For a good many years it had been Judge Robert Dieball’s normal habit to drop by the sheriff’s office about 7:30 on a Monday morning to go over the jail and arrest logs, just to see what he was going to be facing that morning and help to organize his thoughts. It didn’t hurt that there always seemed to be a fresh pot of very good coffee waiting for him – the women working the Central Dispatch office had long had him figured out, after all.

Since the judge was very predictable in his Monday morning habits, it was also the normal practice for the current Spearfish Lake Record-Herald junior reporter to drop by to go over the logs at the same time, and coincidentally get a cup of that good coffee while there. It was not that they’d necessarily get a story out of the judge, but they often could get the judge’s opinion on what trial action would be worth covering. Since the Record-Herald didn’t have a large staff and Mondays were especially busy, that information could go a long way toward shaping the day and the week ahead. Mary Lou Walton was the current junior reporter – they came and went frequently, usually lasting an average of about eighteen months before the weight of the line on their résumé opened the door to a better job. She was busy noting down the arrests, especially making note when someone arrested Saturday night was under eighteen and their names wouldn’t be published under newspaper policy – unless the editor, Mike McMahon, waived it. There was a lot of writing required this morning.

She was just finishing up the arrest log and starting on the jail log when the judge walked in. “Morning, Mary Lou,” he said as he drew a cup of coffee. “I hear we had a little activity over the weekend.”

“Yeah, a little,” she replied as she slid the arrest log across the table so he could look at it. She hadn’t been in Spearfish Lake that long and a lot of the names were unfamiliar, but she had learned that while Judge Dieball was a very friendly guy, she knew she never wanted to cross him in a courtroom, either. “In fact, I’d have to go so far as to say quite a little.”

“That’s what I heard,” Dieball smiled as he leafed through the arrest log, just giving it a quick scan. The Saturday night activity went on for pages. “From what the sheriff told me, if not for the little fracas Saturday night, it would have been pretty quiet for a summer weekend.”

“Most of these will be coming up for preliminary hearings this morning, right?”

“If we’re lucky we’ll be able to get through all of them today,” the Judge told her as he studied the pages a little more carefully. “Most of it looks to be pretty straightforward, but there are some that will take a little more attention.”

“You think I ought to be there?”

“That’s a good question and you might want to run it by Mike,” the judge advised. “If this was a normal, routine minor in possession charge on a kid or two, I’d tell you not to bother and Mike would probably do that, too. But this many kids, and a lot of them on the football team, well, I’d think it would be a big deal, especially since it seemed like everyone in town was talking about it last night. You might not want to sit through the whole thing, but drop in for a while to get some of the atmosphere. You can always pick up the results at the clerk’s office afterward.”

“What’s going to happen to these kids?”

“Mary Lou, you know I can’t talk about specific cases, but in general, not much from my viewpoint. Most of them are first offenses, so there’s a limited amount I can do under state sentencing guidelines. The important thing to remember is that I’m not the only one who’s going to be dealing with these kids. There will be others landing on them, too.”

“Well, yeah, the parents. At least, some of the parents,” she shrugged.

“To a degree,” the judge shook his head. “Some of the parents will come down on the kids pretty hard, maybe too hard. Others probably couldn’t care less. It’s just going to be the luck of the draw. Some kids or their parents are going to have to pay through the nose to get their cars back, the tow fee and storage fee that George’s Towing charges. That isn’t something I have anything to do with. And there’s going to be a lot of community reaction, and at least some of it will be based on what is reported in the paper. Just as a word of advice, I think you’ll want to go to Mike to see how to play it.”

“He seems to have a pretty good feel for deciding how to play a story,” Mary Lou replied. It was something she didn’t quite understand, how Mike could decide to make a mountain out of a molehill on one story and go the opposite way on another story in the same paper. She could tell he was always interested in the impact the story would have on the community, but he also had over thirty years’ experience at guessing what that impact would be.

“Yeah, he does,” Dieball smiled as he took a sip of his coffee and glanced at one entry on the arrest log that indicated that there was a kid who was going to be up to his ears in trouble. Fortunately, only a few of them seemed to look that way, but that was something he couldn’t tell Mary Lou. “But if you want my gut feeling, this is something that’s going to echo around the community for a long time.”

There was no big ceremony marking Brandy’s officially taking over as the principal of Spearfish Lake High School. She just walked into the office carrying a briefcase loaded with work she’d already unofficially done the day before, said hello to Carol Foxbender, then headed into the principal’s office, sat down behind the desk, and dialed the phone.

Her first phone call was to Crystal Elsasser, informing her that she wasn’t going to be laid off after all, but would take over Brandy’s high school math classes. “Thank you,” Crystal said. “That’s a relief. After the rumors that went around over the weekend I thought I had a chance at it, and with Greg’s unemployment running out we weren’t sure how we were going to be able to keep going.”

“That’s just the way things are,” Brandy told her. “All the schools in the state are on a tight budget, and you’re qualified to fill an opening that came up unexpectedly. The superintendent and I have talked it over, and we’ve agreed that if you want to go back to the elementary school sometime in the future, we’ll consider you for the next opening over there. However, that’s not likely to happen this year, at least as far as we know, and you might find you like teaching at the high school level.”

“We’ll see after this year,” Crystal replied. “I like working with the smaller kids. When they get bigger too many of them get an attitude.”

“That’s entirely too true,” Brandy said. “It’s something you have to learn to deal with. Now, I know you don’t have much time to prepare for teaching several new classes, but you’re welcome to paw through my files for syllabuses, lesson plans, notes, and the like. That might get you off to a better start.”

“I’ll be glad for the help. This next month would be crazy if I didn’t. Should I come over there to do it, or what?”

“Most of what you’re going to need is already over in my old classroom,” Brandy told her. “I need to get some stuff out of there, but I’m probably going to be too busy to deal with it this morning. How about this afternoon?”

“Sounds just fine to me,” Crystal said. “I’ll see you right after lunch, and thank you again.”

Well, that was easy, Brandy thought as she hung up the phone. Her first official act as principal was good news for someone, not bad news, and her next step was to call Amy Lowenthal and give her some similar good news. However, before she could dial the phone, it rang. “Mrs. Wine,” Carol said, obviously wearing her formal hat, “Jerome Weilfahrt is here to see you.”

“Fine, send him in,” Brandy said, thinking that at least it was good that she’d started off her career as a principal on a positive note. This one wasn’t likely to be as positive.

She’d left the door to the office open, and in a moment Weilfahrt stepped in. “Hi, Brandy,” he said. “There was a message on my answering machine that you wanted to see me first thing this morning. I figured I’d better squeeze this in before I go to work.”

“Yeah, thanks for coming over so soon, Jerome,” she replied brightly to mask her true intentions. “You’re probably aware that we had a little problem with some of the football players over the weekend.”

“Oh, you mean that deal Saturday night?” he said, as he took a chair across the desk from her. “No big deal, kids will be kids, after all. They were just blowing off some steam before practice gets under way.”

“I beg to differ,” Brandy said, pulling several sheets of paper out of her briefcase. “By my count, twenty-six football players were involved. That’s most, but not all of the varsity team. They’ve received a total of over a hundred different counts on various charges. That strikes me as pretty serious, and I want to know what you’re going to do about it.”

“There’s nothing much I can do,” he shrugged. “That’s up to the courts, not me. Besides, like I said, it’s nothing serious. The kids were just having some fun.”

“Fun may be fun,” Brandy said, her voice considerably sharper now. “But the fact remains that we have an Athletic Code of Conduct that athletes are expected to follow.” She pulled a thin stapled book out of her briefcase and tossed it across the desk at him. “I’ve been a coach here longer than you have, and I know the rules backward and forward. I’d be willing to bet that you’ve never even bothered to read them. I’ve always enforced the rules, even when it means that I’ve had to bench a good player, or even kick them off the team. I haven’t had to do it very often because the kids I have playing for me know that I know the rules and that I enforce them. I don’t know how you’ve been able to get away with not enforcing them, and the actions of some of the football players both on Saturday night and in years past just prove they haven’t been enforced.”

“That’s just paperwork,” he snorted. “You can’t expect to hold football players to those kind of piddly things. Payne always told me to just overlook them.”

“Well, that may be the case, but if so, he screwed it up big time, and that’s not all he screwed up. I called several athletic directors I know at other schools over the weekend, and they tell me they have similar codes of conduct and that football players are expected to adhere to them like any other athletes. While I’m the athletic director here, these rules will be enforced without exception, and especially without making an exception for football players. Now, I’ll ask you again, what do you intend to do about this?”

“Like I told you,” he said, getting his back up, “kids are going to be kids. I don’t see there’s anything I should do.”

“So you’re saying you won’t do anything, right?”

“Right, I don’t think anything needs to be done.”

“All right, that settles that. You are hereby relieved of any and all duties coaching Spearfish Lake school football at any level, effective immediately.”

“You can’t fire me! I have a contract!”

“You had a contract, which was good up to last June 30th, and it hasn’t been renewed. If it has been, there’s no record of it in this office.”

“But Payne said that it was just a matter of getting the paperwork signed. We had an agreement.”

“So you’re saying there was no signed contract? Good, that’ll keep me from having to dig through the mess his files were in. That simplifies things a lot.”

“But you can’t fire me! Practice begins tomorrow! You can’t find a coach in that kind of time!”

Brandy wasn’t about to let it slip at this point that she’d already found a coach. “That’s not a problem,” she said. “There’s plenty of talent around. Hell, you’ve had sixty-three games here and lost fifty-one of them. If push comes to shove I’ll do it myself. I may not know anything about football, but I do know something about motivating kids, which seems to be more than you know.”

“But you can’t fire me just like that!” he said, backpedaling hard now. “Give me a chance! All right, if I have to do something to discipline the kids for breaking the athletic code, I’ll do it.”

“No, you won’t,” she said, furious now. “If I said yes, all you’d give it is a little lip service and the same old shit would go on. You’ve let the football players become a laughingstock on the field. They don’t know the first damn thing about playing like a team. All they want to be is arrogant little twits who think they’re something because they put on a football uniform. They haven’t even taken the first step toward earning the respect they think they need, and we’ve got to stop that stuff before it goes any further. You’ve proved you’re not capable of doing it, so we’ll get along without you, and probably better than before.”

“You can’t get away with this!” he shouted. “I’ll take it to the superintendent!”

“Fine, do that,” Brandy said with a smile. “Just remember that the superintendent is Harold Hekkinan, who forgot more about football thirty years ago than you’ve ever known. I’ve already talked to him and he said he’ll back me on this.”

“Then I’ll take it to the school board!”

“Fine with me,” Brandy grinned. “A word of advice, though. Since the first of July, it’s not the same school board it used to be, and it’s the new board that hired Hekkinan. You might not want to waste their time.”

“I’m not going to let you get away with this!” he shouted as he stormed out the door.

Well, Brandy thought as he left, that went better than I expected. Now if he’ll only play the card he thinks is the only one left to play . . . let’s see, where was I? Oh yes, I’ve got to call Amy Lowenthal about the English teacher position.

Cody and Jan had spent much of Sunday afternoon packing up their things. It was a long drive back to Hawthorne, but they’d gotten an early start this morning and could figure on being back to their apartment this evening.

As far as they were concerned, their stay of over a month in Spearfish Lake had been mostly quiet, which was good; with good reason, Jan still got a little tense in the town and seemed to breathe more freely elsewhere. For that as much as anything, heading back to Hawthorne really seemed like heading back home.

“It’s good to be heading back,” Jan commented as Cody turned their pickup onto the state road for the first leg of their journey.

“Right,” Cody agreed. He was more comfortable when he was out of Spearfish Lake as well, partly because of Jan, but he had his own reasons, too. “Although, I’ll admit that for once I wouldn’t mind sticking around a few more days. I mean, just to watch and see what happens. The shit isn’t even close to being done hitting the fan yet.”

“It would be tempting,” Jan grinned. “But we really need to get done fixing up that apartment this week. Then I have to sub at the hospital next weekend and they’re going to want you to work that summer festival in Bradford, so it’s just as well.”

“I agree it would be tempting,” Cody smiled. “After all, this is the payback for that crap that Payne and DeRidder pulled on us two years ago. At least we got to see them get canned.”

“Oh, well, we can read about it in the Record-Herald,” Jan pointed out, “and I’m sure your father will be willing to fill you in on all the dirty details.”

“I thought he was crazy to run for school board after that,” Cody commented. “I don’t think he would have done it if Ryan and Randy Clark hadn’t leaned on him pretty heavily, but it sure paid off in the long run. We got our pound of flesh out of the deal, several times over. I even got a piece of it happening, even if I didn’t expect it to come out that way. But as far as we’re concerned it’s all water down the river, now.

“Anyway,” he continued, “I don’t think we should paper the kitchen after all. Some kids who don’t know what the word ‘clean’ means will just mess it up. What would you think of a nice, hard, off-white paint instead?”

The Spearfish County courthouse is a historic structure over a hundred years old, built of local fieldstone in an era when labor was cheap. Even though it is a big and majestic building, standing several stories tall, it was actually a little cramped, since the things that had to be done in the courthouse had expanded during the passing decades. Over the years several county functions had been moved to a newer building across the street.

The main courtroom was still large enough to serve the needs of the county. Although well maintained and neat, it bore the stamp of being as old as it was in a number of different ways. Most importantly, the seats in the courtroom were hard wooden benches that made the most severe church pew seem comfortable. It was how things had been done when the building was built, and over the decades no one had ever really seen the need to depart from tradition in spite of complaints ranging back over a century.

It had been a long time since the courtroom had been this full. The majority of those arrested on Saturday night were seated uncomfortably on the benches, most of them accompanied by one or both parents. Nobody looked very happy to be there, and the benches had little to do with it.

The bailiff, an elderly deputy who no longer did road patrol, came into the room. “All rise!” he called, and the crowd shuffled onto their feet as the judge came into the courtroom and took a seat. The bailiff then announced, “District Court for Spearfish County is now in session, Judge Robert Dieball presiding.”

“I see we have a full docket this morning,” Judge Dieball said. “These are preliminary hearings to set the cases. The defendants may choose to plead guilty, and if so will be sentenced. If they plead not guilty, then a court date will be set. In the interest of clearing the courtroom out a bit, we’ll change the docket around a little to deal with the single-count misdemeanors first. First case, People versus Michelle Battle, minor in possession. Miss Battle, if you are present, please step before the bench.”

Unhappy at being singled out to go first, and even more unhappy about what she’d been told to do, Shelly got up from the crowd and worked her way in front of the judge.

“Are you Michelle Battle?” the judge asked when she got there.

“Yes, your honor,” she said.

“Do you have an attorney present?

“No, your honor,” she replied.

“If you feel you need an attorney, one can be appointed for you,” the judge informed her. “Do you wish to be represented by counsel at this hearing?”

“No, your honor.”

“Michelle, you have been charged with one count of being a minor in possession of alcohol, the incident occurring on the night of August seventh. How do you plead?”

“My father told me to plead not guilty, your honor,” she said.

“I can appreciate your father telling you what to do,” Judge Dieball said, “but how do you plead?”

“Not guilty, I guess,” she said unhappily.

“Very well,” Dieball said. “Your case will come to trial at nine o’clock on the morning of Tuesday, October 12, of this year. You would be wise to seek the counsel of an attorney before appearing. Again, if you cannot afford an attorney, one can be appointed for you upon application with the clerk of this court. You are remanded to the custody of your parents. Any questions, Miss Battle?”

“No, your honor.”

“Very well. Next case, People versus Johnathan Bergstrom, minor in possession. Mr. Bergstrom, if you are present, please step before the bench.”

A medium-height guy with no obvious characteristics as a football player stepped in front of the bench. Judge Dieball again went through the routine of identifying him and asking him if he wanted an attorney, before stating the charge – one count of minor in possession – and asked him for his plea.

At least Bergstrom knew that he’d been caught fair and square, with no excuses. “Guilty, your honor,” he said.

“Very well,” Dieball said. “You are sentenced to paying a fine of one hundred dollars plus court costs to be determined by the clerk of the court, payable in not more than thirty days. You are also sentenced to six months of probation, and will complete fifty hours of community service under the supervision of your probation officer. You will report to him immediately. He’s in the conference room across the hall. Any questions?”

“No, your honor.”

“Mr. Bergstrom, I would like to make a statement to you that goes just as much for almost everyone else facing charges in this courtroom today. Some laws may not make sense to you, but they are indeed the law and they are not to be flouted. The law applies equally to everyone, and there are no exceptions. You committed what has been deemed a crime by our society, and you have accepted your guilt in so doing.

“Since this whole thing arose Saturday evening, I have heard numerous people who ought to have known better try to explain this away by saying, ‘Kids will be kids.’ Now, that is true, but that doesn’t mean that if someone commits a misdemeanor they should not be punished for it. That is an excuse, and it is not a justifiable one.

“Those of you who are under eighteen, as are you, Mr. Bergstrom, will have your records expunged of this incident upon your eighteenth birthday. Those of you who are facing minor in possession charges and who are over eighteen, the conviction will remain on your record, but as a minor misdemeanor, much like a speeding ticket. In other words, it should not interfere with your seeking employment or other such things by itself. But you should count this as a lesson learned: the law means what it says, and you flout it at your peril.”

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