the crowd and the inadequate air-conditioning in the Municipal Building, he has already loosened his tie. It’s an important moment for him, but everybody here is familiar with him, and he doesn’t want to look like he’s taking himself too seriously.

One thing Rik knows from experience is that it’s hard to cross-examine a cop. They are used to testifying and, to put it bluntly, good at lying when they have to. Most cops would tell you in private that it’s the law that forces them to cut corners. You bust a dude in Anglia, and a crowd of his gangbanger homies show up and get rowdy. So you cuff the guy and throw him in the cruiser and take off at once. Did you Mirandize him before depriving him of his liberty? Of course not. You weren’t sticking around to wait for some m.f. in the crowd to start shooting. But the law, that ass, says all the dumb stuff that comes out of the defendant in the back seat—the false excuses or the remarks that show he knows all about a crime no one has mentioned—can’t be used in court, because he wasn’t advised of his rights. So yeah, you say you gave him Miranda.

That’s just an example. Most cops are pretty sure they know the difference between the lies they have to tell to keep the lawyers happy—lies that, as one friend of mine from softball puts it, involve ‘tightening up the case’—and the lies that really matter. Good cops don’t make up confessions or put the defendant at the scene of a crime he didn’t commit.

But even so, the demands of the job make them great liars on the stand. Their demeanor never wavers. They’re placid as a pond in the summer sun and matter-of-fact, even if they’re testifying that night is day.

“Now, I notice, Mr. Cornish, that Mr. Hess didn’t ask how you’re currently employed,” Rik says to start.

“I’m a property manager.”

“For who?”

“Vojczek Management.”

“And how is Mr. DeGrassi employed?”

“Same. He came to work there when he retired in early 2020, and I started a year later.”

“Do you consider Mr. DeGrassi a close friend?”

“He’s a friend. I don’t know about close.”

“Well, you worked together on the HI police force for nearly twenty-five years, didn’t you?”

“True.”

“Were you ever partners?”

“Sure. Few times.”

“Well, that period as partners comprised many years, didn’t it?”

“I never counted it up.”

“Were you partners while you worked in the Narcotics Bureau?”

“As I recall.”

“And who was your lieutenant there?”

“The Ritz.”

“Moritz Vojczek?”

Marc objects to the relevance of all of this, and Rik says he expects to tie things up when the Chief presents her case. We still haven’t really had time to drill into the details with the Chief of her long-running feud with Vojczek.

“Well, until the relevance is demonstrated,” says the Rev, “we don’t need to hear any more about this.”

“Very well,” says Rik. “But I’d note for the record, Reverend Dalrymple, that Mr. Vojczek is present in the fourth row.” This is a very slick move, since Rik didn’t even bother to look over his shoulder before saying this.

“All right,” says the Rev, who clearly hadn’t noticed the Ritz and casts a long look in his direction. “I think you can move on.”

Rik nods. “Now, Mr. Cornish, let’s talk for a second about your promotion. Just to make it clear, it’s the people seated to your left, the members of the Police and Fire Commission, who actually decide who gets promoted. Correct?”

“Her recommendation matters a lot. The Chief’s.” The commissioners know this is true, but Cornish didn’t answer the question and Rik, to show he’s in control, demands a response. Cornish says, “I guess.” He answers the same way when Rik asks if the commission has occasionally rejected a Chief’s recommendation.

“Now, in 2020, how long had you been seeking promotion to sergeant?”

“Well, there’s an exam once a year, if there’s an opening. And I took the test first in 2018, just kinda winging it. So a couple of years.”

“And you decided to seek promotion because you were approaching retirement?”

Cornish makes a sour face. “What does that mean?”

“I’ll tell you, Mr. Cornish. Your pension at retirement is based, in part, on your highest annual earnings, correct?”

“I don’t know,” says Cornish.

Rik goes through the pension formula and gets Cornish to concede that he’ll be getting a good portion of the raise that came with his promotion every year for the rest of his life.

“And as a matter of fact, once you had one year at the rank of Sergeant, you decided to retire, just like DeGrassi before you?”

“Well, this opportunity had come up with Vojczek that was too good to pass up. Ritz really wanted us and made it worthwhile.”

“So you and DeGrassi planned together to retire eventually and go to work for Vojczek after you’d been promoted?”

“Somethin like that, yeah.”

There is a lot about this dual retirement planning that is helpful to the Chief. It shows the long-term coordination between Cornish and DeGrassi—and Vojczek for that matter—and that both men were confident they’d get promoted. For the moment, Rik just nods, rather than letting Walter know he’s revealed something of value to the defense. He will wait until closing argument to tease out the implications of what Cornish just admitted.

“Now, in order to determine who gets promoted, there’s a formula, right? Set by state law, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Fifty percent is your standing on the exam. Forty percent is an appraisal of your on-the-job performance. And ten percent is your seniority in rank, correct?”

“That sounds right.”

“And in the twentysome years of service, before you first took the exam in 2018, you hadn’t wanted to be a sergeant, right?”

“I hadn’t applied.”

“Was that because you didn’t think you’d get it?”

“No.”

“You thought you were deserving?”

“Goddamn right.” Cornish sort of flinches after he’s spoken and looks over to the Rev. “Sorry,” he says.

The Rev waves off the apology. He’s heard a lot worse.

Cornish continues with his prior answer. “You know, I just didn’t bother. I like the street. Okay?”

“Well, there were some problems over the years with your performance appraisals, weren’t there?”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning, for example, that there had been a number of citizen complaints? Especially about your conduct at the time of arrests?”

Marc objects that the citizen complaints are irrelevant, because they were no longer current when Cornish got promoted.

The Rev looks at Rik. “What’s your point, Mr. Dudek?” Rik’s real point, which he is leading up to, is that the way things worked around Highland Isle, a promotion for a senior officer on the verge of retirement was pretty much guaranteed, if they’d made a reasonable effort to clean up their act. But Rik also wants the Rev to hear that Cornish had a history of batting arrestees around, since the Rev knows what, in all likelihood, those defendants had in common.

Having rung that bell, Rik decides to withdraw the question, and the Rev responds with a narrow look. By reputation, he doesn’t like it when the race card gets played with him.

“Now, the largest element of the promotion formula is the exam, right, Mr. Cornish?” Rik asks.

“Right.”

“And you showed marked improvement there as well, did you not?”

“A little, yeah. You know, you can’t improve that much on stupid.” The room erupts, the volley of laughter echoing off the close walls. That’s how it goes in court. Even a dumb little joke is a great break to the tension.

Rik smiles, too. It’s Walter Cornish’s first likable moment.

“Well, give yourself credit, Sergeant. Your score went from 78 the first time you sat the sergeant’s exam in 2018 to 84 in 2020, right?”

“Right. I eventually figured out it wouldn’t hurt to study.”

There’s laughter again, but not the gale he got the first time.

“And in 2020, how did you rank compared to other applicants, if you remember?”

“Number one, actually.”

“And that, frankly, was because nobody else applied?” Rik gets the laugh this time, largely because Walter sounded so boastful. “And the last part of the promotion formula is your seniority in rank, which counts for ten percent. If the combination of performance and the written exam end up making you fairly equal with another candidate, seniority will do it, right?”

“Right.”

“Well, would you say that there’s an unwritten agreement on the HI force that if a senior officer is qualified, they are going to get the promotion?”

“I don’t know.” The commission knows, though. Everybody—the FOP, the commission, the brass—likes a system where officers can get promoted in order, if they’ve done a good job.

“When you first sought promotion, were you the most senior person in rank?”

“No, Mooney had been on a little longer than me.”

“And it was Mooney who got the promotion, right?”

“That’s how I remember it.”

“But in 2020, you were the most senior patrolman on the promotion list?”

“I guess.”

“Well, after Sergeant DeGrassi announced his retirement, wasn’t it pretty much agreed that you were going to move up? Which is why no other patrol officers bothered to apply?”

“Agreed by who?”

“Well, that’s what I wanted to ask you. Hadn’t Chief Gomez told you, several weeks before the time of this supposed incident at the Saloon, that she expected to recommend you?”

Cornish pauses. His green eyes circle as he calculates, clearly afraid that Lucy wrote down something about the conversation. In fact, the Chief says she’d already told the Rev that she’d be recommending Cornish, right before the competitive process had first opened up on New Year’s 2020. The commission members in theory can’t testify, and they’re supposed to base their decisions only on the evidence. But they have their own memories, which, being realistic, no one expects them to forget.

“Yeah, I think that might have happened.”

The Rev, who has been watching Cornish carefully, appears to nod.

“But she coulda changed her mind,” volunteers Cornish. “That’s what I was afraid of.” He doesn’t quite smile, but you can see he thinks he scored.

“And leave the Highland Isle police force short a sergeant, even though your performance appraisals and test score had improved significantly, and you were the most senior patrol officer in the department—and the only one who applied?”

“She coulda,” insists Walter.

The commissioners know the FOP would have put up a never-ending stink if the Chief denied Walter the spot in those circumstances. Because both Cornish and her realized she had no choice about moving him up, Walter would have laughed in her face if she’d really tried to use the promotion to strong-arm him into sex. That’s another point Rik will save for argument.

He returns to our table to pick up the notes he made earlier, and I put my hand down on the pad and show him what I’ve scrawled there in large letters: ‘Get an adjournment. I have something you HAVE TO see.’

Rik turns to the commissioners and says that I’ve just reminded him about all the material he’s yet to cover, meaning that his cross is going to extend past the deadline of 9 p.m. For him, he says, this is a good place to stop for the night.

The Rev is unhappy, because it means they need to schedule another session this week, but he finally agrees to give Rik an hour, no more, on Wednesday night. With that, the Reverend Dalrymple bangs his gavel.

As soon as the commissioners are gone, and the reporters are racing for the door, Rik turns back to me and whispers, “What the fuck?”