Free First Offense by Nancy Taylor Rosenberg Page A

transcripts, police reports, preliminary hearing transcripts, criminal histories from other states and agencies, autopsy reports, forensic reports. All of these documents Ann had to read and study. They were tossed and stacked everywhere. On her desk, rising four feet high from the floor, set haphazardly in a plastic basket on top of the metal file cabinet, any second ready to spill over onto the floor.
    Ann turned around and saw Claudette still standing there, a concerned look on her face.
    “I tried my best, Ann. I really did. I took work home. I assigned it to other people. Just do your best. That’s all you can do.” She sighed in weariness.
    They were in a sad state at the agency. The cases just kept coming and coming, all of them with deadlines: filing dates, dates for interviews, dates to appear in court, review dates, secondary offense dates. Having more work than they could handle was bad enough, but when everything had a deadline, the pressure escalated to an almost intolerable level.
    Once her supervisor had gone off, Ann collapsed in her seat. Her desk was situated flush against a floor-to-ceiling window which allowed her to look out over the parking lot for the complex. Her eyes went immediately to the shrubs on the outer border of the lot, searching for the opening leading to Victoria Boulevard. Then she found it—the exact spot in the bushes where she had stepped through only seconds before she was shot. Earlier this morning, she had made a point to park on the opposite side of the building, not wanting to come anywhere near it.
    Grabbing the Delvecchio file, Ann opened it, thinking she could distract herself and forget what she could see out the window. Five or ten minutes passed, but Ann wasn’t looking down at the file. She was thinking about that spot, about how much she didn’t want to see it ever again. People fought for these desks by the windows, but right now Ann would have preferred to work in a closet.
    Without thinking, she stood and walked around her desk, placing her palms flat against the glass. When she saw her hands there, Ann knew why she had done it. She wanted to feel the glass, test the thickness. What she wanted was to assure herself that there was something between her and the spot in the shrubbery.
    The next moment questions leaped into her mind against her will. They pounded inside her head like a migraine headache, pressing against her forehead, pushing in at the tender spots at her temples—incessant marching questions—questions she knew she would be asking forever, just as she had with Hank. “Exactly like Hank,” she mumbled, shaking her head from side to side, wanting to put a stop to it right this very minute.
    Where had he been standing when he fired? Why had he fired at all? What had she done to this person? Who hated her enough to shoot her in the back and leave her bleeding on the sidewalk? On and on the dreaded questions marched, taking on a life of their own.
    At last Ann pulled herself from the window and sank again into her chair, looking around at the mountains of paperwork and files, the questions a secondary, whispery voice now. “Where did that file go I just had in my hand?” she said, talking aloud in an attempt to override the voices.
    Where was Hank’s body buried? erupted another voice. What had happened that night on that lonely stretch of road? Who had turned her life upside down?
    That was the problem when you started asking questions and looking for answers that were not there, Ann thought. One set of questions only led to another.

    Around ten o’clock, Ann ran into Perry Rogers on her way back from the coffee room. “Ann,” he said, a thick file in his hands and a look of frustration on his face, “I know you just got back and all, but I can’t figure this bingo sheet out. This is worse than figuring out my income tax return.”
    Ann chuckled. A bingo sheet was what they called the form they used to compute prison terms, and it reminded a