A Rape in the Belfry Ch. 03

After another night in jail, it was nice to walk into the courtroom, hopefully for the last time. My court appointed attorney was ready to cross examine my accuser and hopefully everyone would see what had really happened that night. Of course I had my doubts about my lawyer.

In the weeks when we prepared for the trial I had gotten a good look at him, but it wasn't until he first showed up with me in court that I got a look at him in his full glory. He was young, still sporting a bad case of acne over his cheeks. His hair was tied up in a braided pony tail, which combined with his sparse goatee made him look more like a drug dealer than an attorney.

His face was highlighted by horn-rimmed glasses that magnified his eyes to an enormous size, making him look like a mongoose of sorts. He wore a yellow polka dotted bow tie with a black shirt and a light blue suit, reminding some of the odd outfits we wore to prom back in the eighties.

Anyway, this was the guy who I was depending upon to save me from this ridiculous predicament. Of course, the first thought that came to my mind was that, perhaps he was the reason this insanity had not ended a long time ago.

Fortunately we finally reached a point where we'd hear what really happened. I watched my lawyer stand up and begin to question my accuser.

"Ms. Bawmorn..."

"It's Mrs."

"Mrs.?"

"Yes, Mrs. Bawmorn. I'm married."

"Okay, Mrs. Bawmorn, you testified you went to a restaurant for dinner with the defendant."

"Yes."

"What was the name of the restaurant?"

"Ah, I don't really know. We didn't give it a name."

"You didn't give it a name?"

"No, we just decided to go to a restaurant."

"But it didn't have a name?"

"Well, no. We didn't give it one. We really didn't need to, we just went in and ate."

"Now when you say you didn't give it a name, was that because you really didn't go to the restaurant, you just talked about it in an instant computer message."

"No, we went there and ate."

"But you didn't really eat, you typed in the words saying these things, not really doing them."

"We ate dinner."

"You didn't eat dinner, you simply typed in an account of eating dinner while sending instant computer messages back and forth with the defendant. Didn't you? In fact, you never really met my client, he never was at a book store, he never kissed you, he never touched you, he never even saw you, isn't that correct?"

"I... I..."

"It was all just imaginary, something the two of you made up..."

"Objection," the prosecutor called out, "he is badgering the witness."

"Overruled," the judge replied.

"If it please the court, the prosecution would like to concede that the testimony the witness offered was, in fact, all a part of an instant message, a collaboration of the witness and the accused on the computer while they were in different locations."

There it was, I sat up in my chair smiling broadly. The prosecution had finally admitted I was innocent. Smugly stacking up my papers, I got ready to leave, confident I was about to be released. "Even my lawyer can't screw this up," I thought while he began to speak.

"Your honor, since the prosecution just admitted to my client's innocence I ask that you throw the case out and release my client."

The prosecutor the stood up from his chair, "Your honor, we have not addressed the innocence of the accused, we have only conceded that he and the witness never physically met face to face. We still have several witnesses to call who can attest to the fact that the accused raped the witness."

The courtroom fell silent and all I could do was laugh. My lawyer quickly rushed over to me and silenced me. I whispered to him, "But this is ludicrous, if I wasn't there, how could I have raped her?"

My attorney replied, "Look let me work this out, just let's not have any more outbursts." He turned back to the judge and said, "Your honor, my client is accused of rape, but the prosecutor has conceded that my client never touched the woman, in fact, he wasn't even there when the rape occurred."

"I want to see both of you in my chambers," the judge replied.