Chapter 46
New Attitude, New Dreams
The intercom buzzed and Becky’s pleasant phone voice said, “You’re two-thirty is here.”
“Thanks,” Charles replied. “Send him back.”
Charles stood up and walked to his office door, which was propped upon by its flip-up doorstop. An elderly man, hunched over and hobbling through the door as if scoliosis had ravaged his body for years, walked into his office towing a wheeled oxygen bottle behind him with his right hand. The bottle’s clear breathing tube was attached to his nose. He was grasping a plastic bag full of papers in his left hand. His breathing was labored, and Charles silently wondered if he would have to call 9-1-1 to resuscitate him before their half-hour consult ended. Following the potential client closely behind was a young lady who looked to be his caretaker or perhaps an adult child or older granddaughter.
Charles shot out his right hand and said, “Hi, I’m Charles Fleming. Very nice to meet you.”
The elderly man wheezed his reply, “Frank,” as he tilted the bottle to standing position and offered his hand to Charles. “Nice to meet you.”
“Please take a seat,” Charles replied as he motioned them to the two client chairs across his desk from his own. He circled the desk and took his seat. The potential clients sat down, too, although Frank took a little longer as he did his best to maneuver the oxygen bottle and his decrepit body around and between the chairs and desk. “Did you bring your paperwork?”
“Yeah,” Frank said as he reached up and set his bag full of papers in the middle of Charles’s desk.
“Very good. Just give me a second to review them.”
Charles emptied the bag and sorted through a very messy bunch of documents, with no particular order to them, some wadded up like trash balls and others folded neatly. Frank was a potential DUI client, one who had clearly never taken full responsibility for his irresponsible and dangerous actions. Frank was seventy-two years old, and this was his eighth arrest for driving under the influence. The last conviction was more than ten years before. Frank had shared that tidbit of information with him over the telephone before the sit down appointment was set, but Charles was about to share news with him such that the relatively long time span between his last case and this one would bring little solace.
“I pulled your record before you got here,” he began. He paused for dramatic effect. “So, Frank, what’s your problem?”
“Excuse me?” Frank coughed his reply as the young lady sitting to his right rolled her eyes into the back of her head in disgust. Charles tried in vain to read her body language and facial expression—to interpret whether she was disgusted with Charles’s question or the old man’s attitude.
“Eight DUIs? Come on, Frank, did you kill anyone in your prior cases?”
“No.”
Frank wheezed a little louder, which suggested to Charles he should stop agitating the dying man on the other side of the desk. Instead, he closely reviewed the paperwork for mistakes.
“After looking at your documents, here’s what I see. First, I think there’s a problem with the breath test. The officers screwed up. It has to do with protocol, but I need to get the reports to verify my assessment. Before you leave I’ll prepare an administrative hearing request to see if we can’t keep this case from impacting your driver’s license. But first, why don’t you tell me what happened?”
Frank proceeded to give his version of the facts. He was leaving a bar a few blocks from his home, which he shared with Lacy, his thirty-five year-old daughter who was sitting next to him in the office. While backing out of his parking space, his rear bumper clipped a police car, which naturally resulted in a DUI investigation. His tainted breath test said he was triple the legal limit, and the officers didn’t bother doing any other sobriety tests, so suppressing the breath test would likely result in a dismissal of the case. Charles told Frank such an outcome was likely, though not guaranteed.
“So I’ve got a case?” Frank replied after the favorable assessment, smiling for the first time of his initial consult.
“Absolutely.”
Frank turned toward Lacy and told her to pull out his checkbook. Whatever the price, he wanted the legendary Charles Fleming to represent him. Charles told him his fee, and, after a brief coughing episode, Frank instructed Lacy to write a check for the full amount.
As Charles turned around to prepare the administrative hearing request and attorney employment contract, he said, “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.”
“What’s that?”
Charles spun his chair back around and began a speech he’d perfected exactly four years before, right after he and Robert discovered their shared evangelical criminal defense ministry calling. “I’m not like most defense attorneys. Please don’t misunderstand. I will zealously defend you, and a dismissal is likely given what these papers tell me. However, my motivation is much different than the typical lawyer’s.”
“How’s that?”
“I believe that your problem with alcohol has nothing to do with alcohol addiction. You’re empty inside.”
Lacy nodded her head in agreement as her eyes moistened.
“What do you mean?” Frank asked, his breathing much less labored than before.
“There’s an emptiness inside that you’ve tried to fill with selfish lusts—alcohol, drugs, perhaps even sexual immorality—and it’s only led to bigger problems.”
Frank stared at Charles as his eyes also began to tear up.
“I’ve done hundreds of these types of cases, and there’s a common denominator in most of them: the criminal defendants don’t know God.”
“Go on,” Frank said as Lacy’s tears could no longer be contained and drops began to cascade down both cheeks.
“The emptiness can only be filled with Christ.”
As Charles had done in almost every criminal law consult since the revelation four years before, he recommended that his client obtain spiritual counseling with Pastor Rick or the preacher of his choosing. He knew Frank would probably not do as he recommended, but the suggestion had to be made. Charles no longer represented clients for himself, but for his mission. He would plant the seed and leave the rest up to God.
After Frank left, Charles sat down at his desk, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated the future. He imagined a thriving evangelical criminal defense practice with Robert and him working side by side. The buzz of the intercom interrupted his thoughts.
“It’s Robert on line one,” Becky said.
Without hesitation, Charles grabbed the handset off its base.
“Hey buddy,” he bubbled.
“Hi, Grandpa.”
“How are things in Virginia?”
“Great. Finals are just a couple of weeks away and we’ll be home for Christmas in no time.”
“Looking forward to it. The weather’s been good—any chance of getting away from Janie for a few hours of golf with me and Max, that is, if the weather holds up?”
“Absolutely.”
“Great. Any feelings about school?”
“Yeah. Bad ones. I suppose I’ll do all right, but law school is a lot tougher than college. Graduating first in the class won’t be easy, that’s for sure.”
“You’ll do fine. Don’t worry too much about grades, just work you rear off and you’ll do great.”
“Thanks.”
Both were silent for much too long. Both simultaneously though the same question, the lingering question that had been on their minds for years, yet neither had dared to ask until that very moment. It was Robert who dared to ask first. “Do you ever wonder about Michael? How he’s doing and what he’ll do when he gets out?”
It had been four years since he went to prison, and another six months on top of that for the credit he received for the time he spent in jail leading up to his sentencing hearing. With good time credit that meant he would be released from prison soon.
“Yeah. Sometimes.”
&n
bsp; “Can you ask Pastor Rick to check in on him, to make sure he’s not totally alone when he gets out?”
“Sure.”
Robert heard the doorbell ring. “It’s Janie. I gotta go. We’re going to Williamsburg; one last hurrah before finals suck me into the abyss.”
“Good idea. Tell her we love her.”
“I’ll do. Bye.”
“Bye.”
Broken: A story of hope and forgiveness Page 66
