That morning Tracy Adkins didn’t want to get out of bed. This sort of thing happened maybe three days out of the week. It never happened on Mondays, though he knew the deluge of cases and questions about cases hitting his inbox by 8AM would be enough to make him want to quit outright. It was Tuesdays, after he’d survived Mondays. It was Fridays, because he wanted that extra day of just not having to deal with so many humans. It was Thursdays, because sometimes a four day weekend was just called for. Of course he never did call out, no matter how much he wanted to. He still heard the whispers of DEI hire, and other nonsense that followed him from his John Jay undergrad all the way through his Dayton Law Degree and into the Pinal County courts. Nobody understood why he chose to do law here, so they assumed he’d been brought here to fill a niche. They couldn’t imagine that he wanted to be in Arizona, and he never explained why he did. He never made an effort to explain anything about himself, or work to develop friendships amongst his colleagues. He was just there to work, which is why Mondays weren’t so terrible. At least that was until he heard about the murder.
He knew he’d be assigned the moment it hit the news. He might not be a DEI hire, but optics were optics. A black kid–an actual African-American by the sound of it–was charged with murdering a pretty young white girl. This was Dateline NBC stuff; a career maker for the AG or whomever the lead prosecutor wound up being. It was also a case that needed a black face on the side of justice–just to hold up appearances.
Tracy Adkins sighed deeply into his pillow. Then he struggled creakily to his feet and headed for the shower.