An Engineered Injustice

by William L. Myers Jr.

  Erin stares at King but says nothing.

  “I mean, you can’t say he doesn’t deserve whatever he gets,” King says. “He should never have been driving a train to begin with. And Amtrak should never have hired him.”

  Erin continues to stare until King becomes uncomfortable. “Hey, this is the biggest case in the firm’s history,” he says at last. “Do you know how many people were maimed and killed in the crash?”

  Erin leans back in her seat, thinks for a moment, then says, “I’m working on a nursing-home abuse case. It was brought to us by the daughter of an eighty-year-old man who’d lain in bed in the same position for weeks at a time because the staff never turned him over. He developed bedsores. I saw them when I went to the nursing home with his daughter. She lifted her father’s sheets, and there they were—gaping, gelatinous wounds, wet and foul-smelling with infection.” Erin stops, lets the words hang in the air. “I’m seeing the same thing right now, looking at you.”

  Corey King’s face turns crimson. He opens his mouth to say something but can’t find the words. Instead, he snaps the manila folder to his chest, turns, and leaves.

  Erin closes her eyes and takes deep breaths until her hands unclench. She’d always known what a conceited ass Corey was. But what he’d become over the years is ten times worse. She’d like to say she didn’t know what she’d ever seen in him, but that wasn’t true. What she had seen in him was what was visible to the eye: Corey King is drop-dead gorgeous. Six foot three with broad shoulders, dark hair, a swarthy complexion, and deep-blue bedroom eyes. Curiously, although he looks like a natural athlete, Corey isn’t much of an athlete at all. Back in law school, he could play passable basketball, but that was about it. In many ways, he is the opposite of Vaughn. You could pass Vaughn on the street and never take notice of him. It’s not that he isn’t a good-looking guy—he is. Just not so much that you would spot it unless you looked closely. And in clothes, his thin, five-foot-ten frame isn’t compelling. But back in the day, Vaughn with his shirt off was something different. He was rock solid, with six-pack abs and cut biceps. And when he sparred in the boxing ring, you could see what a tightly coiled spring he really was.

  She and Vaughn had a good thing going for a while. But it fell apart when they came back to law school for their third year, in part because of the vastly different experiences they’d had over the summer. Vaughn recounted his tales of fighting for his indigent clients while interning at the legal clinic. He fairly glowed as he described how he’d helped people wrongly evicted from their homes or unfairly fired by employers. Vaughn became especially impassioned when he talked about advocating on behalf of abused children. In return, all Erin could offer up were stories of sightseeing trips she’d taken to European cities and museums. Her experiences seemed frivolous. Worse, she got the sense that Vaughn was judging her. It didn’t take long for both of them to realize that whatever they’d had wasn’t working anymore, so they broke things off.

  After law school, though, Corey King seemed to become more and more Corey King every day. Finally, she couldn’t bear to be in his presence, and she dumped him, rather unceremoniously, at the firm Christmas party. Then she took a cab to Vaughn’s apartment and fucked him so hard the bed broke. The next morning, she told Vaughn she wasn’t going to be dropping by anymore. And, with the exception of one or two—or three—times over the years, she’d stuck to it.

  But now here she is, and fate seems to be pushing her and Vaughn into the same space. Or, more accurately, fate is pushing Vaughn and Corey King into that space, and she is going to have to intervene to help Vaughn save his cousin Eddy.

  But how, really, can she help? Or maybe the better question is: Why help? Eddy Coburn crashed a train full of people, killing dozens, injuring hundreds. And if Corey is right, Eddy was in a position to do so only because he’d hidden a past that included alcohol abuse, incarceration, and a driving record of reckless speed that led to someone’s death. Vaughn’s quest, it seems to Erin, is worse than quixotic. Not only is it likely hopeless, it should be hopeless, because Eddy is culpable as hell.

  Still, she knows that even the devil deserves a good lawyer. Not because anyone wants the devil to win, but because everyone wants the system to be fair.

  Erin nods to herself. Yes, she’ll help Vaughn. Not a lot, just enough to level the playing field. Enough to make sure that Vaughn and his cousin aren’t steamrolled. If Eddy Coburn is guilty, then so be it, and may he suffer the full wrath of the legal system. But if he’s not guilty, if there’s some other reason for what happened, then so be that as well—even if it means that Geoffrey Day and Benjamin Balzac have to look elsewhere for their sacrificial lamb.

  Erin picks up her cell phone and dials. “It’s me,” she says. “We need to meet. I have some news about your cousin.”

  “I hope it’s good,” Vaughn says. “I sat with Eddy before the NTSB today and . . . let’s just say it didn’t go well.”

  Erin pauses. “I’m afraid it’s not good news. But we should still talk. Come to my place,” she says. “Around ten. I may have something for you to look at.”

  “You still in that little place on Pine Street?”

  “No. I’m at One Independence Place, on Washington Square. I’ve been there for two years.”

  “Wow, it’s been that long since—”

  “Later.” Erin hangs up and works until 9:00 p.m.

  The office is almost empty when she walks down the hall toward Corey King’s office. She glances up and down the hallway to make sure no one sees her, then she turns on the light to his office and walks in, closing the door behind her. She steps to King’s desk and sees the manila folder lying right on top of his blotter.

  Doesn’t even try to hide what he’s up to, the arrogant ass.

  Quickly, she takes the folder to the copy room and runs the contents through the Xerox. She returns the folder to Corey’s desk, then goes back to her office.

  Thirty minutes later, the documents sit on the coffee table in the center of Erin’s living room. Fifteen minutes after that, the doorman buzzes the intercom and informs Erin that Vaughn is in the lobby.

  “Send him up,” she says.

  Erin greets Vaughn in her work clothes and waves him into the apartment. She escorts him from the foyer down a short hall to the living room, where Vaughn pauses to look around and take the place in. A gray thistle rug sits over polished wood flooring. A cream-colored sofa and love seat are positioned around a glass-top coffee table. There are two occasional chairs, in white leather. The light-gray walls are textured, and Vaughn reaches out and touches one.

  “Venetian plaster,” Erin says.

  “Pricey, I’ll bet.”

  Erin doesn’t answer, opting instead to take Vaughn on a brief tour of the apartment. It’s a two-bedroom corner unit with a balcony. A little less than twelve hundred square feet. On the eighth floor. Far grander than Vaughn could afford on his salary at a small defense firm. But as a senior associate at Day and Lockwood, Erin is undoubtedly pulling in some serious coin. Probably a mid-six-figure salary with a fat bonus on top of it. Vaughn feels a pang of jealousy, but not much of one; he’s never been in it for the money.

  In the kitchen, Erin pulls out a bottle of Longrow 10-Year and fills two tumblers. “I know you prefer beer,” she says, handing Vaughn one of the glasses. “But you’re going to need this.” They make their way back to the living room and sit side by side on the sofa. “That’s for you,” she says, nodding at the folder on the coffee table.

  Vaughn leans over, opens the folder, and begins to read. The first document is Eddy’s job application with Amtrak. In answer to the question asking whether he’d ever been convicted of a crime, Eddy had checked “no.” The documents underneath the application show Eddy’s answer to be a lie. Eddy’s criminal record shows his conviction for the car crash. It also lists a plethora of other convictions for petty offenses following Eddy’s release from prison—public drunkenness, disorderly conduct, resisting arres
t, assaulting a police officer. Half a dozen mug shots show Eddy at various times and in various stages of intoxication. One mug shot shows him with two black eyes, a fat lip, and no shirt. He looks like a street brawler, though Vaughn suspects the arresting police did that to him.

  Vaughn knew from family lore that his cousin hit hard times after he left Graterford Prison, so these records are no surprise. Still, they won’t go over well with the public. Nor will Eddy’s post-imprisonment driving record. Two citations for running red lights, three more for speeding. Citations for inattentive driving, reckless driving, and driving with an expired license. Vaughn sees that all the citations were written during the period when Eddy had spiraled his way to rock bottom, before he’d made the decision to turn his life around. Before he had admitted himself into rehab, joined AA, met Kate.

  “Jesus,” Vaughn says, closing the folder.

  “I’m sorry.” Erin refills Vaughn’s glass with scotch.

  “Where did you get all this?”

  Erin pauses, unsure how much to share. “Corey King. He came into my office, waved the file in my face, said your cousin was going down.”

  Vaughn feels dazed. “This is the same stuff one of Amtrak’s representatives on the NTSB go-team cross-examined Eddy about. How is it that Corey King gets a copy? Is there some connection between your firm and Amtrak?”

  Erin opens her palms. “You’re asking the wrong person. Geoffrey Day has a special team of lawyers working the investigation, and I’m not on it.”

  “But Corey is?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “So he and Day are—”

  “Connected at the hip.”

  “It wouldn’t make sense for Amtrak to be helping Day get dirt on my cousin. Eddy was Amtrak’s employee when he crashed the train. Anything bad that Eddy did gets imputed to the railroad in the civil litigation. It’d stick to them as badly as to him.”

  “Which,” Erin says, “tells me that someone in Amtrak is acting as a mole, helping Day on the sly.”

  Vaughn considers this. “Has Corey ever mentioned the name Jack Bunting to you? He was the Amtrak guy at the NTSB interview of Eddy.”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean anything. Corey doesn’t talk to me about the firm’s investigation. He only came into my office this afternoon to gloat.”

  They sit for a while without talking. Then Vaughn says, “I screwed up. I’ve only been helping Eddy for a few weeks, and I already made a major mistake. I never should’ve agreed to let the NTSB interview him. Once Bunting started going after Eddy, I had no choice but to cut the interview short and walk out. That’s going to be leaked to the press, and it’s going to sound bad.”

  “You were protecting your client. And it was your decision, not Eddy’s, to end the questioning. So long as your cousin didn’t actually lie to the NTSB, he’ll be fine. As for you, cut yourself some slack. You’re facing off against the government, the press, and the biggest P.I. firms in the city. You have one hand tied behind your back because your client can’t remember what happened—or is telling you that he can’t. You’re wading through a whole new area of the law—for you. Pretty ballsy, if you ask me.”

  Vaughn forces a smile, grateful for Erin’s pep talk. He takes a long sip of the scotch. “It won’t take much more before this stuff starts to go to my head,” he says, nodding at his glass.

  Erin studies Vaughn for a moment, then lifts the bottle and refills his glass.

  When Vaughn wakes up the next morning, his head is throbbing. So are his balls. He smiles at Erin, still sleeping, and reaches over, pulls a couple of strands of hair off her face. Then he leans down and gently kisses her lips.

  Erin stirs, shoos him away with the back of her hand. “Coffee,” she mumbles.

  Vaughn laughs and gets out of bed. He walks to the kitchen, brews a cup of Starbucks Komodo Dragon on Erin’s Keurig, and brings it to her in bed.

  “Black, no sugar,” he says as he sits the mug on the nightstand. Erin opens one eye, then closes it again. Vaughn leaves her and takes a shower. When he comes back, Erin is sitting up drinking the coffee.

  “You and that scotch wore me out last night,” Erin says.

  “The hooch had nothing to do with it. The credit’s all mine.”

  “If that’s what you need to tell yourself, run with it.”

  “I’m not going to be running anytime soon. You wore me out, too.”

  Erin smirks. “Where’s my morning paper? What kind of doorman are you?”

  “Bossy as ever,” Vaughn says. But he takes Erin’s cue and walks to the front door to retrieve the Inquirer, which Erin’s real doorman apparently leaves outside her apartment each morning. His stomach drops as he unfolds the paper and sees the headline: “Engineer Had Long History of Alcohol, Violence, and Reckless Driving.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Vaughn stands in the doorway, still wearing only a towel, and reads the article. It’s long and details most of what’s in Eddy’s criminal record. The continuation on page two carries the black-eyes/fat-lip mug shot and quotes an anonymous source claiming that Eddy and his “lawyer-cousin” stormed out of the NTSB interview rather than answer questions about Eddy’s pre-Amtrak past.

  Vaughn carries the newspaper back to Erin and turns on her bedroom TV as she reads it. The cable news channels are all broadcasting the story. Disturbed as he is by the negative press about Eddy, Vaughn becomes even more upset when the angle shifts to Vaughn himself and the firm.

  “What do we know about the cousin of the engineer?” asks one of the guests on Morning Joe. “Is he a bona fide lawyer? And what about this firm he works for—McFarland and Klein? Are they some nickel-and-dime outfit?”

  “Mick and Susan are going to flip when they hear this shit,” Vaughn says to Erin.

  She opens her mouth to offer up another pep talk, but nothing comes out.

  What can she say?

  12

  TUESDAY, JULY 7

  Geoffrey Day reclines behind his desk in his ergonomic Aeron chair by Herman Miller. Across from him sit Jason Rutledge, a third-year associate, and Samantha Evers, who’s been with the firm for two years. Day called them to his office an hour earlier to discuss “important business.” Since that time, he’s ignored them utterly. The first ten minutes he spent dictating a letter. The rest of the time, he’s been on the phone.

  About thirty minutes in, Jason quietly asked if it would be better if he and Samantha came back later. Day’s perpetually disapproving frown deepened into a scowl, and he turned to face the floor-to-ceiling windows behind his desk. Jason and Samantha traded uncomfortable glances, then looked down, pretending to be somewhere else.

  Another thirty minutes later, Jason quietly removes his iPhone from his pocket.

  “Am I boring you, Jason?” Day has now turned around and is off the phone.

  “Oh. No, I—”

  Day raises his hand, signaling Jason to stop.

  “The reason I’ve called you both here is that I’ve been reviewing your work. Jason, I’ve read the deposition of the defendant doctor in the Crowley case. Samantha, I’ve looked over your questioning of the two department-store managers in the Dorman matter.”

  Day lets this sit while he slowly reaches for the Smartwater bottle on his blotter, removes the cap, takes a swallow, replaces the cap, and repositions the bottle.

  Jason and Samantha watch every move, holding their breaths.

  “Samantha, I thought I sat down with you before the depositions and discussed, in some detail, both our overall strategy and the key points you were to establish with your questions.” Day pauses. “Or am I misremembering?”

  “Uh, no. We met ahead of time and prepared.”

  “And yet, three of the seven areas I instructed you to cover especially thoroughly, you more or less skated over.”

  “Skated? No.”

  “No? You believe you adequately addressed the managers’ notice of the defective flooring that caused Mrs. Dorman to fall and shatter her pelvis?”
/>   On the defensive now, Samantha leans forward. “Yes. I was very thorough on the notice issues. I—”

  “So you’re right and I’m wrong?” Day asks incredulously, removing his glasses for a brief inspection, then putting them back on.

  Samantha’s jaw drops. “Well, what I’m saying is that—”

  Day raises his hand again. He shakes his head, sighs, then looks at Jason.

  “The defense attorney in Crowley—what was his name again?”

  “Gallagher. Robert Gallagher.”

  “A good lawyer. Tell me, was he smiling when you questioned his client? Because he should’ve been. You let his client drone on and on in response to almost every one of your questions. You walked away from that deposition without a single crisp sound bite I could use to hit the doctor over the head with at trial.”

  “I . . . I thought the deposition went well for us. I got a lot of good information—”

  “Information.” Day spits out the word like a piece of gristle. “We have our own doctors on staff to give us information. What we need from the deposition of the defendant doctor in a medical-malpractice case are damning admissions and patently false excuses. Come on, now, that’s Doctor Depositions 101.”

  Jason looks down. “I apologize. I’ll—”

  “What you’ll do is read my own depositions of the defendants in the McSorley and Zimmerman cases. Better yet, watch the videos. Then, I want you to summarize the depositions, highlighting the places where you think I was especially effective.”

  Geoffrey slowly goes through the motions with his water bottle again, then turns to Samantha. “I’d like you to go and see Deborah Manning in HR.”

  Day pauses to observe Samantha’s face collapse as she realizes what he’s just told her. Looking much like a scientist observing a failed lab experiment, he reaches for the phone, signaling that the meeting is over. He watches the two young lawyers leave and close the door behind them. News of Samantha’s termination will spread through the firm like wildfire, he knows. She’s a popular associate, and she’s made no secret of the fact that she graduated law school $200,000 in debt.