Doing Time
Leviathan had convinced his cousin to stay as Ace’s lawyer, on the condition that he would pay him instead of it being a favor.
Mike, keeping good on his word, worked together with Sierra Sena, Ace’s ex-girlfriend, another person wronged by the Atlaan Police Department to prove his innocence. If brought to trial Ace would certainly be found guilty, regardless if he committed the crime.
With his loft apartment turned into an office, Mike was at work, 24/7, and during the mid-afternoon, while Ace was pretending to be a dangerous criminal and terrorizing the people who tried shaking him down for commissary money, Mike finally made a breakthrough in his case.
On February third, several weeks after Ace had arrived in Atlaan, they were able to pin down his location very easily thanks to his... many friends... and their many visits to his apartment when he arrived at the town.
During discovery, the prosecutor, which in this case was the Atlaan Government, had to declare what they were going to present at trial, and one of the pieces of evidence used was Ace’s location history on his phone.
Mike was able to gain it through discovery as well, and Ace’s location history was proven, along with corroboration from his one-night stand that was his friend with benefits for a month or two, her location history matching up as well.
Ace rarely left his house during February, and the prosecutor's case was falling apart faster than a wet cracker.
Sierra blushed once she learned the reasoning of his innocence but was not surprised.
It was a very odd day in Mike’s loft when he received the last email corroborating all the data. It was a very uncomfortable trip to the District Attorney’s Office as well.
The two groups were still protesting outside, and Mike ran inside, clutching his briefcase, people calling him a murderer, sexually deviant, and a baby eater. Once inside, past the metal detectors, all the insults set in, and he was befuddled at why anyone would think he was cannibalizing infants.
He understood the first two insults but the last one?
That was an affront.
Mike was more than happy to deliver his folder of transcribed proof, personally, he didn’t want anyone insulting his aides or waffling about, making excuses, and he sat in the waiting room of the DA’s office.
He was exhausted, his black hair unkempt, glasses foggy from the tropical heat, the AC in the building broken, and everyone inside was melting into their chairs, as if Lady Liberty herself was glaring down at them, judging them, from the painted fresco of her on the ceiling.
The DA, a Kina by the name of Te-Re, did not take too kindly to Mike coming to her office, in the afternoon, when he knew the press would be there when he knew that she was up for re-election and that all eyes would be on her.
The proof, the sexual and gross proof, pictures included, the metadata matching up with the time of Ahana M. Hori’s death meant that Ace couldn't be at the scene of the crime, and therefore, the police had a much more pressing issue on their hands.
If he was not guilty of any of the crimes, then was the arsonist the murderer of Ahana M. Hori?
Had he been under the radar for years, his reign of terror not random, but planned?
If Ace was not the arsonist, then why did his DNA match so closely?
The police now had nothing to work with. It was impossible to find much, if any evidence of the arsonist, if not for video footage, because he had burnt everything away, and no one had any idea where he would strike next.
Nero had not been seen around town all day, and no one’s vacation homes would be destroyed, but that did not alleviate the fears of the town, and it wouldn’t stop the conspiracy theorists either.
The DA, Te-Re, sighed, made a few phone calls, and Ace was scheduled to be released by the end of the day.
All of Ace’s friends were happy to hear the charges were dropped, then utterly confused and extremely worried when he said he didn’t want to leave jail.
Mike picked him up from the Atlaan Correctional Facility, and placed the back of his hand upon Ace’s forehead, making sure he was not having a fever and hallucinating when he said, the prison was the safest place to be.
Sierra, Fenton, and all of his old teammates were there to greet him when he was released, all of them insisting he was innocent. They threw a party for him, hastily put together at the last minute on Levi’s sunreef yacht, in which he complained was too small, but it was a gift, I should be grateful.
When Ace arrived with Sierra, Fenton, and Chewie, he had never been so pleased and was relieved. The entire time inside jail he worried that everyone would believe that he was guilty, but most people who met him personally never thought he was guilty.
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They didn’t think he was evil.
They did, however, think if he ever did commit a crime, it would be by accident.
It was the fourth night, when little star lanterns with pieces of paper, wishes written onto them dotted the horizon of Florentine beach, soaring into the sky to meet their real counterparts were released into the sky.
Ace lifted his own little star lantern into the sky, and on his own little piece of paper, he wrote that he wished that he would one day learn what happened to his son.
There were plenty of drinks, plenty of greasy food, and within minutes, Ace was very loose-lipped, inside the built-in jacuzzi, portioned into the floor of the front deck. He was leaning onto Fenton, who was tipsy, red-faced, and they were both trying to tell everyone that yes, we’re fine, I’m fine, no I haven’t had too much.
“I met a guy called Big Dick in jail,” Ace slurred. “He wuss purdy cool.”
Mary Jane rolled her eyes and assured herself that her husband couldn’t be having an affair with an idiot. However, she was still taking great joy in his drunken stupor, plying him with more beer, and the lack of food in his system was not doing him any favors.
Her feet were dangling inside the bubbling warm water, and she sat next to the cooler, passing him another can of beer, and Ace leaned onto Fenton, breath heavy, labored, his mind confused.
“Something’s different about you today,” Ace said. “Did you cut your hair?”
“I cut my hair two months ago,” Fenton shouted. “You didn’t say anything then!”
Mary Jane grinned, enjoying their silly, drunk arguments, and Levi was extremely uncomfortable, standing from afar near the sliding glass doors, wondering why Mary Jane was so friendly with Ace the entire night.
The night became even more ridiculous as everyone became even more unhinged on various fruity drinks. Ace was trying to prove that he did , in fact, meet a man called Big Dick, but every time he said it, another drunk idiot, Ryle would yell out, I can’t hear you, you’ve got some schlong in your mouth.
They would continue, repeating the same joke over and over until everyone screamed, a glowing rock and bracelet appearing out of thin air and landing on the deck. The Rock aimed too high, falling onto the glass pool deck table, and shattering into hundreds of pieces.
Everyone’s eyes flickered a rainbow of various colors, not sure if it was the alcohol or if what they were seeing was real, as their lives were never simple, and never would be.
Ace rubbed his chest, flared his nostrils, and held out his hands as if he wanted a hug.
“I can’t, I can’t go next to the, the glass,” he mumbled. “C’mere.”
Everyone was silent as The Rock slid through the broken glass, slowly, bright and yellow, leaving a trail of sparkling something on the wooden deck. Ace stumbled, bent over, picked it up, and sighed.
“Stop throwing a tantrum, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I forgot about you, okay?”
Mary Jane was standing next to Levi, laughing nervously, clutching his arm, her eyes watering and fearful because she was stone-cold sober, one of the few there that was, and she knew she was not imagining what she was seeing.
Before she could say anything, Levi already came up with a lie.
“Don’t worry about it, you’re just drunk, Jane.”
“Levi, I never asked you about that rock, and I haven’t taken a drink yet. Why are you lying? ”
Levi said nothing, again caught, and everyone was nervous as Ace stumbled around the deck, looking at the ground, clutching The Rock, apologizing for being rude.
“I would never abandon you, we’re best friends,” Ace whispered at the ground. “We’re brothers.”
“I think I’m going home,” Fenton mumbled. “I think you should too.”
“I can’t. I need to find my bracelet because he’s crying and thinks I’m going to leave him in my attic for some reason.”
No one except Fenton and Sierra wanted to get close to him, afraid of The Rock and Ace’s mental sanity. They coaxed him inside, deeper into the ship, and everyone tried to pretend nothing happened, trying to change the subject.
They closed the sliding glass doors behind them as they left, off to find water to sober up, and everyone told each other, the juice on Paradis is quite something these days.
The sliding glass doors exploded as the metallic bracelet flung itself through the doors, and everyone screamed again, and now everyone was ready to go home.
Everyone except Amy.
Amy was tipsy, giving her a short fuse, and Ace being there lit it.
While carefully dodging the pieces of broken glass and entering the inside of the boat, Amy began her complaints about Ace of the nth time that night, and everyone groaned.
“He has some nerve coming back here, he’s a terrorist, ” Amy shouted.
“Amy, this is his welcome back party, ” Tetsuya replied.
She said nothing embarrassed and flushed, and stomped away, off to the bathroom, inside the boat. The floors were carpeted red, the walls cream, and she found the design a bit odd but the lighting pleasant, and was confused to find a golden retriever roaming the halls.
She also found it odd that the boat was large enough to have a men's and women’s bathroom.
She went into the women’s room and swore, as Acheus was inside, he had walked into the wrong room.