by Iris Bolling
"Yes." Neal motioned for Bruce to come in. "Have a seat," he said without looking up.
Bruce took the seat in front of the desk and waited. For some reason Neal felt making people wait on him was impressive. Bruce always felt it was rude. "Neal?"
Neal put up a finger indicating to wait one moment. He didn't look up. "I wanted to tell you I was going to make Joelle my second chair. But I want you working background on this Brooks case.”
Bruce fidgeted in the chair. "I am certain Joelle Michaels is more than capable of handling discovery for you. You don't need me for that."
"I am aware of Joelle’s qualifications, however I need an airtight case here. I don't want Vernon Brooks to slip through our fingers."
“If I'm good enough to do background and discovery then I am good enough to be your second chair. You can't have it both ways, Neal."
“Of course I can. I am the District Attorney the one that was elected. You work for me as an Assistant District Attorney, because you were not elected."
Bruce knew that this argument would have no end. It was the same argument they’d been having for over two years now. "Yes, Neal, you did win the election."
"Then there is no discussion to be had." He picked up a folder from the corner of his desk. “This is everything I have on Brooks and his wife. Review it and give me a summary by the end of the day."
"You will need more than a day to summarize Vernon Brooks. But don't worry, we'll make you look good." Bruce walked towards the door then stopped. "After all, that is what is important at the end of the day."
"It is good you understand that." Neal went back to the folder that was on his desk. "Close the door behind you."
Once the door closed, Neal pushed the folder across the desk out of frustration. Bruce Murdock was the best ADA in his office. In fact, he knew that Murdock was better than he was. If he was going to win this case against Brooks he needed Murdock in his corner. However, if he made Murdock second chair, the man was sure to show him up in court. He would never have that issue with Joelle. That was something he couldn't afford to do. There was an election coming up in November. He needed to ensure one more solid win to clinch the DA seat again. But now, with this case, that just happened to drop in his lap, he had a chance to go for more, possibly the Attorney General seat. Wouldn't it be great to work out of Richmond as the state's lead attorney? He wasn't sure how long he would be able to keep pushing Murdock aside. But for right now, this is what he had to do. If Murdock won this case for him, he would see to it that he would be the next DA. There was another knock on the door.
"Mr. Kirkland." The secretary stood in the doorway. "There is a Mr. Isaac Singleton on the line for you. He says it is important."
"I don't know an Isaac Singleton, take a message."
"He says he has information on Vernon Brooks."
Neal walked over to his desk. "Put him through." His secretary left the office, closing the door behind her. The telephone buzzed. Neal picked up the phone. "District Attorney Kirkland speaking."
"DA Kirkland, I am about to make your day."
"Is that so, Mr. Singleton?" Neal sat back. "How do you propose to do that?"
"By giving you Vernon Brooks on a silver platter."
Neal sat forward. "I'm listening, Singleton."
"This is not something that can be discussed over the telephone. In fact, you need a stenographer to hear the story that I have to tell."
"What is the information going to cost me, Mr. Singleton?"
"There is no charge, DA Kirkland. Just the sweet taste of justice finally coming is all that I ask."
"Fair enough. When and where?"
"This afternoon. Your office."
“Will 4 o'clock work for you?"
"See you at four."
Neal hung up the phone and then yelled out to his secretary. "Diana."
"Yes, Mr. Kirkland." Diana appeared in the doorway.
"Get me a stenographer, a video recorder and I want Detective Burke on the line right away."
"Yes, sir." Diana closed the door behind her then hurried to do as she was told.
The telephone buzzed. "Mr. Kirkland, Detective Burke is on the line."
Neal picked up the phone. "Burke, I think we have something on Brooks. I need you to find out everything that you can on Isaac Singleton and then get over to my office."
"Will do."
"Have you had a chance to go through his cell phone yet?"
"We have some interesting things from there. We still have a ways to go, he has quite a few contacts."
"We have to put a rush on that. Sooner or later Brooks is going to ask for that phone."
"Can you hold them off? The man has over 500 numbers in his contacts alone. That's not even counting the text messages. But I can tell you the messages between him and a Rene Naverone are hot. We may have stumbled on your motive."
"This is getting better and sweeter," Neal said as he sat back in his chair and smiled. He may be able to take Vernon Brooks down for good. "Get whatever you have to my office by 2 o'clock. I want to review what we have before our appointment arrives."
"What appointment?"
"This Isaac Singleton character seems to think he can give us Vernon Brooks on a platter. He will be here at four. I want to go over what we have on Brooks to compare it to whatever he's going to tell us." Neal sat forward. "Before we talk to Singleton I want everything we can find on him. I don't want to go into the court with information from a man I know nothing about. I want to be able to verify every statement he makes to us. Before this gets serious I want to know what color underwear Singleton wears."
"I'll rummage around, see what we can find." The detective disconnected the call.
Neal rubbed his hands together. He was floating on cloud nine. The memory of his first trial against Vernon Brooks came to mind. He was a young, idealistic ADA at the time. It was a murder case involving a 16-year-old girl. Vernon's client had shot the girl during a party when he decided to celebrate by discharging his weapon in the air. One of the stray bullets from that display of elation had hit the girl in the chest, killing her instantly. Kirkland decided to charge the teenager with murder. Brooks tried to deal it down to manslaughter. Kirkland refused to deal. Since he could not prove intent to kill, the jury found the defendant not guilty. The boy had taken the girl’s life, he should have served some time. However due to Kirkland's bad judgment the boy walked. As had so many other clients Brooks had defended. The reign was about to end.
#
Isaac walked into Neal's office giving the exact impression that he wanted. He was impeccably dressed in a gray suit, a crisp pink shirt with a matching pin-striped tie. The suit clearly cost five thousand plus.
Neal knew a lot of things. He knew the law, he knew women, and he knew a finely tailored suit when he saw one. Yes, the ex-NBA player was impressive. If he had to take the stand, there should be no problem presenting him as a credible witness. Now all they had to do was hear what Singleton had to say.
"Mr. Singleton, I want to thank you for coming in today. However, before getting started I want to clear up a few points."
"I am an open book, Mr. Kirkland. Ask away."
"Are you the Isaac Singleton who was found guilty of manslaughter in the Bell case?"
"Yes. I am." Isaac opened the button on his jacket and sat forward. "Mr. Kirkland, I did my time for taking that man's life. Even if I had not, it would have no impact on what I am about to tell you," he said as cool as a cucumber then sat back and crossed his legs. "I am about to give you more information on Vernon Brooks than you would ever be able to acquire on your own. It wouldn't matter how many investigators you may have." He looked directly at Detective Burke.
"It's one thing to tell a story, Mr. Singleton, it's an entirely different thing to prove that story." Kirkland never moved from his comfortable position in his chair as he spoke to Isaac. "Are you in the position to substantiate the story you are about to give?"
"I can. In fact I came in with
words directly from Constance Brooks." Isaac pulled out a tablet, found the icon then pushed play at the point he had preset the recording. They all listened as Constance Brooks spoke.
"I can't tell you how many times Vernon has threatened my life. However, this thing with Taylor has pushed him overboard. This time when he said he would kill me I believed him. I don't want to do anything to cross him."
Isaac sat back in his seat. "Are you ready to listen to my story?"
Neal nodded to the stenographer and to Joelle who was behind the camera. Bruce moved to position himself where he could see Isaac Singleton's face.
"Begin the recording." Neal sat back as the light turned red. "This is District Attorney Neal Kirkland. Present at this meeting are Detective Robert Burke, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Murdock, Assistant District Attorney Joelle Michaels and Lilly St. Clair, the stenographer. This is an unsolicited deposition from Isaac Singleton." He cleared his throat. "Mr. Singleton, I'm going to ask you to state for the record that you are here on your own accord. Is that correct?"
"That is correct."
"You have agreed to have this conversation recorded via video tape. Is that correct?"
"It is."
"Very well, Mr. Singleton, I'm going to turn the proceedings over to you to tell your story."
Isaac sat back, looked into the camera and began to tell this story. "My name is Isaac Jacob Singleton. About two years ago my mother Estelle Singleton passed away. When her will was read I became aware of an addendum to my father William Singleton's will. That addendum indicated I had to find a child I fathered out of wedlock when I was in high school. According to my father's will we had to find this child, determine if the child was of sound moral character. At stake was one half of my father's multi-billion dollar estate. I saw no reason not to cooperate. So I provided my father's attorneys with all the information I knew about the child's mother, which unfortunately was not much. After all, we were talking about close to 40 years ago. About a year ago my father's attorneys contacted me and indicated that they had found a child who may be a possible match for the parameters we had set. As it turned out the first nor the second child found were my biological child. At this point, I was leery of any person they brought before me suggesting it was the child in question. Approximately 6 months ago, another name was submitted. This time I decided to do an investigation myself. During my investigation I found the young woman I was involved with so many years ago. Her name at the time was Gwendolyn Spivey. As it turned out Gwen, as I had called her, is now Gwendolyn Brooks. I found that she had married Avery Brooks around the same time she was carrying my child. That child turned out to be her firstborn, Vernon Brooks."
Surprised gasps could be heard around the room as the occupants soaked in the ramifications of what Singleton had just revealed. Isaac paused long enough to allow the impact of his words to sink in.
"As with you, I too was shocked at the discovery. Since this was such a prominent family, I did not want to approach them directly. Therefore I had the family researched with a concentration on Vernon Brooks. All during this time I continued to run my father’s businesses. One of his acquisitions was B7 Beats, a Record Label located in Atlanta, GA. One of the recording artists on the label was Lil Tay. She was a delightful young lady with a beautiful mother by the name of Constance Brooks. Connie, as I called her, informed me that she was estranged from her husband and we became friends. At that time I had no idea who Connie or Lil Tay were in connection to Vernon Brooks. As time went on, we became more than friends. We became lovers. Connie shared a number of troublesome incidents with me that had occurred between her and her husband. The most alarming was the fact that her husband had an affair with his brother’s wife and conceived a child. I could not believe the things she was enduring. I, in turn, told her I loved her and it was time to make a choice. I was her choice. Two months ago Connie informed me that she told her husband she was leaving. This was when the trouble began."
Isaac shifted in his seat and gave the impression of becoming distraught.
"Mr. Singleton, would you like to take a moment?" Kirkland asked, knowing he did not want this man to stop the story. There was apparently more to this murder than Kirkland ever suspected.
"Perhaps a drink of water," Bruce offered.
"No. I need to finish this." Isaac cleared his throat, sat forward, resting his elbow on his knees and clasping his hands in front of him. "When Connie did not return home or to my home when she indicated she would, I was worried. But I knew she would come home when she could. In the meantime, I received a call from one of my artists, a rapper who goes by the name of Nail. He informed me that three men forced their way into the studio and assaulted him. I wanted him to put it in a report and keep it on file, which he did. A day or two later when I received the call from Connie she indicated her husband was upset about an incident that had taken place between Nail and their daughter. She asked me to look into it and so I did. She also stated that her husband had threatened her in front of the daughter. I begged Connie to come back to Atlanta for that's where I was living at the time. She returned but her daughter did not come with her. I had the report Nail filed sent to me. I then notified my investigator to look into that incident and let me know his findings. I was shocked to learn from my investigator that one of the men involved in the assault at the studio was Vernon Brooks. I was more shocked to learn that the woman that I had fallen in love with was Constance Brooks, Vernon Brooks' wife."
Again the gasps resonated around the room. Like before, Isaac allowed the details of his story to sink in.
"As you can imagine, I was horrified to learn that I had been having intimate relations with my son's wife. I immediately stopped seeing her. I did not tell her why. I'm not sure at this point why I did not share that information with her. I just did not tell her." Isaac sighed deeply as he shook his head. "That's not true. I did not tell her because I could not bear to hurt her. I'm much older than Connie and I didn't want her to think I was a dirty old man." He sat back, wiped his hand down his tearstained face, then looked at Kirkland. "May I have that drink of water now?"
Kirkland motioned to Joelle to get Singleton a glass of water. "I have something a little stronger if you need it, sir."
"No. A glass of water would be just fine." Isaac took the glass from the young woman's hand and drank about half of it down. He gave the glass back to her.
"Thank you." He waited a few moments then began his story again. "The day after Connie went back home I received a visit from Vernon Brooks. He appeared in my home office out of nowhere. My security team had been taken out and was unable to assist me during this time. Vernon Brooks threatened me and I quote 'I will kill you, your family and any remnants of your existence' unquote. His threat to me was a concern. However, I was more concerned with his threat to Connie. It was cold and evil. He said to her 'I will have your body disassembled and distributed across the Potomac River if you continue to see him.' He said this in front of her daughter. Seeing what he did to Nail and my security staff, I had no reason to doubt him." Isaac sat back in his seat. "However, now I had a larger problem. Somewhere along the line Vernon discovered he was my son. I don't know how he found out. Maybe his mother told him. I just don't know. What I do know is that I became a target for him and his family. His younger brother Nicholas Brooks and his business partner, a Tyrone Pendleton, staged a takeover of B7 Beats. Unfortunately, I was unable to stop them and they were successful. A week or two after that I was called to my father's attorneys’ office. There I walked into an office filled with the Brooks family. All of them were there, the parents, all of the sons and the daughter. They were now staking a claim to a portion of my father’s estate. A few weeks ago, Connie told me Vernon asked for a divorce. He moved her out of their house and indicated he wanted nothing to do with anyone connected to me. I was elated with this news. It gave Connie and me a chance...at least a chance to be happy. It wasn't to be. The day of her death Connie called me. She said Ve
rnon was upset. He insisted she sign the divorce papers before she could have an attorney to read over them. The two had been married a long time and Connie only wanted to insure her future was secure. I told her I would arrange for my attorney to go over the papers the next day. But I was too late. I had just arrived back in Virginia when I heard the news. That's when I called the police station and told the chief about Vernon's threat." He exhaled. "That's my story."
There was silence in the room. No one spoke for a few long moments. Finally Kirkland sat up. "Mr. Singleton, we are going to take a break. When we return, we are going to go over your story once more. This time we will interrupt and ask questions. Would you give us a moment please? Joelle, will you see to Mr. Singleton's comfort."
"Of course. Mr. Singleton, would you come with me?"
No one spoke until Joelle and Singleton were completely out of the room. "Lilly, would you give us a moment?" They waited for Lilly to leave.
Burke spoke before Kirkland could. "Do you believe that shit? It's like something out of a freaking mystery novel."
"There's some fiction there. I will agree with that," Bruce stated.
"You don't believe him?" Neal asked.
"I think maybe fifty percent of what he said may be true. However, the fifty percent is coming from his perspective."
Kirkland stood and paced around the room. "I agree with you, Bruce. I believe about fifty percent of what he said. However, I don't give a damn about the fifty percent that's not true. If fifty percent of what he said is true, we have enough to take this case forward."
"There are a lot of holes in his story." Bruce stood as he spoke. "Brooks has money coming out of his butt hole. Another inheritance would not entice him to murder."
"If Avery Brooks is not his father, is he due any of the Brooks money?" Burke asked.
"Good point." Neal nodded. "But even if he still got the Brooks money, Singleton is talking about a multi-billion dollar estate. That would put him in the same tax bracket as his parents. He would have his own. He would not have to wait for his parents to die to inherit. The fact that Avery Brooks is not his father is enough of a motive for me."