Chapter 4: "The Conspiracy"

Two months later, Ethan's case was about to come to trial. He had spent the entire time in the county jail.

He had no confidence in the public defender assigned to him and almost hit the man when the shyster suggested that Ethan accept the plea bargain offered by the state.

It was a shitty deal. The man wanted him to plead guilty to second-degree murder and with it a sentence of twenty years to life. Ethan told his lawyer that he was innocent, and to tell the D.A. to take his plea deal and shove it up his ass!

At the very same time Ethan was sitting alone in his cell wondering what would happen to him, Ethan's friend Johnny was getting out of his squad car. The young lawman had been sent by the sheriff to get lunch from the town's only restaurant.

The restaurant was a small whole in the wall place that specialized in fish that was so fresh you actually picked it live from one of the restaurant's large tanks before they cooked it the way you wanted.

With the D.A. and sheriff inside waiting for him, rather than taking the time to put the car keys in his pocket, Johnny hurriedly sat them on top of the food containers and got out of the car. When he was out, he picked up the containers sending the keys sliding towards the ground. They bounced off the toe of his left foot and slid under the squad car.

He bent down to pick up the keys but found they were to far under the car to reach them and had to lie on his back just to get at them.

Once he was on the ground, he noticed something lying about thirty feet away under Ethan's car. Left on the street, it had been towed and was parked in the impound lot on the other side of the chain-link fence near where the police cruiser was parked.

Even from that distance Johnny could tell that the shinny object glimmering under the vehicle was a knife!

After setting down the food, he picked up his keys and got and evidence bag from his squad car. Johnny unlocked the gate leading to the impound lot, carefully retrieved the knife and placed it inside the bag. Then marked the bag as evidence and went back to his car to get the food.

"Well how did it get there?" Asked Simon Randal, the town's prosecutor. They were all in the sheriff's office talking about the knife while their lunches sat on the desk getting cold.

Johnny looked at him and said, "Hell, I don't know! I guess it must have bounced off the ground and got stuck in the undercarriage of Ethan's car somehow. It probably fell loose when the car was being lowered to the ground by the tow-truck."

"This changes everything! That knife supports the story Ethan and Becky told. It also means that your two cousins perjured themselves on the stand. I have no choice but to notify the defense of this evidence. I might as well dismiss the charges now." Yelled the now red-faced prosecutor. His temper was renowned and he didn't like to loose.

Johnny said to the sheriff, "Somebody better tell Doc before he hears about it. You bet he's going to be pissed!"

"Don't look at me! I'm not going to be the one to tell him. He's already pissed at me because I wouldn't let Sammy and Bert go into Ethan's cell and work him over!" Exclaimed the sheriff.

Randal spoke up just then and said, "Fine then, get him on the speakerphone and well all do it!"