Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (19 page)

The defendants’ responses to my request for production in
Maddie’s suit arrived early one Monday morning.   I assumed the Defendants
would either swarm me with documents in an attempt to overwhelm me, knowing
that I was a sole practitioner, or they would object to every request and turn
over nothing.  It turned out to be the former.  The UPS man pulled up and
delivered a half-dozen boxes of documents that I’d have to sort through, most
of which were probably irrelevant.

One law firm was representing all defendants, which told me
that the national boys probably didn’t know what the local boys were up to.  If
they had, they would have tried to distance themselves by getting separate
counsel to represent Larry and the CEO.

I thumbed through the different sets of responses, first
Datacare’s, then Larry’s, then the CEO’s, and flipped to the pages where I’d
asked for “any and all photographs, films, tape recordings, video and/or audio
tape recordings involving plaintiff.”  This is pretty much a standard question
but of course in Maddie’s case, it was extremely significant, as was their response. 
In the space underneath the request, each defendant had responded:  “None in
existence.”
Cha ching
.

“What’s all this?” Maddie asked when she arrived that morning.

“Datacare’s production responses.  They’ve been busy.”

“I’ll say.  You want me to take a box and start going through
it?”

“Yeah.  You might as well.”  She leaned down to pick up a box
and I realized that her humongous chest was gone.  The change was such a
shocker that I blurted out, “What happened to your . . .”  I stopped myself
before I said it, realizing the obvious.

Maddie’s face flushed.  “Yes.  I quit breastfeeding.”

“Sorry.  You just look so . . .”  I searched for the right
adjective.

“Proportional?”

“Proportional,” I nodded.   I couldn’t help smile.  Between her
status as my client, my secretary, and my neighbor, Maddie and I had spent a
lot of time together, and I’d been developing a brotherly affection for her
over the last month.  I thought back to the first time I’d met her – with
that
hair
and her huge bosom – and I felt like a shithead for being so
judgmental.  She was a much better person than I would ever be.

“What?” she asked defensively.

“What what?” I asked.

“What are you looking at me like that for?”

“I don’t know.  You just look so different – so much
smaller
. 
I mean,
all of you
, not just your . . .”  I motioned to her chest.

Maddie looked down at her body then back at me and shrugged her
shoulders.  “I guess.”

She was making me feel self-conscious for noticing in the first
place – like I shouldn’t have been looking there.   “I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t
have said anything.”

“I think you should shut up now,” she suggested, then she
picked up the box and left my office.

“Good idea,” I said under my breath.

I waded through a third of the first box of documents, sorting
out what might be useful and what definitely wasn’t, and by noon I was brain
dead.

We broke for lunch and I got straight back into the boxes as
soon as I returned.  After wading through hundreds of useless documents, I
finally came across something I could use.  There were three counseling memos
from Larry’s personnel file where he’d been written up for “inappropriate
behavior towards a subordinate.”  All three employees were female, and all
three had lodged complaints about vulgar language, inappropriate touching, and
abusive tactics in dealing with them on a day-to-day basis.  Interestingly,
there was nothing about Maddie’s complaint, or at least I hadn’t come across it
yet.

“Maddie,” I called out to her in the next room without using
the intercom, since it was just the two of us in the office.  I could hear her
heels clicking on the floor then she poked her head in my office.

“You find something?”

“Yeah.  Check this out.”

I handed her the documents and she stood on the other side of
my desk while she looked them over.  I caught myself staring at her as her eyes
went from side to side over each consecutive page.  When she finished the last
page, she looked down at me and shook her head.

“He’s such a creep,” she said.

I was about to agree but Maddie distracted me when she kind of
jumped and looked down at her feet.  She had an unreadable look on her face.

“What’s wrong?”

She let out a blood-curdling scream that scared the daylights
out of me.  I sprang out of my chair and bounded around to the other side of
the desk.  I couldn’t imagine what could have possibly elicited such a reaction
from her, but if it was a roach or any kind of bug, I was going to be pissed. I
looked down at Maddie’s feet, or more appropriately her legs.

“Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed, instinctively jumping back.

A thick black snake was winding itself in and out and around
her ankles.   Its head was moving around from side to side like it was looking
for something, and its black, forked tongue was darting in and out of its evil
looking mouth.

Maddie was absolutely freaking out.  “Get it off of me!”  She
was screaming and crying, covering her eyes with her hands like it would
somehow make matters better if she couldn’t see.  She was trying to get her
legs free, but the serpent was wrapped around too tightly.

I realized that I needed to get my shit together.  We have four
poisonous snakes in San Antonio:  
Red and Yeller, Kill a Feller
– it
wasn’t a coral snake; it wasn’t a rattler; it wasn’t a copperhead; and it
wasn’t a water moccasin.  So unless it was an import, it wasn’t going to kill
us.  I took a tentative step towards Maddie.

“It’s going to be okay, Maddie.  I don’t think it’s poisonous,”
I said, as calmly as I could.

“Help me,” she screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks in a
continuous stream.  “Please get it off!”

I eyed the snake, trying to figure out the best way to tackle
the big boy, but in the end I decided that the task didn’t require strategy.  I
just needed to get the damn thing off my secretary. I took a deep breath and
grabbed a handful of snake close enough to the head so he couldn’t bite me, and
I started unwrapping it from around Maddie’s legs. She stood there screaming as
I freed first one leg, then the other, until I finally had the bad boy off of
her but draped all over my arm.

Maddie let out another scream and shivered wildly while I tried
to figure out what to do with the snake.

“Dump the papers out of that box and I’ll put him in there,” I
instructed.

She moved quickly, still screaming, and upended the box,
sending Datacare documents all over the floor, then she tossed the box in my
general direction and screamed again.  I knew better than to ask for her help,
so I peeled the snake off my arm unassisted, and with considerable effort got
him into the box and slammed the lid shut.  My breathing was labored and I was
soaked with sweat.  Even as a kid, I hated snakes.  I’d never held one before
and I never wanted to again.  Ever.

“Are you okay?” I asked Maddie.

“No, I’m not okay!  I just had a snake wrapped around my
ankles.  How could I possibly be okay?”

She was in tears again and her whole body was trembling. I
walked with shaky legs over to her and put my arms around her and held her
while she cried.  I could feel her heart racing, but then again, it could have
been mine.

“I can’t stop shaking,” she cried.

“I know.  Me too.”  I hugged her tighter.  “It’s okay,” I said,
as soothingly as I could, but my voice sounded shaky and unconvincing.

When we’d both settled down, I finally started to get my wits
back.  “What the hell is a snake doing in my office?” I asked, but even as I
said it, I had a pretty good idea of how it got there.  Maddie didn’t answer
and I took it that she was thinking the same thing I was.  “You think Larry is
behind this?” I asked.

“Don’t you?”

“He could be.”  That was exactly what I thought, but I wasn’t
ready to say so.

“Could be?  Samuel, he came in inside that box!”  Her voice was
so high-pitched that if I hadn’t seen the words come out of her mouth, I’d have
sworn someone else had said it.

“We don’t know that,” I said.

She looked at me like I was insane. “I think we should call the
police,” Maddie said, looking over at the box.

“The police aren’t going to do anything.  We need to call
someone who’ll come get the damn snake.”

“Fine.  But first you call the police.  We’ve had a broken
window, and now this.”

There was something in the tone of her voice that told me not
to argue.  She started crying again and she shivered violently, then she wiped
at her wet cheek with the palm of her hand.

“I get the creeps whenever I think of it,” she said, like she
was embarrassed.

“Hey.  I was there, remember?  You don’t have to explain.  I’ll
probably have nightmares for a week,” I admitted.

“Thank you for getting it off of me,” Maddie sniffed, wiping
away more tears.  Apparently she had an endless supply.

“I didn’t have much choice, did I?  It was either that or watch
you go into cardiac arrest.  Not to mention the fact that if you did, you’d
probably sue my ass.”

Maddie smiled.  “You were very brave.”

“Believe me, there was nothing brave about it.  If Penny had
been here, I would have made her do it.”

Maddie laughed.  “Call the damn police, Samuel.”

I called information to get the number for the police because I
didn’t think the situation warranted dialing 911.  After all, the snake was no
longer a threat, being safely contained in the box.  But as I wrote the number
down, I caught myself thinking of how much I’d be paying for that one stupid
call and it pissed me off.

As I had told Maddie, the police didn’t do anything.  They took
the information and suggested I call some wildlife people to come and deal with
the snake.  It took those people an hour to get there, and by then I didn’t
feel at all like working.  Penny had arrived in the meantime and had made me
send Maddie home.  I’d have done it anyway, but it made Mother Hen feel good to
have thought it up, so I let her think it was her idea.  I decided to take the
rest of the day off, but not before I put in a call to Niki Lautrec.  As much
as I hated to do it, I told him about the two incidents and gave him the names
of three people who I thought might have done it, including Larry, DuMans, and
another jerk whose wife I’d represented in a child custody matter.  He said
he’d check it out and I felt surprisingly better when I hung up.

Maddie must have stopped somewhere on her way home, because she
pulled into her driveway at the same time I was pulling into mine.  I thought I
better check to make sure she was okay so I was walking across my lawn towards
her house, when something on my porch caught the corner of my eye.  It looked
like a furry red sweater lying on the steps, and I stopped, trying to think if
I’d dropped something on the way out that morning.  I was about to decide that
Landra must have been by, when the sweater moved. When I realized what it was,
my stomach churned and I threw up in the grass even as I was running towards
the Siamese.

Maddie must have seen it too because she dropped the bags she
was carrying and came racing across the yard.  We met at the steps and I almost
threw up again before I could check to see how bad it was.  The Siamese gave
out a pitiful, weak meow, and tried to lift his head.

“Oh my God,” Maddie said.  By the time I got my shit together,
she was already kneeling down beside the cat, running her hand over him, trying
to figure out where he was hurt.  It was impossible to tell because his entire
coat was covered in blood.  When she reached his back leg, the Siamese let out
a yowl and flinched.

“I’ll kill the mother fucker!” I said.  My hand was clenched in
a fist and I had to consciously will myself to release it.  I knew there was no
way the cat would survive – he’d lost way too much blood.

“Who’s your vet?” Maddie asked.

It took a second for the question to register, and even then I
was at a loss for words.  “I don’t know . . . I mean . . . I don’t have one. 
I’ve never needed one until now.”

“There’s a feline clinic right down the street.  We’ll take him
there.”  She was amazingly calm as she scooped the Siamese up and cradled him
in her arms like a baby.  “I think his back leg is broken,” she said.

All I could think of was that Larry was going to pay for
killing my cat.

Maddie’s hands and shirt were covered in red.  She was rubbing
her fingers together as we walked towards the Suburban when all of sudden she
grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop.

“It’s paint!” she said, holding out her hand for me to see.

I ran my hand across the Siamese and rubbed my fingers
together, then I held them up to my nose and sniffed.  “Oh my God.  It’s not
blood!” I said with tremendous relief and renewed optimism for his chances of
survival.  “Someone painted my cat,” I said stupidly.  The words,
my cat,
sounded funny, I guess because I’d never actually acknowledged that he was
mine.

“Poor baby,” Maddie cooed.

“Let’s get you to the vet!” I told the bastard.

I drove like a madman through the streets of the Park, hoping
like hell that no deer would jump out in front of me.  We were inside the
feline clinic within minutes of leaving my house.

The receptionist’s welcoming smile turned to a look of horror. 
“It’s paint,” Maddie and I said in unison.

Maddie had been right – the cat’s hind leg was broken.  The vet
put a cast on it and I took the Siamese home, then I spent the rest of the day
and most of the evening cleaning paint off the bastard.  Between the snake and
the cat, it was one of the worst days of my life.