Chapter 8 - The Legal Garrison
The office of the Marion County Prosecutor sat on the fourth floor of the City-County Building in downtown Indianapolis, overlooking a plaza where the rain was turning into wet, slushy snow that clung to the gray limestone statues of nineteenth-century governors.
It was eight-fifteen on Friday morning.
Deputy Prosecutor Michael Byrne was thirty-four years old, had graduated second in his class from Indiana University Maurer School of Law, and wore a gray herringbone suit that was slightly too short in the sleeves. He had three files on his desk, an empty cardboard cup of convenience-store coffee, and an expression of profound, exhausted irritation.
Across from him sat Arthur Sterling—a sixty-year-old defense attorney from Carmel who charged seven hundred dollars an hour, wore an ivory linen shirt with monogrammed French cuffs, and kept his silver-headed walking stick resting against the arm of his leather chair.
Beside Arthur sat Glenda Keene.
She had changed out of the purple tracksuit. She was wearing a beige wool skirt that came down past her knees, a black cardigan with pearl buttons, and no makeup. Her lower lip was swollen to the size of a plum, colored a dark, angry purple where my radius bone had met her mouth, and she had an ice pack wrapped in a white kitchen towel held against her jaw.
“It’s a simple domestic misunderstanding, Michael,” Sterling was saying, his voice carrying the smooth, oily cadence of a man who had settled two hundred drunk-driving cases for the sons of automobile dealership owners. “The young woman had a severe prenatal psychiatric decompensation. She has a history of depressive episodes dating back to her father’s death. My client, Travis, was attempting to prevent her from self-harm. The mother-in-law was merely assisting.”
He tapped the edge of a three-page document on the blotter.
“We have an affidavit from Dr. Gary Keene—Travis’s uncle—stating that he had recommended strict bed rest and sensory deprivation for gestational anxiety. What happened yesterday was an illegal home invasion by an armed military officer who used excessive, unlawful force against two unarmed civilians in their own residence.”
Byrne rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. “Arthur, the police report says the girl has defensive contusions across her entire thoracic—”
The heavy oak door of the conference room did not swing open.
It cracked against the wall stop with a violent, concussive bang that caused the coffee cup on Byrne’s desk to jump two inches to the left.
The hallway was filled with green wool.
Four soldiers—two captains from the Fort Knox Staff Judge Advocate’s office and two senior non-commissioned officers from the military police detachment—stepped into the room and took positions along the perimeter wall, their black leather duty belts creaking in unison.
Then Earl Dobbs entered.
He did not take off his service cap. He carried a heavy, black leather briefcase with two brass latches that had been stamped with the seal of the Department of Defense.
Behind him, I walked in.
I was wearing my Class A service dress. The blood-stained blouse had been replaced; this one was clean, the three rows of ribbons sitting straight across my pocket, the silver eagles on my shoulders gleaming beneath the fluorescent tubes. My shoes were dry. My white gloves were tucked neatly beneath my left shoulder strap.
“Mr. Byrne,” I said.
Byrne stood up so fast his desk chair rolled back into the radiator, clattering against the metal fins. “Who... who authorized this? This is a county prosecutor’s office. You cannot bring armed personnel into this facility.”
“Captain Miller,” I said, not looking at him.
The younger captain on my left stepped forward, opened a black vinyl portfolio, and laid three legal instruments flat on the green blotter between Sterling’s walking stick and the cold coffee.
“Notice of Federal Concurrent Jurisdiction under eighteen United States Code, section one-one-three,” Captain Miller announced. His voice had the dry, clipped cadence of a Harvard Law graduate who had spent three years handling court-martials in Baghdad. “Accompanied by an emergency protective detainer issued by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana, signed by Chief Judge Miller at zero-seven-hundred this morning.”
Sterling’s smile did not vanish; it hardened into a defensive, legalistic snarl.
“A federal judge has no standing in a state misdemeanor domestic dispute, Captain,” Sterling said, his fingers tightening on the silver head of his stick. “This is a state matter. The girl is an Indiana resident. The alleged conduct occurred on private property in Marion County.”
“The alleged conduct,” Captain Miller said, leaning down until his nose was twelve inches from Sterling’s French cuffs, “occurred against a registered military dependent whose primary residence remains on the federal reservation at Fort Knox, Kentucky, while her spouse was receiving federal housing allowance supplements under Title Thirty-Seven. Furthermore, Mr. Sterling, you might want to look at exhibit C.”
Earl clicked the brass latches of the leather briefcase.
He pulled out three bound folders with red tape along the margins.
“What is that?” Byrne asked, his hand hovering over the paper.
“That,” I said, stepping up to the center of the desk, “is eighteen months of bank statements for Travis Keene’s commercial clearing account at the First Merchants Bank of Noblesville.”
Glenda’s ice pack dropped from her jaw.
It hit the mahogany table with a wet, heavy thud, the kitchen towel spilling two melting ice cubes across the clean white blotter.
“Travis didn't take four thousand dollars from my account to buy baby furniture, Mr. Byrne,” I said, looking directly into the deputy prosecutor’s eyes. “He took twenty-two thousand dollars from my daughter’s inheritance trust over ninety days. And every Tuesday morning, fifty minutes after he told me on the phone that Abby was ‘sleeping,’ he made an electronic wire transfer of nine hundred dollars to an offshore sports-wagering platform registered in Willemstad, Curaçao.”
The room went completely, horribly silent.
The only sound was the radiator clanking in the corner and the wet, heavy breathing of Glenda Keene as the color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin looking like curdled milk beneath her perm.
“He didn't keep her in that room because she was sick, Mr. Byrne,” I said, my voice dropping an octave into that cold, iron register that allows no room for argument. “He kept her in that room because her father’s life insurance was held in an annuity that paid out five hundred thousand dollars upon the live birth of an heir, with Travis Keene listed as the primary contingent trustee if the mother was adjudicated mentally incompetent.”
I reached into my pocket.
I laid the green memorandum book on the table.
Page fourteen was open.
Forty-four entries.
She’s sleeping, Colonel.
“That is forty-four counts of wire fraud,” I said. “Forty-four counts of false imprisonment. And as of forty minutes ago, when the flight surgeon at Ireland Army Hospital completed the forensic intake, one count of attempted aggravated feticide under the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act.”
Sterling looked at the red-taped folders. He looked at the federal seal on the district judge’s order.
He did not pick up his walking stick.
Slowly, carefully, he slid his chair back two inches, folded his hands over his stomach, and looked at the ceiling tiles.
“My representation,” Sterling murmured, “was based on preliminary factual representations that appear to have been... incomplete. Mr. Byrne, my client will not be making an application for bail at this time.”
“Arthur!” Glenda screamed, lunging across the armrest, her purple-swollen mouth spitting saliva onto his linen sleeve. “We paid you ten thousand dollars! You told us the military couldn't touch this!”
I did not wait for the troopers to take her arms.
I turned on my heel.
“Earl,” I said.
May you like
“Ma'am.”
“Get the staff car,” I told him as we cleared the double doors of the municipal building. “We have an aircraft landing at Godman Field in fifty minutes.”
