A Class Action (6 page)

Stuart’s done a lot for me in the past, so if it’s at all possible, I always try to help him out.

The Police Impound lot is in a terrible neighborhood populated by auto junkyards, car repair places, a plating factory and several other poorly maintained industrial buildings made out of sheet metal. To make matters worse, the street has potholes big enough to swim in, and this Hummer was not designed to give a soft luxury ride.

Before entering the lot you must get past a surly gate attendant sitting behind a one-inch thick plate glass window near the front door. I guess there are plenty of irate people who come to get their car returned after it’s been towed away because it was left alone ‘for just a minute’ in some unauthorized place – like a handicapped only parking space, in front of a fire hydrant, or other spot where people who don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves decide to leave a vehicle.

This particular attendant looks familiar, like I’ve seen him on television somewhere. He’s got long scraggly hair, a rough complexion, bad teeth, a tattoo on his neck, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. If I’ve seen him somewhere before it was probably on a reality show like Cops, as one of the many skinny drunk guys without shirts on, who always seem to be getting arrested for beating their wives.

After identifying myself to this Cops star, he grants me permission to see Stuart’s vehicle if I’ll pay for the charges to date. After charging my credit card for the tow plus two days’ storage, he tells me that the keys are in the glove compartment and directs me to where it’s parked. The tow truck backed it up against the lot’s concrete retaining wall, where it now sits waiting for me. I delicately walk past the growling German shepherd chained to the wall and enter the outdoor part of the yard. Following some advice another dog owner once told me, I don’t smile at the guard dog. They consider the showing of teeth as an aggressive act.

The Camry doesn’t look like it’s in a drivable condition, so I call a friend of mine who operates a tow truck in the Marina and tell him to meet me at the impound lot. Not surprisingly, he knows exactly where the place is. I go into the glove box to retrieve the keys, because you must turn the ignition on in order to remove the vehicle from the ‘park’ gear position. When reaching into the glove box, my hand inadvertently brushes against the remote trunk lid release and I hear the trunk pop open. No problem. I slam the glove box shut, and walking around to the rear of the car, to close the trunk, I see that something large in the there, like a great big sack of laundry. Upon closer inspection I see that it’s really a bed sheet wrapped around something. When I push it over to see what’s inside, a hand flops out. It’s a dead body.

*****

Chapter 6

This is not an accessory that automobile manufacturers usually include with a vehicle, so I assume it’s a special New Jersey dealer-installed option.

At this point, I think the worst thing to do is bring the police into it, because the body was probably delivered from back east with the car, so it’s not a California case. I’ve helped out the local authorities on past occasions, so I don’t see any reason why I shouldn’t help out the New Jersey cops with a case.

Fortunately, my friend Victor Gutierrez has what they call a ‘vanity’ phone number that’s so easy to remember, I don’t have to write it down. I pick up my cell phone and call him at ‘1800AUTOPSY.’

When the tow truck arrives, I tell him that the delivery point has been changed. Instead of Stuart’s place in Van Nuys, this car is going to Victor’s place, out near Pasadena. I then call Stuart and tell him to meet me at Victor’s.

Stuart and I both arrive at Victor’s before the tow truck, so I’ve got a few minutes to explain to him what I found in the trunk of his car. There’s no need for him to claim that he had nothing to do with the body being put in the trunk because I have no doubt that he’s not connected with it in any way.

When the tow truck arrives, Victor comes outside to take a look at his latest client. After the tow truck leaves, Victor opens the trunk and spends less than a minute looking at the merchandise.

“
Peter, I’m going to save you a couple of thousand dollars on an autopsy. Your passenger here has a bullet hole in the center of his head.”

I thank Victor for the quick diagnosis, and assign him the task of a partial exam to determine the estimated time of death and anything else we can use to identify the body, like fingerprints, dental records, or whatever he can learn. I tell him to prepare a sheet on the corpse, with a photo, and enough info to send to Philly’s missing persons department.

It only took Victor a day to finish his assignment and he mailed me the bullet, photo, and other descriptive information. He didn’t do an autopsy, but if the body was brought out to California by truck, he estimates the probable time of death to be at least ten days prior to Stuart’s accepting delivery of the car. That’s the information I really wanted to have, in case some idiot cop thinks Stuart might be involved in the murder. I tell Victor to leave the car in his garage – the police will probably be coming for it later this week.

Now it’s time for a hypothetical telephone conversation, so I bravely call my ex-wife Myra, our County’s newly elected District Attorney. The people in her office all know who I am and how I helped her get elected, so my call gets put through.

“
Hello Peter. Listen, I’ve got a lot of things to do today, so I hope this isn’t a social call.”

“
Myra honey, that ship’s already sailed. I’ve got a hypothetical question to ask you. What if a person orders a large item from out of state – something like a piece of furniture, like an armoire, and when it gets delivered she opens it up to find a dead body. Would she be in any trouble?”

“
I already told you I was busy today Peter, so let’s cut the crap. Which one of your idiot friends got stuck with a body? No, never mind… it has to be either Jack, Stuart or Vinnie, and I’d guess that the body’s already at Victor’s place, right? Okay. Your silence is enough of an answer. I’ll send a team out there to get it. And Peter…”

“
Yes my dear?”

“
Make sure that whichever of the three stooges is involved in this farce stays in town for a while, because we’ll have to get a full statement.”

She always did have the ability to see right through me. I tell her she’s right about it being at Victor’s place, but don’t give her any more information, hiding behind the attorney-client privilege. She isn’t too happy with that, but must be just too busy to argue with me. I guess those exploding Suburban cases are giving her some problems. I’m glad Indovine took that one back, because it looks like it turned into a real hot potato.

I’ve got some far out theories on the exploding Suburbans cases, but extensive investigation will probably be involved and my office would never authorize an expense like that on a case we don’t have anymore. I figure that Indovine will jump at the chance to spend some of Uniman’s money, so I call his office. I must be an important person, because this is the second time today that I call a big shot and get put right through.

“
Indovine here, what do you want Sharp?”

I would have felt a lot more confident if he would have used my first name, but he took the call, and that’s the important thing.

“
Charles, I want to do some investigation on your Suburban class action case, and it’s going to cost some money. I’d like your authorization.”

“
Sharp, you’re no longer on that case. Our class action department has it, and they’re quite capable of doing their own investigation.”

“
Okay Charles. I know you’re a busy guy, so I’ll only say this once. Last time we had a discussion like this, you also turned me down. And if you remember, I wound up saving your client over a million bucks and at the same time made a schmuck out of you… which isn’t too hard to do when you pull one of your arrogant acts. Now listen to me. If I can show that the class action has no merit whatsoever, it’ll save your client a multi-million dollar settlement, and my investigation will cost a lot less than those assholes in your class action department wasted in buying and tearing apart that brand new Suburban. Furthermore, I’ll give you my word that if I save your client’s ass again this time, I’ll make it look like it was all your idea. Now all you have to do is say yes or no. I’m going to do the investigation anyway, and whoever’s dime it’s on will get all the credit. Do we have a deal?”

After a few seconds of silence, I get what I expected – a grumbling acceptance.

With Indovine now paying for the investigation I might be able to kill a couple of birds with one stone, one of which being the answers behind the I.R.S. company that sells cars to Stuart. If nothing else, they certainly are generous. No other dealer I’m aware of would include a free dead body with the purchase of a car.

To keep things going smoothly, I advise Stuart to not say anything to his New ‘Joisy’ supplier, and to keep ordering vehicles as if nothing happened. Once Myra gets that body from Victor, I’ll make some deal with her to try and keep it out of the papers so that the New Jersey car company won’t know that an investigation is going on out here. I warn Stuart that on all future deliveries, he must make sure that each trunk is open and inspected before he accepts a vehicle. If another body turns up, we want it to be the car-carrier company who gets stuck with it before the car gets driven into Stuart’s garage.

While I’m on the phone giving Stuart all his instructions, he lets me know that Vinnie and Olive finally confessed to the fact that Olive didn’t know how to drive when she accepted the armored truck job from him. He was still feeling guilty about those guns in the glove box that caused their arrest, so he accepted her apology and enrolled her in a real driving school. Maybe now I’m off the hook for promising to let her drive my Hummer.

Also following my advice, Stuart doesn’t tell the dynamic duo that they were driving around with a dead body in the trunk. Olive had a bad experience with a cadaver being delivered to Victor’s place last year, and I don’t want to see her upset like that again. Stuart begs out of the conversation because another load of six cars is being delivered, and he intends to videotape the opening and inspection of each trunk.

Jack B. came up with some new info about Joe Morgan. His bank account shows some deposits that exceed his salary at the dealership. Too many coincidences are popping up here. I hope that no one else starts connecting the dots, because it looks like Joe Morgan may be heading for a fall.

It’s time that I found out more about the New Jersey company where Stuart gets his cars. Now that Indovine will be reimbursing our expenses, I send Jack B. to New Jersey. His assignment is to pretend like he owns a used car dealership in the San Fernando Valley and was referred to them by Stuart. I’ve already prepped Stuart to back up Jack’s cover story.

Jack calls from the east coast to let me know that the car company returned his phone call and he’ll be meeting with a guy named Billy tomorrow afternoon. I tell him to check with New Jersey’s Motor Vehicle Records Department to try and locate the previous owners of the cars that Stuart purchased – especially the one in which the body was found. If he can get to interview an owner or two, he’s to find out the details about their cars: when they were stolen, who the insurance companies involved are, when they were paid off, and which police precinct they made their stolen vehicle report to.

I want to see if there are any inconsistencies in the chain of information. A timeline is involved, and if anything is out of place, it should stick out like a sore thumb. Each owner should have made a stolen car report within twenty-four hours of the theft and they should also have collected their policy benefits from the insurance company thirty days later. After the insurance company recovers the cars, they should have records of sales to I.R.S., and if Stuart is the final customer, he should get the car no sooner than two weeks later – and that’s if everything is done as efficiently as possible. If any step along the way occurs before or after it’s supposed to, I’ll catch it.

There’s plenty of action going on, but I’m not getting paid for any of it. Fortunately for my bank account, the kid’s Marina clientele is still active. Her stepfather was retained to represent the apartment building and slip owners in their actions against non-paying tenants. There are thousands of apartment and boat slip tenants, so legal action is usually required on a steady basis. The most common problem that occurs is when the owner of an old boat decides that he doesn’t want it anymore – usually about a year or so after its engine freezes up. They get tired of paying several hundred dollars a month slip rental for a junk boat that doesn’t even run, so they abandon it.

The landlords have provisions in their slip rental agreements giving them the right to auction off any abandoned boat after judgment is obtained against the owner for non-payment of slip rent. The legal work is almost identical on every case. All Suzi has to do is change the name of the boat, the name of the defendant, the dates, and the amounts. The cases get filed with the court by mail, and the papers are sent out for service with either Jack Bibberman or the Marshal’s office. The only thing that an attorney like me is needed for is to provide a name and a State Bar membership number in the upper left hand corner of the complaints that get filed.

I don’t have to do much other than front the kid’s law practice. It doesn’t pay a hell of a lot, but the Marina lets us park our boat in the slip and pays a minimum retainer, so we’ll always have a place to live.