Elizabeth
21 October 2016
The weight of the crown sits heavy on my head as I look into the open faces of my colleagues. Deputy District Attorney, Timothy Prior - who was the first to present the Parkins case to me - stands phone in hand next to my bookshelf. Detective, Harrison 'Bridge' O'Reilly is also here sitting in front of my desk. Beside him is my intern, Maria, in a simple tangerine, round-necked wrap dress. I don't much care for her wardrobe, preferring muted greys and blacks in and outside of the office myself. Although, my dislike of her choices had nothing to do with their appropriateness for the workplace. My vanity is simply childishly affronted. I'm the best district attorney in the 50 states, why wouldn't she want to dress like me?
The four of us had slogged away for hours for Parkins. Collecting evidence, chasing red tape and bureaucrats, Bridge signing off on every minor or major drug stake out, piling up the middle men just to get Parkins charged with the bare minimum. And now all of that was a pile of ashes in a furnace.
"Okay." I begin. "We're not gonna get Parkins."
"What!?"
"How!?"
Maria and Timothy say at the same time. They are after all the only ones in the room who are clueless to the disappearance of our last two credible witnesses. I raise my hands to silence their questions.
"We're still gonna get him on tax but everything else -well..." The hope draining out of their eyes is heart wrenching.
"Look, I'm sorry. I know how hard you've all worked on this. I know how much you've sacrificed for it and you should be proud of yourselves, we did a good job. You know that. We've given it our all but - -at this stage, we just don't have the witnesses, we don't have the jury. And without them, our paper trails all lead to -nothing."
"Oh, fuck this!" Timothy walks to the door. "I handed that case to you on a silver platter Elizabeth! I told you to close it early. But no, you wanted the whole nine yards, wanted to - what was it? 'Get him for all he's got'- and now what? He's just gonna walk!? This is bullshit Liz. " The flaps of his suit shine blue at his exit, leaving the three of us in understanding silence.
My DDA and I have an aching rivalry that stems from his sheer disgust at taking orders from and reporting to a woman. Every once in a while he'd try to flex his masculinity over me but every once in a while I'd prove that my dick was and would forever be bigger than his. I let him keep the little tantrums. He respected the hierarchy enough to have them privately and I enjoyed gaining the petty one up on him later on as punishment. Someone was about to get a few petty crimes in his case load.
I'm a petty person, sue me.
In any case, his tantrums made no difference to the work when it counted. Prior was useful. He made the department look good.
He was a good lawyer, but unlike me, he just wasn't a great one.
"Well," Bridge gives a deep sigh bracing himself on his knees. "Can't say we didn't try." The burly detective makes to leave.
"Sit down Bridge." I say. The detective sits back down with the huff of an ancient King made stale by the seat of his throne.
We'd lost the mayor's golden nugget. My heart had accepted that reality a few hours after gazing into the lifeless eyes of Connie Whitfield. The same lifeless eyes that showed me that I was wasting my time running after small fish. Now my eyes are set on an even bigger target, Trillium Consortium.
Come next year February, I'm going to be knee deep in international relations as Secretary of State. If I'm going to sell my soul, I want to make sure I leave the investigation in capable hands. I've learnt my mistake from Parkins - Prior was right. This time I won't sit on gathered evidence and wait for the right moment to release it. I plan on hitting Trillium from all fronts, simultaneously - particularly by playing media chicken with them.
