Rogue Divorce Lawyer
Page 1
ROGUE DIVORCE LAWYER
Books by Dale E. Manolakas
ROGUE DIVORCE LAWYER
ROGUE HOLLYWOOD LAWYER
Sophia Christopoulos Legal Thriller Series
LETHAL LAWYERS
THE GUN TRIAL
Veronica Kennicott Cozy Mystery Series
HOLLYWOOD PLAYS FOR KEEPS
DEATH SETS SAIL
BLACK ROBE, BLACK DEATH [Coming Soon]
DaleManolakas.com
ROGUE DIVORCE LAWYER
____________________________
DALE E. MANOLAKAS
Rogue Divorce Lawyer
This legal thriller is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are a product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Rogue Divorce Lawyer
Copyright © 2018 by Dale E. Manolakas
All rights reserved.
FIRST EDITION
Library of Congress Control Number: Pending
eISBN 978-1-62805-014-1 (e-publication)
ISBN 978-1-62805-015-8 (Paperback)
ISBN 978-1-62805-016-5 (Audio)
Dedication
For Heather
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Preface
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Postscript
Book Trailers
Sample of LETHAL LAWYERS
About the Author
Preface
Rogue Divorce Lawyer was inspired by a real California appellate case, Giles v. McDaniel. (1991), 230 Cal. App.3rd 363, 281 Cal. Rptr. 242.
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 1
For the first time in his career, divorce lawyer Gary Stockton was at a client’s house—a female client’s. He had no choice.
That morning, his secretary had handed him a message from Kim Duran: “Skip’s moving back. I’m telling.”
To his secretary it meant nothing. But to Gary—everything. It threatened his marriage, his law practice, and his well-established San Bernardino life. A good enough life—hard-earned in the heat and smog east of the Los Angeles sprawl.
* * *
Just being at Kim’s house made Gary’s skin crawl. The fifties tract shoebox was choked by dry weeds and dead bushes—victims of neglect in a record-hot July. A July made worse by a drought plaguing the desert terrain.
In the stark heat, Kim’s living room reeked of animal—human and domestic. The coffee table was archived with wine bottles, pizza boxes, and three bowls of Sugar-O cereal abandoned for the run to the school bus.
Gary was hung over and already angry from his late night losses at the Phoenix Casino. He glared over the coffee table at Kim’s screeching mouth. The mouth that before had obediently pleasured now terrified him—not because of its rage, but because of its power over him.
Unlike his other “special” female clients who paid with sex—Kim was out of control.
“I’m telling Skip,” Kim screamed over the TV game show.
“Like hell you are.”
“I’m calling the cops, too.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Yes I am. And I know about the others.” Kim eyed her cell phone on the couch.
Gary grabbed it. “Wait. Just wait.”
“For what? My divorce?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Bull! Skip says it’s not filed.”
“But it’s ready.”
“Liar, give me my cell.”
Gary put his hand on his crotch. “Come get it.”
“I’ll take Skip’s fist over your ass any day. You stink of old man.”
“Old man? You loved it.”
“Like hell. You forced me!” Kim leaned forward, her pale flesh popping over her skinny jeans.
“Forced you? You’re a whore. You’re—”
“Get out!” Kim hurled a dog-eared gossip rag at Gary. “Get out!”
Gary batted it back grazing her wiry, blond hair. “Not until you know what’s what.”
Threats to expose him were rare over the years, and Gary had crushed the renegades with the consensual card. He was practiced at subjugating desperate females.
Kim’s blue eyes flared. “Skip’s gonna kill you.”
“Me? I don’t think so.” Gary leered at her startled nipples jiggling braless under her bandeau and stepped up his game. “He’ll kill you. You moaned like a whore, and I have the videos to prove it.”
“Videos?” Kim froze.
After Gary first forced her to her knees, she had freely played the whore once … no twice … she fought to remember. He wanted it. She gave it to him, like the high school jocks who initiated her in the boy’s gym. Bursting testosterone packs preying on her adolescent double-Ds.
She did them for perks, just like Gary.
* * *
“Checkmate.” Gary grinned, plump cheeks spreading. “You shut your filthy mouth, or he’ll see them.”
“No.” Kim grabbed a wine bottle and charged around the coffee table with tear-blurred vision. “You bastard.”
“Shit.” Gary ducked as she smashed the bottle into his left shoulder. “Bitch!”
He dropped her cell and hurled the banshee back with his right hand.
Kim’s head hit the coffee table corner and then the dirty beige carpet—milk and cereal flew. The gamers’ roar converted to a frenetic car commercial.
“Kim? Kim?”
Through arrested tears, Kim’s eyes stared open and void—that mouth was silenced and her nipples flat and still. Blood oozed through her blond hair and mixed with the cereal-dotted milk, soaking into the carpet.
Kim was dead.
* * *
Gary stared down at her with the mind of a lawyer. Self-defense, or even accidental death, would not save him. At six feet and two hundred thirty pounds on a thin da
y, he was twice her weight. Worse, he was in her home. He should have left—retreated. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t. It was that mouth.
She made me stay—she made me shove her, Gary thought.
Now, Gary understood Skip and why that mouth had to be silenced—one way or another.
Sweat crept down Gary’s temples. He glanced at the front door—his mind ran out, but his body stayed.
He had misjudged Kim’s reaction to his video blackmail, usually his ace-in-the-hole. Instead of surrendering in silence like the others, she had detonated—and for nothing. He had no videos.
Why bother videotaping when he got the real thing whenever and however he wanted it?
Gary headed for the front door. He opened and shut it with the tail of his blue shirt. He exited to a clear, unpeopled escape.
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 2
Gary fled down the cracked, weed-riddled asphalt driveway, feigning casual just in case. Pain volleyed through his left arm as he tucked in his shirttail and scanned the dusty, dirt-lined street—no cars, no witnesses, no one.
He hung a U-turn in his black Mercedes and drove past stucco houses with unpruned trees, thirsty bushes, and brown grass. Mid-morning, there was no traffic from the employed or the unemployed.
He went left onto the side-walked main drag, baked in the heat. Only a lone five-year-old boy fought to balance his two-wheeler—eyes on his bike and mind on staying upright.
Gary drove below the speed limit. No cop was going to ticket him anywhere near Kim’s. He headed back into town for his regular Wednesday lunch with his male cronies—other divorce lawyers.
His throbbing shoulder hurt with each turn of the steering wheel. No sharp bone pain, just deep soft tissue throbbing. He blasted the air conditioner to cool his adrenalined, surging blood. At a red light, Gary wiped the sweat from his forehead and ran his fingers through his sandy greying hair.
Gary thought, I should have broken the wine bottle.
A broken bottle, even wielded by a female, would be a deadly weapon for a viable self-defense argument.
“Damn it.”
* * *
Like clockwork, Gary arrived on time at The Central Cafe, a popular San Bernardino spot, for his Tuesday lunch with the “guys”—guys like him who did divorce law—and select female clients. The perks were implicit for those who went into this dismal legal specialty. A specialty inhabited by bottom-feeders ranked lowest in their law school class, or by those who sought easy money doing routine, straightforward legal work while preying on vulnerable clients.
Gary auto-played his usual good-old-boy self, but his mind reran the morning over and over.
“Earth to Gary,” The senior luncher called. “You’re not eating. What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Gary dug in.
Their newest addition, whom Gary had helped jump-start with some male client referrals, asked, “Hey, Gary, what about those L.A. law firms invading our territory?”
“Huh? Sorry, I—”
“We should beat them out of our little town with a big stick,” another middle-aged colleague proposed. “They’re skimming off the best cases … the big-money ones.”
“I know,” the fourth seasoned cohort agreed. “I went up against the Payne firm—”
“Payne?” The newcomer interrupted.
“Payne, Jenkins, Mullin & Stein, the L.A. heavyweights … that partner Dee Meyerhoff’s a bitch. And her little helper Jim whatever? He’s no better. They won’t churn anything. No meetings. No billable extras. The hearings get set up and done … by the rules. No continuances … no long billable phone conferences.”
“Shh, be careful.” Gary looked around.
“Sure. Sure. No one’s listening.”
Gary whispered, “They don’t need to play the churning game. They have more fat clients than they can handle.”
As his colleagues complained about the L.A. law firm invasion, Gary suddenly remembered Kim’s cell phone.
His ruddy face turned white as he thought, my fingerprints.
⌘
Copyrighted Material
Chapter 3
Three days later, on Friday afternoon, Gary’s biggest fear became a reality. A different brand of law walked into his office and invaded his domain. Not the attorney kind—the enforcement kind.
His secretary Vicky Milford buzzed him. “A detective Raul Gonzalez is here about Ms. Duran.”
“Show him in.”
She didn’t right away. Instead, Gary heard the detective’s booming baritone voice mingled with Vicky’s chatter. He listened behind his closed door as he put on his suit coat, tightened his polyester tie, and smoothed his permanent press white shirt over his paunchy stomach.
For once, Vicky running her mouth was good for Gary. She described Kim’s bruises obscured with makeup, and Kim crying to her about Skip’s beatings. Gonzalez didn’t need to ply her or pry. She happily spewed information pointing the finger right at Skip.
* * *
“And that morning,” Vicky said, “the morning she died, Kim called. I took the message for Mr. Stockton.”
“Message?” The detective scrawled notes in his small notebook.
“Yeah, Mr. Stockton wasn’t here yet. Anyway, Skip wanted to move back like always. I guess he wore her down. She let him in and she’s dead.”
“What do you mean?”
“She was real upset. She was going to tell him off about something. That’s what I got.”
In Vicky’s enthused self-importance, she added the word “off” to her rendition of Kim’s message. That single word instantly targeted Skip. Gary was not about to interrupt Vicky’s advantageous outpourings. She was painting a picture of Skip that would put him in prison for life or on death row.
“Do you have the message?”
“No, Gary … I mean Mr. Stockton might.” She slipped up on the formality Gary demanded with third parties present.
* * *
Gary opened the door before Vicky’s tête-à-tête took a wrong turn—against him.
“Hello, Detective, I’m Gary Stockton.” The detective’s immense hand greeted Gary’s—mano a mano. “Come on in. Sit.”
Vicky called, “Detective, did Skip confess?”
The detective ignored her. He asked the questions. Not the other way around
Fit and in his prime, Gonzalez strutted into Gary’s kingdom. He sat tall and straight facing Gary’s desk. He thumbed through his notebook and finished his notations.
Gary shut the door and sat, lifting his stooped shoulders and sucking in his gut overhanging his belt. Gary was relieved his desk hid most of his shortcomings from this hard-bodied specimen.
“A tragedy, Ms. Duran’s death.” Gary shook his head—his jowls dragging over his collar and tie. “Especially for her kids.”
With two days of rehearsal, Gary’s expression of shock and sorrow was a theatrical showstopper. Yesterday, over breakfast and the paper Gary’s wife Mary not only believed his feigned surprise but was sure the husband had done it.
“Three boys? Right?” The detective was poised with pen and notebook in hand.
“Yes.”
Gary braced himself for the innumerable stealth attacks he anticipated from law enforcement since killing Kim. His life and freedom now depended on him alone—guarded intonation of every word, controlled facial nuances, direct eye contact, and a calm, relaxed façade.
Gary had pre-armed himself with credible lies. The day Kim died, he had left early for lunch to get a file at home, but then realized he didn’t need it—ingenious and no need for witnesses. If he was spotted at Kim’s, her urgent message had made him drop by—unfortunately, she didn’t answer.
The cell phone fingerprints Gary could explain with a credible lie. All lawyers were officers of the court and their fingerprints, including his, were on file. However, if they lifted Gary’s, he would simply say she handed him her cell on her last office visit for Gary to input his numbe
r if there was a problem with Skip. Of course, he refused and told her to call 911.
* * *
However, Gonzalez didn’t mention the fingerprints or any of Gary’s prepared horribles.
Instead he asked, “What about the message Ms. Duran left that morning?”
“It was typical. Skip did this … Skip didn’t’ do that.”
“Do you have it?”
“No, I don’t keep messages. No room.” Gary had destroyed it, and he was far too crafty and too cheap to buy duplicate message forms.
“What was it about?”
Gary mirrored Vicky’s rendition.
“I get the gist. You know this guy has four domestics?”
“She told me she called the cops on him.” Gary was on high alert and minimized his responses to avoid any “tell” that might give him away.
The detective’s deep black eyes studied Gary. “But no prosecutions.”
Gary said, “Wives always balk at putting their man away.”
Gary’s answers were short, agreeable, and circumspect. His nightmares of Kim’s open vapid eyes had left him tired. He lacked his usual mental acuity—his edge. He gulped his cold coffee to rev up.
“Coffee?”
“No thanks.” Detective Gonzalez scrutinized Gary’s office and the diplomas that hung over his bookshelves.
Gary’s felt sweat under his collar and wanted this nosey, probing detective gone—now. He assumed Gonzalez’s casual posturing was a ploy to trick him.
Gary opened a file on his desk and thumbed through it. “Need anything else? I should get back to work.”
“I got the arrests, the neighbors, the family seeing fights and bruises. A cousin hearing Skip threaten to kill her if she took his sons away.”