The Judith Files II

By Judge Bill Swann

Judith clerked for the Tennessee Court of Appeals, practiced for ten years, and then was named to a judgeship with a domestic relations docket. The problems began almost immediately, with her home being shot up. And then things got worse.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Feb 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798765249710

Judge Bill Swann

Bill Swann graduated from Harvard College in 1964, was a Fulbright scholar to Austria the following year, and received his PhD from Yale in 1971 in Germanic Languages and Literatures. He received his law degree from the University of Tennessee in 1975, clerked for the Tennessee Court of Appeals, and was in private practice until 1982. In that year he was elected Circuit Court Judge for the Sixth Judicial District of Tennessee, an office he held for thirty-two years. He currently works as a mediator helping litigants avoid the expense and delay of trial. Swann has written two weekly newspaper columns and many articles for legal publications. His poetry has been published in English and German.

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Copyright © 2024 Judge Bill Swann.

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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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ISBN: 979-8-7652-4972-7 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-7652-4971-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021924852

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/19/2024

CONTENTS

Names of Characters

Place Names and Other Things

Websites

Chapter 1 Tom Stapleton

Chapter 2 Susan Stapleton

Chapter 3 Tommie and Stevie

Chapter 4 At the courthouse

Chapter 5 The cookout

Chapter 6 The green fields of the mind

Chapter 7 Summer camp terrors

Chapter 8 Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear

Chapter 9 Anti-semitism

Chapter 10 Art on the fridge

Chapter 11 The good times

Chapter 12 Harry’s ex-wife

Chapter 13 Grits

Chapter 14 Harry the executor

Chapter 15 A friend teaches you to fish

Chapter 16 Nan Hodgkins

Chapter 17 The garden center

Chapter 18 Stinky watches Judith

Chapter 19 What to do with the cabin?

Chapter 20 On a stakeout with Jakey Robertson

Chapter 21 Pridden looks at the car dealership

Chapter 22 Harry’s malpractice case against Stryker

Chapter 23 Bad karma

Chapter 24 Swimming

Chapter 25 Stinky Smith has binoculars

Chapter 26 Suzie-Q

Chapter 27 Connor and daylight savings

Chapter 28 A flower remembered

Chapter 29 Screwtape

Chapter 30 Blue ribbons and a teddy bear

Chapter 31 The car bomb

Chapter 32 Dispensations

Chapter 33 Moderate to severe

Chapter 34 $500 to Stevie

Chapter 35 Professor Smith arrested

Chapter 36 Judith in Reno

Chapter 37 Judith was a birdwatcher

Chapter 38 Afrika

Chapter 39 Smith hires a Nashville attorney

Chapter 40 Connor looks at ‘Afrika’

Chapter 41 Attorney Bailey demands a jury trial

Chapter 42 Attorney Bailey meets with Smith

Chapter 43 Judith and Peter

Chapter 44 Bailey suggests interpleading Kozloski

Chapter 45 Stevie’s third drawing

Chapter 46 Garden center construction begins

Chapter 47 The billy goats gruff

Chapter 48 More poetry

Chapter 49 The Boy Scout Syndrome

Chapter 50 Tennessee Code Annotated §39-14-702, Possession of Explosive Components

Chapter 51 Stinky Smith meets with his public defender

Chapter 52 The two Smiths meet in jail

Chapter 53 Harry teaches Tommy about a .22

Chapter 54 The two Smiths kill the jailer

Chapter 55 MOHS surgery

Chapter 56 Where does the knife go?

Chapter 57 Shooting the .22 with Tommy

Chapter 58 The second location for the garden center

Chapter 59 Helmut Albrecht Tietz and Buchenwald

Chapter 60 Kroger aisles awash with ocean

Chapter 61 Benjamin Franklin and the turkey

Chapter 62 Fraudulent Christmas letters:

Chapter 63 Lickspittle

Chapter 64 The Christmas ham

Chapter 65 Nan Hodgkins illustrates Kroger

Chapter 66 Tommy’s Three Little Pigs

Chapter 67 Herbert Hodgkins diagnosed with cancer

Chapter 68 English is a tough language

Chapter 69 The stations of the cross

Chapter 70 Harry drove to Oak Ridge

Chapter 71 Connor looks at Tommy’s Three Little Pigs

Chapter 72 Easter is the bedrock

Chapter 73 Nan and the Twenty-third psalm

Chapter 74 Professor Smith and attorney Bailey again

Chapter 75 Stinky and his brother

Chapter 76 Tick, the clock repairman

Chapter 77 Stinky calls Kenny Russell

Chapter 78 Marren Saraceni and Stevie Stapleton

Chapter 79 At the Biltmore estate

Chapter 80 How the West was won

Chapter 81 Marren’s Goldilocks drawing

Chapter 82 Leon Fleischman

Chapter 83 Francisco Garcia

Chapter 84 Abloom construction completed

Chapter 85 Halderman burns Abloom

Chapter 86 The holy family

Chapter 87 Varying newspaper accounts of the fire at Abloom

Chapter 88 Kenny Russell reads the newspapers

Chapter 89 Connor now knew it wasn’t over

Chapter 90 Jake Pridden’s son Del

Chapter 91 Lober Mote

Chapter 92 Connor searches for Sylvester Steven Smith

Chapter 93 Honeymoon in the Smokies

Chapter 94 Stinky Smith’s provenance

Chapter 95 L.L. Bean

Chapter 96 Martin takes Lober and Del to Manta

Chapter 97 Connor hangs Nan’s Kroger and 23d Psalm

Chapter 98 Abloom’s developments

Chapter 99 Martin Graham and Megan Mather

Chapter 100 Kenny Russell

Chapter 101 Connor talks to Judith about the shooting

Chapter 102 Tietz and Connor

Chapter 103 Russell kills Judd Robb

Chapter 104 Kenny Russell’s brother

Chapter 105

Chapter 106 Southern Living returns to Abloom

Chapter 107

Chapter 108 Marren’s unicorn drawing

Chapter 109 Tommy and Stevie, new drawings

Chapter 110 The brothers in jail

Chapter 111 Kroger sells

Chapter 112 Jedidiah Winslow

Chapter 113 Kenny Russell gets a bond set

Chapter 114 The twenty-third Psalm

Chapter 115 Make Way for Ducklings

Chapter 116 Tommy, Stevie, Winnie the Pooh

Chapter 117 Harry teaches Valeria to shoot

Chapter 118 Harry talks to the man of the house

Chapter 119 Judith gets a gun

Chapter 120 Harry proposes to Susan

Chapter 121 Connor puts motion sensors at 122 Crieve Hall Road

Chapter 122 Jedidiah Winslow decides to act against Judge Graham

Chapter 123 Kenny Russell in the woods

Chapter 124 Kenny Russell’s bond revoked

Chapter 125 Susan says yes

Chapter 126 Russell Auto Repair

Chapter 127 Piglet’s plight

Chapter 128 Unicorns I Have Known goes to the gallery

Chapter 129 Stations of the Cross completed

Chapter 130 Unicorns sells

Postscript

School, 1949-1952

NAMES OF CHARACTERS

Circuit Court Judge Judith Merchant

Judith’s grandmother and grandfather Merchant

Presiding Circuit Judge Magic Beans Norton

Bill, his superannuated bailiff, whom Norton offers to

Judith; Judith declines that offer, employs Tommy

Rachel King, Judith’s secretary, book two

Tommy, Judith’s competent bailiff (careful and alert)

Metro Medical Examiner Jane Crenshaw

Annette Bundry, attorney, book one, raped in parking garage of courthouse

Abloom, Judith’s garden center, book two

Nora Leslie, bookkeeper

Sissy Henn, full-time employee

Judd Robb, full-time employee, killed by Kenny Russell

Valeria Silva, Robb’s replacement

Jake Pridden, builder of Judith’s new house and Abloom, the garden center

Francisco Garcia, Jake’s employee, who speaks no English, book two

Jake’s son, Del, book two, who marries Lober Mote

Lober Mote, Harvard graduate, Vanderbilt med school

William and Dora Hensley, book one, on Judith’s domestic violence docket

Dr. Orloff, court’s own witness, book one

Toby Malone, Judith’s half-time law clerk, book one

Helmut Albrecht Tietz, Judith’s full-time law clerk, book two

Tom Scofield, Judith’s fiance, book one, killed in a car wreck on I-75 in fog

Sydney Halderman, burns Abloom, book two, killed by Connor

Jedidiah Winslow and Ruth Winslow, book two, Judith’s docket.

Husband furious at Judith.

Connor Graham

Dana Graham, Connor’s first wife, deceased, book one

John R. Morris Jr., MD, responsible for death of Dana, Connor’s first wife

Martin Graham, Connor’s son, book one, at Montana State

University. In book two, he has graduated with a B.S. in economics, and takes an accountancy job with a large Nashville firm, making lots of money, enough to take Lober and Del to Manta Lake.

Davey Barton (Davey Barton’s Flying Service in Kenora), book one

Connor Art Galleries in Nashville, books one and two

Connor Concepts, his consulting business; made him rich

Nan Hodgkins, co-owner of art gallery with Connor, book two

Her husband Herbert, book two

John Harcourt, Connor’s fishing buddy, book one

Harry Mather

Susan Mather, an artist, Harry’s ex-wife, lives in New York city

Megan Mather, their daughter

Rabbi Shulman, Harry’s rabbi

Adam Wright, Harry’s dermatologist

Professor Richard T. Smith of CTSU (Central Tennessee State University), books one and two

Gloria Jean Smith, his wife

Patty Palermo, Gloria’s lawyer

Jess Carey, attorney, Palermo’s associate

The Jellyfish, Richard’s first lawyer, fired by Richard

William Terance Bailey, Richard’s excellent second lawyer

David Branstone, false name Richard uses at Mektu Lake Lodge

Ray Martinson, unethical attorney, chosen by Richard for Branstetter’s defense

Thomas Benjamin Levitt, ethical attorney, not hired by Richard

Kozloski, Chicago passport counterfeiter, used by Richard Smith

David T. Branstetter, administrative VP of Omega Computing, book one

His ex-wife, Jeanie

Joey, their son

Treece, homosexual predator upon Joey

Rebecca, employed at arcade where Treece works

Metro Police Chief Larry Bolden, book two

George Anderson, jailer, choked to death by Stinky Smith, book two