Ducane
present day
“Counselor, the jury is yours.”
I buttoned my jacket, took one breath, and walked to the center of the courtroom. I had been preparing for this moment for eleven days, and if I was being honest, my whole career. Joseph Walker was not my biggest case on paper. He would be when I was done.
Life and loss had turned me into a shark. That’s what people respected. Something dangerous enough that nobody mistook kindness for weakness anymore.
I turned and faced the jury. Twelve people who had been sitting in those seats long enough to be tired of everyone in this room. I was going to be the last thing they remembered.
“Ladies and gentlemen.” I smiled. Not the lawyer smile. The real one. “You’ve been very patient with us.”
A few of them smiled back. That was all I needed.
“The prosecution spent two weeks telling you who Mudd the entertainer is. His lyrics. His videos. His lifestyle.” I walked slowly, hands relaxed at my sides, like we were having a conversation and I had nowhere else to be.
“They spent a lot of money and a lot of your time painting a picture of a dangerous man.” I stopped. “What they forgot to do was prove it.”
I let that sit.
“Now I want to talk to you about something the prosecution hoped you wouldn’t notice.
Not because you aren’t smart enough to notice.
You are. Every single one of you.” I looked at Juror Four, a retired schoolteacher from the south end who had been nodding at my arguments for eleven days.
“They hoped you were too busy to notice. They hoped you’d be so busy looking for the needle in the haystack that you’d miss the haystack full of evidence. ”
I walked to the evidence table and picked up a single document.
“Cell tower data. Putting my client forty miles from the scene at the time of the alleged incident.” I set it down.
“A witness whose statement changed three times before trial. Three times must be the charm.” I held up three fingers and shrugged.
“And surveillance footage from a camera two blocks east that the prosecution’s office was made aware of in discovery.
” I paused. “And chose not to disclose.”
The prosecutor straightened in her seat.
“Now, I want to be fair to AUSA Anvers.” I turned toward her with that same smile.
“I’m sure that was an oversight. I’m sure nobody in that office looked at footage that would exonerate my client and made a decision about it.
” I turned back to the jury. “But whether it was intentional or incompetent, the result is the same. My client’s right to a fair trial was compromised, and the only people in this room who can do anything about that are the twelve of you. ”
I walked back to the center and stood there for a second.
“Mudd makes music. He’s very good at it.
Three platinum albums say so. But making music about a life is not living that life.
Writing about something is not doing it.
If that were true, half the writers in this country would be in prison, and the other half would be running from it.
” A few jurors laughed. “Joseph Walker is a philanthropist. A son. A father to two beautiful children and a husband to their mother. Joseph can be found at local gyms and community centers handing out new shoes or giving the ones off his feet. And you know why I didn’t lead with that?
Because it didn’t matter. My client was nowhere near the scene of the crime. He’s innocent.”
I grabbed my water and took a sip before looking back at them.
“Find my client not guilty. Because he is. Because the evidence says so. Because you came here to do a job, and the job is the truth.” I looked at every face one more time. “I trust you to do it.”
I buttoned my jacket and returned to my seat.
My father stood and left the courtroom before the judge even dismissed the jury.
Still finding ways to make everything about himself and piss me off in the process.
I didn’t play that bragging shit, but I was good at this.
I had been studying law in my own way since I was a kid, following my grandfather around. School was a technicality.
I didn’t need that man’s well-wishes or his oversight. I didn’t even understand what he was doing in Upland. His claim to be auditing the office sounded like bullshit. We didn’t need an audit. Upland was outperforming every other location. My team and I carried Shane they’d spin anything for clicks and views.
I refused to give them anything to make money off of.
“What about Bianca?” Will you talk about that?”
I headed inside, especially ignoring that shit. The elevator moved quickly to my floor. I could hear the party before I made it off the elevator.
When I stepped off, the tenth floor was unrecognizable. Black and gold everywhere, somebody had gotten streamers and balloons and a banner that said NOT GUILTY in letters big enough to see from the lobby. Rayna had a bottle of Moet already open and was pouring it into plastic cups.
They saw me before I got to the reception desk.
The cheer that went up hit me in the chest in a way I hadn’t been expecting. My team. The people who had worked with pulling discovery, running down witnesses, building the case that everybody in that courtroom felt today. They earned this celebration as much as I did.
“Y’all are all fired for drinking on the job,” I said, laughing as I made my way to my office.
I stopped and turned to them. “Look, I don’t usually get emotional, but we did some big shit today.
We should all be full of pride. And on some real shit, I need a minute.
I’ll be back out to party. Thanks for all the hard work. ”
The cheers got louder, and I chuckled as I made it behind the door of my office. I removed my suit jacket and plopped down at my desk with another sigh.
I took everything in before I pulled the strip with four pictures from our first homecoming together out of my desk and studied it. I locked in like I’d never seen it before. Anything I did was for her. In spirit at least.
My alarm went off. I headed to the small bar in my office, grabbed water, and took my blood pressure medicine. Two years ago was when shit really started clicking. I felt like God, or someone, was showing me signs of the fake life I had been living. It was killing me. Truly killing me.
The dizzy spells started during the closing arguments in one case.
A consistent ringing in another. Standing in front of a jury talking about reasonable doubt, I felt the room tilt just enough to make me grab the edge of the podium.
Nobody noticed. I made sure of that. But I noticed. I had been noticing ever since.
The doctor used words like chronic stress, hypertensive crisis, and lifestyle modification. I sat in that office chair, heard all of it, drove back to work, and took on three more cases. That was what I did.
Until my body stopped me.