by John Decure
“I don’t think so. I could be wrong.”
“Try to remember,” I said, “and call me if you think of anything. I’d like to know more about how he came to represent both you and the Danforths, especially after the baby was born.”
Sue Ellen fairly jumped. “Oh! The obstetrician who delivered Nathan! Talk to that guy. Big jerk. Name’s Weinstein, Doctor Harley Weinstein. Ask him about May sixth.” She was crying all over again.
I wrote down the name and date. “What about May sixth?”
“My due date—that is, the one I calculated—was the fourteenth,” she said bitterly. “Doctor Weinstein was sure I was wrong, said the baby was due almost two weeks earlier. As if I wouldn’t know! God, I was so stupid.” Her voice broke and her shoulders quaked a little. “He was supposed to be my doctor, but he just did what Kitty Danforth told him to, I know it.”
“You think he caused you to have Nathan early?”
“I know he did. Induced labor. There were . . . some complications.” She looked away.
“What kind?”
“Try unbelievable pain—unbelievable! Thought I was gonna die right there on that table. I begged him for an anaesthetic, but he wouldn’t give me one.” She stopped to straighten the pleats above her knees. “You find out why they put me through so much pain to have that baby on May sixth, Mr. Shepard.”
“I will. What else?”
“Nothing I can think of right now, but I’ll keep tryin’,” she said.
I made the last of my notes in silence and gathered up my things. “Call me by early next week with the addresses and phone numbers I asked you for,” I told her. “Visit Nathan every opportunity you get under the visitation order, and call me if they pull any funny business with your visits. The social worker’s going to be watching how often you see Nathan and how you interact with him, so be careful.”
She looked at me as if confused. “Why would she do that?”
“To gauge your intentions toward your child. If your interest level isn’t appropriate, we’ll read about it in the report the worker submits before trial. Don’t let the worker interview you. You’re going to testify, so I don’t want you giving any statements. They’ll just twist what you say.”
“Lord almighty,” Sue Ellen said. She looked queasy, ready to fall apart. “This is insane.”
“They’re going to try to show you’re a fraud,” I said, “and it’s going to be close. All they need to do at trial is beat our case by a preponderance, their fifty-one percent to our forty-nine.”
She managed a timid smile. “I will help you.”
“Think about what I said about Ty.”
Sue Ellen Randall’s face was as poised and still as a toy doll’s, but her stare was piercing, as if she was observing me at a carefully measured distance which she did not wish to shorten. “You’re different from last week,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t believe me, do you?”
I tried, but I couldn’t make eye contact. “It shouldn’t matter what I think as long as I do my part.”
She wasn’t sold on my matter-of-fact assessment. “Well, it matters to me.”
“What do you want to do?” I asked her.
“They’re still here, Gilbride and the others?” she said. I nodded that they were. “Do they still want to talk?”
“I think so. Probably as much as you do.”
The tears were rolling again. “Talk to them for me.”
“They want Nathan,” I told her. “You know that.”
“I know. You think I should give him back. You think I did wrong.”
She looked sad and utterly lost, and much to my private shame, all I could think of at the moment was doing jury trials with the D.A. and the surprise in Phoebe’s voice when I announced that I was out of this sinkhole for good. With shocking ease I found myself feeling no allegiance to Sue Ellen Randall, and I despised myself, but not enough to change course now.
“In a situation like this, there are no easy choices,” I said, a voice inside telling me no shit, Sherlock. I was selling her out and I knew it. “But it can’t hurt to look at all your options. Maybe raising two boys is more than you’re ready to take on.”
“They’ll let Ty out of jail?”
“I’m pretty sure they’ll drop the criminal charges. This case will probably be dismissed, too. I think the Danforths will still be willing to give you those privileges you were supposed to get in the first place.”
“Don’t be silly, Mr. Shepard,” she said. “I’m not that stupid. They don’t want nothin’ to do with me and Ty and you know it.”
“I know, but I think the court can order visitation, depending on what your previous agreement covered. And I can probably get them to pay, I mean, to help get you back to Kentucky. That is, if that’s what you want.”
She glared at the floor, her arms folded. “It’s not about money. Never was.”
I was on the verge of losing her. “Of course. I’m sorry, Sue Ellen.”
“Go talk to them for me,” she said. “See what you can do.” She put her head in her hands. “This has been such a nightmare, I can’t even think anymore.”
In one of my more despicably transparent moments ever as a legal advocate, I gave the woman a comforting pat on the shoulder. “Are you willing to give him up?”
“I don’t know yet, Mr. Shepard, but I gotta set this right. I can’t take it anymore.”
I turned toward the door. “Wait here.”
Sue Ellen stood when I reached for the doorknob. “Mr. Shepard, can I ask just one thing?”
“Sure.”
She paused as if she were too shy to continue. “With everything that’s happened, I know I probly shouldn’t be asking, but it ain’t right.”
“What’s that?”
“Thirty-nine dollars. For the shoes I bought Ty.”
“Sue Ellen, considering the money this whole adoption must have cost the Danforths, I’m not so sure we should be—”
“I don’t want it from them!” she shouted. She blushed as if surprised by her outburst. “Sorry, Mr. Shepard, I meant Mr. Gilbride. He’s the one who should pay me back the thirty-nine dollars. For the shoes I bought for Ty. It ain’t right.”
I eased away from the door and we both sat down again. “What isn’t?”
“About a month before Nathan was born, me and Ty were really stretchin’ to make ends meet. The Danforths knew it. Ty couldn’t get hired on anywhere. Mr. Danforth talked to him about his attitude, improving his outlook, but I don’t know, it’s hard to have a positive outlook when no one wants to hire you. Seems like everybody’s been down on Ty ever since we got to California.”
“What about the shoes?” I said.
“I can see it all so clearly, now,” she said, sniffling into a ball of blue tissue. “Gilbride musta talked to the Danforths, got nervous that we might just up and leave, head back home before Nathan was born, what with Ty’s employment situation. So he told him he knew a super on a maintenance team, City of Glendale, could get Ty a job with benefits, good pay, the whole thing. Ty said what do I do, and Gilbride told him to just apply first at City Hall, he’d take care of the rest. Told him he should have work boots, show up like he was ready to work, ’cause the super likes a go-getter. I found a pair Ty’s size at a discount store, couldn’t believe my luck. They were marked down from seventy-eight dollars, half off. Irregular.” She smiled. “Couldn’t find a thing wrong with ’em.”
“He never got the job,” I said.
“Never even got an interview. That was our grocery money for the rest of the week. Ty waited almost two months for a call that never came. Course, by then they had the baby.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said. “I don’t foresee any problems.”
“You know there wasn’t no super,” she told me. “We checked with the city.”
Gilbride had suckered them. “I know.” I handed her a fresh tissue but she waved me off. Sue Ellen
Randall was finished crying.
Gilbride and the other lawyers on the Randall case were waiting outside Foley’s courtroom, milling about as if they knew my intentions. Ty Randall was still in the holding cell behind the court. Boris told me he could secure Ty’s consent to a fair agreement if it meant a free pass from jail. Belinda readily agreed to seek a dismissal when she heard my pitch. Lily Elmore was out on the mezzanine balcony having a Pall Mall, but no one was too concerned about her position since she followed Belinda’s lead every time.
Gilbride and I discussed the terms of the adoption. He fed me a long string of assurances, but as I listened I kept seeing Ty’s new steel-toe boots, and a sense of dread welled up inside me. My personal escape plan was to ride Gilbride’s D.A. connection right out of this place, but if all I had to go on was the man’s word, I was in trouble. I needed confirmation; a simple assurance would do. So I walked him down the hall for a moment, alone and away from the others, and surprised him.
“I want the name,” I said.
His face was all innocence. “What name is that?”
“Your contact in the D.A.’s office. The person you’re going to talk to on my behalf”
“Oh, yes, yes of course.” He showed me his dirty secret smile. “Well, if you don’t mind, I’d like to handle this in my own way.”
“Oh, absolutely,” I agreed. “I don’t intend to step on any toes. Just tell me who he is. I know this is silly, but I’d feel better if I knew his name.”
He considered my request. “Oh, all right. The name is Clarence Milton.”
I’d never heard of the man, but in an office of a thousand lawyers, this meant nothing.
“Director of Personnel,” Gilbride added.
My eyebrows shot up. “Impressive.”
“Very busy too, so don’t you bother him. I’ll handle it for you. I’ll take care of everything.” He startled me by shaking my hand.
“Well, okay,” I said. “So, you two are pretty tight?”
“Very.”
“Go back a ways?”
“Quite a ways.”
I did my best to appear satisfied. “Excellent. Well, thank you, Mr. Gilbride. I guess you’ll make the call to Mr. Milton when you’re ready.”
He grinned like a disciple of the power of positive thinking. “It’s as good as done. Anything else?” he said.
I studied his perpetual smile but found nothing behind it. “No. Thank you again.” We strolled back to the group and I told him and the others I needed to run everything by Sue Ellen and would be right back. But I was operating on a purely selfish level; my client could wait. I went back into 302 and over to Shelly Chilcott’s empty desk, picked up her phone, and punched in the county code for an outside line.
“Mr. Milton’s office,” a secretary answered.
“Hello, is Clarence in?” I said, imitating Gilbride’s affected speech.
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Nelson Gilbride. It’s a personal matter. Will you tell Clarence I’m holding, please?”
“Yes, sir, one moment.”
A muffler ad rattled away while I held. “Uh, sir? Mr. Milton is unavailable to take your call just now. Perhaps you could leave a message.”
I’d gotten the standard blow-off. This wasn’t working. “Ma’am,” I said as reasonably as I could, “I just want to ask you one thing. Did you give Mr. Milton my name?”
“Sir, you’ll have to leave a message, I’m afraid.”
“Please, just tell me if you gave him my name, Nelson Gilbride.”
There was a long pause. “Yes, Mr. Gilbride, I gave it to him.”
I had to know. “I’m really sorry to bother you, I am, but—”
“Who is this?” she demanded.
My Gilbride imitation had slipped badly. “Just one more question, I promise. Please.”
I heard her sigh. “All right.”
My head ached and my palms were clammy. The big clock buzzed like a live prison fence across the deserted courtroom. I was afraid of what I was about to hear.
“What did Mr. Milton say when you told him Nelson Gilbride was on the line?” I asked.
She paused. “You won’t be offended?”
“I promise, I won’t.”
The woman sighed as if she knew my predicament. “He said ‘take a message.’ He’d never heard of you before.”
I thanked her and hung up, gut-shot. Not about losing Phoebe, for she was already history, I knew. But for what I’d done to Sue Ellen Randall, the way I’d thrown in with Gilbride, put my selfish needs ahead of my client’s wishes. Just as Sue Ellen was strung along for months with financial incentives and visitation promises to keep a doomed adoption alive, I’d been sized up as a righteous burnout desperate for an escape route from the dependency grind. In our own ways, my client and I had both become corruptible.
Sue Ellen listened patiently and accepted my apology, but her face tightened when I told her I needed to withdraw for personal reasons from representing her. I counted out thirty-nine dollars from my wallet and handed it to her.
“Don’t do this to me, not now,” she said. “Help me.”
“I’m no damn good for you,” I explained. “I’m no good for this case. I have a few problems of my own about what you’re accused of having done.”
“I’m not a bad person,” she said.
“I know that.”
She forced a smile through her disappointment. “I made a mistake. At some time or another, people are just gonna have to accept that and let me go on with my life.”
“I admire your courage,” I said.
She dabbed her nose with a tissue. “Courage? No. I just love my son. Mr. Shepard, can I be straight with you? I still want you as my lawyer.”
She needed to know. “Let me be straight with you, Sue Ellen,” I said. “My own mother left me when I was still technically a kid. It hurt.” I looked away. “A lot.”
Sue Ellen reflected for a moment. “I’m very sorry about that,” she said, “truly I am. But you’re my lawyer.”
I knew what she wanted of me, and there was only one way I could deliver. “Don’t ask me again if I believe you. It shouldn’t matter.”
She nodded. “Fair enough. So what now?”
My whole body tensed in anticipation. “If you want your boy back, we’re going to trial.”
The other attorneys descended on me the instant that I walked Sue Ellen out of 302 and started down the hallway. “Wait! Where are you going?” Belinda said. I didn’t feel compelled to answer her.
Gilbride had been seated on a wide couch with the Danforths, but he rushed in behind Belinda as if he sensed something was awry. “J., have we got a deal?” he said. It was the first time he’d ever used my first name.
“We do not,” I said. I kept powering down the hall alongside Sue Ellen, but he and Belinda stayed with us step for step, Lily Elmore tagging behind.
“J., wait a minute,” Gilbride said. “Let’s all of us talk this thing out.”
“I’ve discussed your offer with my client,” I told them. “I apologize for making you wait. See you in two weeks.”
Belinda was instantly hot. “You’re making a big mistake, Shepard,” she said.
Knowing I could not deny her charge, I walked on.
I talked the sheriff’s-office receptionist into letting Sue Ellen and me exit the building through their back entrance. Holly Dupree would have to make do with a sound bite from Nelson Gilbride for tonight’s telecast. We rode the elevator up to the third level of the parking structure in silence, as if an untimely word might bring an entire news crew running. I stepped out with Sue Ellen and surveyed the floor. About a third of the parking spaces were now empty; those whose cases were heard before the noon recess had cleared out. Lucky bastards, I thought.
Sue Ellen spotted the truck. “I’m over here,” she said. She seemed wiped out as I walked her through the shadows of concrete and steel. A sluggish midday breeze filled in behind us.
The truck was a tired-looking Ford F-250, faded red with Kentucky plates and coated with a glaze of highway soot. The cab’s rear window was so filthy I could’ve written “wash me” across the glass with my index finger. I didn’t relish the prospect of poking around under the hood in the diminished light.
“Maybe you flooded it again,” I told Sue Ellen, remembering her story about stalling the truck in Los Feliz the night she was thrown out of her place.
A middle-aged guy in jeans and a black cotton short-sleeve shirt was standing five feet away from me near the truck’s rear bumper. He was wearing outdated mirror shades and looked like he’d forgotten to shave this morning. I hadn’t even seen him walk over. “Sounds about right,” he said.
I nodded, trying to ignore the guy, but he just stood there, hands on hips, as if he wanted to help. At my direction, Sue Ellen slid the truck into neutral and I pushed it backwards and out of the parking spot. Without my asking, the man in the black shirt ran around to the passenger side opposite me and helped me push.
“Think a push start’ll work?” he said.
“We’ll see,” I told him.
Something about the man was wrong.
The parking structure was laid out in a typical ascending spiral design. Sue Ellen pointed the truck downhill and let it roll about twenty feet before popping the clutch. With a blast of white smoke out the tailpipe, the engine shook and shimmied to life. She was idling, warming it up a little, when I got to her window.
“Good thinkin’,” she told me. “Thanks for walking me out. I was wondering, you know, about that visitation order?”
The man in the black shirt was three feet behind me now.
“Take off,” I said quietly to Sue Ellen. “We’ll talk later.”
“Guess that did the trick,” the man said. “Listen—”