“We need to go over a few things.”
“Okay…” I said uncertainly.
“Your brother is serving time in jail for drug dealing, am I correct?”
“Yes,” I sighed. “Is that really going to count against me going into this?”
“I’m afraid a case can be made around that.” Victor nodded. “You lived with your brother at one time, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And before that?”
I sighed.
He nodded. “You see, with a small amount of digging, it’s easy to find that you moved in the circles of a modestly well-known drug gang. The prosecution is going to start their case from there.”
I wanted to bang my head against the desktop. “That is my past.”
“I’m afraid that won’t cut it as a defense,” he replied.
“But—”
“Think about it, Phil,” he interrupted me. “You ran in the circles of a known drug gang, your brother is in jail for drug dealing, and now you’ve been found with pounds of hard drugs in your apartment. What does that sound like to you?”
“It sounds like I never stopped dealing in the first place.”
“Exactly.”
“So what is my defense?” I asked. “Because from where I’m sitting, it doesn’t sound like I have very many options.”
“There are always options,” Victor assured me. “We just need to be prepared for what the prosecution is going to dig up—because trust me; they’re going to dredge up things you buried decades ago.”
“Where do we start then?” I asked.
“We start with your drug test results,” he replied. “I have results going back years from when you started working at the station. Sargent Green provided me with all your results, and they’re all squeaky clean. The biggest asset you have in your corner at the moment is your reputation.”
“My reputation?” I asked, with a frown.
“You’ve been a firefighter in this community for a few years now,” Victor explained. “People respect you. There are even a couple of cops in this station who believe you’re innocent by virtue of your reputation. They haven’t even met you personally, but they’ve seen you at emergency scenes, and apparently, you’ve made an impression. If this thing goes to a courtroom, we’ll have lots of character witnesses to call upon.”
“Will that be enough?”
“Not on its own, no,” Victor admitted. “But it’s a start.”
I looked down, wringing my hands together as I tried to be a little positive so that I didn’t drown myself in doubt. But a little voice in the back of my head just couldn’t help thinking that there were strangers who believed me and yet the woman I loved had refused to.
“Don’t look so defeated,” Victor said, snapping me out of my reverie. “I haven’t even gotten to the good news yet.”
“You have good news?” I asked, wrinkling my brow.
“I do.” He nodded. “I managed to convince them to let you out on bail. And because of your clean drug test record and the fact that you’ve been a respected member of the firefighter squad in this town for years, I managed to get the bail amount down to four thousand dollars.”
I bit my lip. “Oh…”
He raised his eyebrows. “I thought you’d be more excited about that.”
“No… I mean thank you, that’s really good to hear, but…”