Chapter 5
Five
Can you get STDs from corpses?
—Constance to Odin
Odin
Seeing her on the side of the road, ready to kick the tire of her brand-spanking-new SUV, had me smiling wide. At least on the inside.
I was practically jovial as we made it to the courthouse with a few minutes to spare.
I pulled into the closest parking spot I could find and shut the bike off.
When I did, the woman behind me all but flew off the seat and launched herself onto the sidewalk.
She didn’t look back as she rushed to the front doors and threw them open wide.
I called Denver as she marched away from me. Without, might I add, a thank you for the ride.
“Odin,” Denver, the club president and my sometimes sort of friend, greeted me. “Heard you’re at jury duty.”
“Heard right,” I said, not one for small talk. “There’s a woman that’s in jury duty with me. Lives in town. She was on the side of the mountain this morning with a brand-new SUV dead to the world. Could you send Court out to pick it up?”
“Brand new?” Denver grunted, sounding disgusted.
“Fuck, they can’t make anything good anymore.
I bought a new Ford F350 two days ago, put new tires on it.
Drove it around for all of an hour, and this goddamn thing tells me that the adaptive cruise control isn’t working.
I try to switch over to normal cruise control, and that’s not working either.
I take it back to the dealership to ask them what the fuck and come to find out you can’t change anything on the sons of bitches anymore because the cameras pick up the new wheels and shut everything down that has to do with those cameras.
Everything. I had to take it to a performance place to get it ‘fixed.’ And by ‘fixing’ it they only put the old tires back on it, drove it around to recalibrate it, then fuckin’ told me that I couldn’t do automatic updates anymore or the same fuckin’ thing would happen again. ”
I just shook my head, not bothering to touch the comment.
If I did, that would mean I invited him to converse even more with me.
And nothing against Denver, but I wasn’t a small talker.
I would listen, sure.
But I didn’t add anything on my end.
Mostly because I didn’t ever have anything to add.
“I’ll get Court out there with the tow truck.” He paused. “Unless you want me to take it to the dealership and throw my weight around.”
“I don’t know where she bought it,” I admitted.
“I’ll figure it out,” he said. “I’ll have Court look up the VIN number and we’ll go from there.”
“Thank you,” I said and hung up.
Knowing my president would take care of it for me and also wondering why the hell I hadn’t thought to call Court directly seeing as Court was the mechanic in town, I headed inside.
I stopped halfway up the steps when I realized that I still had my cut on.
I’d worn it yesterday, but the judge and the lawyers had pulled me aside as I was leaving and asked me not to wear it back inside.
They didn’t have anything against the club or anything, but it was against the rules, apparently.
And seeing as I needed to keep my nose clean, I chose to follow those rules even though it chafed.
After it was locked in my saddlebags, I walked back to the steps and inside the courthouse.
I went through the scanner, tossing my phone and keys, along with my knife, into the dish as I walked through.
The guard manning the machine looked at the knife, deemed it “acceptable” and said, “Good to go.”
I went to the courtroom and walked to the stupid seats where the jury was supposed to sit and did just that.
One seat down and over from the redhead that was taking up way too much space in my brain.
“Um, sorry.” A Hispanic woman tapped me on the shoulder. “Would you mind switching with me? You’re really freakin’ tall and big, and I can’t see over you.”
I stood up without a word and stepped to the side.
She snuck around the seat and took mine, leaving me the seat next to Constance.
Constance looked like she was fuming as I took my seat.
“Great,” I heard her mutter under her breath.
I didn’t comment.
Instead, I rested my arms against the armrests and crossed my hands over my belly as I leaned back in the seat.
As I did, my legs spread a little wider than my neighbor liked, and she whacked me with her knee, I assume, to keep me on my side.
I ignored her and spread my legs wider.
She really didn’t like that.
She leaned toward the woman on her other side, and I nearly laughed out loud.
She looked so damn uncomfortable it was comical.
“Men manspreading,” Constance explained to the woman next to her when she explained why she’d leaned into her space.
The woman replied with, “Well, he is a really big guy. These are pretty small seats.”
My smile went from inside to outside as I had to laugh at the betrayal on Constance’s face when her new friend didn’t immediately shit-talk me.
The trial got underway, and I listened quietly to each side as they started their talks.
The judge asked questions.
The lawyers and eventually the witnesses answered.
Needing clarification on something, I signaled the bailiff, and he came over.
I asked him my question, and he nodded before discreetly walking over to the judge while the opposing counsel was questioning a witness.
The judge listened to the bailiff, nodded, then said, “Opposing counsel, could you repeat what you asked him about the humming noise?”
The lawyer asked. “Sir, can you tell me again about the noise?”
The man started to speak.
“Well, it’s this obnoxious, constant, loud droning noise.
And sometimes, it even ramps up to a high-pitched whine.
Not to mention, every single day, every hour on the hour, there’s this high-pitched beeping noise that goes off signaling something to the workers.
I don’t know. It’s louder than a train horn.
Even worse, where we live, there’s a quiet zone.
Trains can’t even use their horns when they cross through on the train tracks!
Yet, this stupid data center can let that go off every hour on the hour. ”
I grinned.
That’s what I wanted to hear again.
There were railway quiet zones that all trains passing through no longer had to blow their train horn at public crossings. It was an attempt to make the quality of life and living better.
Which was completely understandable.
Trains ran all day and night. They didn’t have set business hours. They would blow their horns all the fuckin’ time where I used to live, and eventually the city we’d been living in had filed a ruling that said that trains were to no longer do that.
I hadn’t realized how often those horns woke me up until they were no longer doing it.
“I can see how that would be frustrating,” the data center’s lawyer said. “Those horns are for a very good reason. It’s when a system starts to overheat.”
“Blah-blah-blah,” Constance muttered darkly. “Fuck their systems.”
My lips curled up at the edge.
Not quite a smile, but almost.
I agreed with her.
That would probably piss her off, too, though.
“I don’t honestly care if it overheats,” the man said to the lawyer.
“I think it’s time for a recess,” the judge said. “Take fifteen minutes.”
I stepped out of the row and headed for the door, heading to the bathroom to take a piss since it seemed like a good time.
I came out of the bathroom a few moments before Constance, and she came to the side of the vending machine I was standing at and stared longingly at the candy bars.
I hadn’t been intending to get one, but the look of longing on her face had me wanting to press a few of her buttons.
I hit the number for a Snickers, and it dropped to the bottom for me to pick up.
“Do you know that that Snickers bar has about seven teaspoons of sugar in it, and your recommended daily intake is only twelve?”
I ripped the wrapper open and took a bite.
She rolled her eyes and walked away.
What would she do if I told her that I was a doctor and knew exactly what I should and shouldn’t be putting in my body?
I hadn’t had a Snickers bar in years.
I did tend to eat pretty good. I ate my greens, and got all my veggies in. Most of the time I got all my fruit. Always got my protein in.
I knew that candy bars were ultra processed and bad for me.
But eating it was great in a few different ways. One, it was tasty. Two, it pissed her off. Three, I knew she wanted one.
I tossed the wrapper into the trash, caught a water that was set out for the jury, and retook my seat.
Most of everyone was back inside but Constance, so when she arrived, she had to walk past me.
When she did, I didn’t bother to move.
She glared at me angrily and stomped on my booted foot.
I didn’t feel a thing because I was wearing steel-toed boots.
Which she also found annoying.
She sprawled into her seat, and the judge raised a brow at her.
She flushed.
“Okay, you’re up, Mr. Foley.”
“Mr. Tramaine, can you tell us a little bit about your sleep? I noticed you told Mr. El Dorado that you weren’t sleeping well.”
“I actually have some printouts,” he said. “I use a ring that tracks my sleep and health. I can show you these and you can see exactly when I wake up when those stupid sounds go off in the middle of the night.”
The judge turned to look where his sleep study was put onto the large screen to the right of us.
Everyone turned to survey it, and I noted several spots where you could see that REM was disturbed.
If he was even in REM.
Most of the time he was in the lighter version of sleep.
Which was dangerous to your health.
It was okay for short term, but long term? That was bad.
“I am irritable, can’t take naps. My job performance is suffering. My wife had to move in with our daughter!”
I listened as several other residents from the same area came up and told their stories.
All of them had the same stories.
After the fourth identical one, the judge called for lunch and everyone was let out.
Since lunch was provided for the jurors, I hadn’t intended to go out to lunch today like I had yesterday.
I held the door open for damn near everyone as I exited, wondering how I’d gotten stuck with the task.
As I got up to the line, the little shit in front of me took both of the last sandwiches, tossing me a haughty look over her shoulder.
I rolled my eyes, studied what was left of the table, and decided the sub shop down the road was close and fast enough.
When I got back, everyone was already in place, so I took my seat and listened to the rest of the same old, same old.
Thankfully, we ended the day slightly early, and I could skip out.
My phone had been buzzing in my pocket for an hour now.
I pulled it out and sighed as I got a good look at the readout.
My assistant, Moses.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“We got a hot one,” he said. “Dead teen. You think you can get here?”
I looked at my watch. “Sure thing.”
This time I didn’t try to hold the door for everyone. I just walked out, very aware of the woman practically running behind me trying to keep up with me.
As I left, I pushed through the doors, letting them swing closed on the woman stomping out from behind me.
When she followed me all the way to my bike, I finally looked back at her.
“You mind giving me a ride again?” She angrily shifted from foot to foot.
I eyed her sneer and her angry eyes and said, “Find your own way home, Red.”
“But…”
I got on my bike.
No way was I giving her a ride home when she couldn’t even be grateful or say thank you.
Not to mention, she’d purposefully eaten the last sandwich when she’d known she already had one.
I was hungry, tired, and wanted to ride a hell of a lot faster than she could probably handle.
She could find her own way home.