“You were shoved into a bench.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He stared.
Naomi exhaled.
“I’ll get checked.”
“Good.”
She sat.
The adrenaline was beginning to leave her.
That was worse.
Her fingers started shaking.
She hid them beneath the table.
The chief judge noticed anyway.
“Naomi.”
She looked up.
“You don’t have to be a judge for the next five minutes.”
That nearly broke her.
She looked away.
Through the chamber window, she could see part of downtown Atlanta.
Traffic.
Buildings.
Ordinary life.
Inside, someone had just tried to arrest her using her own forged signature.
She whispered:
“Why?”
The chief judge did not answer.
Because neither of them knew.
Not yet.
But Naomi already suspected the answer had something to do with the hearing scheduled for 3:30.
State v. Marcus Bell.
A narcotics case.
Large seizure.
Multiple defendants.
Detective Brent Holloway was the lead investigator.
And Naomi was about to rule on whether his entire search had been illegal.
Three days earlier, defense counsel filed newly obtained body-camera footage.
It contradicted Holloway’s sworn affidavit.
Not slightly.
Directly.
Holloway claimed officers observed a narcotics transaction before approaching a warehouse.
Body-camera timestamps suggested officers entered the property eleven minutes before the alleged observation.
The defense also produced GPS records.
And a second issue.
Seized money.
Police reports claimed $486,000 had been recovered.
Evidence intake showed $431,500.
More than fifty thousand dollars was unaccounted for.
Naomi had ordered a full accounting.
The hearing was scheduled for that afternoon.
At 3:30.
Holloway arrived with a fake arrest warrant at 2:04.
The timing was impossible to ignore.
The internal affairs commander entered chambers twenty minutes later.
He closed the door.
“Judge Carter.”
Naomi looked up.
“We need to talk.”
The chief judge stayed.
The commander placed a folder on the table.
“We pulled Holloway’s internal case access.”
Naomi waited.
“He opened the Bell evidence file at 10:12 this morning.”
“Allowed?”
“Yes.”
“He downloaded the supplemental body-camera index at 10:18.”
Naomi said nothing.
“At 10:31, he accessed an archived civil case.”
The chief judge looked up.
“Which case?”
The commander turned the folder.
The docket number from the fake warrant.
Naomi felt the room shrink.
“He copied a document template.”
The commander continued.
“Then at 11:06 he accessed an old scanned order carrying Judge Carter’s signature.”
Silence.
Naomi stared.
The chief judge whispered:
“My God.”
The commander nodded.
“He had access to everything necessary to create the fake.”
Naomi asked:
“Did he print anything?”
“We’re checking.”
The commander paused.
“Judge, there’s another problem.”
“There’s always another problem.”