Lethal Lawyers

by Dale E. Manolakas

  She looked out her window to see if it was still raining. The streets were packed with cars and delivery trucks, the sidewalks were even more packed with people and umbrellas, and the downpour was heavier. She bundled up in her coat, got her document case and purse, and grabbed her small red travel umbrella. She checked the room for anything she might have left, and then slipped the plastic electronic key into her pocket as a memento of her first Thorne & Chase business trip.

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  Chapter 40

  The Truck Stop—or Not

  Outside the hotel, Sophia opened her umbrella before leaving the awning-covered entrance. The rain swept sideways under it onto her coat and case. She checked once more that the case was shut and the deposition document exhibits were safe.

  She then streamed with the crowd toward the intersection and the depo three blocks away. She much preferred getting to work encapsulated L.A. style, in her car on the crowded Los Angles freeways. She was annoyed that Taylor had made her late. But she would make it.

  The first intersection was stacked with umbrellas and people on the corner shoving and weaving. They were positioning themselves to cross on the little green man, either straight or left. A car raced by, splashing gutter water into the crowd. There was a collective moan punctuated with epithets.

  As Sophia stood at least six deep behind the waiting walkers, she saw Frank in his familiar overcoat and scarf ahead of her near the curb. She began to work through the people to join him. Before she could get to him, from out of nowhere a produce truck barreled through the amber light and the intersection, also spraying the crowd. There were curses and a few shouts, quickly followed by loud screams and chaos near the curb. The truck skidded to a halt.

  “All this over a little water?” Sophia remarked to herself. “And I thought L.A. was bad.”

  Suddenly a man yelled, “Call 911.”

  The crowd echoed into itself that the truck had hit someone. Suddenly, Sophia was swept with the crowd as it pulled back away from the danger and then shoved forward to see who got hit as a cacophony of voices rang through the rain.

  “Stop the bleeding.”

  “No. Don’t touch him. Don’t touch him!”

  “Call 911,” a woman screamed. “Call 911!”

  “The truck jumped the curb,” a gravelly voice chimed in.

  “No. He jumped in front of me,” the truck driver pled his case to the onlookers. “I had the green. He just was there. I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t.”

  “I saw it. You couldn’t,” a sympathetic woman said.

  “Call the police,” a man shouted near Sophia’s ear.

  “I didn’t jump the curb. I didn’t,” the truck driver kept repeating.

  The light changed, again. Sophia decided that not even some poor unlucky soul getting hit by a truck would stop her from impressing Frank at the deposition this morning. She pushed her way through the hysteria to get to the crosswalk.

  When she got up to the curb, she was surprised to see Roger crossing ahead of her. He glanced back and didn’t acknowledge seeing her. Sophia thought Frank must have changed his mind about Roger’s deposition. She was glad for Roger.

  As she started into the crosswalk, her eyes turned to the person who had been hit by the truck. She stopped short and got pushed from behind. She planted her feet on the pavement as umbrellas and overcoats went around her. She couldn’t move and couldn’t believe her eyes.

  “Frank?” Sophia stood in shock.

  Frank was heaped in the wet gutter with his bloody head resting on the curb, his body jack-knifed, and his arms splayed above his head. His briefcase lay open beside him, all the precious legal papers strewn on the wet pavement.

  Sophia stepped to him and knelt down.

  “Roger! Roger!” she cried out, looking for Roger in the crosswalk, but he was gone.

  “Someone do something!” Sophia screamed.

  There was a cacophony of concern. But Sophia didn’t hear it. She put her umbrella over Frank. She fought back a well of vomit as she caught sight of his gray matter oozing through his thin hair mixing with blood.

  She sat next to him on the curb in the rain and waited. She sobbed.

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  Chapter 41

  Ethics on Mute

  The next day, back in Los Angeles, Sophia got into the office at ten. This time she was accosted the lobby by at least three reporters, but Ben Kowrilsky was not amongst them. When she got in the elevator, she knew why. He was riding up and down waiting for anyone at the firm. It was her turn now. He battered her with questions, but she ignored him. He was not even worth a no comment.

  As she stepped out on her floor with her keycard he slipped a card into her suit coat pocket. She wanted to throw it back at him, but didn’t.

  In her office, she got to work. She called the opposing attorney for the San Francisco depositions to reschedule them. She then drafted confirming letters. She learned from the opposing attorney that Frank had already rescheduled Roger’s depo the morning he died—there had been no change of heart. Roger was not on his way to the depo that morning in the crosswalk.

  Sophia assumed she would report to Roger now on this case. She sent him an email summarizing what she had done and that opposing counsel was very accommodating. She was sorry about Frank, but had to keep her billables and the case going. She knew Frank would have had the same priorities.

  Sophia’s in-box on her desk and her office email were both full with interoffice mail, continuing education in-house presentations, and endless reminders from Beth about the mundane and nonbillable. Sophia dealt with it all, trash or otherwise, including ensuring that Beth sent an interoffice email with her cell number and particulars. More than ever, she just wanted to put her head down and bill, forgetting about everything else.

  She dutifully checked her office telephone messages. Happily, Taylor had called three times. He said would see her after his court appearance on a motion to compel the production of documents this afternoon at the Van Nuys Courthouse—a courthouse that served the San Fernando Valley, a big part of Los Angeles over the hill from downtown. The last message was from Beth who told her she was required to listen to the orientation CD on ethics.

  “What ethics?” Sophia scoffed as she erased the message.

  She planned to play the CD on mute and do client billable work at the same time, double billing. She needed to make up for the whole day of lost billables that Frank’s death in San Francisco had cost her.

  As she erased Beth’s message, her office phone rang. It was Dante. He wanted her at a Management Committee meeting at three after Chet held his noon press conference. They had come too often now.

  “I’ll be there. Three o’clock, your office. Can I ask what the Committee wants?”

  Dante didn’t answer her question, but she knew what it was about anyway—Frank. She'd go to the dog-and-pony show and perform properly, but sparingly. Bottom line, a truck had hit Frank, and Sophia was just glad it wasn’t her. End of story. Frank and Judith were not her problems.

  Sophia didn’t have the nerve to bill administration for being at the hospital with Frank’s body. But she would bill the Management Committee for their meeting. She wasn’t working at Thorne & Chase to chit-chat.

  Her new motto was “if it’s not billable, it’s not doable.”

  She’d give the Management Committee fifteen minutes, but for any more they had to hand over a billing code other than administration that really counted. She had acculturated herself into the Thorne & Chase moneymaking machine, and she would make that fact clear to the powers that be.

  Sophia’s cell rang. Tricia and Paul wanted to meet her at the deli for lunch. They were eager to get the scoop on Frank’s death firsthand, and Paul wanted his bread pudding. She agreed. She needed two friendly faces.

  * * *

  On her way out to lunch, Sophia went to Marlene’s desk. She was on a roll and was going to make Marlene do some work for her because she was sick of everything.

/>   Sadly, she was thwarted. Marlene was on the phone and didn’t even acknowledge her. She waited while Marlene talked to a friend about a blue dress. Sophia cleared her throat loudly.

  Marlene put her hand over the receiver. “What do you want?”

  “Good morning. I’m leaving three short letters to get out by the end of the day. They’re just confirmation letters for depo dates.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, but I have all of Mr. Toak’s tapes ahead of yours.” Marlene pointed to five tapes lined up on her desk.

  Sophia knew she was getting the bum’s rush again and suspected the tapes lined up were decoys, empty tapes with nothing on them.

  “Thanks.” She would not use Marlene’s name because she was damned if she would call her Ms. Valero, as requested.

  Sophia was not into humiliation or capitulation. Not today.

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  Chapter 42

  Roger That

  At the deli, the Three Musketeers ordered corned beef on rye again—“One for all and all for one.” Paul also got potato salad to share.

  As they downed their food, Sophia recounted Roger and Frank’s fight at dinner and then the shock of seeing Frank in the gutter, dead.

  “I just can't erase the picture in my mind of Frank’s broken body piled in the gutter and his brilliant mind just gray matter oozing into the gutter.”

  “It’s horrible,” Tricia sighed. “I can’t ever forget how Judith looked, either. Now you have a mangled Frank floating around in your head, too. I’m sorry, Sophia.”

  “Yeah, it is bad.” Paul agreed. “I try to forget Judith.”

  “Right now, I need to make up my billables.” Sophia switched gears. “I can’t get behind and my whole billable day was ruined yesterday. I have to make it up, but the detective’s looking for me and this afternoon at three I have to meet with the Management Committee.”

  “Hold on,” Paul said. “Management Committee?”

  “Yes, obviously they’re going to interrogate me about San Francisco. Who do I bill all this crap to? Seriously. I can’t afford to get behind any more. I . . .”

  “Hey,” Paul interrupted. “Relax, tiger, you just started Friday, and you worked all weekend. You have enough hours.”

  “I don’t want to waste my stockpile of billables on dysfunctional or dead partners. I have friends, like you, with whom to waste billable hours, and I need see my parents.”

  “I’m with you,” Tricia said. “When I first came here the male partners used me to stroke their egos in unbillable conversations—the curse of the good-looking female.”

  “I hear you,” Sophia said.

  “Instead of Thorne & Chase, I called it ‘Horny & Chase’.”

  “That’s great!” Sophia and Tricia laughed.

  “Then I stopped. I was afraid I’d slip up.”

  “Come on.” Paul objected to being party to this line of girl talk.

  “They also try to use you to solve their non-billable problems. Like that one partner who had me take care of his air conditioning problem with the building manager. Never again. Let his secretary do it or, if she can’t, let him get rid of her.”

  “Tricia, death is a little different. Don’t you think?” Paul retorted.

  “I guess.” Tricia got off her soapbox. “You do look tired, Sophia. Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “I didn’t even go to sleep until I was through placating my parents before they saw the news today. And, to tell you the truth, I don’t know if I was asleep, having nightmares, or just reliving yesterday morning.”

  “What did they say when you were at the hospital?” Paul was impatient with the partner bashing, parental placating, and sleep report.

  “I followed the ambulance in a cab and just did the paperwork when I got there. Then I cooled my heels for hours. When the doctor finally came out, he told me Frank was dead.” Sophia scoffed sarcastically. “Brilliant.”

  “Hey, you’re with friends now,” Tricia said. “Take a breath.”

  “You’re right, but really, I could have told the doctor that when Frank was in the gutter with his gray matter spilling out in the pouring rain.” She paused and shook her head. “I actually started to have hope while I waited. It was strange. Nothing is worse than false hope.”

  “Did he have a heart attack and fall in front of the truck?” Tricia asked.”

  “No, the doctor said as far as he cold tell he died from the impact of the truck.” Sophia rolled her eyes. “That took fours years of medical school.”

  “If you can’t do anything else with your brain, go to medical school,” Paul snickered. “You won’t catch me in an ER. They bill you and kill you. Read the newspapers.”

  “He did get run over by a truck, Paul,” Tricia pointed out. “I’m sure they did their best.”

  “Anyway,” Sophia continued. “The cops came and said there would be an autopsy. But the idiot asked me if Frank was depressed or suicidal. I almost laughed in the cop’s face. Frank depressed? I don’t think so. The truck driver said he had the green light and Frank stepped out.”

  “How could he do that?” Tricia asked.

  “Maybe he didn’t see the truck in the rain,” Paul speculated. “And the truck squeezed the orange?”

  “Someone said the truck jumped the curb. But wouldn’t more people have been hit?”

  “I don’t know,” Tricia said.

  “Anyway, I told the cop at the hospital what I saw, which was nothing.” Sophia paused. “I don’t know what Roger told him. He was closer, I think.”

  “Wait,” Paul said. “You mean Roger was there when Frank was hit?”

  “Yes and no. Not there, there. I don’t think. I don’t know. But I saw him crossing the street when the light changed and I . . .”

  “Why didn’t he help you?” Tricia interrupted.

  “He was crossing the street by the time I saw Frank. I called out to him, but he was already gone.”

  “Didn’t he see what happened?” Tricia asked.

  “I don’t know. He looked back once, but I don’t think he saw me.”

  “I wish you did know,” Paul pressed.

  “But I don’t.” Sophia got agitated.

  “Forget it.” Paul got up. “Let’s go, okay?”

  “You forgot your bread pudding!” Tricia was shocked.

  “I’m full.”

  “That’s a first,” Tricia pronounced.

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  Chapter 43

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  After lunch, Sophia saw that her three tapes remained untouched on Marlene’s unoccupied desk. Toak’s door was shut, tête–à–tête style. She walked by. Nothing was going to distract her from her goal of making up for yesterday by reviewing the Super Vacuum file all afternoon for Chet. Her summer at Bode had taught her that it was almost impossible to make up for hours and days of insufficient billables.

  When she opened her office door, she was startled to see Roger sitting at her desk, his hand in the top drawer and his briefcase open in front of him.

  Roger jumped and then slammed his briefcase shut and latched it.

  “Sophia?” Roger stammered in his gravely voice. He closed the drawer and sat back. “I needed the Crondall-Gant correspondence file to get new deposition dates set up.”

  “Here it is.” She got it from where it was lying in plain view on the corner of her desk and set in front of Roger.

  “What?”

  “The Crondall-Gant correspondence file. I sent you an email that I already scheduled that.”

  Roger stood. “I didn’t see it.”

  “October third. That’s the new date. Is that okay with you?”

  They stood face-to-face. Neither moved. Sophia knew that he knew that she knew that he had been searching her desk for Doug’s calendar again because he was thwarted before. What else could it be?

  The two played chicken.

  Roger gave in first. He relinquished his ground and walked around the desk toward th
e door with his brief case. “I’ll check that depo date.”

  Sophia circled the opposite way to get behind her desk. She glanced at the box of notes she had left on the shelf. As she stood behind her desk, she saw the drawer with the taped calendar was not flush.

  Roger stopped at the door. “I understand you saw Frank get hit?”

  “No. I saw him after, when I started across the street.” Sophia corrected Roger, choosing her words carefully.

  “Too bad Frank cancelled my depo in San Francisco. I would have been there. I could have done something.”

  “Right.” He was lying, but she didn’t challenge him—just probed. “That was terrible. What he did to you at dinner.”

  “That’s Frank. Or, that was Frank. He always settled down when he sobered up. He was showing off for you. He would have rescheduled my depo; after all, it is my client.”

  “Then you weren’t as upset as you looked.”

  “We went around and around all the time, but we always won as a team. Frank knows, or knew, it. And that’s what it is all about.”

  “Of course.”

  Sophia studied Roger’s hooked nose and his receding chin. She was sure it was Roger in the intersection. Roger was a liar. The only question was why. Suddenly, she hoped that he had not seen her when she called out to him.

  “We’ll have the meeting tomorrow to set up a discovery schedule in the Gant case before the cutoff date, and get our summary adjudication motion in gear. Maybe we’ll have to man the case with a couple of other people.”

  “Great.” Sophia played ball.

  “I thought you had the ‘goddess’ files here.”

  “I do. I’m doing the motion to change venue and answer for Baxter Peterson.”

  “I don’t see them.” Roger glanced around.