Chapter 14

Ilse was pregnant for six months. Earlier today, we had gotten another sonogram, and this one definitely confirmed that we were expecting a baby girl. Ever since the assault on Ilse, the doctors had been closely following up on our unborn child to see if she had sustained any injuries, but it seemed that Ilse’s precautions during the assault had worked. We had celebrated the happy news with our favorite ice cream and told our families the good news.

Two days later, I received a phone call in the evening. Ilse had picked up the phone and told me that it was for me, it was my grandfather. I asked her to put him through to the study. After I closed the door to the study, I picked up the phone when it started to ring. I knew that my grandfather wouldn’t call simply to socialize, so I was eager to learn what progress he had made.

“Hello, Tom speaking.”

“Hi Tom, it’s your old man. How are you all doing?”

“We’re fine gramps. Ilse is expecting a baby girl, the kids are doing well at school, and I got myself a nice raise at work a month ago,” I said with a cheerful voice.

“That’s good to hear, son. Listen, if you’re standing, you might want to sit down for a moment. I have news for you.”

I sat down in my desk chair, and replied, “Alright, I’m sitting.”

“Good. I told you I’d handle it and I did. I found out that Ilse’s family had hired a lawyer from my firm in the past for a divorce case. They contacted us again and wanted our matrimonial law specialist to represent their son in court at the custody case, and our defense specialist at the assault case.”

I guess it made sense they had gone to my grandfather’s firm. Her ex had a vicious family who wouldn’t want to settle for anything less than total victory. No wonder Ilse had endured so much trouble in the past and had gotten such a crappy settlement from her divorce. It had been a shark versus a pit bull, go figure.

“I told my associates to drop it, due to a conflict of interest. I told the firm that their son had assaulted the fiancée of my grandson, which made it personal to me, and that no amount of money would be enough for us to represent them now that they touched a member of my family. When I order a thing like this, my word becomes law, and we told that family to look for another firm.

“However, I also put the word out to several of the other major law firms. After that, my message started to spread like a wildfire and now there isn’t a single law firm of any meaning left that wants to represent them. They’re all claiming a conflict in interest. When I think about it, that isn’t even that far from the truth. After all, it’s in their best interest not to make enemies out of my firm,” my grandfather chuckled.

“They had to make do with a recently graduated law student, who has almost no experience and who has no idea what kind of chewing out he’s going to get. I’ve put all the specialists we had available on this for you and there will be no charge for you. I’ve taken care of that too. In both cases, you’ll have three of my best men representing you.”

“Wow, grandpa! That sounds great!” I could barely contain my excitement at hearing this.

“Hold your horses, son. There is more,” my grandfather continued.

“Since that son of a bitch assaulted a pregnant woman we’ll have him charged with an attempt at manslaughter. The fetus was already too far along for an abortion and the courts consider the fetus a human being, even if she isn’t born yet. We looked into having him charged with an attempt at premeditated murder so he could serve a lifetime sentence, however, our chances for success at that are slim. It’s hard to prove that he intended to kill Ilse or the fetus in his drunken stupor.

“Still, an attempt at manslaughter can get him locked away for fifteen years at most. Realistically, we’re looking at eight years here. We’ll make sure that he serves his full sentence though and won’t be released early for good behavior.”

“So he won’t be able to bother us for eight years then?” I carefully asked.

“He won’t be able to bother you ever again, not without getting into trouble with the law. Due to his violent nature, he’ll get a restraining order for the rest of his life. He has to stay away at least five hundred meters from your family, at any given time.”

“Hmm, well, I guess that’s good,” I replied, while wishing we could have put him away for life.

“Son, I wasn’t done yet,” my grandfather continued.

“Next to dealing with the legal side of things, I’ve also contacted some of my former clients and I have some interesting news for you about that too. I’d rather not talk about that over the phone though. Come visit us coming Sunday and I’ll tell you what I arranged in greater detail.”

“Alright grandpa, we will. It’ll be good to see you and grandma again,” I said, curious about what gramps had arranged.

“Alright son, see you then. Give my best regards to Ilse and the kids!”

“I will gramps and thank you for everything you’ve done so far.”

“No problem son, that’s what you’ve got me for. I just wished you had come to me earlier, perhaps we could have prevented this situation from happening altogether then.”

“Maybe, but now that he was stupid enough to assault Ilse, it’ll only make our case easier, right?”

“You’ve got that right. Well I better hang up, your grandma just baked a sweet apple pie and I’m going to see if I can cross over to the wrong side of the law and steal a piece.”

I had to chuckle at that, and after thanking my grandfather once again, I hung up the phone.

I swear I could hear an evil chuckle coming from him when he mentioned that I’d like what he had arranged for Ilse’s ex. It made a cold shiver run down my spine.

Naturally, we visited my grandparents the following Sunday. My grandma had to bake a fresh apple pie, because her previous one had mysteriously disappeared. She gave Bram and Naomi an extra-large piece of the pie, claiming that they had a lot of growing to do.

Once she occupied our kids and Ilse, my grandfather called me over to join him in his study for a few minutes. His study was an old-fashioned room, with a large oak desk in the middle and many books about all sort of law on the shelves. It looked like he had his own, private library. He also had old paintings hanging on the walls and an impressive chandelier hanging down the ceiling. This place reeked of power. It reminded me of the kind of study that the old Lords in Great Britain had.

I noticed a framed black and white picture on his desk of a pretty woman; she seemed to be in her early twenties and looked vaguely familiar.

He saw me looking at it and remarked with a sad voice, “That’s Sophie, my sister. Or better said, she was until she died.”

I didn’t ask any other questions, carefully setting the picture down again. It was obvious to me that my grandfather had cared a great deal about her and I didn’t want to bring up any painful memories.

He offered me a comfortable seat while he sat down in his favorite chair in front of the fireplace. It looked like an ideal seat to read a book, or to have a conversation of great importance, like the kind of conversation we were about to have.

“Tom, the details of what I’m about to tell you, have to stay in this room, do you understand?” He asked me with a very serious tone of voice, gazing at me like only an old lawyer, who was used to keeping interrogations, could.

I nodded, saying, “I promise, grandpa. Not a word will leave my lips.”

“Good, good,” my grandfather said, mulling over his thoughts for a minute.

“Last Sunday I happened to talk with Judge Van der Boot, at the golf course,” my grandfather started, “He told me that he happened to be dealing with a case of manslaughter and asked me for some advice about how I would deal with this case.”

My grandfather frowned for a moment, seemingly recalling his memories. “I told him I’d give the bastard eight years in prison, there had been several eyewitnesses who saw the man beat a defenseless, pregnant woman, and their testimonies all matched up. We have a duty to protect society from scumbags like him, especially if they already have a criminal record and had previous violations with abusive behavior. In fact, I told him I’d make it 2891 days, which would be seven years and eleven months, without the possibility of parole. Judge Van der Boot agreed with me on that and told me that he’d keep my advice in mind.

“I also happened to name the judge a certain prison that would be a great place for this suspect. The good judge told me he’d keep that in mind as well,” my grandpa said, while a small smile appeared on his lips.