Fraudulent Death, Draft 01, CH 12 (Patreon)

The knock came and Trembor opened the door.

The armadillo smiled. “Good afternoon, Mister Goldenmane, may I come in?”

He considered closing the door in the lawyer’s face. If that might offend him and get him to throw the case in revenge, it would be worthwhile, but he was too professional for that. The firm his father had worked for didn’t allow personal feelings to get in the way of a good defense.

Trembor stepped out of the way.

“If you don’t mind my saying,” Barany said, “you don’t look too good.”

“My brother’s making my life difficult.”

“Ah.” The armadillo looked from the living room to the kitchen before heading to the table. “I hope you can resolve that in a timely manner.”

Trembor didn’t see that happening.

The lawyer sat and took files from his briefcase. Placing them on the table.

“Do you want something to drink?” Trembor asked, feeling his mother’s presence pointing out he had a guest in his house.

“Yes, thank you.” The armadillo looked up from the file as Trembor headed for the cooler. “Do you have Vegetable juice?”

Trembor shook his head. “Blood and water.” He took a bottle, shook it, then grabbed another. One other left. He really needed to restock.

“Blood will do then.”

He took the bottle of alcohol from the cupboard and showed it to the lawyer, who shook his head. Trembor placed the glass of blood before the armadillo, then sat his own glass before him.

Barany studied Trembor. “I would advise against consuming alcohol at present.”

Trembor shrugged and sipped it. “After the day I’ve had, I need something to dull the edge before I claw the next person to annoy me.” He grinned at the lawyer.

“I see.”

Trembor eyed the stack of files. “Out of curiosity, do you know where Jasber Braid is being held?” No one he’d called had been willing to tell him; or tell him what condition she might be in. Even his friends weren’t willing to risk getting pulled into his case by giving him information that might be deemed off-limits to someone being prosecuted.

Barany thumbed through a few folders before pulling one out and looking through it. “She is being held at the Cave-in cage complex.”

Trembor nodded. Medium security complex. Many of the people held there were also part of the work details if they didn’t cause problems.

“Have you visited her?”

“No, I have the transcript of the interrogation. Until we are closer to the trial, I don’t see a need to evaluate her. Her arrest record, and the part you’ve played in it, is enough to establish some level of doubt as to its validity. At this time, I prefer working on preparing you.”

“What happens to its validity if she were to die?” Trembor asked. Was she even still alive?

The armadillo hesitated. “I don’t see why she would die.”

“It’s a cage complex,” Trembor said. “There are accidents, fights, and outright eating of other prisoners. It has to be a possibility you’ve considered.”

“That’s why testimonies are taken as early as possible, usually while still in enforcer custody.” He paused, straightening a misaligned folder. “But to answer your question. Her death wouldn’t help us. With her testimony taken, the prosecution has what they need to proceed. Her death would impede my ability to question her on the stand, demonstrate she had motivations to embroil you in what she and her partner did, but that’s only one element in your defense. The evidence is rather light and circumstantial.”

“So she’s more valuable to you alive than dead?”

“Marginally, but yes.” The armadillo studied Trembor. “May I ask why you are asking about her?”

“No reason.” If she was useful to his defense, did that mean the mole had no reason to arrange her death? “What about if she recants her testimony?”

“Mister Goldenmane, I must ask, what—”

“Trembor. Mister Goldenmane is my dad.” It occurred to him it was one a cliche line from just about every movie he’d seen, but it really didn’t sit well with him to be called ‘mister’ by someone at least a decade older than he was.

“Mister Goldenmane,” the lawyer insisted. “I must insist that you make no kind of plans toward taking a hand in your defense. To make the situation perfectly clear, as the crux of the prosecution’s case, her death, no matter how natural it might seem, will only sever to cast doubt on your innocence. In regard to her recanting her testimony. With your well-known connections within the enforcers, it would simply look like one of them had forced her to do so, again casting further doubt on your innocence. I hope I am making myself clear. It is a case where paying someone’s tax will not serve you, no matter what you might be used to.”

“That isn’t why I’m asking,” Trembor snapped. “My dad was a lawyer, you really think I’d resort to eating a witness?”

“You would be surprised what people will resort to. Our social system is built so that those who can afford it can resolve their legal problem themselves. It’s one of the issues with allowing predation.”

“So you’re against it?”

“My personal beliefs are irrelevant. This is about you and how to best go about defending yourself. So Jasber Braid best serves us by remaining alive, is that clear?”

Trembor nodded.

“Good. Now, Prosecutor Ftattooth will come at you from your brother’s angle. Many of your friends and coworkers have testified to your strong ties to your family. To how you are the one they go to for help with their problems. She will seek to mark you as a fix-it male without regard to the laws or other people. So we need to find ways of downplaying your involvement in resolving your family’s issues.”

“You get it that it’s just them coming to me and talking, right? I’ll offer my advice and they do what they want.”

The armadillo smiled. “Good, then it should be simple to show that’s all Bolifen did.”

“He didn’t talk to me about his problems. That’s what caused all of this. I found out about his arrest from Herelex, and I knew Bo hadn’t done it. Everyone knew that. So I tried to prove it, but the evidence was solid. So I shifted it to who I thought was framing him.”

The armadillo nodded in understanding. “That, Mister Goldenmane, is exactly what you can’t say.”

“But it’s what I did.”

“Which marks you as someone who breaks the law.”

“I did break the law. Why do you think I didn’t do anything to get a lawyer? I broke the law, so I have to pay for it.”

“Are you certain you want to be marked as this criminal mastermind who commits crimes after crimes to keep his family and friends ‘safe’? Because that is what the prosecution is aiming to do.”

“What? I never broke the law before this.”

“I’m well aware, but Miss Flattooth doesn’t care. Your family is well off. You have friends and connections throughout the enforcers. She intends on building a scenario in which you are at the top of a criminal enterprise, and through you, she will skewer the enforcers and ‘track down’ all the tainted elements.”

Trembor stared at the armadillo. “You’re telling me my choices are you, lying about me being innocent, or being found guilty of running some criminal empire based on lies from that Hippo?”

“I will not lie,” the armadillo stated calmly. “While I cannot speak to Miss Flattooth’s intended methods, I do not believe she will lie either, but a lot can be implied in the mind of a court of law without ever being said. Inference will go much further at times than evidence.”

“What the fuck happened to going to court, proving what actually happened and the guilty getting what they deserve?”

The lawyer leveled his gaze on Trembor. “If that is your view of the judicial system, I’m afraid it is outdated, if not outright naïve. The prosecution’s goal is to prove that whoever sits opposite them is guilty. My job is to make sure they can’t.”

“And the truth?”

“The truth is subjective, Mister Goldenmane.”

“No. The truth is the truth. The truth is that I broke the law. I did it to keep my brother from being unjustly accused of under aged predation. If I hadn’t don’t that, he would have been killed, eaten by the cub’s family, before the truth had come out. I’m not proud of what I did, but that is the truth.”

The armadillo sighed. “You framed an innocent conglomerate of gambling houses.”

Trembor snorted. “They’re criminals.”

“Where is your evidence?”

Trembor opened his mouth, had to close it.

“Truth is subjective,” the lawyer repeated. “I have no doubt you believe what you say and that you have valid reasons to believe it. But that is your truth. Their truth will be that they offer a public good. Gambling is a way for people to relax. Some go too far, but that can be said of everything.”

“Fine. I was wrong, I’m not even trying to say I was right. I shouldn’t have done it, but I was desperate. And I need to pay for that.”

The armadillo sighed. “Then you need to accept that you will be spending a long time in a cage complex. Probably a maximum security one.”

“I didn’t do anything that bad!”

“Miss Flattooth’s truth is that you did. That you are the face of everything she sees is wrong with the enforcers. That is what she will aim to imply and infer.”

Trembor wanted to scream. Instead, he finished his drink and considered refilling it. He fixed his gaze on the armadillo. “I will not be found innocent.” He couldn’t. If he did, that would put him in those criminals’ hands. They’d be in a position to force him to do what they wanted by threatening his family. He had no doubt they’d try that with him inside a cage complex, but as he’d told the lawyer. Accidents happened there.

To others, or if he came down to it, to himself.

The armadillo sighed. “Very well, I’ll see what I can do to defang her evidence.”