Page 52 of The 1 Lawyer

“And then they tore the tent clean down, so I run out. Them boys started throwing my things around, my property. And that one boy had my cat. He was rassling with Boots.”

It was important for me to convey sympathy, but I had to fake it because I felt entirely disconnected from her account on the stand. With a manufactured note of concern in my voice, I said, “What did you do, Della?”

“I was shouting to let Boots go and trying to grab my things from them. That’s when the skinny boy with the black hair knocked me down, and the fat one started kicking me.”

“What did you do then?”

“I tried to fight back, but the fat kid done knocked the wind out of me. But I had to get up because I heard Boots yowling. He was crying something fierce. I seen that the tallest boy, the one in the jacket, took Boots by the tail and started swinging him.”

At that, her voice broke. Della’s lips trembled and she squeezed her eyes shut.

I gave her a moment to recover before I said, “So what did you do?”

She let out a shuddering sigh and said, “I crawled to my sleeping bag and got that length of lead pipe I keep under it.”

“Why do you keep the pipe?”

“For protection. I’m a woman alone. Just me and my cat.”

“When you got the pipe, what did you do next?”

“First thing, I went for that boy that was swinging and tormenting Boots. And I knocked him upside the head.”

She certainly had. I’d seen the photographs. Della was skinny, but she was no weakling. The boy had suffered a concussion. And the deep scratches that the cat clawed into his arm later became infected. When the boy pulled up his sleeve to show the scars to the jury, my client had to cover her mouth so they couldn’t see her grinning with satisfaction. Had I forgotten to counsel her regarding proper courtroom behavior? My brain wasn’t so sharp these days.

“What happened next?”

“The skinny boy, he jumped me, got me down on the ground again, so I socked him in the knee with the pipe. To get him to leave me alone, right? And he went down, and when the fat kid saw it, he had the sense to back off. That’s when I seen the cop drive up in his patrol car.”

“What did the officer do?”

She sat up straight, radiating righteous indignation. “He took one look around and said I was under arrest. Me! Not them boys! I told him that them boys jumped me and tore through my things. He didn’t listen to me. He picked up my piece of pipe. Called for backup and for an ambulance.”

“Was the ambulance for you?”

“Nah, it was for the boys who was crying. Carrying on like that after they picked the fight, three on one!”

“Della, when the officer placed you under arrest, did you resist or fight him in any way?”

“No, nothing like that. I got up off the ground and I did try to tell him that I was the victim here. I was minding my own business when the three of them attacked me out of the blue.”

“Did the officer listen to you?”

“Nope. He threw me down on the gravel. It scraped the hide clean off my face. Messed my knee up too.”

I handed my photographs to the court reporter. I should’ve had my exhibits marked ahead of time, but I’d been running late that morning. My alarm didn’t go off because my cell phone was dead. Guess I’d dozed off before I had a chance to plug it into the charger.

After the court reporter marked the exhibits, I handed Della her standard two-part booking mug shot. In the front view, Della was a picture of misery, her eyes swollen from crying. The side view clearly showed her facial trauma—the skin from her cheekbone to her chin had been scraped raw.

I had no medical records because the county jail hadn’t provided medical attention. All I had were the pictures I’d taken with my phone of her black-and-blue knee and the other injuries she’d sustained from her bruising battle with the teenagers.

“Della, are the photographs marked defendant’s exhibits one through six fair and accurate representations of the injuries you suffered on the night of April seventh?”

“Yeah. That’s what they looked like.”

With the exhibits in hand, I turned to the judge. It wasn’t Judge Walker. A younger judge, newly elected, had been assigned to preside over the trial.

“Your Honor, the defense offers exhibits one through six into evidence.”

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