Chapter 5

In retrospect, Ralph found the opening statements to be nothing more than theatrical posing by the prosecution and the defense to create bias in the juror’s minds before they even heard the evidence in the case.

It seemed to him that most of the other jurors were in agreement with that appraisal of their performance and considered the entire day to be a waste of time. According to standard procedure, they had started with the case by the prosecution and were warned at the very beginning that it would take a full week to present the prosecution case.

Ralph smiled when he heard that pronouncement because he remembered in the military any forecast of time allocation was almost immediately followed by an updated correction for unavoidable extensions. He didn’t think this case would be an exception.

Still, the wheels of justice ground inexorably forward and soon they were being exposed to the facts of the case against the defendant, at least from the prosecutor’s point of view. Of course, the defense had the right to make their objections, when the prosecutor strayed too far from the expected format of weaving a web of suspicion around the defendant. He discovered that he was more attentive at those times when he thought an objection was in order. Usually, he was correct in his perception, but there were those times when the defense lawyers just listened in silence at some outrageously biased comment presented as a fact and said nothing to challenge its inclusion in the court testimony. He wanted to jump to his feet and shout out loudly,

“I object, your honor, counsel is leading the witness!” or “That’s inadmissible evidence!”

Of course, he kept my eyes straight ahead and his mouth shut because any such foolishness would surely result in removal from the jury without delay.

The defendant, Winston Sullivan III was making the most of sitting only inches from his newest and prettiest new defense counsel, the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Tippy. She was doing her best to keep her knees together for fear of annoying the female members of the jury because if you look hard enough, you could easily see her French undies in a harlot shade of red that left little to the imagination. Ralph knew that Tom, Dick and Larry in the first row were getting stiff necks and stiff other things from the periodic flashes of white skin and red panties. He pretended that it was all of no interest to him mainly, because Gloria was keeping her eagle eye on him in the second row, to look for a reaction of the disgraceful, sordid kind.

The female defense counsel was seated and that gave her a bit of a disadvantage with regard to competing with the primary prosecutor, Alexandra Honeysuckle, a brunette bombshell with long range artillery shells for her upstairs armament and a devastating below the waistline array of weaponry that bordered on “weapons of mass destruction. At that very moment, Ms. Honeysuckle was literally “prancing” up and down in front of the jury emphasizing some of the more salient points of forensic evidence. Of course, the forensics would not be covered until later in the week after they labored through the layers of endless circumstantial evidence that was almost as much speculation than proven fact. In categorizing her movements as prancing, Ralph could only claim that her hour-glass figure was in perpetual motion swaying in every direction on top of the six-inch heels that accentuated her heart-shaped backside. The prosecutor’s bottom was sitting on a shelf of sheer delight tempting male observers to reach out and pat with their lusting fingers like boys loose in a candy factory.

Ralph had to admit, he was one of those perverted “boys” with devious thoughts of erotic mischief. When she came to a halt directly in front of him, he regretted the fact he was in the second row and unable to fully inhale the scent from her ever-present French imported perfume. He didn’t know the brand, but it didn’t matter, because it was imprinted on his memory cells like some subliminal message that made him close his eyes and breathe deeply to get her inside his very core. Behind his closed eyelids, he pictured her face down underneath his sweating body. Her dark hair was matted on his face and her twin globes of squirming flanks tried to evade his invading shaft to no avail. His success in claiming her anal prize was sweet and complete. He knew that she would soon calm down and start to moan with pleasure at his determined attention. It made it so much better that her highly educated words of persuasion tickled his ears with the promise of depraved tingles bringing solace to his masculine needs.

He was unable to tear his eyes away from her tight pencil skirt and nylon-clad legs. Her ability to move lithely in front of the jurors and the court convinced him that she was in perfect shape and ready to engage in matters of a carnal nature without hesitation.

Now, he knew he was in trouble because his Gloria was looking at him with that look that told him she was reading his dirty mind like an open book. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he sensed that the sharp-eyed female clerk of court sitting right next to the jury box had that same look of intuitive comprehension to her beautiful blue eyes and her delicate damp lips highlighted in the most seductive shade of red he had ever seen in his entire life. He had forgotten her name but she wore a name tag that simply said “Misty”. He had actually never dated or even kissed a girl called Misty before, but he remembered chasing one on a rainy moonlit night on a California beach at a time when life was a complete blur.

Ms. Honeysuckle’s sweet cheeks threatened to burst out of her black pencil skirt when she bent over the evidence table to consult her listing of forensic items to be introduced at the first opportunity. Ralph’s immediate thought was that she must have had a hard night and was fighting the cobwebs of “lack of sleep” in the early morning slogging. It certainly was not impeding her presentation and he reasoned that after years of practice, she could have done it in her sleep as well.