Unleashed Read online

  “How’d you know?” I asked, smiling.

  “Because that part of you that will stand up and fight for what you believe in, no matter what your opposition is? That part of you, Ripp?” her voice was eager and full of emotion.

  “Yeah, what about it?” I asked.

  “That’s the person I fell in love with,” she said.

  “Well, that’s my decision, babe. Tell ‘em not to ask again,” I reminded her.

  “I feel like. I just feel unrestrained. I’m ready to defend this thing. I’m ready to get this behind us. I just feel…well, I feel like I’m ready to fight these bastards. I’m still pissed off they even charged you. I feel like you just gave me the freedom to…I just feel like I’ve been…” she paused.

  “Unleashed.”

  CHAPTER II - THE SEVERITY OF MURDER

  VEE. It doesn’t matter what the law says, or what the circumstances are that surround a particular case. What matters, above all, is how it is presented to the court. A person can be innocent one hundred percent, and if the case isn’t presented to the court properly, or if law that supports your defense isn’t properly referenced, the case will be lost. Regardless of the circumstances or the events in support of the defense, I prepare all cases as if they’re lost from the beginning. The end result? I rarely lose a case that can be won.

  “It isn’t about guilt or innocence, Michael. It’s about presentation of law. It may sound awful, but that’s what it gets down to,” I paced the length of the conference room table as I spoke.

  “Well, what are we gonna tell ‘em, babe?” he asked as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Well, I’m thinking out loud, so just let me run with this. Let’s see. Contrary to what you or anyone else thinks, what you’ve seen on television, or in the movies, we can’t go into court and tell them what you think or feel. We are allowed to defend the facts that the prosecution presents to the jury in support of their case. For instance, I can’t get you on the witness stand and ask, were you of the opinion, Mr. Ripton, that the deceased raped your sister? I can’t ask, and that fact doesn’t matter. Not in court. It pulls at the heart strings of the jury, and I’d love for them to know. But that also brings in the question of motive. If I asked that, prosecution would object, and the judge wouldn’t allow it. A few of those types of tactics, and I’ll be out of the courtroom on my ear. But, if the prosecution asks you if there was a reason you went to the deceased’s home that day, you can answer. Then, the question and your response will open the door for me to explore it. It may seem different than you think, but that’s how it works,” I stopped pacing and turned to face Michael.

  He stared at me with his mouth half open.

  “Close your mouth, dear. A fly will get in there,” I laughed.

  He rolled his eyes as I started pacing again.

  “Now, as simple as this case is, it remains complex. Or, well it can be. Not knowing how they’re going to come at us makes it hard to prepare. I suspect it’ll be something like this; exclude the reason you went there. You went there, it’s undisputed. Now, you’re there, and the deceased sees you. He, in fear for his life, and in an effort to defend his home, pulls his weapon. You, seeing the weapon - which he had a right to possess - react in a manner that utilized excess force, causing the untimely demise of the deceased. Without a doubt, some variation of that presentation will be their case to the jury in their opening,” I placed my hands on my hips, stopped, and raised my eyes.

  “When you talk like that, you sound so damned smart - and so fuckin’ mean. Hell, I wouldn’t want to go against you in court. It makes me horny as fuck, Vee,” he said as he leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table.

  “Mr. Ripton, let’s get one thing straight. In here,” I pointed to the conference room table.

  “I’m your attorney, and you, sir, are my client. You’re the accused, the defendant. The man that will go to prison for a long fucking time if he doesn’t take this matter seriously. So, in here, in my playground, it’s my rules. And, when you’re here by appointment, you will abide by my rules, act in a manner that’s respectful, and listen. What you will offer, sir, if you offer anything, will be pertinent to the case, or in response to a question that I may direct you to respond. Is that fully understood, Mr. Ripton?” I asked without taking a breath until I was done.

  “Yep,” he responded as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  “And that, Mr. Ripton, is another thing. Starting tonight, you will curb the Texas adolescent bullshit. If I may step into my I’m your girlfriend mode for one moment; I will go on the record as stating that I personally like your manner of speaking and acting. There is no place, however, in a court room for Yup, Yep, Ain’t, Bro, Brother, Dekk, Ripp, Fixin’, Fint, or anything of the like. So, we will practice your speech, patterns of speech, and we will conduct a mock trial prior to even entering the courtroom. Is that understood?” I asked, my hands still placed firmly on my hips.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he responded.

  I stared and waited for a smirk or a smile. None came.

  That’s a good boy.

  “Now. That has me thinking about what they may come at us with regarding you. Let’s talk about him. Nothing he has done, in the past, in or through the course of the instant offense, warrants taking his life, according to the prosecution. The facts are as follows; the man is a piece of shit rapist, and I can’t introduce that to the court. The man pulled a gun on you, and you, Mr. Ripton, are the victim here,” I paused and raised my hand to my chin.

  “We can’t question the character of the deceased unless his character comes into question. And we can’t raise the question, unless they attempt to paint him in a light that is…”

  Often when physically preparing for a case, I tend to think out loud and recite law, as I pace the floor. Tonight, as I paced the floor and spoke about what I was thinking, Michael’s eyes followed me, and his mouth began to change from that of uncertainty to a smile. As I spoke, he clasped his hands together and pressed them to his mouth.

  “I’m going to crawl up that piece of shit kid’s ass with a microscope. I’m going to find out who he was, where he’s been, who he’s dated, who he’s fucked, what sexual diseases he’s had, who and where his parents are, and what he ate for lunch before you broke his worthless neck. Although I can’t introduce any of that in court, I can hold it in reserve. If they so much as bring up his character, good or bad - I’ll be ready. If they even fucking attempt to portray him as being some choirboy that is not deserving of the wrath of Ripp, I’ll shred their asses and his credibility like fucking lettuce,” I stopped, rubbed my hands together and smiled an exaggerated smile.

  “So, you’re saying that you can’t question his credibility. You can’t go dig up facts that he’s raped or tried to rape a dozen girls, and tell the jurors?” he squinted and looked as if he was thoroughly confused.

  “That is a fact. He, Mr. Ripton, is not on trial. You are. He could have fucked chickens in the parking lot of the H.E.B., and we can’t bring it up in the court room. He could have raped every girl in his senior class and been convicted of it, and we can’t say one fucking word. You’re on trial, not him.”

  “Unless,” I paused and spread my arms apart.

  “They attempt to say that he’s a saint.”

  “Now, Mr. Ripton. What about you? What may I expect that they’ll introduce in their efforts to prosecute you for being a killer? A thug? A criminal? All the way back to adolescence, let’s hear your story, every shitty story you’ve got, I have to be aware of everything, you know?” I asked as I pulled a chair from the table and sat down.

  He twisted his left wrist and looked at his watch, “How much time do you have set aside to discuss such matters, ma’am?’

  I nodded my head in approval as I pressed my skirt against my thighs, “Much better. You sound like…well, you sound like I want you to sound to the jury. A few hours, how is that?”

  He’d look much more presentable
in a nice suit and some glasses…

  “That might get us to about the time I turned twenty years old or so,” he responded.

  And he wasn’t smiling.

  Oh fuck. This might be more difficult than I thought.

  CHAPTER III - CAR TIPPIN’

  RIPP. Trying to tell myself everything was going to be fine wasn’t as easy as it might seem it should be. Regardless of what I told myself, I felt sick sometimes. As long as I kept moving and filled my days with activities, I never really thought about what might happen. If I had idle time, it eventually turned into thoughts of incarceration, prison life, and confining a man that desperately fears restriction. Idle hands do the devil’s work, my mother always said.

  “So then, when I told her about burning that car, she just shook her head and said, what in the fuck haven’t you done? That might be a shorter list. Jesus Michael. She calls me Michael all the damned time now. Hell, that is if she isn’t calling me Mr. Ripton,” I raised my hand and waved toward the waitress.

  “Anybody?” I asked as I attempted to get her attention.

  “Yeah, I’ll take another,” Austin said.

  “Suppose so,” A-Train said as he looked at his half-empty bottle.

  As my hand caught her eye, I waved it in a circle, letting the waitress know to bring a round of drinks. We’d been at the bar for quite some time, and with the hot Austin weather, the beer was going down abnormally smoothly.

  “You haven’t touched your water, Shane,” I said as I motioned toward Dekk’s glass of water.

  “Maybe it’s because I’m scared,” he responded.

  “Scared?” I asked.

  “Yeah. Scared of who or what Vee is turning you into. Listen to how you’re talking. You haven’t touched your water Shane. When was the last time you called me Shane that we weren’t eating dinner at your parents? You’re scaring me, Ripp. The new you,” he laughed.

  “Well, fuck. She told me no Texas adolescent shit any more. I have got to start talking like I’m proper. I am not allowed to say the word ain’t or anything like it,” I said as I finished what was left of my beer.

  “Save that shit for the courtroom, it makes me uncomfortable,” Dekk chuckled.

  “Seriously?” I asked.

  As Dekk nodded his head, Austin spoke, shaking his head vigorously, “Yeah. Fuck that. I don’t like it either. I agree with Dekk.”

  “You haven’t been around me long enough to know what to expect, kid. And you can call him Mr. Dekkar or Shane, you don’t know him well enough to call him Dekk,” I said over my right shoulder.

  “Well, everyone else calls him Dekk. A-Train calls him Dekk, and he ain’t even from here. So what do ya say, Dekk?” Austin asked.

  Something about Austin forced you to like him. I couldn’t imagine anyone not liking him. He talked a hundred miles an hour, and never took a breath. He was as eager as anyone could ever be, but for some reason, I looked at him as being nothing more than a kid. As soon as he said Dekk again, I looked over my shoulder and raised one eyebrow.

  “Fuck you Ripp. Whattaya say, Dekk? Huh? Whattaya say? You don’t mind it do ya? See? Doesn’t bother him a damned bit. Not one bit,” Austin babbled.

  “Jesus, kid. Do you ever breathe?” A-Train laughed as he looked across the table toward Austin.

  “I’m not a fucking kid. I’m the same age as everyone else, I just don’t look like it. Jesus,” Austin complained as he turned his palms up and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Call me Dekk. Everybody call me Dekk. We’re all friends. And quit fucking arguing. It’s freaking me out. There’s way too much going on here for me,” Dekk laughed as he reached back and pulled his hood from his shoulders onto his head.

  “You ever take that thing off?” A-Train asked.

  “Not so much. When I sleep or if I’m alone,” Dekk responded as his hands pressed the hood to the sides of his head.

  “That probably does for you what these do for me,” A-Train said as he raised his foot above the table.

  “These boots. If I got ‘em on, I don’t think anything can get to me,” he nodded his head toward his boot.

  Dekk smiled and nodded. It was apparent that he was a little uncomfortable, not knowing Austin and A-Train as much as he probably would like to. Dekk was a person that preferred to be either alone or with one friend, not a large group. Not that this group was large, but it was much larger than he was used to. In time, I knew he’d warm up to everyone. For now he’d just hide behind his hood a little more than usual.

  “So, tell me about the burning car,” A-Train smiled as he tipped back his bottle of beer.

  Dekk propped his elbows on the table, formed his palms into a “V’, settled his chin into his hands, and smiled, “Yeah, Ripp. Tell us about the burning car.”

  “Fuck yeah, Ripp. Tell us about the burning car, what was that about? Why’d you light it on fire? What was up with that? I can’t believe you would…”

  “Son of a fuckin’ bitch Austin. You talk too damned fast. Do you ever slow down? God damn, man. Settle the fuck down. You’re like one of those fucking things in the movie, those little yellow things. God damn,” I sighed.

  “Minions,” A-Train said flatly as the waitress placed the bottles of beer on the table.

  “Yeah, Minions. You’re like a fucking Minion,” I chuckled.

  “Fuck you Ripp,” Austin chimed as he alternated glances between A-Train and I.

  “You sure didn’t tell A-Train to fuck off, now did ya?” I asked.

  “Fuck no I didn’t. He’d kick my ass,” Austin admitted in an almost inaudible tone.

  “He ain’t the only one,” I smiled as I lifted my fresh bottle of beer.

  “Enough of the ass kicking. The car, tell us about the car,” A-Train said.

  I nodded my head slowly as I took a drink from the bottle of beer.

  “Well, there was this guy I didn’t like. He said something. I still don’t remember what it was. But it pissed me off. So, we were at this house party out in the country at a ranch, and he was there in his new car. Everyone was drinking and having a good time. I kept giving him whiskey. Like a lot of whiskey. He got drunk as fuck, but that was my plan; I wanted to get him drunk,” I took another drink of beer, looked around the group, and slid my beer back onto the table.

  “So, he’s now drunk as a son-of-a-bitch, and I offer to have someone take him home, you know one of my friends. Todd, yeah, it was Todd. So, Todd takes him home and we tell him he can just come back the next day and get his car. We explain to him that he’s too drunk to drive and there’s no sense in driving his car and fucking it up. He agreed and got the ride home, leaving his car at the ranch,” I nodded my head, grabbed my beer, and took another drink.

  “So, he leaves. Goes home drunk as absolute fuck. And after everyone except for maybe ten of us had left, I got a can of gas from the garage, doused his car in gas, and lit that bitch on fire. And let me tell you what, I doused it in gas. Not a little bit. I filled the inside with gas, poured it on the outside, and poured it in the trunk. Cut the seats up, poured it in the foam seat cushions, everything. When that motherfucker went up in flames, you could see it from about five miles away,” I paused, waiting for a reaction.

  “Holy shit, did it explode?” Austin asked.

  “Not like you’d think, but kind of. And that motherfucker burned into a pile of nothin’. Hell, the wheels even melted. There was like nothing left. The flames were about as high as that telephone pole,” I said as I pointed to the telephone pole across the street from the bar.

  As A-Train chuckled, Austin shook his head, “And you don’t even remember what he said?”

  “Nope,” I shook my head.

  “Whattaya think of that, Dekk? Huh? Ripp torching a car?” Austin sputtered as he took a quick sip of beer.

  “I’ve heard the story a hundred times. I think it’s just Ripp being Ripp. He’s a little more wild than most of us. He does dumb shit, and reacts differently than the rest of us would,�
�� Shane said as he rubbed the hood of his sweatshirt into his face.

  “Yeah, he’s a crazy fucker, huh Dekk?” Austin said.

  “Crazy?” A-Train said slowly as he turned to face Austin, “I’ll tell you about crazy.”

  “Not to interrupt, but tell them about the finger in the freezer,” Dekk chuckled as he pulled his hood from his head.

  “God damn, Dekk? Seriously? You want me to tell them that story?” I asked, laughing at the thought of it.

  A-Train and Austin both turned their heads and stared as Shane and I spoke. A-Train mouthed the word finger as he raised his eyebrows and slowly shook his head.

  “Sure,” Dekk said as he sat back in his chair and crossed his arms.

  I leaned forward, resting my forearms on the table, and rotated my head slowly as I made eye contact with everyone, “Alright fellas, listen up. This is a good one. Couple a years back, Dekk came to town. We met at the gym. Crazy fucker rode his raggedy ass Harley here with those ape hangers on it. He gets off the bike, walks into the gym, and changes into his gear. He put on a pair of gloves and knocked me the fuck out,” I said as I nodded my head toward Shane.

  “He knocked you out the night he rode into town?” A-Train asked as he leaned back in his chair and lit a cigarette.

  “Yep, now listen. He was the first and he’s still the only one to ever knock me out. I’ll say it was a little blind luck on his part, and a lot of stupidity on mine,” I smiled and pointed at Dekk, who smiled in return.

  “So, he meets Shorty for the first time, the girl he has now. They meet at the parking lot of the CVS Pharmacy up on 63rd. Dekk’s renting a movie. And Shorty and her husband were renting one at the same time. Dekk rolls in oh his raggedy assed bike, and gets off,” I paused and reached for my beer.

  “So, he walks up into the parking lot, and this fucktard of a husband was stomping on Kace’s fucking Kindle deal. Right there in the parking lot. You know the little deals you read books on?” I asked as I glanced between A-Train and Austin, who both nodded.