Rebecca woke to relentless shrieking, otherwise known as her alarm clock. Reluctantly, she forced her eyes open and tried to think about the Spinelli case. Her meeting from yesterday was...strange, to say the least. Sleep hadn't came easily as she debated over the truth about Andreas's involvement. She had finally acquired to her exhausted body, promising herself that she would wake up with an answer in the morning. A way to assuage her overly ambitious guilt. Unfortunately, she woke up without one. She'd learned enough in law school to know that determining who was innocent and guilty wasn't part of her job description. Her job was to present all available evidence in as ethical and legally sound manner as possible.
If the DA's office was using this prosecution to hound a citizen, even one with a reputation like Gio Spinelli, that was wrong. That was something she should do something about. There was no security footage from the club. Conveniently and suspiciously, the system had a recording glitch that night. Her first instinct screamed Andreas was guilty, but with the type of footage that could be found from that club was also an issue. Who knew what really happened when any trust-fund scions partied together?
Without a digital record, the case rested on two eyewitnesses. The bartender who had served both parties and said he'd seen the punch in question, and another girl at the club that night who was willing to testify that Andreas had started the whole brawl. Too bad it wasn't just left at a brawl, Rebecca thought grimly. Somewhere between brushing her teeth and walking the blocks to her subway station, Rebecca decided to focus on their backgrounds. Even if Andreas was guilty, she'd be saving her boss from any surprises on the stand. She didn't mind the idea of getting ahead off information from a less-than-savory source like Gio, but she wasn't entirely keen on working for him. At least this was due diligence any good lawyer would be obligated to perform.
She got to her desk and started digging through the stack of files for the information on the witnesses. Eventually, she found the bartender's folder. It was slow, investigative work. Somewhere between the dry description of the police report and the assorted bits of personal data from public records, there was a life here. Rebecca needed to know if anything in that life suggested the witness was unreliable. Sighing, she flipped over yet another document. Her entire day would be consumed with this case. At least no one could blame her for not being through.
She spent the morning gathering information on the bartender - past employers, landlords, anyone he'd entered into a contract with. He'd never been married and didn't own property, but even the dead can be tracked if they paid taxes. Following his tax record, she called his past contacts, trying to pushy any information out of them that would work in their favor. She was starting to think Gio was wrong about his kid and it was an open and shut case when she stumbled upon a hole in the bartender's character. It was a few years go, but his previous boss had less than a stellar recommendation.
"Chris Ashton? Yeah, he worked for me. What'd he do?" Holding her breath, Rebecca tried to keep her tone casual.
"Nothing bad, sir. Just checking up on him. He's a potential witness in a trial."
"Well if he's the same kid I fired, I wouldn't trust him. That shit wasn't worth his paycheck.. Little junkie stole from me,so I fired him. Didn't report it, you know, didn't want to really screw him. Kinda hoped he'd get it together. Wrote it off as a lesson about vetting my employees better. If he's clean, you know, that's a different story. I got a brother who got off Oxy and he's doing good now, but whoa...he was on it, you couldn't leave him alone in your house, he'd rob ya blind."
"Thank you. I'll look into that and make sure which Chris we're dealing with. Thank you for your honesty." Inwardly both grinning and wincing, Rebecca hung up and began combing back through the documents. Sure enough, there it was. A known dealer picked up a few weeks back at the same club. The cops were still trying to figure out if he'd had some kind of arrangement with the club or the employees, but had nothing concrete. Almost didn't make it into the file on the club at all, except the officer assigned to the case wanted to keep it open and watch who filled the dealer's void. Rebecca called down to the precinct and asked to speak to the officer.
"Alvarez here. Go."
"Officer Alvarez, this is Rebecca Johnson over at the DA's office. I needed to ask you a question about a dealer you picked up last week at Raze, that nightclub in the East Village? I need to know if he dealt to a bartender there."
"Yeah, I know who you're talking about. That kid would likely say anything about anybody. Weasely little shit. He had a decent amount of pills on him, and we found a scrip pad in his apartment, so now he's part of some doctor-busting case uptown. I can ask him about your guy, but I can tell you right now he's not gonna talk without a deal. Personally, I wouldn't trust a damn thing from him."
"Good to know. Thanks." Rebecca hung up. She didn't know if the bartender was using or not, but she was sure the defense could get the dealer to swear he'd sold to him. That would be enough to knock the shine off of him in the jury's eyes. She put the folder aside. She'd have to bring that to the DA, but there was still the other witness to consider. That folder wasn't in the stack. Brody must still have it. She looked at his office door, half-open, and realized just how late it was. The whole day had slipped past her while she was absorbed in the case. Hardly anyone remained in the office, and most of them were gathering the last of their things and heading to the elevators. Brody was still here. That means it would just be the two of them and the custodians. Damn, damn, damn. She hated that fat pig but she needed this case. After all, she preferred to be among the land of the living. Taking a deep breath, she braced herself and strode towards Brody's office.
She knocked on Brody's open door as a courtesy that the asshole really didn't deserve. He was sitting at his desk, reading something on his computer and clearly pretending to ignore her. She waited. Minutes passed. She started to enter and he held up a finger at her, still reading. He was clearly making a show of this. He had a door and an office while she had a desk in the bullpen of the main office area. It wasn't something she hadn't noticed, but the glaring difference wasn't so obvious as it was now. After nearly ten minutes, he finally invited her in. Had he not ahead of her on the food chain of this case and technically above her in office power, she would have stormed in and slapped him. Instead, she hovered until she was asked to sit like some type of domesticated animal.
"How can I help you, Ms. Johnson?" Brody was his usual condescending self. "Need help deciphering some of the files?"
Gritting her teeth, she mentally counted to ten. "Just doing the legwork vetting our witnesses. I need the file on the other witness, Ashley Creighton. I don't see it in the stack you gave me yesterday."
