beyondtheblonde | is your lover playing on your side?

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emmett forrest

is your lover playing on your side?

The thing about working for different firms this summer is that it means Elle spends more time on her own cases, less time studying others or hearing about Emmett's. With him at Poolman and her with the D.A., she can't listen to anything about his work anyway. There are a few cases they're arguing that she knows his firm is on the other side of, and she's literally on one of them. If there's anything she knows that they don't or if he knows anything the D.A. has and she finds out about it, it's trouble for both of them.

Both the D.A. and Poolman and Cooke have so many cases they're overseeing anyway that the odds of them actually being on the same one are pretty slim. It's easier, therefore, not to mention what their cases are at all.

So she's really not expecting to see Emmett when she gets to court that morning.

She's only an associate, pulling her weight but not allowed to talk or do anything major. He's an actual lawyer and part of her can't believe he's actually doing this. She works whatever case she gets put on, but he — well, he can't really afford to say no, at this point in his career, but if he had a strong objection, she's sure they would move him to a case where he'd be more use. If he's here, it's because he has to be or because he actually thinks Aaron King should walk free.

She was only in Darrow for a couple of months when King was arrested for murdering his wife, but she's had plenty of time to go over the evidence: the neighbors who saw King return to the building shortly before the shots rang out; the best friend who has sworn in repeat statements that he arrived to find King kneeling over his wife's prone body; the reports from co-workers claiming King had been unusually agitated for days before the murder. With no other suspects and no reasonable explanation for the timeline, the case appears to her as good as closed.

As long as court is in session, though, there's nothing she can do about Emmett's presence, beyond stealing a few bewildered glances. He's distracting, and not just in the usual way, though he looks really good dressed for court. She's almost positive she's the one that bought that tie; of course he looks good. She tries to keep her head down anyway, take notes, pay attention. Just because he's defending a murderer doesn't mean she's going to let herself slack off or get in trouble when they get back to the D.A.'s office. She's still seething by the time she leaves again, though, heading for Emmett's in the evening.

"I can't believe you're on his defense," she says in lieu of hello. "Are you crazy?"

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All Emmett can really think is that the odds of this have to be remarkably slim. Both Poolman and Cooke and the D.A. have any number of cases, more than enough that his and Elle's paths shouldn't have to be crossing, and yet he's spent the day with her on the other side of the room, a situation that he honestly thought would never occur. Even having encouraged her to take the position with the D.A.'s office this summer, they were never supposed to wind up opposing counsel. Still, he tries not to think too much of it. It's not like she has any say in what case they have her working, and though he knows that part of being a defense attorney is bound to involve defending someone who's actually guilty sooner or later, he firmly believes that he's on the right side of this one. There's no reason to make a big deal out of it.

That is, until he opens the door to that kind of a greeting. Any smile he'd have worn is quickly replaced with a look of indignation, and though he steps aside to let her in, he crosses to the table where his notes are laid out. He trusts Elle completely, but he's still not allowed to let her look at any of this, no matter how much he might want to, with the way she sounds, try to change her mind.

"Am I crazy? No, not the last time I checked," he says. "But you sound a little like you might be."

Elle gapes at him, crossing her arms over her chest. "Excuse me?" She has had so many guys call her crazy, and it almost always means that either she's too enthusiastic for them or she disagrees with them. "I'm going to give you a chance to walk that back, because I know you're not that stupid. There is nothing crazy about doing my job, which, right now, is putting guilty people in jail, which he is."

All of the evidence points to it. All of it. She's done her research. She's had to. She may not intend to work in prosecution after the summer, but she's determined to leave the best possible impression behind her when she goes, and that means working even harder than they expect her to.

"Okay, no, the doing your job part, that's not crazy," Emmett says, hands held up in front of him once he's gotten some of his papers put away. He can't fault her for working on the case she was assigned to. But to come in here clearly agreeing, calling him crazy for defending a client he believes firmly to be innocent — well, it's not at all what he expected, and he can't pretend it doesn't get under his skin a little. Elle is good at what she does, better than good. There's no way she isn't familiar with all the details of this case. Some of them may seem damning, yes, but they aren't proof. "But this — I can't believe you actually think he did it."

The thing Elle has learned that summer that's struck her more than perhaps anything else she's discovered by playing for the other team is this: the defense? Has it easy. If they know how to play people, they can win, because all she has to do as a defense attorney is introduce enough reasonable doubt that the jury can't convict. And yes, that's not a simple job. Actually, it can be incredibly tough. But faced with that, the task of convincing a jury that there isn't any reasonable doubt is really freaking hard.

"All the evidence says he did," she says. Everything except the man himself, anyway, but of course he's going to say he's innocent. "The timing adds up, there's motive, he was the only person there. What, do you think she shot herself in the back?"

"The evidence doesn't say he did, it just doesn't yet say that he didn't," Emmett counters, shaking his head. This is probably an argument better saved for the courtroom, but he really hadn't planned on opposing his girlfriend in this case. Having it out now is probably the best way to avoid tensions running too high when they both go into work again tomorrow. Whatever she says, though, isn't going to change his mind. This is going to be a tough win, he's known that from the start, without anything concrete to exonerate his client, but the prosecution's case doesn't add up. What Elle has just said only backs that belief up. "And if his motive was finding out that she was having an affair, you really think he's the one who shot her? In the back?"

"It's a classic crime of passion, Emmett," Elle says, lifting her hands wide in exasperation. "I mean, it's an enormous betrayal. If I found out you were having an affair, I'd — well, I wouldn't shoot you, obviously, but I —" It's an awful impulse, actually, the desire to see someone else hurt in return for being hurt, but it's a fundamentally human one. For some people, it's too strong to control. In this case, unfortunately, the defendant had an unregistered gun to help him go through with it. Except that as she's saying it, she wavers, because that's not exactly what happened.

"You want them to know why they're being punished." She shakes her head. "So she turned away."

"It doesn't add up," Emmett says, shaking his own head in turn. The prosecution's case is plausible, of course — his job would be a hell of a lot easier if it weren't, and he and Elle wouldn't be having this conversation right now, because she wouldn't believe what she's supposed to be arguing — but it's thin, built on a total lack of evidence, a story with just enough holes that he's hoping he can make the jury see it his way, too. In that way, maybe this is a good thing. If Elle can't see it his way based on the facts alone, then it's doubtful he'll be successful in court. "It's convenient, but there's no clarity."

It would help if he knew who did do it, if he had something concrete to point to to suggest it being someone else. That, he has yet to find, though he has his suspicions, but in the meantime, what he does know is going to have ot be enough. "You really don't think, even a little, that there might be another possibility here?"

Elle wants to say of course she does, of course there's a slight possibility. The world is weird and unpredictable and nothing is entirely certain. Except the job of the prosecution is to insist that it is, and in a case like this with no eyewitnesses, they can't afford holes in the case.

"Well, maybe if we could find this mysterious lover of hers, they could shed some light on the situation," she says. "But short of that, I don't see anything else that makes sense." For all she knows, there never was another man, and it was only jealous paranoia that brought about this tragedy.

That they haven't yet found the man Mrs. King was allegedly having an affair with isn't any reason to believe that his client did it, but Emmett isn't going to insult Elle's intelligence by saying so. She's just been doing her job, too, and if this were an easy thing to see through, then there wouldn't be a trial right now at all. None of that is a reason to be condescending now. If they disagree, they disagree, but he believes strongly in his client's innocence.

"And isn't it a little weird that we haven't?" he asks. "There's so much we don't know that it's hard to know very much. And nothing that says for sure what did or didn't happen that night."

"But he's the suspect who makes sense," Elle says. "We don't have evidence to point to anything else either. What makes you so sure he's telling the truth?" They have to hold their clients' trust, she knows that, and that, to some degree, means believing them in turn. But they also have to think critically, and he's on the stand for a reason. Maybe there isn't enough evidence to convict, but that doesn't mean he's innocent, and letting someone go on a technicality doesn't sit well with her.

"I know the guy," Emmett says, frowning slightly, "I've spent time with him, and what evidence there is doesn't add up. Maybe I can't prove he's innocent, but I know he is." It isn't enough, no kind of argument that would ever hold up in a court of law. While he doesn't actually have to prove that his client isn't guilty, just to introduce reasonable doubt, he doesn't want to seem like some gullible fool. He tilts his chin towards her. "You knew Brooke was innocent before you heard her alibi."

"Yeah, and I knew Brooke," Elle points out, and sighs. It's not like the two of them were close or even friends, but it's not like the first time Elle met her was behind glass. Granted, being in someone's class doesn't mean you know them, but she had enough experience of who Brooke was to make an educated guess. "The story just didn't add up. And the prosecution was totally using false witnesses! It's not like we're bringing in fake lovers or anything."

"The story doesn't add up here, either," Emmett counters, biting back a sigh of his own. They could talk themselves in circles going over this, and as much as he'd like to, he can't make her see it his way. He sure as hell can't interfere with her doing her job, or else he'd show her all the notes he has. "Look, I can't change your mind. I'm not gonna try to. If you really think there's nothing weird about this, then that's that."

"Of course it's weird," Elle says, rolling her eyes, "it's murder." People might do it all the time but that doesn't make it any less bizarre to her. She gets being mad or hurt or whatever, but you don't end someone's life for it. That's just crazy. But then, she's always believed a great life is the best revenge. And if things really get that bad, divorce is a way better solution than killing someone. Arms crossed, she sighs. She trusts Emmett so much, but she also knows that sometimes being a defense lawyer is defending guilty people. It wouldn't be the first time he argued the innocence of someone he believed did it. But that's in the courtroom. Outside of it, he's always been honest with her about what he really thinks. He was with Brooke and he is now, and she doesn't get it. "I mean, if not him, then who? Where are the other leads? Where's any evidence it was someone else? She didn't just shoot herself, Emmett."

"Of course she didn't," Emmett says. On that fact, at least, there's no dispute, though the rest is an entirely different story. "But if not him — alright, there's the missing lover. There's the best friend, who's been so adamant about what he saw and how he saw it. There's two right there, and no one's been able to find the former and the police barely talked to the latter, probably because they always look at the husband or boyfriend first and he just backed that up. Anyone else could have known what time he'd be getting home and planned accordingly. There are plenty of other options."

"But why?" Elle asks. Granted, it's the same question she has about this suspect, but for different reasons. Why do men do these things? Why do they feel like they can just end lives because they're unhappy with the direction they've taken? It isn't right. It isn't fair. It's awful that something happened that hurt him, but that gives him no right to hurt anyone back on this scale. It isn't right, but they do it all the time. Why? "Why would anyone want her dead?"

"Why does anyone kill anyone?" Emmett counters, brow arching. "Maybe she was going to break things off with the lover and he wasn't having it. Maybe the husband's best friend was jealous. I'm not saying it's rational, but it wouldn't have been any more so if her husband killer her, either." Murder is murder. They can look for and find and speculate about motives, but at the end of the day, that doesn't mean it makes sense.

"That isn't even circumstantial," Elle points out. "It's purely speculative. You don't have any witnesses or evidence. Any of those could be true, but you need a lot more than maybe, Emmett." He knows this even better than she does. There are possibilities other than the one they're presenting the court, but nothing to support them.

"All a jury needs is reasonable doubt," Emmett points out, "and there's plenty of that." He can win this case, he knows he can, though the fact that Elle is assisting on the other side makes the prosecution seem a lot more formidable than he was expecting. "It's not like you have any of those, either. There's the time he got back to the building, and that's it, and he could easily have still been on his way upstairs when the shots were fired."

Elle finds herself wanting to say prove it like a little kid, but that's her job, not his. He's right, technically speaking. Juries don't always understand things that way even when it's explained to them, as she's read, but theoretically, he has the advantage here. But she's seen those crime scene photos. King's murder may have been motivated by jealousy and therefore he's probably not a threat to the larger population, but that doesn't make her inclined to put him back on the street.

"And that's enough for you?"

"Most of the time, that has to be enough for me," Emmett says. It's his job to try to get clients acquitted regardless of whether or not they're actually innocent or guilty, and though it would be nice if he only ever had the innocent ones, that's really not the way it works. He gets some say in which cases are his, but he's not naïve enough to think that every person he's defended is someone who was just a victim of circumstance or the system. Sometimes, though, that's exactly what it is. "This time? Yeah, it is. I believe him, Elle. It doesn't add up."

"That's not always enough," Elle says. She doesn't mean his instincts, though. Emmett is a good guy. He's a smart guy, and he's a good lawyer, and while she's not entirely convinced, she believes that he believes. That's enough of a start for her. But juries have convicted before on less, and not everyone has the time or money for a lengthy appeals process. If he's right, then he's going to need more than mere reasonable doubt, no matter the letter of the law. "You need something more substantial."

She can't ask him to share, though. She's not on his team, technically.

"And I'm looking for that," Emmett says, as serious as can be. He may have reasonable doubt on his side, but he doesn't want to count on that and he doesn't want to coast through this trial, not with so much at stake for his client. That it will only look good for him as well if he gets a win here doesn't matter nearly as much as making sure the wrong man doesn't go to prison, and he's convinced that that's what would be the case. And if it is, then there has to be that something substantial. It's just a matter of turning over the right stones, looking at things the right way. If she weren't on the other side, he'd ask if she would be willing to look at it all with a fresh pair of eyes. As it is, whatever he finds, he'll have to enter, of course, but this wouldn't be the way to let her know about it when she's supposed to help the prosecutor get a conviction. "I'll find it."

"Well, you're running short on time," Elle says. He doesn't need the reminder probably, but it's what comes out all the same. His instincts won't be enough if he doesn't work fast. "He doesn't have anything for you? Nothing that can prove his story? And if he is innocent —" It occurs to her as she's speaking. "Where did the actual killer go?"

"If there was anything that could prove it, it would be in evidence by now," Emmett says, sighing heavily. He may be sure, but he can't pretend that it isn't stressful, having nothing concrete, nothing except the absence of other evidence to try to convince the jury that his client is innocent. That Elle is working for and agrees with the prosecution, he can't blame her for in the slightest, but that doesn't help, either. "But my theory is that the killer went down the fire escape. Less chance of being noticed by neighbors, or seen by King when he got home. After that, he could've gone anywhere."

The fact that there seems to be no footage of that possible escape route is frustrating, to say the least. Not everything can be under surveillance at all times, Elle knows, but it would help an awful lot if there were a camera across the street that happened to have that window in frame. Then they'd have something to check, a way to know for certain.

"Then what's the motive?" she asks. "Nothing stolen. If it's a robbery gone wrong, she interrupted him very early on."

"I don't think it was a robbery," Emmett says, shaking his head. "Whoever it was, they knew what time her husband would be getting home, they knew how to make it seem like he did it. It was personal." His best guess is still the lover, but they've been unsuccessful so far in trying to track him down, making his job a lot harder than it might otherwise be. If he had something concrete instead of just theoretical, he might stand more of a chance of convincing the jury his client is innocent. "Someone with an axe to grind with one or the other or both. Maybe she was calling off the affair. Maybe that best friend wasn't such a good friend after all."

Elle sighs, taking a seat with a flounce of her skirt. "I wish we could ask her," she says. "But then there wouldn't be a case." It isn't fair, and she thinks that might be much more apparent to her on this side of the aisle. Thinking like a defense attorney, her concern has always been the client. Right now, though, it's hard to do anything but remember those crime scene photos and depositions given about Mrs. King's character. The marriage seemed like such a happy one, but people hide unhappy marriages all the time. In all the uproar over the case, it's the victim who gets forgotten.

"Yeah, if only," Emmett agrees with a sigh of his own, shaking his head a little. He’d be short a case, but it wouldn’t matter. Mrs. King still being alive would be infinitely preferable to all of this. He just can’t let himself get too hung up on it that it gets in the way of his defending his client. It’s already difficult enough for King as it is, having just lost his wife and now being on trial for her murder. The least Emmett can do is make sure that he has the best representation possible, one thing he might then not have to worry about quite as much. "She’s the only person who’d really know what went on, other than the killer."

When she was defending Brooke, it was all about making sure that her client got the best possible outcome. Elle didn't want Brooke to waste away her life in jail or lose her career over a guilty verdict for a crime she didn't do. Her husband is dead and that can't be changed; how Brooke spends the rest of her life could be. She didn't think too much about the dead man or the horrible thing that happened to him. This new perspective hurts a little. Nothing about this job is easy on either side of the court, but she's still certain it's where she's meant to be.

"Just saying maybe it was someone else isn't enough," she says. If anyone at the office knew she was saying this, she'd be in huge trouble, but if Emmett's right, then the truth is way more important. He has good instincts. She trusts him. "You need a reasonable alternative to show the jury."

"I know," Emmett says, and exhales heavily, dragging his hands over his face. "I'm just trying to come up with something that's more than just a hunch." If he's going to, there isn't much time left for him to do it. He's been poring over information until his eyes cross, running on as little sleep as he did when he was a law student, and still he hasn't got anything concrete. If he were the only one with something at stake, that would be one thing, but his client's future depends on his ability to pull this off, and he knows, he knows, that Aaron King didn't do it. "Something that might actually be convincing."

"Someone whose alibi doesn't hold up," Elle says, "or doesn't exist. Their alibi doesn't exist, I mean, not them. They'd be totally useless to you if they didn't exist. But everything seems real solid." He'll have to drill some serious holes into witnesses to get anywhere with the people they've got now, and it's late in the game to introduce a new witness.

"Right," Emmett says, and despite himself, can't help letting out an exhale of a laugh at her remark about it needing to be someone who does, in fact, exist. It's completely self-explanatory, and while it may be hard to find any sort of levity about this situation, that does it, if only for a moment. "I've been over it and over it, and I know there's got to be something I'm missing somewhere. I just have to figure out what."

God, he wishes she weren't working for the other side. He knows full well why she chose the summer job she did, even helped her figure it out, but he could use her help and a fresh set of eyes.

It's so unbelievably bizarre to be facing off with Emmett. Things may be civil now, but Elle knows how heated it can get in the courtroom. Besides, even being on opposite sides of something is weird. They're such a good team that working against him is hard to fathom. But this is her building her own professional reputation; she can't just help the opposing counsel strengthen their case.

"It doesn't have to be just you," she says. "I mean, the rest of your team should be on this." It should be her. That's how they work. That's when at their best. It doesn't feel right, not being able to offer her own input on this.

"They've been trying," Emmett says, "though if they can't come up with anything, I'm not sure how I could." That's not really how it works and he knows it. Sometimes it's just a matter of looking at things in the right way, of connecting just the right pieces; it takes skill, yes, but it can be somewhat happenstance, too. When he's been over and over this, though, it's hard to imagine what he might be missing. More than just about anything, he wishes he could have Elle take a look. The two of them, they just work together. "But I've got to keep trying."

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is your lover playing on your side?

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