Call Me Copy Girl One More Time Chapter 05

Call Me Copy Girl One More Time Chapter 05: Forty Minutes

A’s Coyle

Sole Ashford got to the elevator first. I know because I was behind him, and I have never seen a man in a five-thousand-dollar suit move like that.

The courthouse is six blocks away. We did it in nine minutes.

Courtroom 2C. Eli Ashford already at the defense table, nineteen and looking fifteen. Dark hair stuck to his; forehead. Hands flat on the wood like he was afraid they’d float away.

The prosecutor was a man named Deakins. Neat. Smug. He had a witness in the second row – a kid in a

borrowed tie.

“Your Honor, the People move to revoke bail. This witness will testify the defendant threatened him yesterday outside a coffee shop. This is a flight-risk and a public-safety issue-”

“Where’s Ms. Whitaker?” Judge Okafor said.

Brody stood up. Opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

I looked at the witness.

I looked at the manila folder Deakins had left half-open on the People’s table.

Í looked at the date stamp on the top page of it.

And every cell in me that had been asleep for three years stood up.

“Counsel for Mr. Ashford is present, Your Honor,” I said.

Brody turned. Eli turned. Deakins turned.

“You are not-” Brody whispered.

“I’m admitted in this state. I’ve paid my dues for three years and never once knew why.” I was already walking.

“Sit down, Brody.”

“Do it,” Cole Ashford said from the gallery.

The bailiff looked at the judge. The judge looked at me.

“State your name, counsel.”

“Rowan, Your Honor. Tess Rowan.”

Judge Okafor stared at me a beat too long.

Proceed, Ms. Rowan.”

And here’s the thing about courtrooms: in a crisis, people follow the voice that sounds like it knows.

“Your Honor, before the People call this witness, I’d ask the Court to note the date on the People’s own witness statement. It’s stamped Tuesday. The alleged threat occurred Wednesday.”

Deakins flipped the folder shut too late.

“Second. I’d ask the People to disclose whether this witness has a pending possession charge in this county

Silence.

“Mr. Deakins,” the judge said.

“…He does, Your Honor.”

“And whether an offer was extended to him in the last seventy-two hours.”

Deakins didn’t answer.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I said. “So the People’s emergency is a witness who wrote his statement the day before the event happened, in exchange for a plea deal, to revoke the bail of a nineteen-year-old with no record who has appeared at every hearing on time. Your Honor, my client isn’t a flight risk. He’s a gift. Somebody wrapped him.”

Eleven minutes, start to finish.

“Motion denied,” Okafor said. “Bail continued. Mr. Deakins, I’d like to see you in chambers. Ms. Rowan-” she paused, “-it’s good to see you in a courtroom.”

I sat down.

Eli Ashford was staring at me. “Who are you?”

“Nobody. Don’t talk to reporters.”

Then I put my hands in my lap under the table, because they had started shaking so hard I could hear my ring against the wood.

Nobody in that courtroom was moving. Brody. The bailiff. Deakins’s second chair. Staring at me.

Because there is no way to unsee what they had just seen.

That was not a clerk who read a lot.

That was a trial lawyer.

Sloane was in the doorway. She’d come after all, forty minutes too late, and she wasn’t angry anymore. She

was something much worse. She was interested.

“Rowan,” she said softly. “Where did you learn to do that?”

Cole Ashford stepped in front of her.

He didn’t touch me. He just stood there, close, and when he spoke it was so quiet nobody else in the hallway

could hear it.

“I’ve been in a lot of rooms,” he said. “I’ve never seen a person do what you just did.”

“It was a bail hearing.”

“You destroyed a state witness in eleven minutes off a date stamp and a hunch, with my brother’s freedom on the table, and your voice never changed.” His jaw moved. “Nobody with your mouth ends up in a basement, Miss Rowan. So I’m going to ask you one time, in private, and then I’ll stop asking.”

“Mr. Ashford-”

“Who are you?”

My phone buzzed.

Not a call.

An email alert.

FROM: HUMAN RESOURCES – HARLAN PIERCE LLP

–

SUBJECT: MANDATORY CREDENTIAL AND EMPLOYMENT HISTORY AUDIT – ALL STAFF, 72 HOURS

Requested by: S. Whitaker, Partner, Head of Trial Practice

She’d sent it from her phone.

She’d sent it while I was still standing at the podium.