Hell Bent (7 page)

The message I was waiting for would report that her father had died and she was coming home. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I didn’t want to admit that I hoped Ed Banyon would die.

Typically, Evie’s messages were brief and glib and impersonal. Reports on her father’s health, mostly. A couple of times she’d run into a mutual friend out there who said hello. I had the sense that she felt obligated to touch base with me every few weeks. She always asked me to give Henry a big hug for her, and one for me, too. That was all. No “I love you” or “I miss you.” Just “Big hugs for Henry, and one for you, too.”

This message wasn’t from Evie. It was Alex. “Brady?” said her familiar telephone voice. “Will you call me when you get back? I’m dying to hear how it went with Gussie.” She paused, and then in a softer tone she said, “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re doing this. I want to buy you dinner. Tonight was hardly relaxing. Call me, okay? Even if it’s late. I’m wideawake.”

Alex’s voice, and the unavoidable image of her lying in a king-sized bed in the Best Western hotel waiting for me to return her call, brought old memories and images bubbling into my brain. We’d been together for over three years. We’d loved each other. When we split, I believed that I’d never find another woman to love.

So now Evie was a continent away and avoiding me, and Alex was here, in Concord, barely half an hour’s drive from Beacon Hill, and she was calling me on a Saturday night with that
husky telephone voice of hers, telling me how grateful she was and asking me to return her call.

I stood there in my kitchen holding the phone in my hand and gazing out the kitchen window into the darkness. After a minute, I set the phone back on its cradle and gave Henry a whistle, and we went upstairs to bed.

M
onday afternoon I was working on my letter to AA Movers, Inc., on behalf of Doug and Mary Epping, and not enjoying it, when Julie tapped on my door.

“Enter,” I called.

“I brought you coffee.” She put a mug on my desk, then sat in the chair across from me. “How goes the composing?”

“More like decomposing,” I said. “I’m semicolon-ing and whereas-ing myself to death here.” I held up my yellow legal pad for her to see.

“It’s delightfully messy,” she said.

“It’ll get worse before it gets better,” I said. “I’ll have a draft for you to edit before the sun sets.”

“Goody,” said Julie. “I love deleting your semicolons. Meanwhile, Attorney Capezza called.”

“Lily Capezza? What’s she want?”

“She represents Claudia Shaw. She seemed to think you’d know what she wants. I told her you’d get back to her.”

“You could’ve put her through,” I said. “I was just hacking around with this letter.”

Julie cocked her head and smiled.

“Oh,” I said. “Right. Promoting the illusion that I am too busy to take a phone call.”

“We’ve got a new client, then?”

“I guess we do,” I said. “Sorry. I should’ve given you a heads-up. Gus Shaw. Augustine. Alex’s brother. He’s getting divorced.”

“You’re going up against Attorney Capezza, huh?”

“Yes,” I said. “The formidable Lily Capezza. Why don’t you see if you can get her on the line for me. Might as well start the ball rolling.”

Julie gave me a little salute, stood up, and headed for the door. Then she stopped. “So how’s Alex?”

“You had a long talk with her the other day, didn’t you?”

“You know what I mean.”

“There’s nothing going on,” I said, “if that’s what you’re getting at. And if there was, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Heard from Evie lately?”

“No.”

She looked at me for a moment, then shook her head, opened the door, and left.

A few minutes later the console on my desk buzzed. I picked up the phone and poked the blinking button.

“I have Attorney Capezza on line one for you,” said Julie.

A moment later there was a click on the line. “Lily,” I said. “How are you?”

“Hello, Brady Coyne,” she said. Lily Capezza had a soft, girlish voice that belied a heart of granite and a will of titanium. “I’m quite well, thank you. I do have a rather unhappy client, however.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“The sooner we get this thing done,” she said, “the better for all concerned, don’t you think?”

“What are the chances,” I said, “from your client’s point of view, of a reconciliation?”

Lily laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

“No,” I said, “of course I’m not joking. We always go for reconciliation. Encourage them to try counseling, use the separation to work things out. You and I have always been of one mind on this.”

“The 209A makes reconciliation moot, don’t you think?”

I said nothing. Gus hadn’t mentioned anything about a restraining order.

I heard Lily chuckle in the phone. “He didn’t tell you about the abuse prevention order, did he?”

“Come on, Lily. That’s between me and my client.”

“He didn’t contest it,” she said. “I bet if he’d had you he would have, though even you wouldn’t have prevailed. We got it extended to a full year. Doesn’t expire till May 15, by which time I’m hoping the divorce will be final.”

I hesitated, then said, “Why don’t you give me your perspective on it?”

“It’s public record,” she said. “An unbalanced man suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, back from Iraq having lost his right hand to some kind of IED, terrorizing his wife and children? Sad story. All too common, I’m afraid. You’ve got to feel bad for the poor man. But first and foremost, you’ve got to worry about the wife and kids. Their safety. Their peace of mind.”

“Terrorizing,” I said. “Strong language, Lily.”

“The man brandished his sidearm, Brady. Come on.”

“Oh, shit,” I said before I could stop myself.

Lily was silent for a moment. Then she said, “Look, Brady. I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but between you and me, and entirely off the record, you’ve got to talk to your client.”

“I intend to.” I blew out a breath. “So why wasn’t Gus arrested? Brandishing a sidearm?”

“My client refused to report it and wouldn’t let me use it with the judge. She knows he’s a sick puppy. She stuck by him for as long as she could. She’s scared, Brady. She needs to be divorced, and she had to go for the 209A. She had no choice. Fortunately, your client didn’t contest the order. So the brandishing part’s not in the public record. But if it should be necessary …”

“I hear you.” I cleared my throat. “Off the record—yes, thank you for that—off the record, to tell you the truth, I confess that I’m kind of embarrassed, Lily. My client is an unstable man, seriously depressed, and obviously not entirely forthcoming with his attorney. I hope you and I can find a way that works in the interests of both of our clients. For the sake of justice.”

Lily gave me one of her deceptive little-girl chuckles. “You remember what they taught us in law school. When you’ve got the upper hand, you go for the jugular. When you’re behind the eight ball, you go for the compromise.”

“We’ll both do our best for our clients,” I said. “That’s understood. Gus Shaw is a pretty sympathetic figure. He doesn’t want to lose his kids.”

“Look,” she said. “Let’s have lunch, talk it through, okay? Let’s figure out what they both want, and see if we can reconcile that with what makes sense, what’s right and just, and what Judge Kolb will accept.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said.

“You know,” said Lily, “contrary to popular belief, I am not a monster.”

“I never thought you were a monster.”

“I do believe in justice.”

“For your clients,” I said.

She laughed again. “Sure. But I sleep best when things work out for everybody. I think you and I can do some good for this family.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“Why don’t you put your secretary back on to talk to mine, and we’ll let them make a date for us.”

“Yes,” I said. “I will.”

“Just don’t lose track of the fact that Mr. Shaw brandished a weapon at his family in the living room of his home,” said Lily Capezza.

“You’ve got me over a barrel, all right.”

“The two little girls were petrified,” she said. “Don’t forget that.”

“It kind of puts Mrs. Shaw’s extramarital adventures into perspective,” I said, “doesn’t it?”

Lily was quiet for a moment. Then she chuckled. “Why, Attorney Coyne. I came this close to underestimating you. This might turn out to be more fun than I thought. I’m going to put my secretary on now. Let’s make it some time this week, okay?”

“I look forward to it,” I said. I hit the intercom button, and when Julie picked up I told her that Attorney Capezza’s secretary was coming on the line and they should set up a lunch meeting for us attorneys.

I hung up the phone, stared out the window for a minute, then slammed my fist down on my desk. Brandishing a weapon at his wife and kids? I was supposed to represent this guy?

My first impulse was to call Gus at the camera shop and blast him for not telling me the truth and putting me on the defensive with his wife’s lawyer. But one of the things I’ve learned about this job is to take a deep breath and resist my first impulse. In fact, it’s best to resist all impulses.

I’d talk to Gus later.

So I took several deep breaths, then returned my attention to the letter I was writing on behalf of Doug and Mary Epping. It was a relief to think about broken furniture instead of a broken family with a one-handed crazy person waving a gun at his wife and children.

A few minutes before closing time, Julie came into my office. “You got a lunch date with Attorney Capezza,” she said. “In the true spirit of give-and-take, her secretary picked the time—one o’clock on Friday—and I picked the place. Marie’s. Okay?”

“Okay,” I said. “Good. Marie’s gives me the home field advantage, such as it is.”

Julie put two sheets of paper on my desk. “See how this reads,” she said.

It was my letter to AA Movers, now edited and neatly typed and formatted and printed out on our official Brady L. Coyne, Esquire, stationery. “I suppose you tinkered with my immortal prose,” I said.

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks.”

“You let a few semicolons slip through, I hope.”

She smiled. “Not many of them.” She turned for the door. “Read it over. Feel free to mark it up.”

When Julie left, I looked at the letter.

AA Movers, Inc.
P. O. Box 1607
Lowell, MA 01853

RE: Douglas and Mary Epping
Claim for Damages pursuant to G.L. c. 93A, section 9

Very sincerely,
Brady L. Coyne, Esq.

Encl.

Cc: Douglas Epping
Mary Epping

I took the letter out to Julie in our reception area and put it on her desk.

“Sound okay?” she said.

“It’s great,” I said. “There’s a lovely sequence of semicolons there, and you preserved several of my ‘pursuants’ and ‘hereins.’ I couldn’t have done better myself.”

“Hemingway it ain’t,” she said.

“And rightfully so. Papa published millions of words, and I bet not a single one of them was ‘pursuant.’”

“I changed hardly anything, actually,” said Julie. “You can take full credit for this masterpiece of empty threat and muddy obfuscation. They’ll ignore it, of course.”

“Probably,” I said. “I would. They don’t know what we’ve got up our sleeve.”

“You did a good job of not divulging anything.”

“But there is nevertheless the subtle, unspoken hint that we know more than we’re saying.”

“Yes,” she said. “There is that, as I’m sure their lawyer will discern, assuming he’s discerning. Nicely done. So what exactly
do
we have up our sleeve?”

“According to Doug,” I said, “this Double A outfit hires day workers off the streets of Lowell. They’re untrained and poorly supervised. Probably get paid under the table. I’m guessing no withholding or Social Security taxes are paid by Double-A, Inc., to the Commonwealth or to Uncle Sam. I’m curious about their insurance. Doug can testify to their lack of professionalism.”

“That’s good stuff,” she said. “You got anything more than Mr. Epping’s testimony?”