Debbie Powers stood in court in front of Charles Edwin, a man who looked drastically familiar to Zac Hanson in every way except for one distinguishable feature--he was right-handed. The trial was edging on and Debbie finally got to the point where she wanted to crack down on this case. She started with the most logical place; the videotape.
"Mr. Edwin, I know it's been a number of years, but have you ever been to a pawn shop in the Bronx?" Debbie asked. Charles paused, then shook his head.
"No. I live in LA--"
"But you've never been to New York? Not for a nice spring vacation in early May?" Debbie asked.
"No."
"All right. Tell me, Mr. Edwin, who was your employer eight years ago?" Debbie asked. Charles bit on his lip a moment before answering. He was obviously nervous.
"I worked for Zac Hanson." Debbie nodded.
"What was your job?"
"I was a decoy--a lookalike for when Zac needed to get out of a situation that involved a lot of people. I worked for him for a good year or two."
"You still look a lot like Mr. Hanson. If I was an average person I wouldn't be able to tell you apart. Why'd you stop working for him?" she asked.
"I was fired."
"Why'd he fire you?"
"He didn't fire me--his wife did," Charles answered. "I hit on her, and she was so offended she fired me. I didn't know she had that kind of power but Zac stood behind it, so I was fired."
"If you had to work with him pretty closely for that length of time, wouldn't you have had to go New York at some point?"
"Well--"
"You just said you'd never been to New York."
"Okay, I've been, but I wasn't in New York when that tape was filmed." Debbie picked up the security taped from the pawn shop, something she hadn't even mentioned yet.
"This tape?" she asked. He nodded. She put the tape in the VCR attached to a television for the court to see. "Before we play it, can you do me a favor and sign your name on this piece of paper?" Debbie put a blank sheet of paper and a pen in front of Charles. "I promise it's just a blank sheet and I'll throw it away when you're finished." Charles nodded. "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, please play close attention to Mr. Edwin as he signs his name." Charles picked up the pen in his right hand and wrote his name. "Thank you." She took the same piece of paper and put it in front of Zac. "If you could do the same, Mr. Hanson. Please watch with the same care." Zac picked up the pen with his left hand and wrote his name. "All right. Anybody notice anything different? Mr. Edwin?"
"Um...Zac is left-handed?" Charles replied. It was obvious he had just learned this information himself.
"Right! He is! Let's go to the tape." Debbie turned to the VCR and forwarded it to a specific portion where Jeff Billet hands Zac paperwork to fill out. "Here we see Jeffrey Billet, the store owner, and 'Zac' at the counter ready to purchase the gun. Here Mr. Billet hands over some paperwork to be filled out. And, if we pause here, we can see that 'Zac' is filling it out with his right hand. Why would left-handed Zac fill this paperwork out with the wrong hand?" Debbie turned back to Charles. "How long did it take you to find a job after you were fired, Mr. Edwin?"
"Almost a year."
"And at the time you'd gotten married and your wife was pregnant, right?" Debbie asked.
"Yes."
"So that's got to be a long time to be without a job. How'd you manage to get by? If you do recall, you spent a lot of money that year when neither you nor your wife was working."
"Yes."
"Where'd the money come from, Charles?" Debbie asked. Charles didn't respond. "How much did you get for impersonating Zac Hanson in this tape?" Debbie paused, expecting an objection from the prosecution. She didn't get one, but Charles didn't answer anyway. "Did you impersonate Zachary Hanson in this tape, and the subsequent tape just a week before Ginger Stevens' murder?"
"...Yes."
"No further questions."
Mike woke up and Jenny was already up, typing away at something on his computer. He looked at the time; it wasn't even seven o'clock yet. He got up and walked over to her. The bruise on her face was fading now but he could still see the pain there.
"What're you doing up already?" he asked, kneeling on the floor next to her. She didn't look at him as she continued to type, and responded.
"I never fell asleep."
"You've been up all night?" She nodded. "What're you doing?"
"I'm writing." He looked at the screen. "Don't read it! It's really bad. I'm not going to even save this."
"If it's so bad, why are you writing it?"
"I wanted to try. My father's a songwriter, my mother wrote zillions of books--most of which she never published--and won an Oscar for her screenplay. They were both amazing. I just wanted to see if any of their talent is in me. It doesn't look like it, though."
"Well they had to start somewhere. You think your father wrote brilliant songs right away? Did you even hear MMMBop?" She cracked a smile.
"MMMBop was a great song."
"Yeah, right. Either way, they were good because they did it so much. I'm sure if you wrote everyday you'd get better at it, maybe to the point where you'd let me read it."
"Maybe. But not today." She closed the document and turned to him. "Look at you. You need a shower."
"So do you," he said. She smiled. There was a knock at the door. Jenny quickly got up and ran into the closet. Mike stood as his mother came in the room.
"Mike, are you--" She paused. "Oh, you are up. Okay."
"You know, Mom," he said. "I'm seventeen. I don't need you to wake me up anymore." She shook her head.
"I don't think so. But, we'll try it. If you can get up tomorrow on your own, I'll stop dropping by."
"Okay." She left. Mike paused, waiting to see if she was really gone before getting Jenny from the closet. "You realize you're going to have to make sure I wake up every day."
"Only you would need Mommy to wake you up for school every day." He gave her a look. "I'll do it, don't worry." He walked to the door and peered out, then motioned for Jenny and they hopped across the hallway to the bathroom. Mike turned on the shower. Jenny began brushing her teeth with Mike's toothbrush. He paused, looking at her. "What?"
"You're using my toothbrush."
"What do you want me to do? Not brush my teeth? You didn't let me get anything from the house. You're lucky I left a uniform here otherwise what would I wear to school? I don't even have any clean underwear--I have to go commando." He smiled.
"Hot."
"Shut up." He took off his clothes and jumped in the shower. She finished brushing her teeth before she did the same.
"Why hello," he said. She kissed him. "Jenny, we have no time for that." She smiled.
"There's always time."
A half hour later Jenny climbed out of the window, down a tree, and landed on the ground next to Mike, who was watching. "You know I totally saw up your skirt that entire time. It was way hot."
"Shut up and drive us to school." She pushed him to the car.
"This would be so much easier if Kris and Taylor were in town." Mike said after getting into the car. "Here." He handed Jenny a cereal bar. She unwrapped it and began to eat it.
"I know, but they're both in LA for the trial. If it's an inconvenience, let me just go back home."
"No! I am not going to let you go back there! The only reason I'm not reporting this is because I know your father will be out soon and it'll be pointless to move now." Jenny ruffled her still damp hair. She usally blow-dried it, but she didn't have access to a blow dryer, and it would be too obvious.
"I wouldn't move anyway. I like being so close to you," she said. "Granted now I'm even closer...but honey how long do you expect this to work? Is your mother not going to notice that I'm living with you?"
"Don't say it like that. You're not living with me, you're just staying with me for a bit." She smiled at his fear of committment. It was cute. "And it'll just be for a bit. I want to be absolutely certain that you are okay at home. I don't want Liz beating you."
"She's not. She slapped me once."
"Twice, and that doesn't include what you haven't told me," he said.
"Michael I've been beaten on before, I think I know how it goes. So Liz has hit me a few times. Thirty years ago that was considered normal."
"We're not talking about a spanking, Jenny, we're talking about a slap across the face which resulted in that bruise," he said, pointing to her face. Jenny put her arms around one of his and looked up at him.
"What about spanking?" He shook his head.
"What is with you today?" he asked. "We already did it in the shower."
"I guess it's the lack of underwear. Totally hot." She put a hand on his thigh. "Can we stop somewhere?"
"Jesus, Jenny, it's not even eight o'clock yet!" She began kissing his neck. "Okay, okay, we'll stop."
Taylor sat down on the stand and looked out again at the audience of the court. He still didn't appreciate being in the spotlight like this, but this time he felt more comfortable knowing the reason he was up there wasn't to discuss his affair with Ginger.
"So, Taylor, how has it ben since your brother's been in jail?" Debbie asked. Taylor thought about it.
"Pretty crappy."
"Explain."
"Well it went downhill immediately. My wife Kris and I were supposed to take care of Zac and Ginger's daughter Jenny. We had her no more than a few weeks before Social Services took her away from us."
"Why?"
"Because, at the time, we weren't married."
"So where's Jenny now?"
"She's with some foster family in the suburbs of New York, where she doesn't belong. She belongs with us," Taylor said. Debbie nodded.
"And how have you been, personally, since your brother's been in jail?" Debbie asked.
"Pretty crappy as well. I have to go on every day feeling like I've let him down because I wasn't 'fit enough' to take care of his child like he asked. I have to live every day knowing he's in jail when he shouldn't be, and I feel like there's something I should be able to do about it," Taylor explained, but cut himself short before he started getting emotional.
"So you care about your brother a lot," Debbie said. Taylor nodded. "And you'll do whatever you can to make sure the truth is uncovered?" He nodded again.
"Yes."
"Well personally I think you've already done it." She walked to her table and picked up two photos. "These are two photos of the defendant and his two brothers very early into their career." She handed one of the photos to the jury and the other to Taylor. "Do you remember this photo shoot?"
"Vaguely, but yes. We were doing so many at the time, they all kind of blur together after so many years."
"That's understandable, but you do remember one specific thing about this particular shoot, am I right?"
"Yeah. We're from Oklahoma, where guns are a common thing, but that's big hunting guns. That's what we thought we were getting into when we agreed to this shoot, but when we got there it was actual handguns we were posing with. We were freaked out but the photographer assured us they were fake."
"Were they?"
"Yes."
"All right. I would like everyone to look closely at the gun in Zachary Hanson's hand." She walked to the evidence table and took out the murder weapon from the brown bag it was stored in. "This is the alleged murder wearpon. This is what convicted Zachary Hanson. This gun--" She held it up and pulled the trigger. As people reacted in fear, expecting a shot to go off, a small sign with the word "bang" quietly appeared. "--is completely fake."
She placed the gun back down on the evidence table and began walking back to her seat. "Thank you, Mr. Hanson. No further questions, your honor."
As Taylor stepped down, he felt a smile cross his lips.