PRECINCT BLUES PART 8: STATE ISSUED BRACELETS CERTAINLY AREN’T MADE BY TIFFANY & CO. : A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA

DARIS

It’s just after seven a.m. PST, and I can’t help the thoughts running through my head. My staff is due to arrive at the Palm Springs International Airport from Pittsburgh within a few hours, and I have no idea where to even begin processing all of the new questions and perspectives I’ve gained over the last twenty-four hours. As I pour my third cup of coffee within the last hour, I try once again to pick all the cases apart to come up with one common thread. Greed and jealousy are definitely a given, but it doesn’t explain everything else. Having Judge Stone and my mother here though, is proving to be a big help in getting all the wayward thoughts in my head sorted out. 

After I followed my mother’s edict in having Stone- as he prefers to be called away from the office- call her, I didn’t think on their connection beyond it. It turns out that I should have. Not only did they come up through the law enforcement ranks together, but it turns out that they have been besties since before I was even born. Consequently, I learned many aspects about how they often talked about and worked through each scenario until they could separate cold hard fact from sensical speculations. What I didn’t know was that Judge Stone also worked as a CSI agent while putting himself through law school. And so his descriptions of processing numerous crime scenes changed my outlook on how the house of Michael Novotny horrors should be handled.

“What are you thinking so hard about, Son? I would have thought that you’d still be asleep,” Mom says as she comes out to the patio outside of the kitchen. I have to hand it to her and Paul, this house is gorgeous with all it’s gleaming glass. The shimmering pool just beyond it seems to have no beginning and no end, although I know it leads to a sunken hot tub on either side, which includes a set of wet bars. Staring into it, just after I take a sip of the brew, I answer her.

“I couldn’t sleep. I would say that it was just the time zone difference but I would be lying.”

“You’re thinking of all Stone and I said to you last night, then?”

“How could I not?” I place my cup down on the saucer, just a tad too forcefully. Offering her a silent apology, I continue. “It’s just that something isn’t computing all the way in my head about all of this. I mean, the thoughts are there, but it’s like the theories have no way of being fully realized, if that makes sense.”

“Uh huh,” she murmurs noncommittally, as she taps her nails against her coffee mug before continuing. Settling deeper into her chair, she says, “Let me tell you a little something that Stone and I didn’t fill you in on last night…”

“Ooh, wait for me! Don’t speak another word until I grab a cuppa, and join you,” the man of the hour says grumpily from the kitchen. 

We wait patiently while Stone stumbles around the kitchen, with his eyes still almost shut and his robe thrown over his pajamas haphazardly. The sight is almost reminiscent of what one might look like after they’ve been on an all night bender. Even his hair looks high! And no, I’m not talking about his haircut. It’s funny to think of him- to see him- as a just a regular dude, instead of the most feared and well-respected judge in Pennsylvania on the local level.

He comes out and throws himself into one of the cushioned seats around the glass table where Mom and I are sitting. And after saying a blessing over his coffee, offering up a quick prayer for the hands that prepared it, he takes his first fortifying sip. I chuckle aloud at the sound of relieved pleasure emitting from him, while Mom outright laughs. His eyes widen at the first taste, before he says, “Oh, Darling girl. Oh my darling, Lady MacBeth, you remembered!”

“Of course, I did. As soon as I knew for sure that you were coming I ran out and gathered the supplies to make our special brew. After all, what’s coffee with my brother from another mother without our own mix of toil and caffeinated trouble? That brew got the three of us through many insane days and nights of college,” she answered Stone nostalgically. And right here is where it occurs to me that the third person they are talking about is my dad.

“Fun times, right?” Stone asks, quietly.

“Some of the best of our lives,” she answers, equally softly, before shaking herself and giving us a blinding smile. “But that’s why it’s so important that we introduce Daris to it. The legacy of our debates over this mix must continue! Chucky would have wanted it that way.”

“But wait though... Lady MacBeth?” I ask, confused at the nickname. I mean, I know my dad used to call her that when she was being particularly bitchy, but I never understood why.

“Yes, because your mother can be absolutely diabolical and semi-unrepentant when she wants something her way. And whoo, when arguing her point she can be downright mercenary. So the name suits her in many ways, considering her rise to power as a judge, even though she never committed murder to do it.” He chuckles.

“Not that it wasn’t tempting many times, and for several reasons. But ultimately, I decided that I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life looking like a caged pumpkin. Instead, I’d rather wear my expensive suits, and a pair of my Manolos to kick their sexist, and sometimes even cuntish- especially in regards to the females- asses. Nothing could have given me more pleasure than the first time each of them had to address me as JUDGE Linton. And I took great pride in watching just how hard that was for the naysayers to do.”

“Especially Luanne Baker,” Stone smiles widely.

And suddenly, I almost feel my coffee wanting to repeat on me.  But I just had to ask, “Why Luanne?”

“First, because back in law school she thought your father would have been better off with her instead of me…”

“And the second reason?”

She smirks sarcastically at me before answering. “Because years later, I found out that my son fucked her brains out right after he received his law degree.”

“How… how did you know that?”

“You mean aside from the fact that she was walking as if she still had a dick stuck in her at the post-grad reception?”

“MOM!”

“Oh alright, I’ll tell you. Her husband was having her followed after a former student of hers had sexual harassment charges filed against her. It’s why she couldn’t approach you directly while you were still a student.”

“How did that come- no pun intended- about anyway?” Stone asks, barely able to contain his laughter.

I shrugged. “She paid both Tommy and Noah a hundred bucks each to make sure I made a bathroom run. As for the rest of the story behind the escapade, let’s just call it Grad School Fool antics.” I wouldn’t dare tell Mom that Luanne’s husband sought me out and paid me five grand afterwards.

She laughed then. “Well I’m sure that Fred was all too happy with your performance since he was able to divorce her, instead of the other way around. I do believe she’s still paying him alimony.”

“Oh my God, you knew?!” I shake my head at her, as she and Stone sit there laughing at my expense.

“You can’t out-slick a can of oil when it comes to your mother, Daris. Haven’t you learned that by now?” Stone repeats my mom’s favorite analogy, much to my amusement and annoyance. 

I swear, no matter how hard I try to keep my private life private, she always finds out the things I don’t want her to. And somehow at this moment, I hope that never changes. Clearing my throat before I spout the sentiment, I ask, “So about this case... what was it you said that you and Stone neglected to tell me?”

She smiles at me, in what I guess was her way of letting me know that she had discerned my thoughts, even if they weren’t voiced. But then she gets right down to business. “The thing is that Stone and I agree that you are viewing this case from the sole point of view as the D.A., when you should be looking at it from a criminologist’s viewpoint instead.”

I frown at her slightly at that observation. “Why do you think that?”

“Other than because it’s the truth?” Stone asks rhetorically. “Daris, the thing is that changing the way you are seeing the events happening- and those unfolding- is going to give you a much clearer picture than you would have by just going over the evidence.”

“I’m not sure I’m following.”

Mom chuckled. “I can certainly understand why you would feel somewhat confused by our suggestion,” she says as she gets up and goes over to the corner where the other coffeemaker was. I didn’t even know it was there, but it’s probably because I was so absorbed in my own thoughts. As she re-seats herself, she says, “Do you know what it was that really helped Chucky, Stone, and me become such solid friends?”

“I would think that it was the grade school history, followed by your college years that would have done that.”

“Yes, and no,” Stone says. “How many of your grade school friends are still your friends to this day?”

I had to think about that for a moment, and the answer is, not one. All of my close friends are those that I acquired in college and grad school. And I tell them so. “There aren’t any.”

“And other than time and distance, what was it that drove all of you apart in different directions?” Mom asks me.

“I suppose it had to do with career goals; with life goals in general.”

“Exactly! However, with me, your father, and Stone, it was a common love and career-focus of the law that kept us together. But it wasn’t just the law itself, but the science of it which kept us in constant communication.”

“The science of it?”

“Absolutely. There’s a science to every single thing we do, whether it’s performing our morning ablutions, or analyzing cases. We still do it all very methodically while seeking out the end results.”

Stone picks the conversation up from here. “Case in point, every Friday night from the time we were in our second year of college, we used to have Best Friends Night. While most of our peers were out partying, instead the three of us would gather around and watch shows like Perry Mason, Murder She Wrote, and Matlock. But then once Unsolved Mysteries, and America’s Most Wanted began airing, it gave us a collective thirst to see how a crime scene would be processed. Sure we enjoyed the criminal aspects of each show, but it was actually seeing how the law could be applied that caused us to want to watch and talk about it more. It’s one of the reasons why I took on a job as a CSI technician while in college.

"Thanks to advanced science courses during high school, that more than qualified me to get an up close and personal job. Your mom worked as a law clerk, but your dad decided to take a job as a Morgue Assistant with the county. Then, while we were having our standard Friday nights, and study sessions, we would talk about the merits of the cases we’d run across during the week. It gave us quite the edge when studying the law as a profession.”

I nodded. “So you’re saying that looking at this case as I would a criminologist would help decipher some of the missing pieces?”

“Absolutely,” Mom concurs. “Also, bear in mind that you will have immediate access to a psychiatrist and a behavioral analyst. Although you already know the who, what, when, where, and how, what you don’t know is the true motive that drove Mr. Novotny. And that is where their expertise will come in.” 

“Watching them- absorbing all they have to say- will help you to come up with some very pertinent questions of your own,” Stone advises. “And in this case, you can’t just rely on what you know about the defendant, but you also have to be able to pick apart the evidence and speculations that are not going to be readily seen.” 

Mom adds, “Sure, greed and jealousy are both strong emotions in their own rights. But the saying: It’s a thin line between love and hate is more true than you know. And ironically, they can often be misinterpreted as one or the other.”

And then Stone asks the one question that I have been asking myself for most of the night. “Riddle me this, Batman: How would Michael Novotny feel at being left behind despite all his machinations? Despite constantly going to Jack Kinney, or anyone else to complain about Brian’s defection, Brian still managed to do what Michael didn’t want him to. So was it really acts of desperation that drove him, or was it a case of victimizing the victim?”

“Victimizing the victim?”

“Yes, son,” Mom answers. “Some people will do anything- and I mean ANYTHING- to, in a sense have a pet victim of their own, including faking their neediness. They tend to wait, watch, and seemingly wither, all the while playing on their victim’s apparent needs. In this case it would be Brian’s need to be valued.”

“And Justin’s?”

“Well that’s rather easy, my boy,” Stone says. “It was Justin’s need to be loved as more than just a Taylor; he needed to be honored, loved, and respected just because he’s Justin. And that was something that Michael Novotny could understand because in truth, although Michael had love from his mother and uncle, he never could earn the respect he thought he deserved just for being Deb Novotny’s son and Brian Kinney’s best friend. So to his mind, if he couldn’t have it then why should Justin Taylor?”

Mom jumps back in again, reminding me of something that my dad said to me once long ago. “The thing you have to remember about emotional vultures, Daris, is that they are extremely picky. To someone like Michael Novotny, although Brian may have been physically stronger than he was, he was still the weakest link between the two of them. Not because Brian is a weak-willed person, but because Michael had something that Brian always wanted…”

“Value?”

“Yes, to his mother and uncle at least. Brian witnessing that all the time would- DID- have him accepting anything and everything that was dished his way to get it, until someone showed him that he was worth so much more than that manipulative jackass, Michael Novonty, could ever hope to be. I’m willing to bet that once Brian finally got that revelation, he began pulling away. Hence Michael going to speak with Jack Kinney. He needed a henchman to keep Brian in his place and who better than the young man’s own father?” 

I went to take a shower, leaving the two of them traveling once again down memory lane. What they said made a whole lot of sense. And perhaps that’s where I was going wrong in this whole scenario. Sure some of the defendants probably did actually love Brian and Justin to a point. But Michael Novotny? No, that was pure unadulterated hate, but the question that remained still was why?