“I didn’t think so, Judge. It sounded like you have something… kind of urgent?”

“I do. Did you know Jerry Vincent?”

I was immediately thrown by her use of the past tense.

“Jerry? Yes, I know Jerry. What about him?”

“He’s dead.”

“Dead?”

“Murdered, actually.”

“When?”

“Last night. I’m sorry.”

My eyes dropped and I looked at the nameplate on her desk. Honorable M. T. Holder was carved in script into a two-dimensional wooden display that held a ceremonial gavel and a fountain pen and inkwell.

“How close were you?” she asked.

It was a good question and I didn’t really know the answer. I kept my eyes down as I spoke.

“We had cases against each other when he was with the DA and I was at the PD. We both left for private practice around the same time and both of us had one-man shops. Over the years we worked some cases together, a couple of drug trials, and we sort of covered for each other when it was needed. He threw me a case occasionally when it was something he didn’t want to handle.”

I had had a professional relationship with Jerry Vincent. Every now and then we clicked glasses at Four Green Fields or saw each other at a ball game at Dodger Stadium. But for me to say we were close would have been an exaggeration. I knew little about him outside of the world of law. I had heard about a divorce a while back on the courthouse gossip line but had never even asked him about it. That was personal information and I didn’t need to know it.

“You seem to forget, Mr. Haller, but I was with the DA back when Mr. Vincent was a young up-and-comer. But then he lost a big case and his star faded. That was when he left for private practice.”

I looked at the judge but said nothing.

“And I seem to recall that you were the defense attorney on that case,” she added.

I nodded.

“Barnett Woodson. I got an acquittal on a double murder. He walked out of the courtroom and sarcastically apologized to the media for getting away with murder. He had to rub the DA’s face in it and that pretty much ended Jerry’s career as a prosecutor.”