B006JIBKIS EBOK by H. Terrell Griffin Read Free Book Online Page A

overhead cabinet and poured them both full. “There’s cream and sugar on the counter,” she said.
    “Thanks. Black will be fine.”
    She reached into her coat side pocket, extracted two quarters and dropped them into a mason jar with a coin slot in the lid. “My treat,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    “My office is this way.”
    We went down a corridor with offices opening off either side. At the end we turned right into a secretarial area in which sat a black woman working on a computer.
    “Mavis, this is Matt Royal,” Elizabeth said. “Mr. Royal, my secretary, Mavis Jackson.”
    “How do you do, Ms. Jackson.”
    “I understand we’ll be working together soon, Mr. Royal.”
    “How’s that, Ms. Jackson.”
    “The Hamilton case.”
    “I’m not sure for how long. Pretty soon, he’s going to need a real lawyer.”
    “I hear you, Counselor. I hear you.” Mavis said, chuckling.
    Elizabeth Ferguson’s office was small and crowded with a scarred old mahogany desk, two legal size file cabinets and two chairs for guests. Hanging on the wall behind her desk were her diplomas from Georgia Southern and Mercer. Her executive chair looked new and expensive. Her windows looked out over downtown Sarasota, the bay and out to the Gulf.
    “It took me ten years of hard work to get that view,” she said. “I had to buy my own chair. The state is not a generous employer.”
    The vestige of a Southern accent wrapped her words in a softness that attested to her heritage. The Southern background and education would explain her easy charm that at first seemed to be at odds with her reputation as a hard nosed prosecutor who gave no quarter in the courtroom.
    “Why don’t you leave? Go into private practice,” I asked.
    “I like to put the bad guys in jail. I think I’d get bored doing whatever civil lawyers do.”
    “I see you went to Mercer. So did I.”
    “You must have been before my time,” she said, with a wry smile.
    “By several years.”
    “Why is the beachbum lawyer coming out of retirement to take a loser of a case like this?”
    “Beachbum?”
    “We have mutual friends.”
    “Oh?”
    “The girls.”
    “Ah.”
    “They speak highly of you.”
    “I live on the bay. I hardly ever go to the beach.”
    “Well, you know what I mean.”
    “For now,” I said.
    “What does that mean?”
    “I’m representing him for now. He has no money, and I’m afraid a public defender would not give his defense the time it deserves.”
    “I thought he came from money.”
    “Apparently not. I understand from his brother that he’s broke. He can’t get a lawyer without money, and he’s afraid that the public defender wouldn’t get too serious about defending him. He’s in kind of a bad situation.”
    “Bad situation? Matt, may I call you Matt?”
    “Certainly.”
    “Matt, he’s been indicted for first degree murder. That’s more than a bad situation.”
    “He didn’t do it, and I don’t think you’ll be able to prove a case.”
    “He’s not helping himself by remaining a fugitive. Are you going to bring him in?” The mood had shifted in a hurry. We were down to business.
    “I don’t have that kind of control.”
    “Have you actually been retained to represent Logan?”
    “Yes.”
    “If he’s broke, how has he paid you?”
    “He bought me a pizza.”
    “A pizza? For a capital murder case? That’s not much.”
    “It was a supreme. Had everything on it.”
    “How can we get this thing moving, Matt? I want him in custody.”
    “Let me see your evidence.”
    “You know I can’t do that.”
    “You’ll have to give it to me sooner or later.”
    “I don’t have to do anything until he’s arraigned, and we can’t arraign him until we arrest him.”
    “Look, Elizabeth. You’ve had more than a month to investigate this thing. You’re not likely to get any more evidence than you have now. Why not give me what you’ve got, and let’s see if I can talk you into dropping the case.”
    She