As it turns out, Cash Gripster had been embezzling grant money from Dr. Kaput's lab. When the doctor called the impromptu review of the finances, he didn't have enough time to cover his tracks the way he would for regularly scheduled reviews. In order to hide his malfeasance, he resolved to kill the doctor and pin it on Georgina, who could've been given a paycheck if the manager hadn't been skimming money off the top. Now, with the doctor dead, the laboratory is dissolved and she has nowhere to go, which has led us to...
April 17, 11:14 AM
Closer & Co. Law Offices
"Lookie!"
"Hm? What? Oh, some sports scandal?" I look over the —frankly massive— box I've just lugged up the stairs and at the Daily Tribulation Gina's holding expectantly. Behind her lies the tiny studio I’m renting as my ‘law firm.’ I don’t know why I think that in quotes, but I just do. I’m small potatoes. Not like big lawyers with their big places. I have one room with two mismatched couches around a coffee table for me to meet clients, and a desk in the corner. It’s not so great, but it is close to court, even if the commute from my place to the office is a little unwieldy in the smoky rush hour traffic.
“No, here! Under that!” Georgina shows me a small column at the bottom of the page.
Daily Tribunal
April 17
Doping: An Epidemic
It is in these times ahead of the Johann Spitzer meet that it is important we remember how pervasive the use of performance-enhancing drugs has become in recent years. Ever since the Buff Shinings scandal fifteen years ago and the more stringent regulations that were brought into effect as a result of it, we have not seen a single year without an athlete needing to pull back from competition due to a failed P.E.D. test. Up-and-coming gymnast Ken Tumble, whose ten consecutive wins in the aforementioned competition had until now been unmarred by any foul play, has been made to resign from participation in the aforementioned competition after his pre-departure test came back positive for anthilyocamine, a highly regulated enhancer. The man himself could not be reached for comment, although... (➢more on the online publication)
Brandi Esposito
First Outing Triumph By New Attorney!
In an unexpected turn of events, newbie defender Drake Closer brought what seemed like an open-and-shut case to a trumpeting victory when quick thinking and outside-the-box solutions allowed him to not only clear his client’s name but also identify the murderer as the key witness in the prosecution’s argument. Pictured below, Mr. Closer and his client, Georgina Mole (left and center, respectively,) throw a victory sign together with Closer’s mentor, Paula Ramirez (right).
A. J. Cakes.
“Oh, wow. Front page already.” I drop the box next to the others.
“It’s a one-page publication.”
“Still technically the front.” I clench my raw fingers and give my ex-client a pointed look. “Do you want to maybe help me bring your essentials?” I gesture to the three waist-high boxes I’ve had to bring in so far. “It’s almost like you’re moving in, or something.”
“Oh, I am.” She rummages through the minifridge and comes out with a can of soda in her gloved hands and a pickle in her mouth. “Dien’t I tehl ‘ou?”
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“Of course not! I wouldn’t have let you if you’d told me!”
“That’s probably why I didn’t tell you, then.” She cracks open the drink and fingers the spines on my bookshelf. “Got anything good to read?”
“What do you mean, you’ll live here? It’s a studio! Not even a studio apartment. It’s an office! Where will you even sleep?”
“Couch?” She says, like it’s the most obvious thing ever.
“That’s just… no.” I pinch my nose. “I won’t allow it.”
“So you’ll kick me out on the street like my old boss did? My old dead boss? Cold, man.”
She says it with a pleading voice, but her eyes are still impassively scanning the bookshelf behind my office desk. Eventually, she picks something out and moves back to the couch.
“So what’s your whole deal with being breezy anyway?”
I freeze in my tracks and turn to bear on her “How do you know about that? Wait —Is that my diary?!”
“I thought it was a case log. You keep a diary?” She's upside down on the couch, her curly hair draping onto the floor while she holds my most sordid leather-bound secrets. “Cute.”
“So what? You keep a journal.” I look down at her and she in turn looks down at me. “Give me that!” I snatch it from her hands.
“Duh. A scientific journal, man.” She spins upright with dazzling dexterity and cracks open the cardboard box labeled Science —the other two are labeled Science 2 and Not Science. She pulls out a spiral-bound notebook that looks like it’s been put through hell and then taken out back and shot. She hands it to me. “My life’s work is in here. Everything I’ve learned. Every insight.” Her eyes gleam with a touch of madness.
“Uh huh…” I crack it open on a random page. Using fly fishing to score babes at the beach: a primer. I give her a look, but make a mental note of the page number.
“You didn’t answer me.” She’s begun to at least take the mess out of the boxes and onto every flat surface in the beige-painted room. “So. Breezy?”
“Well, it started back during law school.” She’ll be the & Co. part of this operation for the foreseeable future —can’t hurt to open up. Create inroads for diplomacy. “I was part of this mock trial club. We all wanted to practice in court, so we figured we’d get in the experience. And two years in, I had never won once.” She's sitting cross-legged on the floor now. Storytime mode. “All us lawyer types —we're aggressive. We can’t really afford not to be. A trial’s like a hill. You and the prosecution start on top, and then you run down. And you can’t stop. And you’re both holding scissors. And someone’s going to stumble at some point, and it better not be you. So you can be nice, or you can trip the other guy.”
“That’s dark, man.”
“I thought so too. I don’t have that same killer instinct, and it was hurting me. Big time. I would spend hours preparing for the trial, but then I couldn’t use the evidence at the right time, or I would present it wrong.”
She tilts her head. “Wrong? Facts are facts.”
“For a scientist, maybe,” I chuckle. “When you’re in court, you’re trying to convince people. And that involves a lot more theatrics than you’d expect.”
“So, instead of all… that,” I gesture vaguely, “I figured —what if I never gave them the chance? They take off, running, and I just don’t. I let them get ahead. Get a whiff of the finish line at the bottom. Meanwhile, I act like I’m not even interested in winning the race. And then, when they stumble, I can just walk over. If they haven’t stabbed themselves, they’ve certainly lost any weapon they might have had. And there I am, standing over them. And I’ve got scissors.”
“That… is also dark.”
“What? You scared?” I give her a smile with slightly too much teeth.
“W-What? I’m not.” She jumps up and begins to clean out the piles of junk she’d created. I look at her with a smug grin. “I’m not, man!”
April 17, 9:08 PM
Prosecutor’s Building
???
A man looks at a case dossier. The arrest is still fresh. He presses a buzzer on his desk, and a peppy voice comes through.
“Yes, Mr. Ramirez?”
“Tell Copperfist to get her ass down to the scene first thing tomorrow. I’ll need her to find some evidence.”
“I understand.”
Prosecutor Ramirez turns to the Daily Tribulation on his side table. He glosses over the headline article and his eyes land on the small photo. Some girl, Paula, …and him. Again. How cruel is that. How beautiful. How perfect.
“Oh, and Gustav?” His finger never left the intercom.
“Yes, Mr. Ramirez?”
“Put me through to Jacob at the detention center. I’ve got a favor to call in.”