"Olivia, you and your husband and Alfreda are excellent cooks!" said Ms. Yvette...
"Imagine that" laughed Alfreda..
and hot coffee.....
It was a pleasure having breakfast here for the week
and working on our case in their conference room...
Working here most of the day..
And crossing the street to go home was the most relaxing week before a trial we'd ever had..
It was good that we weren't there..
Totally unhinged Lt. Tragg ran up to our suite every day ,only to find the lights out...
II-
Eric Fowler, a known grifter and blackmailer, who had managed to amass close to six million dollars in three Philadelphia Banks and Three Atlantic City Banks and another two million dollars in an off shore account, yet showed very little income on his last three income tax reports and at the time of death showed no legitimate means of supporting himself was found shot to death and his body floating in a water fountain in the park. An autopsy showed his body was filled with enough Morphine to take out a horse... That was the crime..First Degree Murder.
The Motive- To abscond close to 10 million dollars worth of jewelry stolen from five young women who were part of a jewelry smuggling ring.
The suspect! Our client , Ellie Highland, daughter of Millionaire Jeweler Eric Highland found in the park that same afternoon..
in her panties and bra and the victim's shirt...High as a kite with no memory of how she got there...
To make matters worse... a .38 caliber pistol, proven to be the murder weapon by ballistics testing was found buried in the same park two days later...The Gun was registered to Ellie Highland.
ADA Danny Varnier, a very good Attorney laid his case out brilliantly .
He didn't leave us much to work with... But we worked on anyway... He had no witnesses to call, just the regular unimpeachable, Policemen and Crime Scene Investigators at the scene..
We argued that our client had given the gun to Eric Fowler, because he said he needed protection.. She knew nothing of his "activities"..
We presented five women who testified they had indeed stolen jewelry and it had been mysteriously photographed and lifted from their rooms and that they were later blackmailed...
We used other cases, predicates and laws to defend our argument as much as possible..but we looked like we were drowning at the end of the day and the end of the week...Ms. Yvette told us not to show every hand in our deck...
"The kids just weren't up to it this time.... They needed Yvette to be here to steer the ship....Heh Heh Heh....She knew this was a loser...That's why she didn't show up...Heh heh heh...Kid...You knocked this one out of the park..They tried hard, I'll give it to them..but they needed a steadier hand.."laughed Lt. Tragg.
Danny Varnier looked quite confident and quite cocky...He sneered at Kahlil and me..
He couldn't take his eyes off of Sofia. She looked even better, even sexier than she had in law school..Now he knew he could satisfy her sexually...In a way he couldn't in college..But she was married now..Kahlil never let her out of his sight...If he could have just one chance with her alone ,he thought.
Sofia's phone vibrated..She was getting a text...She thought maybe it might be from Ms. Yvette.
It was from Danny...
"Is it at all possible for you to get away and for us to uh talk in private?" he texted.
She answered him with one word-
"NO!"
That was that!
III-
Ms. Yvette was not with us... She hadn't been with us all week. Today She was in a meeting with the partners..
in our conference room...
"Yes Yvette..You have been here practically since you passed the bar...You're a mainstay here and we love you.."said Mr. McCluskey..
"Most people as talented and as loyal as you would have left us for greener pasteurs a long time ago, but you have stayed....So long story short..." said Mr. Cozen..
"We are prepared to make you a Managing Partner of our firm! " said Mr. Connor...
"WHAT?" said Ms. Yvette...Her eyes as wide as saucers and tears streaming down her cheeks...
"Congratulations Ms. Yvette...You earned this...You deserve this...You've deserved this for a longgg time." said Mr. Connor, taking Yvette in his arms and hugging her, rocking her back and forth..
"You'll still be here for awhile until we get our new office space prepared for you and your staff... Yes you will have a staff of four attorneys and an investigator and uh it's not rocket science to know who that staff will be..
Keith Jones, Beatrice Jones, Sofia Garcia-Ahmed ,Kahlil Ahmed and Jade Ho..
You'll have extra money to hire an office manager.." said Mr. McCluskey....
"Congratulations Yvette...We are going to get you guys a nice office in a brand new building...in a few months..."said Mr. Cozen, hugging Yvette, who was still crying..
IV-
Daniel Varnier didn't have our background in Trial Science, but he was a canny guy and a smooth guy who could smell when he was being hustled..
Ms. Yvette argued that our client was innocent and that there really was no physical evidence that she was guilty...She argued that the victim and a partner was blackmailing five young ladies who were stealing jewelry....She said that our client knew nothing of Fowler's activities and and falsely was lead to believe that she was married to him..
Blance Devereaux was called to the stand..
Danny naturally objected ,
But I was armed with predicates, laws and recent case decisions that backed their play...
"Ms Devereau, you drive a 2022 Nissann Z and you live in a nice sub division don't you?" asked Sofia.
"You were Eric Fowler's partner for three years...and you got very rich until the boss man, the mastermind of the smuggling ring caught you , am I correct? That's when you double crossed Eric Fowler isn't it?" asked Bee Bee..
"Thank you your honor..."said Yvette.
We were all deliriously happy for Ms. Yvette..that she had made Managing Partner and that she was taking us with her to our new building soon....but right now...We had a murder case to try and one that I personally as well as Kahlil, wanted to win...
On Voir Dire, Kahlil and I pulled every trick in the book ...
We broke 7-5 in our favor...
Ms Yvette, Bee Bee, Sofia and Jade nodded their approval..
The battle began....
This was nothing like the preliminaries..
Danny Varnier poo pooed all of that and argued that she knew full well that Eric Fowler was a grifter and showed his police record..
"He was well known by the Bunco Squad." he said with a smirk..
He closed his case after a mere three days.....
Then it was our turn...
Bee Bee and Sofia called the five women who had been black mailed and produced bank transcripts proving that they were blackmailed.. They agreed that a woman was who they spoke to , but bank transcripts revealed that money, unknown to them was transferred into Eric Fowler's account.
Lt. Tragg recognized her from the bar the week before.. He had no idea who she was...
ADA Danny Varnier was dumb founded too...
Yvette and Sofia had her read several sentences....All five women identified her as the woman they heard on the phone, who blackmailed them...
They brought up several bank employees and film footage showing her making the deposits into Eric Fowler's accounts..
Judge King was beginning to like us..He smiled wryly and allowed it..
"Yes I do." said Blanche.
"I-I-I." she stuttered..
"Cat got your tongue? You never really lived in that apartment building...The Boss man fished you into that building..You lucked up and got an empty apartment , next door to Eric Fowler and his girlfriend/pretend wife, our client... He wanted his jewels back....and he wanted Fowler dead!! You drugged them both, didn't you? Just like you stripped her of her clothing... and you tossed that room,looking for these." said Kahlil.
Spilling diamonds on the table...
I showed the jury film footage of her taking Ellie out of the hospital.
"No..No..No...I didn't kill anybody , that was Richie...Richie Klybourne...He took Ellie's gun and shot Fowler in the back of the head before he could tell us where the diamonds were." she screamed.
The Jury gasped......
"You had no idea where she had hidden them... We didn't know either when we packed her an overnight bag... You knew she wasn't in the hospital before Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Ahmed and Mrs. Ho arrived, you knew because you had spirited her away didn't you?" asked Kahlil.
"And you killed Eric Fowler." I said.
"SHUTTTTTTTTTTT UP!!! YOU STUPID BITCH!!! THEY HAD NOTHING ON US!!!NOTHING!!"screamed Richie Klybourne...as sherriff's deputies handcuffed him and took him into custody..
They handcuffed Blanche Devereaux and took her into custody also.
"WELLLLLL! In Light of these developments the court moves to drop Murder charges against Ellie Highland." said Judge Michael King , who whispered to Ms. Yvette.
"Congratulations Yvette, nobody deserved this more than you." he said.. He had heard she had been made Managing Partner at the firm...
"Thank You...Thank You all and thank you dear sweet sister...I should have listened to you about Eric Fowler from the beginning..I am so sorry." said Ellie Highland.
''All is forgiven sister."said Elaine.
"Wow this was a case for the books...It didn't look winnable." I said.
"I know...I would have hated to have lost this case...TO HIM!" said Bee Bee.
"Ms. Yvette said we had enough on her to throw doubt to the jury and that she would give him up before going down on a murder rap, which she did...Piece of cake." laughed Kahlil..
"Yeah right...You know it wasn't a piece of cake...We could have lost...But we got lucky." laughed Sofia.
"Not luck, skill." laughed Ms. Jade, who did a sterling investigation.
"Let's go someplace special and celebrate tonight...Not Curley's." said Ms. Yvette.
"I don't think so...We didn't know we had them at the time..As soon as we discovered them, we turned them in...They were part of discovery...You can check!" said Ms. Yvette, knowing he wouldn't and clearing us of any wrong doing.
We had bested ADA Daniel Varnier...That was enough for Kahlil and me...
"There is the little matter of those rocks...You guys had em all the time ,That was evidence..You withheld evidence..I could run you in...." said Lt. Tragg..
"You win this time...but you'd better watch it! I'll be watching you." said Lt. Tragg as he walked off..
That was enough for all of us..
That night we all celebrated at Josie's
It was packed....For a Thursday Night..
"CONGRATULATIONS YVETTE!" said Jessica , hugging her..
They had five guest D.J.'s tonight... Beverly, Nelson, Josie, Paris, Bree, Tony, Me and Bee Bee, Kahlil , Sofia and Jade were all on the floor line dancing...
Donnie Ray, Gary, Danny Ho, Dabnis, Ray and Gary were trying to drink up all the beer in the house..
This was the kind of celebration Ms. Yvette wanted...With The people she was closest to in a place she could relax and be free from harrassment.
Alfreda and Rockland arrived with a huge cake and champaigne..
Gus had given us a whole section to ourselves...
Assistant District Attorney Miles Ellis stopped by...
"Yvette, I didn't think they'd ever make somebody Black a partner of any kind..Looks like I was wrong..They couldn't have made a more deserving person, managing partner.."he said and hugged her.
AUSA Karla Williams showed up with him..
"OHHHHH YVETTTE, I AM SO HAPPY FOR YOU, MANAGING PARTNER!" she said..
"I was in town when I got the news...I had to come and check out my girl." he said.
"You guys are my favorite people...Congratulations Yvette." she said.
"You guys are incredible...Congrats Yvette!" said TV Host/Attorney B.L. Benz.
Richie Klybourne was convicted of First Degree Murder and Smuggling. He was sentenced to Life.
Blanche Devereaux was convicted of Conspiracy and sentenced to 5-10 years..
We all toasted Ms. Yvette...It had been quite a year for us!
EPILOUGE-
Gary and Yvette walked toward their home..
"Congratulations My Little Managing Partner.." whispered Gary seductively....
"Ohhhhh thank you!" cooed Yvette, tired after a long day at trial and a big celebration..It was a Thursday Night..We were all off tomorrow.
"You wanted this so long..and after awhile you had given up hope..You stopped talking about it..but I knew you'd make partner..especially after a year like this." said always supportive Gary..laughing.
They kissed under the moonlight..
Once in the house and in their bedroom...Yvette was sitting on the bed in her red lace baby doll...
"Oh My Godddd..."said Gary, his eyes nearly bulging out of his head.....
The bedsprings were soon squeaking very loudly.....The headboard of their bed was rattling and the sounds of lovemaking could be heard...
He began undressing hurriedly and pulled Yvette to him and began kissing her passionately..
"OHHHHHHH VETTTIE....OHHHHHHHH " GARY MOANED.
Yvette smiled..
"CALM DOWN GARY BEFORE YOU HAVE A HEART ATTACK! " she laughed...
"Ouuuuuuuuuuuu.." moaned Yvette...
"Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.." moaned Gary.
"Ouuuuuu Gary, I love you too...I love you so much! You don't even understand how much I love youuuu." she cooed.
She was embarrassed at the noise her bed was making...She hoped her neighbors couldn't hear it...
Her headboard sounded like it might split in half.....
She was equally embarrassed at the noise she was making....Gary was driving her out of her mind...
She was driving him out of his mind too!
"OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!" he moaned....
"Did you like that daddy?" asked Yvette...
"Ouuuuu I loved it baby.." moaned Gary
Everything alright?" he asked.
Yvette looked over at her clock...
Yvette looked over at her clock...
"You have to ask?" he whispered and laughed raffishly...
"No you horn dog!!!..I already know."Yvette laughed...
"OUUUUUUUUUU! OH MY GOODNESS, YOU ARE SOOOOO HARD! GARY!!! You don't make any sense.." laughed Yvette..
"Neither do you!" said Gary, laughing raffishly...
They wound up back on the bed...Making sweet love for Another THREE HOURS or so...
"Ummmmmmmmmm you never.....you never get enough do you?" she asked..
"No, I don't...you've got me spoiled...All this good lovin.." he said..
"Ummmmmmmmmm you never.....you never get enough do you?" she asked..
"No, I don't...you've got me spoiled...All this good lovin.." he said..
"I knowwwwwwww!" Yvette giggled....as her bed continued to squeak out of control.
.
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