Page 95 of The Wrong Side of the Law

Chapter Thirty

Emily

Gabriel’s back from my brother’s pretrial conference, and the firestorm in his eyes tells me it didn’t go well.

“What happened?” I ask nervously. “Did Anderson throw a monkey wrench into the works?”

“No,” Gabriel snaps, dropping his briefcase and flopping into the high-back swivel chair. “Sorry,” he sighs. “That came out harsher than it was supposed to.”

“S’ok,” I murmur, walking from my desk over to his and putting my arms around his shoulders from behind. “What went wrong?”

“Depends entirely on your point of view, I suppose,” he grumbles.

“That’s not explaining anything.”

“I know,” he says, frustration and stress coating each word. “From the point of view of a generic prosecutor, it went just fine. In and out. Trial date confirmed for two weeks out. No discovery demands from either side. No motions from either side.”

“Crap.” I understand the problem perfectly: motions take time; discovery demands take time. Either one would expand the timeframe of the trial, force it to be pushed back further.

“We’re running out of time, Emily,” Gabriel says. “And I simply don’t know how to drag it out legitimately. If I’m the one that delays it, then I’m running into Sixth Amendment issues. Speedy trial, all that stuff. I’m going to get shot down by the judge, unless there’s a legitimate conflict with the date or something.”

“And the PTC was the time when he should have turned in any of those motions,” I say, feeling my heart sink. “It’s too late for him to do any of that, now. What do we do? What can we do?”

“Hell if I know,” he answers, leaning back and looking up at me. “I can’t take over for the defense, too. I called the Agent Waters again over at the DEA, he said the local agencies are dragging their heels. No idea when they’re going to get their thumbs out of their asses and do something us some samples from their old evidence. Or even if they have it, still. Apparently the hick towns in the flyover states aren’t big on either Federal cooperation or all us rich pricks in Florida,” he says, rolling his eyes at the idea.

“Is there any chance that the DEA can help out any with Frank? Maybe they could, I dunno, pull the case away from us? Take it over themselves? That would make a delay, wouldn’t it?”

“It would delay things, but…” Gabriel mulls it over briefly but then shakes his head emphatically. “No. Christ, no. Em, honey, you donotwant to get the Federal system involved. It would just screw everything up. Including your brother.”

“Well, what about getting the DEA on Ferry, then?” I ask. “Just throwing it out there. I mean, I know it wouldn’t help your…”

“My political ambitions?” Gabriel laughs harshly. “I don’t give a shit about that right this second. I just don’t want to put an innocent man in prison.” He shakes his head again. “No, I’ve already talked to Waters about that, too. He says they’ve noticed the same thing we have, and they’ve even come to some of the same conclusions, but they can’t just randomly raid the guy without a warrant, and they’re not going to get that without some kind of reasonable suspicion. And unfortunately, rumors-”

“Don’t count as reasonable suspicion,” I sigh. “Yeah. I know. And the more expensive your lawyer is, the higher the bar is for determining what’s reasonable. And since Ferry’s richer than the Pope, well, y’know.”

“Exactly,” Gabriel says, scrubbing long fingers through his hair. “It’s going to be in the hands of the jury. I can play a little loose there, maybe. Duringvoir dire, I can let prospective jurors get through that I wouldn’t want within a hundred miles of any other case. Try and let Anderson stack the deck in his favor.”

“Even if you give him that advantage, will he do it?”

“I have no idea.” Gabriel holds up his hands in disgust. “He used to be pretty good, supposedly, but he burned out. Now he just coasts along. If he gets the right jury, he could maybe convince someone that Frank really didn’t know about the drugs. That he wasn’t smuggling them. Might hang the jury and get a mistrial out of it, but he’s…” Gabriel’s voice trails off and his eyes fill with concern as he takes my hand.

“He’s what?” I ask, but I’m pretty sure I know where he’s going with this.

“He’s probably not going to get a verdict of not guilty,” Gabriel says quietly. “And I just- I don’t know how to fix this.”

“We’ll think of something.” After a brief glance at the door to make sure the knob is locked, I land a quick peck on his forehead. “I know we will. There’s still two weeks left before the trial.”

“All the time in the world, baby,” he says, smiling faintly at me.

But fourteen days isn’t a lot of time, when something like this is hanging over your head. Every time I look at someone’s proposed trial schedule, all I can see isState of Florida vs Francis Edwin Wilson Jr.on the page. Every case brief I write, there’s a jury foreman with a blurry, indistinct face but a voice as clear as a bell as he sayson the charge of Trafficking in MDMA, we the jury find the defendant guilty.

I need to get out of the office. Maybe some fresh air would clear my head? A glance at the clock on my computer shows that it’s barely 10:30, though. Nowhere near lunchtime. Sighing, I go back to the brief, but salvation arrives in my email with ading!

“Gabriel,” I say, “Looks like your superstar has struck again. Kowalski lost his phone, and he had pictures on there that he was going to get blown up into exhibits.”

“That guy,” Gabriel says with a chuckle, shaking his head. “Nice guy, but damn. Okay, so, what’s he need you to do?”

“He wants me to go down to the police station and get some new pictures for him. The kilo of cocaine from Westhaven; the gun and the heroin from Marcus Driggers; and Silveira’s trash bag full of LSD tabs.”

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