Some Are Sicker Than Others (37 page)

“Yep. I just met this chick in here, a gal by the name of Angie Mallard. It just so happens that she is the mother of one of my best middle blockers, Sarah Mallard.” Dave waited to see if Weinstein could put two and two together, but the guy didn’t say anything. He just yawned and let out a lazy sort of grumble. “Can you see where I’m going with this, Weinstein?” Dave said, as he pulled out another cigarette, tossed it in between his lips, and sparked up his lighter.

“No, not really, David. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to elaborate.”

Dave pulled the phone back and looked at it like it was growing fungus. What the hell was with this guy? Was he tired? Thought he was supposed to be “The Patriot,” not some tired, old geezer.

“Sarah was there,” he said, as he lit the cigarette then took a quick puff and spewed the smoke outward. “She was there when the cops pulled me over. She saw what happened. She can testify for me in the courtroom.”

“Uh…I’m not sure I follow you, David. Testify to what exactly?”

“That I wasn’t speeding or driving erratically. That the cops pulled me over without reasonable suspicion.”

Finally, Weinstein let out a groan of understanding. “Oh, okay, I see where you’re going with this, David.”

“You get it now?”

“Yes, I get it.”

“You think it might work?”

“Uh, well”—Weinstein’s voice went up an octave—“I’m not so sure about that. It’s seems a little…iffy.”

“Iffy? What the hell do you mean iffy? It’s brilliant. It’s the best idea I’ve ever had. It’s fucking genius.”

“Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves now, David. It’s certainly not something we should be betting the farm on. At least not just yet.”

“Well, why not? You said that if we could prove the cops didn’t have reasonable suspicion to pull me over, then the case could be dismissed and I could get the fuck out of here.”

“Yes, but that was before I received the full police report from the Boulder County Sheriff’s office.”

“So what? What does that change?”

“Well, you didn’t tell me they found you in possession of narcotics.”

“I didn’t think that was really important.”

“Not important? David, are you kidding me? The arresting officer said he found eight grams of crack cocaine in your jacket pockets.”

“So?”

“So how am I supposed to get a judge to even look at this case seriously? I mean, considering the amounts we’re talking about here, you’re lucky you didn’t get an intent to distribute.”

Dave tightened his hand around the receiver. He felt like driving the thing right against the fucking keypad. An intent to distribute? What the hell was this guy saying? Just three days ago, Weinstein said the case would be a slam-dunk, no problem. Now, all of a sudden, he was starting to get iffy? Where was all this coming from? What was this Jew trying to do…swindle him?

“Now just wait a minute,” Dave said, as he tried to suppress his anger by pretending the phone was Weinstein’s neck and squeezing it tighter and tighter. “You said I had a good chance at getting out of here.”

“Yes, but—”

“You said all we had to do was prove that I wasn’t driving erratically.”

“I know but—”

“But nothing. Now look Weinstein, I’m not paying you so you can just sit on your ass and tell me what’s not possible. I’m paying you so you can do your job and get me the fuck out of here. Now, I’ve done my part—I got you a fucking witness. I got you someone who was at the scene and can testify that the cops were acting inappropriately. Now, you do your job and get this girl inside of a courtroom and I’ll make sure she does the rest. You got it?”

For a moment, there was a long, uncomfortable silence. Weinstein didn’t say anything, but Dave knew he was there, because he could still hear the old bastard breathing. “Hello?” Dave said. “Earth to Weinstein. Did you hear me?”

“Yes,” Weinstein finally grumbled, “I heard you,”

“Well, do you got it?”

“Yes, David, I got it.”

“So, we’re good to go then? We’re not gonna have any problems?”

Weinstein let out another deep sigh, like a tire being deflated. “No, David, no problems.”

“Good, so, I’ll have this girl call you. Once again, her name is Sarah. She’s a minor, but I’m gonna get her mother’s permission, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Okay, David, that’s fine. You can have her call me, but I don’t want you to get your hopes up. There’s a very good chance her testimony may not be enough to convince a judge to release you.”

“You just do your job and get us a court date. I’ll do the rest. You can count on that.”

“Alright, listen, you hang in there, David. And try to get some rest. Maybe even listen to what those therapists are telling you. Who knows? They might surprise you. You might find out something about yourself that you didn’t know before all of this happened.”

Dave couldn’t help but chuckle. Yeah right. He wasn’t gonna have time for any of this therapy bullshit. Especially, not now—he had a case to assemble.

Chapter 25

The Witness

DAVE didn’t see Angie again until after dinner. She was outside at the picnic tables sucking down a post-meal cigarette. She had changed her clothes. She had on a white wool beanie pulled down over the pimples on her forehead with matching white jeans and a bright red and white candy-cane striped ski jacket.

Dave took a moment to regain his composure. After spitting on his hand and patting his hair down, he tucked in his shirt then did a quick breath check. It wasn’t too bad, a little garlic-flavored. He probably shouldn’t have had all that garlic toast. Oh well, he couldn’t brush his teeth now. He didn’t want to risk losing Angie. He’d waited all day for her.

He limped across the patio and picked a seat next to Angie underneath the warm glow of one of the umbrella-shaped space heaters.

“Hey,” he said, as he pulled out a cigarette, lit the end, and set down his lighter.

“Hey yourself,” she said, smiling up at him. “How you doing?”

“Pretty good. How ‘bout you? ”

“Okay, I guess.”

“Where were you this afternoon? I was looking all over for you.”

“I had a meeting with my counselor.”

“Oh yeah? How’d that go?”

“Horrible. I hate her. She makes me so uncomfortable.”

“Yeah, I can understand that. The people in charge here are assholes. It seems like they wanna get up in everyone’s business.”

Angie sniffled. “Ain’t that the truth.”

The next few seconds were filled with nothing but silence. Dave wanted to broach the subject, but didn’t want it to be too obvious. “So…” he said, looking at the end of his cigarette, “I talked to my lawyer today.”

“Oh yeah? How’d it go?”

“Good. I think I may have even found a way out of here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Actually, it’s kind of funny, your daughter’s name came up.”

“What? Sarah?”

“Yeah.”

“What for?”

“Well, my lawyer, Barry Weinstein, thinks she can help me.”

“How?”

“Well, remember how I told you my wife called the cops on me?”

“Yeah.”

“Well,”—Dave puckered his lips like he’d just bit into something sour. The words were on his tongue but he was almost afraid to say them—“your daughter was there when the cops pulled us over.”

“What!” Angie shot up from the table and seized Dave’s forearm. Her nails were so sharp he could feel them digging through the sleeve of his jacket. “What in God’s name are you talking about?”

Dave tried to wrench his forearm away from her, but her grip was too strong. Jesus—what was she, a fucking weightlifter or something?

“What are you talking about, Dave? What happened? What do you mean the police were there? Tell me right now, god damnit.”

“Alright, alright, Jesus, calm down, I’ll tell you.”

“Right now.”

“Alright, alright. Fuck me.” Dave cleared his throat and looked up at Angie. She looked liked a possessed woman in a need of an exorcism. “We had a match three weeks ago on Monday. It was all the way up in Estes Park.”

“I know, I know, I was supposed to be there. But I couldn’t make it. Why? Did something happen? What happened?”

“Well, that’s when the cops pulled us over—on our way up to Estes. I was driving the bus like I always do…you know, not speeding or driving erratically…just trying to get the girls to their game on time so they could win the state championship.”

“You weren’t drinking were you?”

“What? No, of course I wasn’t drinking.”

“You promise?”

“Yes. I promise.” That was actually the truth. He wasn’t drinking, at least not while he was driving. He did stop to smoke for a little bit, but that was only for the leg pain.

“Well, then what happened?” she said, still holding onto his jacket, her fingers digging deeper and deeper into his forearm.

“Well, next thing I know, I look up in the rearview mirror and the cops are flashing their lights and riding my ass probably no more than two feet behind me. So, I pull the bus over, get out, and that’s when the bastards grab me by the collar and slam me face down on top of the patrol car. I didn’t even do anything wrong. They start patting me down in front of all the girls, like, like I was some kind of criminal. One of ‘em even takes out his billy club and wedges it in underneath my chin. He was holding me in some kind of cop chokehold. He had me so tight I couldn’t even get my feet on the snow. Next thing I know, the walls start closing in, I can’t breathe, and everything’s going dark. Of course, my mentally challenged son, Larry, is watching all of this from the front seat of the school bus. He gets scared and runs out to protect me, and that’s when the bastards shoot him with a fucking Taser gun!”

“Your son?”

“Yeah. Larry.”

“They shot him?”

“Yeah.”

“They shot your son?”

“Yeah. He was only trying to protect me and they shot him. The fucking bastards shot my Larry.”

“Oh my God.” Angie gasped. She seemed to be going along with it. For now, he figured it’d be best if he left the whole crack thing out. There was no need to get her even more excited. She already looked like she was about to have a fucking coronary.

“Well, what about the girls,” she said, tugging again at his jacket, her eyes as bright as those supernovas he’d lectured about in his Earth Science class. “Are they okay? Did they get hurt?”

“No, no, they’re fine,” Dave said, waving his hand reassuringly. “All the girls are just fine. The parents came, picked ‘em up, and took ‘em all back to Boulder. Hell, if anything, it probably gave ‘em a good story to gossip to their little girlfriends about.”

Angie let out a deep sigh. She seemed to be relaxing. She eased back down on the picnic table and released the death grip around Dave’s forearm. “So everyone’s fine? No one’s hurt. Sarah, the girls, they’re all back in Boulder, right?”

“Yes, yes, they’re fine, I promise. I would never let anything happen to those girls. I love them like they’re my own daughters.”

Angie closed her eyes and smiled. That seemed to appease her. She let out another deep sigh then pushed her bangs back from her forehead. “Oh my God, you had me scared for a minute. I thought I was gonna have a panic attack or something.”

“Yeah me too.”

“Well, thank goodness everyone’s okay.”

“Well, almost everyone.”

“What do you mean?”

“You forgot about me. I’m the real victim of this whole scenario. You know I had to spend three weeks in a fucking prison?”

“Really?”

“Yeah. And it’s all because of my wife. She did this to me. She called the police. She had me arrested. She put everyone’s life on that bus in danger…including your daughter’s. I mean, if you think about it, your daughter’s pretty damn lucky I’m such a good driver. The way those cops flew up on me like that”—Dave let out a whistle—“shit, almost anyone else would’ve freaked out and overcorrected. But not me. I’m as cool as a cucumber.” Dave stuck out his hand and laid it flat in front of him. “You see that? Steady as a fucking mountain.”

Angie shook her head and looked away from him, squeezing her fists and gnashing her teeth together. Dave could actually hear the grinding sound from where he was sitting—it sounded like a bone saw cutting through a fresh cadaver.

“You’re right,” she said. “I can’t believe what those cops did to you wasn’t illegal. I mean, what if they caused an accident? What if they made you panic? Sarah could’ve gotten hurt. She could’ve ended up in the hospital.”

“I know, I know.”

“How could they do that? How could they be so reckless? Cops can’t just pull someone over because they feel like it, can they?”

Finally, Dave thought. This was what he’d been waiting for. Everything was falling into place, just as he’d planned it. “Actually, no, they can’t.” He reached into his pocket, pulled out his lawyer’s information, and slapped it on the picnic table. “I found this lawyer in the phone book. His name is Barry Weinstein. Supposedly, he’s one of the best DUI case lawyers in all of Colorado.”

“Oh wait, I know him,” Angie said, looking down at the advertisement, her eyes mesmerized by the picture of Weinstein dressed up as Benjamin Franklin. “I remember seeing his commercials on television. He’s ‘The Patriot’ right?”

“Yep. You got it. Now, he told me that the cops can’t just pull you over without what’s called reasonable suspicion, meaning they have to witness you doing something suspicious before they can pull you over. And he says that since I wasn’t speeding or swerving or driving erratically, we can prove the cops didn’t have reasonable suspicion and the case can be dismissed and I can get the hell out of here.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, all I gotta do is prove to the judge that I wasn’t driving erratically, which shouldn’t be too tough. I mean, after all, I got a whole bus full of witnesses, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so.”

Angie studied the advertisement for a few more seconds. Was she gonna take the bait? Was she gonna go for it?

“Oh wait a minute,” she said, her eyes growing bigger. “So, that’s what you meant when you said Sarah could help you?”