Chasing Justice

Chapter Five



Piper found the cable company to be a relatively good fit in her life. She had made it easily through her training as well as her thirty day probation period. She was ready to get started on her unaccompanied installations and repairs. The work was repetitive but gave her time to think, and she appreciated that.

For the last month she had continued to join Bobby, Scott, and Jules for dinner at Betty’s every Wednesday night. Because of her rotating schedule she didn’t have the ability to tail the judge as well as she had before. It also meant fewer breakfasts at the diner with Betty, which was disappointing.

These new friends and a new job were beginning to lull her into complacency. The world was looking a little shinier and brighter these days, and the memory of the judge’s assault was becoming fuzzy. Her nights were spent dealing with long, internal battles between what she thought was right and what she currently felt was right in her life. She had spent so much of her adolescence immersed in turmoil that for the first time she was feeling a sense of normalcy. Who in their right mind, she wondered, would give that up for the sake of traveling the moral high ground? There were days when she was convinced she had the righteous fortitude to continue chasing down information. Then there were other days she could easily picture herself being quite content swinging on the front porch and counting the lightning bugs after a home-cooked meal at Betty’s house.

Piper wasn’t inclined to believe much in fate, but it seemed hard to deny as she pulled her white cable van into the driveway two doors down from the judge’s house. She sat for a moment staring over at his door. She told herself if a sign of some sort presented itself then she’d let it reignite the spark that had seemed to be burning so brightly a month ago.

Piper’s attention was drawn from the judge’s door to the entry of the house she was parked in front of. A tall, voluptuous blonde woman stood waving and practically bouncing out of her much-too-tight clothes. This woman looked as though she was greeting a ship coming home on military leave rather than a stranger from the cable company. Piper liked playing a new game she called “What would Betty say?” Betty would probably describe this woman’s clothes as being tight enough to see her religion. She loved Betty’s unique colloquialisms and found many of them stuck in her head.



“I’m so glad you’re here,” she called to Piper as she stepped out of her van. “Oh, you’re a woman? Well I wish I had known that, I wouldn’t have gotten all gussied up for nothing.” The overwhelming excitement that had seemed to fill the woman left her body all at once.

“Sorry, Mrs. Jenkins, right? I got a call that you’re having problems with your cable connection.” Piper looked down at her clipboard and read through the brief notes left by the dispatcher.

“Yes, I’m Mrs. Jenkins. The box thingy won’t come on. I didn’t realize they let women do this kind of work now. I was hoping I’d get one of those tall, handsome men with a baseball hat. Are you one of those lesbians or something? It’s okay if you are. I’m no bigot or anything, not like Mr. Avery down the block. If you tried to fix his cable he’d be standing behind you quoting the Bible to you like he was performing an exorcism or something. But I applaud you people really, bless your heart.” The woman clasped her hands together and tilted her head in a look made up of pity and encouragement.

“I’m not a lesbian,” Piper said flatly, completely puzzled by how the conversation had turned from a faulty cable connection to her sexual orientation.

“Oh, thank Jesus. I didn’t think so because you’re so pretty, it really would be a shame,” the woman said as she showed Piper into the house.

Piper considered starting a long conversation about how assuming that the outward appearance of someone somehow contributed to her sexual orientation did, in fact, make this woman a bigot. But she had to remember that this was a customer, and pissing her off certainly wouldn’t help her in the long run.

The entryway and formal living room were massive. Piper had never been in such a stunningly decorated home in her life. There were multiple bouquets of fresh flowers adorning every available nook and mantle. Beautiful artwork was hung thoughtfully around every corner. Either Mrs. Jenkins was a designing genius or she had an amazing interior decorator. Considering how hideously and inappropriately Mrs. Jenkins was dressed, Piper assumed it was the latter.

“You have a beautiful home, Mrs. Jenkins. Now which television is giving you the problem?” With her frighteningly long candy apple red fingernails, Mrs. Jenkins pointed to the spacious media room that had more audio equipment than the local cinema. Piper said a silent prayer that the problem would be something minor and she wouldn’t need to call for any assistance. She wasn’t sure she could stomach one of her coworkers pawing at Mrs. Jenkins and belittling Piper for not being able to do the job.

In the center of the room, sitting crossed-legged on the floor in front of the coffee table was a girl. She had dark brown hair cut in a short pixie style that suited her sharp-edged features. She had three large textbooks open in front of her as she tapped her pencil to the beat of whatever pop song was playing through her iPod. She looked up at Piper and Mrs. Jenkins and rolled her green eyes that were covered in far too much pink eye shadow and black eyeliner.

“Are they finally here to fix the cable? It’s about time. I told you to tell them to hurry up, Mom,” she huffed loudly in the way only a teenager could.

“Nikki, what are you still doing here? You’re supposed to be over at Judge Lion’s house already. Get your things and go,” Mrs. Jenkins spoke in a hardline voice significantly different than the bubbly exuberance she had shown Piper—well, prior to insulting a whole subset of the population by announcing that Piper was too pretty to be a lesbian.

Upon hearing the judge’s name Piper stumbled and knocked over the tool bag she had just placed on the side of the cable box. Had she really just heard Mrs. Jenkins tell her daughter to go to Judge Lion’s house?

She quickly tried to gather up her loose tools from the hardwood, praying one of them hadn’t scratched it and the commotion wouldn’t push the conversation into another room.

“Mom, I told you I didn’t want to go there anymore. It’s boring. All we ever do is talk about old court cases and look through stupid photo albums of people I’ve never heard of. I wrote one paper on the guy because I figured it would get me a good grade, and now he thinks he’s my mentor. I’m over it.” Nikki’s argument didn’t seem to faze her mother, who had begun closing her books and shoving them into her backpack.

“You are going. Having a man like Judge Lions take an interest in you is an honor, and you aren’t going to blow it because you think it’s boring. The man is very important in this community, and if he sees potential in you then you should take it seriously. Do you want to end up working at the cable company like this poor girl? She has people thinking she’s a lesbian all day, and do you know what? She isn’t. Do you want that to be you? Do you want to wear that unflattering shirt and khakis, crouching down behind people’s televisions all day?” Mrs. Jenkins continued to gesture over at Piper as though she were an exhibit at a museum rather than a person with feelings who might take exception to the insults being hurled in her direction.

“No, I don’t want that. Fine, I’ll go.” Nikki snatched her backpack from her mother’s hands and stomped heavily out the door.

“Kids—they think by thirteen they have it all figured out,” Mrs. Jenkins sang to Piper, seemingly unaware of how wounding her little speech may have been. “Just let me know when you have it fixed,” she said, sauntering out of the room.

Piper went from her crouched position behind the television to sitting with her back up against the wall. She thought if she didn’t lean on something she might just fall over. Her mind swirled with thoughts.

Was Judge Lions so brazen that he would groom his neighbor’s daughter for some kind of sick purpose under the guise of mentorship? Was that the real reason Nikki didn’t want to go there? It was infuriating to think that he had this community so blinded by his prominence that people were begging to send their daughters to him.

Maybe it wasn’t like that with Nikki. She seemed very strong-minded and self-confident. She didn’t seem like someone who would carry that weight around with her, even under the pressure of her mother. Either way, regardless of Nikki’s situation, the thought of Judge Lions being allowed in the presence of a young girl was sickening to Piper. Here was her sign; the flame inside her that had dimmed over the last few weeks was officially reignited.

The image of the powerless girl in the alley, bleeding and petrified, was once again as clear as it had been the day she had witnessed it. The nights she spent parked outside the motel watching the judge exit the back door and arrogantly pull away in his black Mercedes were now all she could think of. She had assumed her sign would come in the way of seeing the judge. Instead, the possibility of another victim was enough to remind Piper why she started this endeavor in the first place.