by Dave Daren
Natalie seemed to have deflated like a balloon in front of me as she talked about the ring, and her already small frame looked even smaller as she hunched her shoulders in frustration.
“The sheriff, Thomas or Thompson or something, told me if I keep trying to go to the station, though, that they’ll arrest me for like, obstruction,” she said and looked back up at me.
I was almost startled by the clarity in her green eyes.
“I don’t care about the rest of the stuff, I don’t,” she said. “I just want my mom’s ring back. I don’t know what else to do.”
I took a deep breath and tried to think through the situation.
“Technically, what they did wasn’t illegal,” I began my explanation, and Natalie looked crestfallen. “But, we might be able to prove that they didn’t have the grounds to take some of your specific items, like your mother’s ring.”
It was like a flip had been switched as Natalie perked up again. Even her hair seemed to gain new volume.
“There’s a chance?” she asked with unmasked giddiness in her tone.
I held out a hand to still her eagerness.
“I can’t make you any promises,” I said. “I’m not Sheriff Thompson’s favorite person, either.”
I rubbed at my knuckles as I spoke, and I remembered how Thompson had been happy to brush me off after I told him I’d been shot at. I’d even produced my phone with the bullet still in it for proof, but Thompson had barely even looked at it. I could imagine that someone like Natalie didn’t fare much better.
“It may take some time for us to get in with a judge, but I promise you, I’ll try to get your stuff back,” I said with a solemn nod.
I understood the importance of a dead parent’s heirloom and the connection you felt to it. It didn’t matter to Natalie that the ring wasn’t worth any monetary amount, because it was her mother’s, and that’s why it was important. I felt the same toward my father’s watch. It was decades out of style and too heavy for everyday wear, but without fail, I strapped it onto my wrist every day because it made me feel closer to him, all those years after his passing.
I hated the fact that Thompson, pig-headed Thompson, was doing something as blatantly cruel as keeping a family memento under lock and key for no other reason than to be an asshole. I might have hated it, but I wasn’t surprised.
But Natalie’s face split in a wide grin, and she quickly pushed herself up to her feet. She practically bounced on her feet, and I was reminded why I’d decided to go into the law in the first place.
“Really?” she asked as if she couldn’t believe that I’d even agreed to help her.
I nodded and gave her a heartfelt smile.
“Really,” I swore.
She quickly bit back a squeal and made do with a smile instead. She looked like I’d just promised to give her a million dollars, and maybe in her mind, I had.
“How much do I owe you for this?” she asked as she flipped open her messenger bag again to fumble for something, maybe her wallet. “I’ve never done something like this before, and I know the woman who took my call told me your going rate, but I don’t remember what it was, and-”
I gave a carefree wave of my hand.
“Look, don’t worry about it, alright?” I said with an easy shrug and a smile. “I can’t promise I’ll be able to get your things back, but the process of trying shouldn’t take me too long. I should even be able to talk to the sheriff today.”
For a moment, I was concerned that Natalie was going to cry as her hands stilled in her bag, and she looked up at me with her wide, green eyes.
“Really?” she asked again, but this time her tone was slightly watery.
I nodded and couldn’t help the bloom of warmth that spread through me, just like it always did whenever I was able to help someone, even just a little. And it was clear that Natalie had needed someone to care about her problem, even if I wasn’t able to get the ring back for her.
She let the top of her messenger bag drop back down and cleared her throat as she straightened.
“Um, I think it would be weird if I tried to hug you,” she admitted. “But thank you so much. Uh, here.”
She reached back into her bag again to pull out a scrap of paper and a pen from God only knew where and scribbled down her phone number and an email address.
Natalie slid the paper toward me along my desk before putting the pen up behind her ear.
“My contact information, if you need it,” she said with another bright smile. “I should go, though, I have to catch a ride with a friend that’s supposed to be on this side of town and--”
I cut her off with a laugh.
“Thank you, Natalie, and it’s alright, go catch your ride,” I said as I shooed her off with a wave of my hands.
She flashed me a grin and an appreciative nod before she swept out of my office in a whirl of breezy fabric and flouncing hair and left me alone.
I reached down to pick up her scribbled contact information from the center of my desk and set it next to my calendar for safekeeping. I could feel that same familiar buzz as it started to thrum through my body that always came with the acceptance of a new case, even if it was just a small thing.
But nothing to do with Sheriff Thompson was going to be easy.
Chapter 2
I waited until I was certain Hurricane Natalie had swept out of Landon Legal before I dared leave the confines of my office. I didn't need to catch her in some other rapid fire wave of conversation and make her late for her attempted hitched ride, because I had the niggling little feeling that she wasn’t exactly the best at keeping on schedule.
I ran my fingers through my hair as I walked into the main hall of our office space and gave a deep, almost tired exhale.
The hall was wide enough to walk shoulder to shoulder with at least two other people and still have just a little wiggle room, and if I was being technical, the hall also counted as the main foyer of the office space, which made its width much less impressive.
Evelyn’s office sat at the very end of the hall and directly faced the front doors of the building. To the right of her office was mine, with its street view, and to the left was Brody’s, and his unfortunate view of the alley.
He’d assured me he was fine with the lack of sunlight and the smaller space, but sometimes I still felt a little guilty, so I always left him the closest parking space.
At the front of the foyer turned hall was what we’d designated as our waiting room, where we’d set up a few chairs for anyone that had to wait on one of us to help them. While I’d thought that putting in a whole waiting room was a little impractical when we’d first moved in a few months ago, it had surprisingly been used on more than one occasion.
The fact we actually needed the waiting room had led me to debate the merits of hiring a secretary, just to give the rest of us less things to juggle. Of course, that came with the caveat that we had to earn enough to hire someone else, which hadn’t happened just yet.
I turned slightly and made my way over to Evelyn’s open office. I rapped my knuckles once against the doorframe to get her attention. I caught Brody’s as well, and I saw his head perking up across the hall.
Evelyn looked at me with her steely-gray eyes and cocked a thin eyebrow in question. She reminded me of a drill sergeant, if a drill sergeant was a small, nearing elderly woman that favored old-school skirt and blazer combos. Maybe the only real physical similarity between Evelyn and a drill sergeant was the fact she wore her gray bob like a sort of impenetrable helmet. She pursed her thin lips and waited for me to speak.
“Well?” she snapped, as if I had been interrupting her from something desperately important. And, well, I suppose I could have been.
On top of helping with cases, Evelyn had also taken it upon herself to create the world’s most arcane filing system known to man. Sometimes, I wondered if she’d only done it so that she could berate Brody and I when we didn’t understand why the hell the file for Franklin was ne
xt to the file for Zemekis.
“We’ve got a new case,” I announced cheerfully only to be met with a loud, scoffing guffaw from Evelyn.
“Archer, are you dense?” she asked, none too kindly at that, and didn’t wait for whatever answer I could have given her before she continued on. “We’ve got a full caseload.”
To emphasize her point, she gestured to the stack of files that sat out on her desk.
I scratched at the back of my neck and gave a sigh.
“Yeah, I know we have a full caseload, but we’re stuck in limbo right now,” I argued. “We have three cases waiting on emails from different attorneys, four where we’re waiting on paperwork from the clients themselves, and at least another two where we’re trapped in the bureaucratic maze that is our local court system.”
I spread my arms wide as I spoke in a sort of ‘what are you going to do’ gesture.
Evelyn, however, did not look amused.
“You don’t even know what the case is,” I pointed out with a knowing look as I continued to try and sway her to my side.
I reminded myself that it wasn’t like I needed her permission to take a case. Landon Legal was my practice first and foremost, and while I wanted the backing of my colleagues when I made decisions, ultimately, it was up to me.
From behind me, I heard the sound of Brody’s heavy footsteps as he made his way out of his office to watch as Evelyn attempted to eviscerate me without having even moved from her desk.
“Well, by all means, please inform me,” she drawled with a flat tone.
For some reason, I didn’t think she was all that thrilled as she folded her arms atop her neatly crowded desk and looked at me with expectation written all over her face.
I smiled at her with my charming, ‘win the juries over’ smile that Evelyn had once kindly informed me made her “want to throttle” me.
“A woman’s ex-boyfriend is a dealer, and the sheriff’s department had a warrant for her place instead of his and used civil asset forfeiture to take one of her family heirlooms,” I explained in the simplest way possible.
Without all of Natalie’s side-winding, it was a fairly simple story of the local sheriff’s department causing trouble., but Evelyn didn’t seem at all concerned by this brash action by our local law enforcement. On the other hand, she had yet to try and scold me again, so I counted it as a plus.
Behind me, I heard Brody grunt. I shifted in the doorway to look at him and lined my spine up with the doorframe.
“Sounds like a simple thing to work out,” he began. “Without a lawyer.”
“Yes, but, when she tried that, Thompson threatened to arrest her for obstruction,” I explained as I pursed my lips, and Brody mirrored my expression.
No one at Landon Legal was too fond of the sheriff’s department after the stunt they’d pulled during our Knox Chemicals investigation. We’d later learned that under Sheriff Donald Thompson’s thumb, the department had turned a complete blind eye to the illegal activities Knox and his company were part of. We’d nearly lost the case because of that, and, equally important, to me losing my damn hand.
Brody grunted and waffled his head side to side as he seemed to debate the merits of what I’d said.
“We might be in a position to help her, then,” he said.
In her office, Evelyn gave a deep, labored sigh that Brody and I both ignored.
He rubbed his hand along his jaw, and a small furrow made a home between his thick eyebrows.
“How did she end up dating a drug dealer anyway?” he asked, and admittedly, it was a valid question. “Is she someone we can trust, or do you think she’s trying to run some sort of con over on us?”
Evelyn gave a pleased little harumph from her office, and I shot her a tired look, but it didn’t stop her from practically preening like some sort of self-assured cockatiel at Brody’s hesitance.
I didn’t point out that he seemed to be closer to my side of the argument than hers, but I think we both knew that anyway. I gave a heavy sigh and tried to figure out how to explain Natalie to the two of them.
“She’s a bit of a... space cadet,” I said with slow enunciation on the phrase I ended up settling on. “She told me that as soon as she found out about his… occupation, that she ended things, and I believe her. She seemed fairly worked up over the whole thing.”
I shrugged when I was done and waited for a response. After all, it isn’t like I was best friends with the woman. I’d just met her, but I liked to think that I had a fairly good radar for people, and Natalie seemed like a good, albeit tiring, one. Our brief conversation had left me fairly winded if I was being honest with myself.
Brody gave a sound of affirmation to what I’d said, but he still seemed to be wavering on the fence about helping out with the case.
“It shouldn’t take us too long to actually get this all sorted out,” I pointed out to him.
I’d already marked Evelyn as a lost cause for this case, and so I focused all my attention on Brody.
“Plus, we’re in limbo on the rest of our caseload,” I added with another pleasant little smile.
When Brody gave a deep sigh, I knew I had him.
“Fine,” he agreed, and it practically sounded like he’d resigned himself to walking to the gallows. “But only for the day. I’m not signing up for some wild goose chase when this thing inevitably goes ass up.”
“Come on, you’ve got that little faith in me?” I joked with faux offense lingering in my tone.
I even touched my chest, as if in shock, but despite the ribbing, I was just glad he’d agreed to help. It’s not as if I couldn’t do the job by myself, because like I’d said, it really shouldn’t have been too difficult to get things squared away with the sheriff’s department. But when dealing with Sheriff Thompson, backup felt like a good idea.
Brody snorted and gave a derisive shake of his head.
“It’s not you that I don’t have faith in,” he said. “It’s the sheriff’s department. You’re not exactly their favorite person, Archer.”
He didn’t have to remind me of that fact, but it was, at the very least, comforting to see that I wasn’t the only one who’d had that thought. I gave a small nod of agreement and a sigh.
Since the incident with Knox, I’d managed to avoid any sort of further run-ins with Thompson and his department, but the idea of willingly seeking him out didn’t bring me much joy, especially when I was going to have to confront him about something he’d done wrong.
“You two are a pair of damn bleeding hearts,” Evelyn chimed back in from her office with ill-disguised fondness in her voice that she was clearly trying to mask with sarcasm.
I glanced back at her with a grin and slid my hands into the pockets of my trousers.
“Don’t say it like it’s such a bad thing,” I chided with a shake of my head, but it didn’t erase the grin from my face. “It makes me good at my job.”
“It also got you shot, if I recall,” she said with an eye roll and a dry edge to her voice.
“Almost shot,” I corrected with the grin still on my face. “It got me almost shot.”
Enough time had passed that I no longer had any lingering fear from the event, but that still didn’t make it a pleasant memory. Despite the humor, I still avoided the old dump site.
Evelyn huffed, still not sold on the case, and behind me, I heard Brody chuckle. Evelyn shuffled a few papers around on her desk in a way that looked like it was more to keep her hands busy than to do anything really productive.
“If you’re hell-bent on helping out the newest sob story, you might want to start by talking to someone who isn’t affiliated with the sheriff’s department,” she said in a way that was unhelpfully cryptic.
A small furrow creased my brow, and I cocked my head to the side in a questioning manner as I looked at her.
Evelyn gave another huff and looked at me like I was an idiot. It was a look she favored, and one I was already far too familiar with.
“You
r new client,” she began and put a very heavy, pointed emphasis on the word client. “She isn’t the first person I’ve heard of in the area that’s had issues with the sheriff’s department and civil asset forfeiture.”
I must have looked surprised, because she rolled her eyes again and gave another tired sigh. I looked back at Brody for some sort of help, but he looked just as lost as I felt.
“Do you two pay attention to anything?” Evelyn asked, even though she seemed to already have chosen her answer. “There’s a man that’s been camped outside the sheriff’s department for the last two months hooting and hollering about how ‘amoral’ and ‘corrupt’ the deputies are.”
The look on my face must have remained a little too blank because Evelyn all but threw her hands up in defeat and gave another heavy sigh.
“He’s been all over the city’s local Facebook pages?” she tried again for any sort of sparks of recognition from Brody and I.
I looked back at him and gave a small shrug that he easily returned before we both shifted our attention to Evelyn, but she wasn’t looking at us. Instead, she had swiveled ever so slightly in her desk chair to type something at her ancient computer, and her frustrated silence was punctuated only by the clacking of her keyboard.
I’d offered to buy her a new computer with our company fund, but she’d told me in no uncertain terms that her computer would work until the day the world ended and that I should just piss off, and so she still had a computer from the Jurassic period and a keyboard that sounded more like a typewriter, as opposed to the newer model Macs that Brody and I both enjoyed.
“Come here,” Evelyn demanded more than she asked, but I obligingly made my way past the threshold of her office and came over to peer at whatever it was that she’d pulled up on her monitor.
She angled it toward me, but given the fact it was older than dirt, it didn’t want to budge so I ended up half-leaning over her desk to even see what it was she was trying to show me.
