Quentin "Quill" Everett spent six years in prison for Clancey's death, a span far longer than the court ordered. The DA’s office wanted the Calvary Thief and Quill Everett was one of only two suspects, if not a material witness. For political reasons, they couldn’t bury the robbery with Clancey’s corpse. Quill’s attorney refused any plea bargains hinged on his client’s alleged involvement in the robbery. He presented IQ and aptitude tests, the results of which proved the young man suffered a myriad of learning disabilities, not a candidate for a cat burglar. Psychiatrists called Quill manic and diagnosed him with several mild disorders. This is a simple manslaughter case, the attorney would repeat. But yer boy doesn’t have a leg; he’s got nothing. Frankly, you’ve got nothing but a body; my client says he was there to settle a disagreement with the victim; you can continue to ignore it but that’s his story. That doesn’t explain how Brody Lassiter came to be standing under a bridge at a highway interchange to recover stolen property. We don’t have to explain any such thing; you’ve got former members of Mr. Lassiter’s security force who knew a whole hell of a lot about what he was up to but not one of them knows my client; none of them had ever seen my client before the night the victim died; in fact, they can’t even attest to my client having anything to do with the victim’s death; your only witnesses are a bunch of frightened motorists. We have a police eyewitness. A fat cop running full speed across a plot of land the size of football field. I’ll take that to court. In a snow storm. A light flurry at best. My client acted in the heat of passion; you know the history here. No… no, I don’t know shit; history? what history? yer boy is out there in the middle of the night on a highway median with a highly respected member of this community who also just happens to be under suspicion of connections to organized crime and to top it off, yer boy is the member of a gang—.
A former member.
—of hoodlums who have been known for years to hide under the wing of a rich old kook who used to push people around in this town; but that old kook is on ice now and nobody gives a shit about yer boy anymore; he’s a disease—if you’ll pardon the pun—and nobody wants anything to do with this kid; he’s been hung out to dry; we know Lassiter and Teague were in cahoots; we’ve got the books to prove it. Not my circus, not my monkeys, pal; none of this has anything to do with my client; I’m not telling you how to do your job but your thief is splattered on the highway out there and you should probably just accept that. Well, let’s hear that from yer boy’s mouth. You’re gonna get dizzy going in circles like this.
The frazzled deputy DA turned to Quill hunched in awe at the speed of their conversation, his shirt so white it shimmered in the stripes of angular light reaching through the window. We’re offering you a two year stint for Clancey if you’ll just spill the beans, kid; you take this crap to court, yer risking twenty.
Quill let his tongue hang through his grin for a moment then he wheeled his thumb at his attorney and said, Lawyer.
Godammit.
Quill’s attorney laughed, You’re lucky I’m not pushing for insanity; this is a simple manslaughter case and you know it.
The prosecution presented its entire case in a blistering first day of testimony but by 11am the following morning the judge had to excuse the jury. At 10pm the evening of the first day of trial, Deputy Rex Tolleson (cousin of the Guardian who committed suicide only days after Brody Lassiter) took it upon himself to conduct his own interrogation of the defendant. He handcuffed Quill to a metal chair in the basement of the jail and spent three hours beating Quill’s arms with a club before fellow deputies discovered the scene and TASED the confused and emotional Tolleson into a lump. The ensuing attempt to cover up the offense was a quintessential disaster. A relative of Tolleson’s was called to take him home and keep him there while senior deputies bungled the falsification of Telleson’s schedule in the computers which was immediately discovered by auxiliary staff during the shift change the following morning at 7am which is the exact time that Tolleson’s aunt, the late Guardian’s mother, arrived at the jail, demanding to see the sheriff and the DA and the governor and also added several chief justices of the US Supreme Court to the list, most of the names of whom she pronounced incorrectly.
By this time, after his hasty removal from the county jail, Quill had already spent two hours in an isolated corner of the ER where a daughter of one of the jurors worked as an RN. She recognized Quill from the news and texted her mother, sequestered with the rest of the jury, eating their continental breakfast at the Downtown Marriot across from the courthouse. News of the defendant’s predicament hit the jury as if it were red paint slung from a bucket. The assistant DA’s screams filled the halls of the courthouse. The subsequent voir dier took another month to complete. Testimony took two days. The jury spent forty-two minutes deliberating a guilty verdict and another full day sentencing Quill Everett to two years in prison for Clancey’s death.
The additional four years Quill spent in the penitentiary weren’t entirely his fault but he just couldn’t stop beating his fellow inmates senseless. He refused all manner of association or membership within the prisons and that painted him a universal target. For a time, as his reputation developed, his opponents grew nastier and more formidable but the years crept by and the attacks trickled and he couldn’t remember the last instance he broke a bone or gouged an eye or smashed a man’s head into a wall. Though he couldn’t articulate his feelings, Quill found prison a peaceful and comfortable place, spending his days growing herbs, reading Dr. Seuss, allowing his attorney, now a team of attorneys, to confuse him with details of his pending lawsuit against the county.
A former member.
—of hoodlums who have been known for years to hide under the wing of a rich old kook who used to push people around in this town; but that old kook is on ice now and nobody gives a shit about yer boy anymore; he’s a disease—if you’ll pardon the pun—and nobody wants anything to do with this kid; he’s been hung out to dry; we know Lassiter and Teague were in cahoots; we’ve got the books to prove it. Not my circus, not my monkeys, pal; none of this has anything to do with my client; I’m not telling you how to do your job but your thief is splattered on the highway out there and you should probably just accept that. Well, let’s hear that from yer boy’s mouth. You’re gonna get dizzy going in circles like this.
The frazzled deputy DA turned to Quill hunched in awe at the speed of their conversation, his shirt so white it shimmered in the stripes of angular light reaching through the window. We’re offering you a two year stint for Clancey if you’ll just spill the beans, kid; you take this crap to court, yer risking twenty.
Quill let his tongue hang through his grin for a moment then he wheeled his thumb at his attorney and said, Lawyer.
Godammit.
Quill’s attorney laughed, You’re lucky I’m not pushing for insanity; this is a simple manslaughter case and you know it.
The prosecution presented its entire case in a blistering first day of testimony but by 11am the following morning the judge had to excuse the jury. At 10pm the evening of the first day of trial, Deputy Rex Tolleson (cousin of the Guardian who committed suicide only days after Brody Lassiter) took it upon himself to conduct his own interrogation of the defendant. He handcuffed Quill to a metal chair in the basement of the jail and spent three hours beating Quill’s arms with a club before fellow deputies discovered the scene and TASED the confused and emotional Tolleson into a lump. The ensuing attempt to cover up the offense was a quintessential disaster. A relative of Tolleson’s was called to take him home and keep him there while senior deputies bungled the falsification of Telleson’s schedule in the computers which was immediately discovered by auxiliary staff during the shift change the following morning at 7am which is the exact time that Tolleson’s aunt, the late Guardian’s mother, arrived at the jail, demanding to see the sheriff and the DA and the governor and also added several chief justices of the US Supreme Court to the list, most of the names of whom she pronounced incorrectly.
By this time, after his hasty removal from the county jail, Quill had already spent two hours in an isolated corner of the ER where a daughter of one of the jurors worked as an RN. She recognized Quill from the news and texted her mother, sequestered with the rest of the jury, eating their continental breakfast at the Downtown Marriot across from the courthouse. News of the defendant’s predicament hit the jury as if it were red paint slung from a bucket. The assistant DA’s screams filled the halls of the courthouse. The subsequent voir dier took another month to complete. Testimony took two days. The jury spent forty-two minutes deliberating a guilty verdict and another full day sentencing Quill Everett to two years in prison for Clancey’s death.
The additional four years Quill spent in the penitentiary weren’t entirely his fault but he just couldn’t stop beating his fellow inmates senseless. He refused all manner of association or membership within the prisons and that painted him a universal target. For a time, as his reputation developed, his opponents grew nastier and more formidable but the years crept by and the attacks trickled and he couldn’t remember the last instance he broke a bone or gouged an eye or smashed a man’s head into a wall. Though he couldn’t articulate his feelings, Quill found prison a peaceful and comfortable place, spending his days growing herbs, reading Dr. Seuss, allowing his attorney, now a team of attorneys, to confuse him with details of his pending lawsuit against the county.
Edit 1.6.2019