WHO: Ruby Lamont, NPC Marty Navarro, and NPC E. Mordecai Schuster WHAT: As the jury deliberates, Ruby meets with two men. WHERE: City Hall Courthouse WHEN: Friday, November 7, 1954; afternoon STATUS: Complete Narrative WARNINGS: None
"The goal isn't to prove that you didn't do it. It's to prove that you might not have."
Ruby slid off the table she was sitting on and, adjusting her skirt, began to pace around the room.
"Reasonable doubt, Marty. Reasonable doubt. That's the beauty of the justice system. If a person is going to be convicted, everything has to be done right. And that's what I'm good at — finding that one little mistake or that one little detail that plants itself inside a jury's head and creates that reasonable doubt. In this case, that's the bums that are always hanging about Cardboard City. A rather ridiculous theory, really, but if they buy it..." She shrugged. "You just have to play off their fears."
Navarro nodded, the worried look still on his face. He wasn't the most attractive man — not that any really were, in Ruby's opinion — but even in his Sunday best he looked a little dirty, a little greasy. Crows feet graced the corner of his dark eyes, his eyebrows had started to thin and fade away much like the hair on the back of his head. Still, there was something about him Ruby found attractive — his pocketbook.
"Listen, no one knows what the jury's going to say when they come out of that room. But I can tell you one thing, I've done a damn fine job in that courtroom. For a cut-and-dry case, because face it, we both know you did it, allegedly, but for a cut-and-dry case it was a toss-up going in there."
"So whaddya think, really," he asked. "'Bout my chances?"
"Like I said, it's a toss-up. But I wouldn't be surprised to run into you at Meizer's Meats next week — oh wait, yes I would. But only because I don't step foot in there." She laughed.
***
"Come to tell me I've done a bang-up job on this case, Mordecai?"
Mr. Schuster was a tall, thin man with the smallest hint of a beard, but while it could have easily looked like he couldn't grow one, it only made him look more distinguished. He was in his 50s, and while he was normally quite animated, today he looked solemn. Ruby had a sneaking suspicion it was nerves, but she didn't know him quite well enough.
"You haven't won yet, Ms. Lamont," he droned. "I would suggest you not get ahead of yourself, hm?" While he normally left her to her own accounts on cases, the woman having quite proven herself since joining the firm, this case was high-profile enough that the senior partner kept one of his fingers in the pot at all times.
"I know." She frowned, her lips pressing together. "But I have a rather good feeling about this case."
"Do you? And what gives you that?"
"Well," she said, a hint of a smile on her face, "have you seen Mr. Fitzgerald lately?"