Soul Mates (27 page)

Lilith and Ty spoke about it the same night he decided he would quit the police force. After all, in order to seize that great reward, one must often take a great risk…sometimes greater. After the pesky trial was over and done with, with which Lilith guaranteed there would be no problems, the sky would be the limit for them.

He told Lilith about the MMA fight he watched in jail and how he hadn’t felt the same ever since. “It awakened something in me,” he explained. “I can’t explain it. I feel like all my life I’ve had compassion for people and everything else, but almost to a fault. Does that make sense?” he asked his wife, not really expecting an answer, so he did not wait for one before continuing. “I don’t know why watching an MMA match suddenly changed my entire perspective on life, but I feel like it
really
has; it’s the oddest thing. I feel like I was being a pussy my whole life and now, I’m finally just catching up with my virility.” Tyler had decided, whether he knew it was with his wife’s irresistible subtle coaxing or all on his own, yes, Tyler had decided. “I still need to provide for us, and I know how to do it in a different way than with the police department. I
know
this would be an absolute gold mine. We would most definitely need to work out the legalities and logistics, but I know we can; I know
you
can.”

“What’s the plan?” Lilith asked as if she did not already know.

“It’s called The Super Chasm.”

Chapter 9

When it came to Tyler’s trial, justice was dispensed swiftly and…well, justl
y–
depending on how you looked at it. The fact that cannot be argued is that the trial took place promptly. Strings were pulled.  

I am not here to determine for you whether or not Tyler Swanson was justified in defending Lilith. I know that you are an adult, and even if not quite an adult yet, old enough to make these judgments on your own and come to your own conclusions.

Tyler was acquitted of all charges.

Now, I am not a legal professional. I know a great many things about the world and her inhabitants, however, I cannot speak judiciously when it comes to the laws that man has set forth to govern his land. What I
can
tell you is that there was an overwhelming uproar of support and sympathy for Tyler in the great city of Boston. Perhaps if information was leaked that he was a resettled New Yorker who planted a flag with his wife in Nevada semi-recently, the support would have been stultified…perhaps not.

Although Lilith was not an official member of the legal team she had assembled in her husband’s defense, she had great influence on the trial nonetheless, as she worked very closely with Tyler’s official legal team outside of the courtroom.

The public prosecutor’s name was Rebecca Weinberg, an alumnus of Bernard Hunter’s law program, the same as Lilith. Weinberg didn’t stand a chance against Tyler’s legal team, which was prepped by Lilith. Lilith had completed numerous mock trials in law school
with
Rebecca (as luck would have it) and
against
Rebecca. She knew her inside and out. She knew her strength
s–
which there were few o
f–
and her weaknesse
s–
which she had had in abundance.

One of these crucial stages of preparing for trial was to strategically choose which jurors to
voir dire
, which is a term (with multiple meanings) that legal representatives use to describe the process of deciding which jurors will be chosen to hear and more importantly, not to hear a case. For your information, in case you are keeping score, or have aspirations of practicing law in some capacity, it also refers to questioning an expert witness about their qualifications as such before they are permitted to give testimony…but I digress.  
          

When it came to the former definition, not the latter, Rebecca Weinberg didn’t know a golf club from a park bench (or a sympathetic juror as opposed to an unsympathetic one.) Tyler’s trial was heard months ahead of when it typically would have been heard, thanks to a relative of a Massachusetts judge who was little more than an acquaintance of Lilith’s in law school, but who had exchanged numbers with her way back when. During jury selection, the prosecution’s obvious strategy was to stay away from police officers, as it is eminently known that blue blood flows together symphonically. An onlooker would conclude that Rebecca Weinberg was discarding that strategy altogether.

Out of the twelve jurors sequestered to hear this trial, eight of them had close relatives and/or friends who served on the police department, who were retired police, o
r–
get thi
s–
were police officers themselves! This is not said in jest, nor is it hyperbole. Rebecca made these decisions as lead council and against her team’s studious, and let’s be honest, obvious advisement, claiming that she had “optimistic feelings about these potential jurors regardless of their police ties. We’ll get them to see it our way; after all, that is our job, is it not?” How stubbornly pompous, which comes natural to many litigators. It cannot be said for certain, but unbeknownst to Rebecca, she
may
or may not have been coaxed into making some of these dimwitted decisions during a friendly rendezvous with her old classmate, Lilith to “kick the ball around” regarding the case and talk some legalese, which was an imprudent decision in and of itself. There is just something about the gaze in Lilith’s eyes, which many could attest to.

As poor as her
voir dire
skills were, her cross examination and prosecution methods proved to be a bit worse. Her pomposity came through, as well as her melodrama. Trying to score points with an unsympathetic jury and making her deceased “client” out to be a victim of circumstance, casting aside all responsibility for his actions, actually made some jurors wince in disgust and disbelief.   

So, a sympathetic jury, strong undoubted testimony from Lilith, who still showed bruising from the incident, and the poor reputation of a well-known recidivist offender measured against the pristine reputation of a Nevada State Police top-cop all came to the sum of an acquittal; and without the mixed animosity that was found in trials such as O.J. Simpson’s.

Yes, with the trial aside, it was time for Tyler and Lilith to embark on the next chapter of their lives together…the beginning of the end.

Chapter 10

When Tyler and Lilith returned to their home in Nevada one day after the close of the trial, Ty had important business to tend to. Not The Super Chasm; getting the ball rolling with his business venture could wait. No, Tyler needed to speak with his parents.

Ever since he and Lilith moved out to Nevada, almost 3,000 miles away, he had not kept in touch with his parents as much as he had promised. It was partly because his work kept him busy, sometimes putting in sixteen-hour days, but it was also partially due to the fact that he knew that his parents did not care for Lilith, and that put him in a very awkward and difficult position. One of the vows in a formal wedding ceremony is to forsake all others and to put your spouse above all others, including yourself. Surely that did not mean to write-off your parents and friends, however, it
must
mean that you now live in a spousal-centric universe. He didn’t even call his parents when he was taken into police custody in Boston. His parents found out through the news. When Ray and Cindy had seen the story about their son on the news and attempted to call him, he was in jail and without his phone. Lilith, however, saw who was calling on Tyler’s phone, smiled and let it ring, and ring, and ring, and ring.

Tyler shut himself into the bedroom, picked up the phone and began to dial, starting with 1(631). He found that his fingers recalled his old telephone number effortlessly. He was surprised to feel a seed of discomfort in his stomach as the line rang. He felt like he was calling a girl for a date for the first time.

“Hello?”

“Mom! Hi, it’s me.”

“Tyler!? Oh my God, are you alright? Your father and I saw the news, are you ok?” Cindy repeated, as frenzied mothers often do.

“Yes, mom, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? How come you didn’t call? Your father and I found out through the news! We didn’t eve
n–
”

“Mom, I was in jail for a night and I didn’t have my phone with me. Lilith had it; I guess the battery died or something.”

“Oh my God! You weren’t hurt in jail were you? Hold on, I’m putting you on speakerphone, your father wants to talk to you too.”

“Hello, Ty,” Ray Swanson said touched with sorrow.

“Hey, dad.” Things got harder, not just one parent to contend with now, but
two
.

“Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t call when this all happened. I obviously had a lot on my mind at the time, but I could’ve set aside some time to let you in on things. I guess I was ashamed and afraid of what you guys might say or think. I still can’t believe any of this. Surreal doesn’t even begin to describe it.”

“That’
s–
” Cindy began.

“Tyler, we’re your parents. We love you unconditionally, you know that. As far as what happened, you were defending your wife. I would’ve done the same thing for your mother. You obviously didn’t mean for him to fall over the wall the way he did, but that was a consequence of a situation that
he
started, not you. It’s just one of those freak accidents.”

Tyler’s eyes began to sting with the birth of tears. He cleared his throat and continued, “I know. Thanks for saying so though.”

“You bet,” Ray answered.

“How are you and Lilith getting by? Are you back at work yet?” Cindy asked her son. Did he detect an ort of loathing in his wife’s name from his mother?
Maybe
not.

“Actually, I’m no longer on the police force,” Tyler informed his parents.

“What!?” Ray and Cindy exclaimed in unison.

“Did they fire you because of the incident? Because you can OWN that goddamn police force if that’s the case. You were acquitted! They c
a–
”

Tyler could feel the panic rising on the other end of the phone as his parents jumped to conclusions, which was not atypical for them.

“No, no, no, I wasn’t fired. I left by my own accord.”

“Why would you do that?” his mother asked.

“There was a specific position I wanted and that I was in line for, but someone else was given the position in light of this incident. I
n–
”

“But that’s
also
not allowed, Ty! You can’t let them get away wit
h–
” Ray interrupted.

“I wasn’t done, dad; let me finish! In light of the incident, the police force suspected that this trial was going to take some time before it would be heard. In the meantime, there are hundreds of cadets at the academy who still need firearms instruction, which was the position I was hoping to transfer into. They went with someone who didn’t have any pending legal trouble in the near future. I can’t say I blame them in their decision, although I was obviously disappointed. I had also told Lilith that if that particular position was filled, that I would most likely leave the police because it just isn’t for me anymore.”

“Oh, Ty…” Cindy vented.

Ray sat silently in the background, shocked at the news that their son has left his job, and sulking that his son made him keep quiet while he finished his thought. His mother, on the other hand considered this a bitter sweet situation. Her son was no longer employed as an adult (the bitter) however, what mother is ever really keen on their son becoming a police officer…especially these days (the sweet).

Even though Tyler
was
great at police work, he was correct: he did not have the correct temperament to be a police officer. Ty was always missing that piece. He was only partially baked with a knock-some-heads-together attitude, which kept him from being the fully baked super-cop. That is not to say that he was not a role model that every cadet fresh out of the academy should strive to be; he was. It was just that sometimes Tyler could be nice and pleasant to a fault, and “to a fault” is what has no place in police work. “To a fault” could get you killed.