Fair Play

He flipped the receiver around to look at the caller ID. It was a call from Glenn Kelley’s cell phone. Kelley was his good friend and former partner.  The veteran cop who trained him how to work the streets of Orlando, Florida for the four years before his promotion to Detective.  Kelley wasn’t the type to play pranks.

Something was wrong.

Paul bolted from his bed and hit redial.

Nothing.

Straight to voice-mail.

He dressed in five minutes and was out the door on his way to Glenn’s house, trying to convince himself that all was okay, but his instincts told him otherwise.

****

7:30am

Doug Lipton’s mornings had slipped into a comfortable routine since starting at the firm. He was up by 5:30, spent thirty minutes on one of his exercise machines, showered and shaved by 6:30. He would wake his wife Sarah and 8 year old daughter Annie moments later and start fixing breakfast for all of them, and then out the door by 8:00 for his drive to work. Sarah was much less of a morning person than he and needed a little caffeine stimulation to get started. She took a seat and nursed her double espresso slowly.

Annie was in the shower as soon as she was up, her shower was always twice as long as Doug's for a body less than half his size. It was a mystery he never could understand.

“Omelet?” Doug inquired.

Sarah nodded sipping more of her 'energy' drink. He folded the omelet mixture in the pan and flipped them over gently. Moments later he artfully slid the omelet out onto Sarah's plate and she dug into the meal with a little more energy than she had earlier.

“So today's the day then?” she asked not looking up from her plate.

Doug nodded, “Yesterday the jury wanted to look at some final pieces of evidence which don't amount to a whole lot but we are pretty confident that the verdict would be reached early today, not guilty, of course.”

She winced. Her mouth opened as if to speak and then shut quickly, the thought she had was on its way out and she stopped it. She set down the espresso and looked at the man she loved with a pained expression. “You know he did it, right?”

Doug sighed lowering his head, “Sarah, . . . I . .I’m not doing this for him, this is my job. I do it because we can’t decide who is going to have a fair trial and who isn’t. If I start making decisions like that, then I can’t do my job.”

“I know it’s your job, I just . . Doug, the girls were 8 years old. I feel. . .” She shook her head and paused, “I feel filthy for wanting you to win this case, and I’m sorry.”

A big part of Doug wanted to agree with her. Doug had two sides to him, he found it necessary in order to cope with some of the more distasteful aspects of his work. His human side was made up of his compassion, his love and what was right. This was the side of him that wanted to put a gun to the head of people like Jasper Davis and pull the trigger, twice for good measure.

Then there was his attorney side, the side that had to repress all those images of victims, of the families' lives that were torn apart and left with missing pieces. This was the side that got the bills paid, got them a new pool and provided a comfortable life. This was his “soul-less” side as he fought sometimes on the side of evil. The side he had to shed as he walked through his front door at the end of the day. He had to, just to preserve his sanity and at times, he thought, his humanity.

Doug reached out and grasped her hand, “Sarah, I don't get the choice to defend only innocent people. I take what is given me and I do the best I can for each of my clients, even the guilty ones.” Silence came as his soul-less side fought against the human side. This was a conversation they had had before and more likely than not, would have again.