The Prosecutors’ Meeting
Prosecutor Swartz walked into the break room at her office, which was within walking distance of the courthouse in downtown Newark. She welcomed the two-hour recess. It gave her a chance to get some coffee, go over the case, and prepare for the next witness. She was beat and hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before. Working on this case and raising two boys was taking its toll on her.
Prosecutor Swartz had placed the empty coffee pot in the sink and turned on the water to fill it for a fresh pot of coffee when she drifted off.
“Christine, are you all right?” Susan, her secretary, asked.
“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she said.
“Fine is hardly what I would say you are,” She gave Prosecutor Swartz a light shove to move her out of the way.
“What are you doing?” she asked the secretary, irritated.
“Look.” Her secretary pointed to the overflowing coffee pot. Not only was the coffee pot overflowing with water, but the sink had filled up and was now overflowing all over the counter.
“Shit!”
“That case must really have your brain fried.”
“Susan, you have no idea. But it’s not just from the case.” She sat back down at the table.
“Anything I can do to help?” Susan asked while she cleaned up the mess Prosecutor Swartz had made.
“Yeah. Do you want a part-time nanny job?” Prosecutor Swartz laughed.
“Excuse me?”
Prosecutor Swartz waved her hand. “Never mind. Don’t pay me any attention.”
Peter, a young prosecutor assigned to the case with Prosecutor Swartz, walked into the break room and pulled up a chair. He had a smile on his face.
Prosecutor Swartz looked at the goofy grin on the young man’s face and frowned. “What the hell are you smiling about?” she asked as she shook her head and pecked away on her laptop.
“I just got a new star witness,” he said, still smiling. Peter’s yellow skin was shiny from perspiration, having just come in from the heat, and his brown eyes danced in his head.
Prosecutor Swartz stopped typing and looked at him. “What did you say, Peter?”
Peter was new to the firm and fresh out of college, but he was sharp. He didn’t have the experience yet for the DA’s office to make him lead counsel, but he worked on a lot of the cases with other established attorneys. With the information he now had, he hoped it would show his superiors that he could be the lead on his own case.
“I got us a new star witness,” he said, making his eyebrows go up and down.
“I thought that’s what you said. Who do you have?” Prosecutor Swartz leaned forward, eager to hear what Peter had to say.
He went into his briefcase and pulled out a small notepad. He set the notepad on the table and slid it over to Prosecutor Swartz.
She read what was written on the pad, and a smile quickly spread across her face. “Good job, Peter. You’re going to be a great prosecutor.” She patted him on the shoulder. “Maybe you should have been a detective.”
Peter laughed. “No way. That’s something I never wanted to do.”
“Oh, by the way, what’s going on with the witness that turned over on this crew?” Prosecutor Swartz asked about the person who snitched on Diamond, ending her whole operation.
“The police can’t find him.” Peter shrugged.
The witness who could put the nail in the coffin had come up missing. This person was subpoenaed to come in and testify against the whole crew
“All right. Well, let’s get ready to go back to court and show them what we got.”
TWENTY-FOUR