Chapter 23

I was in the inmate discharge section of the facility and was getting dressed in the dark blue suit furnished by my new legal team. They even had a nice striped tie and cuff links to round out the outfit to present me in a light in the courtroom that would not prejudice anyone in the jury to think I was guilty because I was wearing the apparel of a criminal.

It was a small detail but I knew how those things worked and knew the attorneys were well-organized and a big improvement over the count appointed lawyers assigned to the case.

I didn’t see my Uncle Joe sitting in the courtroom and I assumed it was because of the technical provision that kept him out of the trial because he was one of the defendants in the case and it went against the rules of process. I saw all three of his lawyers sitting in the front row and knew that they would be notifying the judge of any hanky-panky on the part of the State Prosecutors in making their flimsy case.

I saw Gloria at the prosecutor’s table and noticed that she was doing her level best to avoid looking at me directly and that bothered me because it meant that she was passing along the FBI investigation highlights to the prosecutors that were making the verbal argument to vindicate the charges.

Brenda and Ricky were at my defense table along with two other lawyers from the same firm. They both told me their names, but in the nervousness of the moment, I immediately forgot it. That was sort of par for the course for me, because I was terrible with names even in a low-stress situation.

Brenda passed me a no sugar and no cream cup of freshly brewed java from the place across the street that made the best cup of coffee in the world. The other thing I liked about the unpretentious place was the fact that it was a lot more reasonable than the high-priced stuff at the tourist-oriented restaurant right next to it. That place had terrific cheesecake and apple pies but their coffee was terrible and cost an arm and a leg without free refills.

It reminded me of the laundry manager back at the jailhouse with her insistence of giving me little snacks and fresh coffee from her huge thermos that she carried into the job every evening. She was in the habit of rewarding some of the other inmates with her little snacks if they worked hard and did a good job. The still attractive middle-aged woman didn’t hide the fact that she followed the unorthodox measure of dishing out some loving to the sex-starved inmates from time to time and I know I was grateful to her for her generosity in giving me release by bending over and spreading her beautiful cheeks for my personal pleasure. I also knew she was not faking it when I hit her g-spot just right and forced her into one of her impressive orgasms at the end of my hardness and the feel of my hands on her demanding rump.

The start of the trial was on hold with the jurors removed from the room.

Brenda whispered in my ear that the prosecutors were in conference with the trial judge to allow them to amend their charges due to a number of discovery items that had been uncovered by their investigative team.

This was just the sort of thing that Uncle Joe had warned me about. It was the sort of ploy they used to throw the defense off their game before they even started.

“Is it something we need to be worried about?”

She patted my hand under the table and I knew she was worried as well because she was frantically reviewing the charges to see where they might be directing this tactical change to gain a slight advantage.

“I wouldn’t be too concerned, Mike, I expect they will do this throughout the entire trial to impress the jurors that they are still finding evidence and where there is smoke there is fire.”

Still, I did not lower my guard and I looked at the prosecution table with all eight lawyers and the back-up of staff that filled another two tables immediately behind their main table. The entire team numbered at least twenty and I knew the FBI was operating a task force in another building looking for chinks in the armor of the defense.

Strangely, there were an equal number of gender representatives on the seated jury and I wondered what the make-up of the alternate jurors was because an excess of females would probably go against me and the other defendants because there was a theme of misogyny against the cops including yours truly by the prosecution team that was ingrained in the department and had probably rubbed off on me as well.

I saw the lipstick clinging to the rim of Brenda’s coffee cup and I was tempted to press it to my lips with her looking me right in the eye. I knew it would put a smile on her face but it seemed a bit perverse considering the circumstances.

There was a yellow pad in front of me for making notes and I took advantage of the time to number the twelve jurors according to their location in the jury box. I noticed that the uniformed guards had put all the men in the lower box and all of the females in the upper box like they didn’t want any interplay between the sexes to distract them from reaching a quick decision in favor of the State without letting emotions rule their decision.

I had served on juries before and I knew that interaction between the jurors would either make or break the prosecution case rather than a ton of forensic evidence. In any event, their case was weak and filled with speculation and they knew they were in trouble before they even got started.