The Dark End of the Street: New Stories of Sex and Crime by Today's Top Authors by Jonathan Santlofer, S.J. Rozan Page A

huh?”
    I nodded.
    â€œIt’s a bad arrest,” I said. “You refuse to file it and everybody wins. My client’s record is clean and the integrity of the justice system is intact.”
    â€œDon’t make me laugh. I could still go ahead with it and tie her up in appeals until she graduates.”
    â€œBut you’re a fair and decent guy and you know it’s a bad arrest. That’s why I came to you.”
    â€œWhere’s she work and what name does she dance under?”
    â€œOne of the Road Saints’ places up in the Valley. Her professional name is Harmony.”
    â€œOf course it is. Look, Haller, things have changed since the last time you deigned to visit me. I’m restricted in what I can do here.”
    â€œBullshit. You’re the supervisor. You can do what you want. You always have.”
    â€œActually, no. It’s all about the budget now. Under some formula some genius put together at county, our budget now rises and falls with the number of cases we prosecute. So that edict resulted in an internal edict from on high which takes away my discretion. I cannot kick a case without approval from downtown. Because a nol-pros case doesn’t get counted in the budget.”
    This sort of logic and practice did not surprise me, yet it surprised me to be confronted with it by Seiver. He had never been a company man.
    â€œYou’re saying you cannot drop this case without approval because it would cost your department money from the county.”
    â€œExactly.”
    â€œAnd what that means is that the interest of justice takes a backseat to budgetary considerations. My client must be illegally charged first, in order to satisfy some bureaucrat in the budget office, before you are then allowed to step in and drop the charge. Meantime, she’s got an arrest on her record that may prevent or impede her eventual practice of law.”
    â€œNo, I didn’t say that.”
    â€œI’m paraphrasing.”
    â€œI still didn’t say that last part.”
    â€œSounded like it to me.”
    â€œNo, I told you what the procedure is now. Technically, I don’t have prefiling discretion in a case like this. Yes, I would have to file the case and then drop it. And, yes, we both know that the charge, no matter what the outcome of the case, will stay on her record forever.”
    I realized he was trying to tell me something.
    â€œBut you have an alternate plan,” I prompted.
    â€œOf course I do, Haller.”
    He stood up and moved what was left of his sandwich from the clear spot on his desk.
    â€œHold this, Haller.”
    I stood up and he handed me a file with the name Linda Sandoval on the tab. He then stepped up onto his desk chair and used it as a ladder to step up onto the clear spot of his desk.
    â€œWhat are you doing, Seiver? Looking for a spot to tie the noose? That’s not an alternative.”
    He laughed but didn’t answer. He reached up and used both hands to push one of the tiles in the drop ceiling up and over. He reached a hand down to me and I gave him the file. He put it up into the space above the ceiling, then pulled the lightweight tile back into place.
    Seiver got down and slapped the dust off his hands.
    â€œThere,” he said.
    â€œWhat did you just do?”
    â€œThe file is lost. The case won’t be filed. Time will run out and then it will be too late for it to be filed. You come back in after the sixty days are up and get the arrest expunged. Harmony’s record is clean by the time she takes the bar exam. If something comes up or the deputy asks questions, I say I never saw the file. Lost in transit from Malibu.”
    I nodded. It would work. The rules had changed but not Dean Seiver. I had to laugh.
    â€œSo that’s what passes for discretion now?”
    â€œI call it Seiver’s pretrial intervention.”
    â€œHow many files you have up there, man?”
    â€œA lot. In fact,