Bluegrass State of Mind (9 page)

"I am sure you have the school side of
things down. But as you know from experience, law school does
nothing to teach you what it's like in the courtroom. Also, things
that happen in Kentucky are different than in New York. In New York
you probably get a lot of public intoxication and people pissing in
the street. Here we get some drunk bastard thinking it's funny to
ride a John Deere Combine Harvester down the road. Or, for
instance, what would you do if Joe Schmoe is brought before the
court on a drunk driving charge? He blew two times the legal
limit," Mr. Burns stared at her.

"I would follow the guidelines for
violation of Kentucky Statute 189A.050, which prohibits the driving
of a motor vehicle while under the influence of alcohol." Kenna
re-crossed her legs then. She knew she answered the question
correctly and was giving herself a mental pat on the
back.

"First rule, Ms. Mason, is to make
sure you get all the facts. You did not ascertain he was driving a
car. In fact, what happened in this case was one of the grooms out
at Stapleton Farm got drunk and his buddies dared him to ride one
of the horses down Main Street. A Deputy pulled over the horse at
one in the morning, right outside the courthouse. The boy failed
the field sobriety test. The horse passed it. Now what would you
do?" Mr. Burns leaned back into his chair, keeping his gaze fixed
on hers.

"I would ask how old the drunken horse
rider is and if he had any prior alcohol charges. Oh, and if he was
a legal citizen of the United States." Kenna was already searching
the pages of her mind for juvenile offenses, underage drinking laws
and non-motor operations while intoxicated laws.

"Very good, Ms. Mason. He was
twenty-two years old, no priors, and he was born and bred here in
Kentucky."

"Then I would say under Kentucky
Statute 189.520, he would be found guilty of his first offense of
operating a non-motorized device while intoxicated. The horse would
fall under the same category as a bicycle in this case. Depending
on his attitude and the circumstances, I would say to give him the
normal penalty or drop the charge down to public intoxication with
one hundred hours of community service." Kenna maintained eye
contact with Mr. Burns and saw the slight crinkle of his eyes that
showed he was happy with her answer.

"You certainly have been studying, Ms.
Mason. That is a very good answer. There are a couple more things I
would like to discuss with you that may be different here than in
New York. First, it's just me as the D.A. There is one assistant
job and then we have multiple part-time support staff. Mainly, it's
Martha Schrader out in the front that runs things. The assistant's
job is just part time. You will be responsible for court all day
Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. When necessary, we can
cover for each other. What it also means is that being just
part-time, you can open your own practice or join one here if you'd
like. So long as your cases do not conflict with your prosecutorial
duties. I am willing to offer you the job on the condition that you
pass the bar exam in two weeks. What do you say?"

Kenna smiled and stood up. She
extended her hand over the desk, "I say you have a new assistant",
and she took Mr. Burns' hand in a firm shake.

"You can call me Tom. Here," he said
as he shoved a pile of books across the desk, "these are some study
guides for the bar exam I got from UK's law school. They have
practice questions and so on to help you study. After you take the
exam, but before you get the results, feel free to come to court as
often as you want. I will want you to see the procedure in action
and how the courthouse functions."

"Thank you. I will do that. You can
call me McKenna, or just Kenna. You said I could open my own
practice, but I don't know the real estate around here. Isn't it
hard to get an office close to the courthouse?" Kenna was already
thinking of the things she needed to do to go out on her own. It
was scary, but at least she'd have some money coming in with the
Assistant D.A. job. Though, compared to her old salary, it was
peanuts. It was a good thing she had paid off all her loans while
working and saved a nice nest egg for rainy days.

"There is a solo attorney that handles
a lot of defense work that had put the word out a couple of months
ago that he was looking for someone to share the space with. His
name is Henry Rooney. He's not bad for a defense attorney," Tom
winked.

"That sounds promising. Where is his
office?"

"It's about two blocks up from the
courthouse on the right. If you pass the feed store, you've gone
too far."

"That sounds wonderful. I will talk to
him. I am really looking forward to working with you,
Tom."

"Just keep in touch and let me know
how the bar went. I am sure you'll have no problems. Besides, I am
pretty sure if I didn't hire you, the town wouldn't re-elect me. Do
you know my own father called me and told me I was a moron if I
didn't hire you? Not to count my nephew, the Rose sisters, all
three of them, the Ashtons… William even threatened to have me
blackballed at the country club! Then Pam Gilbert called and
threatened to have the PTA vote against me too. I don't know how
you met so many people in such a short time, but your friends play
politics better than the Mayor does. And he wanted his nephew to
get the job. But, I must say. You're a damn good reason not to hire
that loser," Tom said as he escorted her to the door.

Kenna was slightly stunned that all
these people contacted Tom just to support someone they only knew
for a couple of days. Kenna gave a nod and a smile to Tom, then
turned to walk out of the office. A scruffy looking man in what
used to be a white undershirt stood at the counter arguing with
Martha about taking out a warrant on someone for assault and
battery stemming from a fist fight. She couldn't see any evidence
of bruising, but his right hand was swollen and wrapped in an air
cast.

"Don't you pull this crap on me,
Dwayne. You know perfectly well that your brother didn't hit you.
He took your punch, turned around, and left." Martha nodded toward
Dwayne's hand, "and apparently you got hurt as a result. The only
assault and battery charges you can file are against yourself. You
want to just go ahead and do that, Dwayne?" Martha asked in all
seriousness.

"You don't know he didn't hit me, it's
my word against his. I say he hit me and I was just defending
myself." Dwayne's lower lip stuck out in a nice pout. Kenna was
sure any minute this man-child in a dirty undershirt and jorts
would stomp his booted foot and go into a full tantrum. Kenna
enjoyed watching Martha work too much to ask Dwayne to get out of
the way for her to open the swinging door. So Kenna propped a
shoulder against the wall and decided to enjoy the show. Maybe
Martha wasn't that bad after all.

"Dwayne, bless your heart, but you are
one stupid man. Do you think no one would see you storming up the
church stairs, grabbing your brother, and pulling him out into the
parking lot? We all saw and we all heard you threatening to cut off
his balls if he didn't cover your mortgage payment. Pastor Jacob
even followed you all out there and saw the whole thing. Now,
Dwayne, do you really think a judge is going to believe you over
Pastor Jacob when he testifies he saw you hit your brother? I don't
think so, and all because your brother has put his foot down and
isn’t allowing you to leech money off of him. Dwayne, sober up and
get a job. Now get! Get out of my office before I call Red up here
to arrest you for stupidity." Martha lowered her head back down to
her computer and started typing. Dwayne shuffled his feet as his
mouth opened and closed like a fish. He then turned and walked out
the door mumbling some very nasty phrases about Martha.

Kenna opened the door and gave Martha
a little golf clap. "Very well done. It will be a pleasure to work
with you next month," Kenna said as she walked out the door. All
she heard in response was a grunt and figured it was better than
nothing. She smiled and headed to see a man about a law
office.

Chapter Six

Kenna walked up the street, passing
the bank building, which she was pretty sure had been there for a
hundred years. She came to a stop just past the bank. The building
was a light tan with moss green trim. In front of the building was
a sign that read Rooney Law Office. There looked to be just the
right amount of space to add Mason Law Firm underneath.

Kenna opened the glass door and
stepped onto the thick tan carpet. The office was quiet and smelled
of lemon oil. A welcome area stood over to the right with a brown
leather couch and two upholstered burgundy arm chairs. A coffee
table held an assortment of magazines ranging from the American Bar
Association to Field & Stream and, of course, Southern Living.
A head popped around a door frame from behind the desk placed in
the middle of the room and a pixie of girl shouted, "Be right with
you, hon."

Kenna looked around at her potential
new office. There appeared to be a conference room right behind the
waiting area. On the other side of the room was an archway that
looked to lead back to more rooms. The room was painted the
lightest of moss greens. The overall impression was very clean and
professional, but also very masculine. Kenna's eyes went back
towards the pixie’s direction when she heard a loud thump,
accompanied by some odd phrases meant to convey frustration and
anger. Kenna made a mental note to ask Will about “being as useless
as tits on a wild boar.” Kenna heard one more thump, which she was
pretty sure was something being kicked. The pixie reappeared with a
look of momentary exhaustion. The girl looked no more than twenty
and had tussled blonde hair styled into a fashionable boy cut. She
had a cute round face that still had a little baby fat in the
cheeks. She was a couple inches shorter than Kenna and a good
thirty pounds lighter. She looked a lot like Tinkerbell.

"Hiya. Can I help you?" she
asked.

"Yes, my name is McKenna Mason and I
was hoping to have a word with Mr. Rooney about renting an
office."

"Oh! That would be so cool. We have a
ton of offices for you to choose from. Have a seat and I'll tell
Henry you're here." Kenna watched as the pixie sat down and pushed
some buttons on the phone. A couple of seconds later she was
telling Henry there was someone interested in renting
space.

"He'll be right out. I am Tammy by the
way. I am the only employee here, so if you do rent the space you'd
share me as your secretary. Oh, and here's Henry now."

Kenna looked to the left and saw a man
not much older than her coming towards her. He was tall, probably
close to five eleven, and had black hair slicked back and held in
place with some kind of hair product. He wore olive colored pants
with a little shine to them and a very sharp crease down the
middle. A white dress shirt with monogrammed cuffs and shiny brown
loafers finished off the look. Kenna knew exactly what type of
person Henry was. He fell into the sleazy ambulance chaser
category. Not all of them were bad, but it took a certain breed of
people to be able to do that. When he leered at Tammy's breasts for
a second before turning to leer at her own breasts, Kenna's
suspicions were confirmed.

"Well, hello there. I am Henry
Rooney."

Kenna was a little skeptical about
taking the hand he stuck out for her to shake. She fought the
impulse to pull out the hand sanitizer from her purse. She took his
offered hand and shook it. When he didn't let go right away, she
squeezed it tighter never taking her eyes away from his.

"Tammy said you were interested in
renting some office space. I'd be more than happy to have you move
in with me." He gave a wink and instead of dropping her hand, he
started to make soft circular motions with his thumb.

Kenna smiled her ‘sweeter than honey’
smile and squeezed his hand tighter, digging her nails into the
fleshy part of this palm. "McKenna Mason, and remember Henry, I am
from New York. I'll just pepper spray you and then kick you in the
nuts if you don't let go of my hand right now."

Henry dropped her hand and this time
when he smiled it was one of humor, and not a sales pitch. Kenna
heard Tammy give an un-lady like snort from her desk and was pretty
sure she had judged the situation correctly. Henry probably wasn't
a bad guy. He just liked to see how far he could take things. She
had a feeling that if she told him he wasn't half as bad as some of
the attorneys she worked with in New York, he would get his
feelings hurt. At least she was on familiar ground here. Poor
Henry, he had no idea who he was dealing with.

"It sure is nice to meet you, McKenna.
Let me show you around." He reached around her and put his hand on
the small of her back and guided her through the archway he had
come out. He led her to the first door on the left, which shared a
wall with the lobby, "This is the second conference room. The
bigger one is out front. And over here," he turned her to her
right, "are the offices that are available. This first one is mine,
but you can choose any of the other two if you'd like. There are
some upstairs also, but I would like to fill these
first."

She took a peek into Henry's office as
they walked by. It was a big square room with the normal office
furniture. All the surfaces were covered with papers and folders,
as is typical for an attorney’s workspace. As they continued down
the hall, Kenna felt Henry's hand sliding lower until it rested
just above her bottom.