Information

Attorney has a minion!

Client the Steam Spirit

Attorney
Legacy Name: Attorney

The

Galactic Neela
Owner:

Pureflower

Age: 16 years, 9 months, 3 weeks

Born: July 8th, 2007

Adopted: 4 years, 6 months, 2 weeks ago

Adopted: October 12th, 2019

Statistics

Level: 209
Strength: 347
Defense: 10
Speed: 10
Health: 10
HP: 10/10
Intelligence: 472
Books Read: 461
Food Eaten: 2
Job: Very Important Person

Just another clown in the legal circus...

Never say it's just another case.

I learnedthat lesson the hard way.

It seemed straightforward enough, on the surface. A pot-bellied former fast-food worker down on his luck during an economic slowdown. Not a bad guy, in normal circumstances. He wasn't the brain child of the human race (having barely made it through high school) but certainly none of his co-workers or neighbors had any complaints.

He spent the last few dollars in his pocket on three scratch cards. The clerk behind the counter checked his tickets and handed him a hundred dollars. Feeling good about his life for once, he didn't stick around long enough to watch her slip one of the tickets into her pocket.

He saw it on the news a few days later when her beaming face appeared on the screen. She'd cashed in for a hundred thousand dollars. My client was, understandably, furious.

His neighbors could hear him through the thin walls of his apartment.

"I'll kill that..."

For the sake of professionalism, I won't quote him directly, but you get the idea.

I first met Client in less-than-ideal settings. The county jail has that bizarre perfume of body stench and powerful industrial bleach. It's hard to say which of these competing odors is harder on the nose. Client sat with his cuffed hands on the table, saying nothing. He was on the younger end of middle age with a growing bald patch and a paunch that spoke of years eating out of a microwave with not a vegetable in sight.

I gave him the usual lines. I was appointed by the court. I was on his side whether he was guilty or innocent.

He'd screamed at half a dozen people filming on their cell phones as he was led to the squad car.

The guy hadn't exactly exercised his right to remain silent.

He finally looked up at me after five silent minutes. I was not expecting to see tears in his eyes.

"I know what everybody thinks. I was mad, at first. First really good thing to happen in my life and she took it away. That's why I went to see her. Then I saw the way she lived. She made my dump look like the Taj Mahal or something. We agreed to split the profits...I think we did. Everything from that night is a little hazy. Someone offered me a drink. Guy seemed straight up...I think. Then the cops barge in at three in the morning. They showed me the photos...I could never do something like that. It made me sick just looking at all that blood."

"How did you know where she lived?"

"She's a block away from the gas station. I live nearby. I used to see her all the time. Even a loser like me could connect those dots."

"Did you get anything in writing, after your conversation?"

"No. I barely got through school and drunks have better handwriting than me."

"Any potential witnesses? Anyone who might have seen you entering or leaving?"

"I paged another guy to get in the building. He stuck his head out as I was walking up. We had words. I bet he'd remember me."

I took a few notes and promised to keep in touch.

*****

Soon means a lot of things in the legal field. It rarely ever means immediately.

I had several other cases going to trial that week. I had two real estate deals on the brink of closing. I had a handful of old reliable clients wanting to know when they could come in and sign the documents I was preparing.

All I really do is glance over the sections that aren't boilerplate. My paralegal is a miraculous force of nature who could quite honestly put me out of business if she ever decided to take the next step and become an attorney herself.

Note to self: Give Paralegal a particularly nice bottle of wine for Christmas.

The next time I thought of Client was when he popped up in a note on my calendar. I had six other files higher on the priority list and a whole week to file the preliminary discovery documents. Plenty of time.

That's the sort of mentality that keeps you in your office until 1:00 A.M. when you're down to one day and your discovery isn't even in yet.

You can probably tip Judge's annoyance scale against Prosecutor with careful wording but judges, like all people in power, are a fickle lot. One glass of wine turned into three before my submission was complete.

I looked as dashing as ever when Prosecutor and I stood before Judge for the first meeting. I never so much as winced despite the malicious Hangover Troll pounding railroad spikes into my tender brain.

Prosecutor and I are as much friends as rivals. Outside the courtroom, we do lunch and play golf all the time. I'm sure we joked about our wives or compared notes about that new Italian restaurant on 9th Avenue until he turned me into his office. Then it was all business. He was confident this case was cut and paste. I would never admit as much, even if my client had been found standing over the dead woman. A classic impasse. I stopped at the jail on the way back to my office to reassure Client his case was coming along as expected.

The next day, we got the detailed file.

I liked what I was seeing. My guy didn't have so much as a petty misdemeanor. He'd held a steady job for 12 years, one he lost to downsizing. It could've happened to anyone. He really had been sick when they showed him the photos - it was in the police report. I don't know many cold-hearted killers who puke at the sight of blood.

Rubbing this one in Prosecutor's face would be almost as good as reminding him that my favorite team was still a contender for the World Series.

*****

A rather gloating phone call from Prosecutor the week before the trial took the wind out of my sails.

A new witness had come forward, one claiming he'd seen my client sneaking out of the victim's bedroom window the night she was killed.

Worse, he had video.

The clip showed a bulky man glancing back over his shoulder as he made his escape. The bald spot on his head was unmistakable.

I paged Paralegal and asked her to review the footage. There had to be something I was missing.

She paged me back, ten minutes later.

"I think you'd better come up and have a look at this, Sir."

Her neatly manicured nail didn't quite touch the screen. "That's a little unusual...don't you think?"

"Have I told you lately that I couldn't do this without you?"

She smiled.

*****

Prosecutor's smile fell away when he saw the look on my face.

"I decided not to argue over your last-minute subpoenas because I couldn't see the harm. Now I'm thinking I should have dug out some obscure rule to keep them from being admitted."

"All you would have gained from that is a headache."

"I just can't understand why you wanted Lawyer of all people. He hasn't seen the inside of a courtroom since the day he barely passed the bar. The only way that guy gets clients is if they stumble into his office accidentally."

I stifled a laugh. We went to school together. While I always felt he'd make a better carnival barker than a man of law, I also felt sorry for Lawyer.

We are all members of the circus, in a way.

I sat patiently through Prosecutor's opening and kept mine brief. He presented his case well. I asked for only a few clarifications.

Judge was well pleased to get lunch at a decent hour for once. You could see it in the way he practically left skid marks when retiring to his chambers.

My defense painted my client as an average guy down on his luck. He'd worked faithfully for his employer for 12 years, never expecting his life would be turned upside down. Adding insult to injury, the money that was rightfully his had been stolen.

He went to confront the root of his latest misfortune. Being a reasonable man, not the greedy one Prosecutor had painted, he even offered to sharethe winnings. I called up character witnesses. His former co-workers and even his manager had nothing bad to say about him. His elderly neighbor had been grateful for the many times he'd helped her carry her groceries upstairs. This was a flawed but fundamentally decent man.

His recollection of what happened between the time he left the victim's apartment and was taken into custody was fuzzy. I called up three witnesses to build on why.

Cedric Hodekis may have a funny name but his memory is sharp as a new knife. He lived in the same building as the victim. He clearly remembered the young hobo who was lounging under the tree across the street. He saw the lounger speak to my client briefly and offer him a paper bag. The young man chatted with my client and the two parted ways.

Ms. Tabitha Wilson was a neighbor. She saw him enter his own apartment; an empty bottle clutched in his hand. She didn't know my client well but she had never once seen any signs that he drank to any great degree.

My last witness before the big fish was a young lady named Xania. She'd left off her favored Gothic ensemble for a passable black dress but there was no overlooking the dozen piercings on her ears, nose and lip. Judge frowned. He's not what one would call a progressive man.

Xania had been best friends with the victim for many years. She described how her bestie fled their birth town, desperate to get away from a "loser, abusive deadweight of a boyfriend". Xania gave a detailed description of the man from his slightly stooped legs to his bushy mustard-colored beard.

I then replayed the video Prosecutor had submitted into evidence.

Video can be a marvelous tool for blowing a case wide open.

Prosecutor had focused on the hunched figure making his escape by window. He hadn't paid enough attention to a single shot in which the young man flashed his chin at the camera for just a second.

Clearly showing the tucked-in bush of an impressive mustard-colored beard.

I called Lawyer as my last witness. He approached the witness box with all the enthusiasm of a skittish cat.

"I have evidence that will be submitted to the court that you accepted the sum of $50,000 from a young man named Caleb Ostingrot. Is that correct?"

His face goes the color of moldy cheese when I hold up a copy of the letter signed by both parties.

"Alright. I admit it. He promised me big money to mislead you. Anything to make the charges stick. It was enough to get out of that rat-infested hole on 11th Street. He was going to disappear...wouldn't be the first time. He's probably over the border by now."

"He was picked up yesterday for a traffic violation. He has no idea what's waiting for him. Charges across seven states. I wouldn't be that young man for all the money in the world."

Matters came to a rapid conclusion after that. Lawyer was taken into custody. Prosecutor grumbles to this day about how I bested him - though being selected to prosecute Lawyer's case was something of a balm for his wounded pride. Members of the jury didn't need five minutes to reach a verdict. Judge was somewhat perturbed to preside over what he called "a flashy bit of drama not fit for those stupid TV shows". He grudgingly admitted in an interview that I'd done an impressive job of protecting a wrongly accused client.

Client was belatedly awarded the lottery funds that were rightfully his. He used the money to get himself a real education and a small house, though rumor has it he refuses to sell the rusty truck and beat-up armchair that were his only possessions before his arrest.

As for me, I was quite content to go home, kiss my wife and settle into the leather lounger in my home office with a glass of wine in one hand and a good book in the other. I'm partial to thrillers - as long as they don't have anything to do with the legal system.