Reunion (The Monkees Family Vol. 3)

Chapter 48

The next day, Mike arrived to pick them up and Dawn threw herself into his arms as he got out of the car. He held her and rocked her back and forth, shushing her and calming her as she wept and thanked him for coming.

"Don't worry, girl. It's gonna be fine. Pete's a mellow guy. He's prolly leadin' the inmates in folk songs right now."

For some reason, this seemed to have a ring of truth to Dawn and made her crack up and she calmed right down. Mike winked at Gabby over Dawn's shoulder and they all climbed into the car. Jan had taken the kids out for ice cream so they wouldn't see Dawn leaving without them.

They arrived at an office in downtown L.A. It wasn't the fanciest of locations, and the office wasn't terribly impressive. But as soon as the lawyer opened his mouth, it was clear that despite his unprepossessing surroundings, he himself was very impressive. He had a no nonsense demeanor and got right down to brass tacks.

"Come on in, everyone. I'm Troy Stallworth; just call me Troy. Old Johnny told me you're an Open City alumna, Gabby. Let's see if I can help you out."

Gabby introduced Mike and Dawn. Mike tried to launch into an explanation for why he was there and what he wanted to talk about, but the attorney just gave him a curt acknowledgment and moved the conversation along. He was not interested in getting into a pissing contest for primacy with Mike and wasn't about to start measuring dick size with him. He just stuck to his field of expertise and pressed ahead, silencing Mike with a firm but polite request that they get on with the purpose of the meeting.

Directing his gaze towards Dawn and Gabby, he explained Peter's situation and his legal options.

"I'm going to be blunt with you, Mrs. Tork. I hope you can hold it together and take it, because we can accomplish a lot more that way." He waited while Dawn nodded her assent. "It's like this, Mrs. Tork. Your husband Peter's landed himself in serious situation. He's committed a felony. A federal offense. That's the bad news. The good news is he hasn't got a record, according to what Gabby told me. That's right isn't it?" Dawn swallowed a nervous breath and nodded again.

"Okay, so you have two options. You can try to fight it and have him plead not guilty. Make the government prove its case and try to say it planted the drugs on Peter or that those weren't his drugs or he was incapacitated mentally and not responsible for his actions or some other foolish excuse. Or you can even try to make him a martyr and say the drug laws in this country are ridiculously harsh and he shouldn't have to serve a day in prison for getting busted with such a small amount of drugs. In my opinion, that's a waste of time and a fool's errand. Okay, so that's option one. Want me to tell you option two?"

Dawn gulped, looked at Mike and Gabby who both nodded and then she said "Okay, yeah, let's hear option two."

Troy continued on. "Option two is this. You get Peter to plead guilty and we try to get him the lightest sentence possible. Given his clean record and his status as a family man and a harmless school teacher with no violence in his history, I think we can get him a minimal sentence."

Dawn stuttered "W-w-what would that mean? W-w-what kind of sentence? H-h-how long? W-w-where?"

Troy put his hand on her shoulder to steady her. "Okay, Mrs. Tork, Dawn. Take a deep breath. This is the worst. Hearing it for the first time. It's never going to be as bad again once you get used to it. They'll probably give him a few months in prison. It will be a federal prison. There aren't that many federal prisons and we don't have any control over where he'd be sent. They're located all over the country. If we can get him into a lower security prison, that would narrow it down in terms of choices, but it would be the best outcome possible for him, so don't get hung up on location."