“Which suggests to me that this is very important to you,” she finished. “So important that you are willing to take the risk that when these vermin are brought to trial, it might very well be before a brother or sister of mine on the bench who will desperately search the law for an excuse to let them walk.”
Coughlin and Callis looked uncomfortable.
“But that’s moot,” Judge McCandless went on. “You in effect disqualified me by simply coming here and asking me about what you want me to do. If these vermin walk, it will be on your shoulders, not mine.”
“I don’t think they’ll walk, Your Honor,” Callis said.
She ignored the reply.
“Finally, on what grounds are you asking me to reverse the magistrate’s decision to grant bail?”
“That these people pose a threat to society,” Callis replied. “That there is a strong possibility they will jump bail, that they are continuing to engage in criminal activity . . .”
“How can you possibly know these things, Mr. District Attorney, if you can’t even give me the names of the people we’re talking about?”
“By now, Your Honor,” Coughlin said, “Mike Weisbach should have the names.”
“You don’t know that, Dennis,” she said.
“May I use your phone, Your Honor?”
She waved at the telephone on an end table.
Coughlin went to it and dialed a number from memory.
“Malone, have we got a location on Inspector Weisbach?” he asked.
There was a reply.
Coughlin smiled and hung up.
“Well?” Judge McCandless asked.
“Your Honor, I was just informed that Staff Inspector Weisbach has for the past ten minutes been parked outside.”
Judge McCandless nodded.
“Well, Dennis, why don’t you go out and ask him to come in?” she said. “The more the merrier, so to speak.”
“Thank you, Your Honor.”
Weisbach came into the comfortably furnished living room two minutes later, carrying a large manila envelope stuffed with Xerox copies of the records from Central Lockup.
“Good morning, Your Honor,” he said.
“If I knew you were coming, Inspector Weisbach, I would have baked a cake,” Judge McCandless replied. “What have you got?”
“The names of all prisoners transported to Central Lockup after their arrest by the Narcotics Five Squad in the last ten days, Your Honor.”
Judge McCandless put out her hand for the envelope. Weisbach gave it to her.
She went through each record carefully. From time to time, her eyebrow rose, or her mouth pursed, or she shook her head from side to side in what could have been contempt or resignation.
Then she handed the stack of paper back to Weisbach.
“You’ve got twenty-two—give or take a couple—names in there—”
“Twenty-two, Your Honor,” Weisbach said.