“I doubt it. Evan Pine wasn’t a big player at the firm. He was only on my interview list because he’d been fired,” Keller said. Fired employees were always the most willing to dish dirt.

“It’s a big coincidence, though,” Bob said. “The firm is in bed with the cartel, and the family dies in Mexico.”

“That’s what Fisher said, but it’s a stretch. He’s just using the connection to get us involved with a high-profile case, curry favor with State and headquarters.”

“So you think it was just an accident?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Excerpt From

A Violent Nature

Season 1/Episode 3

“You Fucking Idiots”

BLACK SCREEN

The sound of a murmuring crowd is broken by THE JUDGE’S voice announcing the jury has reached a verdict. FADE IN ON:

INT. COURTROOM VIDEO FOOTAGE

The judge reads the verdict, and the spectator section is a mix of cheers and sobbing. The judge calls for order, when a man rises. He’s pointing angrily at the judge, then the prosecutor, the defense lawyer, his finger landing on the jury box.

EVAN PINE

You fucking idiots! Shame on you, shame on all of you.

JUDGE

Order! I will not have outbursts in this courtroom.

EVAN

He’s innocent. You fools. You fucking idiots!

TWO SECURITY OFFICERS confront Evan Pine, a struggle ensues, and he’s dragged from the courtroom.

EVAN

He’s innocent. My son is innocent!

CHAPTER 8

EVAN PINE

BEFORE

Evan examined the wild-eyed man with curiosity. With the wrinkled shirt and unruly hair, the man looked like one of those homeless street preachers who hold Mass outside the subway. Or an angry cable news pundit on a bender.

“With the advent of DNA,” the man ranted, “we learned something that people still just don’t seem to get: we lock up a shocking number of innocents. And you know what? About a quarter of them confessed. So when people say innocent people don’t confess to crimes they didn’t commit, well, it’s horseshit. And teenagers falsely confess at rates much higher than adults. They just tell the police what they want to hear. One study of people exonerated through DNA found that forty percent were kids who falsely confessed.…”

Evan clicked the mouse on his laptop and paused Netflix. Horseshit. It wasn’t a word he’d normally use. But there Evan was, for twenty million viewers to see. He’d once made the mistake of reading the comments section on one of the forums for the documentary.

The father has lost his shit.

He’s so devastated, he can’t see straight.

Free Danny Pine!

Boo fucking hoo, I hope his son rots for what he did to that poor girl.