“So you hacked her computer?” Tristan asked her.
He sounded relieved that he could finally see how this case could come together.
“I didn’t do anything, but like I said, not the most legal means,” she replied, pointing to it. “The prosecution’s whole case was built on the fact that my—that Ben Walton, was some kind of love-sick stalker. They painted a picture of a woman who was scared and was being held captive by a monster. But does she look that way to you? No one ever spoke to Odile Van Allen. People wanted someone to be convicted, and Ben Walton was the easiest choice.”
Tristan leaned in behind me and whispered, “She sounds like she’s pleading her case now.”
“She is.”
Everything she’d done and put herself through was for this.
“Why didn’t your mother take this case then?” Raymond asked, “Or at the very least, she could have gotten someone to help with it if she didn’t want her name to it.”
I looked to her, waiting. If she wanted to do this she was going to have to pull out every damn skeleton out of her closet.
“Because she was spiteful. When I spoke to Ben Walton, he says she had the evidence to prove that he was innocent, but when she realized it wasn’t just an affair, that he’d planned to leave her for Savannah, she became jilted and destroyed the evidence.”
“But she told you?” Atticus added pushing her.
“She told me that she wanted him to spend the rest of his life in jail,” Thea said dryly. “She passed off the case to a public defendant she knew, and that was the last contact she ever had with him.”
She turned to me, and I nodded as I stood up. “As most of you know, keeping a man out of prison is relatively easy. Getting a man out is a whole other ball game. And on top of that, this is a death row case. Prepare yourselves to be hit with every roadblock humanly possible. There is no way we can simply exonerate him, but that isn’t what we’re going after right now. What we need right now, is to get a retrial, and the only way to win this case is through social media and public pressure. We are throwing all of the case information out there.”
“But won’t that just make it easy for the prosecution to combat everything?” Thea asked me.
“It’s the only way,” Tristan answered. “If we try going legal route, we will be stuck for months, if not years, behind the legal tape.”
Years sounded about right… they would out spend us, and bury us under a mountain of paperwork and technicalities.
“Besides, all the pieces of this are starting to come together… there is more proof out there, we just need to find it. But for now, we will make so much noise that they will have to take notice. You all are in a social media generation, it’s your job start blogs, give interviews, tweet to every last celebrity who is against the death penalty, make the people take notice. We might even be granted a miracle and someone who still has photos of that fair may come forward with something we can use. We will be working out of the office, but also be prepared to go to Connecticut when the time comes—”
“Mr. Black,” Betty interrupted me with panic in her voice, “your ex-wife, she’s here.”
“Weren’t you married to Odile Van Allen?” Raymond asked with a frown.
A series of gasps echoed through the room.
“I’ll be right there,” I told Betty ignoring him. “Get to work people.”
“Godspeed,” Tristan said on my way out.
Yeah, I was going to need the grace of God to make it away from her clutches in one piece. My mother had nothing on the rage that she was going to throw at me. This morning I truly felt bad… I knew how much this tore her apart. We were younger, but she knew. She knew her mother was having an affair and she had said nothing.
No, she had to have said something, and no one listened.
Walking into my office she, with her long dark hair and hazel eyes, turned to me shaking.
“You fucking bastard!” she screamed, charging at me. “Do you hate me this much? I cheated on you, so now you are going to hurt me like this?! This is low, so low, it’s disgusting, even for you! Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?!”
Grabbing her fists, I held her steady. “He didn’t do it. But you know that don’t you? You were there. They were together. You know that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. You—I don’t even know who you are now!” she yelled, ripping herself away from me.
“That weekend your mother took you to the Woodstock fair—”
“I don’t understand why you’re doing this! I’m sorry I hurt you. I was way too young to get married—”
“Odile! Listen to me! You were at the Woodstock fair that weekend because your mother—”
“Don’t you dare speak about her! You have no right to speak about her! You knew her. She was a good person, she did not deserve to be murdered by that monster!”
“You were there,” I said softly, trying to get through to her.
“I was at home with my older brother that weekend. We ate cherry flavored ice cream but it was horrible so I gave it to—”
“To me,” Thea came in, her eyes wide as she stared at her.
She looked dazed, like she was half here, half in her mind.
“That day at the fair, I met you in front of the Ferris wheel. My dad was in line with your mom for ice cream. You didn't like yours, so you gave it to me. But I couldn’t hold both mine and yours and I dropped it all over your stockings and shoes. I remember…”
“You’re insane! I don’t know you. I’ve never met you in my life. I would have remem—” She broke off suddenly and looked to me, “Is this why you’re doing this? For her?” She snorted, “You’ve always liked your girls young, pretty, and broken. It makes you feel all manly inside when you save us.” She turned to face Thea. “Be warned sweetheart, the moment you fix yourself, he will distance himself from you.”
“That is the reason why we broke up, and the reason I’m on this case is because there is an innocent man on death row!”
“There are innocent men in prison, welcome to America, Levi! Why him! Why now? Save your self-righteous bullshit for someone else!”
“It is because of me,” Thea said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that my father did not kill your mother,” Thea said, as she kept her head up.
“According to the law, he did, and I will make sure that he stays behind bars where he belongs. He’s done enough to my family. You want a war Levi? I will bring it to you. Maybe you forgot who the Van Allen family are, but we will remind you.” she spat as she pushed past me.
“You can’t keep running from the truth Odile. You can’t keep lying to yourself! Please.” Thea shouted after her.
“Come near me again, and I will sue you for slander and anything else that I can think of. You’re all insane!” Odile replied, walking away until she disappeared behind the wall.
When my eyes fell back on Thea, she was holding out an envelope to me.
“What’s this—?”
“I can’t expect you to do this for free.”
She had to be kidding me with this. “I’m not accepting that.”
“I knew you were going to say that, which is why I deposited the payment into the company account this afternoon. This is the receipt.”
“Thea—”
“I need to get back to work,” she said as she turned and walked out.
God damn it!
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
THEA
“This is just another example of the way blacks are treated in America today. How many Ben Walton’s are there all over the country? How many trials have been completely butchered by the public defenders who just don’t give a damn?!”
“Completely untrue; public defenders are overworked and underpaid, yes, this was by all means handled horribly by the state police and the media. The evidence should have been handled properly, and no information should have been leaked to media. But to say this is a race issue is wrong.
People of all races and ethnicities are all locked up everyday—”
“Preach!” Atticus said, as he lifted his hand up to the sky, drawing my attention away from the debate that was going on most news stations now.
One week, that was all it took for this to become a firestorm issue. No matter what channel I flipped to, there was at least one segment on the Ben Walton case. Levi had an interview with KWNN coming up in the next few minutes, and it was going to be broadcasted globally.
“What? You think just because I’m a democrat my views on this would magically change?” he asked, when I sat back down at the conference table. “I don’t think this is a race based case. I think anyone who had been involved in an affair with her would have suffered the same punishment.”
He prepared himself for my comeback, but instead, I nodded my head, “I agree.”
“You what?”
“I agree. All the evidence we have points to this being a series of disastrous events.”
“The public defender is an alcoholic!” Vivian ran in waving a paper above her head. Tristan came up behind her, and took the paper out of her hands.
“How did you get this?”
“There wasn’t much information about the public defender, so I thought I would go down to his office and see if he still worked there. He didn’t. He was “let go” six months after the case. Since he wasn’t officially fired, there was no write up. However, when he went looking for a new job, his former boss wrote a letter detailing his drunk stupors saying, ‘that man should not be allowed to practice law.’ ”
“Where is he is now?”
“He died five years ago due to an alcohol-related liver disease.”
“How sad. But dead men refute evidence. They just gave you this letter?”
“The new boss apparently is sympathetic to this case. She only asks we do not make too many connections between their office and him.”
“Keep this up, and we might have to save a spot for you when you graduate,” Tristan said as he glanced up at us. “Do you two have anything useful to add, or are you going to keep braiding each other’s hair?”
Luckily, we didn’t have to answer that question. Levi came on the screen, and I hated the fact that his tie was slightly crooked, and I wanted to be the one to fix it. Its off-green color made his emerald green eyes stand out even more.
I want to touch him again.
Even with everything that was going on, and the fact that my life had changed overnight even more so than I ever would have thought possible, I still longed to touch him.
“Thank you for taking the time to speak to us Mr. Black.”
“No, thank you for bring up this case. For so long we’ve only heard one side to it.”
“So. Do you truly believe that Ben Walton is innocent?”
“I do.”
“But you were married to Odile Van Allen, were you not? Why would you even consider taking on this case?”
“I was, and my marriage to Odile Van Allen has no bearing on this case. I understand that it must hurt her, but that was never my intention. People have been asking me why would I take this case and it confuses me. There is an innocent man on death row. I know that. I can prove that. I’m not demanding that the state release him, all I’m asking is that they revisit his case.
“The law states that the motion for a new trial can be sought if the correction of an injustice is needed, and when I look at Ben Walton’s case, all I see is injustice. Whether or not that injustice has been inflicted upon him because he’s black, I don’t know, and I don’t care… the fact remains; a grave injustice has been done and he is entitled to a legal defiance against the man who sat next to him; he was an alcoholic who was fired six months after Mr. Walton had been convicted. We have in our possession, a letter from his former employer, which states that he shouldn’t have been allowed to practice law. To me, this is a perfect explanation as to why he couldn’t challenge one single witness.”
How did he know that? We’d only just found that information out ourselves!
“Text messages are great, aren’t they?” Tristan kicked his feet up. “He’s in full fighting form right now.”
“If the state truly believes that he is guilty, then granting a new trial should not be a problem. We have tipped our hand. All of our cards on the table. With these types of mistakes, mistakes not even my students would have made, a man’s life is on the line, so I ask you here today, how can you turn your eyes from such an injustice? Ben Walton had a life, two beautiful daughters, an amazing career as the chief writer and editor at the Boston Noble, under the pseudonym Law Bonnet—”
“Law Bonnet was Ben Walton?” The reporter said in shock.
Law Bonnet was the master of breaking news. He wrote about everything and one from presidents to politicians and called them out, to exposing headline stories. If you wanted to know what people were going to say on the news on Monday, you had to read Law Bonnet on Friday.
“Yes, and the moment Ben Walton was arrested, the Boston Noble hid all ties that connected them to him, and gave the name he had created for himself to a ghost writer. If this had been brought up in court, the Jury would have known that Savannah Van Allen was given not one, but two feature articles that year. The first one was offered to her, and the second one she personally requested. She knew him. She was involved with him. The more you pull on the string, the more evidence there is that falls out of the closet.”
“I can’t wait to read the Boston Noble in the morning,” Atticus snickered to himself.
“They, and Levi Black, are already trending on Twitter,” Vivian said as she scrolled through her phone. Looking around, I hadn’t noticed how many people had come back into the room just to watch Levi on the screen.
There are people who are moved by the world, and then there were people who moved the world. Levi Black was the latter of the two. He just had that ability. He commanded respect, and people who listened to him would follow him anywhere… myself included.
Tristan stood, rereading whatever was on his phone before speaking. “I hope you all took notes, what he just did was force Boston Noble to respond, and by doing so they make this case larger. Pack up and go home, we’re done.”
“What? How are we done?”
“Let me rephrase. Pack up, go home, kiss your partners, and get as much sleep as you possibly can. We’ve been granted a hearing and we will most likely get a retrial, and then, this stops being easy,” he said as he walked out, leaving me speechless as I fell back into my seat.
This was only the first part of it, and already it had taken so much out of me. I needed to be stronger.
LEVI
Grabbing my guitar, I laid on my office couch mindlessly strumming the tightly wound strings. The day seemed to have passed by in a blur of camera lights, interviews and meetings.
“God, no,” I groaned at my phone.
“Tough day?”
“Shut up.”
Tristan placed a glass of water in front of me like that was supposed to do something for me tonight.
“Water? Seriously?”
“You have an even bigger day tomorrow,” he said as he stretched and then collapsed onto my chair. “If you start drinking now, you may never stop.”
He was a pain in the ass, but he knew me. “Look in the front pocket of my bag.”
“Why?”
“Just do it.” I kept on playing.
Reaching in, he pulled the small black card out. He stared at it for a while and dropped it on the table.
“Black, Knox and Associates? I’m finally getting my name on the door… a door that might not even be there when we finish this case.”
“Have more confidence. Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”
“You swore never to be partners with anyone again… the last guy you were partners with slept with your wife.”
“Thank you for the reminder, asshole. Luckily, you are married and in love with my sister. I trust you. You’re a good l
awyer, and you’ve always stood behind me even when I was standing on bullshit. I should have done this a long time ago.”
He sighed, leaning back into his chair, “We better win this or I’m going to be pissed off as hell. Not to mention having to deal with you, if Thea never speaks to you again.”
“I’m not doing this for her.” I wasn’t even sure if that was a lie anymore. Maybe I had spent so much time convincing others of my reasons that I was starting to convince myself. “This has become so much bigger than just her and I—”
“So what you’re saying is, you won’t go see her in the conference room?”
“What?” I sat up, and he grinned.
I pretended that I didn’t care anymore and lay back down. I glanced at my watch.
1:00am
“Someone should tell her she doesn’t get extra credit for being here at this ungodly hour,” I said.
“I’m not her teacher,” Tristan cracked.
“Odile told me that I purposely look for women who are broken and too young for me,” I told him.
And when I thought about it she was right. So what did that say about the type of man I was?
“Bullshit.”
“She has a point—”
“Sure, if you look at it from the dark and cloudy prescriptive of your psychotic ex-wife, but over here on our side of the rainbow, I can see just fine.”
What the hell?
“I think you are trying to tell me something, but you’re not speaking English.”
He rolled his eyes, and leaned towards me, sitting on the very edge of his seat as though he was about to reveal a secret. “For as long as I’ve known you Levi, you’ve been attracted to strength. Whether it was cars, homes, cases, women… You don’t look for broken people. Everyone is broken to some degree, we all got our own shit to deal with. The difference is how we handle them.
“You liked Odile because even after the death of her mother she stood with her head held high. She spent time volunteering, giving back to the community, studying. The same thing applies to Thea. With a mother like hers, there’s no doubt in my mind that she’s had one hell of a childhood. She then had to raise her sister. She’s worked her ass off in one of the best schools into the country, and upon finding out her father was wrongly accused she didn’t break down. She didn’t give up. She instead said she wanted to be a lawyer. She is by far one of the strongest people I know, and there’s no shame in being attracted to that. Why you’ve started to listen to the words of your ex-wife now, is beyond me.”