by Dave Daren
I made my way into my office to finally check my phone as if there would be something there I didn’t expect. But, like I predicted, I had plenty of messages from David. Most of the texts were the same bit of information sent over and over, but slightly rephrased, as if he was workshopping the best way to deliver the blow to Thompson. I just prayed that the moderator of the debate was one of the Crowley residents that was tired of Thompson’s illegitimate iron fist, or the debate would be very short indeed.
Besides the messages from David that I didn’t bother replying to, I had a message from Brody. I clicked his bolded contact name and pulled up our text thread.
nothing here worth looking into, sorry kid.
I skimmed my eyes over the message a few separate times as if I could change the contents of the message through sheer willpower alone.
We’d be fine without any more hard evidence, I knew we would be. Well, I needed to convince myself we would be before I made myself sick with anxiety.
I hadn’t been this nervous over something since the Knox case went before Judge Calhoun for a class action ruling. Court itself didn’t make me nervous, and if anything, I found myself more relaxed when I went into a courtroom than when I left it. It was as if I slipped into a state of preternatural calm when it came to fighting for someone’s rights.
But in the case of the debate, I wasn’t the one that was fighting. I wasn’t a control freak, but I knew myself well enough to know that I didn’t like to be this out of control when so many people’s lives and livelihoods rode on it.
I sank down into my leather desk chair and spun slowly as I read through David’s messages again and again to try and find something I could actually help him with. But we were so close to the debate that any extra time I spent researching felt like I was cramming for a test, and that wasn’t something I’d ever been good at.
I’d trust David with my life, and I knew that logically, he was going to do well in the debate. He was a fantastic man, a good, moral man, and plenty of people in Crowley already liked him.
When I’d been trolling the local forums to find people that had raised complaints about Thompson, I stumbled across plenty of people already cheering on David for running and singing his praises.
I think that all my recent near-death experiences had made me a little higher strung than usual, but I couldn’t even blame myself for that. The bullet hole was still gouged into the outside of Landon Legal, and despite both Brody and Evelyn insisting we fix the damage, I wanted to leave it as it was.
I wanted people to see it, and I wanted them to know what had happened. Maybe it was petty, and maybe it was the wrong decision, but I felt like erasing the damage was like pretending it never happened. I had decided that the scar on my hand and the scar on my office could stand in solidarity against the absolute reign of terror that had been the Crowley sheriff’s department.
I sighed and set my phone down after reading over David’s messages again. He didn’t seem to want to use me as a sounding board so much as he wanted to speak into an abyss just to be heard, and so I didn’t offer him any advice.
Instead, I decided I’d take care of a few bits of housekeeping we’d let slip in regards to our other cases.
When I’d taken on Natalie’s case and set Landon Legal onto a course I couldn’t have predicted, we’d been in a lull with the rest of our active cases, but that had changed in what felt like the blink of an eye.
Usually, Evelyn dealt with the email exchanges between our law firm and the others we were sharing information with, but I didn’t want to ask her to do that while she was still doing research for the looming debate.
Besides, it was work I’d done myself before I brought her and Brody on to help me. Maybe we should bring on another employee to help take care of the more mundane tasks while Evelyn, Brody, and I tackled our bigger cases.
I eventually lost myself to the rhythm of the easy tasks as I exchanged emails, made follow-up calls, and gave our other open cases the attention they deserved. I didn’t even realize how much time had ticked by until Evelyn poked her head in my doorway and startled me out of my reverie by rapping her knuckles on the open door.
“Ready?” she asked, and I blinked in confusion before I glanced down at my watch to see that the debate was supposed to start in an hour.
I reached up to rub the ache from my eyes that had crept in from staring at my computer for too long without looking away.
“Yeah, give me just a minute to shut everything down,” I said to Evelyn with a grateful smile.
I quickly shut down the browser that was open on my screen, and then I saved all of my open files before closing out of those, too. I shut off my computer and waited until the monitor went black to stand up. I shifted on my feet and twisted my spine to pop my back before I shuffled out from around my desk to follow Evelyn out of my office. I flipped off the light switch and hurried after her as she made her way to the front door.
“How are you feeling about everything?” I asked in what was probably a less than thinly-veiled attempt to work out my own nerves over the situation.
Evelyn exhaled a thin breath as we crossed into the parking lot of Landon Legal and made our way to her car. She cut a glance over to me as she clicked her keyfob to unlock her damn clown car.
I pretended I didn’t see her look as I made my way around to the passenger side and tugged open the door as gently as I could manage.
Nothing had happened to Evelyn’s car while it had sat unattended on the shoulder of the road, but I still felt the need to walk on eggshells to make sure it remained in whatever Evelyn deemed mint condition.
I squeezed myself down into the car and pulled the door shut behind me as Evelyn adjusted her mirrors.
“I feel like we might be up a creek without a paddle,” she said in a matter of fact way that didn’t do wonders for my confidence. “David’s smart, and he’s got ins with plenty of the community leaders, but I’ve learned not to expect the best with this damn sheriff.”
I sighed, but I didn’t disagree with her. I’d been hung up on all the potentially negative things that could come of our insane plan since we’d concocted it.
Thompson could find some way to discredit David. David could fail miserably and make people like Thompson more. David could flounder and get eaten alive by Thompson. David could do astoundingly well only to be taken out by one of Thompson’s rogue deputies in the dead of night.
Maybe it was a bit morbid, but not enough time had passed for me to suddenly move past the attempt on my own life.
“I’m afraid you might be right,” I admitted.
I bounced my knee in time to the music that came through the speakers as Evelyn pulled us from the parking lot and onto the street.
Town Hall wasn’t far from us, but the drive still seemed to take an eternity. Traffic wasn’t too busy, but as soon as we turned the corner toward the parking lot of town hall, I realized just how many people were chomping at the bit for this election.
The pit that already sat in my stomach expanded to swallow the rest of my organs whole as I realized what we had unleashed. Cars lined the street where the parking lot overflowed, and plenty of people loitered outside the steps of town hall as they talked amongst each other.
Two separate news vans sat in front of the building with their respective reporters speaking toward the camera in what I assumed was a pre-debate clip.
I glanced over at Evelyn with my eyebrows raised toward my hairline, and she matched my expression as she crept down the street toward the mouth of the parking lot.
Maybe I’d been foolish to assume otherwise, but I hadn’t thought that local politics would be so appealing to the citizens of Crowley. I was glad to be wrong, though, because the more people that were present for the debate would only expand the number of our friends and neighbors who would hear the truth about Thompson.
“Shit,” I said in mild awe as Evelyn looped around the parking lot twice before she found a place to squeeze in
between two massive trucks. It would have been comical if I hadn’t quickly realized I was still going to have to get out of the car.
It took a few, mildly embarrassing minutes of maneuvering and carefully holding the passenger side door to prevent damage to either vehicle before I was finally able to pull myself free of the car and plant both of my feet firmly on the asphalt.
Evelyn had an amused look on her face as I walked around the side of the car to meet her.
“Not a word,” I muttered with a shake of my head, and she gave a particularly pleased little snort as we made our way through the throng of waiting people and into the town hall.
A woman quickly stopped us as we started into the building. She was one of those athletic-looking middle-aged women whose age it was hard to quantify. She reminded me a little of Evelyn’s car. Her hair was clearly dyed blonde, but it had probably been her natural color at one point. It was carefully curled around her face and bounced against her shoulders as she moved to step in front of Evelyn and I with a thin smile that didn’t match the power-mad look in her eyes.
“Hi,” she drawled with such a strong twang I figured she had to be putting us on. “We aren’t admitting people to be seated yet. Y’all will just have to wait outside with everybody else.”
She glanced between Evelyn and I with her eyebrows raised, and it took me a moment to realize that they were probably raised from Botox, not curiosity.
I wasn’t blind to the fact her eyes dragged over me in a way that felt like she was looking at a hock of meat. I might have been flattered had her energy been a little less terrifying.
Before I could rebut her statement, however, David rounded the corner from the bathroom and back into the entrance of town hall.
“Oh!” he exclaimed as he walked over toward us. “Don’t worry, Moira, I appreciate you standing guard, but they’re with me.”
He flashed the woman a smile that seemed to melt some of the terrifying glint from her eyes as she very begrudgingly stepped aside to let us pass.
When Moira stalked back to her post at the door, I reached out to clap David’s hand in mine and give it a firm shake.
“I’m glad you two are here,” he said with a relieved-sounding sigh. “Where’s Brody?”
He glanced around as if Evelyn and I were somehow hiding a large, former college football player behind us.
I extracted my hand from his and gestured for him to lead us off to wherever it is he was waiting for the debate.
“He’s on his way over now,” I said. “He was at city hall looking through public records.”
David gave an understanding nod as he led us through what was clearly the debate area.
Town Hall wasn’t that large, and if anything, it seemed like more of a community center than much else. But, I supposed calling it a Town Hall just sounded more official.
The open floorplan of the primary room was now filled with rows upon rows of folding chairs. At the very head of the room was a small platform that I assumed was to be used as a makeshift stage with two separate podiums set up on opposite sides of the stage.
I realized as I was studying the rows of chairs that the town hall floor looked suspiciously like it was once a basketball court that had been poorly painted over, which really just confirmed my community center theory.
David led Evelyn and I toward the door that led to a small room that was stacked nearly floor to ceiling with more chairs and folding tables. It was without a doubt a glorified storage closet, but it seemed to suit David just fine as he lowered himself down into one of the unfolded chairs.
He had a pile of notes spread out on one of the unfolded tables that he’d clearly been poring over for however long he’d been here.
He was dressed differently than how I usually saw him, and for some reason, that surprised me. It wasn’t as if I’d expected him to show up to an official political debate in his running gear, but it was just strange to see him in anything else.
His broad shoulders nearly bulged against the seams on a dress shirt he seemed almost uncomfortable wearing. David didn’t strike me as the sort of person who really dressed up much, and the tag that still hung from the collar of his shirt was more than enough confirmation of my theory. Before I could say anything about the tag, however, Evelyn stepped forward and simply plucked it off with a quick flick of her wrist.
David looked up at her with a sheepish grin.
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said with a laugh inching its way into his tone. “I forgot that it was there. Been a bit nervous, I can’t lie.”
I was somehow comforted by David admitting his own nerves. Maybe it was because it made me feel a little less paranoid to not be the only person concerned with what could happen.
“You’re going to do great,” I assured him with a smile. “Have you seen Thompson yet?”
I fought the urge to glance around the room as if I might find Thompson behind any one of the stacks of tables or chairs. When Thompson didn’t leap out from the shadows, I scratched at the scar on my knuckles like it was a nervous tic.
David pursed his lips and gave a shake of his head with a sigh as he pressed his weight against the back of his metal chair.
“Nope,” he said with a shake of his head. “I don’t think he’s too worried about this whole debate. Part of me hopes he doesn’t even show up.”
I almost laughed at the thought. What would even happen if Sheriff Thompson decided to flake out from the debate? Would David be able to give a sort of speech anyway?
I quickly shook the thought from my head and moved to lean up against one of the less precarious-looking stacks.
“You’re going to do great,” I promised David again. “And it doesn’t matter if you don’t have answers to some of the moderator’s questions. We aren’t expecting to win this election. We just need people to know what Thompson’s doing.”
We’d been over the end goal of the debate a few times, but I could tell that it didn’t make David any less nervous, and I didn’t exactly blame him.
He reached up to scratch at his cheek as he glanced down to skim his eyes over the pile of notes again, like he was searching for something that he might have missed the previous three-thousand times he’d read it.
“I tried to prepare for those sorts of questions, too,” he admitted with a small shrug as he continued to stare at the papers with that laser focus of his I was so familiar with by now. “Figure if I’m doing this, I should really do it right.”
That was one of the reasons I knew David was the right choice for the candidate to pin against Thompson. He dedicated himself to everything he did like it was his job, and I definitely felt a kindred spirit in him.
“We could use someone like you in charge of things around here,” Evelyn spoke up to reassure David.
He flashed her an appreciative grin with his perfectly-straight teeth.
“I’ve already had a few of the pillars in the community reach out to me to show their support,” he added. “I’m surprised by how eager people are to see Thompson dethroned.”
His comment seemed to ping something worrisome in my brain that I couldn’t quite place, but before I could ask him who he’d been in contact with, the door to the storage-makeshift-war room cracked open, and Brody poked his head in the opening.
“There you all are,” he said with a huff as he squeezed into the already tightly packed room. “The crazy woman at the front nearly bit my head off when I tried to come in.”
I let out a small laugh while Evelyn gave a small sniff.
“She did the same to us, but David came and saved us,” I told him with a grin.
Brody adjusted his cowboy hat on his head and gave another huff.
“Well, I would have appreciated a heads-up about that,” he muttered without much heat in his tone as he shifted from foot to foot.
It didn’t matter how much he shifted, however, because we were crowded into the storage room like sardines no matter what.
“I take it you fou
nd nothing in the public records?” David asked Brody and put an end to our ribbing.
Brody looked over at him with a truly penitent look in his eye.
“Sorry, kid,” he said with a heavy sigh. “If there’s anything on Thompson in there, it’s locked down tight. If it even still exists at all.”
I glanced down at my watch as David started to ask Brody another question I didn’t quite catch.
The debate would begin in just over twenty minutes, and I figured that Moira would be opening the doors sooner rather than later to let in the masses.
“We should go find seats,” I said before either of them could fall into any more conversation with David. “Before there’s a mad rush for chairs.”
Brody glanced down at his own watch and heaved a deep sigh as he checked the time. He looked up from his watch and tipped the brim of his hat toward David.
“Good luck out there,” he said with a gruff nod of respect.
David matched his nod and exhaled a slow breath as Brody stepped away from the door to pull it open. It took a few, ungraceful moments for us to wiggle free of the storage room, but eventually, we were back in the main hall.
Just like I’d guessed, the front doors to the Town Hall were now wide-open, and despite Moira trying to guide the flow of people like an air traffic controller, the crowd seemed to be moving of their own volition.
I gave a quick nod of my head to gesture up toward the not-yet-filled front row of seats. I didn’t wait for Brody and Evelyn to catch up before I briskly made my way to the front and lowered myself into one of the empty seats. I then held my hand on a seat on either side of me to keep anyone else from sitting down in them while I waited for my two colleagues to make an appearance.
A few seconds later, both Brody and Evelyn broke through the throng of people and dropped into their respective seats after I moved my hands.
“Can’t say I was expecting this many people,” Brody muttered with a shake of his head.
He reached up to pluck the cowboy hat from his head and situated it in his lap, and I presumed it was so people behind him could actually see the stage.