The Sacrifice (9 page)

“No.”

“But he's only sixteen, and no one was injured.”

“No.” The lawyer's clipped accent made her brief answer seem even more abrupt.

“What are your intentions?”

“To prosecute the defendant as an adult for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to inflict serious injury and criminal destruction of property.”

Scott's face flushed. “I understand that, but I'd hoped we could cooperate.”

“Not unless your client pleads guilty to a felony charge and agrees to a significant prison sentence.”

“To a felony with prison time? You're kidding.”

“No, Mr. Ellis. I'm very serious. If you don't have any more questions, I have things to do before I leave the office.”

Scott couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound petty. “No. I'll be filing my notice of representation in the morning.”

“Arraignment will be on Thursday morning at nine o'clock in the old courtroom.”

Supper was being served when Deputy Hicks pushed open the heavy metal door and stepped aside to let Scott enter. Lester sat alone at a round table. His swollen right eye had turned slightly purple, and the cut on his right temple was healing with the rapidity reserved for young people. Scott sat down beside him.

“Assigned seating?” he asked.

“Yeah. I can't sit with anyone else. In class I'm in the front row under the teacher's nose.”

“No more trouble?”

“I'm keeping to myself like you told me to do.”

“Good.”

“Did you come to get me out? I want to go home.”

The young man's mood was subdued. He looked down at his plate of barely eaten food.

“No, I didn't come to get you out. The whole status of your case has changed.”

“What do you mean?”

Scott summarized the district attorney's decision to prosecute Lester as an adult. When he finished, Lester put his head in his hands. Scott waited. He couldn't tell if Lester was crying or not, but several other boys looked in their direction, poked one another, and laughed. Scott thought about reaching over to put a hand on Lester's shoulder but hesitated. There had not yet been an invitation to that type of personal touch.

Lester raised his head and blew his nose on a paper napkin. “I'd rather be dead than locked up. I'd never make it in a prison where I had to share space with blacks.”

Scott recoiled from the sympathy that had welled up inside him seconds before. Instead of reaching over to place a comforting hand on Lester's shoulder, he suddenly had a strong urge to knock him out of his chair.

“Lester, look at me,” he commanded.

The young man glanced up through watery eyes.

Scott spoke slowly. “Before I became a lawyer, I served in the U.S. Army. My best friend was a black man from Syracuse, New York, named Steve Robinson. We were as close as brothers. We met in basic training and served together in the same unit for almost three years.”

Lester's bleary-eyed look became a dull glare. Scott wasn't going to be stopped by a hostile look from a sixteen-year-old.

“I visited with my friend's family when I was on leave. I slept in their house, ate their food, held his baby girl, and kissed his wife on the cheek when I left. Later, when we were in a very dangerous situation overseas, Steve saved my life. Get one thing straight: I don't agree with you about blacks, browns, yellows, or any combination of colors you can imagine.”

Lester grunted. “I can't talk like you, but I've got my reasons.”

“Maybe you do, but unless they have something to do with your case, I'm not interested in hearing about them. Is that clear?”

Lester didn't reply.

Scott had intended on discussing pretrial strategy, but insuring due process for Lester Garrison would have to wait for another day.

“I'll be back later,” he said and left Lester with his hate and a cold piece of corn bread.

7

Know thyself.

P
LUTARCH

T
he following morning there was a message in Scott's voice mail from Harold Garrison. He immediately dialed the number. It was a freight depot in Michigan.

“Yeah, he's still here. He's in the drivers' lounge waiting for his trailer to be loaded.”

Harold answered the phone. “What's happened? Have you taken care of everything?”

“Not exactly.”

Scott outlined the status of the case.

Harold swore. “Are you tellin' me they're gonna send a sixteen-year-old kid to prison?”

“Probably not immediately. He'd be sent to a long-term youth detention center until he reached eighteen, then transferred to a facility for younger offenders; however, my focus is not where he might go to jail but defending him from the charges. This is a much bigger problem than a juvenile court proceeding, and the initial fee will not cover the cost of his defense.”

“You want more money?”

“Yes.”

“I gave you $2,500 a few days ago, and now you want more?”

“That's the way it works in criminal cases. The entire fee is paid up front.”

“How much more are you going to charge?”

Scott kept his voice steady. “Another $7,500.”

Harold swore again. “What! I don't have that kind of money! You don't even want to know where the $2,500 I paid you came from.”

Scott had not considered that possibility.

Harold continued, “How many cases have you won anyway? I'm not paying you to take target practice on my son.”

“I'll be prepared,” he answered. “I've already met twice with Lester, and I'll be filing several motions with the court before arraignment on Thursday.”

Harold grunted. “You'd better get this case moving. I'm tired of you backin' up.”

For a moment, Scott had second thoughts about continuing to handle the case. It would be easier to withdraw, refund the fee, and try to forget Lester and Harold Garrison. But Scott wasn't a quitter. Ever since he was a little boy, he'd always tried to finish what he started.

“Okay,” he said confidently. “When you come home, call me.”

“That won't be anytime soon. I'm on my way to Oregon, and next time we talk, I want some good news. Until that happens, don't ask me for more money.”

Scott had set aside part of the afternoon to prepare the motions he wanted to file before Lester's arraignment on Thursday. However, the criminal-law books in the firm law library didn't have up-to-date forms, and what he'd learned in law school prepared him more to argue a case before the United States Supreme Court than represent a sixteen-year-old boy in Blanchard County Superior Court.

He took a short walk to the courthouse and copied the standard motions filed by a local lawyer with the best reputation as a criminal defense attorney. Returning to the office, he modified the other lawyer's forms, then drafted a motion asking the judge to send Lester's case back to juvenile court. Finally, he prepared a request that the judge set bond so Lester could be released pending disposition of the charges against him. Scott wasn't sure his client could keep his rage bottled up indefinitely at the youth detention center, and a new set of charges for assault and battery would only make resolution of the entire situation more difficult.

Tonight was the first meeting of the mock trial team. Scott went home to check on Nicky, then drove to the high school. The first meeting would be important. It would set the tone for everything that followed.

Several cars were lined up alongside one of the modular units behind the gym. Scott parked beside a silver sports car. A young man was sitting in the vehicle talking on a cell phone. When he entered the trailer, everyone glanced in Scott's direction. Kay was standing beside her desk talking to a group of four girls.

“Good evening, Mrs. Wilson,” Scott said.

Kay adopted his formal tone. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Ellis. We'll start in a few minutes.”

Kay introduced the girls to Scott. He caught a whiff of perfume but couldn't tell if it was coming from the teacher or one of the teenagers. He doubted Kay dumped massive amounts of perfume on her neck before leaving home to spend six hours teaching English grammar to high-school students in a trailer. The girls all looked young to Scott, probably ninth or tenth graders.

“What year are you?” he asked.

“We're juniors,” Janie answered.

Kay glanced around the room. “I think everyone is here. Take a seat in one of the desks toward the front of the classroom.”

While the students found seats, Kay continued, “I have nametags. Most of you know each other, but we need to make it as easy as possible for Mr. Ellis, our volunteer attorney.”

She handed a white sticker to a tall, broad-shouldered young man with startling blue eyes. “Print legibly, Dustin.”

Kay nodded to Scott. It was his cue to begin.

“Each of you is going to come to the front of the class and introduce yourself as if you were beginning a court case.”

He took a couple of steps to the wooden stand beside Kay's desk and made sure his voice carried clearly to the back wall of the trailer. “May it please the court, my name is Scott Ellis, counsel for the plaintiff.”

One by one they came to the front. A few giggles greeted the first two or three speakers, but the novelty quickly wore off. Scott made them repeat the sentence slowly and distinctly until he was satisfied with the inflection and pacing of their delivery. One student adopted an exaggerated Southern drawl.

Scott read Dustin's nametag. “Colonel Rawlings,” he said, “that sounded a bit fake. Do you intend to maintain that accent until the end of the competition?”

“He's a phony, all right,” Frank Jesup called out.

Dustin ignored Frank. “No, sir, I was kidding. Why did you call me colonel?”

Scott saw an opportunity to make a point. “In the nineteenth century, colonel was an honorary title granted to prominent lawyers. They weren't military colonels; it was a term of respect for the position they held and gave them a new identity. That's what I want you to imagine when you introduce yourself to the judges.”

“That I'm a colonel?” the young man asked.

“No, that you're no longer Dustin Rawlings, high-school student. You're Dustin Rawlings, advocate for your client and member of the Catawba Mock Trial Team.”

“Yes, colonel.”

Scott smiled. “Do you play on a school sports team?”

“Yes, I came from football practice to this meeting. After I took a shower, of course.” Dustin raised his arms over his head and stuck his nose in his shirt.

“Good. For those who don't play football, tell us what happens on Friday night in the locker room before a game.”

“Huh?”

Scott continued, “It's game day. You're going to play a team that beat you by twenty points the previous year then talked bad about you all over the area. When you get to school on Friday, there are paper banners in the hallways and a big pep rally during sixth period. Everyone on the team is wearing their jersey and sits in chairs on the gym floor while the students in the stands scream and stomp their feet. Now, it's a few minutes before the kickoff, and the only people in the locker room are the players and coaches. What do you do?”

“We get ready.”

“How do you get ready?”

“We put on our uniforms and listen to a pep talk from Coach Butler.”

“That's not all. Put yourself in the situation and give us more details.”

Dustin thought a moment. “We become football players. We tape our ankles, strap on our pads, and gather together in a circle around the coach. Everybody takes a knee and puts his hand on his helmet.”

“That's it. What's going through your head at that moment? Are you thinking about what you're going to do after the game? Where you're going to eat? Who you're going to run into?”

“No. It gets quiet. Everybody puts on his game face. You know, we all get that look. We're different.”