He Defended Her, He Said I Deserved It novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: Darla

I didn't wait for Brantley in the hallway.

I knew what he'd say. He'd say the man was a career criminal running his mouth.

He'd say it softly, and someone would believe him.

Ike caught up with me on the courthouse steps.

He had two coffees. He held one out without a word.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"I heard it."

"He looked at Brantley like they were old friends."

"Clients do that." He looked across Marshall Street. "Sometimes it's because they are."

I drank the coffee. It was terrible. It was the best thing I'd had all week.

"You need a lawyer," he said.

"I have a divorce lawyer."

"You need a mean one."

He pointed across the street with his cup.

Over a dry cleaner, on the second floor, gold letters on a window. DARLA KITTERY, ATTORNEY AT LAW.

"She's lost to your husband twice," he said. "She's been waiting six years for round three."

"Is she good?"

"She beats me at chess every Tuesday and charges me for the coffee."

Darla Kittery's office was two rooms, a radiator that knocked, and about four hundred files stacked on every flat surface.

She was sixty-one, with a silver bob and red glasses on a chain.

She was chewing nicotine gum.

"Sit down, sugar," she said.

Ike leaned in the doorway, which took up most of the doorway.

"Ike says you slapped Brantley Treadway in front of his whole floor."

"Yes."

"Hard?"

"My hand went numb."

She closed her eyes for a second.

"I've lost to that man twice," she said. "A drunk-driving wreck and a nursing home. Both times he made my client look like the one who should apologize."

She opened her eyes.

"Here's what I can do. The commonwealth won't charge her. Fine. I can't put her in jail. But I can put her in front of a jury."

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