The Associate

by Rachel Sinclair

  I couldn’t have been more wrong. The attorneys at that office were some of the most dedicated I had ever seen. They were passionate and intelligent and they were working there because they were true believers in the Sixth Amendment – that everybody is entitled to representation, no matter what they did and no matter how little money they had. They were, in short, true believers. Many of the attorneys at the PD’s office went on to become judges. Others went on to work for the federal government, defending people who were accused of federal crimes. Still others ended up making the big bucks for large defense firms in the KC area. But there were some who remained right where they were – representing indigent clients, making a fraction of what they could make in the private sector, all because they truly believed in what they were doing.

  I fell a bit in love with Colleen, especially since she worked so hard to get my case overturned. I never pursued it, however. I was too embarrassed. She was an attorney and I was an inmate who didn’t even have a college degree. I knew that I was smart and, if I put my mind to it, I could also become an attorney. But I didn’t have anything to offer her at that time, so, even though I thought that she might also be into me, I didn’t pursue her.

  What I did do was go to college. My SAT scores were high enough to get into UMKC, and my Ozanam high school grades were excellent as well. I never got the chance to graduate from high school, because I was convicted for that robbery before I could walk down that aisle to get my diploma. I got my GED and then went to UMKC and got my BA in Criminal Justice. Then I took my LSAT and scored in the top 2% in the country – a 172. That score, combined with my 4.0 undergraduate average, combined with my essay where I wrote about my experiences in prison and my work on behalf of other inmates, combined with letters of recommendation from my Innocence Project attorney and Colleen, got me into the University of Chicago Law School. UChicago is the fourth rated law school in the country, right below Yale, Stanford and Harvard. It’s the school where Barack Obama taught Constitutional Law. I was shocked that I got in and then had to figure out how to get the money together to go. I managed that with a combination of scholarships, grants and a lot of student loans.

  When I got out of school, I went right to work for the Public Defender’s Office in Kansas City. I never forgot the dedication and work ethic of the attorneys in that office. How hard they worked on my case, how tireless they were…I never forgot that. And Colleen was still in the office. She was married, but we became great friends. I was also married by the time I got out of law school to Sarah. She was also a student at UChicago, but was in grad school, working on her Master’s Degree in Art History. We fell in love, got married my first year in law school, and quickly had our two kids – Nate and Amelia.

  That was then. This is now. And things were very different.

  Chapter 3

  Harper came into the office as I was sitting behind my desk. I was looking at the picture of me, Sarah and our two kids. Looking at this picture, taken of us on a float trip in the Ozarks three years before, always made me sad. It always astounded me about how pictures take a snapshot in a moment in time, and, somehow, I was always able to feel how I felt at the moment the picture was taken. This picture, like all the pictures of us as a happy family, felt like a lie to me. It wasn’t a lie then. At least, I didn’t think that it was a lie then. But it certainly turned out to be a lie.

  Harper sat down across from me. In a way, she reminded me of Colleen. Same red hair, same blue eyes, same freckles. Tall and lean like Colleen. Yet she was different. She was harder than Colleen, somehow. Like she had been around the block a time or two. Colleen, even though she represented some of the hardest criminals there are– serial killers, gang-bangers, low-level mafia guys, rapists, you name it – had a certain innocence about her. A certain sweetness. That drew me to her even more than the way that she looked.

  “I’ve give it some thought,” she said. “I think I’ll tentatively go in with you on your Med Mal case. I’ve been reviewing the file, and it does seem that there might be a case there.”

  I smiled. I knew that Harper would come around. I had great instincts for cases and I knew that this case was a winner. Yes, it was an uphill battle. Austin Ward was only a kid who hadn’t established earnings potential just yet, and, yes, his prognosis was grim to start with. But I knew that there was an X Factor with this case. There was something that felt off to me about it. It didn’t strike me as just another medical malpractice case where there was a tragic mistake made in the administration of a common anesthetic. I didn’t quite know what I was going to find once our investigator, Tom Garrett, started talking to witnesses. I just had a feeling that there was something major that was underlying this case, right below the surface.

  “I knew you would want in on this case,” I said Harper, lightly chiding her. “I think it’s going to be a good one. Like it’s going to be the case that will keep this firm afloat for the next year or two, at the very least. I don’t know why, but I just have that hunch.”

  Harper grinned. “I wouldn’t go that far, unless we can somehow get punitives. But, I’m sorry, this case doesn’t seem like a punitive damage case just yet.”

  Punitive damages in medical malpractice cases were rare. You pretty much had to show some kind of intentional wrongful conduct to even be able to ask a jury to consider punitive damages. At the very least, the conduct would have shown wanton and willful disregard for the safety of others. Harper was right – on the surface, this case didn’t seem to warrant an award of punitive damages. There wasn’t anything in the records that would show that what happened to Austin was anything but a tragic mistake. Perhaps the anesthesiologist didn’t look at Austin’s records thoroughly enough, or maybe there was some kind of mix-up where the anesthesiologist ordered a different drug, but ended up getting Propofol instead. I knew that we were going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened in this case, but I doubted that there was any kind of intentionality or wanton and willful disregard for Austin’s safety.

  In the State of Missouri, punitive damages were originally statutorily limited to $500,000 or five times the total amount of the award. However, the Supreme Court of Missouri unanimously decided that a limitations on punitive damages were deemed to be unconstitutional, because juries have the right to decide the amount of damages. Putting a cap on punitive damages takes that right out of their hands.

  “Okay,” Harper said. “Let’s put that med mal case on the backburner for now. Erik’s case is a four-alarm fire. Or, at the very least, it has the potential to get that way. I have a list of questions that I need to ask him when he comes in, but why don’t you take the lead on this?”

  Harper was testing me, of course. I was new to her. She was feeling me out, seeing what kind of instincts I had. She handed me a list of the questions that she had for Erik, and I looked at them. I wasn’t necessarily going to go by them, however. I was going to go in any direction that I felt needed to be explored, even if these questions didn’t cover that particular direction. That was how I worked.

  “Of course I will,” I said. “But I have to warn you that I tend to get pretty aggressive with my clients. Especially if I think that they’re lying. And, let’s face it, most of them are lying right to our face. My first few trials, I took my clients’ word about just about anything and everything. Then I get to trial and find out exactly how much they were lying to me, and that was that. I now go into just about every case assuming the worst about the clients, but hoping for the best. And, for this kid, I will definitely be on my guard. He’s a mafia kid, raised by a criminal and surrounded by thugs his whole life. I can assure you that lying is going to be his MO. I hope you don’t mind my cynicism and my skepticism.”

  Harper smiled. “Not at all. It’s refreshing, really. I’ve been a criminal defense attorney for 10 years, and I’ve tried some really messed-up cases. Yet, I’ve always retained my rose-colored glasses. It hasn’t always served me well, because you’re right – most of our clients ar
e lying. And I’ve had my ass handed to me on more than one occasion because I believed their stories. So, it’s good that you’re here. You can balance out my Pollyannaish view of the world.”

  I didn’t tell her exactly why I was so cynical. That was a story for another day. Maybe Harper and I could share some shots at the bar and I could tell her what kind of life I’ve had. Maybe she wouldn’t ever believe me when I told her all that I had seen and all that I had gone through. Prison wasn’t a walk in the park, of course. I made it work for me, though, because of my crack legal abilities. When word got around that I was actually getting guys out of prison, I was revered. Guys didn’t mess with me. My brain became my best protection inside. While other guys were running protection rackets inside and messing with scared newcomers, I was basically sitting on a throne, protected by some of the baddest guys in some of the roughest prison gangs. What’s more, I made sure that the guys enjoyed that same protection.

  I worried about Tommy, Nick, Jack and Connor constantly. When I got sprung from prison, their protection ceased. I still kept in touch with them, tried to visit them whenever I could, and I wrote letters to them every week. Thus far, they were doing okay, but it was only a matter of time before they would be subjected to the laws of the jungle. That scared me.

  I looked up and saw that Erik was coming into the office suite. At least, I assumed it was Erik. He was about 25, not tall and not short – he probably stood about 5’9” – and was wearing a three-piece suit that was slightly too big for him. He had a baby face – fine featured and olive skin. Pale green eyes, dark hair worn in a buzz cut. His watch was a Rolex and his shoes were custom made in Italy. That was one thing that I knew – men’s shoes. His were extremely expensive.

  Pearl came into our office. “Erik Gregorian is here,” she said. “Can I send him in?”

  Harper drew a breath and her eyes got wide. I saw fear in those eyes and I immediately wanted to calm her down. I knew why she was afraid – she was under so much pressure to make sure this kid walked.

  I nodded my head. “Let’s take this down in the conference room, okay?”

  I gathered up Erik’s file and then followed Harper down the hall to the conference room. It was a typical conference room, nothing special – long wood table, tall bookcases lined with every kind of treatise imaginable. I was impressed with Harper’s collection of legal books, even if I never used them. I always preferred to do my legal research on-line. It was faster that way, and much, much easier.

  Harper had summoned Erik, and he followed both of us into the conference room.

  Erik sat down and Pearl came in and poured him a glass of water. He looked out the window, which overlooked The Country Club Plaza down below. “Nice view,” he said, with a smile. He sipped his water as he swiveled his chair restlessly. “So, are we going to get right down to it then?”

  Harper looked at me uncertainly and I sat up straighter in my chair. I glanced down at the questions and then looked up at Erik. “Yeah,” I say to him. “By the way, my name is Damien Harrington. I’m Harper’s new associate and I’m going to be conducting this interview.”

  Erik shrugged his shoulders. “Go ahead. I don’t really care. As long as I walk down this bullshit charge, I’m good.” He looked me up and down. “You look like a street fighter. I like that.” He smiled his approval.

  I didn’t quite know what he meant by “looking like a street fighter.” I was a street fighter. I had been in more hand to hand combat situations than I cared to remember. But I wondered what gave me away. I had always tried to look professional – tailored suit and tie, sharp shoes, hair cut short. My hands weren’t calloused. I knew, when I got out of prison, that having rough hands would give me away. Rough hands were always the sign of a guy who labored or a guy who had been on the inside. Steven Harrington, my ersatz father, had rough hands. He worked construction, when he worked at all. He was what I considered to be trailer trash. Not because he worked construction – I considered that to be an honest day’s work. No, to me, “trailer trash” was a state of mind. He had the mind of a victim. Whenever something went wrong, it was always somebody else’s fault. I resolved that I was never going to be like him in any way, shape or form, so that was another reason why I always chose to have my hands and nails manicured.

  I raised an eyebrow and looked Erik right in the eye. He stared back, two alpha males trying to establish dominance. He finally looked away and I nodded my head and looked down at my questions. “Yes, so, we’re going to get down to it,” I said. “Now, let me get this straight. I’m just going to nutshell this whole thing to you, just to make sure that I have the basic facts right, and then I’m going to drill down. You’re the leader of the Armenian stronghold in the territory that spans from Troost on the west side, Brooklyn on the East Side, 25th Street on the South Side and 18th Street on the North Side. Is that correct? Is that the territory that you control for your organization?”

  “Yeah, that’s the territory. See, we have this pact with the other families and organizations in the area. The Italians, the Russians, the Albanians and the Armenians. We’ve had a friendly arrangement where each of the organizations get to control a certain amount of real estate.” He nodded. “So, yes, you have that right. That’s the part of the city that I control.”

  I nodded my head. “And the activities that you are involved in, that your particular hierarchy is involved in, are white slavery, sex slavery, prostitution, drugs and cyber crime. But the emphasis is on white slavery and sex slavery. Do I have that right?”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Erik nodded. “We find girls, high-end girls, to sell on the open market to people living overseas. Mainly Sheiks in the Middle East, but we sometimes find girls for businessmen who are looking for somebody to service them long-term. And the prostitution is a very lucrative part of our business, too. We service some of the best call girls in the city to traveling businessmen. Very high quality – educated, sophisticated, beautiful, talented. They’re very pre-screened.”

  “By pre-screened, you mean?”

  “Well, we screen them for STDs, of course. Every time a girl visits one of our clients, she has to have an STD test when she gets back. We’re very on top of that. But we also screen them for education level. No joke, our girls have to pass an IQ and vocabulary test, and we make sure that they speak properly. If a girl opens her mouth and sounds like she has little education, then she doesn’t pass our screening test. Our clients demand a certain level of sophistication and discretion, and that’s what we try to provide to them. Now, I’m not saying that all our girls have their PhD from Yale or anything like that, but most of them have at least a bachelor’s degree, sometimes even a master’s. They work for us while they’re paying for their higher education, so many of them actually are working on their PhDs. Of course, once they actually receive their PhDs, they quit working for us. They find better jobs and they age out.”

  “Age out.” I nod my head. “What’s the high end as far as age goes?”

  “25, generally. Our clients like the girls to be young and nubile. No cellulite, perky breasts, fresh face. Some of our girls are a bit older, but they look much younger, and I pass them off as being in their early 20s. But, by and large, our girls are 25 and under.”

  I looked over at Harper and wondered what she was thinking. She was a woman who was over the age of 25, probably was around her mid thirties. She obviously took good care of herself – she was lean, like a runner. She ate a lot of kale salads for lunch and I never really saw her eat anything junky. Her face was fresh, hardly any wrinkles. Yet, here was this guy, pretty much saying that a woman her age wasn’t sexually desirable to his clients. I wondered if that bothered her. Her face was impassive, so I had to figure that she probably wasn’t that offended, but I wondered if I was right about that.

  I went back to Erik. “Let’s talk about Shelly. How long was she with your organization? And how did she come to be in your organization?”

  Erik looked un
comfortable. He looked out the window, and then back at me. He steepled his fingers and swiveled in his chair. “I should have known that she was up to no good,” he said. “I should have known. But no. The other guys in my clan, they told me to trust her. She was an amazing hacker. She wanted to work for us because she wanted to put her hacking skills to use. That was the story I got about her. My father even vetted her and told me that I needed to hire her. So I did. I hired her. She was on our cyber team. Her role was to break into bank networks around the world and steal five cents out of every account, every month. Since she was able to hack into millions of bank networks and steal a nickel out of 100s of millions of accounts, it came up to be a pretty penny for us. I’ll admit it, I was thrilled to have found her.”

  That was a new piece of information. There was nothing in the prosecutors discovery file to us that indicated that our vic was a computer genius. But, apparently, she was. I wondered if that was an angle for us to look at. “She was a computer whiz?”

  “Yeah. She explained to us that she taught herself how to hack when she was only 8 years old. She claimed that she had been an underground hacker for various organizations around the city since she was 13. Her references checked out. What I should have done was check out her references more thoroughly though. If I did, I would have found that they didn’t really exist. I figured out that she had several of her friends and people she worked with at the newspaper claim to be her past employers, but, in reality, she was a hobbyist and an amateur. A very talented amateur, I’ll give her that, but it turned out that she had never done any serious hacking for pay until she met up with us.”

  “So, she told you that she had been a hacker for money before you, but that wasn’t true?”