Free The Missing Piece by Kevin Egan

mechanism, and an engine that reached speeds faster than most people could run. The other wheelchair, the one he dropped himself naked into now, was a light hand-powered model with a mesh seat and backrest designed for the shower. He rolled into the bathroom, waited for the water to heat up, then bumped the wheelchair over the raised tile that prevented the shower from flooding the apartment.
    In the months following the shooting, filing a lawsuit had been the furthest thing from his mind. He was so lonely and depressed it took a monumental effort just to open his eyes in the morning, let alone endure hours of physical and occupational therapy. Plus, he knew a thing or two about the law from having stood guard in so many courtrooms. The shooting had occurred on the job, which entitled him to workers’ compensation benefits and prohibited any lawsuit against his employer. Unfortunately, with the two gunmen in the wind and none of the litigants responsible for what happened, the court system was the only potential target of a lawsuit.
    Just short of three months after the shooting, Felix Tyrone visited Gary at the rehab center. Tyrone had worked as a staff attorney for the legal benefits plan offered by the court officers’ union before starting his own firm. He explained that the workers’ comp prohibition against suing an employer did not apply to a grave injury, and a partially severed spinal cord that resulted in paraplegia qualified as grave. Like sex in Gary’s new world, the revelation piqued his interest but not his desire. Tyrone needed to convince him that suing the court system was neither disloyal nor greedy, then capped his pitch with a commonsense argument: Gary was still young and strong with arms like a weightlifter and hands like a blacksmith. He may not need financial help now, but when the sympathy ran dry and his friends had moved on and he was just a name to the new officers on the job, he might feel differently.
    Gary finally agreed to sue, and the court system quickly made a settlement offer that he would have accepted had he been interested in money alone. But Gary was interested in more than money, and Tyrone, who thought the offer chintzy anyway, was happy to press for a trial.
    The shower stream turned tepid. Gary shut the water, dried himself off, and rolled back into his bedroom. Then, through a complicated set of maneuvers, he lifted himself onto the bed, dressed, and then plunked himself into his battle chair. He was waiting when Tyrone buzzed from the lobby.
    Tyrone was razor-thin, balding, and perpetually rushed. Unzipping his briefcase, he followed Gary to the corner of the living room, where a dual-monitor computer sat on a table high and wide enough for the front end of the battle chair to fit underneath.
    â€œVery confusing stuff,” said Tyrone, producing a flash drive. “The feeds are from security cameras inside and outside the courthouse. Putting it together spatially and chronologically is like working a jigsaw puzzle.”
    Gary stuck the flash drive into the computer’s USB port. The screen lit up with file icons.
    â€œEach one a different camera?” he said.
    â€œForty-three of them,” said Tyrone. “You can’t fart in the courthouse without someone seeing you.”
    Gary opened the first file, which showed the front steps of the courthouse from a camera positioned across Centre Street. The steps were bright in the sun, with people ascending and descending at many angles. Halfway down the steps stood a group of six court officers, obvious in their white uniform shirts and dark blue uniform pants, but unidentifiable at this distance. One of them broke away from the others and climbed up into the shade of the portico. Foxx, he recognized from the smooth, swaybacked gait. Less than a minute later, Foxx rejoined the others.
    Gary closed that file and opened the next. The view was a high-angle shot of the front steps from a camera at the