I smiled. “Thinking about it.” I shut down my laptop, closed it, and pushed it aside. “Quieter here.”
Emma nodded. “That’s good for you.” She looked around the empty space. “Not so good for my cousin’s bottom line.”
“Looked like you were busy today.”
“Interviews and DNA swabs.” She shook her head. “Sad stories.”
“Sorry I missed it.”
I’d tried to sound empathetic, but Emma saw through it. “Yes,” she said. “I bet you are very, very sorry to have missed the honor of sticking a Q-tip inside a stranger’s mouth and swabbing their cheek.”
“Buy you something?”
“Would be nice.” She checked the chalkboard behind the register, then turned back to me. “A latte, skim milk.”
“Done.” I stood up and walked to the back of the shop in search of Hermes. “Anybody home?” I called finally.
“Yes, yes.” Hermes emerged from the back.
“Emma wants a fancy, girlie drink.” I got out my wallet and put a ten-dollar bill on the counter. “Skinny latte.”
“Very good.” He rang up the order. He had started to make change when I stopped him.
“Keep it,” I said. “I owe you.”
I could tell he wanted to decline the overpayment, but couldn’t find a polite way to do it. “OK,” he said, shutting the drawer. “I bring it out to you.” He looked past me at Emma and waved to her. “Nikolas wants to see her,” he said. “I send him.”
Back at the table, I told Emma that Nikolas was coming out. “What’s he working on?”
“Probably best if you don’t know.” Emma looked down and removed a file from her briefcase.
She wanted the conversation about Nikolas to be done, but I pushed. “About Poles? You’re working on finding more stuff on Poles?”
“Really, no worries. Do not worry about it.” Then she changed the subject. “I thought this was an interesting interview.” She removed her typed summary as well as a few pages of handwritten notes. “Look at this.” She pointed.
I did as directed. “A witness?”
“Perhaps.”
I read her summary from the beginning.
It had been an interview with a mother and one of her sons—an eleven-year-old whose eldest brother, Thomas, had been gone for nine months. Emma had been careful to take down every word that the boy had said.
I looked away, thinking out loud. “Says he didn’t see who did it.”
“True,” said Emma. “But he saw his brother get stopped, have a conversation with somebody driving a van, and then his brother got inside. Didn’t ever see the driver, but his brother was never seen again.”
“No plate. No make or model.”
“Says it was dark blue.”
I paused, thinking. “It’s something,” I said. “Don’t know what, but it might be something.”
After we left the coffee shop, I went to my office to read mail and prepare for the next day. We were both ready to go home, when there was a knock on the outer door.
I heard Emma talking to whoever was there, and then she ducked her head into my interior office and told me it was Cecil, and that she’d been able to smell the alcohol on him through the closed door. “Do you still want to meet with him?” We had had an appointment in the early afternoon, but he hadn’t shown up.
I sighed, not really wanting to consult with a drunk client, but decided to go ahead. “I’d still rather meet and maybe talk him into settling now rather than going to trial.”
Emma unlocked the door and let him inside. “Mr. Bates.” She pointed toward my office. “Mr. Glass has been waiting for you.”
“Oh.” Cecil nodded and then looked around. “Suppose I may have lost track of the time.”
“Well he’s very busy, and we may need to cut our meeting short.”
Cecil wobbled, looking from Emma to me and then back again. His eyes narrowed. “Well it ain’t gonna take long.” Cecil’s voice faded and then came back strong. “’Cuz we got ourselves a slam-dunk defense.”
The small, soft-spoken Cecil that I had met at the courthouse was now gone. The alcohol had transformed him. He sauntered into my office, removed his large backpack from his shoulder, and put it on my desk.
After a few seconds of searching the backpack’s many pockets, Cecil removed a folded and slightly torn piece of paper. “Proof.” He smacked it down in front of me. “Check it out, bro.”
I picked it up and started reading. I took my time, hoping Cecil would sit down and calm himself. He didn’t. Then I looked up at him. “Looks like a Freedom of Information Act request you’ve filled out—and, I presume, submitted?”
He gave a decisive nod.
I set the request down and then gestured to the chair. “Please.” I pointed again at the chair. “Why don’t you tell me about it?”
Cecil looked back at Emma, who had been standing in the doorway, then at me. “OK.” He seemed a little confused, as though he’d either been expecting me to applaud his initiative with a round of celebratory drinks or kick him out of my office. My request to talk quietly appeared to have come as a surprise.
He sat down and tried to find a comfortable position.
“When did you send this in?”
“The other day.” Cecil pointed at the piece of paper. “Told that woman about it, too.” His head rolled back in the general direction of Emma and then rolled back to me. “Lady knows all about it. Gave her a copy when I sent it. We got ’em.”
“So no plea agreement?”
“Hell no.” Cecil looked up to the heavens and then back at me. “When we get this”—he pointed at the FOIA request—“we got the proof.”
“Proof of what?”
Cecil folded his arms across his chest. “Proof of my in-no-cence.” He smiled. “Did it all on my own. Went to the library. Told them ladies there what I wants to do, and they helped me get the stuff, make the copies, and send it in.”
I looked over at Emma and then back at Cecil. “And what are we looking for?”
“Video. Video of me in that park. Video of my arrest.” Cecil grinned. “Once you see the video, you see I wasn’t drinking in no public place.”
I refrained from reminding Cecil that he had approximately thirty prior citations for drinking in public and was, in fact, now drunk in my office. “So what if we get it back and it shows that you were drinking?”
Cecil laughed. “Ain’t gonna show that.” He shook his head confidently. “I was not drinking that day. Had no money. End of the month. Check didn’t come yet. I can’t drink when I’m broke.”
“And how do you know there’s video?”
“’Cuz that presidential debate, bro.”
He’d lost me. “A debate?”