Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (18 page)

“She seems okay now, but I’m really worried about her.  She was
dizzy, so she used that emergency necklace she wears, and by the time the
medics got there, she was passed out at the kitchen table.”

“Why didn’t they admit her to the hospital?”

“I have no idea; I didn’t get a chance to talk to anyone while
I was there.  I was sitting out in the waiting room looking at a magazine and
the next thing I know, Sara’s standing there.  It freaked me out.”

“Yeah.  I ran right into her, literally.  Almost knocked her
over.”

“She’s got an appointment Thursday morning to have some tests
run.  I’m going to take off work so I can take her.”  She looked at the
bandage.  “How many stitches did it take?”

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?” she asked in disbelief.  It
wasn’t that she thought I was lying, which of course I was; she just couldn’t
believe I hadn’t bothered to ask.  “You weren’t the least bit curious?” she
asked.

I’m not a great liar.  More often than not, I get caught,
especially when I compound one lie with another one.  I shrugged my shoulders,
letting her interpret the gesture however she wanted then I changed the
subject.

“Should I call Mrs. Howard?” I asked.

“No.  I think she was going to lie down.  Which is exactly what
you should be doing,” she said.  “Come on.”  She physically turned me around
and directed me to the couch.  “Lie down while I heat up your dinner.”

I don’t usually like to take orders from people, but it was
different with Landra.   In fact, I didn’t mind a blow to the head if I got her
as a nurse in return.  I was envisioning a night of romance with my Florence
Nightingale and I pulled her down on the couch with me when I lay down.

“I told Sara I’d spend the night with her, so I can’t stay
long.”

“No way!  I need you more than she does,” I said.  “I had a
blow to the head.  What if I fall asleep and don’t wake up?”

She seemed to be mulling it over and for a second I thought she
was going to relent.  “If you don’t wake up can I have your Suburban?”

“That’s very sensitive of you, Landra.  It’s nice to know where
your loyalties lie,” I said acting insulted.

“Hey, don’t do that to me, Sam.  You know I’d rather be here
with you.  But come on . . . Sara’s 80 years old.  How do you think she felt
being carted off to the hospital in an ambulance?”

“The one time I get hurt, and Mrs. Howard has to one-up me.”

Landra laughed.

“It’s not funny,” I said.

“I know its not,” she said.  “Will you forgive me?”  She leaned
down and kissed me lightly on the lips, and her hair fell onto my face.

“Only because you smell so good.”

“I really am sorry, Sam.”

“I know you are.  I’m just giving you a hard time.”

“I’ll make it up to you.  I promise,” she said.

Landra stayed while I ate but I could tell she was antsy to get
back to check on Mrs. Howard.  I didn’t have much appetite and I was beginning
to feel more and more nauseated as I ate, but I didn’t want to hurt Landra’s
feelings by not eating the meal that she’d prepared.  I let her off the hook
after I’d eaten about half of what was on my plate and sent her on her way,
then I fed the remainder of my dinner to the Siamese.  He showed his
appreciation by lying on top of me and purring loudly while he breathed in my
face.

 I made an exception that night, knowing that I’d probably live
to regret it, but I let the bastard sleep inside.  He went out and did his
business right before I went to bed, and I let him back in and left him
sleeping on the hearth.  When I woke up he was lying on my chest and breathing in
my face.  Maybe the bastard thought I needed extra attention because of the
bump on my head, or maybe he was just appreciative of me sharing my dinner with
him, but our relationship had definitely gone into a new phase.

Things moved at a fast and furious pace during the next few
weeks and I found myself totally immersed in my work.  We couldn’t come to an
amicable settlement through the auspices of the EEOC, so I filed a lawsuit on
Maddie’s behalf.  She and Penny and I worked late every night for a week and
the final product reflected all the hard work that had gone into our Original
Petition.  We named Larry and the CEO, both individually and as officers of the
company, and both the local and national divisions of Datacare.  Along with
Title VII sexual harassment, retaliation and constructive discharge claims, we
asserted causes of action based on tort claims of intentional infliction of
emotional distress, assault, invasion of privacy, and negligent retention.

I served the parties with discovery requests at the same time I
filed the Complaint, and prepared deposition notices for the CEO and Larry.  I
couldn’t wait to get the CEO in the hot seat.  A part of me really wanted to
take the case to trial.  In fact, I was almost sorry that Maddie was my
neighbor and that I had taken a personal interest in her welfare.  I preferred
to stay detached from my clients.  That way, it didn’t matter to me if they
were put through hell on the witness stand.  The way I saw it, if my client
stood to make a cool dollar on the case, he should buck-up and take the abuse
like a man – or woman as the case may be.  But with Maddie it was different. 
I’d grown to think of her as my friend, not to mention that she had turned out
to be a damn good legal secretary.  In the short time she’d worked with us,
she’d surpassed Penny’s skills almost immediately.  She’d grasped the concepts
involved in dealing with divorce proceedings, preparation of wills, and other
matters that we dealt with on a regular basis; she had developed a dialogue
between literally all of our clients, and in many cases, with our opposing
counsel; and she’d managed to charm even the most ill-tempered clerks and court
coordinators who we had to deal with on a day-to-day basis.  As much as I hated
to admit it, I’d come to rely heavily on Maddie in fielding calls and handling
mundane and time consuming details that go hand in hand with practicing law.

Penny saw it too, but she didn’t seem to mind.  She actually
preferred to let someone else take over the secretarial functions so that she
was free to handle the administrative details of running the office.  In fact,
Penny liked to take credit for Maddie’s progress, not unlike a mother bird that
nurses her young then tosses it out of the nest.  She would look at Maddie – or
rather
Madeline
– proudly, and say something sickeningly motherly that
would make me want to gag.

On the night after Datacare was served with our lawsuit,
someone chunked a rock through the plate glass window of our office.  There was
glass all over the sidewalk outside and all over the reception area inside. 
Penny had a dustpan in her hand and a grave look on her face when I arrived.

The windows were no doubt the original ones that were installed
back when the building was constructed, and it gave me a whole new respect for
tempered glass. The damn window had exploded into a million little pieces and
there were razor sharp shards of glass everywhere.  I could feel them embedded
in my shoe soles, scratching the floor when I walked.

“What the hell happened?” I asked, looking around at the mess
in disbelief.

Penny reached down and held up a nice size rock, then placed it
carefully on the coffee table.  “I found it right over there,” she said.  She
pointed to the spot on the floor like it had cooties.

“Did you call the police?” I asked her.

She nodded her head.  “They’ve already been here.”  She looked
overly troubled, and I knew what it was about.  Mother Hen was worried about
her precious Madeline.  “The officer left his card.  He’d like for you to call
him when you get the chance.”  She furrowed her brow and handed me the card,
and I stuffed it in my pocket.  I caught myself thinking of Oliver and I
considered saying “
your face looks like this
” but I decided against it.

“Call a cleaning crew and a glass company and tell them to get
over here yesterday.”

“I’ll do it right away.”  She set the dustpan, full of glass,
down on the coffee table beside the rock and went straight to her desk.  She
took an authoritative and efficient tone when speaking to people at both the
cleaning and glass company, and when she hung up, she looked relieved and much
more at ease.  She must have thought I was going to make her clean up the mess.

Penny looked at her watch.  “I’d sure like to have this cleaned
up by the time Madeline gets here,” she said.

I knew it
.  I played dumb. “Why would it matter?”

“Oh . . . you know . . . she’s going to feel like it’s all her
fault.”

 “That’s ridiculous Penny.  Anyone could have thrown that
rock.  Datacare is not the only one I’ve pissed off recently.  Hell, it could
have been a street punk or a gang banger – someone we don’t even know.”

“That may be true . . .”

“It is true,” I interrupted.

“But I don’t think Madeline will see it that way.”  She gave me
a nasty look that made me think twice about interrupting her again, then she
continued.  “All I’m saying is that it would be nice to be able to keep this
from her . . . if it were possible.”

“Well first of all, I seriously doubt that it’s possible, but
even if it was, she’s as much a part of this office as we are.  Don’t you think
she has a right to know what’s going on?  That way, she can make an informed
decision on anything that may need to be addressed.”

I wanted Penny to come around to my way of thinking because I
didn’t like to be at odds with her.  And I figured since it was my office and I
was her boss, it should be she that conceded, not I.  Apparently, she wasn’t
thinking along those lines and she persisted in her scheme to protect Maddie,
even to the point of plotting a way to keep her from coming in for the day.

“You could call her and tell her that since she’s been working
so hard that you want to give her the day off.  With pay of course,” she added.

“She hasn’t worked any harder than either of us,” I pointed
out.  “She’d know something was up.  Besides, she’s entitled to know what’s
going on,” I repeated.

“But . . .”

I cut her off.  “Call me when everything’s cleaned up,” I said,
and I marched into my office and shut the door hard.  I’d been using a chair
from the conference room ever since my office chair had broken and just the
sight of the chair pissed me off.  I called Penny on the intercom.  “Why don’t
I have new chair yet?”

“The one you wanted was on four weeks’ back order,” she
explained calmly.  “It should be in next week.  Would you rather me cancel the
order and get you one that’s in stock?”

“This chair sucks,” I told her.

“Would you like to try mine?” she said agreeably.  “Or we could
rent one until your new one arrives?”

She was being way too nice.  How can you be a prick when the
person you’re trying to antagonize is so damn helpful and agreeable?  “Never
mind,” I said grumpily.  I hung up and sat my butt down in the chair.  In
truth, it was no worse that my old chair – probably even a little better.

I tackled a stack of papers on my desk and was in the process
of compiling answers to discovery requests, when someone simultaneously knocked
and opened the door.

“Oh my God!” Maddie exclaimed.  It sounded like,
Oh mah
gawd! 
“Do you think Larry did that?”

“I don’t know,” I told her honestly.  “I guess he could have. 
But then so could a lot of people.”

She chewed her cuticle.  “That’s true . . . I guess.  It’s just
the timing,” she said skeptically.

“If we’re going on timing, it could just as easily be Josie
DuMans’ ex-husband.  He was livid about the restraining order,” I reminded her.

“Whale, that’s true too.”

She wanted to believe it, but I could tell she wasn’t
convinced.  Truth was, if I had to guess who’d thrown the rock, I’d put money
on Larry, but Maddie didn’t need to know that.

“What did you tell the police?” she asked.

“I haven’t talked to them yet, but when I do, I’ll mention
Larry and DuMans as people who might have a grudge.”

The cleaning crew and the glass people arrived at the same time
and by noon, all visible traces of the broken window were gone, but the
incident left lingering doubt in my mind as to Maddie’s safety.  I even
contemplated calling Niki and getting him to put one of his guys on Maddie,
without her knowledge of course, but I realized I was over-reacting badly.  It
wasn’t the first time that something like that had happened to me – I’d had my
tires slashed; I’d been run off the road; my car had been keyed.  I had to
admit to myself the truth of what I’d told Maddie and Penny:  Anyone could have
thrown that rock through the window.  In the end, I chalked it up to a bad
experience and left it at that.

*    *    *    *

During this same period, I received notice that Landra’s case
was set to go before the grand jury the following month.  She hadn’t budged on
hiring a criminal attorney and I’d finally hunkered down and started preparing
for the case like I was going to represent her.  The most problematic detail
for us in defending the charge was the fact that Landra was the beneficiary of
Drake Reeds’ life insurance policy – she had motive.

“When you were engaged, did you know that you were listed as
the beneficiary of the policy?” I asked.

“Yes.  But I never thought he would have left it that way after
we broke up.  You would think that would have been the first thing he’d change
after we called off the engagement.  It’s the first thing I would have done,
anyway.”

She was convincing and I knew she would make an excellent
witness.  In a grand jury proceeding, the accused is not customarily allowed to
testify.  The prosecutor merely hands over what’s been compiled in the case and
the grand jury doesn’t get to hear from the accused.  Even with my limited
knowledge of criminal law, I knew that an attorney would generally not want his
client to testify before a grand jury.  But I was convinced that if Landra
could testify, the grand jury would no-bill the charge.  How to get the DA to
let Landra testify was the question.

Other than motive, the rest of the “evidence” was
circumstantial and I didn’t see it as a problem.  For example, they had lifted
Landra’s fingerprint from the lock of the bedroom door.  I went back to the
mansion several times to look around the bedroom and the area on the patio
where Drake had landed after he went through the window.  The lock the
prosecutor was talking about was one of those that is self contained in the
door knob – a little button that pushes in and then pops out on its own when
you turn the knob.  It was only logical that Landra’s fingerprints would be all
over the doorknob, including on the lock, given that she was frantically trying
to escape from the room when Drake was assaulting her.

The District Attorney also contended that the location of
Drake’s body on the patio was “inconsistent” with that of a mere fall.  I’d
hired an expert who would testify that taking into account Drake’s height and
weight, and coupled with the fact that he had tripped over the chair before
taking the plunge, the point where his body came to rest on the pavement below
was absolutely consistent with Landra’s story.

I wasn’t too worried about the prosecutor’s contention that
Landra had inflicted bodily damage to herself.  In fact, the claim was so
absurd that I felt it helped our case and I was glad he was asserting it.  I truly
believed that anyone who looked at the photos that the police had taken that
night would think twice before accepting the theory that the bruises were
self-inflicted.  There’s something innate in us as human beings that precludes
us from inflicting injury to ourselves, and the extent of the bruising would
leave no doubt that Landra had in fact been assaulted.

The question of the investigation of Landra’s ex-husband was
another matter, but I didn’t think the prosecution would be allowed to enter it
into evidence, since it had no bearing on Drake Reeds’ death and nothing had
ever come from it.   But I knew that was a factor bearing on the D.A.’s
tenacious intent to move forward with the case.