“We’re from emergency legal services,” Jasper lied.
The gray-furred man behind the desk, either Clove Archer or Clover Arch, frowned. “I’ve never heard of that.”
“We keep a low profile,” Jasper told him with a wave of her hand. “Otherwise, legal offices would be calling us nonstop, asking for help with trivial things rather than real emergencies. Such as the one you find yourself in. I mean come on, you take on this client and then find out his trial’s in three days?”
“It is ridiculous,” Arch or Archer muttered. One of the small, rounded ears on top of his head twitched.
“And now the guy you’ve assigned the case to is too sick to do anything,” Jasper added sympathetically. “That’s where we come in. We’ll pick up where he left off, handle all the paperwork, and credit for the case goes under your firm’s name.”
“Sounds perfect.” Arch(er?) frowned. “Almost too perfect. How did you even know about this?”
“We have eyes everywhere in the legal world. We won’t bore you with the details.” Jasper placed her hands on his desk and leaned forward. “Just trust us. We’ll handle everything.”
“I just want to know we’re in good hands. Our reputation is important.”
Thea’s fingers brushed the power cord connected to his monitor. “Completely understandable,” she said. “We are listed in the Vala legal database, if you want to have a look.”
Arch/er punched in a site address. As he scrolled, he asked, “What were you called again?”
“Vala Emergency Legal Services.” Jasper shot Thea a glance, and she nodded in confirmation.
“Oh, well, here you are. I suppose that checks out.” He sighed and pointed to a tablet sitting at the edge of the desk. “That’s got all of the case info. Good luck. I think you’ll need it.”
“We’re better than luck.” Jasper grabbed the tablet.
As they left the offices, Jasper scrolled through the evidence in Mechwell’s case file. “Prosecution’s got the tampered footage, the DNA analysis, crime scene photos including the cup, and nothing that makes Mechwell look good.”
“While I was in Arch—uh, maybe Archer’s—system, I sent a message to the jail letting them know we’re coming,” Thea said. “We shouldn’t have any problems talking to him.”
They drove the graffitied van to the jail and parked as far from the security cameras as possible. Mechwell gave the team a startled look when guards brought him into the room where they waited.
“What happened to Smits?” he asked.
“He’s sick. We’re your new legal team.” Jasper offered some jazz hands. “Yay!”
Mechwell wasn’t as excited. He slid into the chair on the other side of the table. “What’s the use? I’m screwed.”
“Don’t give up yet. We think we can solve this, but we need you to answer a few questions to steer us in the right direction.” Jasper set down the tablet and brought up the image of the cup. “Did you drink from this?”
Mechwell’s shoulders sagged. “It looks exactly like the one I had. I bought a coffee from the shop in the building I work at. But I tossed it inside the building, before I got to the alley!”
Jasper lifted an eyebrow. “And why did you go through the alley?”
“My office has an exit at one end,” Mechwell explained. “The bus stop I use is down the street on the other side.”
“And that’s where you went after you left the alley?”
“Yes. And then I went home, only to get arrested the next day!”
“Okay.” Jasper tapped a finger against the tablet. “We can work with this. You threw out the cup on your way out. Someone took it out of the trash, went into the alley, killed Prime while holding the cup, and tossed it aside. They probably entered the convenience store immediately after to erase security footage.”
Thea folded her arms. “Should we try the cashier again?”
Jasper nodded. “Maybe we can jog his memory and figure out who deleted the footage. It will be helpful to have someone to point fingers at if we’re saying Mechwell’s innocent.”
“The murder took place right after Mechwell left the alley, right?” Grace asked. “Maybe he saw the real killer at some point.”
“Good point,” Jasper replied. She looked at Mechwell. “Did you see anyone unusual on your way out of work?”
Mechwell grimaced. “I wasn’t really paying close attention. Things have been more hectic than usual, lately. Not in my department, but in the one next door.”
“And what would that be?”
“All I know is that they report directly Kronos, not Sagev or Si Hera. They’re employed by Governor Starr.”
Jasper raised an eyebrow. “But you’re not involved with any of that. You work in Sagev’s transportation department.” Maybe this had simply been a case of him being in the wrong place at the wrong time, after all. He walked through the alley every day after work, and that made him an easy scapegoat.
Still, the department next door was something to keep in mind.
When the team returned to Sagev and found the convenience store, the same clerk sat behind the register, feet on the countertop, looking bored.
“Oh hey, cops are back,” he said.
“We’re not cops, we’re lawyers,” Jasper told him.
“Lawyers don’t do detective work.”
“These ones do.” Jasper slammed her hands down on the counter. “Now, you were working alone at the time the murder happened. No other employees could have deleted the footage.”
“Yes, I was working alone.” He put his hands up. “But I swear, I didn’t delete anything.” Hesitation crossed his face.
“If you’re really innocent, it would be in your best interest to tell us everything you know.” Jasper leaned forward.
“Okay, fine, I left the store for a few minutes.”
“Oh?”
“That illegal supervillain street race was happening outside. I wanted to watch. I was on the sidewalk out front when the gunshot went off.” The cashier swallowed. “It was slow all day, so I thought it wouldn’t be a big deal if I stepped out for a minute. When I went back in, a boy was leaving. I asked if he needed anything, and he said he’d only been looking.”
Jasper frowned. “What did he look like?”
“He was human, I think. Light skin, curly blonde hair, kinda nervous looking.”
“Aymes Bell?” Holly asked, lifting an eyebrow. “Maybe he is the killer, after all.”
“Do you think he could have entered the store after the gunshot, deleted the footage, and then passed you on the way out?” Jasper asked.
The clerk shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t remember how long—”
A sudden thought made Jasper cut him off. “The race!” she exclaimed.
Eyes wide, the clerk leaned back. “Uh, yes?”
Security cameras in the area may have been lacking, but the race would have resulted in a lot of civilian footage. “Thea, pull up any footage from the race you can find. Search social media. Net posts. News stations. Get anything that was filmed near the alley.”
While Thea got to work on her tablet, the team left the convenience store. They found a nearby Bibi’s to stop in for a break, which for Jasper meant pacing back and forth next to Thea and looking over her shoulder every few minutes. Or maybe a few times a minute.
Finally, Thea tapped the top of her smartsphere, opening a grid of ten different videos. “These are the most promising ones,” she said. “You can clearly see Mechwell leaving the alley before the gunshot. They don’t all have timestamps, but I can overlay the file creation time and the video length on the ones that don’t.”
“Great!” Jasper said.
“There is one minor issue, though,” Thea added. She pointed to the right side of the projected screen. “These videos show Aymes on the street during the gunshot as well. He then enters the convenience store. He probably deleted the footage, but we can’t pin him for the murder.”
“Okay,” Jasper said. “They also have the cup with Mechwell’s DNA. If we can’t prove that someone else took the cup and held it, that still doesn’t look great for Mechwell.”
“Did they take fingerprints on the cup?” Grace asked.
Jasper shrugged. “Even if they got reliable prints, Mechwell’s would be on there, along with everyone at the coffee shop who handled it before him.” Her face lit up. “Thea, could you get into the cameras at Mechwell’s office? If there’s a camera near the trash can he threw the cup out in, we could nab the killer taking it out later.”
Thea sighed. “Maybe. But even if there is a camera in the right position, he works in a government building. Tech security will be tough.”
“Couldn’t we just ask them for the footage?” Grace asked. “I mean, we are the law. Sort of. Hypothetically, if we were going to present the footage in court…”
“Oh, right.” Jasper frowned. “What do we need? A warrant? How do we do that? We’re lawyers, not cops.”
“We’re neither,” Holly reminded her. “And yeah, I doubt they’d let us take their footage without a warrant.”
Thea laughed. “Oh, I could fake a warrant.”