Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness
Page 29
Chapter 24
Unfortunate Confrontation
Thomas got his phone call. He racked his brain for several minutes as he tried to remember the number. It was a 1-800-number that partially spelled out his attorney’s specialty, but he wasn’t sure if it was 1-800-CRIM-ATT or 1-800-CRIM-DEF. He tried the latter and the phone began to ring.
“Law Office,” a pleasant voice said on the other end after just two rings.
“Hello,” Thomas replied. “This is Michael Thomas. Is Mr. Fleming in?”
“Sorry,” she replied. “He’s out for the week on a family emergency, but he is returning calls. May I get your number and have him call you after he checks in?”
“Yes, please.” He paused for a few moments and cupped his hand over the mouthpiece as he frantically waved a deputy over. “What’s the number here, for my attorney to call?”
“He can’t reach you in here. He’ll need to set up a jail visit, or take your collect calls.”
“Sorry,” he told the sweet, familiar voice on the other end of the line. She sounded almost grandmotherly, as if she welcomed his call even though he doubted that she had any idea who she was. “I’m in the Darkwell County jail and I can’t make bond.”
“Mr. Fleming is in your area this week. I’ll let him know you’re there. Maybe he can drop by.”
Thomas smiled, encouraged by Mr. Fleming’s staff’s professionalism and courteous demeanor. He knew he had the right attorney for the job, as he had learned in his last case. “That’d be great. Thanks.”
He hung up the phone and told the deputy he was done. It was a few minutes before lunchtime so the deputy took him straight to the inmates’ dining area. It was a drab, gray room with a windowless hole separating the food preparation area from the dining room. Beginning fifteen minutes before mealtime, guards would chain the inmates into their bench seats lined up on each side of the rows twenty-foot-long stainless steel dining tables. Then the jail trustees, other inmates who were given various jobs for good behavior such as the responsibility for serving other inmates their meals, would quickly set plates of globby, mostly nameless food in front of each so quickly that a bit of the glob would splatter on the steel tables.
Regardless of the likely outcome of lunch, a sick stomach that might wrench up much of what it was about to be filled with, he felt a glimmer of hope that his recent legal troubles might be coming to a happy end. The treatment he received at the hands of the two deputies didn’t sit well with him, regardless of his guilt or innocence; his experience in the criminal justice system told him that a good attorney might be able to something with his case, maybe even get him off completely like the last time. He had yet to consider what Robert’s family was going through.
Fleming got me off before, he thought, and he’ll do it again.