Offices of Murdock and Nelson

“Murdock and Nelson, please hold.” The phone rang the instant Becky Blake set it back in its receiver. She picked it up again. “Murdock and Nelson, please hold.”

The bell rang at the entryway, and Dakota North strode in, fists plunged in the pockets of her black trench coat. She looked up at a frenzied Becky and nearly heel-turned.

The phone rang again. Becky picked it up, pointing a finger of the other hand at Dakota. “Murdock and Nelson, please hold.” She put the phone back down. “You. You’re deputized.”

“What?” Dakota looked around to see if there was anyone else Becky could be talking to. “Why me?”

Becky wheeled her way out from behind the receptionist’s desk. “The secretary’s out sick. Foggy’s late. Matt’s at an arraignment. You’re on payroll. You’re deputized.”

“Wait—what?” Dakota pulled her hands out of the coat in a why me? gesture. “You just hired an expensive secretary. What do you need me to do?”

“Field phone calls. I have a dozen people on hold. I have a stack of cases, and all of them are in the waiting room. The arraignment was unscheduled. Matt said he had to take it. Foggy’s . . . Foggy. You know Foggy.” Becky rolled her wheelchair down the hall. “If you have any questions, ask them later!”

“But—” Dakota grimaced. This was not how she planned to spend her Monday morning. The phone rang. “Er . . . Nelson and Murdock, Dakota North speaking. How can I help you?”

“This is the fifteenth phone I’ve called from!” Dakota held the earpiece away from her ear as a voice like bristles on metal rang out. “Where’s Murdock?!”

Dakota stiffened. “Can I ask whose calling?”

“J. Jonah Jameson, that’s who!” the man yelled, toning his volume down. “Get me Murdock—now!”

“Matt’s not in,” Dakota said, feeling her own heartbeat rising. She had a problem with overbearing men, but this one wasn’t around for her to kick into place. “Can I take a message?”

“Yes, you can take a message! Tell him he’s taking my case!”

“Your case?”

“I’m being framed!” Jameson shouted. “Framed for murder!”

THE CASE OF THE BRUSH-TOP MURDERER

By Hunter Lambright

The Coffee Bean

Some days, getting coffee in New York City could be a challenge. Most days, getting coffee done right was damn near impossible.

“It’s supposed to be a caramel macchiato. Caramel! I don’t think you even make any other flavors of macchiato but caramel.” Foggy stressed the middle syllable, pointing at the writing on his paper takeout cup. “This isn’t caramel. It’s—I don’t even know what it is. It’s gross!”

The barista, a twenty-something male with gauged earlobes and a Coffee Bean apron read the writing. “Well, it says right here on the cup that it’s caramel.”

“But that’s not what’s in the cup,” Foggy protested. “Look, I’ll buy a new one if I have to. Just do it right.”

A whistle from behind him caught the barista’s attention. “The problem is the syrup. The machine used to switch the lines for the caramel and the hazelnut flavors. Something about the gears. They never did replace it.”

Liz Allan stepped out of line and smiled at Foggy, holding out her arms for a hug.

“It used to happen all the time when I was in college. They haven’t upgraded one bit.”

Foggy awkwardly entered the embrace. He let go and took a step back, putting a hand on each of her shoulders. “Liz. It’s been . . . a while, hasn’t it? You look like you’re, like you’re doing really well.”

“You’re stuttering. It’s cute,” Liz said, but her face became serious. “When we left things . . . I left it on a bad note. I wasn’t in a good place.” Her face brightened again. “It’s good we ran into each other. Nice seeing you, Foggy.”

“Y–yeah, nice seeing you too, Liz,” Foggy said. Liz turned to leave, her spot long since occupied by a dozen more customers on their way to work. “Wait!”

She turned. “What’s wrong?”

“Are you seeing anyone?”

She looked at her bare ring finger. “Nope. Dinner at Nocenti’s on Thursday. Say 7? Good, I thought you’d never ask.” Before he could agree or disagree, she walked out.

Foggy slumped against the counter. His heart was racing, and the feeling in his stomach suggested that he might be melting from the inside out. He pulled out his phone to enter the dinner date into his calendar. The smartphone screen read the time as fifteen minutes past the hour. “Oh, crap!”

As the door shut behind Foggy, the barista stepped up to the counter. “Uh . . . caramel macchiato?”

Downtown

Hector Ayala blended into the sea of lawyers and assistants easily in a sharply pressed shirt and off-white jacket, his arms crossed as he leaned against the wall. He was a patient man, but he hated time spent in crowds. Stress made him want to cut loose, and the amulets hanging inside his shirt fed into that anxiety. He forced two calming breaths before he spotted the man in the blue suit.

Matt Murdock stood in the entrance, taking in the scene around him. His red-and-white cane wavered in front of his feet and round, red glasses obscured his eyes. Hector opened his mouth to call for Murdock, but, after that moment of hesitation, he was already on his way. The two met with a handshake and a half-hug.

“It’s good to see you, Hector, although I wish the circumstances were different,” Matt said. “The change from our usual environment is nice, though.”

“These days I’m more comfortable in my work uniform,” Hector said. “You know, I always wondered how you do that.”

“How I do what?”

“Find me in a crowd, no need to call you over or anything. It’s a unique talent, eh?” Hector winked.

Matt shrugged, gesturing toward the crowded room. “Let’s call it intuition for now. Why don’t we get down to business? Your nephew?”

Hector grimaced. “Carlos. He’s always been a wild child, but this time he’s been caught pickpocketing. The police found him with stolen credit cards. He’s denying everything, saying some friends set him up.”

“Do you believe him?” Matt tapped his cane in rhythm with Hector’s heartbeat.

Hector shook his head. “I do not. But I believe the boy can change. Between us, he has poderes. Low-level telekinesis, enough to get him thrown straight into the Raft but not enough to keep him safe when he’s there. If he goes in the Raft, there’s no way he comes out alive.”

Matt nodded. “I’ll have to ask him some questions to see if I feel the same way you do.” He paused. “I believe in justice, but if the justice system would hand him a death sentence . . . well, it’s a dilemma, but it seems like an easy choice. Do they have him here in holding?”

“Yes, I was hoping you’d be there for the plea. I can put up his bail, but he was going to go with a public defender. I thought his chances would be much better with you,” Hector said. “He was resistant, always has been when family is involved.”

“Well, I’m here now, and we have just enough time for me to talk to him. I’ll see what I can do,” Matt said.

“That’s all I can ask, my friend,” Hector said. “Thank you.”

“No problem. Wait here.” Matt shuffled his way through the crowded room to the clerk’s window. “Hi, Matt Murdock here for Carlos Ayala. I was hoping to get five minutes with my client.”

The clerk produced a form and held the pen for Matt at the signature line. His scribbles were barely decipherable, but the clerk took the paper with a knowing grin. “Wait here.”

“Nope. Nuh-uh. Fuck this, man.”

Carlos Ayala rocked back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. He radiated with an elevated body temperature. His heartbeat was steady but quickening, and his muscles tensed like a predator ready to pounce.

Matt took all of this into account as he chose his next words carefully. “Carlos, do you know how this works?”

“Which part? The part where my white lawyer lectures me or the part where I get screwed by a jury of my fuckin’ well-dressed peers?” Carlos gritted his teeth. “I know how this shit works, pendejo.”

“You’ll want to rein in your vocabulary on the stand,” Matt said evenly. “Most of the judges, even the ones as pasty as I am, have heard every one of those words in every language. They know when they’re being disrespected. Now, let’s take the kid gloves off, shall we?”

Carlos narrowed his eyes at Matt. His heartbeat leveled out. “I’ll play the game, but only for Hector. It’s all a game, isn’t it? Courtroom chess, and Hector says you’re a grandmaster. You’ve just gotta know the rules.” He leaned in close. “Tell me the rules, Murdock.”

“Now that? That I can do.”

Law Offices of Murdock and Nelson

The conference room at the offices of Murdock and Nelson was full. Matt sat off to the side, fiddling with his cane. The tapping gave him a clearer picture of the faces seated around the table, even as their heartbeats told him who was approaching long before they entered the room.

Dakota North’s brow was creased. Her body temperature was up, and the movement of her nails across the wooden table screeched like chalkboard scratching in Matt’s ears. He made a mental note to apologize to her later.

Foggy’s breathing was erratic. Something had his heart rate fluctuating and the lightly pungent smell of nervous sweat filtered Matt’s way. Foggy was always on the edge of his seat, but this was something else.

Becky Blake sat perfectly still save for the motion of her hands and forearms, sifting through documents and placing them into folders. She was efficient and mechanical, breathing evenly. To her, this was just another case. She was already on the hunt for the perfect legal defense.

Jonah Jameson was a hotbox of energy. His veins pumped on the close side of a heart attack and his skin was hot with anger. Matt’s radar sense gave him a clear image of the tightening of Jameson’s knuckles on the arms of his chair. This was something Matt had seen before. This was not the rage of someone who had been charged with murder. This was the fury of the wrongly accused.

One other figure occupied the seat to Jameson’s left. She sat back with her legs crossed, arms folded across her chest in protest. Glory Grant was used to authorizing checks and signing forms. If Jameson was the hot gas behind the Daily Bugle that got things moving, Glory was the grease that made the gears turn. Today, she had been relegated to the place of a glorified secretary. Her pursed lips and pen-tapping gave away just how annoyed she was at the insult.

“I think we’re all here,” Matt said. “Let’s talk about what we know so we can start digging around, looking for what really happened so we can start building a case. Our client here has been charged with murder. Only his high profile got him out on bail at the arraignment, although that was a narrow scrape. Foggy, tell Jameson what’s next.”

Foggy adjusted his tie and took a deep breath. “Now we’re in a phase where a lot of different things happen. We start gathering information, evidence, helping the police do their jobs if Jonah didn’t kill anyone.”

“I didn’t kill anyone,” Jameson interjected.

“Not the point,” Matt said. “Keep going, Foggy.”

“Well, this is also the phase where we may find a plea offer from the prosecution. Given the high profile again, it’s not likely that we’ll see that happen unless the prosecution comes up short on evidence. But they’re saying they got it on video, so I’m straight-up recommending you to strongly considering taking any plea that comes your way,” Foggy said soberly.

“Absolutely not,” Jameson said. Heat emanated from his forehead. Matt could feel Jameson’s blood pressure rising. “I am not guilty. I’m being framed. I was on the other side of the city when that crime happened!”

Matt stood up. “Let’s take a step backward. Our best chance of stopping this happens at the pre-trial hearing. If we can prove that the video footage is doctored and get it thrown out immediately, anything like that, then we’re in good shape. That’s why what we do starting today is so important. Becky, do you mind walking us through the accusations so far? Dakota is working on getting a discovery file going, but start with what we have.”

Becky pulled out a handful of folders. She was meticulously organized. Matt recognized the scent of the different colors of ink if not the colors themselves. Red was state’s evidence. Green was anything that they had gathered themselves. Purple folders were paperwork for the court, and so on.

“Here’s what we’ve got,” Becky said. “I’m looking at the case, and it almost entirely relies on some footage that looks like Jameson. To be honest, I’m shocked he’s sitting with us right now, but they never got his face clearly—er, whoever this is.”

Jameson growled.

“Problem, Mr. Jameson?” Matt asked. He could sense the veins in Jameson’s neck swelling at what he perceived as a slip-up by Becky.

“No, keep going,” Glory said. She put a hand on Jameson’s forearm. “I don’t want to overstep, but the only way this keeps going smoothly is if you at least pretend that you believe they’re on your side here, Jonah.”

Jameson harrumphed and leaned further back in his chair.

Matt stood up. “It’s clear to me that we’ve got two very different narratives here. I’m with Jonah on the assumption that his story is true. Our first course of action is to find any corroborating video footage of Jonah that puts him anywhere but the crime scene. We believe Mr. Jameson. Now we need to find evidence that would convince a judge to throw the case out. Dakota?”

“On it,” Dakota said. “Anything to get out of secretary duty.”

“That won’t happen again, Dakota,” Matt said. “You’re way more vital to us than that, but thanks for helping out.”

Dakota rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad to have a task that keeps me on my feet now.” She turned to Jameson. “Do you have a log of where you were this morning?”

“Glory has everything,” Jameson said. “She’ll be accompanying you. I’d like her to keep my full itinerary to herself, if that’s okay.”

“In the interest of full disclosure—” Foggy started.

“Full disclosure? Even you have to be smarter than that, Mr. Nelson. I’m being framed for murder, so my itinerary stays with Glory and no one else. Understood?” Jameson’s nostrils flared and his face flushed a deeper shade of scarlet.

Dakota raised an eyebrow toward Glory. “Y’know, I’m not much for having a sidekick.”

Glory responded with a good-natured smile. “How do you know I’m not the hero?”

“I like her,” Dakota said, jerking a thumb at Glory.

“Glad you’re getting along,” Matt said. He rested his hands at the top of his cane. “Becky, we’ll need you to file Mr. Jameson’s paperwork. And Mr. Jameson, you really ought to get back to the paper. I understand that you’ll want to control how this story comes out.”

Jameson harrumphed again and stood up. “I’ll see what Urich can do. Chances are he’s already written it, the overachieving sonuvagun.”

“Can you trust us here, Mr. Jameson?” Matt asked.

There was a long pause. “Do I really have any other choice?”

Foggy shut the door, opened his eyes wide, and whistled. “What do you think, Matt?”

Matt took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We’re missing a huge piece of the story. Do you think it’s odd that Jameson didn’t want to know anything about who he supposedly killed?”

“I think it’s odd, sure.” Foggy’s molars crunched together. “Actually, I want to know why we didn’t make it part of our file. You know I hate it when you don’t tell me stuff, Matt.”

“Well that’s the thing, Foggy. They haven’t told me anything about this guy. There’s video of Jameson killing the guy, but with what weapon? Details are scant here. Did he beat him bloody? Was it a knife? We need to see the video, and more than anything we need a look at this guy’s toe tag. Who was he? Did he and Jameson know each other?” Matt paused. “I know that’s normally Dakota’s thing, but I think we need all hands on deck here. Let’s take the day, focus on this case. What do you think?”

Foggy began wringing his hands. “You know how I feel about time crunching.”

“We’ve established that you’re a man of many neuroses, yes.”

“Then . . . yeah, let’s do it. The sooner we get Jameson out of our lives, the better,” Foggy said.

Matt nodded. “I get the feeling that he’s a good man underneath it all. Now we just have to prove it.”

If there was one thing that bothered Becky Blake about being in a wheelchair, it was that the need to use both hands hampered her ability to multitask. Like most lawyers, she was used to having her hands moving on seven different cases at once. She refused to rent a driver, which meant that time spent moving was time she couldn’t move on her cases.

“Next time, Foggy gets paperwork duty,” she muttered, reaching back to grab the wheels again, eyes focused forward. They said that if Becky had one weakness in the courtroom, it was her laser focus.  If anyone at the firm had the power of looking forward, it was her. Sometimes, though, it cost her some focus on the periphery.

Her mind was so focused on turning over every tile of the Jameson case that she dismissed the rising noise of her fellow pedestrians until it was right behind her, chased by snarls and pounding footsteps. Becky gripped both wheels hard and pushed forward on the left to turn 90 degrees to the left, only to watch yellow and black spotted fur sail over her lap. The claws of the creature’s feline feet caught the arm of the wheelchair and sent Becky tumbling out.

She looked up to see the cat-man roll and spring to its feet. “The Cheetah?”

Cheetah snarled. Becky recognized the costume, but the face was different. The Cheetah of old was humanlike and hair-covered. This Cheetah was more feline than man.

Becky’s eyes met the Cheetah’s. His pupils constricted, and then he leaped. In a single bound he was on Becky, breathing hot, sticky air on her face. He traced a single nail down her cheek. “Tell Murdock we are coming for him.”

Then his weight disappeared from her chest, followed closely by the stench of ozone. Becky heard the sound of flesh against metal and stone. Becky pushed herself up onto her right elbow to see a man encased in red, white, and blue armor place an open palm on the Cheetah’s chest, holding him against the side of a brownstone. The Cheetah swiped at the man. In response, electrical energy spiraled down the man’s arm into the Cheetah’s chest. Wisps of smoke trailed from the Cheetah’s fur as he slumped to the ground.

The man held his left hand out and pointed it at Cheetah’s torso. A metal tube shot out and pinned the unconscious Cheetah’s arms to his body. A second tube pinned his ankles together.

Satisfied, the man turned around. Rocket fire ignited in the heels of his boots and in his palms so that he hovered a few inches above the ground. He dropped back to the ground next to Becky. “Are you hurt, ma’am?”

“No, just shaken,” Becky said, straightening her glasses.

The man set her wheelchair upright and tested it. The right wheel wobbled, but it would work well enough to get her back to the office. He gestured to the chair, his smile the only feature distinguishable under his golden mask. “May I?”

Practicality won out over Becky’s pride. She nodded. The man lifted her up into the chair. “I need to wait for the authorities to fill out a report. If you want to wait, I can give you a lift wherever you were going.”

“I’ll be fine, thank you,” Becky said. She reached back for her bag and fished out a business card. “I’m sure they’ll have questions, but I need to get back and talk to the boss.”

She paused.

“I’ve never heard of you before. Who are you?”

“I’m new. Call me American Son.”

Ben Urich held his hat to his head as he stepped onto the roof of the Daily Bugle. Urich was the whole package when it came to reporting on super-crime, sporting his yellow shirt, blue tie, trench coat and matching hat. He’d seen more than his fair of cigarettes through to the short end, and he was half an hour past needing his next cup of coffee.

“Why can’t we ever meet someone normal? I have a nice cubicle. You have a nice office. Life could be easier, Daredevil,” Urich called out.

Matt leapt off the top of the doorway, somersaulting before sticking the landing in front of Urich. “Sorry, Ben. You know how I am about aesthetics. What’s got you so grouchy?”

Ben frowned and stowed his hat inside his coat. “They have a new kid on the beat with me. She’s smart as a whip and way better at the technical side of this than I am nowadays. She beat me to a scoop on a crime ring that’s been reverse-engineering super-villain tech that they find in the rubble after big super-fights. I gave her a lashing on the etiquette of scooping your mentor, and now I just feel like a jerk. It’s been a lousy day.” He narrowed his eyebrows at Matt. “Are you about to make it even lousier?”

“I might be,” Matt said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t asking to meet under better circumstances.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather go bowling next time,” Urich wisecracked.

Matt cracked a grin. “I’ll keep that in mind. So you’re already aware of the Jameson situation?”

“Hottest gossip around the building right now,” Urich said. “I’ve done some digging. They’re saying he knifed a guy in an alley, but details beyond that are sparse. I tell you, though, the D.A. sounds like he’s out for blood on this one.”

“Good to know,” Matt said. “The knife is new information too. Prosecution is doing as prosecution does on a high profile case. Chances are I’m not going to see an autopsy until the end of the window and even then it’ll be buried in a mountain of paperwork.”

Urich nodded. “I’ll say, as a boss Jameson was one of the biggest pains in the ass I’ve ever met. But I’d never in a million years bet on him being a murderer. This stinks of something else.”

“That’s the impression I’ve been getting as well,” Matt said. “If you find anything else out, I’d appreciate a heads-up . . . but I’d also be lying if I said that was all I was here about.”

“I had a hunch,” Urich said. “What are we looking at?”

“There was an incident earlier today. One of my partners, Becky Blake, was attacked by the Cheetah.”

“Cheetah? I thought the Scourge killed him.”

“New Cheetah, as far as I can tell,” Matt said. “More cat-like, some kind of genetic tampering going on. The problem is, he attacked someone connected to Matt Murdock. A Daredevil villain attacked a Murdock connection.”

Urich chewed this over in his head for a moment. Matt could hear the change in tone as Ben dropped the tough reporter talk for a moment and spoke as a friend. “Tell me what you need, Matt.”

Matt stepped closer. “I need you to dig into this. Find out who has accessed certain files, see who I could have pissed off as a lawyer. He said ‘we’ to Becky. He’s not the only one out there, and we need to figure out who else there is, where the connection sprung up. If there’s no possible connection between this Cheetah and Matt Murdock . . .”

Ben put his hand on Matt’s shoulder. “Then we need to find out who else knows that Matt Murdock is Daredevil.”

To be continued!

Case Notes

This is the first story I have written for Marvel Omega in (oh my god) almost two years. This is the first story I have written at all since October 2014.

If there is rust, I apologize. I can feel the clunkiness of my prose in my fingertips, but I thought it was time to stop fiddling and move on, and try to make the next story even better.

I’ve been looking forward to writing Matt’s world for a long time now. Forgive any missteps with the legal system that I have, or write them off as changes to the legal system due to the high incidence of supervillain crime. (I mean, who ever heard of such a quick arraignment without Jameson complaining about bail?)

Welcome aboard to the Daredevil series with Daredevil has yet to punch anyone. There will be plenty of punching to come! I hope you enjoy the ride.

Thanks!

Hunter