“You’re welcome. I was happy to help.” She looked around and turned back to Jason. “Are the others joining us?”
“No, Marcia and Lloyd couldn’t come until thisweekend, I haven’t heard from Commander Hall yet, he’s on his way, but I don’t know when. Jake Cogburn will be coming with Marcia and Lloyd, they will be staying at a hotel in town.”
“We came a couple of days early to go over our case,” Ilsa said. “Since Kevin offered us a place to stay here, we took him up on his offer.” As she sipped her coffee, she looked between Paula Carson and Kevin Lassiter. “Have there been any new developments in the last couple of weeks?”
“Nothing new,” Kevin said with a grin and he walked over to the dining room table and indicated for them to sit down. They all settled and Caleb grabbed the platter of sandwiches to set in the middle of the table. He took one with a grin. “I’m starving.” They all helped themselves and as Kevin explained. “Through my contacts at the local police department, it took some time, hell, it took all this time, but I was able to uncover something I thought might be of interest to this case.”
“What?” everyone asked and shuddered at his expression.
“It turns out that one of the professors is a fourth cousin to the former Senator Burrows.”
“WHAT!”Everyone shouted at once.
“Which one?” Staci asked.
“Professor Denike.”
“Stupid question,” Tony said as he wiped his mouth. “These last six months we’ve been callingthese men ‘the professors’. How many are there, and who are they?”
“Four,” Staci said. “Professor Madden was the one that asked me to join his friends and colleagues. He was my Professor for a class when I was still in my teens. My bio-mechanics professor. The men he introduced me to were Professor Striker, Professor Ralph, and Professor Denike. It was Denike that started making noise that I stoletheirwork when I broke away from them.”
“Why did you break away from them?” Katherine asked.
“They didn’t like that I was the one making progress. They also didn’t like that I had Paula here draw up a contract before I even entertained the idea of joining them. It clearly stated that anything I developed during my time with them, was mine, and I could take it with me. That was the basis of the first case. They tried to say I stole what I had developed. I clearly had proof it was mine, and mine alone.”
“What the professors didn’t know,” Paula spoke for the first time since sitting down. “Staci developed her method while still in school. I believe she was twelve when she helped my brother with his prosthetic. She had all the documentation from back then. Because it was a good idea, and a good way to do her work, she actually applied for a patent for it.”
“I did not know this,” Caleb said.
“Yeah, I’m not being mean, but as smart as Staci is,sometimes she forgets things. I was the one that produced the patent at her last case. As soon as the judge saw that, he ruled in our favor.”
“You didn’t tell us you held a patent,” Jason turned to her with wide eyes and smirked when she only shrugged.
“I forgot, I get lost in the work, and the papers take a back seat in my brain to the actual work of creating a prosthetic.”
“Do you have a copy of it?” Ilsa asked Paula.
“I do,” she opened the file beside her and produced the document. “It was my brother Johnny that came to me to help Staci. Though there is no age limit on who can hold a patent, she still needed a legal adult to help her fill out the paperwork. Johnny came to me with the application half filled out, together we went to the patent attorney in my office, and once he looked it over, we just went to Staci to get her signature on the application. Once she signed, we sent it off, and she received her patent in the mail. Well, it was pending for a year, but after that year, it became a regular patent.” She turned to Staci with a nod. “She received it before she had even heard of any of the professors. Like I said, she was only twelve when she applied, and probably thirteen when she received it. The work you did on Johnny is what you do now?”
“Correct, the patent is for the basic model, I’ve perfected it over the years.”
As Paula talked, Jason and Ilsa read the patent and nodded in agreement. They talked as they ate, and as they finished, Tony looked around.
“Question.”
“What’s that?”
“Who goes first? Them or us? I’m only asking because if they’re going to inundate you with their paperwork, we’ll be in court for days, or weeks.”
Jason grinned, and Tony shivered at his look. “They go first, and they have to bring up new evidence, if they start with Burrows Sr. I won’t give their lawyer the satisfaction of calling him senator or former senator, that title was stripped from him. I have proof. Anyway, if they bring up Burrows, Sr. as their source of the new information, I will object and state why I object. It will be confusing, but who you see sitting here before you, you won’t see in the courtroom. I’m ruthless.”
“Okay,” Tony said with a nod. “I’ll take your word for it.”
As Caleb and Katherine cleaned up from their lunch, the others continued discussing the case, and by the time they headed out to the courthouse four days later, they were ready. Both Ilsa and Paula had to take Staci shopping so she could be presentable in court. Not that she wasn’t presentable, but jeans and tee shirts, or sweats wasn’t proper court attire.
In the lobby of the court house, the group stopped when someone called their names and they wentover to greet Marcia, Lloyd, Jake, Hank Patterson, and another man. Everyone waited until Tony greeted this guy with a handshake and a hug, then he grinned as he turned to Jason and Ilsa.
“This is Commander Shay Hall.”
