The Rich Life

27

The second day in court. I was scanning over my notes, ignoring Adam's presence. The judge looked at me, meaning I had to speak, Dressed in jade-green trousers, I stood up, "Mr Andrews," I said, addressing the prosecution, "Did you find evidence of gunpowder residue on the accused's hand?"

"No, but he could've washed his hands,"

"Was there any evidence that he had?" I questioned, arching an eyebrow.

"No,"

"How could the accused shoot a gun and have no residue? His premises were searched thoroughly and there was no evidence that he had used gloves either. Moreover, Mr Dervishi has a fairly large apartment, and they were at opposite sides of the apartment, which is why he probably could not hear the gunshot,"

"Well am I supposed to simply believe that the victim put on gloves, shot himself, took off the gloves, and died? Your honour, there were fingerprints on the gun. The time of death according to the coroner was 11:50 pm. The police were called at 12:17 am which gave Mr Dervishi more than enough time to clear up,"

"And leave the evidence so visible to the police? Your honour, my client may be dim-witted but he certainly is not that dim-witted to not get rid of the murder weapon,"

"What does Mr Dervishi have to say about the audio recording?" Andrews asked. I sighed. He better tell the truth.

"I said those words to him, your honour. But I did not kill him. What I meant when I said I can't have him around anymore is that he needs to take a break from all of it and relax,"

"Did you verbally assault Mr Blanco?"

Adam shifted uncomfortably in his seat. I slammed objections to the judge and she let it slide. if I really want to start winning, I better keep jumping to my feet as if my life depended on it for objections.

It worked. For a while. Until Judge Coates threatened me with contempt of the court. Thank god for an intervention, I was wheezing. Was it enough though?

The audio recording

"This clip has definitely been edited," Sparks said. Sparks was the nickname of some techno-geek who worked with Dad, "You see, there's a difference in the tone of the rooms. The argument happened in an office, some small room, whilst this part,"

He played the part where Tony begged Adam for his life, "Is made in a spacious room. There was only one person in it, you can tell by the echoes in here. It's tampered with, these two clips have been brought together to make that clip,"

"What about the gunshot?" I asked.

"The gunshot seems to be edited in. It's too close to the mic of the phone to be considered real,"

I thought to myself. The evidence seems to be pointing to suicide. But the prosecution still had one more day of evidence and a witness. Plus there were a few more things I needed to do. I called up the gun centre which Tony and Adam supposedly went to, for the guns and self-defence.

"Hello, this is Amara Khan. I'm calling about one of your former...guests. Adam Dervishi claims to have shot a few targets with you. A Glock is the one he used. October 2017. Can you check if you still have it?"

"Private customer information," She replied.

"Listen to me very carefully. If you do not provide me with this information, you will be summoned as a witness in a very dirty and defaming murder trial. Do you want that?"

I was on hold for 15 minutes. I was about 5 minutes away from offing myself in the bloody Thames.

"His friend that was with him, Anthony Blanco, paid my boss 10,000 dollars for his gun. We no longer have it anymore,"