7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNlfaoGhnjl
The next time Tia awoke, it was with a splitting headache. She had reached up and touched the bruise on the back of her head during one of her trips to the bathroom when she wasn’t handcuffed. The lump was the size of a golf ball and it now felt like it had advanced to a baseball.
Courtney. She had to talk to Courtney. Certainly, Courtney had to know she hadn’t killed Stanley Hagan. She just didn’t understand why Morgan would think she had. Maybe Morgan had been out earlier and a burglar had broken in and killed him, leaving Morgan to believe it was she who had done it because she was just down the hill.
Think! Tia demanded of herself. What could possibly have happened? How did she herself fit into it all? Could the intruder have spotted her and gone after her for fear that she had seen too much? But just what had she seen, if anything at all?
Suddenly, she remembered Morgan calling her. Something about having something for her.
A skirt! That’s what it was!
But what happened next? She struggled to remember, but sleep claimed her instead.
--------------------------------------------------------
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡJJjWKZVJHR
A different nurse entered the room the following morning. The thin, blonde woman appeared almost as indifferent as the last one. She said nothing as she glanced at her chart.
“Could I get something for this pain, please?” Tia asked.
“Screw her pain, I’m in even more pain,” snapped Latisha from beyond the curtain.
The nurse remained silent as if forbidden to speak to the patients, though she did give her and then Latisha pain relievers after checking their vitals.
About an hour later, the doctor came in to see both her and Latisha. From what she could make out when the doctor was with Latisha, Latisha had a broken ankle and was in a cast, which was why she wasn’t able to be let up to go to the bathroom.
After seeing Latisha, the doctor informed Tia that she would be moved to the jail later on that day, something that sent her heart into overdrive and her stomach flip-flopping. All she could do was think of various movies she’d seen with women in jails or prisons, none of which she’d ever wanted to experience in real life. Wasn’t this sort of thing only supposed to happen to other people?
The morning seemed endless. She lay there trying to remember what had happened after Morgan called her on the phone, but she was so stressed out and so distracted by Latisha’s bantering that it was impossible to hear herself think.
Or so she thought. She had just about given up when she remembered walking up to Morgan’s door. But that was it. She knew she’d seen something she didn’t want to see. Something bad. But she couldn’t remember what it was. Could it have been an intruder killing Stan? Is that why he had knocked her out? Had he really tried to kill her, too?
And then a rather alarming possibility started to form within her mind, but before it could really take hold, a man walked into the room. This one was a stark contrast from Art Hoser. This man was short, plump, balding, older, and wore an ill-fitting suit that appeared to have been slept in.
“Miss Karson?”
“Yes?”
“Hi,” said the frumpy man, approaching her bedside. “I would shake your hand, but...”
“Guess I’m a bit tied up right now,” said Tia, glancing down at her bound wrists. She could only move a few inches horizontally and vertically until the metal bars of the side rail running in opposite directions restricted her movement with a metallic clank.
“I’m Bill Johnston. I’m a public defender and I’ve been appointed by the courts to defend you.”
For some reason, this didn’t sound very reassuring to Tia. Perhaps this was because public defenders were another subject she’d heard negative things about.
“Let’s start with what happened.”
“That’s just the thing, I can’t remember what happened. I get a flash here and a flash there, but then it’s gone before I can really understand anything of importance.”
Bill shuffled through some papers he pulled from his briefcase. Keeping his eyes on the papers, he said, “Well, let’s just start with what you do remember.”
“Courtney was at work and…”
“Courtney was the girl you lived with?”
“Yes. Courtney was at the pet store she and her mother owned. It was my day off, and so I…”
“Day off from where?”
“From the same store. I worked there, too. But that day I was home cleaning when Morgan called to say…”
“Morgan’s Courtney’s mother?”
“Yes,” Tia said. And if you’ll stop interrupting me, I can get through what little I remember, she wanted to add. Instead, she said, “I remember Morgan calling to say she’d found a skirt at a yard sale that she thought I’d like. She then asked me to come up to the house, and so I did.”
“The house was nearby?”
“Yes. They own a ten-acre parcel of land set on a series of four hills. The lowest hill is where the well is. Then Courtney’s trailer is next up, then Morgan’s house, then a shed they store things in.”
“Ok,” said Bill, scribbling notes. “Then what happened?”
“I don’t know. I vaguely remember walking up to her front door, and then something bad happened. Something that I don’t remember. All I know is that I’ve never shot a gun before in my life, nor did I ever have the desire to. An intruder of some kind had to have killed Stanley.”
“Ever have any problems with the guy?”
“No. None at all. I’d bet my own life that I arrived just as the intruder killed Stan, and they didn’t want me left alive as a witness. What I don’t get is how Morgan fits into the picture. Why in the world would she insist that I did this?”
“Well,” said the lawyer, still scribbling away, “that’s what we’re going to try to find out. How did you get along with Morgan and her daughter?”
“Fine. They were wonderful people. I just wish I could…”
The sound of footsteps filing into the room stopped Tia in mid-sentence. Both she and the lawyer turned toward the door. Three uniformed corrections officers, two women, and one man were now present.
“Sorry to cut your meeting short,” said one of the women, “but the doctor’s officially released Miss Karson here and we gotta get her over to the jail. We got a busload ready to head on over right now.”
Tia’s heartbeat began doing double time. “Please let us stay a little longer,” Tia pleaded. “I need his help! I didn’t kill anybody!”
“Sorry, ma’am,” said the man. “We have no say in these matters. All we can do is carry out our orders, and we’ve been instructed to move you, so let’s just make this as easy as possible, ok?”
“No!” Tia shouted. “It’s not ok. I didn’t kill anyone! All the lawyer needs to do is just talk to the people involved, and they’ll clear this misunderstanding right up.”
Each of the women uncuffed her wrists and the lawyer said, “Don’t worry. Just go with them for now and I’ll talk to the witnesses and then I’ll come and see you in jail.”
Tia felt herself being lifted from the bed as if she weighed no more than a feather. Panic and hopelessness overcame her. “But how do I know I’ll be safe in jail?”
“You’ll be fine,” the man insisted. “Just relax.”
The woman put a chain around her waist and secured her wrists to her sides while the man placed shackles around her ankles. The weight dug uncomfortably into her ankle bones as she walked, each woman guiding her by the upper arm, inch by inch, toward the door.
“Mr. Johnston!” Tia pleaded one last time, although she knew it was useless.
“Just hang in there. I’ll try to find out everything I can.”
“I need you to do a lot more than just try. My life depends on it!”
Bill Johnston was getting further away as the guards led her down the corridor in the opposite direction from which the attorney was now moving. “I’ll see you in a day or two,” he said before rounding the corner. Tia would’ve fainted if it weren’t for the guards supporting her. Shock, disbelief, and horror enveloped her like a boa constrictor.
Courtney! she thought to herself. Why is your mother doing this? And how do you fit into it all? Has she got you believing I killed her husband, too? Oh, God, you’ve got to know me better than that!
--------------------------------------------------
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbdVOWAlBJa
“Bill. Hey, Bill!”
Bill Johnston turned around after hearing his name being called upon exiting the courtroom. There stood a tall, slender woman he didn’t recognize at first. Then it hit him a moment later who she was. She was one of the top defense attorneys in the area who had lost very few cases.
“Lorelei,” Johnston said cheerfully. “What’s up, Counselor?”
“They said you were just getting out of court, so I thought I’d catch you on your way out to give you the news.”
“Ok. Mind giving me whatever news you have for me on my way to my office?”
“No problem,” she said, falling in step with the public defender.
Bill looked over at the lawyer. She stood a few inches taller than he, even though she wasn’t in heels. He always thought she looked like a young Kate Jackson. “So what gives?”
“Caseload kind of heavy?”
“As always.”
“Well, you won’t be needing to represent Tia Karson anymore, the one accused of murdering Stanley Hagan.”
“Yes, I know the one. And why is that?”
Lorelei shrugged and said, “Someone anonymously retained me and asked that I represent her. I do intend to meet with her before I start my investigation, of course, but first I wanted to know what kind of impression she gave you. You have met, haven’t you?”
“Sure have. Poor kid’s terrified. Insists she’s innocent too, of course.”
Bill and Lorelei approached Bill’s secretary. “Anything important, Janay?”
“No, Mr. Johnston. Just the usual messages.”
“Well, if you could hold them off for a few more minutes, I’d appreciate it.”
“Will do,” said the young woman.
“So, other than her being scared and claiming that she’s innocent,” Lorelei began as soon as Bill closed the door to his office, “what kind of vibes do you get from her yourself?”
Johnston motioned to the chair in front of his desk as he took a seat behind it. “Well, she definitely is scared. As for innocent? I have no idea. She says she hasn’t remembered much since waking up in the jail’s infirmary with the concussion that the report says the woman gave her when she caught the girl about to shoot her husband. All she does remember is that the woman called down to her on the phone right before it all happened.”
“Called down to her?”
“Yeah. They all live on the same property. The land is in Auburn. Karson recently moved in down the hill with the woman’s daughter, and the woman had barely been married for a year. They both worked at the pet store that the mother has owned for quite some time.”
“And where was the daughter at this time, at the store?”
Bill nodded. “That she was.”
“What about gunpowder residue? Any found on her hands?”
Bill glanced at his notes. “No, to my knowledge, there was never any testing for that.”
“Never any testing for that? You’re kidding, right?”
“No, not that I can see from the police report. I guess they didn’t feel it was necessary.”
Lorelei sighed loudly as she rolled her eyes. “My God, when are these cops going to realize that everything is necessary in cases such as this? This isn’t a stolen necklace at a boutique we’re talking here; this is murder.”
“I agree that she should’ve been tested. It does seem odd that she wasn’t. I hate to remind you, but even our own system has its flaws. All the cops and technicians probably figured someone else had already done it.”
“Oh, yes, I’m aware of how it works. Incompetence and corruption are in every line of work and ours is not exempt. It’s just that once again, we’re talking about murder and the future of a young girl.”
“Maybe the fact that they neglected to test her will work in her favor. Especially if she really is innocent.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Lorelei said doubtfully. “I’ll get on over to the jail first thing in the morning and see what she has to say.”
Bill wished Lorelei luck. He knew she just might need it.7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡKu6rDrs82O
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMjaLVRuPeH
