Chapter 512 Infiltrating the Halls of Justice
?(Ed note: sorry for the spotty chapter uploads lately. Dealing with some health stuff on my end; I’ll try to not let it get too bad, though.)
Mason County Courthouse, Shelton, Washington.
An old, beat-up pickup truck rumbled around to the back of the historic Mason County Courthouse and huffed to a stop. The engine knocked a few times, then, with a puff of black smoke from the tailpipe, rattled to a stop as well. The truck’s passenger door opened and a long-legged beauty with strawberry blonde hair tied up in a neat bun at the back of her head stepped out on three-inch stiletto heels.
“Dammit, Tim, when are you finally going to get this old piece of shit running right?” she said as she slammed the door of the truck, rattling the window that was stuck half open.
“I—” Tim began, his knuckles turning white around the steering wheel.
“No more excuses, Tim! Fix it or get rid of it.” Siobhan turned around in a huff and began stomping toward the employee entrance of the courthouse.
“Vonnie! I’ll.... Sigh, and, she’s gone,” Tim muttered, then turned over the ignition. After four tries, it finally caught, and with a loud bang and the squeal of an engine belt in desperate need of replacement, it sputtered off into the distance.
......
The other office lady in the room, a prim and proper woman in her early- to mid-twenties laughed and said, “Yeah. You must be new here. I’m Sarah, Judge Maxwell’s stenographer.”
“Vonnie,” Siobhan replied, stretching her arm out to shake Sarah’s hand. “And yeah, today’s my first day. My husband dropped me off on his way to work, so I’m a bit early. Do you know when the human resources department generally has someone around? I still need to do my inprocessing.”
“Sure, Gail should be here in around...” Sarah checked her watch, “twenty minutes or so. Just time enough to ‘enjoy’ some of our terrible coffee here.”
“It only makes it worse that I’m from Seattle, home of Starbucks and hipster huts,” Vonnie chuckled.
“I’m sure it does!” Sarah agreed with a laugh. She was a plain-
looking woman, a bit chubby and with mouse-brown hair in a pixie cut that didn’t quite suit the shape of her face. But when she laughed, her eyes sparkled and her brilliant smile made her appear quite a bit more attractive, offsetting her severely upturned nose and making her haircut seem to fit her personality more than it did her face.
“So can you tell me about the people I’ll be working with? I’m here to clerk for Judge Carlson—how is she to work for?”
Sarah winced on Vonnie’s behalf. “Oof. I’m sorry, she’s a hardass. Expects you to know everything, even if you don’t know it. She’s gone through six stenographers in the year and a half since she was appointed to the bench. They call her Cuntson around here, but don’t let her hear you say that, and you didn’t hear it from me,” she said, practically in a whisper.
One of the two security officers in the room looked over and added, “She definitely won’t like you. She’s old and wrinkled like a prune, and you’re, well...” he blushed, “err, not.”
“Thanks for the compliment!” Vonnie replied with a beaming smile, though she was inwardly grumbling about her hell-mode difficulty assignment.
The three people continued chatting as the other security guard watched the IAC meeting on the television with laser focus. Vonnie looked over at him from time to time, wondering if she may have just found her first person of interest in the investigation into the cult activity in her area of operations.