“If you must.” He followed Colby to a quiet corner of the hallway.
“We’re still willing to make a fair settlement,” Colby said. “Like I told you before trial.”
“Twenty thousand dollars? You must be joking.”
“It’s a generous settlement.”
“It won’t even pay her existing hospital debt.”
“Kincaid–when are you going to get it through your head? You don’t have a case. I’m sure what happened to your client is terrible, but the fact is, it’s not my client’s fault. And even if it was–you can’t prove it.”
“I won’t accept that,” Ben replied. “There has to be a way.”
“Get real. I’m trying to do you a favor here.”
“No you’re not. You’re trying to get your rich client off the hook.”
“If you don’t take my offer, mark my words—your client will end up with nothing.”
Ben bit back the words he was desperate to fling. He hadn’t forgotten the judge’s warning. The frightening fact was, Colby could be right. “Why are you so determined to play hardball on this one?”
Colby stiffened slightly. “I always represent my clients to the best of my ability.”
“This isn’t one of your usual corporate battles we’re talking about, Colby. Tess Corrigan is a real live human being.”
“Now you’re being insipid.”
“Why are you handling a personal injury case, anyway?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You’re one of the top litigators in your firm. You probably bill—what? Three hundred bucks an hour? I understand your firm represents the insurance carrier–but this case seems like junior associate material. Don’t you have bigger fish to fry?”
“Dr. Bennett is the president of the Yale Medical Arts Consortium.”
“So you’re out here wading in the muddy waters of personal injury court so you can impress Dr. Bennett and grab some of the big corporate bucks.”
Colby adjusted his collar. “I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
“We could’ve settled this before it came to trial and before everyone spent a bundle on discovery. But of course, that wasn’t what you wanted. That wouldn’t have pleased the Raven, Tucker and Tubb board of directors. That wouldn’t have allowed you to run up billable hours with motions practice and endless discovery. You profit by magnifying simple disputes.”
“Sour grapes, Kincaid? I know you used to be at Raven—till you were drummed out.” A smirk played on his lips. “I hear now that you’re on your own, you don’t eat quite as well.”
“True,” he said. “But I sleep a lot better.”
He did his best with the remaining witnesses—the police officer who first arrived at the scene, an after-the-fact eyewitness from the house closest to the accident—but by the end of the day, he was no better off than he had been before. He wasn’t an inch closer to proving liability, and without that, he knew Tess didn’t have a prayer of winning. No matter what he did, it seemed that omnipresent motion for directed verdict loomed just over his shoulder.
*****
Ben drummed his fingers on the dash of Loving’s pickup. “So...is every night this exciting?”
Loving removed one of the headphones from his ears. “’Bout the same, yeah.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. “If I’d known how tedious a stakeout was, I might have thought twice about asking you to tail someone.”
“Aww, it ain’t so bad.” The big man stretched, then punched the Stop button on his Walkman. “It’s peaceful, really. Gives a guy some time to think. And to catch up on my books-on-tape.”
Ben arched an eyebrow. “You’re listening to a book?”
Loving shifted around his two-hundred-plus pound frame. “Yeah. So? You think you’re the only one in the office who knows how to read?”
“Well, no, but—”
”What’d’ya think these headphones were for? Decoration?”
“I thought you were probably listening to music.”
“Oh I see. ’Cause I’m a big guy who didn’t go to college, you think I spend all my spare time getting drunk and listening to country-western tunes.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m hurt, Skipper. Truly hurt.”
He pressed his heel of his hand against his forehead. How had he gotten himself into this? “Look, Loving, I didn’t mean to impugn your intellectual integrity—”
“Shh.” Loving’s eyes were riveted to the front. “He’s on the move.”
Even from their safe vantage point, Ben could see Edgar Bennett leave the front door of his home, walk to the driveway, and slide behind the wheel of his repaired Expedition. They followed him.
“Lights are out in the house,” Ben murmured. “Wife must be asleep. So where’s the good doctor going?”
Loving followed Bennett as he turned onto Riverside Drive, keeping his headlights dim and staying a safe distance back. “Probably goin’ to the hospital,” Loving commented.
“Maybe.”
They crept along behind him, cruising down Riverside, then turning left onto 71st. Just a minute or two before the doctor would arrive at the hospital, he hung a sharp right.
“If he’s going to work,” Ben commented, “he’s taking the scenic route.”
A few moments later, Bennett pulled into the driveway of a small one-story house. Loving eased past, then quietly parked on the opposite side of the street.
Bennett walked to the front door. Someone let him inside.
“It’s the middle of the night, his wife is asleep, and he goes out to see someone,” Ben murmured. “Loving, we have to find out who lives in that house.”
“Already on it.” Loving punched a number into his cell phone. “Hey, Maggie? Yeah, I knew you’d be up. Can you do me a favor?” A brief spate of sweet-talking ensued. Seemed pretty strained, but apparently it got Loving what he wanted. “Yeah. Take a look in the cross-index directory and tell me who lives at 1245 S. Bridgewater.”
Loving waited barely a minute for his answer. “Thanks, Maggie.” He punched the End button and disconnected the call.
“Well?” Ben said.
Loving grinned. “You’re gonna love this. Maria Verluna.”
*****
The next morning, Ben surprised everyone in the courtroom, including his client, by calling ER nurse Maria Verluna back to the witness box.
“Ms. Verluna, I’ll get straight to the point. You’re having an affair with Dr. Edgar Bennett, aren’t you?”
The reaction from the jury box was magnified in the witness stand. “What? No, I—”
“Ma’am, let me spare you a lot of heartache, not to mention a possible perjury charge. I’ve had you followed. I know Dr. Bennett comes to your house late at night. In fact, he was there last night, right? Showed up around midnight and didn’t leave till just before sunrise.” He paused. “I assume you weren’t playing Pachisi.”
Maria stuttered, groping for words. “I still don’t–I don’t know—”
“Ma’am, I have a witness. A private investigator. I can call him to the stand if you like, and he can fill the jury in on all the dirty little details. He’s even got pictures.”
Maria stuttered for several more moments before giving in. “There was nothing dirty about it. Edgar and I are in love.”
“I’m sure. But that’s not really the point. Why didn’t you tell the jury you were having an affair with the defendant’s husband? Don’t you think that’s something they’d like to know?”
Maria looked down at her hands. “I suppose I thought they might not believe me. If they knew the truth.”
“Well, you might’ve been right about that. But I think there was more to it. I think you were covering something up.”
“Your honor,” Colby said, jumping to his feet. “Counsel is trying to drudge up dirt to disguise the fact that he hasn’t got a case.”
Judge Hawkins tilted his head to one side. “He’s
entitled to try to impeach the testimony of adverse witnesses. Overruled.”
“Ms. Verluna, please tell the jury the truth. Dr. Bennett was at your house the night of the accident, wasn’t he?”
“What? No. Why would you think—”
“Well, I’ll tell you why I think that. I couldn’t figure out why Dr. Bennett didn’t have his cell phone when the accident occurred. A big important doctor like him–surely he normally would take it to work with him. He’s certainly had it every day in this courtroom. Why didn’t he have it the night of the accident? And then the answer came to me–because he wasn’t leaving from his house. He was leaving from your house. Isn’t that so?”
Maria hesitated. “I don’t–I mean, I can’t--”
“Isn’t it true?” he insisted.
“You have to understand—”
“Miss Verluna, don’t lie to this jury again. Isn’t it true?”
Maria’s voice was barely more than a whisper. “It’s true.”
He’d suspected as much when he heard Maria refer to Bennett by his first name, even before he followed Bennett to her house late at night.
Colby rose to his feet. “Your honor, I must renew my objection. What does it matter where Dr. Bennett was when he left for the hospital? He wasn’t even the driver of the car.”
“I’ll make the relevance crystal clear with my next witness, your honor,” Ben replied. “Just give me five minutes. That’s all I need.”
Hawkins pursed his lips and frowned. “Very well. The objection is overruled. For now.”
“Thank you.” He dismissed Maria. “I recall Peggy Bennett to the stand.”
Colby didn’t object, but he could see from the expression on his opponent’s face that the man was not happy. In a few short minutes, the trial had gone from imminently predictable to totally topsy-turvy. And there was more to come.
“Mrs. Bennett, you heard the testimony of the last witness, didn’t you?”
Her face remained even, measured, but there was a sourness to the turn of her lips that he was almost certain had not been there before. “I did.”
“Most people in this courtroom were surprised by Maria’s admission. But you weren’t surprised, were you?”
Her lips parted, slow and cool. “I’m...not sure what you mean.”
“You already knew your husband was having an affair. You’ve known for some time, haven’t you?”
“What makes you think that?”
“I think you misunderstand the procedure here, Mrs. Bennett. I get to ask the questions, and you have to answer them. You knew about your husband’s affair, didn’t you?”
The seconds before she spoke seemed an eternity. “I did.”
“You had to know–because you drove to Maria’s house and picked him up the night of the accident, didn’t you?”
This time, the pause before speaking was even more protracted. “An emergency call came in from the hospital. They needed him, but he didn’t have his pager or his cell phone. So I...went to collect him.”
“At Maria Verluna’s house.”
Her eyes closed. “That’s correct.”
“And this whole time, you haven’t said a word about the affair, have you? You’ve stayed quiet. You’ve protected him.”
Her head nodded slightly.
“In fact, you’re still protecting him, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I think you do. You’re not just protecting him from the shame and ignominy that would follow if people knew about the affair. You’re protecting him from the civil liability that would result if people knew that he was the one driving the car that hit Tess Corrigan.”
The reaction in the courtroom could not have been greater if a bomb had exploded.
Mrs. Bennett’s hands gripped the rail, trembling slightly. “You’re just–just desperate to get something for your client. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I think you do. I’ve had a chance to observe your husband these past few days. I’ve seen the way he treats you. He’s a major league chauvinist. I don’t believe for a minute he’d let you drive the car. I don’t care how tired he was. He would insist on driving.”
“You’re crazy. I–I—” She looked up at the judge. “Do I have to listen to this?”
“I’m afraid you do,” Ben answered quickly. “Because I haven’t even gotten to the worst of it. There’s one more ugly detail I haven’t even mentioned. When your husband came out of Maria Verluna’s house–he’d been drinking.”
Slowly but surely, Peggy Bennett’s steely façade dissolved. “It—it isn’t true.”
“I don’t know why he was drinking,” Ben said, ignoring her. “Maybe they’d had a late dinner. Maybe it helped him get aroused. I don’t know. But I’m absolutely certain he was drunk.”
“If he’d been drunk, I never would have let him—”
”Oh, I’m sure you tried your best to talk him into letting you drive. But he wouldn’t hear of it. Not a manly man like him. He wouldn’t even let you carry his briefcase yesterday. No way he’d let you drive. He insisted on driving–drunk–which is why he drove too fast and why he didn’t see Tess Corrigan until it was too late to do anything about it.”
“You can’t prove any of this.”
“I think I can.” Ben returned to plaintiff’s table and withdrew a stack of yellow forms. “As Maria Verluna testified, they tested your blood and found it clean. Why shouldn’t it have been–you hadn’t been drinking, right? You were probably asleep when the call came. But since Dr. Bennett wasn’t the driver, they didn’t test his blood. They did, however, set aside a sample of his blood for one-year’s storage in the deep freeze–standard practice in accident cases. I had it tested this morning.” He passed the forms to the bailiff, who in turn handed them to Mrs. Bennett. “Guess what? His blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit.” He turned to the jury. “Small wonder he couldn’t drive worth a damn.”
Mrs. Bennett stared at the forms, her face red with blotches. “There–there must be some mistake—”
“There’s no mistake, ma’am. We ran the tests twice. He was drunk.” He took a step closer to the witness stand. “And he was driving the car, wasn’t he?”
As Peggy Bennett raised her head, a tear spilled down her right cheek. “I tried to talk him out of it. I told him I should drive. But he wouldn’t listen to me. He thinks I’m an idiot.” She wiped away the tear. “He just wouldn’t listen.”
“Thank you for telling us the truth. I just have one more question for you, Mrs. Bennett. Why did you protect him? Why did you lie for him? Why did you take the blame?”
Peggy Bennett stared up blank-faced, as if the answer was so obvious it barely needed speaking. “He’s my husband.”
“But—” He struggled to find the kindest possible words. “The way he treated you. The things he did…”
Peggy Bennett stared back at Ben. “He’s all I’ve got.”
*****
Ten minutes later, the lawyers were back in Judge Hawkins’s chambers. “I’d like to make another motion,” Colby announced.
“I thought you might,” Hawkins said. “Proceed.”
“Move to dismiss,” Colby said flatly. “I’ll file a brief as soon as I can slap it together.”
“Dismiss?” Ben rose to his feet. “Are you kidding? I’ve proven liability—”
“On the part of Edgar Bennett, maybe. But unfortunately, you didn’t sue him, did you? You only sued Peggy Bennett. And that woman is blameless.”
“Afraid I have to agree with him,” Judge Hawkins said, leaning back in his chair. “If you’d sued them both jointly, I’d keep the suit alive. But you didn’t. I’m gonna have to dismiss this sucker.”
Ben leaned forward. “There must be some way—”
Hawkins stopped him with a wave of the hand. “Ain’t no ‘buts’ about it, counsel. Fact is–you sued the wrong Bennett. This case is dismissed.”
*****
After they returned to the almost empty courtroom, Ben conferred briefly with his client. A moment later, he confronted Colby, who was sitting in the hallway beside Dr. Bennett.
“I hope you don’t think you’ve seen the end of this,” Ben said. “The statute of limitations hasn’t come close to running. I’ll file again–this time naming Dr. Bennett as the defendant.”
“I’m sure you will,” Colby said, doing his best to seem unimpressed. “And we’ll go through the usual rigamarole. The case might finally get to trial two or three years from now–if you’re lucky. Of course, now that we know what you know, we’ll be fighting you every step of the way. Dr. Bennett’s malpractice insurer will probably get involved. It will be a thousand times more complicated.”
“This isn’t just a game. A woman has been severely injured.”
“And in the event that you should prevail at trial,” Colby continued, “we will of course appeal. What’s it take to get a case heard by the Court of Appeals these days–a couple of years? And if we lose there, we’ll appeal to the state Supreme Court, which will take another year or two. We’ll get a stay to prevent execution on the judgment pending the appeal. So the way I see it, Kincaid, you’ve got a five-year wait before you have even the slightest chance of seeing any money. And I can’t help it if, during that five years, Dr. Bennett puts all his assets in his wife’s name or transfers it to his closely held corporations. Making himself judgment-proof.”
“You can’t divest property to avoid a judgment. I’ll trace the assets.”
“You’ll try. But that, too, will take years.”
His teeth clenched together. He leaned toward Dr. Bennett, meeting him eye-to-eye. “Don’t you feel any responsibility for what you’ve done? Don’t you understand you’ve destroyed that woman’s life?”
“Dr. Bennett is represented by counsel,” Colby said, matching his volume. “If you have something to say, say it to me.”
“I’ll say something all right. How can you two live with yourselves?”
Rough Justice: Three Ben Kincaid Stories (The Ben Kincaid Anthology Series) Page 5