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After changing into his jumpsuit, Corbett kept Ayden’s words in his head as he was cuffed and led down the long hall. They stopped in the back room, and he was strip searched and then re-dressed and led out the back to a waiting police van already loaded with three other inmates. He thought about Naomi some more on the way to the courthouse. He wasn’t just bothered by the fact it was possible that an officer of the court could believe in these guys, he realized. What really bothered him was that Naomi could believe in these guys. He didn’t want it to be true.
He and the other inmates were led down another long hall when they got to the courthouse and placed in holding cells. Corbett sat in his for about fifteen minutes before one of the guards barked, “Corbett, Caleb!”
Corbett stood up and said, “Here.”
“Your lawyer needs to see you.” Corbett was once again handcuffed, but this time he was led to a small conference room. The officer attached his cuffs to a table and said, “Be good; I’ll be right outside.”
Corbett was feeling even more exhausted now than he had earlier in his cell. He lay his head over onto the arm that was cuffed to the table and had just closed his eyes when he heard the door jerk open. Antonio Gomez walked in, looking like he hadn’t gotten much more sleep than Corbett had.
“How’s Freeman?” were the first words out of Corbett’s mouth.
Gomez raised an eyebrow and took a seat. “He’s busted up. His nose is broken, his left arm is dislocated, and he got a few teeth knocked loose and lots of cuts and bruises. He says none of that is anything compared to the ass kickin’ you’re gonna get when you get out of here. Oh, and he also said something about you owing him a hundred and fifty bucks for Beyonce tickets.”
“Well, that’s a relief,” he said. “If he wants to kick my ass, and he’s counting up what I owe him, he’s feeling okay. What the hell happened? Did he get made as a cop?”
Gomez laughed. “No, actually, that’s the funny part. The big dude who kicked his ass was from Freeman’s old neighborhood. The guy was a crack addict and his wife was somewhat of a…”
“Loose woman?” Corbett said, phrasing it nicely for him.
“Yeah. Anyways, this guy’s out scoring some crack one night, and Freeman, who was just out of high school at the time, hooks up with the wife. Big guy walked in on them but was too high to do anything. Freeman said he dodged him a few more times before he got the hell out of the neighborhood and headed to the police academy. He forgot about him until the other night.”
“Small world, isn’t it?” Corbett said. He was really going to owe Freeman for all this.
“How are you doing?” Gomez asked. “Are you ready for me to pull the plug?”
“No,” Corbett said in a tone that left no room for argument. “I need to see Naomi Ward, though. Can you see if she’s in court and get her in here?”
“Ward? Isn’t that the public defender you can’t stand?”
“Yeah, she can’t stand me either, so try not to tell her it’s me you’re bringing her in to see. Tell her it’s someone that Ayden referred and see what she does with that.”
Gomez nodded and started to rise, but then Corbett said, “What about Tammy? Have you guys heard anything?”
“No, the director’s got Sam playing the part still. Tapped all of his phones, though, and has him being watched twenty-four-seven so he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
Corbett nodded and watched Gomez leave. He didn’t know what he was going to say to Naomi, but for some reason, he had to know what her fascination was with these guys.
Fifteen or twenty minutes went by, and Gomez came back in, followed by Naomi. She had her long blonde hair pulled into a ponytail at the nape of her neck and was wearing a pair of glasses with frames the same color as her eyes. Corbett noticed how pretty it made her eyes look, but since he didn’t want to think nice things about her, he told himself it was probably part of her strategy to win over the jury.
She stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Corbett and then glanced at Gomez and said, “I guess all of you DEA agents have a tenuous grasp on the truth.”
“I’m sorry,” Gomez said. “He didn’t think you would come if I told you it was him.”
“This is a sentence you won’t hear me say twice, but he was right.”
“Naomi,” Corbett said. “Give me five minutes, please.”
She looked at her watch and said, “Five minutes… go.”
“Do you want to have a seat?” he asked.
“You just wasted thirty seconds,” she said.
Corbett sighed. He wanted to throttle the woman, and he had never thought about hitting a woman in his life. “Okay, tell me what your relationship is to the Aryan Brotherhood.”
Naomi’s jaw dropped. “How dare you? I am an officer of the court. A public defender at that. I don’t pick my clients; they’re assigned to me.”
“My cellmate, Ayden Styles, referred me to you.”
