Take Off the Costume
“Take off the costume.”
Officer Daniel Whitmore said the words with such confidence that, for several seconds, nobody in the third-floor corridor of the Franklin County Courthouse seemed certain they had heard him correctly.
Marcus Bennett stopped less than twenty feet from Courtroom 3.
At fifty-two, Marcus had learned not to react quickly to provocation.
He wore the black judicial robe he had worn nearly every working day for the past eleven years. Beneath it was a white shirt and a conservative gray tie. A leather folder filled with case notes rested beneath his left arm. His reading glasses sat low on the bridge of his nose.
Behind him, mounted beside a polished wooden door, was a brass plaque large enough to be read from halfway down the hallway.
JUDGE MARCUS BENNETT
Marcus looked at Whitmore.
Then he slowly turned his head and looked over his shoulder at the plaque.
Then he looked back at the officer.
“Excuse me?”
Whitmore stepped directly into his path.
“I said, take off the costume.”
The hallway began to quiet.
Two attorneys standing near the elevators stopped talking. A courthouse clerk carrying a stack of files slowed her steps. A bailiff emerged from the courtroom doorway and paused.
Marcus did not raise his voice.
“Officer, do you know where you are?”
Whitmore gave a short laugh.
“I know exactly where I am. This is a courthouse, not a costume party.”
Marcus studied him for several seconds.
Whitmore was white, somewhere in his mid-forties, with broad shoulders and close-cropped brown hair. A courthouse security badge was clipped above his uniform pocket. Marcus had never seen him before.
That was not unusual.
Officers rotated through courthouse assignments regularly.
What was unusual was the certainty in Whitmore's face.
Not confusion.
Not caution.
Certainty.
Marcus turned slightly and pointed toward the brass plaque.
“Before you make another decision, I suggest you look at the door behind me.”
Whitmore followed the direction of Marcus's hand.
His eyes landed on the plaque.
Judge Marcus Bennett.
For half a second, Marcus expected the officer's expression to change.
It did not.
Whitmore looked back at him.
“Standing beside a judge's name doesn't make you one.”
Something inside Marcus became very still.
Not angry.
Not surprised.
Still.
He had lived long enough to recognize the difference between someone who lacked information and someone who had already decided which information he was willing to believe.
“My chambers are behind that door,” Marcus said.
Whitmore folded his arms.
“Sure they are.”
“My identification is inside.”
“You're not going in there.”
Marcus glanced again at the plaque.
“You're asking me to prove who I am while preventing me from reaching the identification you're asking for.”
“Do not tell me how to do my job.”
Marcus looked down the hallway.
Several people were watching now.
He recognized nearly all of them.
A young assistant district attorney stood near the elevator. Linda Parker, a senior courthouse clerk who had worked in the building for more than a decade, was standing beside the records office.
Marcus looked back at Whitmore.
“Call courthouse administration.”
“I don't need to call anybody.”
“Call your supervisor.”
“I said I have this handled.”
Marcus nodded slowly.
There it was.
The sentence people in authority often used immediately before proving they did not have something handled at all.
Linda Parker stepped forward.
“Officer Whitmore—”
He turned sharply toward her.
“Stay out of this.”
Linda stopped.
Marcus looked at her.
She understood the expression on his face.
Do not argue.
Do not escalate.
Let him make his own decisions.
Marcus turned back toward Whitmore.
“That woman has worked here for eleven years.”
“I don't care.”
“She knows me.”
“I didn't ask her.”
“That is my point.”
Whitmore's jaw tightened.
Marcus continued.
“You have a question about my identity. There are at least five people within twenty feet who can answer it. My name is on the door behind me. My identification is inside the room you're blocking. You have access to courthouse administration records and your radio.”
Whitmore stepped closer.
“And you still haven't shown me identification.”
Marcus removed his glasses.
He folded them carefully and placed them inside his robe.
“You are not looking for identification.”
Whitmore narrowed his eyes.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means you have been given several ways to learn the truth, and you have rejected all of them.”
The hallway became quieter.
Whitmore glanced at the small audience.
For the first time, Marcus saw something beyond suspicion in the officer's face.
Embarrassment.
But instead of correcting himself, Whitmore seemed to become more determined.
Marcus had seen that many times from the bench.
Some people feared being wrong more than they feared making the situation worse.
Whitmore pointed down the hallway.
“Public access is downstairs.”
“I'm not a member of the public.”