Dark Moonlighting by Scott Haworth Page B

you lying sack of shit! I’ll kill you!”
    I made a token gesture to stand up and
intervene when Kelley lunged towards the witness stand and wrapped
his hands around Sam Norton’s throat. A pair of bailiffs had
restrained the frazzled prosecutor before I reached the melee. Sam,
who had submissively curled into a ball on the floor when he was
first attacked, whimpered pathetically as he cautiously reclaimed
his seat. Even though it was obvious to everyone present, Judge
Yoest announced for the record that Kelley was in contempt of
court. She ordered the bailiffs to escort him out, and futilely
banged her gavel as he screamed and struggled against his
captors.
    “Is the prosecution prepared to continue its
cross-examination,” Judge Yoest asked Alexandra even before Kelley
had been dragged from the courtroom. “Prosecution?” she asked again
to get the young woman’s attention.
    Alexandra, who had been understandably
distracted by her colleague kicking and screaming his way out the
door, snapped back to attention as she realized that Yoest was
talking to her. “What? Yes, Your Honor. Sorry. Um, the prosecution
has no further questions for this witness.”
    “Very well, the witness may step down,” Judge
Yoest said with relief. “Let’s take an early lunch, shall we? One
hour.”
    Yoest banged her gavel and quickly fled to
her chambers. The confused jury was led from the courtroom as
furious conversations broke out in the gallery. The local
television news reporters bumped into each other as they raced
outside to file their stories. Most of the rest of the crowd stayed
seated as they were too obsessed with the events of the day to drag
themselves away. I stood calmly from the table and placed my
folders and notes into my briefcase.
    “I usually eat lunch in the cafeteria,” I
said to Christina as she watched the strange display. “You’re
welcome to join me.”
    Christina reacted quickly to my offer, but
still had to jog to keep up with my pace. A few of the spectators
shouted questions at me, but I ignored them as I pushed my way out
the door and into the hallway.
    “I know you said the triple D case was going
to be exciting,” Christina started. “But I had no idea it would be
this interesting. Did you?”
    “Did I know the lead prosecutor was going to
snap, have a complete mental collapse and attempt to murder my
client?” I questioned sarcastically. “No, that was unusual. What
did you want to ask?”
    “Huh?”
    “Before the trial started, you said you
wanted to ask me a question.”
    “Oh, right. I just wanted to see if you knew
that Norton wasn’t crazy.”
    Her simple statement stopped me in my tracks.
I glanced left and right to make sure no one had overheard our
conversation. Christina’s face was expressionless, and it seemed
that she did not realize what a profound statement she had just
made.
    “What makes you say that?” I asked
carefully.
    “Norton was born and raised in upstate New
York. His family didn’t move to Georgia until he was thirteen years
old, and they only spent three years there before moving up to
Illinois. There’s no reason he should have such a thick southern
accent. Also, his fake alternate personality doesn’t have the same
accent even though the dissociative identify disorder supposedly
first manifested when he was a child. Also, that’s the worst
southern accent I’ve ever heard. It sounded like a mix of bad
cultural stereotypes that failed to take into account the complex
vernacular of any of the regional southern accents. He sounded like
Foghorn Leghorn,” she listed. “Plus, when you asked fake Richard to
speak to Sam he was able to transition immediately without any sort
of trigger.”
    I had been planning on lying to Christina and
telling her that I believed Norton was truly crazy. Her explanation
proved that she had ample brains to match her cleavage. I kicked
myself for underestimating her intelligence on the sole basis of
her awkward social skills.