The Reform Artists: A Legal Suspense, Spy Thriller (The Reform Artists Series Book 1) (12 page)

Hannah jumped to the back of the report where he found pages of links to the most promising support documents. As he scanned down the columns of entries, one immediately piqued his curiosity. It referenced a Montgomery County
Journal
news story whose headline read, “Local Barber Holds World Record for District Court Appearances.”

Hannah clicked the link, and an October 5, 2013 newspaper article immediately filled the screen. It contained a picture of Judge Farnsworth receiving a haircut at his desk, in chambers. The caption identified the barber as the judge’s life-long friend, Tony Sands. It seems Tony Sands and the Judge had a standing appointment every Friday at 1 p.m. Sands, the article reported, had been clipping the judge’s hair in court for nearly five years and had just completed his 250th “court appearance.”

Hannah’s pulse quickened as he entertained the unlikely notion that this tradition might have continued for another five years and that he might now somehow find a way to take advantage of it.

He opened the video surveillance logs and scanned through the Friday afternoon records. While they showed Judge Farnsworth entering and exiting his chambers several times each Friday, they made no mention of Tony Sands. To be thorough, he checked the Monday through Thursday afternoon records as well, just to make sure they hadn’t switched the designated day. Still nothing.

All this proved, Hannah realized, was that the video cameras had never captured the judge and the barber together, at any point, outside the judge’s chambers. That did not mean, however, that Tony Sands had stopped visiting the courthouse. If he had been to the courthouse during the previous month, Hannah reasoned, then the facial recognition software should have identified him from the security camera footage, and his name would appear somewhere in the name extraction report.

Hannah opened the report and entered “Sands” as a search term. The search produced a single result: the one he wanted. Tony Sands had been to the courthouse the previous month.

Now, he needed to determine if “Tony Sands” was an operative. (Based on Sand’s age, Hannah thought, the odds were unlikely.) He opened the report that had cross-referenced the extracted names against the organization’s database of operatives. “Sands” sounded like it might be a common name. At least, he hoped so.

He keyed “Tony Sands” into the search field and hit Enter. Immediately, the computer displayed the results: a single page with the name “Tony Sands” listed at the top and a single matching “Sands” from the list of operatives printed out below. Then, Hannah saw the probability score and his eyes bulged. The program had returned a score of “0.0000,” meaning it had determined, with complete certainty, that the two “Tony Sands” did not represent the same person.

This was the first time Hannah had ever seen the program return a zero correlation score, and he was flabbergasted.

He quickly recovered and decided to probe deeper. Hannah opened the organization’s “Tony Sands” file in search of an answer. He found what he was looking for almost immediately, in the form of an all-too-common set of initials trailing after the operative’s name, and it made his stalwart face momentarily soften into a broad, satisfied smile.

Swindell arrived at work shortly after 7:30 a.m. Thursday to find the message light blinking on his telephone console.
Someone got off to an early start, today,
he thought as he sat down and pressed it.

“Hi Chester, this is Beverly West. Please call me at your earliest convenience. I need to ask a very small favor.”

Interestin’,
he thought. For the two decades Swindell had known her, Beverly West had never asked him to do anything ‘small’ let alone ‘very small.’ But at moments like this, when she actually did need something from him, he could always count on her to cast her request in the most diminutive terms possible.
Requestin’ a favor puts her in my debt,
he reasoned
, so she’s just tryin’ to set the lowest possible exchange rate for any future reciprocation.

He smiled. West was, indeed, a worthy opponent: always calculating, always plotting, always thinking several steps ahead.

Despite the value of thinking strategically, Swindell could not bring himself to do it habitually or in as compulsive a manner as West. He found the mere thought of it exhausting. Instead, he limited strategizing to matters of great importance, such as planning a deposition or building a case.

Swindell chuckled as he fantasized about what the inside of Beverly West’s strategically hyperactive brain might look like. He envisioned an enormous warehouse filled with thousands of gerbil cages crammed end-to-end atop endless rows of narrow tables. Each gerbil was running itself silly on a squeaky exercise wheel-generator that powered small, decision-making logic circuits. Meanwhile, white-coated lab technicians, with clipboards in their hands, continuously patrolled the rows, making observations and taking notes on the status of each data display.

Swindell picked up the phone, pressed West’s speed dial and waited for her to pick up. “Beverly,” he said, at last, “this is Chester Swindell, returnin’ your call.”

“Thanks for getting back to me so quickly,” West said. She paused before continuing. “Chester, everything I’m about to tell you has to be treated as privileged information—and it must stay that way. OK?”

“Sure, Bev.”

“Last night, I got a call from my client. She’s very concerned about the Silkwood’s six-year-old son, Justin. He has become increasingly belligerent and distraught over the approach of his seventh birthday, this Saturday.”

“I'd say he’s a bit young to be havin’ those kinds of age-related concerns, Bev.”

“Cute, Chester. Justin is upset because he doesn’t understand why his father cannot attend his birthday party.”

“Frankly, Bev, we don't understand why, either. Are you now proposin’ that we actually take the ‘best interests of the child’ into account and allow my client to attend?”

“No.”

“Why the hell not? That certainly would qualify as a ‘very small’ favor.”

“We are not prepared to defy the judge’s order in such a blatant, and disrespectful, manner, Chester.”

“Fine. Have you explained your reasonin’ to the boy? I’m sure he’ll understand.”

“Chester, I need you to be serious for a moment, OK?”

“All right.”

“Justin wants to talk with his father, and my client said she is willing to arrange a 15-minute phone call this evening, but it’s contingent on your client agreeing to certain conditions.”

“Such as?”

“Well, first: No new information gained during the phone call may be mentioned, or otherwise introduced into evidence, at the hearing—and that includes any details of the phone call itself.”

“Accepted. What else?”

“Your client must not disparage either my client or the judge, during the call.”

“Bev, I understand your concerns, here, but I cannot agree to that.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s just too darn broad and subjective.”

“In what way?”

“Well, Bev, suppose your client misrepresented or, in our opinion, misinterpreted, the court’s decision, its intent or its role in this matter, when she explained it to Justin. Or suppose my client wished to ‘clarify’ any ‘disparagin’’’ inferences his son may have drawn, independently, based on his own, limited understandin’ of the court’s actions? If my client were to address such issues, you might be able to construe disparagement. I cannot voluntarily expose him to that.”

“OK. Then, what would you suggest?”

“We’ll agree to tell the truth and to do our best not to assign disparagin’ traits or motives to either the court or your client. Will that work?”

“Yes.”

“Now, Bev, can you give me some off-the-record specifics about how this issue has affected young Justin, so that my client will understand both the necessity for this phone call and any issues that he might wish to address?

“Of course. Katie said her son has had severe temper tantrums. He has thrown and broken things, refused to eat his meals, told his mother he hates her and the ‘dumb judge.’ He also has threatened not to go to his own birthday party. Worse, he has had trouble sleeping. Several nights this week, he woke up after midnight, crying for his father. He wants to know when his father is coming home, and he has asked his mother if his father is angry with him.”

“OK. Thank you.” Swindell said. “So, Bev, to sum up: Your client wants my client to help her with her parentin’ responsibilities. What does my client get out of this?”

“You mean, besides helping his son?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“I would have thought that was obvious, Chester: He gets fifteen minutes on the phone with his son, personal contact that is currently forbidden.”

“Well, that’s certainly true,” Swindell said, pondering whether he should push further. Instead, he decided to introduce a new issue. “Bev, has anyone told Justin that you’re tryin’ to arrange a phone call between him and his dad?”

“No.”

“Good, because I also have certain conditions. One of them is that you and your client must agree not to discuss any plans for a phone call with the boy until after I’ve had a chance to speak with my client and finalize the details. If, for any reason, the call doesn’t happen, or it doesn’t happen as quickly as you’d like, I don’t want the boy, or his mother, to blame that on my client.”

“That seems quite reasonable,” West said.

“You sound surprised?”

“Well, I—”

“May I make an observation, Beverly?”

“Of course.”

“On one level, the need for this ‘tiny favor’ of yours suggests that your client has realized that she cannot raise the children, effectively, all by herself and that the kids need their father in their lives as a co-parent. In the best interests of the children, Bev, do you think she might now allow you to stipulate that fact in court?”

“Fuck you, Chester.”

“Well, it was worth a try.”

“
Really?
” West said. “That’s why anything reasonable that comes out of your mouth catches me off-guard.”

“Humph,” Swindell snorted.

“Shall I go ahead and write up an agreement, Chester, so that we’ll have it ready for the parties to sign?”

“Yes. Fax me a review copy. Meanwhile, I’ll speak with my client and get back to you as soon as I have somethin’ definite.”

“That sounds great. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Swindell called Martin’s cell phone and was immediately routed to voicemail. “Mahr-tin,” he said, “this is Chester Swindell callin’. It’s early Thursday mornin’. Please give me a call as soon as you get this message. Your son’s havin’ a hard time comin’ to terms with your separation and with your exclusion from his birthday party. Consequently, your wife is now offerin' to let you speak with him, briefly, by phone, this evenin’. We just need to finalize arrangements. I’ll fill you in when you call.”

A cold, steady rain pelted Roger Hannah as he made his way between rows of worn, gray head stones at St. James Episcopal Cemetery, in Windsor, Va. Shortly before 9 o’clock Thursday morning. Thirty yards behind him, Val sat in the car with the engine idling. She was listening to her favorite country music station, while her husband took a rare personal day in order, he had said, to “pay his respects” to his older brother, Gary.

Respects? Hannah thought as he crossed the rows of tombstones toward Gary’s grave. What a funny word to associate with a graveside visit to my draft-dodging brother. No one had respected Gary, when he had packed his bags and brought his young wife with him to Canada at the height of the Vietnam War. Our parents had ridiculed him, mistaking his courageous, principled stand for cowardice. When their attempts to shame him into returning to the U.S. and enlisting failed, they disowned their first born.

Guilt gnawed at Hannah whenever he thought about the big brother he had idolized and then abandoned with the rest of the family. The feeling weighed more heavily with each passing step. He looked up. There it was, just forty feet ahead and to his left: the black marble stone he had personally selected and raided his savings to pay for, the stone no one else from his immediate family had ever seen. As far as they knew, Gary’s remains were still hidden away in an unmarked grave near where he had lived, on the outskirts of Montreal. “Gary Hannah, a man of conscience, who fought the ‘great fight,’ shielded only by the courage of his convictions. September 2, 1952 to September 2, 1985.”

He bent down before the stone and crossed himself as the tears began to flow. “You were so right, big brother. I will never forgive myself for deserting you in your time of need.” He looked up and wiped the tears from his eyes. “As I’m sure you know only too well, I’ve been working overtime these past few years, in my own way, to make amends.

“I’ll be seeing Dale for lunch today,” he added. “Your grandson’s hell-bent on enlisting and ‘redeeming’ the family name...most likely with his blood. I’m going to try and talk some sense into him. Wish me luck!”

He raised his right hand and patted the top of the stone as if it were his dead brother’s shoulder. Then, he stood up. “I really miss you, bro. And, in case I haven’t told you this lately, you’re my hero.”