by Dave Daren
Evelyn paused and looked at me expectantly. I wracked my brain but nothing came to mind, so I shook my head again. She sighed before she continued.
“No, you probably wouldn’t have, would you?” she relented. “I think you were still in Maricopa at the time.”
She rose up to her feet with her glass in hand. She didn’t instruct me to follow her, but she had started to walk back toward the sliding glass doors at the head of the patio.
I shrugged to myself before I grabbed my own glass and followed after her as she yanked the door open with a swish. A gust from her air conditioning smacked me in the face when I stepped inside after her, but at least it was a relief from the relentless sun.
The inside of her house wasn’t dark, by any means, but it still took my eyes a moment to adjust. As I paused just inside the door, I glanced around Evelyn’s home. It was what someone on one of those HGTV shows might have called charming. I didn’t know much about interior design myself, and my own apartment was set up more for function than fashion, but even I could see the care put into the little details, like the throw pillows that complemented the paint color or the vase of flowers on the dining room table.
“Are those from your bushes?” I asked as I gestured toward the roses.
Evelyn shot a glance at me over her shoulder and scoffed.
“I thought I told you to quit groveling, Archer,” she snapped.
I bit my tongue as she led me through the living room and into what looked like a small home office. I didn’t ask why a retired paralegal needed her own home office, because after having had one conversation with her today, I could tell that Evelyn wasn’t the sort of woman to take retirement with grace.
Evelyn’s office was decorated with the same sort of touches I’d seen throughout the rest of the house. A few photos hung on the wall in matching frames and a vase of flowers sat neatly on top of an impressive looking filing cabinet. The focal point of the room, however, was a tidy desk just below the large, back window. A blank spot sat on the other side of the room where I presumed another desk had once sat. The empty space didn’t seem like the sort of thing I should mention aloud.
“Sorry,” I apologized despite not being that sorry about my compliment. I hadn’t been trying to grovel, but I had a distinct feeling that no matter what I said to her, Evelyn would assume I was just aiming to land in her good graces.
She gave a little, short gesture with the flick of her wrist to indicate I pause, or maybe just that I shut up, as she shuffled over toward her filing cabinet. She pulled a thin gold chain with two small charms from under the collar of her blouse.
I realized after a second that they weren’t actually charms. Instead, one appeared to be a small key while the other looked like a wedding band, and Evelyn used the small key to open the filing cabinet and tugged out a seemingly heavy drawer with a low, mechanical whoosh.
I leaned up against her desk with my palms flat against the wood as I watched her begin to sift through a truly impressive number of files. I wondered if she had kept everything from her years as a paralegal, but before I had a chance to ask her, Evelyn slapped a file down on the desk. I jolted at the sudden move.
Her gray eyes twinkled like she really enjoyed keeping me on my toes. She glanced back down at the file to flip it open before she slid it toward me.
I set my jaw after her little surprise, determined not to let her intimidate me, before I looked down at the thin file in front of my hands. There was a collection of articles as well as some handwritten notes, and I pulled it closer so I could read the small print. I noticed the manila tab read Brody Lucas in a neat, little handwriting that matched the notes. I half-expected to see some sort of photo, like a mugshot. Evelyn just seemed like the sort to have mugshots of all her contacts filed away in her office and locked up with a key. It wasn’t exactly a comforting thought given I considered myself a contact.
As I skimmed the file and flipped through all of the papers and clippings she apparently kept over the years, I began to remember all that I’d heard about Lucas. I cut my eyes back up toward Evelyn with an incredulous raise of my eyebrows.
“So you do remember him,” Evelyn said before I could inform her of that very fact.
My face, apparently, had given things away, and I couldn’t help myself from making a bit of a sour face as I nodded my acknowledgement. What I remembered was an attorney who had built a successful career out of suing large corporations, and then lost it when he tried to buy his son’s way into his alma mater.
“I do, yeah,” I said. “He’s still practicing?”
I was a little shocked to see her nod in response, and I looked back down at the file. There were the usual sort of things I’d expect to see in a collected file on someone, like hand-scribbled contact information on pieces of yellow legal paper as well as more professional typed up versions of the same information, and even what appeared to be old case summaries.
But it was the newspaper clippings that made up the bulk of Evelyn’s file on Brody Lucas. None of the headlines were the sort of headlines I’d want to see following my name, and I doubted Lucas had wanted them, either.
Evelyn snatched her file back before I could potentially ruin whatever organizational system she had and inserted it back into her filing cabinet.
“He does, if anyone hires him,” she said as she pushed the cabinet drawer closed.
The if in her sentence carried a lot of weight. She locked the cabinet up and tucked her necklace back under the collar of her blouse. She turned back to look at me and planted her hands on her hips like she expected me to argue with her. And on any other case, I probably would have. But I’d already been turned down by just about everyone in town, and I knew Lucas had been a good attorney before the scandal that ended his career.
“What other choice do I have?” I conceded with a sigh.
Evelyn gave a pleased little harumph and a single nod of her gray head.
“That’s what I thought you’d say,” she declared.
She gave me the sort of look that made me want to stand up straight, like she was appraising me or something, and so that’s what I did. Evelyn’s nose twitched, and she shook her head.
“You couldn’t have worn a suit jacket?” she scolded before she gave a shake of her head. “You look scruffy. I don’t know what it is with men your age, but it would do you some good to learn how to dress. I don’t know how you win any cases dressed like some sort of frat boy.”
She moved back to the door as she spoke, and her last dig at me came to me from the hallway. I wanted to protest and explain that I’d simply forgotten my jacket this one time, but there didn’t seem to be much point. Besides, I didn’t know if she thought I looked more like a door-to-door Bible salesman or a frat boy, but she seemed to be incredibly annoyed by both prospects.
With a sigh, I followed in Evelyn’s wake, but I found myself wondering what I had signed myself up for. I wandered into the hallway, but Evelyn was nowhere in sight, and I couldn’t hear her voice anymore. A small frown creased my face as I craned my neck around. Maybe she had left something outside, I rationalized. I was about to call out to her before she re-emerged from the now open door at the end of the hallway. She’d changed from her gardening clothes into a calf-length skirt, a stark white blouse, and a blazer that matched the skirt to a T. It was the sort of thing I’d expected to see her wearing when I first showed up, and I was sure it would have been very fashionable two or three decades ago.
“Well?” Evelyn huffed as she stood in the doorway and waited for me. “We’re going to see Brody. Am I going to have to spell everything out for you, Archer? I’m certainly not going to waste my own gas on this little expedition.”
I gave another long, mostly amused, sigh which earned me another raised eyebrow from Evelyn.
“I’m going to need directions,” I said as I resigned myself to being Evelyn’s chauffeur.
In the end, the drive wasn’t particularly pleasant. In between filling me in
on everything Brody had been through, Evelyn critiqued every aspect of my driving, from the position I held my hands on the wheel to the preset radio stations on my car stereo. I counted it as a miracle that we’d made it to the Lucas household in one piece.
I didn’t know much about Brody Lucas, save for his disgraced legacy, but I could tell well enough that he loved football the way most people loved Jesus.
I scratched at my chin and glanced around the living room Evelyn and I stood in. Wherever I looked, football memorabilia graced a surface. Framed and signed photos, newspaper clippings in a big shadow box, trophies and helmets in glass cases, pennants in the familiar shade of University of Texas orange. Even on the tiny television behind us, a football game played. I could tell that it wasn’t a recent game, either, based on just the referee’s hair alone. As I studied the little, grainy screen to try and find any indicator of a date, Evelyn swatted at my leg and fixed me with a stern look.
I cleared my throat and straightened back up again. I wasn’t sure at what point over the course of the car ride that Evelyn had decided we were friendly enough for her to smack at me like a disapproving mother, but it was a little flattering that she’d so quickly taken to me in her own strange way. However, it also meant she kept looking over at me like she wanted to smack me upside the head, and I could have done without that part.
Brody Lucas lumbered out of the hallway as he dried his large hands on a faded orange hand towel. He was a broad man, with wide, commanding shoulders and a set, square jaw. He stood only a few inches shorter than I did, but seemed to carry himself like I was a foot shorter. He kept his chin held high, but there was a tiredness behind his pale eyes he couldn’t quite hide. The worry lines on his forehead stood out in the light that managed to filter in through his drawn blinds.
He tucked the thin towel into the back pocket of his durable jeans. They were that sort of stiff, sturdy denim men wore when they wanted to get some sort of work done. A pair of solid-looking boots poked out from under the hem at his ankles, and that surprised me. I’d expected to see cowboy boots at the very least.
“We’re sorry to intrude,” I said as politely as I could manage.
I threw in an apologetic smile for good measure. Next to me, Evelyn scoffed.
“Well, I’m not sorry,” she snapped to correct me.
I refused to look down and meet her eyes, so she turned her frightening stare onto Brody. He didn’t cow under her gaze, which was rather impressive, but he did give a small duck of his head.
“So you fell off the damn horse,” she continued. “Doesn’t mean you let yourself get trampled.”
I looked away from Brody to give him a moment to struggle under Evelyn’s reprimand. I noticed now that the television sat on a much larger stand, like at some point, Brody and his family had been forced to downsize on their electronics. That seemed consistent with everything I knew from the clippings and Evelyn filling me in on the drive over.
“So,” Brody boomed when Evelyn finally went quiet. “You need a favor?”
His voice was loud and firm, but he dragged out each syllable in a way that made him sound like he questioned everything I’d said since I walked in the door, which, thanks to Evelyn, hadn’t been much.
“A favor makes it sound like I’m not going to pay you,” I joked in an attempt to keep the mood in the room light. I wished the blinds were open a little more as if the light could make this exchange less awkward.
Brody gave a grunt as he brushed past Evelyn and I and threw himself back down onto the couch. He looked at the two of us expectantly and then made a shooing motion with his hand. I realized then that he was more interested in his game than any offer we might make. I sighed and took a slight, half step to the side so I wasn’t blocking his view of the TV. He gave another grunt as he hit play on the remote in his hand. The game resumed with it’s tinny, barely audible sound.
I wasn’t sure what to do at that point, though I was perfectly happy to leave, but Evelyn, however, took another swat at my hand when I started to move, and I automatically stopped like the well-trained pet I’d apparently become.
“Look, kid, I don’t know what this old bat here told you--” Lucas began.
Evelyn gave a loud huff and took a few brisk strides forward to snatch the remote from Brody’s hand. She swatted him on the head with it, just once, but it didn’t sound particularly gentle.
Brody tried to lean farther out of her reach, but he was already fully reclined on the couch. One of his hands flew up to the crown of his head, and he rubbed it while he scowled at my new paralegal.
“What in the Sam Hill was that for?” he snapped, and he looked to me like I might have had some sort of answer.
I threw my hands up and took a small step back, like I could physically distance myself from what had happened and hadn’t been the one to drive Evelyn over to scold him in the first place.
“Now, you listen here, I did not ride over here in a car that’s older than I am for you to act like some sort of petulant child, Brody,” she hissed as she waved the remote at him.
I frowned at the disparagement of my faithful ride. My car wasn’t even a decade old, and she was very well-loved. Normally, I would have leapt to my car’s defense, however, I needed Evelyn’s expertise, and honestly, I wasn’t too keen to find myself on the receiving end of that remote.
Brody rubbed at his head again and mussed his graying brown hair in the process.
“Look,” he tried again with a heavy sigh, “I just don’t think I can help with whatever it is y’all need help with. Understand? Times have changed.”
“We need help with a case,” I started as I reached out to gently take the remote from Evelyn’s frightening death grip. She shot me a look, but relented after a moment with a deep sigh and a shake of her head. “We need a class action lawyer.”
Brody gave a deep, bitter laugh.
“And what? You couldn’t afford anybody else?” It came out like a joke when he said it, but I shrugged my shoulders a bit sheepishly.
“Nailed it in one, actually,” I said with a sort of false cheer. “I know you weren’t permanently disbarred, and this case? This is the sort of thing that can put a bit of respect behind your name again.”
A heavy sigh slipped out of Brody’s mouth, and he turned his palms up toward the ceiling with a small shrug of his wide shoulders. Emboldened, I continued.
“Have you heard of Knox Chemicals?” I asked. “It doesn’t matter if you know about them, because all you need to know is that they’re making a lot of people really sick. A woman contacted me to ask for help because it made her daughter sick, and she said she’d do whatever it took to help her. And I made the same promise.”
Brody’s eyes narrowed as he looked at me and shifted on the couch. In the background, I heard the raucous sounds of a touchdown on the small television, but I didn’t break Brody’s gaze. Maybe it wasn’t fair to attack at that angle given what I knew, but this was just another case to win, and he was just another jury to convince.
“Yeah, you sound like a lawyer,” Brody muttered with a shake of his head and another heavy sigh. He rubbed a large hand along his stubbled jaw as he seemed to consider what I had said.
Evelyn glanced between the two of us before she cleared her throat.“I’ll be waiting in the car,” she announced. “The air’s too damn stale in here.”
She turned on the low heels of her mules and clicked her way out the front door. I heard it slam shut behind her, and when I looked back at Brody, he almost looked amused.
“So, she told you, then, what happened?” he asked, and I could hear just how tired he was in his voice.
I didn’t quite nod, but gave a sort of back and forth jiggle of my head.
“Somewhere in between,” I replied. “She told me the things I didn’t already know. I get it, why you did it, I mean.”
Brody tilted his head to the side and narrowed his eyes as he watched me. He seemed to be debating what to say, and I could imagi
ne he must have gotten tired of defending himself over the years.
“You got kids, Landon?” He waited for me to shake my head in response before he continued. “Then, no, you don’t. I’d have done anything for my boy, I still would, and I’d have rather died than see him as some damn Aggie. UT runs in our blood here. I tried to grease some palms when I shouldn’t have with the admissions board, and now I’ve gotta live with it. I know that, and I’ve regretted it every damn minute for the last five years.”
“I’m sure you do,” I said quickly.
Brody gave a grunt as he pushed himself up to his feet, and his eyes swept across the room and all of the UT paraphernalia.
“But you do what you have to do for your kids,” he sighed.
I nodded and took a small step back to keep from crowding him. He gave another deep, forlorn sigh, and his eyes finally found mine again.
“My wife’s been stuck working overtime, God bless her soul, and I’ve been taking every two-bit case that comes my way,” he admitted. “So you damn well better be planning on paying me, kid.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. While I’d hoped he’d come to our side, I really hadn’t been expecting much to come from this meeting since Brody had seemed so determined to ignore us when we first arrived. I cleared my throat and nodded.
“Yeah, of course,” I said, as if it should have been obvious already. “It won’t be much, but it’ll be something. And I wasn’t kidding, Brody. This is the sort of case that will help get you back in people’s good graces.”
Brody pursed his thin lips, and I could see some sort of calculation taking place as he really studied my appearance for the first time.
“You got some sort of office?” he asked with his meandering drawl.
“Yeah, yeah, I do,” I said. “I’m based out of Crowley. It’s a bit of a drive, but not too far.”
I gave a nod of my head and a smile. I couldn’t hide my satisfaction that he’d agreed to join the team. Hell, I couldn’t believe that I could even say I had a team. I sent a silent thanks to Samuel Higgins’ wallet.