The Christmas Heist: A Courtroom Adventure

THE CHRISTMAS HEIST

A Courtroom Adventure

LANDIS WADE

CONTENTS

Books by Landis Wade

December 23 - 10:30 a.m.

11:00 a.m.

Lunch Break

2:00 p.m.

7:30 p.m.

December 24 - 9:00 a.m.

9:25 a.m.

11:15 a.m.

12:15 p.m.

1:35 p.m.

5:30 p.m.

Epilogue

The Legally Binding Christmas - Chapter One

The Legally Binding Christmas - Chapter Two

Acknowledgments

Books by Landis Wade

About the Author

The Christmas Heist: A Courtroom Adventure

The Christmas Courtroom Trilogy: Book 1

Copyright © 2015 by Landis Wade

www.landiswade.com

(Hamlin Landis Wade, Jr.)

All rights reserved.

Trade 978-0-9861516-5-1

eBook 978-0-9681516-6-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015947965

This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue come from the writer’s imagination and any similarities to actual persons or events is coincidental.

Please honor the writer and illustrator. Except for brief excerpts for reviews, no portion of the text and no illustrations may be reproduced without written permission from the writer.

Cover design: Dissect Designs

Interior illustrations: Susanne Discenza Frueh

Book design for print edition: Frogtown Bookmaker

Book design for ebook edition: Jennipher Tripp

Published by Lystra Books & Literary Services, LLC

391 Lystra Estates Drive, Chapel Hill, NC 27517

Printed in the United States of America

BOOKS BY LANDIS WADE

The Christmas Courtroom Trilogy

Book 1: The Christmas Heist

Book 2: The Legally Binding Christmas

Book 3: The Christmas Redemption

The Indie Retirement Mystery Series

Book 1: Deadly Declarations

PRAISE FOR THE CHRISTMAS HEIST

Landis Wade has lovingly crafted the definitive 21st Century Santa story. A timeless story, memorable characters, digital technology twists, exquisite courtroom repartee, and clever plot convolutions are ingeniously woven into a Christmas Eve classic. The wisdom of Sheriff Andy Taylor, the witty banter of Night Court, and the magic of Miracle on 34th Street are presented as a joyous gift to all generations! Charles Dickens and Lewis Carroll have a 21st Century friend!

Chase Boone Saunders,

Superior Court judge, retired

Landis Wade has combined his decades of crafty courtroom experience with his innocent appreciation of the magic of Santa Claus to weave a clever, heart-warming legal who-done-it of how Christmas was saved from the technocrats. He has given us all a wonderful Christmas present in The Christmas Heist.

Jon Buchan

author of Code of the Forest

Lawyers and tax collectors, can there be any more hard hearted people on the planet? Yet, this lovely Christmas tale by Landis Wade may restore your faith in a humanity that believes and cares. A modern day court battle pits wrong against right with Christmas in the balance. And how do they keep that naughty and nice list? I will never pass by a Salvation Army bell ringer again without wondering if they have some Christmas secret to tell. Be sure to add this story to your Christmas traditions.

Major Larry Broome,

Area Commander, The Salvation Army

The Christmas Heist: A Courtroom Adventure brings the magic of Miracle on 34th Street into the modern day. The twists and turns of this courtroom drama surprise and delight and have the reader believing all over again!

J.D. DuPuy

author of Poetic Justice, Legal Humor in Verse

Give yourself a present this Christmas. Forget Rudolph reruns and skip the DVD of It’s a Wonderful Life. Renew your spirit instead with this laughable, lawyerly look at the case of Santa Claus vs. the internet. It’s a win-win.

Mary Ann Claud, author of The Dancin’ Man

and Whirlygig: The Dancin’ Man’s Daughter

(coming spring, 2016)

Even our favorite North Pole resident and his helpers have gone digital and they’re not immune to glitches. When it all ends up in a courtroom two days before Christmas, we’re into a fine holiday tale. Landis Wade gives us a fast-paced story in the lineage of Miracle on 34th Street and the Grinch, fun to read and just right for the season. Sit back, pour the eggnog, and enjoy.

Joyce Allen,

author of Hannah’s House and the Threads trilogy

Anyone who has spent any time in the justice system will recognize the courtroom and its players in Landis Wade’s opening scene. The judge, prosecuting attorney, defense counsel, defendant, and prosecuting witness live in Anywhere, USA–until the witnesses transport us to unfamiliar places where we are very willing to go. Landis Wade writes a script somewhere between the screenplays for My Cousin Vinny and Miracle on 34th Street, and that’s a wonderful place to be.

Suzanne Reynolds, Dean,

Wake Forest University School of Law

I found this book creative. Mysterious. Imaginative. Funny. Fun. The descriptions of people and places are so vivid that it feels like I'm there with the characters. And the story is told in a magical way. When I let my imagination loose, I was flooded with memories of Christmas.

Jeffrey J. Davis, author of Beliefs and Choices

To Mom and Dad, for the Christmas excitement you gave me as a child;

To Jordan and Hamlin, for the joy of Christmas when you were children;

And to my wife Janet, for always keeping Christmas in your heart for a Scrooge like me.

Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!

Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

DECEMBER 23 - 10:30 A.M.

The county courthouse was opening for business two hours late. Early morning sleet and ice were the cause of the delay, but the streets were improving and the halls of justice were just beginning to heat up. For many who graced the halls that Monday morning, it was a bad place to spend a December day, but to optimists, and those who had faith, it was tolerable, because it was one day closer to Christmas than the day before.

People of all shapes, sizes and colors were in the security line at the front entrance, and the metal detectors were ringing, but the sound was not in synch with the tune of the pending holiday. Instead, it was the sound of clanging shiny things like loose change, pens, keys and every now and then a knife that some unfortunate entrant forgot was in his back pocket.

A large white man wearing a red flannel shirt shuffled along as the line moved forward. He was Henry Edmonds. He must have been close to 6 feet 6 inches tall, and likely tipped the scales at around 275 pounds. His face, covered with salt-and-pepper stubble, was interesting, but his eyes were sad, downcast. His age was indeterminate, but not less than sixty-five years.

When he pulled his tight wool cap off at the conveyor belt, white hair fell loose, down to his shoulders. He stuffed his hat in his Carhartt work coat and shed the coat for the conveyor belt that passed through the weapon detector under the watchful eyes of a sheriff’s deputy. The only other thing in his coat pocket was the key to the 20-year-old Ford pickup truck he had driven to the courthouse that morning. He had nothing else with him because his lawyer made it clear he needed to travel light, and bring nothing but himself to court.

Judy Robertson was also in that line, ten people back from Mr. Edmonds. She wore black shoes with two-inch square heels, and a black knee-length coat that covered a gray pinstriped pantsuit. Her hat sat atop auburn hair clipped close to her neck and ears. Her eyes were firmly fixed on the large man with the white hair.

This day had a purpose for the woman. She needed something and she planned to get it. Henry Edmonds would not get in her way. In fact, he was the reason she was here. According to the official record, she was the victim, and he was the perpetrator. They were both headed to the same place, a criminal courtroom on the third floor.

11:00 A.M.

Thirty minutes later, in that third-floor courtroom, a bailiff stood quickly, dropping his magazine in the process. He looked to be about 5 feet 4 inches in all directions, but what he lacked in physical fitness, he made up for with his acute sense of timing. Just as he stood, a door to his left opened and a tall figure in a black robe emerged.

All rise! the bailiff bellowed, with as much bellow as his round frame could muster.

Everyone in sight did just that. And then they listened carefully for the next set of instructions.

Oyez, oyez, oyez, this honorable court of this great State is now in session, the honorable Augustus Langhorne Stark, judge, presiding. Be seated and come to order!

And with that, the judge walked purposely up the three steps to the bench he would call home for the next few days. And he sat down.

Judge Stark had a stoic expression on his face. His pursed lips and drawn features did not convey kindness, nor anger, but rather, a seriousness of purpose that had become his calling card. Some in the courtroom who saw him take his seat on the bench that morning thought he looked indifferent, while others thought he was about to strike a legal blow at somebody. Others could not be sure. But one thing was for certain: Neither Judge Stark, nor his serious look, went unnoticed by the attorneys and their clients who were waiting to appear before him.

Judge Stark usually presided over felony criminal cases and large-dollar civil disputes, but the legislators in the capital city, believing they understood better than the judiciary how to run the court system, had decided that judges should be required to hear all kinds of cases, including misdemeanor criminal matters. This was just one of the many reasons Judge Stark was planning to retire.

Judge Stark’s rotation for the week placed him in criminal misdemeanor Courtroom 3150, the courtroom he liked least of all. He had a reputation of being a person who wanted things to run smoothly, a man of order, a man of structure and a man who believed that people should be on time and get to the point. Truth be told, this was the one courtroom where his hoped-for order, structure and getting to the point tended to be the exception, not the rule.

Courtroom 3150 went by the nickname the People’s Court, because it was regularly flooded with regular people committing regular crimes and getting regularly convicted. On the other hand, there was nothing regularly truthful about the stories told in the People’s Court. The defendants, often short on education, were long on creativity when it came to telling their stories. Alibis were like poetry. Defenses like good prose. Only, on this day, Judge Stark would write the endings of each little tale.

Getting right to work, the first case he ordered for trial was captioned: The State v. Henry Edmonds.

Jason Peabody was the assistant district attorney on the case against Mr. Edmonds. If it was unusual to find Judge Stark in Courtroom 3150, it was