Sedona Law 4 by Dave Daren (ready to read books TXT) 📕

“Sure,” he said. “Back this way.”

I threw Vicki a quick smile and followed Officer Thomas to a small room down the hall. It was a dimly lit room with a couple of chairs and intricate looking surveillance equipment. None of it was currently live.

“You should be able to see anything you want to see from here,” Officer Thomas said. “She’s a live one, best of luck to you both.”

We both laughed, and then the officer slipped out of the room. I sat alone and watched the exchange on the other side. Judith was in the room, and without her cheetah outfit and irate expression, she actually looked normal, attractive even. She was about five foot six, had shoulder length red hair, green eyes, and she had a pretty smile, it seemed. But, under the present circumstances, she had little opportunity to use it.

Vicki entered the room and sat primly at the table.

“Hello, Judith,” Vicki’s voice came into the room through the audio equipment in the room.

Judith didn’t respond with anything more than a scowl.

“I’m Vicki Park,” Vicki started.

“I know who you are,” she said. “You were there that night.”

“If you are referring to the dance performance after which the murder occured, yes, I was there,” was Vicki’s curt answer.

“How could you do that?” Judith protested. “How could you support that kind of garbage?”

“Well,” Vicki said. “Judith, you’ve got bigger problems than that. Aside from the trespassing and assault, you are being implicated in a murder.”

“What’s it to you?” she said.

“I’m an attorney representing the person they currently have charged for this crime,” she said. “If you know of anything that could lead us to the real killer, then we could work with your lawyer in getting the prosecutor to reduce the punishment.”

“I don’t know anything about the murder,” she said.

“Did you ever meet the deceased, Beowulf Vandergarten?”

“That scum sucking gaudy seed bearer?” she spat, “No, I never met him.”

“We have witnesses say that you got into an altercation with him backstage,” Vicki said.

“That never happened,” she said. “I told you, I never met him.”

“So,” Vicki said, “you never got backstage and threw paint on anyone?”

“Paint?” she gasped. “That’s ridiculous!”

“Okay,” Vicki said, “What can you tell me about that night?”

“All I know,” Judith said, “was that I came to protest women’s rights, and to stand up for the rights of the oppressed. I was told to stay in the free speech zone, which is unconstitutional in itself. But I did, and I exercised my constitutional first amendment rights to free speech. There is no crime in that!”

Judith pounded the table. “Show me where there’s a crime! What have I done wrong, huh? What have I done wrong?”

“Well,” Vicki said, “According to the police report--”

“The police report is wrong,” she said. “I have done nothing wrong, other than represent the rights of oppressed women everywhere! Voltaire said ‘I may not agree with a word you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it!’ That’s the spirit of America! That’s what the founders of this country, the revolutionaries, that’s what these brave soldiers gave their lives for, to throw off the chains of oppression and tyranny from Great Britain with their rules against everything from tea to postage stamps to making cotton from your own field!”

She stood and raised her arms as if it was fifty years ago and she was giving the I Have a Dream speech.

“And rest assured,” she bellowed, “there were women in their ranks! It wasn’t just the men. And it wasn’t just white men either. The black women, and white women, and the Native Americans were out there with the American revolutionaries and the French soldiers fighting against the British. Don’t believe the history books, they won’t tell you. They’re written by misogynistic bigots that would prefer to rewrite history like some dystopian George Orwell novel.”

“Really,” Vicki said, “We need to get back to the--”

“And then the women get written out of history texts,” Judith continued. “Do you know that Thomas Jefferson’s wife actually wrote the Declaration of Independence?”

“I think we’re getting off track here,” Vicki said. “What I wanted to ask you about was--”

“Do you know that in the original signing of the Declaration, that there were just as many women as there were men? But the women were not allowed to sign?” Judith went on.

“I am not sure that that’s accurate,” Vicki said, “but what I wanted to ask you about--”

“What you wanted to ask me is if I committed the murder,” she supplied. She stood and raised her arms in indignation, and her whole body shook with the movement.

“Well?” my girlfriend asked.

“No, I did not commit the murder!” she yelled and pounded the table. “And I resent the question. All I was doing was exercising my rights given by the Constitution.”

“I understand that,” Vicki tried. “But, we have witnesses--”

“Witnesses!” she said. “So, all I was trying to do was use my given right to free speech and now there are witnesses that I committed a murder?”

“No one is saying that you committed a murder,” Vicki said. “We are just merely asking if you could provide us any details about that night--”

“Why?” she asked. “So that you can use them to pin the murder on me? Have you ever read the Constitution of the United States?”

“Yes, ma’am, I have,” Vicki said.

“Have you really read it?” Judith insisted. “Not just read it, but made it part of your soul?”

“I’m a lawyer,” Vicki replied. “Defending it is part of my life’s work. But we’re getting off track here.”

“I didn’t kill the bastard,” Judith yelled. “But I wish I had! Is that all here? Are we done?”

Vicki sat back in her chair and