Homecoming

Back In Philadelphia we were all hard at work in the huge law library at Jasmine Coley's law firm...

 "See ,it's like I told you...Patch left a lot of exculpatory evidence out of discovery that might have helped the defense..I saw this from the beginning of the case and I questioned him about it."said Jazzy.

 "That was his style...In the murder case Larry North and I tried against him , he attempted to do the same thing...but with the help of a young upstart attorney, new to our office and anxious to impress me, named Nelson East...We were able to discover it and get an acquittal... Old Patch was fit to be tied...You think Chris Garcetti hates to lose...He was just as bad...though not as demonstrative.."said Olivia, smiling at Nelson and remembering how eager he was to please and impress her when he first met her.

Nelson smiled too, remembering with some guilt ,how attracted to Olivia he was when he first started working at the Public Defender's office and how his mother and his aunt both told him...

"Olivia is a beautiful woman, but she's nine years older than you...and she's married...She aint thinkin bout you in that way.."

 Beverly smiled and hugged him...

"My Baby with the save." she said..

Nelson never imagined that Beverly West, Olivia's niece, who came to work at the Public Defender's Office one year to the day that he had started would ever be calling him "Her Baby" and he would be working side by side with her and Olivia at their own law firm...Not just that...but married to her...

He loved Beverly from the first day she walked into the office and Olivia was showing her around..
she was turning a lot of heads and breaking necks with her sexy body and her cute smile and alluring manner...He never felt he had a shot..but he took his chances and it paid off..

Josie peered at the trial transcripts and pointed out at least seven discrepancies....

"Good Girl...I saw them too." said Dabnis.. "How did he get away with this?" he asked.

 "Because he was part of the old guard, the old boys club....Judges, ADA's Politicians....They were all friends, all drank together and all watched each others back...We were the new kids on the block...Unconnected and without any friends..."said Olivia.

"I was his second on this and another case...He kicked me off of both cases...and gave me a very bad evaluation my first year there....I wanted to succeed...I wanted this job to lead to bigger and better things...So I kowtowed...I got serious, as ruthless as they were and I eventually became a very successful prosecutor , which led to a 98% percent conviction rate and launched me into my present position at this illustrious firm ,where I am now once again in career freefall..."said Jazzy..

Josie whispered in her ear..

"I am sooo sorry...I didn't know.." she said.. It was her overturning one of Jazzy's cases as a student in a mock trial that led to six others being overturned and Jazzy's appearance before the Ethics board that led her to this point..

Jazzy hugged her..

"Baby girl, don't you ever say you're sorry....You actually started a series of events that saved my life, saved my soul....and I love you...I went to Therapy and I began going back to Church....and I re-attached myself to all of you guys  and today I'm doing work that fulfills me, makes me happy...I should be saying thank you..." she said with tears streaming from her eyes..

Dabnis put his arms around her and whispered in her ear...

''Speaking of BIGGER AND BETTER....I've got something BIGGER AND BETTER FOR YOU AS SOON AS WE GET A BREAK AND CAN BE ALONE..."

She laughed hysterically...

"Hush Up Goofball..." she said.. Thankful that Dabnis could always make her laugh in moments like these..

Olivia hugged her..

"My sweet Jazzy is back..." she said..

"Karen is ready for you guys in the conference room." I said..

We took the elevator down to the conference room....

Where Coffee and doughnuts awaited us...

 "Ummmm Yummm"said Beverly..

"Just like you..."said Nelson, hugging her..

"Ummmmmm.." said Beverly, hugging him...

 ''A nice respite after working all morning.."said Olivia.

"I've got some places I have to go..."I said.

"I looked at the trial transcipts….and the exculpatory evidence that was withheld from the defense..Didn't He have an investigator?" asked Karen..

"No and he was handling three other cases at a time..May he rest in peace!"said Jazzy, who had gone behind Patch's back and asked the Public Defender about the case.

 "That was the story of our lives back then...That's how I got burned out after awhile and eventually left..."said Olivia.

 "This is true...and two years after Auntay left..I got a job offer at the Immigration Department in D.C. It wasn't the kind of law I wanted to practice, but It was a change of pace, I would have had an office instead of a cubicle...and I would have been in a different city...but....by then..Auntay had bought the Duplex/Office and was setting up her law practice..She had talked about it for three years and she was making it happen...She needed a partner...There was nobody better than me..So I teamed up with her...We met Josie

 right before we opened our doors and this  new man she had met...This ex-cop from New Orleans named Donnie Ray Alexander

moved up here and moved in with us and became our Investigator..." said Beverly, smiling at me...

''And your Aunts husband.."said Jazzy.

"Yeah...He really just wanted to be with Auntay...but lucky for us..he had skills."joked Beverly, hugging me..

I smiled...

"I was there the longest....Larry North had left, Danny White, You, Liv, Beverly....Everybody...I felt bored ,uninspired..Then Bev and I started dating again and we became a couple and I took a job at Robert Foxworth and Associates.. Liv would throw me a bone and hire me as a consultant on a big case and eventually she just wore me down...After Bev and I got married, I came to work for them, full time."said Nelson..

"And that's how I got the band together.."said Olivia..

"Sweet..The Fab Five!" laughed Jazzy...but then getting serious..

"Bev...you and Donnie Ray go to the M.E.'s office...They'll have the original Autopsy Report in full and the Second Autopsy report done by Doc Gibbons..They'll have a record of the Exhumation."she said.

"Will we have to order another exhumation?" asked Beverly..

"I hope not...Those things can be long and costly and we'd have to go to an Appellate Court."said Olivia.

"No let's hope not...Let's see if what we need is with what we have.."said Karen Page..

II-

Beverly and I headed to the Medical Examiners Office First.

where we met with Dr. Hazel Baylor..

"Hi..Liv told me you two were coming...Here is Tox Report one and Tox report two....These were both done before I started working here...but check it out...This guy had a bad heart....He had Congestive Heart Failure and it didn't help that he drank like a fish...Big time Alcoholic...He had the beginnings of Cihrosis of the Liver...He was a walking time bomb anyway...."said Hazel..

"The LSD would have exacerbated that right?" I asked..

Hazel smiled..

"LSD does make the heart rate speed up a little bit....but I seriously doubt that it would have killed him by itself.." said Hazel..

"Plus these people involved....Phyllis Shafny, her daughter, 18 year old Chole , who barely graduated from High school, her girlfriend, a high school drop out and the drug dealer, Goldie Thompkins ,who sold them the LSD...None of them were exactly brain surgeons...They wouldn't have known all of this to put this together."said Beverly..

"You're absolutely right... The first Autopsy, the one that said he died of natural causes....didn't even find the LSD.....The second Autopsy ordered by....Wait for it..  Lt. Arthur Tragg, found the LSD...but even that autopsy didn't label his death Homicide..It just said his death was suspicious.." said Hazel..

"Is it possible he just died from natural causes?" I asked.

"Very Possible...He had a bad heart, he had an even worse liver...He had a substantial amount of alcohol in his system...meaning he had been drinking heavily.....He did have a substantial amount of LSD in his system...but the LSD didn't kill him...In fact Dr. Arthur Baum, who did the second Autopsy said as much..."said Hazel.

"This was given to ADA Patch and never placed in discovery..."said Beverly...

"Hazel ,why didn't they find the LSD the first time they did the autopsy?" I asked..

"Because they weren't looking for it.. After you die..all of your blood is drained out of you and replaced with embalming fluid...You know that...And it becomes very hard at that point to find any lingering trace of substances...All they found was the alcohol...Beer, Malt Liquor...which was done before the embalming." said Hazel.

"How'd they find it the second time?" asked Beverly..

"The second time, there was still some urine in his system...cold urine....and it contained traces of LSD...That was the jackpot and Lt. Tragg went running with it.."said Hazel..

"What made him take a second look anyway?" I asked.

''An anonymous tip that we now know came from Mrs. Shafney's  drunken older sister...She was angry and jealous...After her sister was convicted and sentenced to life...she had a change of heart...She recanted her statement and her testimony....It's in an affidavit..."said Hazel..

 "Naturally Patch kept this a secret.."said Beverly disgusted..  "We got to find her sister.."said Beverly.

"She won't be hard to find....She's in St. Mary's Cemetary…..She's dead...She died of a drug overdose on New Years Eve...about seven months after her sister began serving her life sentence...she left behind a note.. Once again recanting her testimony in the case...All of that is in the case files." said Hazel, passing them to me..

 "This is why Jazzy told you to come over here and take another look...She knew about this."I said.

"And Patch threatened her job and her career over it...Her hands were tied...Poor Jazzy..She's free now..She no longer works for the D.A.'s office and we found this..."said Beverly...

"It sends a chill down your spine.." I said.

"Doesn't it?" said Beverly...

III-

Back in the conference room...

"Oh My God!  This is incredible.."said Olivia ,looking over both autopsies, the tox reports and the two recantations...One in a legal affidavit sent to the Public Defender, who was going to bring it to the attention of the court..but unfortunately, he died suddenly and the second one ,found in Phyllis's sister's room the day she was found dead of a drug overdose...

"Good Work both of you.."said Olivia, hugging and kissing Beverly

 and snuggling up next to me..

''You know I want more from you." I said..

''Shhhhh, tonight baby...I promise.." whispered Olivia.

''We can make our case on the fact that this guy wasn't murdered at all...He died of natural causes.." said Nelson..

"Not trying to be Debbie Downer...but he uh did have LSD in his system and a drug dealer testified that he sold it to her...We got to nail that down."said Josie..

"She makes a good point...What about that? asked Dabnis..

"I'm going back out to hunt him down...His name is Goldie.. Wanna take a ride Dabnis?" I said.

''Sure.."said Dabnis..

 ''You guys did well...Beverly...I knew when I saw you with the file that you'd get to the bottom of it..I saw all of that stuff..Two years after the fact....I wanted to say something..but I was still working for the D.A.'s Office...If they had had a Wrongful Conviction Initiative then, I would have certainly of brought it up...." said Jazzy..

"I didn't know this ADA, Arnold Patch...He was part of the last administration before Gil Garcetti..I take it."said Karen Page.

"Yes...He and LT. Tragg's father and his uncle were good friends..Part of that Old Boys Network..."said Olivia...

'' God forgive me, but when I read in the paper that he was dead of an apparent suicide..I was not unhappy...I practically jumped for joy...He made my first few years at the D.A.'s office a living hell.They had a retirement party for him at that Beef and Beer place in Olde City...I was the only person from the office that did not attend."said Jazzy..

Nelson hugged her..

"Tell us how you really feel Jazzy." he said..

Beverly, Olivia, Josie,Dabnis and Karen cracked up laughing...






******************************************************************************

Dabnis and I drove through the neighborhoods of Kensington...

He looked over at me..

"You won't believe this, but I grew up in this area..."he said..

"Really?" I said..

I imagined him to have come from the suburbs or some upper crust neighborhood...A Prep School kind of guy...

Olivia, Beverly, Nelson and even his wife Jazzy all came from the hood, Despite their education and profession..they all still had an edge to them..A Streetwise edge that you could see every now and then...I never got those vibes from Dabnis..He always came off as Bougie...

"My Mom was a school teacher...My Dad worked at the Post Office...We were the first Black family to move around here...These neighborhoods were well kept..They were pretty....but now after all of these years..This neighborhood has gone to shit..Drugs, Prostitution...I don't recognize it.. I went to Public schools around here...Until 9th grade...Then I went to Catholic school for my high school and from there to Lasalle...After that Howard University and Howard University Law school.. I came back here and I didn't recognize the place..So I just stopped coming back..Both of my parents are now deceased anyway..and everybody I knew is gone..Dead or in prison...I'm one of three people from this hood that made something out of themselves.."said Dabnis quietly..

I looked at him with a new respect...

We stopped in front of a bar...

"Damn Donnie Ray, you take me to the nicest places..." he joked..

I passed him my .40 caliber..

"Come with me...just back my play...The safety is on it...so you won't get in any trouble." I said and smiled.

We walked inside...We immediately didn't fit with the regulars... Two Black men in expensive ,tailored suits...We looked like cops..

"Hey...Two beers... One for my friend here..  " I said..

"You guys cops?" asked the Bartender...

"No...I'm a Private Investigator...My friend here is an Attorney." I said. I showed him my ID..

"What are you fancy dans doin in here?" he asked..

"I'm lookin for a guy...A Guy named Goldie....You know him?" I said.

"Nah, never heard of him.." he said.

I quaffed down my second beer....

"Gotta go to the little boys room." I said and smiled..

"I'll be here."said Dabnis..

I headed back to the restroom... I finished my business as they say and was washing my hands when the stall door slowly opened...I saw a big hulking figure in a dark suit slither out....before I could turn and dry my hands...the man had a garrotte around my neck and was squeezing hard....It was a tall heavy set black man with soul less eyes...an old time playa from back in the day...

He was a little younger than me, but strong as hell..He was squeezing the breath out of me and practically lifting me off of the ground...I took what strength I had left and kicked him in his groin as hard as I could...He grunted, but he loosened up his hold just enough for me to elbow him in his jaw, snapping his head back and sending him flying... I didn't have the time to catch my breath before he was heading toward me....

He, was silent, didn't waste a lot of time talking..I liked that. I landed some good lefts and rights to his body, but he was equally good with his hands...he landed some good lefts and rights to mine...I countered and landed some lefts and rights to his face, but he equaled me with some well placed lefts and rights to mine...

What I had in my favor was that he was grossly out of shape and not prepared for the smoke I was giving him. and I could feel him getting winded...

I cracked him hard in his jaw and saw blood trickle from his mouth...I cracked him again and saw the sweat fly off of his face...I hit him in his stomach and he bent down in obvious pain..

I landed some more lefts and rights to his jaw which sent him into the wall...and down on the bathroom floor..He lay there for a minute...still conscious and breathing heavy...I was holding my neck and still gasping for air...

I stumbled out of the restroom, trying to catch my breath and trying to run down the back hall when he came out with his gun, a .45, drawn ,..

Dabnis put my 40. caliber pistol  to his temple...

"Give it up big boy or the next sound you hear will be your last." he said.

The young thug was no fool ..He did as he was told..Dabnis passed me the gun  and I walked him out and made him sit down...

I smiled..

A black guy, who looked about Dabnis's age, but still wearing a Gerri Curl smiled and walked over to us..

He looked at the man we had sitting down...both of his eyes were black and nearly swollen shut...His lips were swollen and his nose showed a trace of blood..

He spoke softly as he looked at me..

"You must be pretty nice with your hands...to put a beat down on my man Mingo like that....I heard you are lookin for me.....Can my man there uh go and get some uh medical attention?" he asked.

"Sure.." I said and I peeled off a couple of dollars and passed them to him...Get yourself a drink..It's on me.." I said..

"I'm Goldie...What you want with me?" he asked..

"I'm Donnie Ray Alexander, I'm an Investigator....This here is Attorney Dabnis Coley..."I said..

"Oh My God...Dabnis???...Aint but one person had a name like that....Dabnis that used to live in the corner house on K street?" he asked..

''Richard?? Richard Gold?" asked Dabnis..

"Yeahhhhhh you used to be sweet on my little sister Tangie….and I used to run your little ass home..Oh My God, it's been years man, How you doin?  Attorney?? You a lawyer now..Wowwwww!"said Goldie..

"Yeahhhh man... How is Tangie?" asked Dabnis..

''Tangie dead man!!....She been dead now for uh almost 9 years....Cancer...Breast Cancer got her...Oh wow!!!...It's good to see ya man..."said Goldie...

''We are representing Phylis Shafney...A White woman...She's serving life, she's up for appeal.."I said.

"Say No More...Man look I hated to testify against her...I didn't sell her no acid...This jive ass Assistant District Attorney Arnold Patch and this goofball Lieutenant, uh Tragg or somethin or other..had me dead to rights...Caught me sellin...It would have been my third felony...I was facing life..Patch told me if I said I sold to Mrs. Shafny instead of Chole, who I actually did sell it to.He'd make my third charge go away....So I said what Patch told me to say and he made my third charge vanish... I stopped slinging after that....I have a package that I uh sell to others..They do all that...I get my money off the top.."said Goldie..

I passed him a court summons..

"You come to this building...down at Penns Landing and you tell them what you told us..and you won't have any trouble...LT. Tragg can't intimidate you...He's on a Boat, with the Marine Patrol unit now..He's not on the street and ADA Arnold Patch is dead...a SUICIDE.." I said.

"I heard.....Yeah...I'll do that....No sweat....Damnnnn Dabnis...You a damn lawyer....You got a card,I might be needin a lawyer...Good to see ya Dabnis..Good to see ya."said Goldie ,who hugged Dabnis and shook my hand..

"Thank you man." I said.

As we drove back...

 "You Trust him?" asked Dabnis..

"Yeah...Guys like him..His word is bond..If he wasn't going to do it...He would have had no problem telling me no..Court summons or not...Plus I have a feeling he doesn't want any unnecesarry problems with the law...You alright?" I said.. "You handled yourself well in there today..."I said.

Dabnis smiled..

"It's true what they say, you can never go home again.." he said.

IV-

Back at the building...ADA Karen Page was ecstatic

''This is outstanding...Now all I have to do is find us a Judge." she said.

 "We've got what we need.You ready Neicey Poo? , Jazzy?" asked Olivia.

 "Yes...I've already got my argument prepared..."said Beverly..

"I'm so glad to be a part of this."said a very Grateful Jasmine..

 "The Best part is we don't have to pick a jury or do any psychological profile...We can just go in there with our structured argument.."said Nelson.

"Yes.." said Josie.

"I don't know about you guys, but I'm famished.." I said.

"Come to Curly's tonight...They've got some of the fattest New York Strip steaks..Your meals are on me..Or uh, The City of Philadelphia.." said Karen..

We all laughed..

 "We'll meet you guys there.." said Dabnis..

While we headed to Curly's Bar.. Jazzy and Dabnis stayed behind and found one of the empty office spaces that had not been finished yet...

 ''Ouuuu Nasssssty man.....Why are taking me here?" cooed Jazzy..

.
"I told you I had something Bigger and Better for you." said Dabnis...

 "Ouuuuuuuuuuuuuu..show me daddy!" she cooed in between soft kisses...

He lifted her up and slipped her panties down and began to long stroke her...

"Ummmmmmmmmmm you couldn't wait.." she said softly...

"Noooooo I could not.." he said..

"Ohhhh myyy godddddd!" she moaned..

She giggled...

as they made love into the early afternoon.

(TO BE CONTINUED)