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"If you have the facts on your side, pound the facts. If you have the law on your side, pound the law. If you have neither the facts nor the law, pound the table."
Mutant law was an emergent field, more or less the wild west of the legal profession, and on a good day, you're lucky if the law and facts aren't all dead-set against you. And when your list of recurring clients includes the Wielder of Cerebro and the Master of Magnetism?
Well... suffice to say, there is plenty of pounding the table to be done.
"Order! Order!" The judge presiding over his arraignment, the Honorable Sean McMahon, brought his gavel down upon the bench. "I will have order in this courtroom! Bailiff!"
At the judge's command, the bailiff of the court moved towards the gallery to intimidate any rabble-rousers among the observers to quiet down, though not without sparing a moment to sneer in Hank's direction. Hank did his best not to let his hackles raise in annoyance; he worked hard to ensure that his body language spoke of the gentleness that his appearance belied, and would not have it undone by such a petty slight as this.
"Much better," the judge said, sitting back down in his elevated chair. "Now that we've all decided to behave like civilized people again – Mr. McCoy, I believe somebody is missing from your table."
"Ah, yes, your Honor." Hank stood before speaking, eyeing the empty chair next to him where the court-appointed attorney, a… oh, what was his name? Dodge? Lodge? No, Hodge, that was it, where Mr. Hodge was supposed to have been seated before he even arrived. And yet, the man was nowhere to be seen. Hank wanted to sigh; he should have expected this, truly. After the injustices mutants such as he had faced in the courtroom, it had been optimistic of him to expect—
The door at the back of the courtroom creaked open, the hinges holding old, heavy wood groaning in protest with every motion. A quick staccato rhythm of heels on tile followed, and as they drew closer an unexpectedly familiar and unwelcome scent, almost reptilian, filled his nostrils. This time, he could not keep his hackles from raising, though Hank tried to disguise it by shifting his posture. Of all the people to have possibly shown up…!
"My apologies for the delay in meeting with my client, your Honor," a blonde-haired woman, clad in a smart black skirt suit, said as she approached the front. She passed the bar of the court with the air of long practice, then slid in front of the chair on Hank's right at the table, closer to the aisle, as though she belonged there, placing her briefcase on the table in the same motion. "I am sure you can understand why somebody such as myself would have a hard time making her way past the crowd out front."
"Of course," the judge said, an odd grin spreading across his face even as his eyes narrowed. "I can certainly see how a woman of your stature and… ahem, reputation would find the crowd outside hard to manage. Very well, now that all parties are present. We are here today for the arraignment of Henry Philip McCoy. Would the attorneys please come forward and announce your names for the record?"
Both women before the bar of the court stood and made their way roughly halfway between counsel's table and the bench, angling to face the court stenographer.
"Michelle Dawson, for the People of the State of New York," the prosecutor said.
"Noa Schaefer, on behalf of Dr. Hank McCoy."
"Very well, if both Counsels could return to their tables." Once Schaefer was back at the table with him, Hank turned to whisper towards her, only for a finger to come up. She reached into her briefcase and retrieved a notepad and several pens; curiously, Hank noted, she did not touch any of four large, visibly-expensive pens that all lay clipped to the front of her briefcase. She instead clicked the pen she'd retrieved and underlined something already written on the notepad, which she slid over to Hank.
Your job here is to say as little as possible, the note read. Sit down, shut up, look somber, and at most say 'yes your honor' or 'no your honor'. We can talk in private later. Hank looked up from the note, but Schaefer had already turned away from him and towards the judge.
"Now, Mr.—my apologies, Dr. McCoy," the judge said, though the slight smirk on his face was enough to tell Hank that the 'slip-up' was anything but. "You are being charged with the following: criminal trespass in the first degree, criminal mischief in the first degree, criminal tampering in the first degree, and destruction of government property. How do you plead?"
"My client pleads not guilty, your Honor." Schaefer's answer drew jeers and boos from the gallery of the court, though they quickly died down when the bailiff took a single step towards the public.
"So entered," Judge McMahon said, with a look at the court reporter. "Mrs. Dawson?"
"Your Honor, due to the severity of the defendant's crimes and the demonstrated danger he poses to the community, the People move to deny bail and request that he be remanded into custody immediately." Hank tensed, the hair on the back of his neck rising, but Schaefer's hand on his shoulder, light as her touch was, might as well have been an albatross around his neck.
"I see. Ms. Schaefer?"
"Your Honor, the defense moves that Dr. McCoy be released on his own recognizance and—"
Whatever else Schaefer was about to say, it was lost in the sudden uproar from the gallery. Shouts and jeers erupted, all of it blending into a cacophony of raw noise harsh enough that Hank couldn't help but bring his hands up to cover his ears, if only to muffle at least a small part of it.
"Order! Order!" The judge banged his gavel down on the bench five times, and the noise quieted to a dull, but still loud roar. "I will not have my courtroom devolve into a circus! Anyone and everyone who dares interrupt these proceedings again will be found in contempt of court, and sentenced to the maximum fine and prison sentence! Do I make myself clear!?"
In mere moments, the gallery was silent as a grave. No matter the vitriol they may have held for mutants such as they, nobody in the gallery was willing to risk prison time just to demonstrate their anger.
"Now, Ms. Schaefer, if you would please continue."
"Of course, your Honor." During the whole commotion, Schaefer hadn't so much as budged, holding her position with an iron composure that Hank wished he could emulate at this particular moment. "As I was saying, the defense moves that Dr. McCoy be released on his own recognizance, and removed to a secure location. As evidenced by the assassination attempt on my client's life by the criminal mutant commonly known as 'Magneto', and the resulting casualties sustained by the brave men and women at Riker's, keeping Dr. McCoy in the proximity of regular persons poses a grave threat to life and limb. The lengths to which this 'Magneto' was willing to go to, only withdrawing once the captain of the guard called for reinforcements from the military, clearly show us that keeping Dr. McCoy in a known location would be an unconscionable risk on the part of the People. As such, the defense requests that Dr. McCoy be released on his own recognizance, that he may be removed to a secure location known only to select few."
It took every bit of Hank's self-control to not turn and boggle at Schaefer, though the sudden murmuring from the gallery certainly served to echo his own thoughts. What in the world was she trying to spin? Hank knew very well that what had happened was an attempted jailbreak, not an assassination attempt.
How in the world did she expect anybody, let alone a judge, to believe this, this… cockamamie story?
"Your Honor, the People strenuously object—!"
The judge raised his hand, and the prosecutor went quiet in an instant.
"What you're proposing is, I'll admit, rather interesting," he said. "Ms. Schaefer, on what grounds are you calling this an assassination attempt?"
"Your Honor, in addition to multiple accounts of clashes between this 'Magneto' and other mutants that my client is known to associate with," Schaefer said, withdrawing a pair of manila folders from her briefcase as she spoke, "I also have with me a pair of signed affidavits from the guards assigned to Dr. McCoy's cell, both of whom stated, under oath, that they clearly saw 'Magneto' pose a serious threat to Dr. McCoy's life prior to their intervention and subsequent incapacitation. In fact, it is likely only due to their heroism, and the time that they managed to buy, that Dr. McCoy is with us in this courtroom today. Furthermore, the fact that Dr. McCoy's restraints remained in place, even as the rest of the prison cell and structure was torn apart, clearly demonstrates that 'Magneto' was there for some reason other than Dr. McCoy's well-being. Given the past enmity between 'Magneto' and my client's known associates, the only reasonable explanation is that he meant to do my client harm in some manner. With this in mind, it would be irresponsible in the extreme to risk the well-being of both the prison staff and everybody incarcerated at Riker's, both serving sentences and awaiting trial, simply to have one person who has no criminal record and is yet to be convicted of any crime, locked in a cage like an animal at a zoo."
"Your Honor," the prosecutor stood up again, "I must once again reiterate that the People strenuously object to this—"
"You will keep the People's objections to yourself, Mrs. Dawson," Judge McMahon said, his voice echoing with finality. "Ms. Schaefer, whether or not I actually believe that the motive behind last night's kerfuffle at Riker's is the one you put forth, the fact of the matter is that gambling on its accuracy with human lives is a risk I do not have the right to take. As such, I will be granting your motion, but do be warned – if the defendant does not show up for his day in court, and you do not have a reason for his absence backed up with proof so ironclad it could take a missile and stay intact, then you will find yourself having a particularly bad day. Are we clear?"
"Yes, your Honor," Schaefer said, bowing her head to the judge. "The defense would like to thank the Court for its generosity."
"Of course. So ordered, the defendant shall be released upon his own recognizance. Counsel for both parties will submit discovery requests and tentative witness lists to the Clerk within fourteen days, barring any motions for extension, and make appointments with a court stenographer for any depositions taken. Once discovery is complete, we'll go from there. To the peanut gallery, all of you will remain in place until the defense has left the courtroom, and I would remind any of you that dare so much as think of accosting them that my previous threat remains in place. Court is adjourned."
The judge's gavel came down, and Schaefer was on her feet in an instant, collecting her things and slipping out past the bar. Hank made to follow, a court police officer trailing him, and even though they were halfway down the hall when the courtroom door closed after their exit, he could still hear the uproar.
She led him through the halls, the click of her heels echoing through the oddly empty halls of the courthouse, before she stopped in front of the door to one of the many conference rooms the courthouse reserved for use by attorneys and their clients.
"Officer, if you would please remove my client's restraints?" The officer looked between Hank and his lawyer, whose arms were now crossed under her chest, one finger tapping on the outside of her elbow. "Now, officer." The man quickly complied, unlocking the cuffs that had been around Hank's wrists since early this morning. Hank rubbed at the joints, thanking his lucky stars that his fur had both prevented them from being made overly tight and also kept the metal from chafing. "Thank you. Now, if you would remain outside, I need to speak with my client in private."
"O-of course," the court officer said, stepping to the side of the door and assuming a solid, if a mite hesitant, ready position. Schaefer let out a small huff of disdain, one that Hank could barely hear even with his enhanced senses, before pushing open the door to the conference room.
The door closed with a heavy whoosh of air, and silence descended. Schaefer remained where she stood, one hand on the back of another chair at the conference table, not even turning to face him.
"Well isn't this a surprise," she said, after the silence had extended entirely too long for his taste. "After how our last meeting went, I'd expected you to be tearing me limb from limb the second we were in private. I'm impressed."
"At least have the decency to show me your real face when you say that." Hank carefully kept his voice level, not rising to the taunt, no matter how dearly he wanted to.
"Very well," she said, raising a hand. "If you insist." She snapped, prismatic light sparking from between her fingers.
In a flash, Noa Schaefer's obscurement, her 'glamour' as she'd called it, collapsed into shards of rainbow light, her true appearance shimmering back into existence with flares of rainbow static. Patches of pale scales crawled out of her skin in symmetrical arrangement, blossoming across her cheeks, her forehead, her neck, the back of the hand that could barely encircle his thumb. Horns of bone emerged and enveloped what had only looked like human ears, projecting outwards about an inch before sweeping backwards to end just past the rear of her skull. A barb-tipped, reptilian tail snaked out from beneath her skirt, the back of her skirt suit bulging out slightly at the coccyx.
"There," she said, voice low and annoyed. "Are you happy now?" She turned around and quirked one eyebrow at him, arms crossed under her chest, even as the rest of her expression remained placid and bored.
Hank wanted to sigh, but he would not give her the satisfaction. Instead, he simply pulled the largest of the chairs at the conference table out for himself, and sat down.
"Thank you," she said. Schaefer then reached into her briefcase and produced a lint roller, which she took to her suit with vigor. "Ah, this is one of the parts of spending time with you that I never liked: the shedding. Regardless, I believe you had some questions for me?"
"Some?" Hank couldn't keep from scoffing at this point, even as he ignored the clear insult in her words and actions. "I have more questions for you than you could imagine, so many things I want you to answer for! But right now there's only one that really matters." Hank knew that trying to intimidate her would serve no purpose. Despite the fact that the woman was just under five feet tall and maybe weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, his size was nothing to her. Any threat of violence to her was also moot, because his fate, his freedom, was now tied to her. So while there were many questions that he wanted to ask, there remained but one he knew would be answered. "Why are you helping me, Noa?"
Schaefer favored him with a small smirk, then put the lint roller away and took out a makeup compact in its place. "Our occasionally being on opposite sides now doesn't preclude me from being able to help you, Hank."
The four ornate 'pens', which had previously been clipped to the front of her briefcase, floated into the air and took formation in a steady circle around her. A moment later a flickering rainbow light issued from their tips, and with a grasp and twist of Noa's fingers, she bent the light around her body. That same prismatic static from earlier now obscured her inhuman features before dissipating, leaving her public guise in their place. Sparse patches of scales faded away to match the surrounding human skin, horns receded to reveal fleshy human ears, and her tail disappeared, the only sign of its existence smoothed over with a minor adjustment of her skirt. In a matter of seconds, Schaefer once again looked to be nothing more than a regular human.
"There, that's settled. Again. I'd thank you not to touch me in a way that breaks the illusion, please." She flipped her compact closed with a sigh before placing it back within her briefcase and flipping its top flap closed. An idle gesture sent her pens flying back into position, clipping into place before the dull blue glows running up their lengths faded, and they resembled nothing more than an overabundance of too-expensive calligraphy instruments once again. "Now come on. We have to get you back to the manor, then it's time to start planning your defense."
"And you think Charles will let you in?" Hank asked, utterly flabbergasted. "Let you back inside the manor, after everything you did?" His hands came down heavy on the table, the wood groaning beneath his weight and strength. "You truly think he'd let you back in after what you've done? How you betrayed him? Betrayed us!?" Hank demanded this of her with a snarl, lips peeling back from his teeth.
"Of course I do," Schaefer said, sweeping her briefcase off the table and walking towards the door. "Charles is, after all, paying my retainer. Now come on." She pulled the door and held it open for Hank, who could only stare at her in mute shock. "Limo's waiting."
To those of y'all who read and follow my other stuff: yes. I know. Another new fic. I get it, okay? But it's hard to study for the bar exam without wondering which fandoms could do with a lawyer in the right place at the right time. And so, even while I was doing practice exams and studying and outlining and memorizing mnemonics... this started percolating in the back of my mind.
And so, a couple weeks later... well, this.
Hope y'all enjoy! And remember: if you have neither the law nor the facts, you can at least try to pound the table.
Hope y'all enjoyed the prologue. But as much as I would love to regale you with what comes next for Dr. Hank McCoy... it's time to do the time warp again.
We have to go back, Marty! Back to 1987!
Pound the Table
Chapter One
1987
I had often wondered what I would do if I found myself in the past, far enough that certain bits of knowledge could be put to use. I'd also asked myself, on more than one occasion, what I would do if I found myself in a fictional universe. There were the expected answers, like investing in companies that you knew were going to make it big.
(Which, to be fair, is exactly what I did – I made sure to purchase stock in Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Sony, just to name a few. And I'd even managed to make a killing on Stark Industries stock, though I would forever regret that I now needed to pay attention to shareholder meetings, or at least remember to request the meeting's minutes.)
But then you get to the more interesting answers. Maybe you want to make a change in the world, whether for personal benefit or for otherwise. Perhaps there's something that exists that you want to experience before it disappears forever – and I will forever be saddened that I was off the mark from being able to see the complete Beatles, John Lennon and all, in concert.
(But I did catch Freddie Mercury! And oh, my god, that was practically a religious experience, let me tell you…)
In my case, there was, in fact, something I wanted to do. Something that was mainly for the hell of it, but that would also leave a positive mark on the world when it was done.
For you see, I wanted to take part in the Great Jewish Pastime: hunting Nazis.
(Now, I don't mean this in the sense of "break down their doors and shoot them dead". That was... not something that was within my wheelhouse. All I wanted to do was find them, report them, and watch in glee as the lives they managed to build, insulated from their crimes, were swept out from under them. I wanted to see the world take from them everything they took from their victims. I wanted justice, not vengeance. Vengeance got you killed. Justice let you sleep at night.)
The best part of it all? I had a rough idea of where to look. In… well, in what would have been the future now had I not slid several universes to the left, a major Jewish organization published a yearly list of the most wanted Nazi war criminals, and older versions of the list had been rather easy to find. I may not have had it on hand, but I did remember where the rather small number that could be found in the United States were, roughly.
But see, that's the hard part. I knew roughly where they were. And as for looking it up on the internet? Well… the internet didn't exist yet. It's amazing just how much I'd taken Google for granted, especially now that I was stuck doing my research the hard way. That meant I had to conduct my search in libraries, and was left with card catalogs, microfiche, and other physical media. Even knowing where I needed to look, it still took me the better part of three years to find one Nazi.
And even once I'd narrowed down my search, I was still in need of further information. I had a more defined location, but I was based in New York City. What I needed to finish my hunt was all the way in Portland, Oregon. Which meant…
"Alright, you will be in row twenty. As that is the exit row, are you able to discharge the duties expected of you should the need arise?"
"Yes, of course," I said.
"Very well then," the gate agent said, and tore off the stub of my ticket before handing it back to me. "Have a nice flight, miss."
"Thank you very much."
… that I got to be amazed at just how much easier it was to get on an airplane in the eighties. You simply went to the airport, bought a ticket there, slid through security with almost no fanfare, and boarded the plane. All of the security I'd grown used to, living in the 21st century? Nonexistent.
Once I was on the plane, I made my way to my seat – window in the exit row – and pulled what I needed out of my carry-on: a legal pad, several pens, a large manila folder, a pair of headphones, and a Walkman cassette player. I put on my headphones and pressed play, only to realize I hadn't rewound the cassette, so had to spend a few minutes letting it do that before I could block out the world around me. While waiting, I lowered my tray table, set down my legal pad, flipped open the manila folder, and got to reading depositions and evidence exhibits. Because even on what I'd told the firm was a weekend getaway, I still had a chance to log billable hours. Yes, even though it was a Friday night, and I was on an airplane bound for the other side of the country.
Welcome to working in a high-end law firm in Manhattan. Work is life, life is work. And after five minutes with this depo, I could already tell that come Monday I'd be asked to draw up a motion in limine so we could keep this witness off the stand. Much as I would have loved to just find a payphone and call the office so a paralegal could do this, I couldn't. Motions in limine were legal arguments, so it fell to me, the less senior lawyer, to write it up.
And me without a computer. Well, there went any chance of my getting to sleep on Sunday night.
I really should've just spent the few thousand dollars on a laptop. Twelve pounds to lug around was still worth not having to spend all night drafting a motion.
"Welcome," the librarian manning the desk at Multnomah County Public Library, an older woman with gray hair pulled back in a severe bun, said as I approached. "What can I help you with, miss?"
"I'm from out of town and need a phonebook," I said, offering the librarian a friendly smile. "And the ones in phone booths tend to be a little grimy, and, well." I gestured down at my attire, a blouse and skirt combo that was just slightly below business casual, paired with understated jewelry and a simple black purse, all of which helped speak to my age – I could only stand being mistaken for a teenager so many times before I started dressing more formally, if only so people would assume I was closer to my actual age.
"Oh, I understand completely," she said amiably, turning to pick up a binder. "Let me see… you'll be looking between 913 and 919, dear. And let me know if you find what you were after and need to make a call, it wouldn't be a problem."
"Of course, thank you!" With that, I turned towards the stacks and made my way through the stacks, praising the Dewey Decimal System as I went.
If this goose-stepper had been so easy to find just by picking up a phone book and flipping through it, I wouldn't have had to spend three years narrowing down my search. But the problem I'd faced is that I knew roughly what part of the country to look in, but had forgotten both the proper name and the precise location. This left me combing through fifteen years of publicly-available information records, from 1945 to 1960, and copying down every single German-sounding name I could find. Then I had to filter out all of the ones that were actually just Ashkenazi Jews like myself, to find the names it could be. Once I had that, I needed to make an inordinate number of day and weekend trips down to Washington, DC to browse the National Archives for what I needed. But eventually, I had a name, and a city. I just needed a phone book to search it in.
Once I rounded the corner of the stacks, though, I realized that this might be a little more difficult than I expected. Because when I checked the stacks, all of the local phone books from the last 30 years were… well, not there.
Which meant it was likely that somebody else in the library had them.
I left the stacks and went towards the common areas, filled with long tables and study carrels, and looked. I looked specifically for somebody, or perhaps multiple somebodies, surrounded by several feet's worth white and yellow books, spread out all around them. Sure enough? There they were, if a bit off the beaten path.
The man who'd taken all the phone books sat at a study carrel along the back wall, hidden behind rows upon rows of stacks. The surface of the carrel, and of the other two carrels beside it, were utterly festooned with phone books, and the man flipped through them in a manner that was at once hasty and deliberate. He had short-cropped brown hair, going a little bit gray at the temples, with a schnozz that I could have told you was Jewish from a mile away. The part that struck me as odd was that he was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and slacks when it had to be at least 80 degrees out, before humidity. All of this gave me a hunch, but he appeared to be a bit young for that, to me. If he was only starting to go gray now, more than forty years after the war…
No, that was unimportant. What was important is that he was hogging the phonebooks, and I needed one.
"Excuse me?" I asked as I approached. "Could I borrow this year's phone book from you?"
I received no response. The man simply ignored me, and continued to check through the phone book he was looking over, before he apparently didn't find what he was searching for, flipped it closed, and moved on to the next one. The one he'd pushed away from himself was 1964, and the one he'd grabbed was 1965.
"Excuse me?" I tried again. And once again, I received no response.
I wanted to sigh, but refrained from doing so. I wasn't sure whether he was ignoring me because I was a woman, because I was speaking English, or because he was just so engrossed in his task that he wasn't paying attention. Which meant I had to try a different tack.
It was almost immediately after I woke up in this time that I learned my new body hadn't been spun for me from whole cloth. Sure, there had been some… ahem, changes that occurred when this woman's body became mine, but before she vacated the premises, so to speak, she'd been a person who took actions, wrote diaries, and spoke languages.
And the knowledge on how to speak one of those languages, one which I hadn't known beforehand, stuck around.
"Excuse me, sir?" I asked again. But this time, in Yiddish.
The man gave an almost full-body flinch as his head snapped towards me. I watched his eyes as they looked from my face to my pale blonde hair, at which point his eyes narrowed a fraction. Suspicion, if I was reading him right; I would wager if he actually was a survivor, his opinion of me just based on my hair color was rather… unfavorable. Especially since a couple of words in Yiddish was easy enough to pick up just by spending time around certain groups of people.
"Are you using this year's edition?" I asked as I waved at the phone books. I continued to use Yiddish, and as I spoke, the suspicion faded from his eyes… though it was replaced by something else instead. "If you aren't, would you mind if I borrowed it?"
"Of course," he replied in English, accented in a way I'd heard dozens, even hundreds of time before, though far less strongly than I'd expected. "My apologies, I was not paying attention."
"It's not a problem," I reassured as I searched through the piles of phone books for the 1987 edition, switching back to English myself at the clear invitation. "You seem to be having a bit of trouble searching for something. Can I help in any way?"
"Thank you for the offer, but I don't think you can," he said, then pulled a set of yellow pages out from beneath four others. "Ah, here it is. And yourself, miss?" he asked as he handed me the most recent phone book.
I weighed my options as I took the phone book from his hands. A fellow Jew, possibly even a proper Holocaust survivor, scouring through all of the local phone books in a location that I knew had an escaped Nazi in it? What were the odds?
"Well," I started, my choice made, "you could say I was hunting for someone."
The man's eyes flicked straight down to mine, and he stared, as though he was searching for something behind them. I looked up at him and matched his gaze, unwavering, unflinching. I'd dealt with more unnerving stares in the courtroom, but even so, something in me desperately wanted him to find whatever it was he was searching for in me.
"... in that case, my dear," he said, breaking the stare and offering me a roguish grin. "I believe we may be tracking the same person." He held out a hand for me. "Erik Lehnscherr."
A sudden chill ran down my spine, all the way to the tip of my invisible tail.
"Noa Schaefer," I said, taking his hand despite my sudden fright. Then I felt a static shock, and I couldn't help the widening of my eyes as my glamour broke.
With a rainbow shimmer and the crackle of static, the mystical light that hid my true appearance from the world dissipated. I saw his eyes dart to the scales on my hands, arms, and face, before drifting to the hollow horns I had instead of ears, and finally down to my tail when I unconsciously flicked it out of nerves.
"I wondered what that was I felt," he said with a self-satisfied smile. "How sad it is that you feel you need to hide yourself."
I glared at him, then reached for the desk lamp at the carrel and flicked it on. A quick turn of my wrist lensed some of the light through a cubic zirconium on my bracelet, and I grabbed at that brief rainbow with my other hand. It spun around me for an instant before settling over my inhuman features, and they faded away, the light showing only their human equivalents.
"I don't know what else it is that you can do," I said, blatantly lying to his face (not that he had any way of knowing that, though), "but I frankly don't care. Don't do whatever it is you just did to me again. Understand?"
"I understand perfectly well," he said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. "My apologies, your secret is safe with me. Now, where were we, exactly?"
"Doing something that should've been done a long time ago." I turned away from Erik and picked up the phone book, flipping through the white pages to the E's, and then flipping further through them until I found the name I was looking for. "There he is, address and everything," I said.
"Excellent." Magneto's smile held a promise in it, one of wrath and retribution, and yet I couldn't spare a shred of pity for a man who deserved all that and more. "I'll drive."
Navigating to an unfamiliar location in the age before GPS takes a substantial bit of focus, a lot of care, and often a few papercuts. While I did manage to avoid the papercuts this time, the attention needed meant that neither of us could afford to start an actual conversation during the drive. This meant that we spent thirty minutes in what started as companionable silence, interspersed by directions and navigation. As we drew closer to our destination though, the tension ratcheted up as we anticipated what was coming.
Erik pulled the car up to the curb, and he again treated me with a look of amusement when I unfastened my seatbelt.
"What?" I asked, not able to keep my tone from sounding testy. "It's a safety thing." He could only give an amused sniff as he exited the car. I followed suit moments later, and the two of us walked up to the Nazi's house.
It looked like any other slice of American Suburbia. You know the type: green lawn with a small, waist-height (or sternum-height, if you're as short as I am) white picket fence, standing before a two-story house that looked almost exactly the same as all the houses next to it. It looked completely and utterly normal. What glimpses the two of us could see through the windows also appeared to be utterly average, with nothing in particular to distinguish it. Hell, there was even a boring landscape painting that I could swear was on the cover of Hallmark cards everywhere, hung on the wall in a cheap frame that probably cost at most five dollars.
"Looks like nobody's home," I said, pointing at the driveway. There was a clear pair of tire treads from where a car came in and out, but that car clearly wasn't here now.
Erik saw this, then stepped past me and made a light gesture with his hand, at which the door to the house slid open.
"Then we might as well prepare our 'friend' a warm welcome," he said, stepping inside.
It was around this time that I started to have my doubts. My original plan had just been to track the Nazi down, get some photographic evidence that he lived here, and send it to people who could actually do something about him. Not once during the times I'd envisioned how this would go did I imagine that I would actually be confronting a Nazi in hiding in his own home.
But there was also no way I could have anticipated coming across the Master of Magnetism himself in the process.
Looking back on things, maybe I should have just walked away. Maybe I would have spared myself a lot of hurt and misery if I'd turned around. But that wasn't what happened.
Instead, I followed Erik Lehnscherr inside.
The interior of the house was more of the same as the outside, if not a little… I don't know. Something about it was off. I could imagine seeing everything about this house in the pages of a Sears catalog, but at the same time, it resembled exactly that too much. This place felt sterile, like nobody lived in it.
"Why do you do it?"
The sudden question from Erik made me do an actual double-take, and I looked back at him in confusion.
"Why do I do what?" I asked.
"Hide yourself," he said, waving a hand in my general direction. "You've been given a gift, Ms. Schaefer. To be better than humanity, to be more. And yet there you are, tucking it away beneath your powers."
Oh, wonderful. It's time for the propaganda pitch.
"Because I want to be able to live my life without being gawked at on the street," I replied. "Also, it's really not that hard to be, as you put it, 'better than humanity'. Your average human being is overall selfish and greedy, if predisposed to odd bouts of altruism on occasion. All it takes to be 'better' than that is to make compassion be your default instead of a treat for special occasions."
"I rather think behavioral norms to be beside the point," Erik countered, even as he gently pushed on every one of the books on the bookshelf, their spines oddly uncreased. "When I say 'better', I do not mean the manner in which you comport yourself. I speak instead of the fact that you possess abilities that no human can match without requiring technology or augmentation. Abilities which you seem content to use only to lower yourself back down to their level."
While Erik checked the living room, I busied myself with what resembled a home office. I say 'resembled' because I couldn't find anything that so much as appeared to be a business document. The closest thing I found was a past-due utility bill, which was for a different address than the one we were at.
"And what would you have me do with my powers?" I asked, raising my voice so that it would carry into the other room. "Or should I just parade around in my normal appearance as a curiosity for people to stare at?"
Erik chuckled.
"Listen to yourself," he said. "Where is your drive, your fire? Does it not stifle you to hide this part of yourself, to cover it up for their benefit?"
I huffed, and dropped the stack of papers I'd been going through before walking back through the living room into the kitchen so I could speak to him face to face.
"Of course it does," I said, arms crossed under my chest. "Do you really think I like having to be careful how close I get to other people, or how long a handshake lasts, just so that my glamour doesn't break? Do you think I like having to sit awkwardly in solid-backed chairs because they weren't made with tails in mind, and having to pass it off as 'just how I sit'? Of course I don't, but I don't really have another option here."
"And what if you did?" Erik waved a hand, and the various cabinets he'd been searching through all closed of their own accords. "Believe me, I have spent a long time learning the lessons of the past, and the time has almost come for me to take those lessons and change the world for the better."
"For the better?" I asked, leaning against the kitchen counter. "The better for whom, just mutants? Is it going to be worse for humans afterwards, even though they severely outnumber us?"
"That would depend, obviously." He was smooth, but I knew a hedge when I heard one.
"On what? And how do you plan on 'changing things' anyway? More than that, how sure are you that anything will even work?" I pushed off the counter with a huff and walked past Erik, not bothering to wait for an answer. Instead, I went all the way around and up the stairs, to the furthest room in the house from Erik: the bedroom.
As I'd expected, it was the only room that looked like somebody actually lived in it. The bed was made, almost impeccably so, but there were a few wrinkles in the pillowcases that let me know somebody used it. A glass sat on the nightstand, with a tiny bit of water left inside and a ring of condensation on its coaster. A pair of hampers in the corner had dirty clothes in them, separated into whites and colors, and one of the drawers in an old wooden dresser was slightly less closed than the rest of them.
I checked those dresser drawers first, but found nothing but men's clothing that had gone out of fashion over a decade ago. The closet, on the other hand, brought back that uncanny feeling that nobody lived here: clothes sat on hangers, perfectly spaced, but a quick finger over the top of a coat hanger came away with a thin layer of dust. If I was right, our Nazi only really took clothing from his dresser, and barely considered the closet.
The only other place of interest was the nightstand, so I walked over to the side of the bed, pulled open the drawer of his nightstand and… that couldn't be right.
I put a hand inside the drawer and let my fingers touch the bottom before wrapping my hand around the edge. The height of the drawer from the inside was only about halfway up my palm, but when I tried to do the same from the outside, the height of the drawer was the same as the length of my whole hand.
I pulled the drawer out of the nightstand and flipped it upside-down, emptying its sparse contents (a passport, a checkbook, some pens, a letter opener, an old book of crosswords, and a travel-size thing of tissue paper) onto the bed before flipping it back upright so I could take a closer look.
When I got to the back of the drawer, I found what I was looking for: a small seam, a carve-out in the drawer itself. It was the work of a couple minutes (and the letter opener from the drawer) to figure out how to get the damn thing open. When I did, I tilted the hidden compartment open, and shook its contents loose. Out came a small, leather-bound journal with yellowed pages… and a ring. I picked up the ring, then flipped it so I could see its face.
And staring back at me was a skull, surrounded by six grasping tentacles.
My gaze drifted down to the yellowed notebook that had been stored alongside what could only be a HYDRA ring. Part of me wanted nothing more than to burn this book, to destroy any remnant of the horrors that this… I hesitated to call it an organization. That these monsters had wrought. But at the same time, there was more to consider. I'd thought I was just tracking down a Nazi who thought he'd actually skated past judgment. But HYDRA? That changed things.
Whatever else I was going to do, though, would have to wait. The sound of a car pulling up the driveway was unmistakable, which meant I now had to hurriedly undo most of what I'd just done. I secreted both the ring and notebook away in my bag before sliding the cover of the hidden compartment back into place, then filled the drawer back up with its contents. The front door opened as I was sliding the drawer back into place, followed by the beginnings of a shout that ended in a strangled wheeze and the slam of the front door.
"You have escaped justice for quite some time, haven't you?" I heard Erik say. "Well, I'm afraid that ends now."
"Wait, stop!" I yelled out in Yiddish, almost tripping over my own feet as I left the bedroom. "We need to—"
A sickening snap cut off anything I was about to say. When I finally got down the stairs and back to the front door, the Nazi was already dead, the lamp and power cable Erik had used to do the deed already drifting back to its position on the floor of the living room.
I looked at the… the corpse, and then back to Erik, who only now seemed to realize he wasn't alone. An idle wave of his hand picked up the Nazi's corpse by his belt buckle and deposited him on the sofa, while the other hand opened the house's front door.
"We should go," he said. "Best we not be seen standing near a corpse."
I wanted to just stand there. Stand and stare at the spot where a human life – a horrid, sickening, monstrous example of one, but a life nonetheless – had been snuffed out with as much thought as one gave taking out the garbage. Stand, and stare, and wonder at the choices I'd made that led me to the point where I was now guilty of accessory to murder. Had we left any traces of our crimes? Would anybody care enough to try and find us? I thought about the ring in my purse, the one with HYDRA's insignia on it, the one I hadn't managed to show to Erik before it was too late to stop him. Who did this man know? Had we just been made into targets?
I wanted to stand there. But I couldn't, because Erik was right: we had to go.
And so we left, with a Nazi rotting away in our wake.
It was seven or eight minutes into the drive when we finally left a residential area and started hitting red lights again. It was also seven or eight minutes into the drive when Erik finally deigned to comment on just how furious I was.
"Why are you acting as though I've done something wrong?" he asked. "That man forfeited his right to live a long, long time ago."
"And you couldn't have waited five more minutes?" I snapped back, refusing to even look at him.
"Five minutes, five hours, five days. What difference would it have made?"
I wanted to scream at him, to yell at him that his not knowing what difference he would have made was precisely the point. Instead, I reached into my bag, pulled out the HYDRA ring, and set it in the cupholder. The movement of a single finger from Erik was all it took to bring the ring to his eye level, and when he saw it, he froze.
Or at least, until the honking from behind us got him moving again. The ring fell back into the cupholder with a clatter, and we were on our way again.
"... I see," he said, after we'd driven another five minutes in silence. "Tell me, what do you know of that symbol's meaning?"
"I know that HYDRA and the Nazi party were intertwined in some way," I told him. "About a decade ago, my parents were asked to tell their stories. Dad was at Auschwitz, and Mom at Treblinka, but both of them mentioned how you could tell who was actually important if they used 'Hydra' instead of 'Hitler'." I shrugged, getting ready to lie again. "That's about the long and short of it. So, just enough to know that if this man was hiding that," I pointed at the ring, "in the false bottom of a drawer, then he probably knew more people."
"And now we'll never know, because I killed him," Erik finished for me.
"Yes, and now because you couldn't let justice forty years late go for another five measly minutes, who knows how many more of them are now in the wind." I turned away from Erik to look out the window as we left the suburbs and returned to Portland proper.
"You mention you found the ring in a hidden drawer."
"What of it?" I asked.
"Was there anything else?" Erik spared a glance my way, but kept the majority of his focus strictly on the road. "I hesitate to think that his ring was the only thing tucked away."
"There was a notebook." I reached into my bag and pulled that out as well, and spared a second to flip through a couple pages. "Looks to all be in German, though."
"Then leave it with me," he said. "I will be able to decipher its contents."
I didn't really have a response. Instead, I just tossed the leather-bound notebook into the glove compartment, and resumed my silence. Thankfully, Erik was content to let that silence last a little bit longer.
"Back at the house, you asked if I had a plan," he started, breaking the calm, if tense, silence that had fallen between us.
"And?"
"I have… the makings of a plan," he confessed. "It has not been perfected, nor is it set in stone. My end goal, as I've said, is the betterment of society for the sake of mutantkind. As for how to get there…" He trailed off for a moment. "For us to have met at all, you must be capable of formulating an approach, and must also possess the drive to see it through. From one such person to another, what would you suggest?"
I saw this tactic of Erik's for what it was. He buttered me up first, likely in an attempt to make me see him more positively in response to how he seemingly found me. But I had preconceived notions of what kind of person Magneto was, and I'd held those opinions long before I met him. The man was a case of tragic irony, so determined to prevent the tragedy of his people from happening again that he instead became exactly what he hated, a little bit at a time.
The problem I had now, though, is that I wasn't sure who I was talking to. Was I speaking to Magneto, leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants, mutant terrorist who would be willing to destroy the rest of the world and sacrifice some of his own kind if it meant he could secure a future for the majority? Was this a Magneto for whom any mutant deaths, whether on his side or against it, was a tragedy to be avoided at all costs, regardless of the human death toll it would require?
Or was this somebody else entirely, and I just didn't know it yet?
Either way, I needed to say something. And at the very least, my answer wouldn't change, regardless of which Magneto I was speaking with.
So I took a deep breath, gathered my nerves, and answered.
"What do you know about the mere exposure effect?"
Magneto scoffed. "I ask you for your opinion on a plan of action, and this is your response? You want me to wait? To simply expect people to exist alongside mutants until they tolerate them?"
"Do you have any better ideas?" I challenged. "As in, actually, demonstrably better ideas? Because I don't. But just because I don't, and you don't, that doesn't mean nobody does. And it's entirely possible that someone out there has the answer, right now, and you wouldn't ever think to ask them because they're not a mutant."
Erik didn't have a response to that, at least not for a little bit. We drove several blocks in silence, and it was only as he pulled into a left turn lane and flipped on the blinker that he spoke again.
"You are particularly insistent that we mutants need allies. That I need allies," he said, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "Who exactly are you trying to foist upon me, then?"
"Hm? Oh, hell if I know." Erik turned away from the road and glared at me. "What? I'm not the one looking for help for a massive social movement. That's your job."
"You are infuriating," he said with a sigh, guiding the car into a left turn.
"I'm a lawyer," I told him with a smirk. "Being infuriating is about half of my job."
I would forever consider it a minor miracle that we parted on (mostly) amicable terms.
Despite giving him my number, and he giving me his, I heard nothing from Magneto for many weeks after we'd met. And when I did hear of him? Well...
FEDERAL PRISON BREAK!
MUTANT CRIMINAL RESPONSIBLE?
'From the front page of the New York Times' wasn't exactly the way I'd hoped.
I hated shareholder meetings. Anywhere between half to three-quarters of everything that was said flew completely over my head, and what little I did understand was usually more on the work product side of things than the actual business.
"... furthermore, our quarterly projections…"
Unfortunately, when you own just over five million dollars in Stark Industries stock, it's generally a good idea to at least try and attend the meetings. And until that investment made up less than ninety-five percent of my net worth, I needed to monitor it. I'd thought the audit that came my way was bad enough on its own. But these?
Well, let's just say it was a welcome relief when my pager went off for the third time in ten minutes, and that gave me a good enough reason to leave.
Because whatever shitshow was happening at the firm would at least be less painful than suffering through this.
And about one hour later, I realized just how wrong I was. I'd forgotten what time of year it was, and now, that meant I had to pay the price.
"Mr. Lieberman can see you now, Ms. Schaefer," my boss' secretary, a dour woman in her mid-fifties, told me as she put the phone down and turned back to her boxy, faux-wood paneled computer monitor to resume hunting-and-pecking for the right letters.
"Thank you again Antonia," I said, ignoring the scowl she sent me as I walked through the frosted glass doors into my boss' office. It was a particularly large example of a corner office, bigger than both my living and dining room together, with display cases along a wall and frames hanging on the wall. In those display cases sat awards from the Bar, legal associations, and charitable organizations. The walls were covered with photographs, framed newspaper clippings, and degrees, as well as a faded Mondale '84 campaign flag. Over at a massive desk by the large, floor-to-ceiling window, a heavyset, balding man in a surprisingly well-tailored charcoal pinstripe suit sat reading from one of several dozen manila folders spread out on the desk's surface, writing without looking in a legal pad that sat beside him.
"You wanted to see me sir?"
"Hm?" My boss and hiring partner at the firm, Schmoel "Sam" Lieberman, looked up from his work and frowned. "Ah, Schaefer. Finally showed up, I see. Come in, take a seat."
I had to fight not to frown at my boss, even as I took his invitation. Sam Lieberman was the attorney who hired me, and who I'd spent the most time working alongside these past few years. You would think this meant he'd taken me under his wing, but no, that was not the case. It only took me about six months before I realized that I was the token woman hire, and primarily existed for the purpose of… well, existing. Whereas my male colleagues all received a chance to act as lead attorney within one year of hiring, I had to wait three years for the opportunity. And even then, it was a softball case, one that a particularly enterprising high school mock trial student could have won.
Worse than that, even now that I was a senior associate at the firm, Sam Lieberman took full advantage of his right as partner to review my work himself, and even when he made absolutely no changes to what I'd written, he still got to append his name to the document when it was filed. It was stifling, but there was very little I could actually do about it.
"You picked a hell of a morning to be too busy for your job, Schaefer," Sam Lieberman didn't bother starting with the pleasantries, and this time I let my frown show.
"Sir, I booked leave for this morning four months ago," I said. "You signed off on the request yourself."
"That doesn't change the fact that you need a shadow." Mr. Lieberman rolled his chair somewhat to the side on his desk, picked up a stack of manila folders, and deposited them in front of me. "So you get to pick from the dregs. Unless you want me to just assign you one, of course."
Without a word, I took the stack of folders, left my boss's office, went down five floors in the elevator, and retreated to my own ten-by-fifteen interior office to peruse the files before me, all the while cursing whoever set the Stark Industries shareholder meeting on the same day I had to pick a law student to shadow me for the summer.
So, just to clarify: the current time of year was mid-May. This meant that university students were finishing up with their academic years. And for law firms specifically, this meant that all the summer hires we'd made back in February would be starting summer work soon.
Now, summer associates aren't handled the same way in every firm. Lewin, Lieberman, & Loeb, LLC, the law firm I worked at, essentially assigned every summer associate to one of the firm's attorneys for the entire summer. Most of the time, those summer hires went to senior associates, and occasionally a particularly impressive law student got scooped up by a partner. These assignments weren't random: once the summer got close, every practice area was given a list of second year students interested in their particular field, and a larger pool of first years was offered to the entire firm. The selection day was something we were informed of on the day of, and was first-come first-serve, with the exception that the partners got first pick. Having a summer associate was generally an optional thing, but there was a requirement that everybody in the firm have at least one every three years.
I was due for an associate. Today was the day they started, selection day.
And I'd missed my chance to pick an associate and make a good first impression because I was stuck at a shareholder meeting.
Now, that didn't mean I was screwed. There were a few associates left, there always were. Unfortunately, the few that didn't get picked early were generally nepotism hires, and nobody wanted to try and shovel knowledge down the throat of an idiot who only got hired because they happened to know the right person as opposed to the right laws. What was worse is that I didn't have the luxury of that option, which meant I had to pick somebody from this list of rapscallions and rejects. Before Lieberman decided to saddle me with the worst possible option for daring to make my opinion on case law and trial strategy known at firm-wide round tables.
Because heaven forbid the woman be correct. Sometimes I hated the 80's.
I sat down in my desk chair, and thanked my lucky stars that my desk had a closed front. I'm short – four feet eleven inches, so a little over five feet in the two- to three-inch heels I was willing to bear all day – so almost no matter the height of the desk chair, my feet weren't going to sit on the floor. Thankfully, I had a little cushioned stool under my desk so that I could let my feet rest on something rather than dangling in midair… and so I could kick off my heels and swap them for a pair of flats when I didn't need to present myself to a partner.
The top of my desk was, I will be frank, a bit of a mess. On a small side arm of the desk sat a boxy computer, an IBM PS/2, with a CRT monitor next to it. The main body of my desk had about six different notebooks, legal pads, and stacks of post-its laying atop it, along with a small zen garden and a pair of paperweights, one in the shape of a Star of David, the other a bit of schlocky tourist junk modeled after the Statue of Liberty. The notebooks and legal pads I stacked into a pile and shoved off to the side, and then I spread out the files of all the possible candidates I had to pick from.
A quick scan of the summer associates' last names let me eliminate five candidates, all rather conveniently named Lewin, Lieberman, or Loeb. Rule number one: don't let the boss's relative shadow you, especially when you're already more than a little disliked at the office. Once that was done, however, I had to actually open up the other folders and scan through.
The next several candidates I saw were… well, let's just say that I could see both why they were hired and why nobody picked them. All it took was checking their resumes, then their transcripts, and finally the last two paragraphs of their cover letters. Bland, cookie-cutter students with no particularly outstanding qualities, the type who probably followed a formula on 'how to be an attractive hire' without actually thinking about what kind of lawyer they wanted to be.
But after those folders, I found one that… well, quite frankly? It didn't make sense to me. The student's transcript told me his class rank was number one – he had the highest grades in his class, and was well on his way to valedictorian. His extracurriculars were similarly stellar – winner of both the 1L mock trial and moot court competitions, on the mock trial and moot court boards, and 1L representative on the student bar association.
Despite all of that, he hadn't been picked by anyone. None of the partners, none of the senior associates. Which meant that one of the absolute best students I'd ever seen was languishing in one of the conference rooms, probably doing his level best to network and absorb whatever information the mid-level associate assigned to keep them company was willing to share, but still having his time wasted.
Once I read his cover letter, though, it all made perfect sense to me… and sent my temper flaring even hotter than it already had been. My mind made up, I walked back through the halls, took the elevator five floors right back up, rocked one foot back on my heel as I waited for Mr. Lieberman to finish up some inane nothing even though I knew he wasn't busy right now, and finally walked back through those frosted glass doors to his office.
"Back so soon, Schaefer?" Lieberman asked. I simply walked up to his desk and slapped the folder down atop it, letting it do the talking for me. He picked it up, and when he finally read the name, I was treated to the sight of Schmoel Lieberman, one of the biggest of bigwig attorneys in Manhattan, doing a double take.
"You realize," he said, recovering remarkably quickly from his surprise, "that the firm is under no obligation to reimburse you for any additional costs you incur from taking on this associate."
"I understand very clearly," I responded, crossing my arms as I fixed my boss with a stern expression. "Do I get to meet my employee now, or what?"
"I'll have Antonia call him up," Lieberman said, turning to the side to pick up the phone. "Figures the dyke would mama bear over this one," he muttered under his breath, quietly enough that if I'd had normal human ears, I probably wouldn't have caught it. But even hidden beneath my powers, my horns picked up sound better than ears ever could.
Two minutes later, Antonia held the door open, and a young man walked through the doors, his gait hesitant and anxious. He wore a simple, cheap-looking gray wool suit, with a drab gray tie that probably used to be black before it got cleaned one too many times; his bright red hair, meanwhile, looked like it had been hastily and frantically combed, and barely had a definite part. The more notable features were the white and red cane in his hand, and the pitch-black sunglasses he wore.
"Excuse me, sir," he said as he entered, body language and voice saying one thing, but the actual way he moved telling a totally different story. He walked towards the desk, cane casting out the way one would expect a blind person to search for obstructions in their way, but the steadiness of his footfalls didn't match the uncertainty implied by the cane, though I did catch a very slight flinch when he brought his left leg down, as though he had a pulled muscle or other injury. "You asked to see me?"
"Yes indeed I did," Mr. Lieberman said, not once standing up from his chair this whole time. "I'd like you to meet Ms. Noa Schaefer. She's one of our senior associates, specializing in both criminal law and medical malpractice. She will be your supervising attorney during your summer here at Lewin, Lieberman, and Loeb."
"Thank you, sir," he said, turning to face me, though if he could see he would be looking a full foot above my head. "Matthew Murdock. Thank you for having me, Ms. Schaefer." Matthew moved his cane towards the side, and extended his right hand in my general direction.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Murdock," I said, taking his hand in my own. "And please, unless we're in front of clients, call me Noa."
"Wonderful, wonderful!" Mr. Lieberman gave a few sardonic claps, utterly spoiling the mood. "Now then, go show our new student attorney the lay of the land, then report back here after lunch. I've got word from Judge Andrews that he may be sending a big pro bono request our way, and it's right in your wheelhouse – criminal defense. You're lucky, Mr. Murdock - she's one of the best."
I wanted to shout, to scream, to say something rude and impolite at this sudden news. In a firm as large as this, pro bono work was usually taken by the firm at large for PR reasons, and by individual attorneys as they wished and could fit into their schedule. But being assigned a pro bono case meant that I would be losing out on my portion of the attorney's fees the firm would normally earn, and that the case was either doomed to fail, a hot potato that nobody wanted, or both.
But I couldn't shout, or scream, or say all that much.
"Understood, sir. Mr. Murdock, if you'd please come with me." I extended a hand to rest lightly on Matt Murdock's arm, and guided him out of the office.
All I could do was smile, nod, and accept.
"So, Mr. Murdock – would it be alright if I called you Matthew?" I closed the door behind Matt once he was inside my office, then pulled one of the two chairs in front of my desk out for him to sit in. I didn't bother to try and guide him to the chair; not only would it have been overly paternalistic to deliberately lead the blind man to a seat, but I got the feeling that he didn't actually need my help to get around in the first place.
"If you insist, ma'am," he replied, taking the seat and leaning his cane up against the side of my desk, though he kept his hand positioned so if it fell, it would land right back in his grasp. I walked around the desk to my chair and, knowing that it wouldn't be enough to break my glamour, nudged Matt's cane with my still-invisible tail.
Or I tried to, at least. Moments before the tip of my tail would have touched the cane, Matt pulled it towards him a couple of inches, and a quick glance at his face showed me a confused furrow of his eyebrows and a slight frown.
"As I told you in my – well, our boss's office," I said, sitting down in my desk chair, "when there aren't any clients present, Noa is fine. With clients, default back to 'ma'am' or 'Ms. Schaefer'." Matt nodded at this, but didn't otherwise make any response. "So, while I know you were given the spiel along with the other summer associates during onboarding, I wanted to take a few minutes to see if you had any questions."
"I do have a couple," Matt said, and from the slight rocking of his body I could tell he was tapping a foot. "Um. As far as getting materials in braille or raised lettering, how would I go about that?"
"That's part of my job actually," I told him before I stood up, then walked around my desk to get to a file cabinet behind Matthew. "The firm has had a few clients in the past who could only see hand motion, or whether a light was on, but also wanted to read the documents rather than having them read aloud to them. We occasionally contract out to a printer who can do the documents in braille, and while there is a nominal fee, I will be covering that. Let me see, where is it…" I pulled open the lower drawer of my file cabinet and bent down to search for the information the firm gave us, and while I did so, I also tried to reach for Matt's leg with my tail.
Once again, moments before I could make contact, he shifted away from my tail.
"Okay, here it is." Papers in hand, I stood up and nudged the filing cabinet closed with a foot, then stood at the side of the desk and perused the materials, wincing internally as I read the prices involved.
Now that I had the information, it seemed to me that the cost involved was one of the reasons that others in the firm passed on taking Matt on. Braille printouts were a dollar a page for normal paper, but legal-size paper and formatting pushed the price up to almost two dollars a page. That, combined with having to go eight blocks away to have everything printed, made me wonder just how expensive a braille printer would be. And those prices were if I had the documents on a floppy disk; if all I had was a hard copy, the minimum was fifty dollars, no matter the volume.
"It's a bit of a schlepp to get to this printer, but it's absolutely doable," I told him. "Any documents we get, I'll make sure to have a version in braille available for you by the next business day." I'd keep the info out; it would be useful later.
That said, it was time to confirm or deny my suspicions. "Anything else? Otherwise, I'll—oop!"
When I turned around to sit back in my desk chair, I let myself knock my Statue of Liberty paperweight off the desk. I reached as though to catch it before it fell, but missed, leaving only one other person capable of doing so.
It wasn't that Matt Murdock caught the thing; it was the infinitesimal flinch forward and then restraint that confirmed my suspicions. An irritated, disdainful expression twisted on his face as I smirked, only to be replaced by an almost serene calm. Reaching down, he picked up the paperweight and placed it exactly where it had been on my desk.
He didn't say anything, simply holding himself as still as possible.
"At this point, I'll ask the question again." I sat back in my chair, making sure my tone of voice sounded more amused than accusatory. "Was there anything else you wanted to ask? Not necessarily job-related?" I clarified at the end.
Matt sat silently for a moment. I resisted the urge to reach into my desk drawer and pull out a nail file, just to have something to do with my hands, and let him work through his thoughts.
"Your boss… seems particularly okay with mutants? Ma'am?" Matt offered, clearly trying to talk around the question rather than coming out and saying it.
"He doesn't know I'm a mutant," I told Matt, watching his expression carefully. Sure enough, there was the expected confusion, and I saw him mouth a few words to himself, clearly trying to formulate a question. "My powers let me hide what I actually look like from people's eyes. I can't do anything to stop a fellow echolocator from knowing what I actually look like." Understanding dawned. And then, once again, he seemed to catch what I said.
"'Fellow' echolocator?" he asked, to which I smiled.
"Probably not on your level, but if you put me in a room blindfolded, I could find my way out without knocking anything over or running into the walls," I told him. "Now that said, this could be rather useful. Tell me: how good is your hearing, exactly? Actually no, wait," I put a hand up to stop him from answering. "Different question first: what do you want for lunch?"
"Um?" was Matt's very eloquent response.
"Meals during work hours are comped by the firm," I told him, "and we tend to eat rather well. Since it's your first day, how about we go to The Palm for lunch, and continue this conversation there?"
It didn't exactly take much convincing beyond that. And the lunch hour was a welcome reprieve before I learned just what kind of hellhole my boss was about to shove me into.
Did I mention I hated getting pro bono work sprung on me like this?
As I'd expected, Matt was not one to pass up what was, essentially, a free lunch. Oh he restrained himself, he didn't order the prime rib, but a New York strip is still more than what one would normally expect for lunch.
During the course of the meal, I took my opportunity to learn more about Matt, both in terms of who he was as a person, and what he was capable of. It was heartening to know that he'd been paying close attention to the ongoing disability rights movement, to the point that it was a large part of why he became the 1L student rep at Columbia. That bit of information also made a lot of sense when I learned that constitutional law was his favorite class, though I did nudge him a bit over his ability to pay attention to three weeks of interstate trucking.
Interstate trucking: the bane of many a 1L's attention span. (If you don't know, don't ask; it's not worth it.)
Matt's sensory abilities, on the other hand, were almost scary. I tried a few little tests to see just how far he could push his senses, and was impressed beyond belief. His sense of smell was strong enough to guess what everybody around us had ordered, to a surprising degree of accuracy. Matt couldn't stop the blush when he relayed that a pair of men in a booth on the other side of the restaurant were having an affair with one another, though I was pleased to see that embarrassment was his only real response to the revelation.
And most impressively, he was able to read my menu just by running his fingers over the paper, and feeling where the ink sat on the paper.
All of this gave me ideas, and quite frankly, if this case, whatever it was about, went to a jury trial? I would be happy to have Matt's hearing on my side when it came to taking depositions, selecting a jury, and cross-examining witnesses.
Lunch wound to an eventual close, and much as I would have liked to delay it, the devil must have his due. Around one in the afternoon, I returned to Schmoel Lieberman's office, Matt Murdock in tow, ready to hear about what grim fate awaited us.
"Mhmm. I'll pass that along," Lieberman said, writing something down on a notepad as he finished up on the phone, all the while leaving the two of us sitting in front of him. "Thanks again Mike. Catch you for drinks next week, yeah? Alright, bye."
He hung up the phone, tore the page from his notepad, and handed it to me.
"That was Michael Finnigan, the Clerk at the courthouse," he said to Matt. "You'll get more from Schaefer when you get down there, but the most important thing to know about the Clerk is that they can make your life easy, or make it miserable. Always schmooze the Clerk, you got that?" Lieberman opened his mouth to say something else, but quickly caught whatever he was about to say and thought better of it. If I wasn't mistaken, he was about to tell Matt to 'write that down, so you don't forget'.
"Yes sir," Matt said, and from the amused grin, I could tell he knew what was about to be said as well.
"Anything you can tell us right now?" I asked. "We were before Judge Andrews, I think you said?" He'd mentioned Andrews before lunch, but Matt might have missed it.
"That is correct," he said, leaning back in his chair and spinning a pen between his fingers. "The Honorable Philip Andrews. Stickler for the rules, doesn't much like theatrics in his courtroom." His gaze lingered on me. "You want him to rule one way or another, the only thing that'll get you there is the law. Man doesn't care about appeals to emotion, and by God have I never seen jury instructions so specific as his."
"What do we know about the case itself?" I asked. "Or the clients?"
"Not as much as I'd like," Lieberman said. "What little I could get is that your client is a minor, and the prosecution is pushing to try them as an adult. Couldn't say why, but whatever it was, it's got everybody acting cagey."
I frowned. There weren't very many situations in which you actually wanted to try a minor as an adult; whatever the crime that this client was accused of, it was serious. The only reasons I could think that a prosecutor in New York City would want to push this is if the minor had committed rape, multiple homicide, or some other similarly heinous crime.
"I'll let you know once we find out why they want to try them as an adult," I told Lieberman. "Was there anything else, sir?"
"Yes. Mr. Murdock, could you step outside for a few minutes? I need to have a word in private with my attorney." Both of us frowned, but it wasn't exactly a request that we could refuse.
"Of course, sir." Matt stood up from his chair, and Lieberman stood up with him to hold the door open for the blind young man. Not that Matt needed the help, I thought to myself, but at the moment he and I were the only ones present who knew that.
Once the door closed behind Matt, Schmoel Lieberman sat back at his desk, and fixed me with a stare.
"After the last time you argued a case in front of Andrews, I feel I need you to assure me that you'll handle this case completely by the book," he told me. "No grandstanding, no theatrics, no pushing the boundaries."
"E-excuse me, sir?" I stuttered, more than a bit affronted by what I was hearing.
"Look. You're a damn fine lawyer, Schaefer. But I don't know if you're partner material. Billables are great - but we need prestige as well. Do well with this case, don't piss off Andrews like you did last time, show you can follow the rules, and we'll see where it goes."
"Sir, I—"
"And for the love of god, stay in your lane on this one." Lieberman breathed out in a heavy rattle, and his eyes flicked to the small liquor shelf he kept on the side of the room, and the half-empty bottle of Glenlivet 21 standing front and center in his seven bottle display. "I don't want to have to speak to another federal agency on your behalf because you decided you wanted to play hardball."
I flushed. "That was one time, and if I'm remembering it right, the FBI did, in fact, have something we needed for discovery!"
"Thank you for reminding me, but I'm not talking about the fakakta FBI! I'm talking about the goddamn SEC bullshit with your iron monger blood money." Oh no, not this shit again. I'd had to disclose my investments in Stark Industries to the firm so that we could avoid any conflict of interest issues when taking on new clients, and when I did, both Lieberman and Loeb had taken the piss out of me for owning any stake in the 'merchants of death'. This completely ignored the fact that Stark Industries hadn't sold weapons tech since three years ago, when Stark got rescued from Iran – but I got the impression that neither Lieberman nor Loeb cared.
And they especially didn't care when they had to bring on an attorney just to handle potential blowback from my investment windfall.
"Well, given this is a pro bono case, I highly doubt I'll have to worry about the SEC, now will I?" I fired back.
"'Doubt,' she says. She doubts. Listen, Schaefer. If I get a call from any part of the alphabet soup – FBI, ACLU, NCAA, whatever – neither of us are going to like the consequences." Lieberman opened one of the drawers on his desk and rifled through it before he finally seemed to remember that he'd quit cigarettes two months ago – his wife storming into the firm had, thankfully, been immortalized in Polaroid when that kerfuffle went down.
Instead, he simply stared morosely at the glass ashtray between us, and sighed. "I'm sorry. That was unprofessional of me. But I need you to understand how serious this is."
"Sir?" The change in the atmosphere was almost palpable. While it certainly wasn't calm, it also didn't feel like I was about to get reamed out. This was a side of Lieberman I hadn't seen since… well, it was two and half years ago, when he lost a case on appeal, and the police found our client floating in the Hudson a week later. He'd been somber, resigned – but also resolute. Certain that he wouldn't let a debacle that bad happen again.
"It's been what, three years since you made senior associate?"
"Coming up on," I agreed. "Two years and… nine months? Ten?"
"You might think I'm holding you back because you're a dame. Well, that ain't shit." Lieberman stared briefly at the signed photo of Geraldine Ferraro and himself shaking hands on his wall. "You're a good lawyer, Schaefer, even if you're hell on my blood pressure. Courtroom, depos, filings - you're my go to. But that's not partner work. Negotiating, soft sells, pushing settlements, bringing in new clients. Making friends. And that's before we get to your reputation. Remind me, how many times have judges threatened you with contempt?"
"I believe the last count was four judges, seventeen times," I offered, not the least bit ashamed. If it took risking a contempt citation to make sure the jury heard what I needed them to hear before deliberating, it was absolutely worth it.
"We can't risk a partner getting sanctioned, Schaefer. Or worse, disbarred."
I gaped. "Disbarred? Sir, I—"
"Andrews was fucking frothing the last time you pulled your shit," Lieberman practically spat at me. "I had to throw the back nine to bleed that venom." I couldn't hold back the visible wince, nor the hiss of breath. Given how ecstatic my boss was when several of us pitched in to buy him a new set of clubs for the yearly holiday party, I could easily believe that deliberately letting himself lose that many rounds was like pulling teeth for him. Which also explained why he hadn't been able to spare a single friendly word for me the past few months, or been willing to back me up during round tables.
I'd been cashing in chips I never realized I'd had.
"So, this case." Lieberman leaned forward in his chair, and laced his hands together in front of him. "You'll be back in front of Andrews. Don't think of it as a punishment. It's not. It's a high profile goddamn bomb that I am throwing into your lap because I need to know if you can handle a situation like this delicately. Winning is good. Flair is fine. Making the front page of the Bugle twice in your career is a goddamn travesty. Don't make it a third time."
"… understood," I said ruefully. "Was there anything else, sir?"
"Not at this time," Lieberman said, as he reclined in his chair. "Just keep your ass clean for this case. The DA, Lou Young? He's up for re-election, and thinks this'll clinch it."
That… was worrisome in the extreme, and if the sympathetic nod Lieberman gave me was any indication, it probably showed on my face. Louis Young was a rising star in the prosecutor's office – scuttlebut was that he had an eye on the mayor's seat. Aggressive tactics had gotten him a few big wins early in his career; given how bad this case apparently was, he wouldn't play fair if I wasn't on the ball about making him keep his nose clean.
"Now go on, you've got a client to meet and an arraignment to prep for."
"Roger that." I headed towards the frosted glass door of the office, but stopped for a moment as a thought crossed my mind. "Sir, when you say it's a bit of a bomb. How bad are we talking here?"
"You wanna be partner, Schaefer?" I nodded. "Then why don't you tell me how bad it is after the arraignment."
I sighed. That was… just about the worst answer he could have given me. "Understood. Thank you, sir."
And with that, I left the office. Seated in one of the chairs set out in his waiting room, Matt sat fiddling with his cane, and even turned away from the door as he was, I could see how flushed he was. He stood up from his chair and followed me without a word, carefully keeping the sweeping taps of his cane from bumping into my still-invisible tail. It was only when we got inside the elevator that I dared to speak. "How much of that did you hear?" I asked.
"Probably more than I should have, sir—I mean, ma'am." he admitted, sounding sheepish. "What now?"
"Now?" The elevator dinged open, and I once again led Matt back to my office, if only briefly. "Let me fill out this form. We'll need to drop by the notary on our way out, but then we need to get down to the courthouse." I pulled out a sheet of paper, filled out what I needed to, then handed him a pen and guided his hand over where he needed to sign.
"What am I signing?" Matt asked, a hand moving over the page as if automatically seeking braille, the tip of the pen very carefully not touching the paper.
"Motion for admission as a student attorney," I told him. "I hope you're a quick study, Matthew, cause you're about to see what the deep end looks like."
"Pun intended, ma'am?" he asked, before flushing again.
I groaned, pinching the bridge of my nose. "For the third time, Matthew. When it's just the two of us, you don't need to stand on politeness, Noa is fine. And no. You'll know if a pun is intended."
"Yes ma'am – I mean, Noa. Ma'am." He fidgeted slightly with his tie, and the knot shifted to be a tad askew. With that change, Murdock's appearance seemed less like a lawyer and more like someone trying to dress like one.
"Close enough," I said with a sigh, silently thankful that the change to his appearance meant people would hopefully assume I was the lead attorney. "Now come on. Time's a-wasting."
Currently have one more chapter of backlog, which will be going up sometime tomorrow (Sunday). From there, likely to see... maybe one more chapter before the bar exam happens, but then my schedule will be open enough to start pushing out more words.
"Oh great, it's you," the man at the Clerk's desk said as I approached, a half-smirk on his face. "Alright, which one am I in for, entertainment or tinnitus? And who's the newbie?"
"Hello again Jeremy," I said with a sigh. "In order: if I knew, I'd let you know, and this is my summer associate, Matthew Murdock."
"Pleasure to meet you sir," Matt said, offering a respectful nod.
Jeremy V. (who was apparently so embarrassed of whatever his last name was that he had some strings pulled to get it abbreviated even on his court ID) was one of the many clerks of court. Note the difference between clerk and Clerk: the latter is the one in charge, while the former is just an employee. These are the bureaucrats who make the judicial system work. They handle the scheduling, appointments, filings, and everything else you could think of. If you got a clerk of court on your side, you'd have smooth sailing. If they didn't like you? Enjoy being made to wait for your courtroom assignment until your case is three minutes from being next on the docket.
Now, if it wasn't already abundantly clear, I'd managed to accrue a reputation by this point. I was perfectly happy to chance a contempt of court charge if it meant the jury heard what I wanted them to hear, but judges don't like that kind of grandstanding. In the past two years, several people in the office of the Clerk started setting up betting pools for how long until I got my first warning that contempt of court was on the table.
Seven years ago, when I was about thirty minutes away from giving my first closing argument (and panicking just as much as you'd expect), Jeremy went out of his way to get me a drink of water when he saw me pacing and near-hyperventilating in the hall. He'd been my go-to clerk for filing and requests since then, and I also helped him with the "when's the first contempt threat" pool.
I was pretty sure the count to date was… had it broken $300 yet? Whatever, I'd ask another time.
"So you got stuck with the charity case for LL&L, huh?" Jeremy frowned as he said this, tapping and typing at the computer in front of him. "Looks like… conference room seven upstairs, and then arraignment in courtroom C3 at five pm. And you didn't hear it from me," he added at the end, leaning in and keeping his voice low. "Young was in and out of Andrews' chambers all this week, early morning and late night."
Oh. That was… that was a problem.
"Thanks for the heads up Jeremy. I owe you," I told him.
"Just keep me posted," he said, waving me off. "Good luck with this one Noa, you're probably gonna need it."
"God I hope not," I muttered, putting a hand on Matt's arm as I steered him away from the desk. "Conference rooms one through five are on the ground floor here, six through ten are up one. Criminal courtrooms are also up on the second floor, on the west end of the building. Unless you have to use the elevator to get countless sheafs of paper and evidence exhibits upstairs, just use the stairs." I thought for a second. "Actually in your case the elevators might be fine. You weigh more than a hundred pounds."
"Why is that a concern?" Matt asked as I guided him up the stairs, and I was treated to the sight of everybody in the hall and on the stairwell hurriedly getting out of his way.
"Well," I started, slowing my pace a bit. "Imagine it this way. Most of the people going in and out of those elevators are wheeling a fifty-pound suitcase, carrying a twenty-pound briefcase, consider themselves the most important person in the room… and even teetering on three-inch heels, you're still lucky to come up to their shoulders."
Matt was silent for a bit as we walked down the hall, past conference rooms ten and nine. When we got past conference room eight, he finally offered his response: a quiet, almost sheepish, "oh."
We arrived in front of conference room seven, and I saw a paper on the door.
CC 89-214782: People of the State of New York v. S.J. Allerdyce
"Here we are," I said to Matt. "Chin up, head high, shoulders back. Make sure to look confident, because believe me, they need to see some confidence right now."
Then without further ado, I knocked on the door before opening it and stepping inside.
Seated at the conference table were three people: a clear husband and wife pair at least ten years older than I was, and a blonde teen in an orange jumpsuit, a nasty gash all stitched up on his left temple above a fading black eye, staring down at his hands with a look of utter despondency and hopelessness. The father wore a rumpled suit, one that he clearly hadn't dug out from the back of the closet in a while, coupled with a brand new polyester tie that clearly wasn't willing to take a knot yet. His hair was a blonde into gray gradient, to the point I wasn't sure where the gold ended and the silver began, though I was fairly certain there'd be a lot more silver by the end of this ordeal. The mother, on the other hand, had a full head of blonde hair, though I could recognize a dye job when I saw it, given the solid half-inch of grey around the roots. She had on a formal skirt and blouse combo, along with a jacket on the back of her chair, which a quick glance told me probably didn't fit her anymore, and hadn't for several years.
"Mr. and Mrs. Allerdyce, I presume?" I said as I entered the room, letting Matt take the door and close it behind him.
"Are you the lawyer?" Mr. Allerdyce asked, standing up from his seat and coming over to greet me at the door. "They told us a lawyer said they'd help and was on the way."
"I am she," I said, extending a hand. "Noa Schaefer, senior associate with Lewin, Lieberman, and Loeb. The young man behind me is my summer associate, Matthew Murdock."
"Jonathan Allerdyce," he said, taking my hand, then reaching to take Matt's own extended hand. "This is my wife Linda, and our son St. John."
"Would that we had met under better circumstances." I pulled a chair out from the table for Matt, then took another one for myself. I opened my briefcase, pulled out a contract of retainer, pro bono agreement, a legal pad, and a pen, then sat at the ready. "Now before we begin, there are a few formalities I need to go through."
And so, I spent the next ten to fifteen minutes explaining everything that accepting me as an attorney would mean – the attorney client privilege, the duty of care, what I would need from them, what they could ask of me, etcetera. I did make sure to exclude a mention of how much I would normally have cost per hour, but not just because this was pro bono.
It was also because I didn't want them getting any unrealistic expectations.
Once that was done, everybody involved signed the contract of retainer, as well as the contract that allowed Matt to work on their case as a student attorney under my direct supervision.
"Now that the paperwork has been handled, at least for the moment…" I took the signed contracts and put them away into a manila folder, which I would have to get copies of and file in triplicate. "St. John—"
"Just John, please," the teen interrupted.
"Of course," I said. "John. Can you tell me what happened?"
"Y-yeah," he said, licking his lips before he started. "Yeah. Uh, about… I guess, what, a week ago? Mom, it was a week ago, yeah?"
"Yeah, last Tuesday," his mother, Linda, said, a clear Australian twang in her words. "He got home from school right bloody, got him to the hospital and sewn up."
"Give me one moment?" I asked, reaching into my briefcase to pull out a Polaroid camera. "Show me the wound, please," I said, then snapped a few photos of the wound while I had it in front of me. The photos came out of the camera, and I quickly took a pen to record the exact date and time they were taken. "Good; odds are your stitches will be out before you ever get into the courtroom, so these photos and ER records are how we prove how bad this was." Once I had the Polaroids developing and the camera away, I gestured to St. John. "I'm sorry about that, please continue."
"Uh, s-so I was on my way home from school that day," he said. "I uh, I got a scholarship to one of those private schools in Manhattan, gotta walk a few blocks to the subway so I can get back out to Brooklyn. It's, uh, five or six blocks walking? Uh, on my way back I usually go past this corner store, pick up a snack or a soda, you know? And there's these four guys who usually hang out there, smoking cigarettes, drinking beer. You know, just… those guys you try to keep away from, yeah?"
"I know the type," Matt murmured.
"Yeah, I bet," St. John said, his tone commiseration. "So, uh. Usually I just walk past them real quick, don't look that way or anything. But I popped the tab on my soda can, and I guess I must have shook it a bit cause it sprayed at me and I kinda yelled in their direction. And, uh… they started following me, I guess. I ducked into an alley so I didn't have to go around the block, and next thing I know I hear footsteps behind me, then someone grabs me by my backpack and tosses me against the dumpster."
I reached into my briefcase again and pulled out a map of New York City, flipped it open to Brooklyn, and set it in front of St. John along with a pen.
"Could you draw on the map for me which way you went, and circle the alley for me?"
"Right, uh, sure, okay." A moment later, I had an exact location, and I knew I'd have to block off some time tomorrow so I could get down there with my Polaroid. Because only a lazy, incompetent, or overworked defense attorney doesn't do their level best to visit the scene of the crime. And given the wound on his head, and that this was New York City, there was a very real I'd find his blood still there.
Regardless, I gestured for him to continue telling me what happened.
"I pushed myself off of the dumpster, and tried to swing at them with my backpack. But there were four of them, and one of me, and they had like, four inches on me, at least. They said some stuff, how I was disrespecting them on their turf or something, and then one of them swung at me with a beer bottle."
"Is that what caused your injury?" I asked, pointing at his temple.
"Yeah, it was that," he said. "So after that, I, uh, well, I…" he trailed off. I could tell that whatever had happened next, it was both the most important part, and the bit that he was not going to tell me. "I, uh, fought them off." Yup, there it is: lie of omission. "They, uh, ran. Across the street, and one of them turned around to look, make sure I wasn't following him. And well, some work was being done across the street, and this guy fell into a pit."
"And after that you went home?" I asked.
"And after that, uh. Nothing. I didn't see those guys at all for the rest of the week, and then last night, police just… break down our front door and drag me out," he said. "I, I don't even know what's going on, really."
"I see," I said, tapping my pen on my legal pad.
This was one of the most difficult, delicate moments of handling a client. When you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they are not telling you something crucially important, you have to get that information out of them. If you don't have that information, you can't do your job. Now, I had a feeling that whatever it was he didn't want to say, it would come out at the arraignment.
But I didn't want to walk before the Honorable Phillip Andrews and not know something that everybody else did.
"Well, based on what I'm hearing from you," I said, "this is all sounding like a very cut-and-dry self-defense case. The one problem is I can't see the reason for the disproportionate police response. If all you did was fight back, then the police should have just picked you up the next day, rather than breaking down your door." I sighed, and put my pen down. "John, you say you fought back. Regardless of what happens during the arraignment, I will be going to that alleyway tomorrow to try and reconstruct what happened for myself, and hopefully find any blood left behind from that head wound of yours. But in order to do that, I need to know exactly how you defended yourself: what you did, who you did it towards, and where in the alleyway you were."
The room was silent for a good half a minute. The adult Allerdyces exchanged glances with each other, and I could see Jonathan's face flush a little before he cleared his throat and leaned forward in his chair, sitting up as tall as he could with both hands flat on the table.
"I'm not sure what you're trying to say here," Jonathan said, standing up. "But it sounds like you're accusing my son of—"
"Jonathan!" Linda admonished. "She's here to help us! You should—"
"I'll tell her."
Both Jonathan and Linda Allerdyce turned towards their son, twin expressions of concern on their faces.
"St. John," Linda started, "if it's too—"
"N-no," St. John interrupted her. "I-it's okay, I just, I…" He took in a deep, shaky, rattling breath, and I could see his hands trembling on the table. "I-I, uh… I-I'm a mutant," he said. "I, u-used my powers. N-not to hurt them!" St. John nearly leapt out of his chair as he tried to clarify what he was saying. "Just to scare them, that's all! I never even got close to hurting them, I swear!"
And there it was, I thought.
"Okay," I said, picking my pen back up. "Let's go back to the alleyway. After one of them hit you with a beer bottle, what did you do?"
"Next case on the docket," the clerk read out. "CC 89-214782: People of the State of New York v. S.J. Allerdyce."
The gallery of the courtroom was mostly empty at this time of day, but worryingly, it was still comparatively festooned with reporters. I could recognize a good seven of them, several of which only showed up for high profile cases, which gave credence to the narrative that I was pretty sure was forming. Lieberman had mentioned back at the office that Lou Young was up for reelection; Jeremy told me that Lou Young and Judge Andrews had been meeting throughout the week; and now, several of the highest-profile courtroom reporters in New York City were the only real occupants of the courtroom gallery.
I was getting a very good idea of what was happening here, and to be quite frank, it stank to high heavens.
"We are here today for the arraignment of St. John Allerdyce," Judge Andrews said from his raised position on the bench. "Attorneys, come forward and announce your names for the record."
I stepped up from counsel's table, and if I hadn't been watching for it, I would have missed the sneer that crossed the judge's face.
"District Attorney Louis Young, representing the People of the State of New York." Lou Young, a man with a receding hairline whose lips looked like they'd been reclaimed by his teeth, stood beside me before the bench. I could smell the cologne that he'd used altogether too much of, which he used in an attempt to hide the horrid mixture of scents that I would lovingly call New York Sewage and hair of the dog. And on top of that was the cloying scent of menthol hanging off of him. I had a feeling that my client's powers were the only reason I wouldn't have to deal with his smoking his cigarettes in the courtroom itself. Worst of all, this lack of smoking would just play further into the narrative he was trying to build.
"Noa Schaefer, on behalf of St. John Allerdyce."
"You got that?" Judge Andrews asked the court stenographer, who nodded at him. "Very well, you may be seated. And let me say from the outset, I want no funny business. That means you, Schaefer," he said, singling me out right from the start. "St. John Allerdyce."
I reached a hand under St. John's shoulder and pulled him up, until he took over and finished standing for himself.
"Mr. Allerdyce," Judge Andrews continued once St. John was standing. "You are being charged with three counts of criminal assault in the second degree, and one count of criminal assault in the first degree. How do you plead?"
"My client pleads not guilty, Your Honor," I said, keeping a hand on St. John's arm.
"Your plea has been entered." Judge Andrews turned to Lou Young. "DA Young?"
"Your Honor, the People move to deny bail and remand the defendant into custody in juvenile hall until his trial," the DA said, his tone one of smug satisfaction as he said this. "Due to the violent nature of the crimes, and the threat the defendant poses to the general public, the People believe that it would be irresponsible to have him out on the street."
"Mhmm," Judge Andrews said with a smile and a nod, which quickly turned into a frown when he looked towards me. "Ms. Schaefer."
"Your Honor, the defense requests that Mr. Allerdyce be released into parental custody," I said. "St. John Allerdyce is a high school student, maintaining a 3.6 grade point average and attending a Manhattan private school on a merit scholarship, and has no past criminal history to speak of. Furthermore, as my client has never been convicted of a crime, it would be a grave injustice for the court to sabotage his education so close to the end of his sophomore year, especially when the pace of the court means he is likely not to see a trial date until—"
"Until I say so," Judge Andrews interrupted, "and right now, I'm leaning towards July."
It was only through long hours of practice dealing with this judge in particular that kept me from openly gaping. Matt, on the other hand, did not have this experience, and so did enough gaping for both of us.
"Since the trial will be over and done with before your client would start his junior year, he will have plenty of time to get caught back up should he find himself acquitted, especially with a 3.6 GPA. Defense's request is denied, the defendant will be remanded into custody of juvenile hall until his trial date."
"Your honor," I snuck in as I saw him reaching for his gavel, "at this time the defense also moves to remove this case to family court and try Mr. Allerdyce as a minor. Once again, I will reiterate that Mr. Allerdyce has no criminal record, nor has he had so much as a warning from the law up until this point. Given that this is a first offense, he—"
"Ms. Schaefer, I frankly don't give a damn that your client is a minor," Judge Andrews interrupted. "He's being accused of assaulting four people with a mutant power, causing severe injuries in the process. Your motion is denied, court is adjourned." The gavel came down.
"That was… quite something."
I looked from my seat in the back of the car over towards Matt, who still seemed a bit shell-shocked by what had happened in the courtroom. It may have sounded like exaggeration, but to my perspective, it really wasn't: he'd been listening very intently to my heartbeat, the judge's heartbeat, and all the reporters' heartbeats, and that was more than enough to know that what had happened was highly irregular.
"That it was," I replied, sighing. "What are your thoughts?"
"I…" Matt seemed to not have the words. I waited a good thirty seconds before he said anything else. "How is what happened even legal? That, I don't understand how… I'm sorry, it was wrong. He'd already made his decision before you ever started talking, I could hear it. He probably already has a trial date picked out!"
"He absolutely does," I confirmed. "Matthew, one thing you have to understand is that when dealing with prosecutors, you're also dealing with politics. These people have an agenda they want to push, and the criminal justice system is one of the ways they do it. Unfortunately for us, and especially for our client, Lou Young has a lot of friends in very high places, and very few compunctions about calling favors to get what he wants. Mark my words, he's going to try and leverage this into his reelection, then to mayoral candidate, then to senate, and possibly a presidential run."
"And what?" Matt asked, voice heated. "He's just going to ruin a kid's life to do it?"
"Do you really think our client is the first kid he's railroaded into prison?" I asked. "I guarantee you, he isn't. Maybe he's the first white kid," I added, at which Matt frowned, "but I doubt he'd be the last."
"That's… everyone's heart skipped when the judge announced that our client was a mutant. I mean, I know people don't like them, but…" Matt trailed off.
We drove in silence (or, well, in as much silence as heavy traffic on a Manhattan street allowed) for another ten to fifteen minutes. I could see from the set of his jaw that Matt was turning something over in his mind, thinking over what came next. To his credit, I was genuinely looking forward to seeing what he came up with.
"So what's our next step?" he asked, and I was very glad that this was the first thing he said. Too often I'd seen summer associates come up with these grandiose plans of action for a case, only to realize that maybe ten percent of what they thought up ever actually occurred. Usually because cases settled or clients wanted to plead out, but still.
"First thing's first, we need to pay a visit to that alleyway," I told him. "From there, we really only have a few things we can do. There's four alleged victims that we need to follow up on, but we also should try and scour the neighborhood, see if we can't get somebody to back up John's claims that these were the four local hooligans."
"State of mind?" Matt asked.
"Bingo," I confirmed. "We need that to get a good approximation of what was running through John's mind when he used his powers, and what kind of threat he was facing. Also, the ER doc that saw John and stitched him up, any nurses involved with his intake. We also need to see if any of John's friends will go to bat for him," I added. "We're allowed to use character evidence here, and if we can get someone that knows he's a mutant to get on the stand and tell us that he wasn't the type to use his power dangerously, we can maybe sway a juror or two."
"Or two? That's it?" Matt asked, incredulous.
"That's it. Public opinion is against us in this matter, Matthew." I toyed with the strap of my briefcase, thinking. We had very little time to build an entire case. There were a lot of people to interview, witnesses to prep, a trial strategy to work out… let's not forget opening and closing statements… oh, and jury selection. Jury selection was going to be monumentally difficult, especially with anti-mutant sentiment rising higher and higher in recent years, and Magneto had not been helping matters.
"So, what?" Matt turned towards me, just so I could see the frustration on his face. "How are we supposed to win this if we can barely get two jurors?"
"Remember what I just said about politics, Matthew," I said, not able to keep the tiredness out of my voice. "Those reporters in the courtroom? The hour of the day? How abrupt the judge was, the way he expected to get away with it? None of this was an accident. The only part of this that was ever left up to chance was the specific defendant. I guarantee you that they've had something like this in motion for a while, and our client had the bad luck to be… how should I put it? Ah, yes."
I huffed, leaning back in my seat.
"Made an example of."
The next day came bright and early. I reported to my boss's office first thing, sat down in the chair opposite him, and spoke for a solid half an hour.
Uninterrupted.
"… and that's the long and short of it," I said, finally done regaling Lieberman with the tale of yesterday's debacle. "Speaking professionally, I would say that this is going to be an incredibly challenging case, and expectations need to be managed accordingly. Moreover, public sentiment is likely to be an ongoing concern, especially as concerns interactions with the press."
"And personally?" Lieberman prompted.
"Utter shitshow," I said, not bothering to sound polite anymore. "It's all eyewitness testimony and he-said she-said, plus the only witnesses were the supposed victim's fellow hooligans. There's almost no physical evidence to work with, and it's likely any evidence that could help us is long gone by now, or was deliberately tossed." I wanted to flounce down onto the chair, but instead sat in a calm, controlled manner, though I did have to stand back up briefly to readjust my skirt.
"That only tells me about the case itself," Lieberman pointed out, gesturing at me with his favorite pen. "It says nothing about the kind of optics you're looking at handling during both voir-dire and the inevitable trial itself. It's not enough to just say it's a problem, Schaefer, I need to know how much of a problem you think you're dealing with. And don't even lie to yourself about pleading down, it's not happening." I wanted to say something about a possible plea deal, but Lieberman beat me to it. "This is Lou Young we're talking about. He wouldn't offer a plea deal on a case like this, ever."
"How about this, then," I started, formulating my response. "If he were anything other than a mutant, we wouldn't have this issue. Hell, he could have been killing and eating babies, and he'd still be easier to defend. And worst of all?" I worried at the hemline of my skirt, just so that I'd have something to do with my hands other than trying to pull my own hair out in frustration. "Given everything else, trying to sequester the eventual jury would just make things worse than if they could see the papers and talk shows in the first place. I mean, they even have a convenient mutant scapegoat to blame for being stuck in a shitty, run-down hotel while eating bad food and serving extended jury duty."
I frowned as I realized something.
"Speaking of the media, I haven't seen the papers. How bad is the coverage?" I asked.
My boss sat there staring at me for a good five seconds before he started chuckling, eventually growing into a full-on belly laugh.
"Of all the days to not read a paper!" He pulled open the top drawer of his desk, and a moment later I had three different papers in front of me: the Times, the Journal, and the Bugle. "It's your lucky day Schaefer, you barely rated page seven!"
I stared down at today's editions, identical headlines splayed across their front pages, and couldn't keep my jaw from dropping out of shock.
CAPTAIN AMERICA LIVES!
Beloved WWII Hero Thawed & Rescued From Frozen Shipwreck!
Welp, this is the end of the backlog I had ready for posting. Chapter 4 is in the works, the rest of the first major arc has been outlined, and things are proceeding apace. The major events of each of the individual chapters for this arc (2 through 8, so chapters 4 through 8 are the rest of the arc) are set, I just need to decide on character beats and connecting moments.
My alarm clock went off at five in the morning. It was an absolutely miserable hour, an hour earlier than I was used to waking up, but today was going to be so busy that I needed the extra time.
I slapped the top of my alarm clock to shut the damn thing up, then pulled the blankets off. A simple motion shucked my nightgown, and I padded into the bathroom to turn on and step into the shower. (I barely remembered my shower cap—I'd washed my hair yesterday, I did not want to go through the hassle of drying it today too!)
While in the shower, I let my mind wander, thinking over the agenda for the day. I'd need to pick up Matthew at the firm, and get one of the firm's company cars. Much as I hated driving in New York City, there was enough to acquire that carrying it was not an option. My Polaroid and any replacement film I'd need to carry was bulky enough, and that was before we got to the possibility of acquiring actual, physical evidence. I wanted a few things from that alleyway if they were still there, just to demonstrate the level of control St. John had over his powers. So flammable materials that were barely burnt, for example.
I'd also need to get his hospital records, and would need to bring my tape recorder and a few blank tapes for interviewing the ER attending physician and any nurses… actually I may need the tape recorder for my conversation with the parents too. That wasn't anything that needed turning over to the other side, but it would still be good to have so I can refer back to it.
I shut the shower off, letting the water run down my body before reaching for a towel and continuing my morning routine.
What about safety? I asked myself. I'd be on the streets of Brooklyn with nobody other than a blind man (an admittedly well-trained one) for company, in a location that likely had some measure of criminal activity. I was small, not even five feet tall; it wouldn't take more than one hit to completely incapacitate me, and that's even if I saw it coming.
My thoughts drifted to the tools I had available to me: pepper spray, my powers — my magic. The magic I couldn't use properly without a focus.
A focus, of which I had four, all sitting on a shelf in my closet, collecting dust. And this because I'd been told that if I kept using them the way I had been, I would forever be limiting my capacity to shape and focus my abilities in the mystic arts.
There were times I wanted to slap the man who gave me that advice. But the point was that he was correct: my skill with magic had grown by leaps and bounds, even though my strength had stalled out, and progressed at a glacial pace. It was a trade off, to be sure.
But right now, it was a choice to make: carry a rolling pin-sized object in my briefcase, or just hope I didn't run into a situation such that I'd need to spend twenty seconds gathering magic, then refracting and guiding light into a laser?
There was, of course, another option.
I was a small, fragile, relatively-wealthy white woman, accompanied by a young, disabled white man. If anything happened to us, anything at all, the police would be on top of it in… well, a New York minute. Just the possibility of that kind of disproportionate police response should discourage criminal attention.
I could trust that if something happened to me, law enforcement would rush to my defense.
Hmm…
Well, actually?
As my current case had already shown, this was only true for as long as they didn't know I was a mutant. Because if there was one thing that galvanized police against you more than being a "dangerous" minority, it was being a dangerous minority.
And yes. There was a difference.
"Remind me to never get into a car with you behind the wheel," Matt said as he exited the car, letting his feet rest flat on the pavement as he gripped his cane like a lifeline. "Stop and go and stop and go, thought I was gonna be sick."
"Don't be such a drama queen," I said, stepping around the front of the car.
Have you ever tried to drive in New York City? Because believe me, there are better purgatories to suffer through on your way to better things. Every time you think you can move forward – a cab swerves into the lane, honking all the while. You're crossing the street? No you're not, the pedestrian is. And don't even think about trying to take a left turn, just suffer through three rights. It's easier on your blood pressure.
But don't forget about the last part of the trip: finding parking. It was a minor miracle that I managed to find a parking spot as close to our destination as I did. Though even that was debatable, because I'd been circling the block for fifteen minutes, and still had a meter to pay.
And all of this before we think about the car itself: a too-big, too-boxy sedan more than twice the size of my own car.
"I'm sorry you didn't like the ride over, but this car wasn't made for people as short as I am. Do you have any idea how much of a pain in the butt it is to try and reach the pedals in these Lincolns?"
"No," Matt said with a knowing smile. I rolled my eyes and led on, knowing he could follow my footsteps, and not wanting to linger on the humorous oops I'd made. Instead, the two of us walked two blocks, and arrived at our destination.
The alleyway we needed was between two old apartment buildings, which I instantly placed as primarily Section 8 housing by the scarcity of window AC units and the poor quality of what few remained. The alley between them was utterly disgusting, littered with cigarette butts, discarded fast food containers, empty bottles and cans, and more soiled diapers than I was comfortable smelling in one place. It was wide enough for three people to walk shoulder-to-shoulder, and that was after you accounted for the dumpsters lined up along the wall.
Most striking, though, was the identical pair of deep black scorch marks on either side of the alley, starting at roughly a third of the way in and flaring back towards the center. The way that you could draw an almost perfect straight line up at one spot was telling me things, but I'd need to know more before I drew any conclusions.
"Smell anything burnt?" I asked Matt. "I know it's been a week, but if we can find anything scorched during the initial altercation, it could help." In the meanwhile I took out my Polaroid and started taking pictures of the alley from every angle, and was especially careful to get good pictures of the scorch marks on the walls.
"All I'm getting from this is diaper, mold, and cigarette," Matt admitted, one hand up over his nose and mouth. I reached into my bag and pulled out a handkerchief, which I handed to him. "Thank you – God, it smells rancid here."
"Welcome to New York in May," I said. It had been raining every single day last week, for at least thirty minutes at a time. It was pretty regular for the month, but it also made our lives significantly more difficult.
Once I had the pictures I wanted, I pulled and put on a pair of latex gloves, followed by an umbrella and trash bag. The trash bag went over the umbrella before I used it to poke at the contents of the dumpsters, searching for whatever was a little lower in the bins. Mildew, mold, and other muck was most of what awaited… but I did find something. With the hand that wasn't holding an umbrella, I held up my Polaroid to get a picture. Then, the Polaroid hanging by a strap around my neck, I reached in to grab what I saw.
It was a magazine with just its cover burnt black, and save for a bit of darkening on the first page, the rest of it was completely untouched. Moreover, it had been underneath several pizza takeout boxes that had, themselves, been filled with used napkins, which all soaked up enough of the rain from the past week that the magazine was almost completely dry.
Once I had the magazine out from the dumpster, I took another few pictures of it with my Polaroid, then retrieved a ziploc bag (thank goodness those were already around, I don't know what I would have done without them) and stored it away inside. A quick label went on the bag so I could write in what it was, where and when it was found, and by whom, then I put it away into my bag.
"Anything on your end?" I asked Matt.
"Nothing," he said. "Rain washed away most of the blood I could've smelled, and everything else here is just making it worse."
"Hmm…"
I turned around to look from the alleyway to the street, the one that the hooligans had followed St. John from, and then ran back out into after his display of pyrotechnics. Specifically, I looked across to the construction site, covered up by tarps, and still drying out from the past week.
"John said that the four thugs who attacked him ran back out this street," I said, walking out of the alley. Matt, smart cookie that he was, took the hint and followed me. "What do you wager that if they had anything, they tossed it in the construction site over here? Like, say, a bloody beer bottle?"
"Good odds," he said.
The two of us walked across the street to the construction site, eyeing it. There was a relatively short fence set fifteen feet back from the street. It stood about six and a half feet high, separating the general public from the pit dug for the building's foundations. The fence was a flimsy thing though, just chain-link supported by a measly three posts. If somebody came careening into this thing, they'd probably knock it over in a heartbeat and… fall in.
I frowned. Neither the prosecution nor the judge had offered any indications about the nature of the injuries St. John's 'victim' had suffered.
Matt walked up and ran his cane along the fencepost, listening to something I couldn't quite pick up.
"There's a whole bunch of stuff down there," he said. "Lots of metal and plastic, but… there's only one thing made of glass. You don't think...?" He didn't finish the question, instead letting it hang in the air.
"It's worth a shot," I said. I found a payphone on the street and called the number listed on the sign in front of the lot, the construction company's number. Thirty minutes later the contractor arrived, let us in, and we found exactly what we were looking for, which I photographed, bagged, and tagged.
After which, I found myself on the payphone again, calling my boss.
"Prosecution made their disclosure," Lieberman told me once his secretary transferred the call. "Please tell me you found something you can use out there."
"Maybe, but I won't know for sure until I can get it looked at," I told him. "Can you have Antonia make a few copies of the prosecution's records, two for me, one for a box I can take to the printer's to get in braille?"
Even as I spoke into the payphone, I kept my eyes squarely along the street in front of me. A few people were milling along the street, staring at the two of us. That wasn't altogether surprising; people in suits didn't tend to wander down Brooklyn alleyways, let alone walk out with Polaroids, or carrying bloodstained beer bottles in plastic bags.
"What else do you have to do today?" Lieberman asked, his voice tinny on the payphone's speaker.
"Uh… I need to talk to the parents, bring them with me to the hospital so I can get the client's ER records. Talk to the ER doc and any nurses." I sighed, rubbing a hand over my forehead. "I need to see the alleged victims' medical records after this. Also when I say I found something, I mean I found some evidence that was hopefully missed, but most likely never looked for it beyond the alleyway. Took a Polaroid, signed and dated it, bagged the evidence."
"Given it was raining all last week? Probably didn't look very far. Regardless, get that down to the courthouse for disclosure as soon as you've gotten it worked up, along with any report you get," Lieberman told me, his tone growing firm and commanding. "Trust me, if that isn't there by the end of the week, Young will try to get you infracted for a Rule 16 violation. In the meantime, I'll get those documents to the printer for a copy for Murdock, get those and a photocopy in your office. I also called ahead to your building's doorman, he'll bring another set up to your condo."
"That's... wow," I said, for lack of anything else to really add. I had to wonder how much work he was putting off on his own cases just to help me out… and how long he'd hold this over my head afterwards. "Thank you, sir."
"You owe me for this one, Schaefer, and believe me when I say I will eventually be calling this favor due. Now get to it."
The phone clicked.
"Well that answers that," I said to myself, then nudged Matt with a shoulder. "Come on. The Allerdyces live a few blocks away."
"I'm not looking forward to this talk," Matt said, but fell into step beside me anyway.
"This isn't even the long talk," I told him. "This is just a preliminary follow-up. Outlining what we're doing, what we need from them, and bringing them with us so we can get our clients records with fewer hoops to jump through. Patients and parents of minor patients can request their records and get them a lot more quickly than if we'd filed a record request."
"How much slower are they normally?" Matt asked.
"Hang a left here." I took the inside track of the turn, though I had to skip around a step to avoid a smushed, half-eaten pizza slice on the sidewalk. Days like these, when I had to go on-site while building a case? They made me glad I kept a pair of flats handy. "As for how much slower? Procedure gives them two weeks to produce the records on their own with just a faxed request form. But if they don't send them to you, and most don't, then you need the judge to subpoena the records, and then wait up to another two weeks."
"And we can't spare four weeks on this, can we?"
"No, we cannot." And I was already outlining my official complaint to the state judiciary for that scheduling choice.
"Take a form and fill out your info then bring it back up here, and we'll see you as soon as possible," the nurse at the ER desk, a middle-aged hispanic woman, said, not even bothering to look up from her paperwork.
I looked to my side and offered both Matt and the Allerdyces a knowing look, then pulled a folder out of my briefcase and slid it in front of the orderly.
"My clients are here to retrieve copies of their son's medical records in connection with an ongoing court case," I told the nurse, who finally deigned to look up from her own paperwork. "All appropriate release and request forms are in the folder. Additionally, I need to speak to the on-call or attending who saw my client on the date listed on the form."
Once the nurse flipped open the folder to reveal legal-length paper, I knew she would do what I'd asked of her with no complaints. A lot of people get intimidated when the paper put before them isn't a regular 8.5x11, even more so when it has legal letterhead with an address on Central Park West. Sure enough, she stood up from her chair and went into the back, at which point I started a mental countdown. I estimated… five minutes.
"So what happens now?" Jonathan Allerdyce asked. I turned to look up at him, and had to suppress a frown at the deep bags that sat under his eyes. Yesterday's events clearly weighed heavily upon both him and Linda, but at least she had cosmetics to help hide it. He had no such recourse, and his exhaustion lined his face with heavy crevasses.
"A little bit of divide and conquer. Mr. Murdock will accompany the two of you to the hospital administration, who will furnish you with a copy of your son's records. At the same time, I'll be interviewing the doctor who stitched up your son."
"Are we not supposed to be there?" Linda Allerdyce asked, the Australian in her accent heavier than it had been yesterday.
"Not for a first interview, no," I responded. "I want to talk to the doctor when he's just speaking to another professional, somebody without a personal connection to the patient."
"But what about—"
"Mr. and Mrs. Allerdyce?" The nurse came out from the back. She wasn't alone though: a caucasian man in his 40's, wearing a doctor's white coat over scrubs, followed her out.
"Yes?" Jonathan asked.
"This is Dr. Harry Michaelson, he was the attending who saw to your son the other day."
"Dr. Michaelson," I said, taking the initiative while the opportunity presented itself. "My name is Noa Schaefer, an attorney representing your patient St. John Allerdyce. Would you mind if we retreated to an office for a brief interview, while the nurse accompanies my colleague and client's parents to retrieve a copy of his records?"
There was a brief moment of silence as everybody looked at each other. Once again, I was treated to the reality that nobody expects the petite blonde waif to speak as though she's in charge, but the way I spoke brooked no argument.
"O-of course," the doctor said, recovering first. "Nurse Mendoza, could you take these three to the records room?" His eyes flicked down to my left hand, and frowned when he saw no ring. "If you could follow me, Miss?"
"Meet back up just outside afterwards," I told Matt and the Allerdyces. I very deliberately did not say anything about the doctor's mode of address for me, and instead followed him through the hospital. He moved quite a bit faster than he should have been with somebody following him, holding a pace more akin to if he was doing his rounds than leading somebody, and there were a few times where I had to break into a light jog to keep up.
And unfortunately, because I was presenting myself to the public, I'd had to switch my flats back out for a pair of heels.
When we arrived at the office, my feet hurt, and I probably had a new blister or two. But I ruthlessly suppressed any indignation, instead keeping my expression carefully neutral as the doctor closed the door behind me and sat down.
"So, how does this work?" Dr. Michaelson asked, browsing a file cabinet beside his desk. "Allerdyce, Allerdyce… Allerdyce, St. John, there it is." He pulled out his copy of my client's chart, and set it on the desk in front of him.
"If you would give me a moment…" I pulled out one of the two chairs opposite his desk, and set my briefcase down on the other. From my briefcase I retrieved a tape recorder, a legal pad, and several pens. "The way this works is that I interview you about when you saw my client, you describe for me the nature of his wounds, and answer any questions I need. Keep in mind opposing counsel may contact you as well in the coming weeks, and you will be subpoena'd to appear in court on…" I checked my planner. "Make sure you're not busy the week of July 17, you will likely be called to testify."
"What if I can't come into court that day?"
I just gave the doctor a look.
"You could have been elbow deep in a patient's abdominal cavity for twenty hours prior to the trial, and the judge, especially this judge, would still put you in jail for contempt of court," I told him.
"... oh." Seeing a forty-year-old man look almost exactly like a chastised grade schooler would likely be the highlight of my entire month.
I offered him a small smile, then pressed the record button.
"This is Noa Schaefer, defense counsel for St. John Allerdyce, conducting an interview with Dr. Harry Michaelson, at the Brooklyn Hospital Center Emergency Room."
I rattled off a few more perfunctory bits of information: date, time, date of the incident in question, and then got to business.
"Dr. Michaelson, in what condition did Mr. Allerdyce arrive at the emergency room?"
Immediately after I asked the question, Dr. Michaelson's bearing shifted: he sat up straight, shoulders back, head looking straight to the chart on his desk. He flipped to the front of the chart, read it for fifteen seconds or so, then began to speak.
"St. John Allerdyce presented with a moderately large laceration to the left temple. The wound was bleeding severely, and he was brought back immediately. Given the location of the wound, I assessed whether or not he'd received a concussion. Pupillary reflex was normal, he was able to follow my finger, and patient was awake, aware, and alert. I determined the likelihood of a concussion was minimal, but told his parents to keep him home from school for the next two days, and bring him back immediately if anything changed."
"What course of treatment did you follow?" I asked.
"We applied pressure to staunch the bleeding, then cleaned the area with sterile water. Afterwards, I applied topical anesthetic, followed by local anesthetic, and sutured the wound shut before applying gauze and bandages. We have a photograph of how his wound looked immediately after cleaning in his chart, you should be receiving a copy of it with his other records," Dr. Michaelson explained.
"How many stitches did his wound need?" I wrote a note to myself on my legal pad; a picture of the wound when it happened would go well with the one I took in the courthouse yesterday.
"Mr. Allerdyce's wound could have been closed with anywhere between nine and twelve sutures," the doctor said. "Given that the patient is a young teenage male, I erred on the side of caution and used twelve sutures."
"Was there anything else that comes to mind with regards to the hospital visit itself?" I asked.
"Nothing in particular, no," he told me. "Mr. Allerdyce had a follow-up with me three days later, at which point I noted that the wound was healing up well, and the sutures would dissolve on their own in two weeks' time."
I blinked at that; I didn't think self-dissolving sutures were a thing yet, but I was rather glad to be mistaken. It meant that I didn't have to worry about a particular shoddy juvie doctor botching the removal of St. John's stitches, at the very least.
"Very well then." I reached into my bag again. "At this point, I would like to ask you some questions that are more speculative in nature, Dr. Michaelson."
"Of course," he said, though he kept the chart flipped open. "Fire away."
"Regarding the positioning of the wound, could you comment on what kind of blow would be needed to cause that kind of damage?"
"From what I've seen here in the ER, you'd need a relatively hard object, swung directly at the head." He flipped through the chart to show me the initial picture of St. John's injury. "You can look at the edges of the wound to tell that this was caused by a rounded object, as opposed to a sharp one, so the skin was torn more than cut. For a wound this size, I would say that Mr. Allerdyce is actually quite lucky."
"How so?" I asked.
"The location of the wound tells me he was struck approximately an inch and a half above the outside of his left eye, and so the blow landed, essentially, on the far outside of his forehead. If whatever struck him had hit an inch and a half further back, it would have struck him in the temple, which is a much thinner part of the skull." Dr. Michaelson brought up a finger to his own face, and used that to demonstrate the positions he was talking about.
"What kind of injury would have resulted if that had been the case?"
Dr. Michaelson exhaled sharply, his hands coming up before he let them flop on the desk. "Kid would probably have never left that alleyway," he said. "You said you're a defense attorney?" he asked.
"That's correct," I said, arching an eyebrow at him.
"So I'm guessing you're defending him cause he fought back, and hurt his attacker." I nodded. "If this had landed on his temple, you wouldn't be working for him, because he'd either be dead, braindead, or beaten black and blue by whoever hit him in the first place."
"One last thing for this interview." I reached into my bag and produced a Polaroid photo of the glass bottle Matt and I found in the construction site, the one that still had traces of a dried, crusty, red-brown substance on it. "Would this have been sufficient for causing the wound you saw on Mr. Allerdyce?"
"Let me see that?" I handed him the photo, and Dr. Michaelson flipped back through the chart, comparing the image I handed him with the one in St. John's chart. "I can't be one hundred percent certain, but I would be willing to say that yes, this could cause an injury of that scope."
"Understood." I reached over and stopped the recording. "Dr. Michaelson, thank you very much for your time. And I do apologize in advance that I will have to call you away from your work at least three times in the next two months."
"I may not like it, but you're just doing your job," he said with a shrug, closing the chart on his desk. "I have to ask though, how did the kid manage to defend himself? He never told me that part."
Uh-oh.
"I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to divulge that information at this point in time," I said, working my way around the issue. "Not until I've had the time to review the prosecutor's interviews and compare what they say with what Mr. Allerdyce said.
"You think your client's lying?" Dr. Michaelson frowned and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Doctor, until we get them under oath, and sometimes even then, somebody is always lying," I told him as I gathered my things and stood, smoothing out my skirt. "The hard part is finding out who, and why."
By the time Matt and I got done at the hospital and made it back into Manhattan, it was already past noon. I treated him to lunch, retrieved his braille copy of the documents the prosecution handed over to us (bound into a pair of large binders, which thankfully fit into his backpack), and had him take them home.
"I want you to form what conclusions you can on your own time," I told him. "If I'm in the room when you review this, you're going to ask me my opinion, or what I'm getting from this. I want you to read over the interviews, compare that with what we have and what we know, and form a theory of the case. Put together a series of events, determine who is at fault, and then I want you to think about how you prove that your series of events is correct."
Then I sent him home. I gave him thirty dollars to treat himself to both dinner and breakfast on the firm's dime, deliberately ignoring his protests that this was too much, called a limousine company that the firm used daily, and had them drop him off back at his apartment in Hell's Kitchen.
And then I was alone in my office. I locked the door, pulled a cassette player from my bottom desk drawer, put a Rolling Stones cassette in, and pressed play.
Then I rewound the tape a bit, because you don't start in the middle of Paint it Black.
Once I had some background music, I opened up the box on my desk, and got to work.
The first thing I went for was the interviews with the four thugs that jumped St. John. All of them were… remarkably consistent: all four of them claimed they saw him go into the convenience store, take a soda, and leave without paying. Their testimony went on to say they chose to confront St. John because of this, and when they stopped him in the alleyway, he used his powers to throw fire at them like a flamethrower.
The four say they ran, and one of them, a Mick Samuelson, allegedly got tagged by a gout of flame and tried to shuck off his now-on-fire… shoes? Shorts? Mick himself just said clothes, but he was the one allegedly on fire; it was the other three who only now decided that they couldn't agree on anything.
It was while the alleged victim was removing these clothes, he claimed, that he fell into the construction site, landed badly, and broke his leg in three places.
I compared the photographs taken, both the ones I had with my little Polaroid and the copies the prosecution sent over. I looked over the medical records of the assailants. I checked what was described with what I knew of the area, and rebuilt the alleyway and street as best I could with just my office and some Polaroid photos.
I played out the events, both in my mind and in pantomime, trying to determine what this meant for my approach – a plea deal was off the table for the moment, but maybe during the course of the trial…
I stood in St. John Allerdyce's shoes. I cast my mind back to the alleyway – his anxiety and fear, then pain, then the need to fight. I considered the outburst he had, the control he'd displayed, how he must have been feeling. I let myself take Mick Samuelson's testimony at face value, allowed him the benefit of the doubt, and played out the events again, this time from the opposite angle. I compared the two, trying to see which one made more sense, which one had more proof behind it, then tried to see how I'd go about showing that.
And through it all, I came to one inescapable conclusion.
By the time I was done, my office was in a state of disarray. A run down to the supply room yielded yarn, post-its, paper, and a white board, all of which I'd managed to spread around the space in a haphazard arrangement that only really made sense to me. Six more cassette tapes had joined the first, an array of Beatles, Duran Duran, Van Halen, and Metallica, all of which spoke to what I was thinking at the time, how I'd been thinking. Reaching under my desk to swap my flats out with my heels, I groused at just how long it would take to get my office presentable again. But that was something for later.
I gathered up only what I needed, went up the elevator, and walked straight into Sam Lieberman's office.
"Well?" he asked.
I didn't actually have to say anything. I just slid my notepad and the documents I received from the prosecution across the desk, spreading them out the way I knew he liked to arrange his own case documents. Then I just pulled a chair out from his desk, crossed one leg over the other, and waited.
Thirty minutes passed. For thirty minutes, I was treated to my boss taking in the facts, putting them together, identifying inconsistencies, and building a narrative. All of this played out in the furrow of his brow, the tension of his jaw and neck, the pitch of his breathing, and the pressure of his fingers on the page.
After those thirty minutes, Lieberman stood up from his chair and walked over to the floor-to-ceiling window behind his desk, staring out over Central Park.
"You think you can win."
It wasn't a question. My boss was making a statement. He'd been my boss for most of a decade now; he knew exactly how confident I must have been to bring this information upstairs.
"This is the most open-and-shut self-defense case I have seen in a very long time," I told him, standing and walking around the desk to rest beside him. "I've never seen an easier source of reasonable doubt. We have detailed information about the scene of the crime. We know exactly what was done, and by whom. We know who went where. We have both the victim's and our client's medical records. We even found an improvised weapon at the scene with dried blood on it. And I would bet good money that we find the alleged victim's fingerprints on it."
"What about witnesses?" Lieberman asked.
"I'm already drawing up a motion in limine against two of the alleged victims under rule 403," I told him. "The ER doctor has already agreed to testify on behalf of the client, so I should only need the subpoena to make the hospital play ball on his schedule. The parents also suggested several candidates for character witnesses, friends of the client who already know about his power, and can attest to how he uses his power in ordinary circumstances; that said, I'll have to get a similar list from the client, and look into any discrepancies. I'll interview them to decide which and how many I want, but past experience tells me one, maybe two at most." A flock of birds flew out of the trees in Central Park, turning to wing their way off the island of Manhattan. "It's going to depend on how hard Lou Young and Judge Andrews make getting the testimony across."
"And the jury," he reminded me.
"And the jury," I agreed with a sigh.
This chapter was mostly a plot vehicle. Next chapter should have a few more interesting events, and character beats, I promise.
"Here we are, pastrami on rye!" Two plates slid onto my table: one with a sandwich piled so high with pastrami that I'd have to take off half the meat just so it would fit in my mouth, the other with a few extra slices of rye bread. "I'll be right back with a go bag for whatever leftover you got."
"Thanks again Becka," I told her, sliding two singles across the table to the woman who'd brought my food over, which she slipped into a pocket in her apron in a single practiced movement.
"Just make sure to actually eat this time, you're too skinny, I can see your arm bones! I swear Noa, how you don't freeze in the winter I'll never know." And with that the neighborhood yenta, Rebecca Kaplan, went back behind the counter to annoy her husband. I just smiled to myself and went about setting up my sandwich the way I liked it, glad that for once she hadn't tried to recommend another local "nice Jewish boy". Was it annoying? A bit, sure, but finding a Jewish deli with an attached diner, particularly one that was open at the hours Kaplan's was, had been a godsend for my sanity.
After all, where else could I go at three am on a Thursday to get actually good matzah ball soup with kreplach?
But today wasn't Thursday. Today was Sunday, and I was taking a day off.
It seemed irresponsible of me to not be doing anything while my client sat in juvie, waiting for the day that would determine the course of the rest of his life, didn't it? Well, when I first started out as an attorney, I would have agreed with you. It's very easy to let the job become your life, to let the duty you owe to your clients consume everything else.
This lasts about as long as it takes for you to miss a very obvious argument or piece of evidence that you overlooked because your eyes glazed over, and makes having it pointed out by your supervising attorney just that much more embarrassing.
One of the hardest things to do in the profession is to let yourself take a step back. Yes, your work is incredibly important. Yes, people are counting you. But you can't do your best work if you're firing on all cylinders all day, every day, with no breaks. If you want to stay in peak form, you need to take some time for yourself occasionally. More than that, stepping away for a bit gave you enough time away from whatever you were working on that you can look at it with (relatively) fresh eyes.
And in an internet-free world, there were a hell of a lot more obligatory social activities. Trivia nights, amateur sports leagues, book clubs… and I was getting tired of having to rewind the tapes on my answering machine.
And so it was that I occasionally left my pager at home, told the firm to let any callers know I'd be back in the next day, and gave myself twenty-four hours to myself.
This was that day for me to recharge my batteries, and it was well-earned. A talk with the bodega owner, one Alejandro de Soto, confirmed St. John's account of what happened. Moreover, Mr. de Soto confirmed that the four thugs that jumped my client had a bad reputation in the area, which meant that between him and St. John, I could slip that fact into the record with little to no difficulty.
(I also left the bodega with an amazing cubano, which I genuinely felt guilty about enjoying when I passed by the synagogue on my way back to the office… sorry Rabbi Rivkin.)
Beyond that, the lab we worked with for handling physical evidence finished processing the bottle we found. Sure enough, the dried blood on the bottle was the same blood type as St. John's, and the fingerprints were the victim's. Unfortunately, I had to share the report and hand the bottle over to the prosecution for processing, so I had no idea what changes they would make to Mick Samuelson's testimony based on that bit coming to light.
What I did know is that I would be raking him over the coals for leaving it out of his initial interview. That, and grilling him on where his clothes allegedly got lit on fire; we'd finally received that bit of evidence for ourselves yesterday, and I sent it out for testing.
Waiting on that to come back left me in a bit of a "hurry up and wait" scenario. So, rather than think myself into the ground with six more weeks to trial… I decided a day off was in order.
"And Spider-Man has defeated the Vulture once again!" My gaze shifted to the TV mounted in the corner of the diner, a bulky 10-inch CRT sat on an alcove that looked to have been carved out specifically for it. "Spider-Man, over here! Spider-Man, that device you used to stop Vulture from flying, who did you get it from? Iron Man? Mr. Fantastic?"
I'd thought the hero would just swing away, but much to my surprise, he actually made a picture-perfect landing right next to the reporter, whose lack of flinch made me realize this wasn't an uncommon occurrence. Adding to my surprise was that Spider-Man's suit was red and black, not red and blue.
Wow, I really needed to watch the news more, didn't I?
"Oh, that thing?" Spider-Man shifted, his body language exaggerated, but clearly reading as bashful. "I built that myself actually. It took about three days, little embarrassed about that, but hey! At least it worked!"
"Well I'd say it worked pretty well, the Vulture dropped like a rock!" The reporter, a pretty little redhead, said this with a titter. Spider-Man, for his part, looked more than a little uncomfortable. "While I have you, anything you'd like to the people of New York?"
"Oh! Uh, well! Stay safe, don't do drugs, go Mets! Alright gotta go bye!" An instant later Spider-Man was gone, and the report on the Vulture's shenanigans in Harlem continued. But the good-natured booing from almost everyone else in the Manhattan diner remained.
Personally, I thought as I finished the first quarter of my sandwich and flipped open my copy of the Times, I thought he had it right. Let's go Mets.
Captain America Joins Avengers!
I had a feeling this cover story was coming sooner rather than later, but it was still fascinating to read. Though the reporter could absolutely have done without trying to set up a rivalry narrative between the Avengers and Fantastic Four. Really, they couldn't just let the Avengers have their day in the limelight, could they? Seriously, when you can live out the rest of the news cycle in the shadows of the Baxter Building and still wind up with something second- or third-page worthy every day, you can save manufacturing a rivalry for tomorrow's—
"You look like you could use some company."
I looked up from the newspaper to see a familiar man standing beside the booth, an amused expression on his face. More of his hair was silver than when I'd last seen him, which meant I still couldn't tell whether he was dying his hair brown or actually going gray. He slid into the other side of the booth with a mostly-suppressed wince, helping himself to the back half of my Sunday paper.
"Hello again Erik," I said, looking up at him from over the top of my newspaper. "Why yes, take a seat, please. Of course you can have that half of the paper, thank you for asking. Oh, lunch is your treat, you're such a gentleman."
"Ah, Noa," he said with a smile and a put-upon shrug of his shoulders. "Moments like this I wonder why I continue to put up with you." A waitress in the diner came over with a menu, which Erik accepted with a polite thanks. "You've been busy these past few weeks, I see."
"If you came to New York just to bother me, please leave," I told him, reaching for my sandwich. "This is the only day off I've allowed myself in the past three weeks, and if it's all the same to you I'd rather at least try and relax."
"I do need a brief bit of your help again," he said, folding the half of my newspaper he'd claimed and draping it over his right leg. "But I mainly came because it is my turn to do you a favor."
I frowned, and followed his actions. "Right leg?"
"Knee," he confirmed.
I sighed, but reached my hand under the table and beneath the newspaper to rest my hand on his knee, catching the wince on his face when my fingers found their mark. Then, with a deep breath and sharp focus, I pulled at my magic, and let it flow from the center of my being.
Light flowed from my fingertips, hidden from prying eyes by the newspaper, and entwined in strands around Erik's leg before sinking beneath the fabric of his slacks. I let the magic permeate his flesh, allowing it to heal him without trying to control the process. The spell already followed my intent; trying to control the exact course of the sorcery would only weaken the end result, according to the good doctor. So instead, I just allowed it to happen.
And moments later, Erik's knee was good as new. I withdrew my hand and leaned back into the booth, eyes closed, doing my best to ignore the sharp increase in my hunger. Using magic without a focus always took a lot out of me, but it was a lot more flexible and discrete. That, and the current downside was easily mitigated, as I picked up the larger half my pastrami sandwich and tore into it, letting Erik sit in silence as I ate (though he did order a sandwich of his own).
"So what's the excuse this time," I asked once the waitress left to put in his order. "Alpine skiing? Whitewater rafting?"
"Trying to fly through a tornado," he said, his expression totally neutral. I raised an eyebrow at him in as derisive a manner as I knew, to which Erik scowled. "Not my finest moment."
"And somehow all you got from that monumental display of stupidity was a bum knee," I said with a smirk. "Consider yourself lucky."
"More so than you have been of late." This time, it was my turn to scowl. "I do try to pay attention to the news beyond just the first page, Noa."
"Well then I'm not sure what you want me to tell you," I said, fingers circling the rim of my water glass. "I can't tell you what I know you want me to. If I do, that voids the attorney-client privilege. And if that happens… well, suffice to say I can't let that happen." I looked up from my water to look Erik in the eye. "Go ahead and ask. I'll answer what I can, but don't press your luck."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Erik said with a smile.
And so, he began to ask. His sandwich arrived, I bagged mine, and through it all, I kept having to repeat a familiar refrain: "I can't answer that."
For twenty minutes this went on. Twenty minutes of watching the disappointment spread further across Erik's forehead, of having to put a hand on my silverware to keep even the subtle rattle he managed to keep it from becoming audible.
"I don't know what I expected," Erik said, his plate cleaned (and my own leftovers hidden in a takeaway bag on my side of the booth). "But I dare say I expected to get a little more than this."
"You shouldn't have," I scolded. "I am a professional, Erik, and professionals have standards we need to follow. Everything I told you just now, you could have gotten by going down to the courthouse and paying a nominal fee for publicly-available documents."
"And you are certain that—"
"Yes, Erik." I interrupted him immediately, refusing to let him get any further down that line of thought. "Look. I understand why you see things the way you do," I said with a meaningful glance at his left arm.
"Then you must see that I am right." His voice came out in a hiss, low and dangerous.
"I think that you're cynical," I fired back.
"I have always been optimistic about mutantkind's future," Erik said, sitting up straighter in the booth. "Always. Even at the most dismaying of times."
"Then put your money where your mouth is and prove it," I challenged. "Right now, this is my battle to fight. If you want to help, fine. But you play by my rules, not yours." I slid out of the booth and picked up my leftovers and purse. Erik rose with me, instinctively grabbing his hat, as well as both our checks. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have roller derby tonight, and I'd like to enjoy the rest of my one day off for the next two months."
Character evidence is a very tricky thing. In a he-said she-said matter, the jury is going to believe whoever they find to be more trustworthy, and character evidence is one way that you can establish somebody is trustworthy. Normally, I wouldn't even bother with character evidence in support of my client – in a self-defense case, you're allowed to offer reputation or opinion evidence regarding the victim, which can be used to explain why the defendant felt the need to fight back. That wasn't a problem. I didn't have to fight to get that on the record.
The problem here? We had a mutant defendant and a human victim.
At the current time, there existed no binding precedent regarding how a mutant power is to be viewed in the eyes of the law. California, DC, and upstate New York all considered the actual effect of a mutant power before determining whether to class it as a deadly weapon. Meanwhile, multiple states in the south all viewed them as deadly weapons unless the defendant can prove that it was impossible to use as a weapon – such as if somebody's mutation was just the ability to see in other spectrums of light.
These were not binding precedent, however. There were no higher court rulings in the state of New York to give me a definitive answer regarding how you view a mutant power. And worryingly, all of the persuasive precedent argued against St. John.
All of this meant that if we didn't get somebody willing to stand in St. John's corner, then unless I put him on the stand – and believe me, you do not put the defendant on the stand in a case like this except as a last resort – nobody would be able to explain how St. John was most likely to use his powers in any particular circumstance.
So, during a visit with St. John, I asked him if he had any friends who knew he was a mutant, who he had used his power around, and who he thought would be willing to go to bat for him in court.
He gave me a list of twenty names. And after phone calls and preliminary interviews with all twenty of them, I could indeed confirm that yes, each and every one of them would gladly stare down a jury for him. In all fairness? I should've expected this response.
I was, after all, a theater kid myself.
Unfortunately, much as I would love to have twenty witnesses all get up on the stand and explain what kind of person St. John Allerdyce was, and why it was patently ridiculous to assume he'd actively assault somebody… I couldn't do that. Given that I was trying to exclude two of Mick's three fellow thugs under Rule 403, the exact same would be used against me. Knowing this judge, I could get at most two character witnesses, and that was being optimistic.
I wasn't paid to be optimistic. So I gave myself one character witness. And that's where it got hard.
See, the theater crowd is often made up of the misfits, the outcasts, the oddballs, the 'quirky kids' that don't fit in anywhere else. This was based on a number of factors, yes, but the one that worried me the most was appearance. A person's appearance is the first impression the jury gets, and if they thought the witness looked like a misfit or a rascal, there was a real chance my witness's testimony got disregarded entirely. I needed somebody whose appearance wasn't threatening, someone who looked immediately respectable.
So with this in mind, I settled on the one that reminded me of myself: a nice Jewish girl from the Midwest, come to the big city on an opportunity. She came in accompanied by her grandfather, a kind old man who, like Erik, wore long sleeves even on a summer day.
I was very glad I could convince him to stay outside for the mock cross.
"You've only known the defendant for two years," Matt said, pacing. He was on the far side of the well of the firm's moot courtroom, opposite both the jury and the stand. I had to hide a smile at his technique; this was exactly what you were supposed to do on cross examination. During a direct, you stand directly in front of the jury box, so the witness is looking at the jury when they answer. On cross, however? You stand on the far side, so the witness has to turn away from the jury to answer you.
"Why does that matter? He's still my friend!" Our character witness, with whom Matt was conducting a mock cross examination, on the other hand? Well... remember how I said she reminded me of myself?
As it turns out, this was in more ways than one.
"The witness will answer the question," I admonished, serving the role of the judge for the moment.
"Wha—fine, yes! Okay?"
"And you have only been friends for less than half that."
"Why do you care how long we've been friends!?" She slammed both hands down on the stand and stood up from her chair. "What, is it not allowed to just be his friend!?"
"Shit," I murmured under my breath, and slammed the gavel down on the bench. "Alright, everybody calm down, we're taking a break." Our teenage witness threw herself back in her chair with a huff, arms crossed over her chest, giving Matt the nastiest glare she could manage before spinning the chair to face the wall. "Mr. Murdock, could you give us a moment alone? Maybe update her grandfather on what's happening?"
"I can do that," Matt said with a nod. He made his way out of the room, and I barely heard him address the elderly gentleman just outside before the door closed.
I stepped down from the bench, and leaned against the counsel's table.
"Katherine," I began, "if you don't think you're cut out for this, there are a few backup candidates I can ask."
"No, I can do this!" Katherine stood up from the witness's seat and stepped down from the stand, then took to pacing the well of the moot court with a frantic, nervous energy. "It's just, that was horrible! He's just parroting what I said back at me, but it all sounds wrong!"
"That's what a cross examination is like," I told her, sighing. "The other side has listened to your testimony, and is now going to try and poke holes in it. He's going to imply that you haven't known John long enough to defend him, or that maybe you don't know him as well as you thought you did, or any number of other things. They want to try and trip you up, get you to go back on something you've already said, and look like a liar on the stand."
"And I'm just supposed to sit there and let him?" she asked, glowering.
"You? Yes. Me? No." I picked up a small booklet and tossed it to her. "These are the federal rules of evidence. This is the rulebook. If he breaks the rules, or even gets close to it, I get to interrupt him. I will do this as much as I can, but in between objections, I need you to keep your cool."
"So I just have to take it?" Katherine asked. "I have to just sit there and let them say that my friend's a monster, and I have no choice but to let him twist my words and hope people still believe me?"
"That is exactly what you have to do," I told her. "The judge may have granted my motion, but John still has two people who are going to try their level best to make him look like a demon out of hell. And I guarantee that there will be at least four people on that jury who will believe them, for no other reason than that your friend was born a mutant."
"But that's not fair!"
"You're right," I told Katherine. "It's absolutely not fair that he's being judged because of what he was born as. And guess what? You get to experience some of that too. If you respond in any way that's not unfailingly polite, at all, the jury will stop caring about what you say. They'll say you're hormonal, or you're irrational, or that the witness stand made you fall into hysterics."
"They what?" Katherine asked, utterly aghast. "But, but that's so stupid! Anyone would get upset if they were treated like this!"
"It is stupid," I said. "Believe me, I would know, because it's even worse when you're the attorney."
"But why!?"
I sighed, and walked over to the moot court stand and bench again. She probably didn't realize it, but Katherine had asked a rather insightful question, one that really didn't have a right answer, let alone a good one.
Why was it so hard to get people to respect you for who you are, as opposed to what?
"Because for a long time, society decided where we fit into it, and even now that we're able to make our own places, there is still pressure to let ourselves fall right back into that niche they've carved out for us. If you want to get anywhere, it's not enough to just be among the best. You also have to carry yourself with dignity and poise, maintain perfect behavior, make yourself unassailable."
I sighed, unable to keep the frown from my lips.
"Trust me when I say this. I've fallen afoul of this problem more than once. I'm sorry to have to introduce you to this side of the world while you're still a teen, but if John is to have a chance, any chance at all, he's going to need you at your absolute best."
Katherine sat down on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest.
"... how do you do it?" Katherine asked, her voice quiet, confused. "How do I get them to listen to me?"
"You remember exactly one thing," I said, favoring the girl with a smile. "Deep down, they are afraid of the potential societal change we represent. And you want to prove that fear right."
Katherine looked up, and after a few seconds, she met my smile with a shaky one of her own.
"Now, you're stuck with me for a bit more time," I told her, leaning back against the table. "You ready to give this another go?"
"Um, before that," Katherine started, voice hesitant. "You, uh… look, I don't want to be rude here, but you're really okay with John being a mutant, and that's… kinda weird?"
"Is it really?" I asked. I raised one hand up, and with a snap of my fingers, my glamour shattered into prismatic shards, and I was treated to the sight of Katherine's eyes growing wide as saucers.
"Whoa," she whispered.
"Mhmm." I flicked out one hand, light shimmering in my palm, and twisted it back around myself. Moments later, I resembled a baseline human once more. "Does that answer the question to your satisfaction?"
"Y-yeah," she stammered. "S-sorry, that was… super cool, oh my god—"
"Focus, Ms. Pryde," I admonished. "I'm about to call Matthew back in. Are you ready?"
"Sorry, sorry!" Katherine put a hand to her chest, closed her eyes, and took a slow, deep breath. "Alright, yeah. Ready."
"Excellent." Once Katherine got up and took her place on the witness stand once again, I walked over and opened the door to the moot courtroom. "Break time's over, Matthew. Let's go another round."
So, this chapter was meant to also have jury selection, but… the first scene got away from me. Like, it really got away from me. So rather than have a bloated, almost 8-10k word chapter, we're just going to… cut it off here.
So, this is one of the points where I need to apologize in advance.
Jury selection is, unfortunately, a slow and tedious process. While it is utterly exhilarating to take part in, and about as close to 5D chess as law can get, it is also… a long, boring, incredibly drawn-out process. Even more so in high-profile cases, where you want every single juror to be completely fresh, and to have not heard a single question asked of prospective jurors before them.
If I were to do it justice and be as accurate as possible, we would have 10,000 words of individual jurors being asked the same set of questions, over and over and over, as jurors are brought in one by one.
Instead, I am taking a page from a few legal dramas, and having the panels of prospective jurors screened in groups, as opposed to one at a time. Everything else, I will attempt to keep as accurate as possible.
But this helps keep the number of line/scene breaks to a minimum, and keeps the flow going.
[July 17, 1989]
My trial binders and notebooks were ready. Demonstratives and exhibits were prepared. My typed witness list and exhibit list were formatted properly, free of errors, and ready to submit to the judge. The limousine would pick me up in forty-five minutes so I could get to the courthouse when I wanted, well before anyone other than the clerk staff would arrive, and without having to brave public transportation.
I'd been late to court once (thankfully as second seat) for the utterly absurd reason that I could not push my way off of the subway. Once was enough.
I went to take a sip of my tea when I heard the familiar sound of a newspaper hitting my front door. I gave my mental thanks to the building's staff, waited about thirty seconds, then slid the door open and grabbed the paper. My glamour was already in place, but it was just too early to be polite and sociable. I plopped the paper down on the table before returning to my tea, and—
Huh. There was a special edition with the paper this morning. A separate, eight-page publication, seated atop the paper itself. I picked it up, read the headline and – what in the world?
SPECIAL EDITION OP-ED
Guilty Until Proven Innocent – The Mutant's Plight by Wilson Fisk
… I don't know how exactly, but somehow, I just know this is Erik's fault.
"How's the tie?" I asked, not looking up from the papers in front of me.
"I think I got it…" St. John spoke from behind the screen, set up to let him change out of the juvie jumpsuit and into his proper, formal court attire. Moments later, I heard a curse, then the slap of fabric against the wooden screen.
"... damn it."
St. John's parents both shared a look that I couldn't quite decipher, whereas Matt was very pointedly ignoring everything around him as his fingers flowed over the braille documents set before him. I sighed, and stood up from the table to give St. John a hand. It was probably for the best that I was the one to handle this – the boy's parents were already nervous enough, and wondering how he would respond to their protectiveness.
"Here you go." It was the work of practiced motions that I pulled his tie into a double Windsor knot, though it was a little bit crooked. I frowned, and reached up to adjust the knot. Let's see, a little bit more to his right… there we go. "And now the glasses."
"Why the glasses, by the way?" Jonathan asked. "St. John doesn't need them, never has."
"It's a psychological trick." I led St. John to the table with the rest of us, and pulled out the glasses cases I kept in my briefcase. Let's see, which type would work best here… no, rimless gives the wrong look, even only half-rimmed. Maybe… I took out the horn-rimmed glasses and gave them to St. John, who thankfully put them on without much argument. "Decent enough fit. You can take them off for now, just make sure they're on before you go into the courtroom."
St. John took the glasses off immediately, all but tossing them onto the table.
"Trick?" Matt half-asked, half-murmured.
"So, as far as optimal jurors go, we especially want people who can put themselves in your shoes," I told St. John. "As callous as it sounds, we're looking for the kind of person a bully can't help but target: timid, usually small, and especially any jurors who would be an underprivileged minority in a majority-white area." I pulled a map of New York out of my briefcase, and spread it on the table.
"What kind of trick?" Jonathan muttered.
"Much as I would love to have jurors from your neighborhood," I gestured over Brooklyn with a capped pen, "odds are they won't be allowed because there's a chance they know the alleged victims by reputation, or they know of you and your family. We in particular want to keep anybody who lives or works around Central Park or the World Trade Center out – higher socioeconomic status tends to correlate strongly with stronger deeply-held prejudices, and an overall disdain for violence in the first place. As a corollary to that, we're going to try and select for—"
"Ms. Schaefer?" St. John broke in, putting a hand on top of the map. "Um… what's the trick with the glasses?"
"Hm?" The question finally filtered through my focus, and I bit back an embarrassed curse before I could voice it. "Oh, I forgot to explain, didn't I?"
"You did," Matt confirmed.
"Right," I said, brushing a lock of hair back behind my… well, ear (it looked like an ear right now at least), so that I didn't tap my pen on the table. "So, voir-dire is the first time you get to see your jury, and the first time they get to see you. That means your first impression is everything. Regarding criminal defendants, particularly those accused of violent crimes, you want your client to be wearing glasses when the jury first sees them?" I leaned back in my chair for a moment, and surveyed my audience. "Would anybody care to guess why?"
"It's harder to make eye contact with them?" Linda suggested.
"No," I said. "John. You have classmates who wear glasses. If you saw them trying to shrink into their chair, would you expect them to be capable of, say… bludgeoning somebody with a crowbar?"
"What? No!" St. John exclaimed.
"Exactly," I told them. "We tend to see people wearing glasses and assume that they're weaker, harmless, less physically dangerous. There is an immediate disconnect when you try to make the mental leap of 'person in dress clothes and glasses' to 'violent criminal offender'. It's a small thing, but we are going to exploit it for all it's worth."
"What about the rest of what we can do?" Jonathan asked. "Is there anything Linda and I can do to help?"
"I'm very glad you asked," I told them.
For the next twenty minutes, I gave them the rundown. We wanted people from underprivileged or more diverse areas – my own neighborhood, Greenwich Village, was the gold standard here, but most of Queens would also work perfectly well. We wanted to avoid people from wealthier parts of the city, with a very distinct exception: if somebody worked in the Baxter Building, we could assume they were predisposed to think positively of people with powers. The same did not necessarily go for people working at Stark Industries; the Iron Man was, ostensibly, just a man, and the need to use extreme technological prowess to match what St. John was capable of could, in a weird way, create an 'us vs. them' mentality.
What they could do to help came down to one very simple thing: watch whoever I wasn't facing, and look for anything I couldn't catch. Sneers, shrugs, guilty shuffling, etcetera. A question about a Juror A's opinion on Topic X could easily spark a reaction from Juror E. But if I was facing Juror A, I couldn't look at Juror E, and odds were everybody else would also be focused on the actual subject of my line of questioning. There was a lot people would do if they thought you weren't looking at them.
So just outsource your eyes.
"And the most important part." I pulled a very particular pen out of my briefcase and handed it to Matt. "This is the loudest pen I have. Now Matthew, jurors have the same obligation to tell the truth when we ask them questions as a witness on the stand does. However, people lie, especially when prospective jurors have an incentive to make sure they sit jury duty on a publicized case, or if the judge asks them a question and they don't want to disappoint."
"And the pen?" Linda asked as Matt took the pen.
"Do me a favor?" I asked her. "Tell me two truths and a lie, whatever order you want."
"Well…" Linda thought for a moment before answering. "The sky is blue, I grew up in Perth—"
Thunk-dunk.
"Blind people can't catch lies as easily as most, due to not being able to see facial expressions. But it's common knowledge that if you lose one sense, all of the rest become supercharged."
Disproven common knowledge, actually, but they didn't need to know that. But since Matt had supercharged senses…
"Blind people can still catch lies; they just use different methods. We tend to focus on facial expression and body language. Mr. Murdock, though, can pick out small tells in peoples' voices that we don't think to control. And when he does?"
Matt obliged by giving a good thunk-dunk of the pen.
"The prosecution can, of course, try to object if they think he's being disruptive," I explained as I flipped my briefcase closed.
"That said, what's more likely? That he can actually hear when somebody's lying? Or that he's just nervous for his first court case?"
"Good morning, members of the jury pool," Judge Andrews said by way of introduction.
The hundred-plus potential members of our jury were seated in the gallery of the courtroom, in the second rows and those further back. The only people in the first row were the Allerdyces and a few additional staff from the DA's office, on our respective sides of the courtroom, making it obvious who was there for which party.
"My name is Philip Andrews, and I am one of the judges of the New York County Criminal Court. You have been summoned as potential jurors in the case of the People of the State of New York v. S.J. Allerdyce, which is the criminal case of a minor tried as an adult, related to the assault of four persons on May 8, 1989: Micah Samuelson, James Boothe, Theodore Nielson, and Patrick MacEahern.
"A person charged with a crime has a right to a fair trial before a fair and impartial judge, and a fair and impartial jury. In order to ensure the selection of a properly fair and impartial jury, the law provides that the court and the attorneys for both sides may ask questions of all prospective jurors. When answering these questions, you shall be under oath to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God.
"Now, after the questioning is complete, each attorney will be allowed to excuse a certain number of you, and I may choose to excuse you for what is called 'cause'; that is to say that there is reason to believe facts you may not be privy to will impact your ability to remain impartial. Rest assured that being excused is not a strike against you, and there is no shame in being excused. I also ask that you not take any offense at any questions asked of you. While we respect all of your rights to privacy, there are things the court must know, about you as people, the lives you've led, and the opinions you hold, that might affect your ability to serve on this jury.
"The defendant, St. John Allerdyce," and here I had to hide a scowl as the judge deliberately mispronounced St. John's name – he pronounced it "Saint John" instead of "Sinjin" – again, "has been charged with one count of assault in the first degree, and three counts of assault in the second degree. Keep in mind, however, that these charges are not static, and can be added to or subtracted from. For these charges, the defendant has entered a plea of Not Guilty, which is a denial of all material allegations within the charges.
"Now, as I have already asked everybody else to introduce themselves, I would first like to ask anybody present in the jury pool that knows any of the parties present on either side of the aisle to please raise their hand. This can include knowing them personally or simply by reputation."
Rather than turn around, I reached into my briefcase to pull out my makeup compact, and flipped it open to look at the jury pool. No hands went up.
"Next," Judge Andrews continued, "I believe all of you have been furnished with both the prosecution's and defense's witness lists. If you know personally or know of any of the people on that list, please raise your hands."
Once again, all hands stayed down.
"Very well. Now, keep in mind: one thing neither attorney is allowed to do is educate you on the law. Despite this, I want all of you to be aware of some basic principles that apply to all criminal cases, and I want you to keep them in mind as you answer the questions."
Judge Andrews proceeded to speak to the jury pool, going through what was, ostensibly legal boilerplate: he detailed what the jurors needed to know, what they were to do, and what they were not to do.
"Now, with the exception of potential jurors one through twelve, we will have you wait in another courtroom. If you are a smoker, please take the opportunity to smoke now, as this courtroom is a designated no-smoking location for the duration of this specific trial. With that, I will ask jurors thirteen through one-hundred eight to please follow the deputy at the back of the courtroom."
Even as prospective jurors stood up and filed out, they murmured to each other about what they'd just heard. The one thing I could pick up, a refrain repeated again and again, was confusion as to why this courtroom was nonsmoking.
"Please tell me you can pick a smoker out of a crowd," I whispered to Matt. He choked back a snort.
"There's fifty-seven of them in the jury pool," he murmured back to me.
That was… not good news.
"Jurors one through twelve, we're going to have you all come up to the jury box for questioning. The bailiff is standing just in front of the bar of the court, he will guide you up."
The twelve of them milled to the jury box, and there was a bit of brief jockeying for positions, but all twelve of them took their seats a moment later. Judge Andrews swore them in, with the full 'truth, whole truth, and nothing but the truth' means of putting it. Following that was a series of perfunctory questions: had they read any articles about this case since receiving their summons for jury duty, did they know anybody on the witness list, did they understand the English language well enough to understand everything being said, etcetera.
"Now at this time, I will be turning things over to Ms. Schaefer, attorney for the defendant. She's going to ask you some questions of her own, and while this process often ends up sounding like a conversation, I'd like everybody to wait until she finishes asking a question before trying to answer. Furthermore, for group answers mandating more than a simple raised hand to indicate yes or no, please answer in order of your jury numbers. Now Ms. Schaefer. You're up."
"Thank you, your Honor." I stood up from counsel's table and entered the well of the court, then stood before this first segment of the jury pool.
My initial judgment on the jury pool was… jurors six through ten needed to go. The five of them were older caucasian males in their fifties and sixties, all of whom were wearing sufficiently nice suits in good enough condition that I could assume they owned multiples. Two of them wore Rolexes, one had what was probably a Patek Philippe (if I still knew my watches, at least), and the other two were leering at me in a fashion that boded ill for the likelihood of them listening to what I had to say as opposed to just staring at my chest or butt.
The problem here was that I had 108 candidates to pick through, and only twenty-one peremptory strikes – fifteen for the main jury, and six for alternates. So I just needed a reason to get rid of the ones I didn't like.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, thank you very much for your time today." I made sure to stand several feet back from the jury box, such that nobody had to look overly far down to see me, and so I didn't have to look up to make eye contact with everybody's elevated positions. "Before I address you as individuals, there are a few more general questions that I would like to ask. These are going to be yes-or-no questions; if the answer is yes, please raise your hand; if the answer is no, you do not need to do anything."
I paced to the left, putting myself in between the judge and the jury. This was, again, a small psychological trick: if they had to look at Judge Andrews, who had just put everybody under oath, they would feel more compelled to answer these questions honestly. For the individual questions, though, I wanted them looking only at me.
"Have any of you had a bad experience or encounter with a mutant?" One hand flew up almost immediately – juror two, an older hispanic woman.
I shared a look with the DA, and he stood up from his chair before I could ask.
"Let the record show that juror number two has raised her hand," I said for the stenographer's benefit. "Sidebar, your Honor?"
Judge Andrews waved us up, and when we got up there, I spoke in hushed tones.
"Your Honor, given the answer we just received, it's likely that this juror will be unable to maintain an unbiased perspective on the case at hand. Her own past experience introduces prejudice that might cause her to unfairly weight evidence against my client, simply because she conflates the victims' experiences with her own. Given this, the defense moves to strike this juror for cause."
"Any counter-argument?" Judge Andrews asked the DA.
"None, your Honor," he said. "The people see no reason to oppose the defense's argument here."
"That settles that," he said, and waved us off. Young walked back behind counsel's table on the right side of the courtroom, while I resumed my place in the well of the court. "Juror number two, the Court would like to thank you for your time. You are excused; bailiff, please escort her from the courtroom." Once she was escorted out, I continued.
"Do any of you live or work in Brooklyn?"
Four hands went up.
"Let the record reflect that jurors… three, six, eight, and twelve have all raised their hands in response to the question. Sidebar?" I asked. Judge Andrews waved us both up.
And once again, both Lou Young and I went forward for a sidebar. There wasn't even any need for discussion this time, as the judge waved us both away before I could even make my argument. But the procedure must be observed, even though it was an utterly wasted sidebar.
"Juror number three, six, eight, and twelve, the Court would like to thank you for your time. You are all excused; please follow the bailiff out of the courtroom."
Welcome to one of the reasons jury selection could take so long. See, when jury selection occurs, there are two ways to remove a potential juror from the pool: either you just outright choose to not have them on your jury, or you find a reason that they cannot serve on this specific jury. The former is known as a peremptory strike; these are essentially 'I don't want this person here', and can be used regardless of reason.
If a juror was giving you in particular the stink-eye? You can get them out. If they happen to be the type of person who wouldn't be receptive to your argument, such as someone from a perfect marriage being particularly dense over allegations of domestic violence. Peremptory strikes are a very powerful tool, but there is a limit to how many you get, otherwise no jury trial would ever actually go through.
Then there is the latter, more common method: striking for cause. When you strike somebody for cause, it is because something about that juror would bias them against either party in a case. Whether it be due to their occupation, background, demographic, personal history, or any number of other things, this person cannot serve on the jury. Jurors are meant to be an unbiased panel, listening only to the facts, perfectly objective. Obviously, this is utterly ridiculous.
But we try to get as close as possible, and one of the ways we did that was striking for cause.
The process, though, is a bit of a hassle. Whenever you want to strike somebody for cause, you ask the judge for a sidebar, and call up the other attorney to join you. The side putting forth the challenge offers their argument as to why the juror cannot remain unbiased, and then the other side gets to debate the issue. A lot of these arguments are not so cut-and-dry as the one I'd just offered regarding juror number two, and these side bars can last several minutes of back and forth between both parties.
Once it was said and done though, either the judge excused the juror, or they didn't. The process was slow, and tedious, but trust me when I say it was probably the best option.
This whole rigamarole went on for several questions more, during which I managed to excuse one more of the older men, juror seven, for cause… because he was dumb enough to rip an eight-ball of cocaine from a napkin while sitting in the jury box. Nobody believed him that it was a sneeze.
I will never understand finance people.
Regardless, this left me with two more jurors, jurors nine and ten, that I needed to eliminate. Though I was also worried about juror eleven: a middle-aged woman who reminded me of the worst examples of what I called the 'Midwestern country club mentality'. They were the type who were very quick to adopt an 'us vs. them' mindset at the drop of a hat, based purely on the first shared quality they could come up with.
Jurors one, four, five, nine, ten, and eleven remained from this first pool. Now that group questions were done, it was time to go in order.
"Juror number one." I moved to the right side of the jury box, forcing everybody to look away from the judge in order to follow me. Juror number one was a young African-American man, probably in his early to mid 20s, wearing a dark-blue button-up shirt over a gray vest. "Where in New York are you from?"
"I'm from Harlem, ma'am," he said, looking me straight in the eye. "Lived there my whole life, ma'am."
Okay, Harlem. The Hulk's rampage had happened in 1974, meaning… it's likely the juror would remember it, at least somewhat.
"Harlem, Harlem," I started, pacing a bit closer to the jury box. "That's where the Hulk rampaged, isn't it?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied. "Was scary as hell when it happened."
"The Hulk is now a member of the Avengers. Given what he did in Harlem, what's your take on that?"
"What went down in Harlem weren't only his fault," juror number one said. "What was he supposed to do, just stand there an' take it?"
No sound of a pen. Even just with this small amount of questions asked, I could already tell: this juror was absolutely perfect.
Which meant he would probably be eliminated by one of the prosecution's peremptory strikes. Of course.
"This juror is acceptable to the defense, Your Honor."
And with that, I moved on to the next one.
Juror number four was a Chinese woman, around my age, dressed in a smart pantsuit (which was drawing fairly continuous looks of disdain from juror eleven), and held herself with a smooth, easy confidence. As I questioned her, I couldn't quite place what was familiar about her.
It was only as she answered my third question that I remembered where I recognized her from: the trivia night hall of fame at Stonewall. She'd been banned from participating in the bar's trivia contests again, after the one time she managed to answer five back-to-back questions without letting the question finish.
The only reason I didn't have to strike her was that the two of us had never actually spoken, for which I was counting my lucky stars. I wanted this woman on my jury.
With no objections, I moved on to the next one.
Juror number five was an Italian plumber from the Bronx. I was sorely, sorely tempted to ask if he had a brother named Mario or Luigi, but that would be wasting both my time and the court's, so I refrained. Similarly to the woman before him, I couldn't find any cause to strike, and didn't have enough information to know whether he needed a peremptory strike. Which meant I had to wait until I knew more.
"Juror number nine." I approached the second to last of this batch of 'problem' jurors: the last of the older men, somewhere in his fifties, whose eyes probably hadn't been on my face the entire time I'd been before the potential jurors. "Where in New York do you live?"
"I have a small, twenty-five hundred square foot condominium in Central Park East," he said, his voice absolutely dripping with the same type of faux-humility that would consider a ten-million dollar loan a pittance.
"Hmm." I took a step towards the jury box. "Nice neighborhood, then."
"Safe neighborhood, more like," he said, a hand coming up to adjust his tie. "That's why I picked it over NoHo."
That… that was an intriguing thread. "Interesting priority. Tell me, have you ever been the victim of a crime?"
"I can safely say that no, I haven't," he said.
Thunk-dunk.
"Hmm." I stalked closer, crossing my arms under my chest, and followed his eyes. "Juror number nine. What do you consider a crime?"
"Burglary, murder, that kind of stuff," he answered, crossing his arms. "Crooks are a violent sort. Can't trust them."
"And what about white collar crimes?" I asked. "Tax evasion? Embezzlement? Fraud?"
Thunk-dunk.
The juror did not answer.
"Juror number nine, you swore an oath, under penalty of perjury, to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth," I said, stepping closer until I was inches from the jury box. "Now, you have an opportunity to revisit your past answer and tell the truth, absolving you of any falsehood. Have you ever been the victim of a crime?"
And still, he remained silent. His jaw tightened, and I could see his knuckles going white against the arms of the chair. Of course, I thought to myself, he wouldn't want to say anything. If he was able to afford that many square feet over Central Park, he had to be wealthy, and the way he flaunted his wealth told me he was a new money finance type.
And per Matt's message, he'd been a victim of fraud. Wire fraud? Securities fraud? The specifics didn't matter, not really.
"Sidebar, your Honor?"
The DA and I both approached the bench once we were given permission.
"I don't think we need to hear anything further from this juror to know that he should be stricken for cause," I told the judge.
"Jury questionnaire says he's a hedge fund manager," Judge Andrews said, flipping through the papers on the bench. "While your line of questioning and his response hints that he likely needs to take the Fifth, that is not the scope of this trial. And I do not want a juror willing to lie under oath for personal gain in my courtroom." The two of us left the bench, and again resumed our positions. "The Court would like to thank and excuse juror number nine. Bailiff, if you would."
With that, I was down to two.
Despite all of my best efforts, though, juror ten would not crack. He was just as problematic as the other finance-guy jurors before him, but I could not find a reason to strike him for cause. What was worse, though, is that juror eleven worried me. The looks she sent my way meant that I was stuck making a decision, one that I would rather not have had to make this soon into jury selection.
It was not a decision I wanted to make… but I had to face facts. I did not need a full jury of perfect jurors. All I needed was three, preferably four.
"The defense has no objections to these remaining jurors, your Honor," I told Judge Andrews. Jurors one, four, five, ten, and eleven remained.
"Very well, please take your seat." Judge Andrews turned towards the prosecution's table. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is now the District Attorney's turn to ask questions of you. DA Young, the jury is yours."
"Thank you, your Honor."
Lou Young stood up, buttoning his jacket as he did, and put his hands in his pockets as he strode up to the jury. He paced back and forth before the jury box a couple of times, eyes flitting between each of the five remaining prospective jurors individually. I was watching facial expressions very carefully, and saw juror one, the juror I wanted most to stay, frown as the prosecutor's eyes glided past him.
"Now I'm gonna ask you to raise your hand if the answer is yes – and keep in mind, you are still under oath." Lou Young stopped, angled so that the jury had to look at both him and the judge, like I had. "Is anybody here in the jury a mutant?"
"Objection!" I stood quickly, my chair scraping on the floor beneath me as I pushed it back. "Your Honor—"
"On what grounds, Ms. Schaefer?" Judge Andrews asked, leaning forward from his seat on the bench.
"Sir, under the Supreme Court's ruling in Batson v. Kentucky, four-seventy-six U.S. seventy-nine, the prosecution's question is a clear attempt to violate my client's Fourteenth Amendment rights under the Equal Protection Clause," I said.
Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79 (1986) was, as of the moment, a still-new ruling. It was a landmark case, wherein the Supreme Court ruled that the prosecution could not use its peremptory strikes to remove all members of a jury that shared an ethnicity with the defendant. The Supreme Court ruled that, although a defendant was not entitled to have members of their race as part of the jury, it undermined the whole point of the system to allow prosecutors to use their strikes to cherry pick members of a defendant's minority out of the jury in an attempt to stack the deck against them.
The original case arose when a prosecutor used his peremptory strikes to remove all of the black jurors from the pool, and an all-white jury convicted a black defendant. He challenged under both the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments, and prevailed under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Now, I wasn't stupid, and neither was Lou Young. If he tried to strike a mutant juror for cause, I would argue that there are just as many reasons for a mutant to look down on other mutants, and cite an article from a year ago about a clash in Westchester, New York, wherein an open mutant attacked another, 'closeted' mutant, outing them and resulting in some serious property damage. But even though he knew the challenge would fail, the question would still have been answered.
And that left the opportunity to use a peremptory strike on the table.
"The prosecution's question clearly goes to a matter that suggests an approach identical to that under which the Fourteenth Amendment challenge in Batson arose," I continued.
"You know, I re-read that ruling myself just this morning, Ms. Schaefer," Judge Andrews began. "And Justice Powell's ruling was quite specific: the prosecution cannot exclude potential jurors solely based on their race, which is defined as their ethnic status. Being a mutant is not an ethnicity, in the same way that sexual deviancy is not an ethnicity." My jaw tightened at the implied insult, but I was careful to say nothing. "Perhaps the spirit of the text would allow your interpretation to succeed, but we are here to try a case, Ms. Schaefer, not write new law. Your objection is denied."
"Thank you, your Honor," the DA said, turning back to the jury box. "Now, I'm going to repeat my question. Is anybody in the jury pool a mutant?"
"Rest assured," Judge Andrews spoke up here, "that any confidential information revealed during the jury selection process does not leave the courtroom. Anybody attempting to disseminate private information shared during jury selection will be subject to extreme fines, lawsuits from the person whose secrets they thought to share, and as many charges of contempt of court as I think I can get to stick. I believe my record was twenty-three," he said, playing with the gavel in his hand. "So I will reiterate the prosecution's question for him. Members of the jury, you are under oath. If you are a mutant, raise your hand."
Juror number one's hand raised.
I slammed a fist against my leg.
"Thank you for your honesty," Lou Young said. "Let the record show that juror number one has raised his hand. Your Honor, at this time the prosecution would like to use one of its peremptory challenges. We ask that juror number one be excused from the jury."
"So entered," Judge Andrews said. "Juror number one, the Court would like to thank you for your time. You are excused, and the bailiff shall escort you out." The bailiff came up and took my dream juror out, with Lou Young ostensibly turning to follow his back, but instead giving me a victorious smirk that I so dearly wanted to rip off his face. "DA Young, the jury is yours."
"Of course, your Honor." He turned to the jury. "In a similar vein to the last question, is anybody here friends or family with a mutant?"
No hands went up. Some part of me thought this was a blessed relief, but at the same time, it meant that jurors ten and eleven were likely here to stay.
"Well if that's the case." Lou Young took two steps forward. "Now, are there any practicing homosexuals in the jury box?"
"Objection!" I rushed to my feet, the sharp click of my heels cracking on the courtroom floor.
Once I was on my feet, though, I floundered for a half second. I couldn't try a Batson challenge again; if the last one hadn't worked for a trait we knew a person was born with, there was no way it would work for a perceived choice, even if I knew it wasn't!
All I had to work with was the reasons you wouldn't ask a witness something. Think, Noa… shit, I was running a blank. Um…
"Your Honor…"
Okay, in the absence of anything else, I had to use a fallback: Rule 403.
"Your Honor, regardless of any perceived connection between minority communities, the prosecution's line of questioning has no relevance upon the charges at hand, the defendant's status, or anything else that may be useful to determining the impartiality of the jurors!"
"Your Honor." Lou Young turned to the judge and lowered his arms into a loose spread. "The People are just trying to get to points on which a potential juror's solidarity may outweigh their rationality. After all, we remember the lengths to which protesters went during the Draft, the black vote movement, and so many others, all to protect their fellow man, and all at great cost to themselves."
"I do remember," the judge said.
Shit. Young had gotten away with the previous question on grounds that were much flimsier than the reasoning I put forth for this one. Meanwhile I was internally kicking myself for not thinking of this. Of course he'd ask this question in New York, Stonewall happened here!
God, if the judge were to let even this go through—
"... despite all that, I am inclined to agree with the defense on this one," Judge Andrews said, though from the way he said that through what seemed to be a clenched jaw, this was not a decision he wanted to make. "DA Young. I've given you mutants. I've given you friends and family of mutants. I draw the line here. Do not push your luck."
"Understood, your Honor." Lou Young turned and gave a respectful nod to the judge. "It won't happen again."
"It had best not. The jury will disregard the question," he said with a bang of his gavel.
I wanted to sink to my seat in relief, thanking my lucky stars that even Judge Andrews couldn't afford to be seen as too unreasonable. Unfortunately for me, though, one of the jurors did not disregard the DA's question, and instead seemed to have taken it as a personal challenge.
Juror four had her hand raised, and stared directly at the district attorney, daring him to act on it.
"... your Honor, at this time the prosecution would like to use its second peremptory challenge, and requests the court thank and excuse juror number four," he said, pausing briefly at the surprise of seeing juror four's hand up.
I, meanwhile, bit back another curse as I saw juror eleven, the middle-aged woman, stare at juror four with undisguised loathing.
"Very well," Judge Andrews said. "Juror four, the Court would like to thank you for your service. You are excused. Bailiff?"
When the bailiff approached, juror four maintained her distance from him, and left the courtroom without a word.
Lou Young finished up his initial voir-dire without much fanfare, and did not strike anybody else. From my impressions of five and ten, the count stood at one neutral, one bad. Not an auspicious start. As for juror eleven, though…
"The prosecution has no further questions," Lou Young said, and returned to his seat.
"Very well," Judge Andrews said. "Any further objections?"
"Your Honor," I said, coming to my feet again. "At this time, the defense would like to exercise its first peremptory challenge, and asks that the Court excuse juror eleven."
"Very well," the judge said. "Juror number eleven, the Court thanks you for your service. You are excused." Once the bailiff had escorted her out, the judge turned to the remaining two. "Juror five, juror ten, welcome to the jury. If you would please be seated in the gallery? Bailiff, bring in the next twelve, if you would."
It was many, many hours later, and several recesses for smoke breaks, that we finally had our jury. Twelve jurors, three alternates.
I saw a good five that I thought we could sway, but whether I could even win two of them depended on who the jury foreman wound up being.
"Ladies and gentlemen, we now have a jury. The trial shall begin with pre-trial motions and opening arguments no later than nine a.m. Court is adjourned." Judge Andrews brought his gavel down, and everybody stood up, filing out of the courtroom in a jumbled mess. Linda and Jonathan took up position like I'd told them to, flanking St. John, preventing anybody from getting close. Matt stood in front of us all, his white and red cane preceding our every footstep, and I stood directly in front of St. John, head held high as I readied to make eye contact with as many people as possible.
Reporters awaited us outside, and questions rained down like wildfire.
I ignored them all, instead casting my gaze through the assembled crowd of media, making sure as many of them felt my gaze as possible. There was exactly one thing to be said to them.
"I'm afraid we cannot discuss anything about the case with the media at this time," I said, taking advantage of the first reporter who closed his mouth long enough for me to get a word in edgewise. "I would thank the press for their understanding and respect for my client's privacy in this difficult time. Thank you very much."
Everything I said was carefully constructed to make sure the press paid attention to me. 'I' instead of 'we', my emphasis on the possessive to draw attention back towards myself? All of that use of first person made the listener subconsciously pay attention to the person talking, consider them the focus.
St. John, despite being tried as an adult, was still a minor. He didn't deserve this kind of media circus surrounding him.
I, on the other hand, was no stranger to the media – it's hard to be unknown to the press when your courtroom antics have pulled front page billing, even in a rag like the Bugle. It didn't take much effort to command the press's attention, and that meant that St. John would, hopefully, not be subject to as much scrutiny.
With the more ethical reporters among them thoroughly cowed – that is to say, exactly three of the twenty or so that had ambushed us – I allowed Matt and his cane to clear a path, one hand lightly resting on his upper arm to help guide him, at least to an outside observer. An officer eventually noticed us, and decided to actually do his job, scattering the reporters entirely and taking the lead.
The officer escorted us back to the conference room, and waited outside, actually doing his job for once as he fended off those reporters ambitious and foolish enough to think they still had a chance at getting a quote.
"What happens now?" St. John asked.
"Now, we know what we're going into, and who our targets are," I said, sitting at the table, flipping through two notepads until I had the pages I wanted. "We have about two hours before the van arrives to take you back to juvenile hall."
"What're we doing until then?"
"That's simple," I told Linda with a smile. "St. John has his audience now. And we are going to direct a performance they won't ever forget."
So as I believe has been mentioned, Noa's appearance is based off of (translation: outright ripped wholesale from) my character on Final Fantasy XIV.
As a present to myself for finishing the bar exam, I ordered an art commission of my character, who... well, since she looks exactly like Noa, I may as well just share it here as an exemplar.
The limo service's Lincoln Towncar pulled up to a rundown apartment building in Hell's Kitchen, the lot abutting a small, but clearly well-loved Catholic chapel. Was chapel the right word? I didn't know, and frankly, I didn't care. Regardless, the limo pulled up to the curb, and I reached across the backseat to open the window on the right side of the car.
"Mr. Murdock," I called to my associate. "Door's unlocked."
Matt picked up his faded messenger bag and tapped his way to the car, sliding in with more grace than one would have expected from a blind man. He did have to finagle the placement of his cane in the backseat, but that took only another five seconds or so before the door closed, and we were on our way to the courthouse.
"How'd you sleep?"
Matt took a moment to just breathe before answering the question. "Badly. You?"
"Decently enough," I said. "NyQuil is surprisingly good as a sleep aid, as is Benadryl. But only for special occasions, like court."
"Right, right," he said. Then, "is… this, normal?"
"Hm?" I turned to glance at Matt, a tad confused. "You're playing the pronoun game here, Matthew. I don't know what 'this' is referring to."
"All of…" He waved a hand at the car. "All of this. Ma'am, you bought me a two thousand dollar suit. Is, is that normal?"
"It can be," I told him. "Depending on the clientele your firm serves, the level of amenities a firm has to provide both its clients and attorneys changes. If your clients are mostly the neighborhood sort, you want to match your means to the neighborhood, if just a little bit above their means. But big firms? Firms like Lewin Lieberman & Loeb?"
I tapped the leather of the armrest that folded down between our seats in the back of the limo. The interior of the car had that timeless "luxury" feel to it, and the privacy divider between the driver and backseat gave it an air of severity.
"This firm is expensive. As a result, clients of the firm expect to see expensive items; ones a step below their own usually, so as to not seem threateningly moneyed, but expensive. They want to see steakhouses, luxury cars, bespoke suits, designer shoes. They want to know that we can and do run in the same circles, that we know firsthand the interests we're protecting. But more than that, attorneys of the firm have an image to uphold, one in keeping with the firm's reputation. We need to look and act the part."
"And that's why I have a new suit?" Matt asked. "An Armani one?"
"Consider it an early birthday present," I told him. It was already harder for Matt to go suit shopping, just because he couldn't actually tell what the patterns or colors were, or how they looked on him. "You needed one anyway."
"This is probably the nicest thing I've ever worn." Matt's fingers twitched, and I guessed he'd kept himself from running his fingers over the fabric of his suit. "But this is just… normal for you, isn't it?"
"It is now," I admitted, rehearsing my opening statements in my head. "But back midwest, it was all toasted ravioli, oven brisket, and Ted Drewes on special occasions."
"Hmph, figured you for an out-of-towner," Matt said, triumph in his tone. "All fairness? You don't talk like a New Yorker."
"Oh?" I asked, unable to help the slight smile. "And where did you think I was from?"
Matt frowned. "Well, the way you enunciate your words? You sound like Reagan, a bit."
"Reagan? Really, Reagan?" I gave an exaggerated huff, and crossed my arms over my chest. "Why I never!"
"No, no!" Matt said, sounding slightly worried. "It's the way you talk, how you pronounce and enunciate things, it's got a bit of a Hollywood feel to it, you know?"
I couldn't help but laugh, both at his assessment and expense. "Well, Reagan comparisons aside, that's rather intentional. You'll see during opening statements."
Matt, despite being blind, gave me a look.
"You know what I meant by the idiom, Matthew. Quit being churlish."
"Sorry, sir." He paused deliberately. "Ma'am."
"At this time, would the prosecution like to make an opening statement?"
"We would, your Honor." Lou Young stood from his chair at counsel's table, but did not go any further. "Counsel requests permission to enter the well of the court."
"Granted," Judge Andrews said.
Most people take for granted that lawyers get to walk around in front of the judge and jury. In reality, no, this is not something we're simply able to do. It is a privilege, not a right.
The area between the bar of the court – a literal waist-high wooden fence, with a swinging door in the center of the aisle of the same height as the fence itself – and the judge's bench is what's known as the "well of the court". One does not simply walk into the well of the court without permission. If you do, the bailiff tackles you.
(I have seen it, it is hilarious, and is almost always followed up by a contempt of court charge from a judge who's desperately trying to restrain their laughter at the sheer idiocy.)
Whenever you enter the well of the court, or if you need to proceed to a different part of the well of the court, you need to ask the judge for permission. You want to approach the jury box, to show a piece of evidence to the jury? Ask permission. The witness needs to have a piece of evidence handed to them? Ask permission for that. Are you requesting a sidebar with the judge? Once again, you ask permission.
Generally, this permission applies to you. It has not, in my experience, extended to furniture.
And yet, here was DA Young, picking up counsel's chair and taking it into the well of the court.
He set the heavy wooden chair down in front of and facing the jury box, then sat in the chair. He was on the front half, leaning rather far forward, his arms resting in his lap as opposed to on the arms of the chair.
From this angle, I wasn't able to quite tell what he was doing. I saw an arm reach into his coat pocket, and when he brought it out, he held a box of those horrid menthol cigarettes he loved. He tapped on the bottom to knock one cigarette loose, grabbed it… and then paused.
"Ah, what am I thinking?" He used that same tone one would use for rhetorical questions, then lightly tapped himself on the head with the heel of one palm. "I can't smoke in here, none of us can!"
A quick glance at Judge Andrews showed zero surprise, which worried me, and was enough to guess that this little bit of theatrics had been planned. I had to suppress a frown, and instead simply turned to my notepad, marking down that he was going for what I could only assume was a 'town hall' feel with his opening statement.
"See, in some ways, that's how this all started," Lou Young said. He put the cigarette back into the box and placed it back in his jacket pocket, then leaned forward, his hands clasped lightly in his lap. "A few young men off work, sharing a beer, having a smoke. Normally, this isn't a dangerous thing to do. It doesn't lead to a young man being crippled for life. But here, it did. All because four young men saw that something bad might be happening in their neighborhood, took a stand to stop it… and got the worst shock of their lives when they turned out to be correct, and they were now stuck in an alley with a dangerous mutant."
Ah, so that's the angle he was going for. He wanted to reframe the reason his four 'victims' followed St. John into the alleyway, and so he put it in a manner that couldn't be easily refuted. It's one thing for him to say that they did it to stop a crime.
It's something else entirely if they thought it was to stop a crook: it introduces the possibility that they could have been mistaken, meaning that any testimony regarding whether they knew St. John was a thief or not was now just their opinion.
"It was just a day like any other," Lou said, twiddling something between his fingers – one of his menthol cigarettes, I saw once he raised his hand. "Mick, Jimmy, Theo, and Pat. The work site let them go early – you know how May is, raining most every afternoon. Can't build when it's wet, can you? So they figured, may as well hang on the street corner, by Jimmy's building. There's a corner store they can get some smokes and beers, shoot the breeze.
Lou wagged the cigarette as he spoke, pointing from juror to juror. The chair had felt like a ridiculous affectation at first, but now that I saw it in action? The way it placed him below the jury?
It was, I had to grudgingly admit, inspired.
"It was while they were doing this, while they were just spending time together, living their lives, that they saw something. They saw someone go into the corner store, rush out of it, spot them looking, and run." His hand moved, a cigarette held between his fingers emphasizing his every move. "So they did what any good samaritan would do: they gave chase. They herded this rapscallion down an alleyway, and confronted the thief! Only… they made a mistake."
DA Young waved the cigarette in his hand.
"See, Mick had a vice. He liked to smoke. So when he and his friends cornered the scoundrel in the alleyway, he still had a lit cigarette hanging from his mouth." He held the cigarette directly in front of him, displaying it prominently to the jury. "He may as well have just handed the villain a loaded gun.
"The mutant, cause as it turned out, that's what he was, ripped the fire out of Mick's cigarette. He torched the entire alley worse than the napalm guns back in 'Nam. Mick, Jimmy, Theo, Pat, they tried to fight back, but it was too much. They ran. And while they were running? Fwoosh!" He motioned with a hand, imitating liquid coming from a hose. Or rather, I figured, napalm jelly from a flamethrower. "The mutie nicked Mick in the leg, and his trousers caught fire! He tried to get them off, stopped looking where he was going, and – wham!"
Lou Young punctuated that last bit with a loud clap of his hands, at which three of the jurors flinched back, having leaned in to listen to his story. He had them enthralled – the only saving graces were that they weren't the five I was courting, and that if he'd managed to reel them in so easily, none of them was likely to be the foreman.
"Mick fell into an open construction site. His leg broke so bad, he's never gonna walk right again. Jimmy, Theo, and Pat, they got out sorta alright. That is, if you don't count the nightmares. And all 'cause they thought to protect their neighborhood, and crossed a mutie to do it.
"You don't gotta take my word for it, though." Lou Young flipped the cigarette to his other hand, and used it to point at the witness stand. "Much as it'll hurt him to get up there, Micah Samuelson's gonna tell ya everything that happened in that alley. And James Boothe'll follow him. They'll tell you everything: what they saw, what they did. What they got for it. What it cost them.
"Next, Detective Vincent Ruscoli is gonna paint a picture for ya. He'll take you back to that alleyway, show you what he found, how he pieced together the clues. The veteran detective'll guide us all through the process he used to figure out that this weren't no ordinary thug with a lighter and hairspray, and just how much danger our good boys from Brooklyn faced.
"And lastly, the good Doctor David McConnell will share just how badly Micah got hurt. You'll know the extent of his injuries, how much it hurt. And just how bad it was that Micah, a twenty-two year old young man in the prime of his youth, will be needing a cane to walk for the rest of his life. How he'll be suffering pain during his every waking moment from now on."
The jury shifted uncomfortably. Beside me, St. John gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles went white, but to my eternal relief, he said nothing.
"By the end of this trial, the proof will be in front of you," Lou Young said, standing up from the chair now. He walked behind it and rested his hands on the back, leaning forward ever so slightly. "The who, the what, the how, the when, and the why."
He tapped on the wooden back of the chair on each of the five W's, the tap quiet, but resonating loud and clear through the courtroom.
"And once all is said and done, I know you will make New York proud. I know you'll have everything you need to convict this dangerous mutant, and help make our streets safe."
And with that, DA Young took his chair and returned to counsel's table.
I could feel the silence lingering in the courtroom, longer than was the usual. Risking the impropriety, I cleared my throat, and could feel the weight of Judge Andrews' gaze upon me.
"Does the defense have an opening statement at this time?" the judge asked, his tone hostile enough that the same three jurors who'd flinched from the DA's sudden change of tone earlier all turned to glare at me. As though the simple act of doing my job was an affront to them now, simply because of who and what my client was.
"Yes, your Honor," I said, standing up from my chair. "Permission to approach?"
"Granted," he said.
And with that, the game was on. I reached for the trial binder holding my demonstratives. The sharp snap of a three-ring binder opening drew the jury's attention, and a quick look showed me three of the ones I wanted, and two of the jurors I'd already written off, looking over at me with curiosity. Then, one more reach down, and I had a carry case, a cork board, and pins. Accoutrements in hand, I entered the well of the court.
I set up my easel in thirty seconds, and set the cork board upon it. Then, the folder still in my hand, I turned to face the jury.
"Most of us in this room are lucky," I started, standing beside my easel. "We are lucky that we have never needed to fight for our lives. To protect ourselves with whatever happened to be available, be it a rock, a knife, a gun – or a mutant power. But the sixteen year old boy at the table over there," I turned to point at St. John, "was not so lucky. He had no choice but to fight against four people, all of them bigger, stronger, older than him, using only what he had available to him.
"Now, all of this talk you've heard?" I flipped open the folder in my hands, and pulled out the first piece of paper. "Young man? Defendant? All of it forgets that at the heart of this case, there is a person. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury." I pinned the paper to the cork board, and stepped away, letting the jury see my client's baby picture.
"Meet St. John Allerdyce, John to his friends." The next photograph joined St. John's baby picture, one of him on his fifth birthday, at a Yankees game. "St. John is a young man, born and raised in Brooklyn. He's a smart kid, to the point that he was offered a full scholarship to a private school in Manhattan," a piece of paper on expensive stationery joined the photographs, "where he maintains a 3.6 GPA.
"Now, I had to look this up again, so for those of you who, like me, have forgotten what that number is supposed to stand for?" I received a few good natured chuckles from two jurors, and a few people in the gallery. "It means that St. John maintains an A- grade average at one of the most academically challenging schools in Manhattan – a school that routinely sends multiple students each year to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and more."
Another piece of paper joined the rest – a playbill, with a name circled in red pen.
"St. John spends most of his afternoons with the school's theater department. But while you won't find him on stage, everybody sees his work." Pictures surrounded the playbill – pictures of St. John hanging lights in the rafters of the theater, eating takeout Chinese with the rest of the cast and crew, having a mock swordfight with the props backstage. "St. John works lighting design. He hangs the lights, aims them, times it all. When the lights go down on the theater, he's the one flipping the switch. And when the spotlight follows the lead, he's up in the rafters, guiding it."
The last of my papers met the posterboard: a newspaper clipping from the New York Times' theater section, lauding the light and sound design on a high school performance. St. John's high school. St. John's lighting design.
I picked up the posterboard from the easel and brought it closer to the jury, starting closer to the prosecutor's table,and walking left, towards the bench. A simple left to right motion, like the way we read.
"This is who St. John Allerdyce is. A young man from a loving family. A young man with bright mind, a promising future, and a passion for the theater."
I turned back to my easel, and set the corkboard back into place, loosening the fixture holding the board steady before stepping slightly to its side, so the jury could see it again. Then for three seconds, I did nothing, said nothing. Just let the jury look at the corkboard.
"But according to the prosecution?" I took two steps towards the easel and corkboard.
Then, with a hard shove, I knocked it over.
The easel fell backwards, clattering to the wooden floor of the courtroom. The easel bounced once, twice, three times. The corkboard flew off, coming to a stop right in front of the bailiff, who nudged it aside slightly with his foot.
"Everything that St. John is, everything he's done. All of his hopes, his dreams, his aspirations, his drive?" I turned back to the jury now, stopping in front of the fallen easel. "According to the vaunted Louis Young, none of that matters, because St. John Allerdyce had the misfortune to be born a mutant."
"This case," I continued, only letting my last sentence ring in their ears for a single second, "is a simple matter of he-said, they-said. Both sides are, from a certain point of view, speaking truth. But DA Young was tricky, oh so tricky just now. Thoughts, feelings, suspicions. These are what he plans to offer you. The four neighborhood thugs – because, as you'll hear from the owner of the very corner store they allege John robbed, Mr. Alejandro de Soto, that is what people think of them – thought St. John was a thief. They assumed he had to have stolen. It's all…"
I turned slightly from the jury, one arm holding my other at the elbow, as my free hand tapped at my chin. I made sure to appear as though I was thinking, searching for the word. A moment later, I perked up, let one arm drop, and turned back towards the jury.
"It's all fluffy," I said. "Uncertain. It's a possibility.
"But this, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is not a squabble over who has to pay for a fender bender. This," I waved with both arms at the courtroom, offering as much of a flourish as was possible without expansive skirts to swirl about me, "is a criminal court, where we deal in one currency: cold. Hard. Facts. And as you will see, the prosecution's case is remarkably light on those, which we will take great care to expose for you to see.
"But as for the defense's case?" I let out a mirthless chuckle. "We have facts. Oh, do we have facts to spare."
I stalked towards the right again, setting myself directly in front of the prosecution's table.
The jury could look past me and see DA Young, but they wouldn't. What I'd done was a textbook example of upstaging: whichever object of attention was closer to the audience would get the lion's share of the attention.
Even though both the DA and I were in the exact same line of sight, because I was closer, I was more immediately important.
And with any luck, this would plant a particular idea in the minds of the jurors – that just as I was a more important object of attention now, so too would everything I said and presented be of greater weight and importance than whatever Louie did to try and spin his precious thug's flight of fantasy into a half-assed narrative.
"As I mentioned earlier, Mr. Alejandro de Soto, the owner of the corner store where all of this kicked off, will soon be seated upon that stand. He will tell you all about what actually happened to set everything in motion, including who really attacked who, and explain why St. John had a very real reason to fear for his safety. Namely, because where these four hooligans were concerned? He was far from the only one that they terrorized.
"You will also hear from a close friend of St. John's, a Miss Katherine Pryde."
I offered the jury a smile, even as I shifted to the side ever so slowly, moving just a little bit at a time as I spoke. Their eyes followed me, shifting away from the DA, putting him and his case out of sight, out of mind – quite literally forcing it to fade into the background.
"Miss Pryde knows that St. John is a mutant. She has known this for quite some time, has seen what his powers are capable of. And yet, she isn't afraid of him, not in the slightest. Why? Because Miss Pryde knows a person who happens to be a mutant, and she is all too happy to tell you about it.
"Lastly!" I shifted to the left, setting myself before the empty witness stand and the judge's bench. "You will hear from Doctor Harry Michaelson, who saw St. John hours after he was attacked in that alleyway. Dr. Michaelson will explain, in no uncertain terms, the extent of the injuries St. John suffered, how and what could have caused it, and – most importantly?"
I walked forward, until I was practically leaning on the jury box, staring straight at the man who had just yesterday been potential juror number ten. And this time, I was pleased to see that he was looking me straight in the eye.
"He will explain how St. John was quite literally this close," I held one hand up, my fingers an inch apart, "to having died in that alleyway."
I turned away from the jury box, and picked up my easel from where I'd knocked it to the floor, righted it, then retrieved the corkboard from halfway across the well of the court. The corkboard went back into place on the easel, which now faced inwards towards the judge, so that the jury could see more of my front. With both hands still on the easel, I gave a somber look to the contents of the corkboard.
And then, I let out the largest, most despondent sigh I could manage.
"Just as I didn't ask to be born a woman," I said, turning now to face the jury, with one hand still on the easel. "And just as DA Young didn't decide to be born a man, St. John Allerdyce had no control over his being a mutant. It's just how he was born. All that I ask is that you judge him on this."
I turned the easel with the hand resting on it, so that the jury could see it.
"On who St. John is. Because we all deserve that much."
And with that, I was done. A short, respectful bow of my head to the jury came first, and then I was dismantling the easel, retracting the tripod legs so that I could put it away. A moment later I was back beside defense counsel's table, and slid the easel into its case before disassembling the little diorama I'd assembled on the cork board.
"Holy crap," St. John whispered to me as I sat down, and I had to fight down the smirk at his shock. Leave it to the theater kid to recognize a monologue when he saw one.
"With opening statements concluded," Judge Andrews boomed, raising his voice over the murmurs forming in both the gallery and the jury box, "the court shall recess. We shall resume in thirty minutes with the prosecution's case-in-chief."
The gavel came down, and last-minute planning amendments began.
"If the prosecution could call its first witness?" Judge Andrews said moments after the bailiff returned with the jury.
"Of course, your Honor." Lou Young stood up from his chair and leaned forward, both hands on the desk. "The prosecution calls the victim, Micah Samuelson, to the stand."
Years of practice is what let me not grimace when I heard how the DA phrased things. It was a bit of a low blow, deliberately calling your witness the victim, meant to tug at the heartstrings of the jury.
And when the man of the hour passed the bar of the court, I understood exactly why.
Micah Samuelson couldn't wear a pair of suit pants due to the enormous cast immobilizing his entire leg, from just before the toes all the way to over the knee. Instead, he wore a pair of khaki shorts, with a single boat shoe on his good foot. To contrast that, he had a simple, long-sleeved polo shirt, buttons fastened. Mid-length black hair, slick with gel or mousse, was swept back so not a single strand obscured his face.
Were it not for the cast, which prevented him from sitting straight on the witness stand and left him with his leg poking out the side, he would look like he was just some preppy young adult, about to go sailing out on the docks.
"Please raise your right hand," the bailiff said. Mick raised it obligingly, glaring at St. John from the stand the whole time. "Under penalty of perjury, do you so swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?"
"I do," Mick said.
The bailiff retreated, and Lou Young approached. My pen sat at the ready, while Matt had his thumb over the clicker of his pen.
I doubted that Louis would let a witness onto the stand if he thought they'd perjure themselves. But just from this glance, I knew Mick's type. He didn't like to get challenged, especially not by those he thought to be beneath him.
All I had to do now was listen for the thread, so I could pull it until it frayed.
"Excellent; thank you, your Honor." With that, the prosecutor stepped around his table, and walked parallel to the jury box. "Good morning, Mr. Samuelson," DA Young started. His movement brought him closer to the witness, but the angle of approach was such that wherever Mick turned to follow the DA, he was also looking at the jury. "If you could please introduce yourself to the court?"
"Sure," the witness said. "The name's Micah Samuelson, but call me Mick. I'm twenty-two, Brooklyn born 'n raised, and work in construction." His face twisted, and he looked down at his broken leg with a look of such dismay that it had to have been practiced in front of the mirror. "Well. Worked."
"And that change to past tense," Lou started, taking another step towards the witness, "that wouldn't have anything to do with what happened on May 8th, would it?"
"Objection," I said, rising to my feet. "While the question is foundational, it is also leading, and I am certain an attorney of the DA's talent could phrase it differently."
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said, cutting off the DA before he could even answer. "While I agree it could be phrased differently, it is foundational. DA Young, you may continue."
"Thank you, your Honor," he said, though not before shooting a short glare at me.
A lot of people are under the impression that objections can only be used for actual, important things, such as when the other attorney isn't playing by the rules. This was an objection that I knew wouldn't be sustained, but I made it anyway. Why?
Because not all objections are created equal. Objections serve three main purposes, I've found. One, they make sure both attorneys play by the rules: if one party is trying to pull some shenaniganery, you can quite literally call them out for all to hear, and there is no getting around that. Two, they ensure that the attorneys have to stay on their toes: it's very hard to get complacent when even a single word out of place can lead to your entire argument getting cut off at the knees.
But it was the third purpose that I used here: objections can be used solely to interrupt the flow of the other attorney's argument. Many a witness's testimony relies on an unbroken chain of questioning, or a certain reaction from the audience it was meant for. An objection at the right time can completely disrupt the rhythm of question-and-answer, or even prevent the rhythm from getting off the ground in the first place. More than that, it rips the jury's attention away from the witness, and onto the attorney making the objection. Objections are the most interesting part of many a courtroom drama simply because they're dramatic and spicy.
An objection this early, and to something I clearly knew was okay, set me up as a firebrand for the jury. It let them know that I was somebody to pay attention to, that I would be entertaining. That any attention they gave me would be repaid in full for the theatrics they'd receive.
This was all step one… and I set it up right from the get go.
"I'll repeat the question," DA Young said, puffing himself up slightly as he adjusted the collar of his suit jacket. "The change to past tense in your construction work, that wouldn't have anything to do with what happened on May 8th, would it?"
"It would," Mick confirmed. "If it weren't for that mutie, I'd be fine!"
"Objection," I said again, rising to my feet. "Witness is speculating, offering testimony whose prejudicial effect substantially outweighs any probative value, and also improperly offering testimony as to the ultimate issue."
"Your Honor—" Lou Young started, but a raised hand from the judge stopped him.
"Objection sustained," Judge Andrews said.
"Motion to strike the witness's answer past the phrase 'it would', your Honor," I said, still standing."
"Motion granted," the judge said. "The jury shall disregard everything the witness said after his confirmation of the relevance of the May 8 date."
Now, a brief point of clarification: testifying as to the ultimate issue is a tricky objection. The action you're objecting to, testifying as to the ultimate issue, is just 'saying what the matter at hand is, definitively'. For a robbery case, it would be that a certain person was, in fact, the robber. For an arson, it was that the arsonist set fire to a house.
For the case at hand, it would be that St. John caused Micah Samuelson's injuries.
Now, testifying as to the ultimate issue isn't always a problem for lay witnesses– that is to say, witnesses with direct knowledge of what happened, who are testifying as to their own observations or opinions. The problem here was that this bit of testimony came before anything else, which was improper.
"Now, Mick– let's go back to that day, May 8th." Lou Young took two steps back from the witness stand, and was almost at counsel's table again. I recognized the tactic for what it was: he was using his position to hint at the scope of his questioning, and would get closer and closer as the witness's testimony approached the juicy bits. "What were you doing?"
"Me, Jimmy, Theo, 'n Pat were chilling on the steps of Jimmy's building, havin' a beer and a smoke," Mick said. "Contractor called work early that day, something 'bout how it was supposed to rain. Ain't nobody what wants to be workin' construction in the rain."
"I can imagine!" Lou said, and shot a conspiratorial look at two members of the jury, both of whom were nodding along with knowing grins. I chalked those two up as lost causes, but thankfully they weren't on my list. "Now, just for clarification, who are Jimmy, Theo, and Pat?"
"Ah, sorry, forgot youse need full names," Mick said, again plastering a fake expression on his face, this one almost (but not quite) apologetic. "Jimmy is James Boothe, Theo is Theodore Nielsen, and Pat is Patrick MacEahern. We been buds since we was fourteen—thick as thieves, y'know?"
"So you were with your friends and coworkers outside of Jimmy's building, at…" Lou Young looked down to his wrist. "What time was it at, would ya say?"
"Was probably around four o'clock?" Mick shrugged. "Don't remember exactly, but that sounds about right."
"So!" Lou Young clapped his hands. "Four in the afternoon on May 8th, out front of Jimmy's building. Just spending some time with your friends. What changed?"
"We saw him," Mick said, pointing at St. John.
"Let the record show that the witness is pointing at the defendant!" Lou bellowed, then joined his witness in pointing at my client for a few seconds.
I wanted to object to this kind of accusatory showboating, but none of the objections really worked here, so I had to bear it. I was already on the judge's shit list as it was; I did not need to throw out spurious objections that weren't even rooted in procedure and worsen my already shaky standing in this courtroom.
"Now, you say you saw the defendant," Lou continued. "What did you see him do?"
"Well, we saw him walk 'round the corner all quick like, head low 'n looking around, kinda like this." Mick demonstrated for the court, throwing an exaggerated rendition of a furtive glance to his sides. "Looked real nervous like, then he ducks into the corner store, 'n comes right back out thirty seconds later with a can o' coke. And we thought that was real weird, y'know?"
"And why was that?" Lou continued, taking a step forward.
"He was in 'n out of that store real fast. To get done with that so quick, he had to have stolen it!"
"Objection!" I called out, and stood. "Your Honor, the witness has offered improper testimony under FRE 602's need for personal knowledge. The witness himself stated only that he saw my client enter and exit the store; even had such a theft occurred, the witness could not have seen any such events, therefore he cannot speak to it. Due to this, the defense moves to strike the witness's answer."
"Your Honor," Lou Young broke in when I was done speaking. "Mr. Samuelson is only speaking as to his opinion, as should have been plainly obvious to anyone listening! And since it's his opinion, it's perfectly valid testimony."
"I'm inclined to agree on this one," Judge Andrews said. "Objection overruled."
"Thank you, your Honor," the DA said.
I pushed my tongue hard against my teeth to try and keep myself from saying anything else; the opportunity to object would come soon enough, and maybe this time the judge would use proper judgment.
"Now, Lou continued, "when you saw the thief steal—"
"Objection," I called out again, and rose to my feet. "Your Honor, Mr. Allerdyce is not being charged with theft of any type, nor does he have any criminal history whatsoever. To call him a thief as the DA does both assumes facts not in evidence and unfairly prejudices the jury against my client."
"Sustained," Judge Andrews said, to which I had to suppress a smile at the small victory. "DA Young, in the absence of any such charges or past convictions, please refrain from using words associated with such, and reframe your question."
"Of course your Honor." DA Young put one hand in his pocket, and took two steps to the side. "Now, where was I?" Right, right; when you saw the rapscallion—"
"Objection," I said, and once again took to my feet. "Your Honor, once again counsel's phrasing unfairly prejudices the jury against my client, and now it also consists of counsel testifying, and improper use of character evidence on top of that. The same should apply to any synonyms the DA has dug out of his thesaurus, such as scoundrel, rogue, or the like."
"Your Honor—!"
Judge Andrews again held up a hand, and let out a long, annoyed sigh.
"Sustained," he said. "DA Young, because I am getting tired of hearing this same objection, please simply refer to the defendant as such. I'm sure the stenographer would appreciate it in the long run."
Ugh. And there went all the momentum I could have built up from these repeated objections. By framing it as a favor to the stenographer instead of saying anything about prejudicing the jury, said jury was now free to continue regarding St. John as exactly what DA Young called him in his opening: a scoundrel, a rogue, a rapscallion, etcetera.
"Of course, your Honor." Lou turned back to his witness. "Now, after you saw the defendant leave the store, what did you do?"
"Well, the four of us, we thought it was wrong, y'know?" Mick said, raising both hands towards the jury. "This was our neighborhood, that was the corner store we went to all the dang time, and we'd be damned if some snot-nosed punk could just help himself to a five finger discount. So the four of us, we figured we oughta make him return the dang soda. Couldn't well do that, though."
"And why not?" Lou asked, taking another half-step closer to the witness.
"He opened the can right outside the store, and probably half the dang soda flew out," Mick explained, with an accompanying 'fwoosh' motion with his hands. "Kid looks up 'n sees me an' the boys getting up 'n headed his way? He drops the can and bolts!"
"And when he ran, what did the four of you do?" Lou was maybe five feet from the witness stand now, and the jury was leaning in towards the stand with him.
"Well, what else were we gonna do?" Mick asked rhetorically. "We chased him. He couldn't well return the soda, but we could at least get the buck it cost 'n give that to the owner for his troubles, make sure the dumb punk paid, y'know? So we followed him, and eventually we caught up to him in an alley off South Tenth."
At that, Lou walked back towards counsel's table and picked up a few 8x10 glossies, obligingly held out for him by his second seat.
"Let the record show that I am showing the document to the defense," he said.
I flipped open my trial binder and made my way to the prosecution's first exhibit: a set of enlarged photographs of the alleyway, showing its entrance, its dimensions, and some of the extent of the scorch marks. It very specifically did not show how they cut off at an almost perfect straight line.
"Your Honor, permission to approach the bench?" Lou asked.
"Granted," Judge Andrews said, one hand extended to receive a copy of the evidence.
"Now, Mick," the DA continued as he returned to the witness stand, and gave his second set of the photographs to Micah Samuelson. "What are these that I've just handed to you?"
"Well, they look like photos," Mick said, flipping through them.
"And what's the subject matter of the photographs?" Lou followed up.
"This one looks to be the corner store," he flipped to the next, "this looks like the street we chased the kid down, this one's where he took a turn, and these last two are the… t-the alley," Mick finished. I had to resist rolling my eyes at the obvious fake stutter and tremor in his voice. Broadway would have kicked this kid out on his ear in two lines, I swear.
"And are these photographs a complete and accurate representation of these locations, to the best of your knowledge?"
"Not sure why that maters, but yeah," Mick said.
It matters, young man, because this is the proper procedure for introducing evidence. You know, the procedure that every single court drama tv show skips.
"Your Honor, at this time the Prosecution would like to introduce into evidence Prosecution's Exhibit 1, Photographs of the Crime Scene and Surrounding Areas," the DA said, showing the photographs to the jury as he moved.
"Any objections?" the judge asked.
"The defense has no objection, your Honor," I said, knowing that I'd be using these exhibits myself later.
"Very well then. So entered," Judge Andrews said.
Now, allow me to explain: the proper procedure for entering evidence into the record is a three-step process.
First, you need to lay the foundation for the evidence. In the case of, say, a medical record, you need to establish that a person visited the hospital, that their visit produced a record, and that the witness on the stand has personal knowledge of the record's creation, existence, etcetera. Evidence does not just spring fully-formed into the ether ex nihilo; somebody has to have known it existed in the first place for it to be evidence. Once you've established that yes, the evidence has a known and relevant background with the witness on the stand, you may produce the document.
Second, you need to authenticate the evidence. To continue the analogy: it is not enough that the witness on the stand knows that a medical record was created. You have to show the evidence to the person who you used to lay the foundation for said evidence, and that person then has to state that yes, this is the actual document. In the case of medical records, you can't say they knew John Hancock's visit produced records, and then expect any set of records you give them to also be John Hancock's. Unless they specifically tell you that yes, this is in fact John Hancock's medical record, it could be Jane Doe's instead.
Step two-point-five only occurs in a few cases. When you have certain kinds of evidence, such as a photograph, you have to confirm that the contents of that photograph are a "clear and accurate representation" of the subject matter– that is, that the photo hasn't been doctored, spliced, or otherwise played with. It's a lot harder to do without modern Adobe tools and digital computers, yes– but believe me, it's absolutely doable.
And lastly, step three: you have to request that the court enter the document into evidence. You give it a name, make sure the judge has a copy, and request its entry into the record. If you forget this crucial step, the jury does not get to use your evidence when deliberating. And yes, you would be amazed how often people just… take for granted that the evidence they introduced has been entered into the record.
"So Mick, these photos," DA Young said, waving the photo spread towards the jury. "This is the route the four of ya took when chasing the defendant?"
"Yeah, it is," Mick said, holding the photos loosely in his hand. "We followed him north a block, he hooked a left 'round the corner, another left at South Tenth, then crossed the street and into an alleyway."
"And where did you catch up to him?" Lou asked, already shuffling to the appropriate photographs.
"In the alleyway, right around the middle of it," Mick said. "I was the fastest of us, so I grabbed the punk by his backpack and pulled a bit. It threw him into a dumpster, but that didn't hurt him none. He—"
"Objection," I said, standing. "The witness does not have the expertise or personal knowledge to definitively state that his actions did not harm my client. Defense moves to strike."
"Once again, objection overruled," the judge said. "A reasonable juror can readily assume that he's speaking his opinion. Continue, Mr. Samuelson."
"R-right, sorry," he said, pulling away from me as much as his chair would allow, to which I simply raised an eyebrow. Somehow I doubted any juror would actually believe he was afraid of me, but you never knew. "Anyway, the kid pulls himself up, then turns and gives us this look. Felt like someone was walkin' on my grave for a sec there, 'n then he gives this god-awful smile. God, if only that was the worst of it," Mick said with a shudder.
"What was the worst of it, dare I ask?" Lou Young was two feet away from the witness stand now, and the jury, to my dismay, was hanging on his and Micah's every word.
"Well, when we ran after the punk, we still had our cigarettes 'n our beers," he explained. "Kinda a shame to waste them. Big mistake. Kid makes this weird twist 'n pull motion with one hand in a claw, then suddenly our cigarettes go out, and he's got a fuckin' fireball in his hand!"
Loud murmurs came from the jury box and the gallery, loud enough that Judge Andrews had to pound his gavel on the bench.
"Order!" He yelled. "This is a courtroom. If you want to gossip like tittering schoolgirls, the ladies rooms are outside and to your right!"
Did I take offense to the way he phrased that? Yes, obviously; I was the female lawyer here, and there was a very real chance that anything I or my eventual character witness said would be treated as the gossip of, and I quote, 'tittering schoolgirls'. Was there anything I could actually do about it?
Not particularly, no. I could file a complaint with the judge, but an objection wasn't really going to help me here. It was just one more reason this whole thing stank: judges generally try not to editorialize like that, because it can (and often does) sway the jury. If they see the judge holds a certain opinion, theirs tends to fall in line with the judge's.
Regardless: my complaint to the judiciary was getting quite robust.
"Now, after you saw the defendant make a fireball," Lou continued, putting particular emphasis on the obvious use of a mutant power, "what happened next?"
"Theo 'n Pat started running," Mick said. "They was always the slowest of us, and we'd been in enough bad spots as a crew to know that they needed to rabbit first, and Jimmy 'n I could catch up. Right as they do that though, the mutie turns the fireball into a goddamn flamethrower!" Mick shuddered. "My uncle told me stories about 'Nam, what those things could do. Never thought I'd see one up close, thought I was gonna piss myself, Jesus Christ."
"Objection, your Honor," I said. "Given that we have two veterans in the jury box, the witness's secondary statements of opinion carry such substantial risk of prejudice that it outweighs any probative value they could provide. Defense moves to strike every word after 'flamethrower'."
"Your Honor," the DA took over, "the statements provide necessary context to frame the witness's response to the events as they happened. While the prosecution acknowledges some prejudicial value, the insight they provide into the witness's state of mind is imperative, and its probity substantially outweighs any risk of prejudice."
"Thank you for saying it for me, Louis," Judge Andrews said to the DA before turning to me. "Objection overruled."
And if I'd needed any more proof that Phil and Louie were in bed, politically speaking, there it was.
"Thank you, your Honor. Now." Lou Young was at the very front corners of both the witness stand and the jury box now, guaranteeing that they would be looking at each other. "A flamethrower. An honest-to-god flamethrower—"
"Objection, counsel is testifying," I said, standing. "Does the DA intend to ask a question, or just practice crooning like Sinatra?"
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said. "Ms. Schaefer, it's plainly obvious he was about to ask question before you objected. That said, DA Young, please do get on with it."
"Of course. Now, Mick." He leaned in again, but this time closer to the jury. "After the honest-to-god flamethrower came out, what did the mutant do with it?"
"He lit up that alley like the Fourth of July," Mick said. "Actually wait, no, that just happened, and the alley was way brighter 'n hotter than this last Fourth. There was fire crawling up the walls, all over the dumpsters, and that's before he started aiming that flamethrower at Pat 'n Theo!"
I knew that wasn't what happened in that alley. Mick knew damn well that wasn't what happened in that alley. And St. John knew better than any of us that what Mick was describing absolutely, positively, definitely was not how it happened.
My only problem now was getting him to fess up.
"And what did you do when you saw that?"
"Well, ya know how we still had our beers?" Mick mimed a swinging motion with his arm. "I held my bottle in front o' me to get close, maybe catch the fire on the glass, an' I swung it at the mutie through the fire. I know I hit him somewhere, definitely felt something, but I couldn't see shit through all that fire. Once I felt that I hit something though? I up and ran."
Ah. That's how I get him to screw up on the stand.
This was also an object lesson in why you generally didn't want a long-standing district attorney, who had probably tried only one or two cases in their entire term, try a major case like this: they've spent so much time in a political and managerial position that they've forgotten the actual particulars behind doing their job right.
"Where?" Lou asked.
"Back out of the alley," Mick answered. "And I was gonna bank right back the way we came, but then I look back and see another goddamn flamethrower comin' right for me! I wasn't fast enough to get outta the way; that shit got me on my shorts, and I knew I had to get 'em off as soon as I could!"
"Let the record show," Lou Young said as he retreated to counsel's table again, retrieving a plastic bag from co-counsel, "that I am showing the exhibit to the defense." I simply gave a nod and turned my eyes to the images in my trial binder. "Permission to approach?"
"Granted."
"Mick. What is this?" Lou handed the bag to the witness, who turned it over in his hands a few times.
"They're my shorts," he said. "Here, I can see my initials on the label."
"And these are the ones you were wearing on May 8th, 1989?" Lou asked as a follow-up.
"They are," Mick confirmed. "You can see where it caught fire here, on the back of the left leg." He turned the bag in his hands to show as such to the DA, which also, given the DA's positioning, showed it to the jury.
"Your Honor, at this time the Prosecution would like to enter into evidence Prosecution's Exhibit 2, Victim's Burned Clothing."
"Any objections?" Judge Andrews asked me.
"Defense objects to the name of the exhibit," I answered as I stood. "Defense would prefer a name that looks neutrally upon the testifying party, such as Witness's Burned Clothing. Prematurely calling him a victim prejudices the jury against the defendant's affirmative defense."
"DA Young?" Judge Andrews turned back to the DA for his response.
"The prosecution will graciously concede on this matter," he said, tone and words working together to make it seem like he'd done me some huge favor, when in reality we both knew he wasn't going to be able to win on any objection. Not unless he wanted to open his judge buddy to even further grounds for appeal than I already had.
"Now after these," DA Young pointed at the plastic evidence bag holding Mick's shorts, "caught fire, what did you do?"
"Well, first I yelled and caught Jimmy's attention, and I heard him yell at the other guys, 'n they turned around. Then what I tried to do is get the shorts off," he said. "But I was still moving, not watching where I was going. And I was running basically full tilt– I mean, nobody thinks straight when they're on fire! So I slam into this fence, and next thing I know it gives way, and I'm fallin' thirty feet, 'n land straight on my leg." Mick tapped on his leg, the one in the cast. "Broke it real bad. But at least all the loose dirt 'n shit at the bottom put the fire out, or I woulda been way worse off."
"And how did you get help?" Lou asked.
"Objection," I said, rising to my feet. "The question lacks foundation."
"I'll rephrase," Lou said, preempting the judge. "What happened after you broke your leg?"
"My buddies called an ambulance with a payphone, right by the construction site," Mick said. "We was scared to all hell that the mutie was still there, waitin' for us to show ourselves, but Jimmy took a look and said he was gone."
"Objection," I rose to my feet once more. "Mr. Boothe is not the one testifying at the moment. While the statement could theoretically enter under the present sense impression exception to hearsay, this statement would be more appropriately entered into the record when Mr. Boothe testifies. As such, defense requests that the witness's recounting of Mr. Boothe's out of court statement be declared hearsay and moves that it be stricken from the record."
"Your Honor, the defense has outright ceded the point that this statement is an exception to the rule against hearsay, and gone and cited the specific exception it falls under," Lou Young argued.
"Regardless, defense also raises the point that the one who made this statement is due to be on the stand next, and can make the statement himself," Judge Andrews said. "The objection is sustained. Everything following the word 'ourselves' in the witness's answer is to be stricken from the record."
An infinitesimal victory, yes. But it was key to break up the flow of things every now and again.
"Once the ambulance arrived, where did it take you?" DA Young asked, forcing himself back into the rhythm of questioning again.
"The hospital," Mick answered. "Doctor there told me I'd need to wear this cast for three or four months, and that even after that I may never walk right again."
"Objection," I said, rising to my feet. "The witness is offering an out of court statement meant to prove the truth of the matter asserted; in this case, that he sustained injuries sufficient to meet one element of the charges against my client. The witness does not have the medical expertise to make these statements himself, and is only relaying out-of-court testimony of yet another of the prosecution's witnesses who is yet to testify. If the prosecution wants the specifics of the witness's injuries on the record, let them be entered into the record by a medical professional who can testify to them."
"Sustained," Judge Andrews said, at which point Lou's co-counsel let his hand drop, taking a sheaf of papers with it.
"Defense moves to strike every part of the witness's answer past 'the hospital'," I added.
"Motion sustained; let the offending parts of testimony be stricken from the record." Judge Andrews nodded at the stenographer, who obligingly pulled out a red pen and crossed out the offending parts of the transcript. "Continue."
"Just one more question for you, Mick," Lou said. "Your leg's stuck in that cast, you're out of a job, and for all we know your life as an able-bodied young man is over. Is there anything you'd like to share with the jury, or tell the defendant?"
"Objection!" I yelled, unwilling to let even one word through. "Your Honor, testimony from a victim regarding the extent of the harm they have suffered presupposes that they are, in fact, the victim, and that the person they are addressing did in fact cause their harm, which itself presupposes that the defendant is guilty, and completely contravenes the purpose of our justice system! Furthermore, my client is alleging an affirmative defense of self-defense; the answer to the DA's question would be so outrageously prejudicial to my client's ability to pose that affirmative defense that the question should not be allowed, and this is after we consider that there is absolutely zero probative value to this question's answer!"
"Your Honor," Lou Young began, "if the jury is to properly make a decision based on the charges that were brought, they need to truly understand the nature of the harm suffered! And while a doctor's account of the dry specifics is all well and good, a first person account of what effect these injuries have had will be substantially more probative than any prejudice it could cause."
"Your Honor," I took back over, "the jury only needs for the prosecution's expert witness to tell them whether an injury sufficient to meet the elements of the charges has been suffered. They do not need a lay witness to wax poetic about his condition in order to make that determination of fact."
"Your Honor—"
"Save it, DA Young," Judge Andrews said. "In this, at least, the defense has a point." Oh, and now we're going to prejudice the jury with backhanded comments like that? One more on the list, I suppose… if I didn't already loathe Judge Andrews, I would now. "Either rephrase the question to something that actually has even an inkling of probative value, or withdraw it entirely."
"Understood, your Honor," Lou said. "Thank you for bearing with mine and my friend from the other side's yelling," the DA said to Mick with a nod. "No further questions for this witness."
And with that, the DA walked back to his table.
"Would the defense like to cross-examine this witness?" Judge Andrews asked.
"It would," I answered, standing. "Before that, your Honor, the defense requests a brief twenty minute recess. The witness does not look particularly comfortable sitting in that position," I said with a nod at Mick, who scowled back. "And all of us could use an opportunity to get some fresh air. Or a smoke," I said with a nod at the DA, "if that is their preference."
"I am feeling a mite peckish myself," Judge Andrews said. "Very well. Court will reconvene with defense's cross of the witness in twenty minutes."
The gavel came down, and we all got a breather.
"At this time, does the defense still wish to cross-examine this witness?" Judge Andrews asked.
"It does, your Honor," I confirmed once more. "Permission to approach, your Honor?"
"Permission granted," he affirmed.
And with that, I entered the well of the court, hands clasped loosely in front of me.
"Mr. Samuelson," I started, positioning myself directly in front of the judge's position on the bench. "Do you know why, despite all his bluster and over-exaggeration, J. Jonah Jameson is essentially correct with regards to Spider-Man?"
"Objection," Lou Young said, rising to his feet. "Your Honor, what possible relevance could such a question have to the matter at hand?"
"Your Honor, the question is foundational, and the relevance will be revealed within two questions," I fired back.
"Overruled," Judge Andrews said. "I will admit, I am beyond curious as to how you plan to tie this back in, Ms. Schaefer. That being said, if I do not see the relevance within two questions, I will strike the question and any answers." He turned to Micah. "The witness will answer the question."
"No, I don't," he admitted.
"Would it surprise you, then, to learn that Mr. Jameson is correct because Spider-Man is engaging in illegal vigilantism?" I asked. "That is to say, he is illegally undertaking actions reserved for law enforcement?"
"Yes?" Mick answered, though it was a question more than a statement. "I thought it was fine, the Avengers and the Four do that shit all the time, don't they?"
"The Avengers and the Fantastic Four both have a special dispensation from the government of the United States and the State of New York which allows them to act as law enforcement under select conditions," I answered. "Spider-Man does not have such a dispensation, therefore his vigilantism is illegal. Mr. Samuelson, do you possess such a special dispensation?"
"What? Of course not!" Mick said.
"Mr. Samuelson, you testified that you and your three friends took it upon yourselves to either retrieve stolen property or, failing that, seize value equal to that of the stolen property, did you not?" I had my right hand under my chest, holding my left elbow, and had one finger on my left hand resting on my chin, as though in thought.
"I mean, yeah, but—"
"Therefore, it is your testimony that you, Mr. Boothe, Mr. MacEahern, and Mr. Nielson all engaged in illegal vigilantism when you ran down and physically assaulted my client, is it not?"
"Wha—"
"And keep in mind, Mr. Samuelson?" I took one step closer, and crossed my arms, affecting a disappointed expression. "Because you have already testified as such, you have waived your Fifth Amendment right to remain silent on this issue. Therefore, you must answer yes or no: is it your testimony that you, Mr. Boothe, Mr. MacEahern, and Mr. Nielson engaged in illegal vigilantism directed at my client?"
Murmuring filled the gallery of the courtroom. I could swear I heard a whisper of 'then why aren't they on trial?' from off to the back left, but I'd have to ask Matt for clarification on that later.
"Objection," Lou said, standing. "Asked and answered, and the defense cannot presuppose that the witness has waived his constitutional right, your Honor."
"Your Honor," I started, "while the Fifth must be clearly and unequivocally taken, a defendant need only implicitly waive his right to take the Fifth for its protections to be void, such as by discussing a matter at hand that would constitute self-incrimination. Which, as it happens, is the case here."
This was one of the prickliest things about the Fifth Amendment. If you want to take the fifth, you need to clearly and unequivocally state that you are invoking the right to remain silent. Simply remaining silent is not, ironically, enough to invoke that right. If you do something that would run counter to your Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, however, and you would reasonably have known that you had that right (such as, say, if you were on the stand and sworn in under penalty of perjury…), then any action that merely implies the choice to void the Fifth will suffice.
Is it stupid? Yes. Will it change?
Only if enough people can agree to force that kind of change through. Which meant we were stuck with it for now… and I was going to ruthlessly abuse it.
"No, asked and answered it has not been," the judge said. "Overruled. Furthermore, defense is correct in that the right against self-incrimination has been waived in this regard. The witness will answer the question," Judge Andrews said, looking down at Micah Samuelson from his podium.
"Y-yes, we did," he said. "But—"
"Moving on," I said, cutting off Mick before he could say anything further.
I turned away from the witness stand and moved across the well, physically 'moving on' from my previous position, so as to mentally set up for the jury that I was moving to a different point entirely.
"It was your testimony that you fell into the open construction site trying to remove your trousers, correct?"
"I said that, didn't I?" Mick's voice was churlish, and he crossed his arms with a grimace. The witness clearly didn't like me, but guess what? That was fine.
I didn't want him to like me. In fact, I wanted him to really, really dislike me. The more angry and annoyed he got with me, the more likely he was to slip up.
"Yes or no please, Mr. Samuelson?" I replied, my voice customer-service pleasant.
"Yeah," he ground out. "I said that."
"And you tried to remove them because they were, per your testimony, on fire, correct?" I was at the far corner of the well from both the jury and the witness by this point, meaning both of them had to look away from each other to watch me.
"Yeah, they were," Mick confirmed.
"So your trousers were on fire while you were wearing them."
"I just told you that, lady," Mick scoffed. "You deaf?"
"No, just confused," I said. I paced around the well as I spoke, pacing from the back left corner to the front left corner. Once again, the jury's eyes followed me from left to right, but because of my positioning, they looked at me, not the witness. "You say your trousers were on fire, but you had no burns?"
"I… they got put out before they could burn me!" Mick blurted out, face reddening.
"So you had burning clothing," I ticked off my points with my fingers as I ran through them, and walked closer to the jury with each tick, "cotton clothing actively on fire, pressed directly against your skin, and you didn't get any burns."
"Like I said, it got put out super fast!" Ooh, and now he looked like a tomato! How exciting! From pale as can be to rose red, this young man was turning into quite the chameleon under my questioning.
"While I doubt it, that is your statement under oath, so either it is the truth, or you've committed yet another crime."
"Objection, your Honor!" Lou Young broke in. "Counsel is clearly badgering the witness!"
"Sustained." Judge Andrews looked to the jury. "Strike that statement from the record, and the jury will disregard. Thin ice, Schaefer."
No they wouldn't, I thought. The jury never disregards.
"My apologies, your Honor," I said with a smile.
Once again, I shifted my location in the well. This time, I wound up leaning against counsel's table, both hands flat on the table behind me. One quick reach behind me, and I'd be within arm's length of where Matt sat ready.
"One more thing, and then we'll be done," I told Mick. "You mentioned in your testimony that you swung at my client with a beer bottle. Was this before or after he used his power?"
"After, definitely after," he said.
"So you mean to tell me that you saw this great big jet of flame spewing your way, and you swung into it with a glass bottle," I asked, raising one eyebrow.
"Christ, lady, you deaf? Yes!" Mick yelled, slamming a hand on the witness stand to punctuate what he said.
"Mhmm." Without looking, I reached a hand over, and took the plastic bag that Matt held out for me in his hand. "Permission to approach the witness, your Honor?"
"Granted," the judge said.
"Mr. Samuelson, do you recognize what I have in this bag?" I walked towards him, keeping my angle such that he had to look away from the jury to answer.
"It's a beer bottle," he said. "Of course I know what it is."
"The beer bottle is open and empty, is it not?" I continued.
"Yeah, and?"
"Do you see this stain on the side of the bottle?" I turned the bag in my hand so that he could see the dark, reddish-brown stain on the label.
"What about it?" Mick asked.
"Yes or no, if you would," I said with a disappointed frown. "Do you see the stain, yes or no, Mr. Samuelson."
"Yes," he ground out. "I see your damn stain."
"Now, do you also see these markings on the neck of the bottle?" I turned the bag again and showed him the neck, but when Mick reached up to take the bag, I pulled it back. "Eyes only, Mr. Samuelson. Do you see these markings."
"Yeah, and?" Mick asked.
"Would it surprise you to learn they are fingerprints?" I said. "Your fingerprints, specifically?" I turned the bag again, letting him see the document inside the bag. "Do you see this document on the bag's label, marked 'Fingerprint Comparison between Unknown Subject & Samuelson, Micah R.'?"
"Yes," he said, for lack of a better answer.
"And you do recognize the sample, which is the fingerprints you gave at the police station on the ninth of June, 1989?" I asked.
"Yes," Mick said.
"Your Honor, at this time I would like to enter into evidence Defense Exhibit A, Stained Beer Bottle with Micah R. Samuelson's Fingerprints, and have it be part of the record," I said.
"Any objections?" Judge Andrews asked the DA.
"The prosecution objects," Lou said, standing. "This item constitutes material evidence produced solely by the defense, not found by law enforcement, and not at the alleyway that constitutes the crime scene."
"Your Honor, this evidence was turned over to the prosecution in a timely manner, and they had ample opportunity to perform their own examinations," I said. "Furthermore, the fingerprint sample was provided by law enforcement, and was taken during their investigation and analysis of the evidence."
"Objection overruled," Judge Andrews said. Both the DA and I knew that this would be the result, but just as I'd had to make some perfunctory objections earlier, so did he. "So entered. You may proceed."
"Thank you, your Honor," I said. "Mr. Samuelson, this was the beer bottle you state you were drinking from when you first saw my client at the corner store, correct?"
"Yeah, it is," Mick said, frowning at the bottle. I could only wonder what was going through his head right now. But thankfully, I was about to decide exactly how he thought.
"And this is the bottle that you swung at my client?"
"Obviously," he said with a scoff. A quick glance up at Judge Andrews, however, had him spooked straight, and Mick gave a proper answer. "Y-yes, it is."
"Now, you state that you took this bottle," I shifted my hold on the bottle through the plastic bag to grip it by the neck, "and used it to disperse any fire before you swung it into the flames, like so." Making sure my movements were slow, I swung the bottle around my right side to strike at an imaginary object in front of me. "Is that correct?"
"Yeah, but I don't swing like a girl," Mick said with a cocky smirk. Hook.
"Quite. Now, Mr. Samuelson, this means that you swung the bottle paper-side forward, into the fire, correct?" I let go of the neck of the bottle and manipulated the plastic bag holding it so that the side of the bottle faced the jury.
"Yeah, and?" Mick asked.
"Well," I said, tapping the paper through the plastic of the bag, "it's just that if I were to swing something with paper on it into a focused stream of flame, you would expect the paper to be burnt, wouldn't you?"
"Objection!" Lou Young got to his feet, pitching his voice so that its volume overpowered mine. "Your Honor, the question clearly calls for speculation on the part of the witness!"
"My apologies," I said with a wave of my hand. "Let me rephrase. Mr. Samuelson, you swung this bottle paper-side first into a focused stream of flame." I turned the bag around in my hand slowly, making sure to show every single side of it to the witness. "Is the paper burnt at all?"
"... don't look burned to me," Mick admitted. Line.
"Mr. Samuelson, I need a yes or a no," I said with a frown. "Is the paper burnt?"
"Objection, your Honor, badgering the witness!" Lou said, slamming a hand on the table.
"Overruled." Judge Andrews didn't even spare a moment to look at Lou Young. His objection had no merit, and all three of us knew it; it was only ever for the purpose of trying to break my rhythm. Regardless, the judge turned to look at Mick Samuelson. "The witness will answer the question."
"No, alright?" Mick said with a scowl. "It ain't burnt."
"And rather than being burnt," I continued, turning to show one side of the bottle to him, "the paper is instead bloodstained, is it not?"
"It's stained with something," Mick hedged. Sinker.
"Indeed." I walked towards the jury and showed them all the bottle, and how it wasn't burnt at all, while also displaying the blood that had darkened the Heineken label. "Now Mr. Samuelson. Given that the paper label on this bottle isn't burnt, and that it has a dried liquid stain on the label, I have to ask: did you actually swing this bottle at St. John Allerdyce before he used his power? Because given everything else you've said, swinging it afterwards seems to be impossible."
I walked back over towards and leaned back against counsel's table while asking this, hands resting flat on the table.
"Keep in mind that your sworn testimony, both to law enforcement and the court, has been in the opposite. And that lying to either, or God forbid both, is a crime."
Dead silence. All of the muttering in the gallery that had built up over time petered out to nothing. Every member of the jury, even the ones who had been against me from minute one, leaned in, eager to hear the answer.
"The witness will answer the question." Judge Andrews also leaned in from his spot on the bench, staring down at Micah Samuelson with one eyebrow cocked.
"I…" Mick looked away from the judge, past me, and towards DA Young. "I–"
"If you wish to plead the Fifth," I said as I stalked closer, crossing my arms under my chest as I approached, "then you need to clearly and unequivocally state that you are invoking your right to remain silent."
"I'm invoking my right to remain silent!" Mick parroted.
"Nothing further, your Honor." And with that, I walked back to counsel's table, slid into the chair, and observed the fruits of my labor.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, may I present to you Exhibit A: always assume your star witness is lying, even under oath, unless you can definitively prove otherwise.
"Would the prosecution like to redirect?" Judge Andrews asked, and I laughed inwardly. Oh, yes, please. I would love to see how you try and turn your star witness getting caught perjuring himself around into something positive.
"Not at this time, your Honor," DA Young said.
"Very well. Mr. Samuelson, you may step down from the stand," Judge Andrews said. "We will take a recess for lunch, and then the prosecution may call its next witness.
The gavel came down.
"I think we got a pair of jurors," Matt whispered to me.
"Good," I said just as quietly, eyeing the reporters in the gallery. "Just need two more, preferably."
Two more. I needed two more people willing to let reason take center stage in their minds as opposed to prejudice. It sounded so small. Two people, just two measly people.
But this first witness was quite literally as easy as it could get. The rest of this trial was going to be an uphill battle. But by God was I going to fight it.
And damn it all, but I aimed to win.
The next chapter will feature the rest of the prosecution's case-in-chief, but in excerpt format. As you can see, even one singular witness can take a very long time. And when you get to expert witnesses, things just go even longer. As an example, when doing trial advocacy class, the testimony for expert witnesses took upwards of thirty minutes in very limited scenarios. There are some cases where the testimony of a witness, often an expert but not always, can take literal DAYS.
There will only be one witness from the defense who gets their entire testimony shown, with the rest also being in Law & Order excerpt format. Feel free to guess who it will be, but I bet y'all already know who it is.
