by Dave Daren
“But proving who did do it will definitely prove that that Harmony didn’t do it,” AJ said as she rubbed her chin and smirked.
“That’s true,” Vicki laughed.
“All we have so far is that whatever was on her hands she washed off with paint thinner,” AJ reiterated. “Which I guess is kind of a weird thing to do with blood.”
“But that doesn’t change forensics coming back with the claim that it’s definitely blood,” Vicki replied.
“We need to know more about that forensics guy,” I added. “I met him the other night. Something’s definitely up with him. AJ, have you gotten the background check on him yet?”
“Not yet, but I should have both his and Harmony’s boyfriend tomorrow,” she replied.
“Once we get our forensics results, no matter what they show, we need to depose Justin,” I declared.
“We do, but we can’t really depose him without actually representing Harmony, and Toby certainly won’t do it,” Vicki reminded me. “Otherwise, we’re out of luck.”
“Well, we’re taking care of that,” I told her. “When are we taking the bar exam?”
“In three days.”
“Huh?” I asked as I blinked. “It sounded like you just said three days, but that couldn’t possibly be true because it would mean we only have two days to prepare.”
“You’re right,” Vicki said with a shrug. “Totally crazy.”
“So when is it?” I asked.
“Oh, three days,” Vicki answered.
“I can’t believe this,” I moaned as I rubbed my temples.
“I have study guides for us back at the treehouse,” she stated confidently.
“Treehouse! Double You Tee Eff!” AJ exclaimed. “You HAV a treehouse? Can I come hang out in--”
“We’ll need to file a motion with the judge to request additional time for discovery,” I continued. “Two weeks is fine, but we might not get the bar exam results by then, and we can’t subpoena Justin without it,” I explained to Vicki.
She cocked her head to the side and scrunched her nose. “The judge isn’t going to give Toby an extension for you to take the bar exam.”
“You’re very right,” I began. “But she will give us more time for our forensics specialist to give us the results.”
“Is that ethical?” she asked.
“Until we have the results of the tests, it's totally ethical to ask for the extension. It only crosses a line if we have the results already and ask for more time,” I stated calmly.
I closed up my laptop and stuffed it into my bag, ready to call it a day. We had our agendas set. I needed to interview Harmony to get her story on where she was when she was off camera as the murder happened.
I also needed to do a six month study course for the Arizona bar in a couple of days.
Chapter 9
“In the event that this premarital agreement is not enforceable, which assets are divisible in the event of divorce?” Vicki read mechanically off a flashcard, running her hand across the beads of sweat on her forehead.
We were both studying in the treehouse that doubled as our room. It was well past midnight, and it felt like it was a million degrees, but the law wasn’t going to study itself. The desert usually cools off pretty well at night but for some weather related reason or another this was a scorcher. Our open laptops, overcrowded flashcards, multi-colored highlighters, and propped-up hand-me-down textbook were scattered across the space, as if a studious tornado had blown through the room and colored-coded their notes along the way.
“All of them,” I answered Vicki’s sample bar exam question.
“Even the kids?” Vicki wondered aloud.
“That would be addressed in a different question,” I said.
“Oh, I didn’t know you wrote the bar exam,” she teased, and then she flipped to the other side of the flashcard she read from.
“You’re right, though,” she admitted. “It’s only the assets.”
She threw the cards aside and picked up the next one. Then her eyes glassed over a bit as she tried to take in the next question. We’d been studying for about four hours, and Vicki had been complaining about the exhaustion and starvation that had set in within the first half-hour.
“You know, there’s this really good Korean soap opera that I just started,” she told me over the flash card. “It’s about this dude who’s a rich spy, but who falls in love with this poor village girl, but then he turns out to be death--”
“Focus, Vicki,” I urged her.
“Ughhhh,” she groaned loudly and flopped down onto one of the mattresses.
“Come on, you got this,” I tugged on the sleeve of her jacket. I scooped a flash card and began to read off it. “In the following scenario which actions were the decisions of a trial court proper?”
“Please stop talking,” Vicki’s muffled voice begged, her face slammed into one of the cushions.
“Not the most fun you’ve ever had?” I said with as much sarcasm as I could muster. “As I recall, someone signed us up for the Arizona bar exam with only three days to study, and that someone wasn’t me.”
“Ughhhhhhhh,” she repeated, with a bit more passion than she’d expressed the first time.
“Why do you even want to be a lawyer so badly, Vic?” I asked her.
“Oh, it’s my parents,” she sighed.
“Really?” I asked. “I didn’t think the Asian stereotype was--”
“I’m kidding,” she laughed as she looked up at me. “I just want to do this, Henry. Lawyers call the shots, and paralegals do all the grunt work.”
“I do plenty of grunt work,” I chuckled.
“You know what I mean,” she sighed. “I didn’t fly down from Los Angeles for a job that might exist one day just for something that I hate doing.”
“I thought that the reason might have just been because you liked me.” I smirked.
“Well, your powers of deduction are a bit lacking,” she scoffed. “For your sister’s sake I hope this is only a momentary lapse of your senses.”
I laughed, but that didn’t satiate my curiosity.
“What is it actually, Vicki?” I pressed. “Although I’d believe that you’d set out to do something just so you could complain about it, I feel there’s more to you than that.”
Vicki opened her mouth, likely to imply that that’s exactly what she was like. Perhaps she was too tired to find the wittiest way to phrase it, but she closed her mouth again and pushed herself up on her elbows. She regarded me for a moment with sparkling brown eyes, and I guessed she was about to be sincere with me.
“I hate practicing law,” she revealed. “But I would hate being a teacher, or a programmer, or a nurse, or a doctor just as much.”
I blinked at her.
“I am definitely not following,” I told her.
“When you’re still a kid, like around AJ’s age, you decide you’re going to be an astronaut or whatever,” she told me. “Then you study it, and practice it, and learn about it, and usually, it’s not what you think it is. It’s harder, or it has longer hours than you thought, or less creative control, or whatever the limits of it are. The process of becoming a lawyer sucks, but at least it’s well-documented that it sucks, and it ends up paying pretty well if you’re successful in it.”
“So it’s about the money for you?” I cut in.
“Will you shut up for one second?” she chucked a pillow at me, and I laughed as I swatted it away.
“If I’d been a doctor, I’d get paid really well, and I’d work really hard, just like with being a lawyer, one day, hopefully,” she continued. “But I don’t even... like... I can’t process how I would even be remotely good at that. Being sensitive while people are sick and rude and being calm when they’re dying, and then having to do science also, I think? It sounds like a nightmare. And I don’t think I’m much better at being a lawyer.”
“You are,” I cut in.
“Thank you, Henry, but I’m making a p
oint.”
“You’ve got a great, analytical mind and amazing intuition, and that’s what makes a good lawyer a great lawyer,” I told her.
“Alright alright, but my point is this,” she dismissed, blushing slightly. “I’m nosy and argumentative and I will go all in for somebody. Law school hopefuls start out that way sometimes. Somewhere along the way they went from idealistic kids to cynical guys with a BMW and student loan payment. Either the profession changes you or it attracts jerks.”
“Hey, I drive a BMW,” I laughed.
“And you’re a cynical guy.” She winked at me.
“Fair enough,” I laughed, “but I’m not a jerk, and neither are you.”
“I know.” She nodded, “but I think a lot of teachers begin with some idealistic notion about how they’re going to change the youth and expand their minds, doctors begin with this idea that they’re going to save lives and cure cancer, and lawyers begin with the idea that they’re going to uproot the system and yank innocent angels off death row. And then, when they finally are where they wanted to be, they’re obsessed with keeping this job they worked so hard for, or their status, or their reputation. It’s about them again, and not the people they dreamed they would help one day.”
“This is true in a lot of cases I’m sure,” I agreed.
“So that’s my thing, I guess,” she moved her shoulders up and down. “I want to do this because I feel like it means something. Not as much to me, but to people like your sister who don’t have anyone in their corner, but their whole life will turn around if somebody believes in them. I guess I’m still idealistic about it.”
I looked at her a long time after she finished. She averted her eyes and squirmed at my attention.
“That’s really lovely,” I complimented her. “At least, it’s the loveliest way I’ve heard someone justify being really good at a profession they don’t really like the day-to-day grind of.”
“Yeah, well. I’m super complicated.” She sighed and then laid back on the mattress.
“Why don’t we take a break,” I suggested as I flipped closed one of the substantial textbooks resting in front of me. “We haven’t eaten in a while.”
“Can we eat something with alcohol in it?” She perked up.
“You mean drink,” I said.
“Whatever,” she laughed.
“Not while we’re studying,” I responded in an attempt to keep focused.
“No fun,” she pouted.
I helped Vicki to her feet. Groggy from exhaustion of a long day of working Harmony’s case and studying late, she tumbled forward into my chest as she rose. I steadied her, and she lingered in my arms for a moment.
“Thanks for listening to all that,” she said quietly without making eye contact with me. “Sorry if it was all over the place. I’d never really put it into words before.”
“Thank you for telling me about it,” I laughed.
She slowly detangled herself from me, still not able to meet my eyes.
“You’re buying me something with ice cream as a main ingredient,” she demanded. “I have sweated three gallons in the past hour.”
“I’m sure there is a convenience store open,” I said, and we made our way through the house and to the cars.
It was two in the morning, and Vicki had protested that we should use the Volkswagon Eyesore. She still found it highly amusing, but I still didn’t want to traverse the countryside in it when I had the option not to. It was like a giant “MOCK ME” sign taped to my back, except Vicki was the only one who read it.
Still, she ended up getting her way, and we took the van.
“It looks like it’s made of sunshine, but in an obnoxious way, not in a cute way,” was the latest in the string of colorful mockeries she’d drummed up this evening as she climbed into the passenger seat of the van. “In the way that makes me want to tell children not ever to look directly at it. And then, the sunshine was weathered by time and rusted, somehow, and took on a bumper-sticker oriented political agenda.”
“You’re really enjoying this,” I noticed.
“I’m working on my prose,” she grinned. “You never know. There might just be a poetry portion of the bar exam.”
We made it to a 7-11, and then we went inside to buy our treats.
“This isn’t quite the ice cream you promised, but it’s close enough,” she commented as she filled up a Slurpee cup.
I started up the Eyesore again and backed out of the parking lot. There was only one other car there. Sedona wasn’t exactly bustling at this time in the morning.
Vicki gratefully sipped on her Slurpee.
“Do you think this counts as brain food?” she posed the question.
“No,” I stated matter-of-factly, sipping on a Slurpee of my own.
“Quick, what’s the nineteenth amendment?” she jabbed a finger at me as she shot a pop quiz my way.
“They’re not going to test us on the Bill of Rights, Vicki,” I smirked.
“Really? Huh.” She feigned utter confusion and glanced down at her drink. “This brain food must be broken. And it’s the one about women voting, by the way.”
She gulped down more of her Slurpee and I laughed to myself. Then the headlights of the car behind us flashed into my rearview mirror. Vicki squinted and shielded her eyes from the light.
“Ugh, rude,” she complained. “Who is out on the town at this awful hour of the night?”
I glanced up at the mirror. The car coasted right behind us at exactly the same speed.
“That is strange,” I considered.
I placed my Slurpee into the cupholder and gripped the wheel with both hands. Vicki noticed my shift in demeanor.
“Everything okay?” she asked, a bit of worry seeping into her question.
“I’m just going to take a detour back home,” I informed her.
An intersection approached in front of us, and I maintained my speed as I approached it as if I was going to continue straight. At the last possible moment, without employing my turn signal, I jerked the wheel to side, sending Vicki flying against the passenger side door as the van took the sharp left turn and continued down the street.
Behind us, the car’s tires squealed as they struggled to make the same turn I had. They hadn’t expected to turn here, and they’d adjusted to make sure they were.
“They turned, too,” Vicki reported softly. “Henry, are they following us?”
“Yeah, I think so.” I nodded. There was no point in lying to her.
“Okay, right, fine, okay,” she breathed in and out deeply. “What do we do?”
I clenched my jaw and adjusted my grip on the steering wheel.
“We lose them.”
I pressed my foot down on the gas pedal, and the ancient air-cooled car launched forward, forcing Vicki and I upright in our seats. A moment later, the car behind us sped forward to catch up with us.
“Oh, that’s extremely not good,” Vicki noted.
“Hang on,” I told her.
“What’s your plan?” she asked. “Does this shaggin’ wagon have any spy weapons on it?”
“No weapons,” I replied. “The plan is driving really fast and dangerously until they are gone, while you call the police” Joking with Vicki as if we were buying groceries really brought this whole situation down to a more manageable level for me.
“Oh,” she took this in as she lifted her phone to her ear. “Good. I’m calling the police now.”
Miles and miles of desert and rock stretched out before us. I couldn’t swerve the car into an alley or get lost in an intersection since we were now isolated from civilization. The car behind us could spot me wherever I went.
“Hi, my friend and I are currently in a car chase,” Vicki explained to the 9-1-1 operator. “I have reason to believe the car chasing us has malicious intent. The person in the car. Not the car itself. Am I rambling? If I’m rambling, it’s because of the life-or-death scenario.”
Vicki detailed our location to
the operator. Out of my peripheral, I saw the headlights of the pursuer come closer and heard the engine roar with speed. I heard the clunk of the car ramming into us just as Vicki and I lurched forward against our seat belts.
“Ah!” Vicki squealed as she collided back into her seat. “They’re actually trying to kill us!”
I looked to the right at the vast expanse of desert. Then, I looked to my left, and see much of the same. The moonlight lit up the red sands as far as I could see, and towering red rocks suddenly appeared for me to crash into up ahead.
“Hang on,” I repeated to Vicki.
“I have been doing the most hanging,” Vicki promised. She explained quickly to the operator quickly afterwards, “No, no, that didn’t have to make sense to you.”
I jerked my wheel to the left, and the car spun into the sand, and Vicki and I were thrown to the left door. The Eyesore was not a car meant for crazy stunt turns, and I felt the bus teeter dangerously far on the driver-side wheels. We balanced precariously on two points of rubber for what felt left a stretch of minutes, but after a few seconds, all four wheels dug back into the sand.
Then I slammed my foot down onto the gas pedal and powered back toward the city.
The pursuer screeched to a halt. It made a much more safe and reasonable three-point turn, and then chased after us, kicking up sand beneath its tires.
“Who is this freak?” she lamented. “Why are they chasing us?”
“It has got to be something with Harmony,” I determined.
“How would anyone even know we are involved?” Vicki cried as she clutched onto the sides of her seat with a white-knuckle death grip. “The only people who know what we found out are you, me, and AJ.”
“Yeah…” I exhaled and considered the implications of that.
“How well do you actually know that kid?” Vicki asked me sternly.
I didn’t buy a potential sinister intention of AJ, but I didn’t really have time to analyze it fully because out of the rearview mirrors, I saw the car gain on us. It grew in the rearview mirror until it was inches from my bumper, and the roar of the engine resounded menacingly behind us.
