Chapter 1

“I have something to tell you later”
“What? Why can’t you tell me now?”
“Well… it’ll only upset you further.” I would have pressed her for an answer, but this was my mother. I knew her well enough to know that getting her to say anything meant having to wait until the words escaped from her clinched jaws.
“I guess it can wait then.”
“Have you talked to your brother?”
“No, what’s up?”
“I don’t know, that’s the problem. He won’t talk to me.” I suppose a lot 14 year-olds didn’t talk to their middle aged parents. In Robby’s case his elderly parents.
“Is something wrong? Is he cutting class again?”
“No that isn’t it. I got your father on that and he hasn’t skipped a day since, but there’s something wrong and I can’t talk to him about it.”
“I’m not sure he’d talk to me either” A voice down the hall said to me.
“We’re ready for you Mr. Collins”
“Mom I hate to cut this short but I’ve got to go.”
“You’re working?”
“Yeah, I’m meeting with my client”
“Is it that boy you were talking about?”
“Yeah.”
“Good luck honey.”
“Thanks mom, love you.”
“Love you too.”
I didn’t realize that my pulse had risen a good thirty beats a minute until I closed my phone and was sliding it into my coat pocket. My hands were shaking. I took a deep breath and looked ahead. There was the sheriff’s deputy standing at the door.

Logline and character synopsis

Logline A young lawyer representing a child killer comes to terms with his troubled childhood.

Theme - Life is full of self deception. Joe deludes himself and everyone else that he is strait. Tim’s Family history of abuse is hidden from the community and even within the family it is unspoken, and reality of corporate criminals happens behind the scenes and even those committing the crimes don’t see what they’re doing as something wrong

Players

Joe Collins – Protagonist
Timothy Sutton – Defendant
Thopolis Collins – Joe’s Father
Kevin Lamar – Joe’s Love interest
Lester Drake – District Attorney
Alma Jean Collins – Joe’s Mother
Daniel Collins – Joe’s Little Brother

Synopsis

Joe Collins is a young ambitious attorney given a big case. He works for the criminal division of a large corporate law firm. The case is representing a major client of the firm. The CEO of the company is under investigation by a federal grand jury. Joe is at first astonished at the level of malfeasance and arrogance his client displays. Through interviews with his client Joe learns of many illegal activities that which his own firm in is involved.

But Joe is convinced to overlook them by his boss and mentor Dr. Robert Callaway. Joe wants to be successful in the firm and is convinced that means keeping its secrets. Joe works out an underhanded deal with the US attorney to drop the investigation.

Meanwhile Timothy Sutton kills his father in cold blood. Joe’s mother, Alma Jean Collins is a trying to keep, and Joe’s little bother Daniel Collins, out of trouble. Joe’s father, Theopolis Collins, is dying of Lung Cancer.

After getting the settlement Joe is given some time off from work as a reward. Callaway suggests that Joe go home and visit his folks. Joe hasn’t been home since he left for collage eight years ago and it’s unclear why.

Joe entertains a young woman at his penthouse apartment in celebration. Joe’s car breaks down on the side of the road. An old law school classmate, Kevin Lamar, come to his aid and help Joe change his tire. Kevin and Joe have a strangely intimate and strained relationship that suggests Joe may have sexually experimented with Kevin. He tells Joe he should take a Pro Bono case while he has time off. This conversation suggests Joe to be much more compassionate that he first appears. The reader knows there is much more to Kevin and Joe, but it lies beneath the surface of their interaction.

Joe goes to get a Pro Bono and is instantly despised by the lawyers at legal aid. Joe is clearly out of his league to them and they want to knock him down a peg by giving him the worst case they have. Joe is given the case of Timothy Sutton a fourteen year old boy who killed his father. He arranged an interview with Tim and discovers a very compassionate and average boy. Joe can’t understand why Tim would have killed his father and Tim refuses to talk about it. Joe gets a feeling that Tim Might be abused, but he doesn’t know why and has no evidence.

Joe interviews his friends and goes to them to find out more about Tim. Tim has one friend who tells of a friendly guy who like to do charity work at his church. His friend is unaware of why Tim would kill his father, but suggests that his father was strict and he’d hit him a few time. Joe then goes to meet Tim’s mother she is very angry and hurt when he suggests that Tim might have been abused by his father. The mother inadvertently reveals telling leads, but doesn’t think Tim was abused. Joe has to fight with the people he interviews. Some of the members of Tim’s family even get violent with Joe when he suggests that Tim’s father was an abuser. Joe has never had so much trouble breaking a witness on a case. Joe meets with the prosecutor and discovers there will be no deal. Joe reaches a new low realizing that he is going to fail if doesn’t come up with something miraculous.

Joe gets a call from his mother. A federal investigator has been coming around. His firm is accused of aiding a company in fraud. She begs Joe to come home because his father is dying. Joe is too busy to come home right then because he’s working on a case, but he lies to her and says he’ll come home as soon as he could. After his conversation with his mother he realizes that there similarities in his family and Tim’s.

Joe finally has a breakthrough with Tim when he realizes that his relationship to his father is the same as his own. Joe starts to get Tim to open up. Tim relates a few of his cases of abuse. This part of the story is almost a flashback. He tell some of the story to Joe in the prison, other parts are told on the stand, but the whole story of Tim’s abuse is told in horrific detail.

It started when Tim was young, he was only seven at the time when his father started coming into his room. Tim’s father never forced himself on his son, rather he convinced Tim that what he was doing is what a loving father did to his son. The abuse continued until he was twelve when his parents split. Tim loved his father even though the things that were going on made him feel horrible he really believe that his father loved him.

Clyde gets custody of his son. It is very unusual for a court to split up a family (Tim has a sister) but Tim is having behavior problems due to the abuse. Tim’s mother really doesn’t think she can handle him on her own. When Tim moves in with his father the abuse becomes physical. Tim is living in a hell which is hard for anyone to believe.

One the night in question Tim admit to going into his father bedroom and shooting him in sleep. On cross examination the prosecutor gets Tim to admit that the sexual abuse was not the reason that he killed his father. Soon the jury is looking at Tim as if he was his father’s lover and that Tim was the one who seduced his own father. Then he paint a scenario where Tim kills his father in a jealous rage because Clyde was getting a new girlfriend.        

A Strong Antagonist

Lester Drake is the district Attorney for Tift County. He is not an evil man, but he is close minded. He first doesn’t want to believe Tim was abused and when his own psychologist tells him that Tim is a very disturbed abuse victim, Drake decides to ignore the findings and continue as planned with convicting Tim of first degree murder instead of a reduced sentence such as manslaughter Drake is a conservative politician who doesn’t want to appear “soft on crime” and so he is in some ways a victim of his own ideology. He doesn’t like to loose. He is very arrogant Lester Drake – District AttorneyLester Drake – District AttorneyLester Drake – District Attorne. Drake is a conservative politician Dand cannot accept the different oppions of others. He is also corrupt enough to hide evidence from Joe that could help acquit his client. A diary kept by the defendant is taken into evidence, but Joe isn’t able to tell there are missing pages. With the help of forensic analysis Joe is able to reproduce the missing pages. Drake is brought down by his own arrogance.