“Mr. Jennings, would you please briefly explain what happened on the day in question,” I asked resignedly.

“Well, first of all, hello, I’m Lance Jennings and I’m an actor,” he explained to the judge, sounding like he was doing a public service announcement. “I was hired to do promotional work for the Bucket O’ Chicken restaurant. I was not informed that I might be verbally abused and attacked in the street!”

“Objection. Nonresponsive,” Braden interrupted.

“Get to the point, Mr. Jennings!” Judge Channing admonished.

“I was simply playing my role out on the sidewalk when a cretin with dreadlocks began calling me a murderer. Like I killed the damned chickens myself! I don’t even like chicken!”

“He called you a ‘murderer’. Did he threaten you in any way?” I asked with a glimmer of hope. Maybe I could at least build a record to support a defense for trial.

“Yes! He asked me how I would like it if someone lopped off my leg and served it with gravy! I was in fear for my life!” There went the glimmer. The chicken was a ham.

“Did he make any aggressive moves?” I tried another tactic. Maybe Orville had missed something. His glasses were about six inches thick, after all.

“Objection! Calls for interpretation,” Braden said.

“Overruled. You can answer,” the judge replied.

“He jabbed me!” He said it like someone would say “I’m hit!”

“He jabbed you?”

“With his finger!” He looked traumatized.

“Did that place you in fear?”

“Objection! Leading in effect if not in form. She’s telling him what to say, Your Honor,” Braden correctly pointed out.

“Sustained,” Judge Channing ruled. “Don’t answer that, Mr. Jennings.”

“How did it make you feel?” I tried again.

“I was in fear of course! God only knows where that finger had been! He looked like he hadn’t bathed in about a decade. I’ll probably get a disease!”

Curiosity got the better of me then and I glanced at Braden, who, as I suspected, was biting his own finger trying desperately not to laugh. He looked away so that he wouldn’t lose it.

“So what happened then?”

“I defended myself by the only means available to me! I pecked him!” Braden suddenly had a coughing fit behind me.

“So the pecking was a defensive move?”

“Yes!”

“Why did you chase after him?”

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head and looking like he was searching for an answer in the very depths of his very soul. “I can only assume that it was temporary insanity brought on by emotional anguish.” Oh, wasn’t that special? Now the chicken was a lawyer too.

“And what happened with the driver of the car?”

“He tried to kill me! That vehicle was a deadly weapon in his hands and then he got out of it and yelled at me very rudely! I knew that someone that uncivilized had to be violent. I did what I had to do.”

“No further questions.” I sat down and thanked the good Lord for creating vodka.

“Mr. Pierce?” Judge Channing asked in a falsely cheerful voice. Braden stood up and approached Mr. Jennings cautiously. I didn’t blame him. Mr. Jennings did seem like kind of a volatile guy even peckerless like today.

“Just to be clear here, Mr. Jennings, you were not actually nodding in agreement with either the man on the sidewalk or the driver of the car at any time. Correct?”

“Agreement?! With those Philistines?! No!”

“You freely admit that you did, in fact, peck the man on the sidewalk and attempt to peck the driver of the car?”

“And I would do it again,” he said in a dramatically hushed tone. I half expected him to stand up and do a sweeping bow.

“No further questions,” Braden said.

“Defense rests.”

“Argument?” Judge Channing was being so calm that I got a little worried. I cleared my throat, stood, and with as much dignity as I could muster did my best to make a professional-sounding legal argument. Or at least one that was less asinine than my client’s testimony.

“Your Honor, my client, Mr. Jennings, has testified that he was in fear for his safety,and not thinking clearly due to the … emotional anguish … he was suffering. I would argue that he lacked the necessary intent to commit simple assault.”

“Mr. Pierce?” the judge asked with a smile. I was getting really worried now.

“Your Honor, I’m pretty sure that he just confessed to assault under oath.”

“That would be my interpretation as well, Mr. Pierce,” Judge Channing said. “Mr. Jennings, from now on I would seriously consider listening to your attorney. I’m going to advise the Commonwealth to add the charges of reckless endangerment and aggravated assault. I’m holding all of the other charges for trial. Schedule it, Wayne! Court adjourned!” He banged his gavel so hard I thought he might break it and then he got up and stalked off the bench.

“This is a miscarriage of justice!” Mr. Jennings cried as the deputy led him away. Wow, what an exit. I turned slowly to face Braden who was sitting at the prosecution table. I saw Adam and Jess approaching from opposite sides of the courtroom.

“Go ahead,” I said to Braden.

“Oh, baby, I just don’t even know what to say.” He was trying really hard not to laugh.

“I’m sure you can think of something,” I said to Adam.

“Too easy,” he said, also obviously trying to contain his mirth. Hey, at least I had cheered him up!

“What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

“Just what I said. Too easy, and too easy is getting boring.”

“Gabrielle, honey, that was just bizarre,” Jess said sympathetically.

“I told that pecker not to testify,” I said through gritted teeth and Braden snorted with laughter and covered his face with his hands, trying not to completely lose it.

Adam started humming the Foghorn Leghorn song, filling in the “doo-dah, doo-dah,” and Braden almost choked.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

We had all left work a bit early that day and met in the parking garage of Braden’s building. I had insisted that we rent a minivan. If there was one thing I remembered from the hellish experience of Girl Scout camp (other than the fact that mosquitoes the size of small poodles existed on Earth), it was that out in the woods it was best to do everything in groups. I might add we needed a large vehicle anyway since we had brought enough alcohol to guarantee that we would all being seeing UFOs by the end of the weekend. Adam thought that the image of Braden driving a Dodge Grand Caravan was extremely amusing, though.