by Claire Adams
I felt like such a failure, and even though my brother’s words hurt, I realized that he might have a point. I couldn’t afford a place of my own just yet and my dream of moving in with Phil had just fallen to the wayside. Obviously, Brent didn’t want his little sister living on his couch indefinitely.
I hadn’t even though about how my presence here was disrupting his life. Maybe my only option left was going back home. The very thought depressed the hell out of me.
“I’ve got to get ready for work,” I said, getting up and heading towards the bathroom.
When I came back out, Brent was sprawled across the sofa eating a bag of potato chips for breakfast. Feeling slightly nauseous, I left for work in a haze of sadness. The moment I arrived, Marta looked at me sympathetically, and I wanted to scream.
“Hi,” she said, as I sat down.
“Hi,” I replied back, without making any eye contact.
“How are you?” she asked.
“As well as can be expected after finding out that the love of your life was a drug dealer and managed to keep it hidden from you for months and months,” I replied, without any feeling.
“Is there anything I can say that will make it better?” Marta asked kindly.
I sighed. “You can tell me that this is all a big mistake and Phil is completely innocent?” I said desperately and without any real hope.
“Oh, you never know,” she said.
I frowned. “I was only kidding, Marta,” I said. “What are the chances that he’s innocent?”
“You tell me,” she said. “You’re the one who spent months and months with him, after all.”
“I obviously am not a good judge of character,” I said.
“What makes you say that?”
“The fact that… Well... I’m from a small town, and I always used to swallow the lies my brother told me as a kid.”
Marta smiled. “Oh, honey, we all believed things when we were kids. I believed in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny when I was seven. That doesn’t mean I’m still that gullible.”
“You don’t get it,” I sighed. “I didn’t just buy Brent’s lies when we were kids. I believed him well into my teens. I believed all my ex-boyfriends when they told me they loved me. I believe people—whether or not they deserve to be believed.”
She shook her head at me. “You can’t paint everyone with the same brush, honey,” she said. “Does Phil seem like the kind of guy to do what he’s being accused of?”
“No, of course not,” I said. “He’s a firefighter, but that doesn’t mean anything, Marta. Professor John Gilbert was the best teacher in my entire college. He was a tenured professor who had the respect and admiration of the student body and faculty alike. I believed in him and his stellar reputation. I made excuses for him, even after he stuck his tongue down my throat.”
I stopped short, feeling a little drained and when I looked back up, Marta was looking at me with that sympathetic look again.
“Is that why out dropped out?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.” I nodded.
“I’m sorry.”
I shrugged. “I should have been smarter.”
“The two situations are completely different,” she pointed out.
“The bottom line is I’m a gullible fool and—”
I stopped talking when I realized that a police officer was walking directly towards me. Marta noticed him, too, and her mouth fell open a little. The officer came up to my desk, and it was obvious that someone had pointed me out to him.
“Are you Megan Jacobs?” he asked.
“Yes, I am,” I stammered.
“I’m Officer Pete Manolo,” he said. “Is it possible to have a few moments of your time?”
I looked around nervously and realized that everyone was watching the two of us. I sunk down low in my chair and nodded. The officer sat down in front of my desk. He had a kindly face, and he didn’t seem too intimidating, but it didn’t matter; I was scared, and my heart was beating faster than a bullet.
“You look nervous?” he observed.
“It’s not every day you get a visit from law enforcement at work,” I pointed out.
“I apologize for this,” he said. “But I visited your apartment, and you weren’t there.”
“Oh,” I said. “My brother would have been in. He told me he was going to be home all day.”
“Nobody answered the door, ma’am.”
“Oh, he must have gone out then.”
“I assume you know why I’m here?” the officer asked.
“You came to ask me about Phil.”
“Yes.”
“I had no idea he was dealing drugs,” I said before he could ask the question.
“Did he ever seem inebriated to you in any way?”
“No, not ever,” I said honestly.
“Did he have contacts you knew about, friends who came around his apartment often?”
“No, not ever,” I said again.
“Did you ever see anything on his phone that you thought was suspicious?”
“Never,” I said. “He doesn’t even have a password.”
“You are his girlfriend?” the officer asked.
“I don’t know if I’m his girlfriend anymore,” I admitted. “But I was, yes.”
“Up until…”
“I found out about his arrest,” I said.
“I see.” The officer nodded. “And how did you meet him?”
“At a party my brother threw,” I replied. “Phil and Brent were friends.”
“He was your brother’s friend?”
“Yes.”
“This is the brother that you currently live with?”
“Yes.”
“Very good, ma’am.” The officer nodded. “If you could give me your contact details, I would appreciate that. If I have any more questions, I will need to speak to you.”
“Okay.” I nodded, writing down my cell phone number with a shaky hand.
“One more thing before I leave, ma’am,” the office said. “You were with Phil for several months, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe he was capable of dealing drugs?”
It was an odd question for a cop to ask. They didn’t usually deal with personal opinions in regards to criminals. What did it matter if an aunt or a friend thought the perpetrator was a good guy?
“No,” I said instantly. “Phil…he’s not that kind of guy. At least, that’s what I thought.”
“So why do you believe he was dealing?”
I hesitated, wondering about that myself suddenly. “I… My brother believes it’s true,” I said, with a shaky voice. “And, he knew Phil far longer than I did.”
“I see, thank you, ma’am.” The officer nodded, before walking away.
I sat there, feeling horrible and guilty. Brent believed that Phil was guilty…was that why I believed he was too? This whole time I thought I had been disappointed in Phil, but maybe the one I was really disappointed in was myself.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Phil
“You spoke to him?” Sarge asked.
“I did,” I replied. “At length.”
“And?”
“He seems like a decent man and seems to believe me,” I said.
I had met the public defender that Sargent Green had retained for me. He was an older gentleman, possibly late fifties or early sixties. He was balding at the top of his head, and the hair he had on the sides was salt and pepper silver. He really did seem like a decent man, and I was hoping that he was an effective lawyer. He had listened to my story, he had taken down a few notes, and then he had scheduled our next meeting.
I had spent the night in a dark cell that I was forced to share with a man named Munch. Munch was a scarily skinny man. He was over six feet tall and had full body tattoos and a long ponytail that had a streak of red running through it. I noticed he had a tiny teardrop tattoo under his right eye. He had done nothing more than grunt at me, and when lig
hts went out for the night, his intermittent snoring had kept me up. Not that I would have been able to sleep anyway.
I had woken to what looked like a dog’s breakfast, and then Sarge had come to pay me a visit. I sat opposite him, with a tiny partition separating us. Sarge looked ever the respectable chief, and I felt dirty and useless in comparison.
“How are the boys?” I asked. “Did we get any emergency calls today?”
“Just one so far,” Sarge replied. “Matt’s team took it.”
“What about Kendrick, Mel, and Ryan?” I asked. “What are they… I mean, how are they?”
“If you want to know how they feel about all of this, then you don’t have to worry,” Sarge told me. “They believe you.”
“Really?” I said, with visible relief.
“Of course.” He nodded. “They’re your friends—and your brothers. They’ve spent years working alongside you. You figure out things about people when you work together that closely. You understand what they’re capable of and what they’re not.”
I smiled. “Thanks, Sarge.”
“They wanted to come,” he told me. “But I thought it was best to bring their messages—you won’t be allowed too many visitors anyway. I had to pull some strings in order to meet you today. Now listen to me; Victor Beaumont is a good public defender. He may not look like a shark, but I’ve seen him handle some tough cases, and more often than not, he wins.”
“More often than not?” I said, still nervous about my odds.
“Stay calm and remember that you’re innocent.”
“Innocent men have been tried and found guilty before,” I reminded him.
“Well, you’re not going to fall into that percentile.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“I’m not,” Sarge replied. “But hope is all we’ve got at the moment.”
“What about my job?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking.
“Your job will be waiting for you when you get out…so long as all charges against you are dropped.”
I tensed and nodded.
A second later, a cop walked towards us and addressed Sarge. “His lawyer is here to see him.”
“Thank you,” Sarge nodded, then he turned to me and gave me a bracing look. “Hang in there, okay?”
“I’ll do my best, sir.”
I had to wait another five minutes, but then Victor appeared and sat down in the seat that Sarge had just vacated. He had more files with him, and once we were alone, he turned to me and wiped his brow.
“We need to go over a few things.”
“Okay…” I said uncertainly.
“Your brother is serving time in jail for drug dealing, am I correct?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Is that really going to count against me going into this?”
“I’m afraid a case can be made around that.” Victor nodded. “You lived with your brother at one time, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And before that?”
I sighed.
He nodded. “You see, with a small amount of digging, it’s easy to find that you moved in the circles of a modestly well-known drug gang. The prosecution is going to start their case from there.”
I wanted to bang my head against the desktop. “That is my past.”
“I’m afraid that won’t cut it as a defense,” he replied.
“But—”
“Think about it, Phil,” he interrupted me. “You ran in the circles of a known drug gang, your brother is in jail for drug dealing, and now you’ve been found with pounds of hard drugs in your apartment. What does that sound like to you?”
“It sounds like I never stopped dealing in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“So what is my defense?” I asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t sound like I have very many options.”
“There are always options,” Victor assured me. “We just need to be prepared for what the prosecution is going to dig up—because trust me; they’re going to dredge up things you buried decades ago.”
“Where do we start then?” I asked.
“We start with your drug test results,” he replied. “I have results going back years from when you started working at the station. Sargent Green provided me with all your results, and they’re all squeaky clean. The biggest asset you have in your corner at the moment is your reputation.”
“My reputation?” I asked, with a frown.
“You’ve been a firefighter in this community for a few years now,” Victor explained. “People respect you. There are even a couple of cops in this station who believe you’re innocent by virtue of your reputation. They haven’t even met you personally, but they’ve seen you at emergency scenes, and apparently, you’ve made an impression. If this thing goes to a courtroom, we’ll have lots of character witnesses to call upon.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Not on its own, no,” Victor admitted. “But it’s a start.”
I looked down, wringing my hands together as I tried to be a little positive so that I didn’t drown myself in doubt. But a little voice in the back of my head just couldn’t help thinking that there were strangers who believed me and yet the woman I loved had refused to.
“Don’t look so defeated,” Victor said, snapping me out of my reverie. “I haven’t even gotten to the good news yet.”
“You have good news?” I asked, wrinkling my brow.
“I do.” He nodded. “I managed to convince them to let you out on bail. And because of your clean drug test record and the fact that you’ve been a respected member of the firefighter squad in this town for years, I managed to get the bail amount down to four thousand dollars.”
I bit my lip. “Oh…”
He raised his eyebrows. “I thought you’d be more excited about that.”
“No… I mean thank you, that’s really good to hear, but…”
“But?”
“I don’t have anyone I can ask to post bail for me,” I said honestly.
“What about family?”
“I don’t have family,” I said, thinking of Megan and feeling miserable. “My parents are… Well, they’re not in my life anymore, and my only brother is in jail.”
“What about friends?”
“I would never ask that of a friend,” I said firmly.
“If you have the money, I could get it across and post it for you?” Victor suggested.
I sighed. “I have some money saved up,” I nodded. “But not enough. I would need at least a thousand five hundred more in order to meet bail.”
“Then a Bail Bondsman is your best bet,” he suggested.
“I’m not using a bail bondsman.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’ve come across a few in the past and they can’t be trusted,” I said. “I’m not going to get mixed up with any of them.”
Victor looked at me in frustration. “You’re not working with me here.”
“I guess the only thing you can do right now is prove that I’m innocent,” I said. “Starting with finding proof that Brent framed me.”
“Trust me, I’m working on it,” he assured me. “Hang in there.”
I smiled. “People keep saying that to me.”
That night I was lying in my hard cot in my cell when the door opened. Munch woke with a start by the grating sound of the door opening. He cursed loudly, rolled over, and fell back into sleep. I sat up and realized it was Manolo. Grateful to see a friendly face and happy for the distraction, I pushed back the scratchy covers and swung my legs down to the ground.
“Come with me,” Manolo gestured me to follow him.
Uncertain where this was going, I followed him out and down the corridor. “Are you breaking me out?” I asked.
Manolo smiled. “Unfortunately, not today,” he said. “I’m just moving you to your new cell.”
He stopped outside an open jail door and gestured me inside. This cell was exactly like my first
one, except that I didn’t have a cellmate here.
“My own private cell, huh?” I said. “Wow… I never expected to feel lucky in this place.”
“It’s the best I could do for you right now,” he said, stepping into the cell with me and leaned against the wall while I sat down.
“Thanks, Manolo,” I said. “I really do appreciate it. I have to admit; I was half scared Munch would kill me in my sleep.”
Manolo smiled, but then his expression ironed out into seriousness. “I spoke to Megan this morning.”
I tensed immediately, and I couldn’t ignore the stab of pain in my gut. “What did she say?”
“I’m not at liberty to disclose that information to you right now,” Manolo said. “I just wanted you to know I’ve spoken to her.”
I nodded. “Well, can you tell me how she was… Did she look okay?”
“She looked…sad,” Manolo said softly. “She looked like she’d been crying.”
I supposed it would be tear-inducing to find out that your boyfriend was a drug dealer…except that I wasn’t, and I felt as though she should have known that.
“Any leads on Brent?” I asked. “Or are you not at liberty to disclose that, either?”
Manolo gave me a small reassuring smile. “I’ve done some digging, and I’ve passed on any information I’ve gotten onto the drug task force. If there’s anything to find, they’ll find it.”
“Before I’ve spent a year of my life in this place?” I asked desperately.
“Hang in there, Phil,” Manolo told me.
He was the third person to say that to me. I thanked him and watched as he exited my cell, locked me in, and walked away with a nod. The funny part was that I might have been better able to handle all of this if I knew that Megan believed me. If I knew she was there to support me, if I knew she was by my side, in the metaphorical sense, then it would have been easy to “hang in there.”
At the moment, I was more inclined to just hang myself. I sighed and lay back down on the cold hard surface of my cot. Even without Munch’s snores, I couldn’t seem to fall asleep. In fact, I found that my thoughts ran even wilder without the distraction. I wondered what Brent was doing right now and if he was sleeping soundly tonight knowing that he had framed his friend for his crimes. I wondered what lies he had told Megan about me.
