“Married and divorced,” Kathy said.

“Sure, and that’s where you got your name. I knew it. What’s your maiden name?”

“Diaz.”

He seemed relieved. “Sure, Cuban, but born and raised here. What’s your dad do? Man, you people started coming-when was it, fifty-nine? You’ve just about taken over.”

“My dad was a police officer in Miami,” Kathy said. “Retired now on a disability. He was shot.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.”

“My two brothers are cops, also in Miami. One with DEA, the other Metro-Dade. My sister’s married to an assistant state attorney.”

“And here you are a probation officer. I’d call that a law enforcement family. How long you been with Corrections?”

“Almost two years. I went to Florida Atlantic…”

“Got married when you were in school?”

“After I got out. While I was working in screening at South County Mental Health.”

That seemed to interest him, the way his eyebrows went up.

“I was working on my master’s in psychology, but changed my mind. Those seventy-hour weeks were too much.”

“So you’re familiar with mental patients, how they act.”

“At South County we had ‘consumers.’ They’re not patients till they’re admitted somewhere for treatment, or we sent them to detox. Most of the ones we saw were on drugs or alcohol, or both.”

“You quit there to work for Corrections?” the judge said. “All you did was trade crackheads for fuckups. You like dealing with misfits, huh, losers?”

“My ex-husband used to ask me that.”

“He was after you to quit?”

“If I could find a job that paid more. I was supporting him. He was in medical school when we got married, a first-year resident when we divorced. No, the problem, he was a superior being, but I didn’t find it out till after we were married.” Bad, talking too much about her personal life and the judge liked it, grinning. She got back to her job. “Working for DOC at least I’m outside most of the time. I have close to eighty-thousand miles on my car.” If he wanted they could talk about her VW she’d bought secondhand that needed new tires again, a battery…