Page 12 of Jason's Justice
“How about this?” Kevin asked. “Why don’t we go to the cabin, unload, and I’ll run into town for groceries. I don’t know if you want to start reading what you have tonight, or leave it until tomorrow. Remember, that’s why I’m here, to get whatever you guys need, keeping you hidden. You never know whether Babcock has anyone staking out the town or not.”
“In that case,” Duane, who was only a few feet away spoke, “Take one of these vehicles. You’ll stick out like a sore thumb with your out of state license plate.”
“Shit, I forgot about that.”
“That’s what we’re here for. If someone forgets something, there’s always someone else to know a solution.”
“Thanks, Man,” Kevin shook his hand, and they climbed back into his truck and drove over to Broken, and parked in front of the cabin they had seen earlier. Once their luggage was taken to a room, Jason and Ilsa each took a room on the ground floor, while Kevin went upstairs. Ilsa found a pad of paper and pen, and started making out a grocery list, calling out to the others if they wanted this or that. Thirty minutes after entering, Kevin left, and Ilsa went to her room to unpack her luggage. When she went out to the kitchen, she stared at Jason with a frown.
“What’s wrong?”
He stood before the coffee pot and shook his head. He turned to look at her with pink cheeks, and a sheepish expression.
“Don’t laugh, but I don’t know how to make coffee, nor do I know how to cook. I hired a housekeeper and she came in three days a week. When she was there, she would cook enough meals to freeze to last a couple of weeks. She even was able to program the coffee maker for me, or if I got up before it started to brew, I only had to push a button.”
Ilsa giggled and went to a cupboard where she’d seen coffee supplies earlier. There was some food there, like condiments, and coffee, but nothing like the staples. With the coffee can, and a filter in her hand, she handed them to him, and instead of showing him she talked him through it. The only mishap was that he had filled the carafe with too much water and it spilled over, which was fine, she showed him the hole in the back of the pot to not fill beyond that part. As they waited for it to brew, she walked about and started sweeping, and dusting. It looked like it hadn’t been done in some time. Once the coffee was done, they settled at the table with a legal pad before each of them.
“What type of law did you practice?” Jason asked as he took a tentative sip of his coffee and actually nodded because it was so good.
“Two types. Criminal law, and corporate, but technically, its corporate criminal law. I go after the corrupt people in corporate America.”
“That will fit nicely in what we’re doing here. First, I want to take on George Babcock, I’ll have to see if Duane can run a discreet background check on him without giving off any bells or whistles.”
“Don’t bother,” Ilsa said as she waved her hand, rose to her feet, and went over to the stack of boxes they had decided at thelast minute to bring inside. She went to them, read the front, lifted the lid, pulled two files, and came back to the table.
“When Kevin found me in Los Angeles, he told me what had happened with Babcock.”
“Please, explain what you mean by that exactly?”
“We should have Katherine over here.”
“Let’s discuss this amongst ourselves first. Tell me what you know, in your own words. Please, go back to Katherine’s trial, that will be our starting point. We can get into everything that happened before that, later.”
“Okay, the police at the scene of the accident ruled it a suspicious accident. It wasn’t until the dash cameras were confiscated and viewed that they ruled it an attempted homicide. They were in the process of deciding who to charge when the local DA jumped the gun and went after Katherine.”
“Why?”
“My boss, Lyle Anderson, asked the same question. The answer he got was that it was coming from someone higher up the food chain. We don’t have proof, only speculation at this time, but we believe it was Babcock that put pressure on the DA to go after Katherine. She was charged with the murder of Stephanie Ransome, and halfway through the trial, they, the DA’s office, added on the charge of wrongful death.”
“They can’t do that, it was supposed to be a charge at the beginning of the trial, not after it began. Besides, wrongful death has to be done once the trial is complete.”
“I know that, so did Lyle Anderson, my boss. Because Katherine is my daughter, I wasn’t able to be her legal counsel. Once hearing about it, and seeing the videos from the dash cameras Katherine had installed in her car, he took over as her counsel, pro bono.”
“Do you have a copy of those videos? The original ones?”
“Yes, I don’t know whether he should have or not, but the responding police officer said that he didn’t like Michael from the second he stepped out of his car. His words were that Michael Babcock was posturing, demanding if the responding officer knew who he was, or who his father was.”
“He showed entitlement right from the get-go.”
“Correct, anyway, while the ambulance arrived, two of them were there, they sat Michael in one to check him out, they called for the corner for Stephanie, they only covered her with a blue tarp, while all this was going on, the EMTs were working on Katherine.”
“What was wrong with her?”
“She was unconscious when the first police officer arrived on scene, and she had a gigantic gash that was bleeding profusely. Michael kept screaming that she was drunk. I know they shouldn’t have, but the EMTs drew some blood to have tested when they got to the hospital. The police officer put it in an evidence bag and kept it in his pocket, without allowing Michael to see it.”
“What were the results?”
“Zero. They also did a tox screen of that same blood. No alcohol, no drugs, nothing, and they tested for everything under the sun. That’s when that officer viewed the cameras and it took some time, but they showed what actually happened. He was waiting for his boss to come in to show him, Katherine was charged. She was still in the hospital at that time, they couldn’t start the trial until she was released.” She lifted her left arm and drew a line down it with her fingernail. “That’s the shape of her scar where the glass cut her when she raised her arms to block her face.” She shook her head and sighed heavily. She finished her coffee, then got up to get more. As she sat back down, she sighed heavily.
