Page 8 of Drilled

“You really are the queen of melodrama,” I muttered, tossing my folders onto the desk and shrugging out of my jacket. “We have a client meeting in ten. Let’s focus on that, huh?”

“It’s called multitasking,” she singsonged, but followed my lead and jumped back into work.

*

“I’m telling you, the son of a bitch kept eyeballing me the whole night. He deserved it, he was looking for trouble.”

My eyes flitted quickly over to Nance beside me, her face fixed to the notepad she was using to scribble pertinent details. She didn’t look at me but I knew her well enough to recognize the tense lines around her mouth. We both knew this one was going to be a tough nut to crack.

I leaned forward in my chair, one arm spread out in front of me and tapping my pen on the desk surface. Our client, a belligerent barely-twenty year old bar-hopper from Pilsen, was sitting with his legs spread wide, one bouncing up and down in a way that betrayed the nerves his brittle arrogance failed to cover.

“I’m going to need a bit more detail about what happened that night, Mr. Jones. We can get to why Mr. Roberts deserved it afterwards, but I need to know exactly what it was that he deserved in the first place,” I explained, my voice calm and level.

His brown eyes regarded me with suspicion. “You weren’t there, Miss. With all due respect, you have no idea how it is in places like that.”

“Maybe that’s true,” I admitted. “So teach me. Tell me how it is.”

He hesitated, shifting in his seat.

“Look, Terry, can I call you Terry?” I asked. He nodded, avoiding my eyes. “Terry, I work for you, okay? Not the judge, and definitely not the cops. But if I’m going to help you, I’m going to need the full version of the truth.”

“I was clocking out of my shift. They got in my face, Those types always do, punks who think they’re tough shit. He blocked me when I tried to leave, started throwing his weight around and shoving his arm into my chest. That’s when I grabbed the ashtray off the closest table and popped him in the jaw.”

His tone was borderline aggressive, but I recognized he was trying to mask the fact that he was practically pissing himself. Ian Roberts was still currently in the hospital and Terry Jones was the one sitting with an aggravated battery charge. He gave me a look when he mentioned the ashtray, one that seemed to dare me to find what he did repugnant. But when I simply nodded slowly without flinching, his body seemed to deflate slightly.

“Got it. He was up in your face, challenging you and you knew that you had a window to defend yourself,” I said.

Terry blinked in surprise, as though he couldn’t quite process what I’d just said to him. “Yeah…yeah that’s it. That’s exactly it, he got in my way.”

“I want to go back to something you said. You said ‘they’ got in your face. But it was Ian who you hit with the ashtray, correct? Was there anyone else involved?” I asked.

“Yeah,” Terry answered, sounding relieved. “His cousin. The big guy was waiting in the back the entire time until Roberts decided to square up at the bar. Then he started moving closer.”

My eyes sharpened and Nance looked up at me, as though she could feel that I’d zeroed in on our angle.

“So there were two of them?” I confirmed.

“Yes,” Terry said.

Bingo. This sounded like an Affirmative Defense claim based on “reasonable apprehension of imminent battery”. If we spun this right, I could get him off the hook, provided he was being honest. And if my discernment was correct, beneath all that posturing and hot air, this was just a kid who was scared and made a dumb decision.

“Okay. I’m going to send an investigator to that bar tomorrow to pull the security footage before they loop over it. If we can prove you were boxed in, that ‘aggravated’ felony charge becomes much easier to fight.”

Terry actually slumped in his seat, exhaling softly. “You…you really think so?”

“Yeah. I really do. But you need to stay off social media and don’t talk to anyone else but me, alright?” I told him.

He nodded eagerly, thanking me profusely as I ended the meeting and dismissed him.

“What are the chances of the charge being dropped to Battery?” asked Nance as we packed up for the day.

“Pretty good if his response is anything to go by. I’m sure that footage is going to give us what we need to prove he was just defending himself. Not in the best way, sure, but he wasn’t out there looking to break anyone’s jaw,” I answered.

“Good spotting the mention of the cousin, by the way,” Nance said as we walked out of the building, shoulders brushing. “I didn’t even pick up on it.”

“Comes with time,” I said with a shrug. “You eventually start hyperfixating on little details.”

I felt good about the upcoming trial. This was the sort of case I loved covering. Terry Jones did an idiotic thing, but he wasn’t a bad kid. And if he was left to the wolves, I knew the system would tear him apart. This was why I did what I did and why I enjoyed it.