War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Coven (War-N-Wit, Inc. - Book 3) (5 page)

“Now, the house—”

“The house is even more ridiculous,” said Stacy. “Where else are you goin’ to try serve somebody first, other than their business or house?”

“But
it still all boils down to a pissin’ contest about the Order of Service thing.” I said.

“Which I don’t get.
Any lawyer, let alone any Judge, knows Federal Complaints don’t need—ah!
Magistrate Court
. How silly of me.”

“Why?” Spike asked.

“Because in lots of rural counties like this, most Magistrate Judges aren’t lawyers, just elected officials,” explained Stacy. “Here, I’m assuming?”

“Oh, yeah” I confirmed.
“That good ol’ boy system. And throw Judge in front of a grocer’s name, he automatically thinks he graduated from Harvard and sits on the Supreme Court. When their three-week crash course after election mostly just teaches ‘em enough to be dangerous. Though come to think of it, down here I think the Mag Judge was an insurance salesman.”

“
But I still got a warrant and I got to take Chad in,” said Dave.

“Well,” I said, “there’s that, yeah.”

“So Chad, can you please just get in the squad car—”

“Hell, no, I’m not getting in the squad car!
We’re on
cycles
, didn’t you notice? Neither my wife nor my sister-in-law can operate a motorcycle and if you think I’m leaving the Intimidator—or my wife—by the side of the road, you’re crazy! We’ll follow you in. Ariel, you got a plan?”

“Damn straight I do.
That complaint was out of the Middle District.”

Stacy laughed. “Thank God for small mercies!”

“Sorry, I don’t quite get why that’s so good,” said Spike.

“I do. The girls are
paralegal eagles, remember? They know people. And the Middle District’s their home stomping ground.”

* * *

Back at the station, they hauled Chad off to the proverbial “back room”. They didn’t invite me. No surprise there.

“Y’all can wait out in the waitin’ area, honey,” the secretary offered.

“Thanks, but we’ll be outside. Call us when we can talk to him, please?”

“Will do.”

I had calls to make and people to talk to and I didn’t have any intention of doing it in the waiting area.

We trooped out and stood in the parking lot by the bikes. I looked at Stacy and raised my eyebrow.

“Pete Donavan,” she said, without hesitation. “If he’s not there, try for Rick Ingles.”

“Not Troy Shannahan?”

“Not an ADA anymore. Left and went into private practice two weeks ago.”

Spike looked awestruck.
And the private pink highway between them darkened a bit more.

“Damn, you two know your stuff, don’t you? What’s an ADA?”

“Federal Assistant District Attorney,” Stacy explained.

“With the added advantage that all three of ‘em left our old firm to go Federal,” I added. “So they know us.”

We lucked out. Pete Donavan was in. And when I explained the situation, he wasn’t happy about it.

“Damn small town hicks think they freakin’ write the law! Okay, get me the Magistrate Judge’s name—never mind, that was stupid, I’ll look it up. Give me five minutes—”

“Not that quick, Pete, the deputy wasn’t supposed to tell us all this, I have to wait till I’m supposed to know—” My phone signaled an incoming. Chad. “Hold on for me, Chad’s calling. Must be his one phone call.”

I clicked over.

“My one phone call. Trespass and harassment based on illegal serve on Quisenberry,” he confirmed. “Go get ‘em.”

“Will do,” I confirmed, and clicked back over to Pete. “Okay, now I officially know. I just hope the Judge is in. It’s Friday afternoon.”

“Well, if he isn’t, the Sheriff has to be,” Pete said. “And after I read him the riot act, I’ll throw in some hints that incidents like this are the stuff civil complaints for false arrest are made from, too, if you want to throw that around yourself. Stand by for fireworks.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later a 90’s model pink Cadillac careened into the parking lot. It came to a screeching halt and parked at the wrong angle in a diagonal parking space marked “Reserved for Staff”.

A short, pudgy man with a very red face and thinning hair threw the door open and stormed inside.

“Whatcha’ bet that’s the Mag Judge?” Stacy laughed.

“
Pink Cadillac?
” Spike looked slightly nauseous.

“I’ve never met him but Chad did tell me his wife was a real Mary Kay success story. Let’s mosey on in, why don’t we? Maybe throw in the names of the attorneys we’re considering for the false arrest complaint.”

Chad was walking out the door by the time we got back in, the short, pudgy red-faced man at his side.

“Now, Chad, I’m real sorry ‘bout this misunderstandin’, don’t quite know how it happened. You’re a professional, you know mistakes happen—”

I walked up to Chad and hooked my arm through his.

“So! Everything straightened out?
Judge Ogles, I take it. Never met you, sir. Ariel Garrett.”

He almost tripped over his feet in his haste to take my offered hand.

“Delighted, Miz Garrett, delighted to meet you. And sorry for the inconvenience, like I was tellin’ Chad, just don’t understand how the mix-up happened. Sure hope there’s no hard feelin’s, we’re all in the same business, just want to keep the legal system movin’, you know.”

“Oh, I understand completely, Judge.
I’ve spent
years
in a law office as a paralegal. One of the big ones, up in Macon. Know a lot of the attorneys, too. So I know all about the inner workings of the legal system. State, Superior, Federal. Stressful field, very stressful. ‘Course the advantage is I always have an attorney when I need one. And I always know which one I need.”

I smiled brightly and Judge Ogles turned slightly green.

“Erphm, yeah, well, I hope you don’t need one anytime soon.”

“I hope she doesn’t need another one anytime soon, too,” said Chad, throwing the slightest emphasis on ‘another’. “Baby girl, I’m ready to blow this joint.
Let’s get back on the road, the Eagle’s not just calling, he’s screaming.”

Chapter Five

We hit I-95 and rolled into Daytona right at sunset, heading straight for N. Atlantic Avenue and the hotel. Traffic was horrendous and slow and Chad’s brush with the jail cell
had cost us two hours. Masses of bikes and bike trailers and pickups and cars moved bumper to bumper on the roads and jammed into parking lots, so it seemed like a good idea to make sure we had a place to lay our heads when it was time to lay them, reservations or not.

The desk clerk
’s eyes widened as he looked at the computer screen. Not a good sign. He looked up at Spike and Chad and blinked nervously. Nope, not a good sign.

“Uh, sir, I’m sorry, but it appears those rooms were—they’re not—they’ve already been taken.”

“
Excuse me?
”

“They, uh, they—those rooms aren’t available, sir.”

“The hell you say!”

The clerk backed up behind the desk. I would have, too. I’d never heard Spike’s voice sound like anything but melted butter—damn, that man had a great voice—but
he could growl like a grizzly, too.

“Get the manager up here. Now.”
Chad didn’t make a move toward him but the poor guy backed up some more anyway, just to be safe. He reached out a cautious hand and grabbed the phone. Even more cautiously, he reached out and punched a button.

“Mr. Harris? Can you come up front, please?”
He hung up and backed away some more. “He’ll be right up.”

He was.
And very flustered to boot. The first day of Bike Week’s enough to make any manager of any hotel run screaming through the streets. He was a consummate professional, though. I could see the memory chips churning in his brain. He forced a smile and offered his hand.

“Mr. Garrett!
Mr. Forrester! Nothing finer than returning guests!”

I made a mental note Spike didn’t advertise the M.D. after his name when in biker mode.

“Not when they’re as pissed
off as we are.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t—”

“Both of us have had standing reservations booked a year in advance for at least five years. And your clerk there tells us our rooms have already been taken?” Chad pointed back at the desk clerk, standing a good distance back from the desk. “The year I bring my wife and sister-in-law with us?”

“I’m sure there’s been some mix-up.”
The manager went behind the desk and commandeered the computer. “Just let me—” He broke off and frowned. Then he turned to the desk clerk and frowned harder.

“Tyler
? What’s going on here?”

“I just took the desk an hour ago, Mr. Harris!
Jeff was on duty!” Tyler grabbed a ringing phone and turned aside.

“And
Jeff took some money under the counter to do some room-switching, I’m thinking,” said Chad.

“In which case
Jeff’s ass better be grass,” Spike added.

Mr. Harris abandoned any pretense of professionalism.
“His ass is grass whether he took money for it or not! He’s
completely
fucked up—ah, excuse me, ladies, my apologies—he’s
completely
screwed up the reservations!”

“So what are you going to do
fix it?”

“
I don’t have any idea in hell! Too many rooms I
know
were reserved by returning guests—”

Spike’s spine stiffened to showcase every inch of his impressive six foot six and wide shoulder span.
He put the mellow back in his voice, which made his looming bulk even scarier. I’d have been scared if I didn’t know him, for sure.

“We really aren’t worried about how
you fix it for anybody else. We’re only worried about how you’re going to fix it for
us
. Because these ladies aren’t going to be sleeping in the streets. I’m sure you understand that?”

Mr. Harris blanched.
“I don’t have
anything
—”

“Sure you do,” Chad assured him.
“You just haven’t seen it yet.”

He turned back to the screen and chewed the inside of his cheek as
Tyler hung up.

“Mr. Harris!
That was a cancellation!”

“
Tyler, don’t joke with me about something like—”

“No!
For really real, Mr. Harris! And what with all this, I told the guy we wouldn’t even charge his card!” Tyler’s wide smile turned to a worried frown. “I didn’t figure you’d mind.”

“Mind!
Hell, boy, you’re up for the next promotion! What room is it?”

“Let’s see.”
Tyler took over the computer. “Looks like—it’s a double! Two queens!”

“We had suites.”

“But I don’t—I can’t—”

“Let it go, guys. We’ll work it out,” I said.
Besides, I needed the ladies. And pretty damn quick, too. “Take it and get the room cards.”

* * *

We parked the bikes as near our room number as possible and I snatched one of the cards away from Chad. Racing ahead, I swiped the card and hit the bathroom. When I came out, the three other members of our merry quartet were dropping saddle bags on the bed and taking stock of the situation.

“They have bathrooms in the lobby, you know,” Chad said.

“Yeah, real crowded, real small ones, didn’t you notice? There was a line in front of the Ladies.”

I looked around at the room.
It held two queen beds with a nightstand between them, a nightstand on each of the other sides, and nothing else. There wasn’t room for anything else. This room hadn’t started life as a “double”.

“Well, so much for sleeping on the couch,” said Spike.
“Or asking for a cot. Nowhere to put one. Okay, I’ll take the floor.”

“You can’t sleep on the floor!” Stacy and I exclaimed in unison.
“Look, guys, it’s not what we planned but it’s what we got,” I continued. “And damn lucky to get it. No point in anybody sleeping on the floor. Besides, we’d step on you if we had to go to the bathroom! It’s very simple. Chad?” I gave him a look demanding back-up. He sighed.

“Yeah, it is.
The girls take one bed, we’ll take the other and we can pile a bunch of pillows in the middle so Spike and I won’t accidently touch each other.” He shuddered. Guys. You had to love ‘em.

I laughed.
“You two would guard each other’s backs to the death in a fight but you’re afraid you might accidently touch each other? Boys don’t have nearly as much fun at sleep-overs as girls, do they? Too worried about the macho thing.”