FORGOTTEN RAGE

January 18th, 1995

“Objection!” Nicholas Mason shot out of his chair in the courtroom.

The judge heaved a sigh. “You are not the trying attorney in this case, Mr. Mason, and while I understand that you are an attorney, in this instance you are to remain silent. Please allow Mr. Marx to state any and all objections on behalf of the prosecution.”

Nicholas slowly sat, shooting the prosecuting attorney a scathing look. He bent over the banister so that Marx would hear him. “Why didn’t you object?” he spat.

Adam Marx turned only halfway toward his friend. “Because I don’t object to the defense attorney’s cross examination,” he harshly whispered back. “The only thing I object to is you trying to do my job for me. Now sit down and try to control yourself.” He turned forward, facing the witness stand and effectively dismissed his friend.

Nicholas clenched his jaw but took his seat. He and his partners had wanted to work this case all the way up through trial, but due to the conflict of interest, the court had demanded he find another attorney to chair the case from outside his firm. His friend, Adam Marx, had taken over and from the beginning assured Nick that he would see justice done.

Nick sighed and put his head in his hands. The case was slipping away. It had been six months since Adam had taken the case and they were losing points left and right. It began in week five of the trial when crucial evidence was thrown out due to contamination, and since then, they’d had one witness change her story, another disappear, and—currently—their only star witness was being ripped apart by the defense team’s cross-examination.

The judge seemed as blind as lady justice herself and the jury had looked bored throughout the entire trial. Nick badly wanted to shake them all and make them see what a son of a bitch Anthony Yates really was. Nick’s fingers ached from clutching the armrests in a white-knuckled grip, why couldn’t anyone else see it? he wondered desperately.

“Hey, Nick, let’s go.” Adam lightly shook Nick’s shoulder.

“What happened?” Nick asked, snapping out of his thoughts. People were filing out the door at the rear of the courtroom.

“The judge called a recess; the jury is deliberating. We’ll be called once they reach a verdict.”

Nick waited for Adam to gather his notes and place them into his briefcase before following him out of the courtroom.

The press crowded the hall. They flashed pictures and yelled questions as they followed Nick and Adam like a hungry pack of wolves, salivating for even the tiniest soundbite.

“Mr. Mason, given the validity of the defense, how can you believe the jury will find Mr. Yates guilty of murder?” shouted Emily Watkins, top news anchor from Channel four. She led the group of reporters, her designer heels annoyingly clicked against the marble floor as she kept pace with them.

Nick squeezed his eyes shut and kept walking, while the morbid slideshow of the murder scene flashed through his mind. Leah, his wife, lay dead in a pool of her own blood. Found on their houseboat with her throat cut from ear to ear.

Bile rose in his throat and he shook his head to distinguish the violent images, but the acidic taste remained, almost choking him.

“Mr. Mason has no comment,” he heard Adam reply as they pushed their way through the throng of reporters.

Nick stopped walking and looked around. The reporters fell silent and watched him. Their ravenous looks should have given him pause but he was too aggravated to care. He took a deep breath and began. “Mr. Yates is a power-hungry politician and I have no doubt that he has risen to his post as city council president through deception and scandal. Given his background as a police detective, he of all people would know how to cover his tracks after committing a murder. He’s guilty. I’d bet my career on it! And I hope the members of the jury remember that the victim here is not Mr. Yates but Leah Mason… my… my wife.” He got stuck on her name but continued. “She lost her life seven months ago at the hands of this monster and I pray to God that he gets punished!” Nick stopped to catch his breath; whenever he spoke of Leah he couldn’t help the rage that built inside.

She was so young, had so much to offer this world. Why couldn’t it have been me, instead? Over the last few months, he had pleaded with the universe for answers, but none ever came so he had dug his heels in and gone after the person responsible for tearing his life apart.

Cameras flashed, and reporters threw more questions out; hungry as ever after being fed the morsels they craved. Adam, however was not prepared to satisfy their appetite. He steered Nick into the nearest office and slammed the door.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.

Nick looked at him. “What?” he asked dully, feeling no remorse over his display in the hallway.

“What? What do you mean ’what?’” Adam snapped, the vein in his forehead angrily pulsing. “What if the jury finds him innocent? He could sue us for slander. Or worse. I don’t think the DA’s office would appreciate you betting their careers on this case, I know I wouldn’t.” Adam’s eyes widened—in what Nick assumed was surprise and regret at his own words—and he backed away from Nick with his hands in the air. Nick looked at him, slack-jawed. He waited a beat before addressing the betrayal he felt.

“You don’t think Yates is guilty, do you?” he asked. “Well shit, Adam, if I would’ve known, I sure as hell wouldn’t have asked you to take on this case!” Nick shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Yates kills my wife and I have to justify my emotions to my best friend of all people. If I were trying the case—”

Adam exhaled and placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder, speaking softly to him. “Nick, she was your wife, which is why I’m handling the case. Normally, it would be a conflict of interest for the friend of a victim’s husband to take such a case, so I was careful not to mention that we knew each other when I was named first chair. I want whoever killed Leah punished just as much as you do, but how can we be sure it was Yates? You’ve heard the defense’s case every day for six months now, and you have to admit, our case isn’t exactly solid.” Nick began to shake again, but Adam kept talking. “I know we’ve had some bad luck with evidence and testimonies, so I want you to be prepared if the jury comes back with a not guilty verdict, okay?”

Nick sighed and shook his head. The pity in his friend’s voice was too much to bear. “Adam, you know how much Leah meant to me. How can you tell me to let go?” He looked up at his friend.

“I’m not telling you to let go. If Yates is guilty, he’ll go to prison, but if he isn’t, the police will continue the investigation. The best thing for you is to not waste time appealing the case and to help them as much as possible. Now I’m going to get something to eat. Would you like to join me?”

Nick stared at his friend and forced a smile. “No, I don’t think I could hold anything down. You go ahead. Meet me back here when you’re done.”

“You sure?” Adam’s hand hovered over the doorknob.

“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll be fine.” All Nick wanted was to be left alone. He had too many emotions to deal with and he didn’t need an audience.

“Okay but I don’t want you talking to the press, and I don’t want you going after Yates, either. Just promise me you’ll stay here—”

“Just leave me the fuck alone!” Nick snapped. “I said I’d be fine.” Looking up at his friend’s face, he knew he’d offended Adam, but he couldn’t muster up the effort to apologize.

“Whatever,” Adam said stiffly. He left the room, closing the door a little too hard behind him.

Nick sat and looked around the office. How the hell had all this happened? When the case began, it was open and shut. But now there was a chance Yates would walk. Nick briefly considered killing Yates himself, but he could never kill another human being, even one who had murdered his wife. Nick wiped at the tears that flowed down his face.

Leah, I’m so sorry, he thought, I should have been there for you.

There was a knock at the door and Fredrick James popped his head in. “Nick, the jury’s back with a verdict. Adam’s been paged.”

Nick stood up and headed for the door. “Thanks, Fred.” Nick walked down the hall to the courtroom. He paused before opening the door and composed himself; a quick deliberation by the jury usually meant a guilty verdict but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. He took a deep breath, walked into the courtroom and took his seat. He clasped his shaking hands on his lap, trying to breathe deep and stay calm.

The courtroom buzzed with anticipation. Nick scanned the room and waited. Soon after, Anthony Yates walked in behind his defense attorney. Yates was the picture of health at forty-seven; six feet two, with a medium build. He wore an impeccably tailored suit, as always, lending him an air of importance. Nick glanced down at his own rumpled suit with distaste. He had lost so much weight dealing with this case and mourning his wife, he had stopped bothering with his appearance months before.

He looked at Yates, whose face was set in a grim expression, but Nick could tell in the way he carried himself that Yates basked in the glow of the press; he was a politician, after all. His lawyer was enjoying the publicity as well, but publicity was nothing new to Paul Cummings.

Cummings and Nick had worked at the same firm until the year before, when Cummings left to work for the DA. They had worked side by side on many cases as prosecutors and eventually became good friends. But Paul had taken on a big case and lost, which garnered negative publicity for the firm. It was because of that publicity that the firm lost a significant amount of business and, in the end, the partners had cut their losses and let him go. Paul moved on to work for the DA where he built his reputation as a defense attorney. He then developed a massive ego and cut ties with everyone from his past, including Nick. Since that time, Nick and Paul had enjoyed a healthy rivalry in the courtroom.

But Paul had taken things too far with this case. Instead of treating it sensitively for Nick’s sake, he had been the most vicious Nick had ever seen him. He guessed working with hoodlums and criminals would do that to a person. One whiff of Nick’s emotional state and Paul had attacked and insisted he represent Yates. Every time Paul was in the same room as Nick, he smiled smugly, which infuriated Nick and wore down his patience.

But Nick wasn’t looking at Paul. His interest was in Yates. Yates, who sat at his counsel table, pompous and calm; Yates who had killed Leah with his bare hands; Yates who might get off and walk away a free man. Nick’s hands trembled harder and he felt nauseous.

Adam asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

Nick looked up at Adam. “Adam—” he started pleadingly but was cut off by the bailiff’s booming voice.

“All rise, the Honorable Judge Melbourne presiding!”

Everyone stood as a short, stumpy old man shuffled out of his chambers up to the bench. Judge Melbourne was an impatient man but was usually fair with his cases. Melbourne took his seat and ordered the jury brought back into the courtroom.

The jury filed in and took their seats, all the while trying to avoid eye contact with Yates. Nick took that as a good sign but held his breath anyway.

Judge Melbourne put on his glasses and faced the jury box. “Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”

Complete silence took over and the foreman—a pudgy, thirty-something man with a bad comb-over and sweat stains at his armpits—stood and replied, “We have, Your Honor.”

“What say you?” snapped Melbourne.

The foreman cleared his throat. “In the matter of the State verses Anthony Alan Yates on the count of murder one—”

Nick closed his eyes.

“We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.”

Murmurs rose from the crowd and Melbourne banged his gavel and called for order. Nick exhaled slowly as he watched the expression on Yates’s face turn from despair to surprise and finally to one of victory. Nick watched him shake hands with Cummings and watched Cummings turn to Nick with his arrogant smile.

“You bastard!” Nick yelled, starting across the room. Several reporters swung their cameras in his direction. “This isn’t finished, Yates! I know you killed her! I know you killed my wife!”

It was Adam’s hand that pulled him back. “Don’t do this. Let it go, man!” he hissed in Nick’s ear.

But Nick shoved him off and sat down. Again, he gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white. The room spun, and he felt sick.

A timeline of images played in his mind: meeting Leah at law school, asking her on a date, asking her to marry him, their wedding day, their beautiful honeymoon in Hawaii, the look on her face when they closed on their first house, the two of them celebrating with a bottle of wine at their favorite restaurant when he made partner at the firm, Leah sleeping soundly in their bed, her long hair fanned out on the pillow and her head resting on her arm. She had looked so peaceful… so beautiful… so… alive. He would never know that kind of happiness again.

Without warning, images from the murder scene flashed through his mind—all that blood, and the way her life had drained away, the way her eyes were no longer bright but dull and fixed. Even in death, Nick believed her eyes had stared at him asking him the question he’d asked himself ever since: “Why weren’t you there?”

Nothing mattered. Not the case. Not his job. Nothing.

Completely numb, Nick got up and, without looking at anyone, shoved through the reporters and left the building.

Nicholas Mason was no more.