Of Poverty and Privilege

Chapter five

2009

Mike Cutter had not even cut his car engine before he threw open his car door once arriving at his destination. With almost lightning speed he turned off his car, grabbed his briefcase from his passenger seat and slammed his car door. He pressed the button on his remote to lock the doors before he charged into the fairly small police station.

After entering the underwhelming and tired looking precinct lobby he grunted when he saw that the desk was unattended. It was to be expected as it was a regional police station at a late hour, but due to the current situation he was hoping to be attended to immediately. Normally one would wait for a police officer to come out, but he wasn't going to be doing that today. He needed to get to Chelsea as quickly as he could.

"Hello?" He called out gruffly and tapped the desk so somebody would hear him.

He could hear typing coming from behind a partition wall out of sight that immediately stopped once he called out. He heard a loud sigh and an office chair creak as the weight of its occupant lifted themselves up and moments later a very large police officer appeared in front of Mike.

"I'm here to represent Miss Chelsea Callahan. I believe she's been taken into custody here." Mike quickly shot out, not even waiting for the officer to greet him.

"Let me see." The officer said as he lazily grabbed a piece of paper from the desk and sifted through it. Under different circumstances Mike would be amused by the archaic use of pen and paper record keeping, but today he was on a mission. He could only feel annoyed at how long this was taking. He needed to see Chelsea as soon as possible.

"Nope. No-one by that exact name here." The officer stated as he dropped the paper.

Mike went to turn around to call Connie, believing she had directed him to the wrong station. But then he realised the words the officer had used. No one of that exact name here. She was here, just under a different name. She must have given old identification under her old married name, something that had been issued before she got her divorce.

"Fine. Chelsea Garcia. Can I just go and see my client?" Mike huffed.

"Nope, no Chelsea Garcia here." The officer grinned wickedly and Mike could tell the officer was enjoying watching him squirm.

"For god's sake, this is a police station, not Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves where I need to give a special passcode to see my client. If you don't give me access to Chelsea Callahan right now, I'm going to see that you and your fellow police cronies are charged with kidnapping considering she's being denied legal counsel." Mike growled in an extremely low and threatening manner.

The threat did little to intimidate the large officer as he chuckled heartily, but he did open up the swing doors next to the desk and beckoned for Mike to go through.

"We have her surname down as Callahan–O'Toole. Not Callahan."

"Well then you have her surname down wrong then. After she got divorced she did revert back to her maiden name but she dropped the 'O'Toole' and just became 'Callahan'. If you have that wrong, I wonder what else you've done wrong tonight." Mike spat.

***

1995

Bzzzzzzzzzzzz

The annoying sound of the intercom for the offices of the criminal defence firm Mike Cutter worked at rang out, and his head popped up from his cubicle. The receptionist had long since gone home, and as he was the only one out of the few left in the office it was up to him to answer the door. He was glad it didn't ring again before he managed to get to the reception desk, that would have irritated him at this hour.