Anonymous Tip: Serving Subpeonas to Witches

A Review Series of Anonymous Tip, by Michael Farris

Pp. 109, 110-111 

Remember Sheriff’s Deputy Wally Elrod, who delivered court papers to Gwen before Tuesday’s hearing way back when? Well, he’s back, and this time Peter sent him subpoenas to serve!

Sheriff’s Deputy Wally Elrod loved serving subpoenas on government employees. It was so easy.

It was easy because all Wally and to do was walk across the public safety building to various desks, rather than having to drive across town to people’s homes.

After Elrod gave Rita her subpoena (she was second after Officer Mark Donahue), we get this:

She did not resent being served, but when Elrod made the mistake of asking if she was Mrs. Coballo, her feminist ideology took over.

“I’ll thank you for leaving your sexist titles to yourself. It’s Ms. Coballo, if you don’t mind,” she fumed.

Elroy raised his eyebrows and said, “Hope your broom is working well to fly you to court on Tuesday.” He was two months from retirement and simply didn’t care anymore.

Um. Yeah.

Peter has Gwen call Donna and Rita witches, and then has the sheriff’s deputy do the same, and this is supposed to be some sort of coincidence? Also, feminists are witches. Apparently. But this goes back to what I’ve said before—Gwen is divorced, but still goes by “Mrs. Landis,” which appears to be a good and positive thing in Farris’s eyes. Rita is upset at being called “Mrs. Coballo” rather than “Ms. Coballo,” and that, for Farris, clarifies her status as bad bad and very bad. As a married woman who goes by “Ms.” instead of “Mrs.,” all I can say is no thanks.

Anyway, now we turn to Mark Donahue.

Corporal Donahue walked with his subpoena across the foyer of the Public Safety Building to the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney. The main floor of this huge building houses the Spokane City Police Department, the Sheriff’s Department, and the Clerk’s Office for the District Court.

And I’ll spare you the rest, but Farris goes on to explain the sorts of cases held in the district court and the layout of the building.

It seems that Gail Willet, the prosecutor, had summoned Mark after learning that he’d received a subpoena. How she found out about the subpoena is unclear, because Farris also tells us that “Peter had simply typed of the subpoena and had it delivered on the strength of his own signature as an officer of the court.” Regardless, Farris is at pains to make sure that we know that Mark is one of the good guys. “He would rather be out on patrol,” Farris tells us as he arrives at Gail’s office, “but he tolerated such matters as a necessary evil.”

Anyway, Gail asks for his subpoena, looks it over, and then wonders what Peter’s purpose was in sending it.

“What did you tell him during your interview?”

“I can’t think of anything he would be interested in. I pretty well just repeated my report. I reread it prior to the interview.”

“Did he seem to focus on any particular issues?”

“He asked a lot about bruises. Asked me if I heard the CPS workers say anything about bruises.”

“What did you tell him?” Willet asked.

“That I didn’t hear them say anything directly one way or another.”

“Is that it?” Willet asked.

“As far as I know. The only hard evidence I have about bruises is that I know nothing. I know nothing.” He intoned the last phrase with a mock Germany accent to do his best Sergeant Schultz imitation from the old Hogan’s Heroes television show. Willet didn’t get it and wouldn’t have cracked a smile even if she did.

Funny, because for me Mark’s statement brought this to mind:

Yes yes, I know, this book was published in 1996! What Mark was referring to, apparently, was this bit from Hogan’s Heroes. Either way, we are informed once again that Gail is both an elite ignorant of the culture and ways of the common people and entirely humorless. Yay.

Anyway, as regular readers will know, Peter issued a subpoena for Mark because Mark said he had thought Donna and Rita hadn’t found bruises, because Donna had told Gwen she would dismiss the case if Gwen would only cooperate with a few questions. As I noted at the time and as multiple readers pointed out, this is actually very weak evidence. Donna could say that she’d lied to Gwen to gain her cooperation, or that Mark misheard or misunderstood, and for his part Mark appears to be emphasizing his lack of knowledge one way or another.

And in another example of Farris’s tell-don’t-show style, Farris tells us that later that morning Gail called Dr. McGuire’s report and called Dr. McGuire to go over a few questions. “McGuire was impressed with her insight,” Farris tells us, without telling us what that insight was or what questions Gail asked. “Indeed she was a very competent lawyer.” Well, okay then.

Farris tells us that as Gail finished her preparations for the hearing she decided against writing a trial brief, because the determining facto would be what was in “the best interest of the child” and “the judge could reach that legal point automatically.” By the end of the day, all Gail had left to do was oversee “the exchange of the psychologists’ reports on Monday morning.” As Farris explains, Gail had arranged with Peter to give him Dr. McGuire’s report on Monday at 10:00, refusing to hand it over on Friday as Peter had asked. Farris tells us that Peter concluded from this that Gail “was hard-nosed about everything.”

It seems Gail is both “a very competent lawyer” and “hard-nosed about everything.” This has been Farris’s description of her throughout—whip smart, but stubborn. But as we saw at the ex parte hearing on Wednesday, when she refused to cede a position simply to spite Peter and looked foolish when she lost, her stubbornness sometimes comes back to bite her. I’m wondering how all this fits together, for Farris. For his part, Peter is described as a very good lawyer, but he also takes various ethical shortcuts, such as when he blackmailed Bill Walinski into signing paperwork making Peter Gwen’s lawyer without ever contacting Gwen as legally required. For Farris, it appears, neither unhelpful stubbornness nor ethical dubiousness gets in the way of one being a good lawyer.

Next week we turn to Gwen and Casey’s visit with Dr. Schram.