Chapter Text
I'm fightin' hard to hold my own
No, I just can't make it all alone
~The Four Seasons, “Beggin”
It had been an exhausting morning.
For starters, the coffee maker in Deigo’s kitchen broke. Admittedly, this didn’t cause him too much stress; he just used the one he kept in the living room to make his morning brew instead. But it was an ominous warning of what was to come.
Secondly, he was late. He’d hit snooze one too many times and ended up rushing out of bed, his hair more unruly than usual and trying to put his pants on while brushing his teeth.
The third thing that went wrong was a phone call. As he was cramming toast in his mouth and fixing his tie, his cell phone rang.
“Armando here.” His normal greeting was muffled by toast, but it didn’t matter; the rough clearing of the throat on the other end told him exactly who he was talking to.
“Ah, Armando, my boy.” Grossberg cleared his throat again. “Er…you don’t have a case at the moment, do you?”
“No.” He swallowed the last bit of toast and grabbed his waistcoat from the closet. “I was going to check today to see if Rob needed any help with that assault case of his. Why? Got something interesting for me?”
“Er…well, you could call it that.” Grossberg harrumphed. “You see, I was supposed to be in court this morning for a murder trial. Unfortunately, my hemorrhoids are acting up again. They’re—”
“Whatever it is, I’ll do it if you stop before you finish that sentence.” Diego straightened the waistcoat with a sharp tug. “What time is court?”
“Er…it’s at…10 am.”
“What?!” Diego glanced at the clock. “It’s almost 9:20 now! I have less than no prep time! Hell, I’ll be lucky to get to the courthouse on time!”
Grossberg cleared his throat. “Well, that’s why I said…it’s quite a large favor…”
“You didn’t say jack shit about—oh, whatever.” Diego sighed as he grabbed his coffee. “Are the files at the courthouse?”
“I left them with the head receptionist, Barbara.” Grossberg cleared his throat. “Thank you, Armando. You’ve always been a dear and valued—”
“Save it. I want an extra four days tacked onto my vacation at Christmas.” Diego sipped his coffee and sighed contentedly. “I won’t settle for anything less.”
Grossberg sighed. “You’ve got a deal. Thank you again.”
Diego booked it to the courthouse. He could feel the coffee splashing out of his cup as he ran, but he ignored it in favor of speed. By the time he arrived in the lobby and picked up the files, it was 9:30. Panting, he glanced around.
“Ho! Hey! Buddy! Ovah here!”
Diego looked over at the man who called for him. His face had a few scars on it, criss-crossing his chin and neck. He had an unnatural tan and a tattoo peeking out of the collar of his shirt. Diego couldn’t tell what it was, but he spotted vines and roses spiraling down his neck. He was fairly short, only coming up to Deigo’s collarbone.
“Hello,” Diego said, extending his hand. The man reached out to eagerly shake it. “Nice to meet you, uh…”
“Zeke! Name’s Zeke!” The man swept a lock of his greasy-looking black hair out of his eyes. “You Grossberg?”
“Well, Mr. Grossberg had an…emergency. He sent me instead. Diego Armando.”
“Oh! You the lawyer they’re talking about in the paper, huh? The one who got that baker off?”
Diego wracked his brain. “…Oh! Yeah, the baker who as accused to murdering his wife. I was his lawyer, yes.”
“Great! Just what I need, a Grade-A shark!” Zeke gave him a wide grin. For a man on trial for murder, Diego thought, Zeke certainly was in a good mood. “Blow ‘em out of the water, eh, big guy?”
“Sit down, Mr…” Diego frowned. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your last name.” He flipped through the file quickly, while Zeke gave him a sheepish look.
“Ah, you can just call me Zeke…” he muttered.
“Ezekiel…oh, no.” Diego put his coffee to his lips, desperate for the boost. Maybe he'd overdose if he drank it all at once. “So that’s why Grossberg jumped ship…”
“Please,” Zeke pleaded. “I know it looks bad, but I swear, I’m outta the game! For good! Look, look, I gotta little girl now…” Zeke fumbled with his wallet and yanked out a picture. “Look it, look it! My Viola’s the best thing that ever happened to me! I got straight ‘cause of her!”
“You’re Bruto Cadaverini’s son. Of course.” Diego sighed. “No wonder they arrested you.”
It was common knowledge, of course, that lawyers who worked with the Cadaverini’s tended to end up either in pine boxes or behind iron bars. Diego didn’t have to stretch his imagination to consider his impending death if the trial went sideways.
“Hey, hey! You got the wrong idea!” Zeke waved the picture around. “I told you, I got outta the game! My pops wasn’t too happy about it, but I haven’t done anything illegal since my Viola was a baby!”
“Zeke, I don’t think you understand.” Diego inhaled slowly. “Your family…there have been a lot of serious accusations thrown around. And the victim was a police officer. This doesn’t look very good.”
“Yeah, that’s the other thing!” Zeke said, shoving the picture of his daughter back into his wallet. “No self-respecting Cadaverini is going to get involved in that! Cop killers get killed by cops, that how the sayin’ goes!” He rubbed his head. “Well, maybe my brother’d be that stupid, but he’s always been kinda dumb.”
“Zeke…” Diego looked over the victim’s information. “Officer Joseph Holland…46 years old, veteran police officer. Found shot in the head with his own service pistol in Brookville Park.”
“Yeah, that’s Joey. We been friends for a long time, too, so I didn’t have no reason to kill him!” Zeke folded his arms indignantly. “Joey’s been patrollin’ my neighborhood for two decades. He’s never once tried to pin a crime on me. He was a swell kinda guy! Why would I hurt ‘im?”
“Do you want me to be honest with you?” Diego asked. “Because you’re a mobster. No one really needs a reason beyond that. Look, I don’t think you understand just how low your chances are. The prosecutor’s office has been trying to take down the Cadaverini family for…a long time. Now that they have you, it’s like trying to get a dog off a t-bone.”
“I’m not a mobster! I’m not in the game anymore!” Zeke put his head in his hands. “Argh! No one ever believes me, ya know? I’m an honest businessman, I swear! I got myself a nice bowling alley and a ball and chain at home. I got a kid! I ain’t gettin’ into trouble and riskin’ all that!”
Diego put his head in his hands. If he were smart, he’d plead out. He could probably get Zeke’s sentence down to 25 years, depending on who was prosecuting. Except…
Except that meant having Zeke admit to murder. By the time Zeke got out, he would probably have grandkids. Might not even live that long, since the Cadaverini’s made their fair share of enemies in prison.
“…Look me in the eye, Zeke.” Diego met his client’s dark eyes. There was a tinge of panic in them. “Tell me the truth. Did you kill Joseph Holland?”
Zeke stared back at him. “I swear,” he said earnestly. “I swear to you, on my mother’s grave, I did not do it.”
Diego tapped his file folder against his knees. “Alright, then. We only have about fifteen minutes before court starts, so we better get on with it. Start from the beginning and tell me what happened.”
Zeke exhaled a sigh of relief. “Alright, so it goes like this…”
By the time court was about to start, Diego was feeling a bit better about the situation.
According to Zeke, he and his teenage daughter had been spending the day together. It was her 17th birthday, so he’d surprised her with a day off and taken her out to lunch. After that, they went for a walk in the park and got some ice cream. They were minding their own business when a patrolman arrested Zeke out of nowhere. Scarce details aside, Diego was cautiously optimistic.
“So is your daughter willing to act as an alibi witness?” Diego asked. He was taking notes in his hasty scrawl. “That’s decisive evidence itself.”
“Eh, well, that’s the problem, you see.” Zeke rubbed the back of his head. “Viola is…she’s a sweet kid, she’d never do anything bad! But she’s a handful. She, uh…she wasn’t with me the whole time.”
Diego sighed. “Ugh, what a headache. C’mon, Zeke, be straight with me.”
He gave Diego a sheepish grin. “When we were walking through the park, she snuck off. I didn’t find her until 1 pm or so.”
Diego glanced at the file. “And Holland was killed at noon. So you were looking around for your daughter then?”
“Yeah, I was just sort of…checking some places in the park, you know? Lover’s lanes and stuff like that.” Zeke shrugged. “I saw Joey, but I never—”
“Wait. Wait, wait, wait.” Diego rubbed his temples. “You saw the victim? And you didn’t think to mention it?”
“Heh…I guess it didn’t seem important?” He shrugged. “What’s it matter, anyway? Joey was alive when I saw him!”
“Yes, but it puts doubt in the judge’s mind.” Diego took a sip of his coffee. “How did you know Holland, anyway? You said you were friends…how’d that come about?”
Zeke waved his hand. “Eh, everyone knows your friendly neighborhood copper!”
“Yeah, especially if you want to avoid him…” Diego exhaled sharply. “Listen, Zeke, there are three people in the world you never want to lie to: your spouse, your doctor, and your lawyer. That’s one of my rules.” He took another sip of coffee. “Tell me the truth.”
Zeke sighed. “Alright, well…a long time ago, right after Viola was born, I was…I was still in my family’s business, okay?” He scratched his head. “Let’s say we were…llama herders.”
“Llama herders,” Diego repeated. “Go on.”
“So my baby brother, Dom, was, uh…herdin’ llamas past the police station. Which is a big no-no, so the police arrested him.” Zeke shrugged. “Life of a llama herder, I guess. Anyway, I may have been…helping to herd the llamas. But the guy who was going to arrest me was Joey. He chased me down the alley and got me cornered. Just when I thought it was all over…he tells me he ain’t gonna arrest me.”
“What?” That didn’t sound like the cops Diego knew. “Jo—Holland let you go?”
“Yeah, well, he said he knew about Viola bein’ born. Knew I had someone on the outside countin’ on me. Told me as long as I straightened up my act and flew right, he’d let me go.”
“And you did?” That was even more unbelievable to Diego. “You left the mob?”
Zeke shrugged. “I’d been thinkin’ about it for a while. Joey just…he gave me a chance. Kinda like you’re doin’ now.”
“Ha!” Diego laughed. “Well, no guarantees about the end result. No alibi, and you saw the victim before his death.”
“Yeah, but I swear I didn’t do it! Why would I kill Joey?”
“Mmm, the prosecution alleges that you were protecting the family interests.” Diego frowned. “A vague motive, but a motive nonetheless. It’s been used before.”
Zeke put his head in his hands. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”
“Possibly. Probably.” Diego sighed. “Unfortunately, that probably means I am, too, because your father is going to kill me.”
“Ah, my old man will…just be careful when you leave the courthouse today, alright?” Zeke patted his shoulder. “Check under your car for bombs, you know. The usual.”
“The usual?!” Diego groaned as the door to the lobby opened.
A morose-looking teenager walked in, glancing around. The girl was skinny and short, with lanky dark hair and pale skin. She looked a bit like she belonged in a horror movie; in fact, as they got closer, Diego thought she looked rather like a walking corpse.
“Daddy? Daddy!”
Zeke perked up. “Violetta! My sweetheart, you didn’t need to come all this way!”
“Shouldn’t she be in school?” Diego remarked, but neither of them heard him. Zeke had pulled his daughter into a tight hug and was kissing her forehead. “Geez…”
“Oh, hey, Mr. Armando!”
Diego looked up from where he sat. There, walking towards him, was Mia Fey. The junior attorney at Grossberg’s Law Offices, she was, at various times in the day, both his competitor and his protégé. Simultaneously bitter rivals and partners in crime.
Metaphorically speaking, of course.
She was dressed down today; expected, he supposed, since it was her day off. But being out of office clothes made her look completely different than he was used to. She was wearing a wrap-around blue blouse and jeans that fit so well that Diego wanted to drop his pen and ask her to pick it up. She'd traded her sensible heels for sensible sneakers today, a comfy pair of black running shoes. Her magatama still hung around her neck, along with the scarf she always wore. But she looked more…relaxed than she did at the office.
Diego ignored the part of his brain that wanted to comment on her outfit (particularly those jeans…) and instead he gave her a sly grin. “Hello, kitten. Come to save me from the lion’s den?”
“Ha! With how much you piss me off sometimes, I might just shove you in it.” She smirked back at him, her hand on her hips. “I came by because I thought Mr. Grossberg was going to be trying the case. I wanted to see him in action.” She held up a little red notebook and pencil. “I didn’t know you were involved in the investigation.”
“Hmph. Well, I’m not.” Diego stretched his arms above his head while Mia sat down beside him. “The old man called me this morning and asked for me to sub in. Apparently, his pain in the ass has now become mine.”
“…” Mia leaned a little closer to him to see the files in his lap and he felt his heart beat a little faster. “This is the one with the mob boss’ son, right? Cadaverini?”
“That’s the one. And the only thing I have on the case is the file Marv left.” He waved the thin file folder at her. “He could’ve at least left me a noose to hang myself with. Save Bruto Cadaverini the trouble.”
“He didn’t even get background reports?” Mia looked surprised. “That doesn’t sound like him…”
“Yeah, well,” Diego said, “just between you and me, kitten, Grossberg probably didn’t want to put too much effort in. This guy’s going to be convicted on his last name alone.”
“But…!” Mia scoffed and angrily took the file to look through it. “That’s not fair! Everyone deserves a competent defense!”
“Ha! Good thing he’s got me, then.” The bailiff called for Zeke and Diego sighed. “Well, kitten, wish me luck. I’ll need it.”
Mia set her jaw as she handed the file back to him. “Please, Mr. Armando. I make my own luck.”