Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1)

by Trueman, Debra

  I waded through a third of the first box of documents, sorting out what might be useful and what definitely wasn’t, and by noon I was brain dead.

  We broke for lunch and I got straight back into the boxes as soon as I returned. After wading through hundreds of useless documents, I finally came across something I could use. There were three counseling memos from Larry’s personnel file where he’d been written up for “inappropriate behavior towards a subordinate.” All three employees were female, and all three had lodged complaints about vulgar language, inappropriate touching, and abusive tactics in dealing with them on a day-to-day basis. Interestingly, there was nothing about Maddie’s complaint, or at least I hadn’t come across it yet.

  “Maddie,” I called out to her in the next room without using the intercom, since it was just the two of us in the office. I could hear her heels clicking on the floor then she poked her head in my office.

  “You find something?”

  “Yeah. Check this out.”

  I handed her the documents and she stood on the other side of my desk while she looked them over. I caught myself staring at her as her eyes went from side to side over each consecutive page. When she finished the last page, she looked down at me and shook her head.

  “He’s such a creep,” she said.

  I was about to agree but Maddie distracted me when she kind of jumped and looked down at her feet. She had an unreadable look on her face.

  “What’s wrong?”

  She let out a blood-curdling scream that scared the daylights out of me. I sprang out of my chair and bounded around to the other side of the desk. I couldn’t imagine what could have possibly elicited such a reaction from her, but if it was a roach or any kind of bug, I was going to be pissed. I looked down at Maddie’s feet, or more appropriately her legs.

  “Jesus Christ,” I exclaimed, instinctively jumping back.

  A thick black snake was winding itself in and out and around her ankles. Its head was moving around from side to side like it was looking for something, and its black, forked tongue was darting in and out of its evil looking mouth.

  Maddie was absolutely freaking out. “Get it off of me!” She was screaming and crying, covering her eyes with her hands like it would somehow make matters better if she couldn’t see. She was trying to get her legs free, but the serpent was wrapped around too tightly.

  I realized that I needed to get my shit together. We have four poisonous snakes in San Antonio: Red and Yeller, Kill a Feller – it wasn’t a coral snake; it wasn’t a rattler; it wasn’t a copperhead; and it wasn’t a water moccasin. So unless it was an import, it wasn’t going to kill us. I took a tentative step towards Maddie.

  “It’s going to be okay, Maddie. I don’t think it’s poisonous,” I said, as calmly as I could.

  “Help me,” she screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks in a continuous stream. “Please get it off!”

  I eyed the snake, trying to figure out the best way to tackle the big boy, but in the end I decided that the task didn’t require strategy. I just needed to get the damn thing off my secretary. I took a deep breath and grabbed a handful of snake close enough to the head so he couldn’t bite me, and I started unwrapping it from around Maddie’s legs. She stood there screaming as I freed first one leg, then the other, until I finally had the bad boy off of her but draped all over my arm.

  Maddie let out another scream and shivered wildly while I tried to figure out what to do with the snake.

  “Dump the papers out of that box and I’ll put him in there,” I instructed.

  She moved quickly, still screaming, and upended the box, sending Datacare documents all over the floor, then she tossed the box in my general direction and screamed again. I knew better than to ask for her help, so I peeled the snake off my arm unassisted, and with considerable effort got him into the box and slammed the lid shut. My breathing was labored and I was soaked with sweat. Even as a kid, I hated snakes. I’d never held one before and I never wanted to again. Ever.

  “Are you okay?” I asked Maddie.

  “No, I’m not okay! I just had a snake wrapped around my ankles. How could I possibly be okay?”

  She was in tears again and her whole body was trembling. I walked with shaky legs over to her and put my arms around her and held her while she cried. I could feel her heart racing, but then again, it could have been mine.

  “I can’t stop shaking,” she cried.

  “I know. Me too.” I hugged her tighter. “It’s okay,” I said, as soothingly as I could, but my voice sounded shaky and unconvincing.

  When we’d both settled down, I finally started to get my wits back. “What the hell is a snake doing in my office?” I asked, but even as I said it, I had a pretty good idea of how it got there. Maddie didn’t answer and I took it that she was thinking the same thing I was. “You think Larry is behind this?” I asked.

  “Don’t you?”

  “He could be.” That was exactly what I thought, but I wasn’t ready to say so.

  “Could be? Samuel, he came in inside that box!” Her voice was so high-pitched that if I hadn’t seen the words come out of her mouth, I’d have sworn someone else had said it.

  “We don’t know that,” I said.

  She looked at me like I was insane. “I think we should call the police,” Maddie said, looking over at the box.

  “The police aren’t going to do anything. We need to call someone who’ll come get the damn snake.”

  “Fine. But first you call the police. We’ve had a broken window, and now this.”

  There was something in the tone of her voice that told me not to argue. She started crying again and she shivered violently, then she wiped at her wet cheek with the palm of her hand.

  “I get the creeps whenever I think of it,” she said, like she was embarrassed.

  “Hey. I was there, remember? You don’t have to explain. I’ll probably have nightmares for a week,” I admitted.

  “Thank you for getting it off of me,” Maddie sniffed, wiping away more tears. Apparently she had an endless supply.

  “I didn’t have much choice, did I? It was either that or watch you go into cardiac arrest. Not to mention the fact that if you did, you’d probably sue my ass.”

  Maddie smiled. “You were very brave.”

  “Believe me, there was nothing brave about it. If Penny had been here, I would have made her do it.”

  Maddie laughed. “Call the damn police, Samuel.”

  I called information to get the number for the police because I didn’t think the situation warranted dialing 911. After all, the snake was no longer a threat, being safely contained in the box. But as I wrote the number down, I caught myself thinking of how much I’d be paying for that one stupid call and it pissed me off.

  As I had told Maddie, the police didn’t do anything. They took the information and suggested I call some wildlife people to come and deal with the snake. It took those people an hour to get there, and by then I didn’t feel at all like working. Penny had arrived in the meantime and had made me send Maddie home. I’d have done it anyway, but it made Mother Hen feel good to have thought it up, so I let her think it was her idea. I decided to take the rest of the day off, but not before I put in a call to Niki Lautrec. As much as I hated to do it, I told him about the two incidents and gave him the names of three people who I thought might have done it, including Larry, DuMans, and another jerk whose wife I’d represented in a child custody matter. He said he’d check it out and I felt surprisingly better when I hung up.

  Maddie must have stopped somewhere on her way home, because she pulled into her driveway at the same time I was pulling into mine. I thought I better check to make sure she was okay so I was walking across my lawn towards her house, when something on my porch caught the corner of my eye. It looked like a furry red sweater lying on the steps, and I stopped, trying to think if I’d dropped something on the way out that morning. I was about to decide that Landra must have been by, when the sweater m
oved. When I realized what it was, my stomach churned and I threw up in the grass even as I was running towards the Siamese.

  Maddie must have seen it too because she dropped the bags she was carrying and came racing across the yard. We met at the steps and I almost threw up again before I could check to see how bad it was. The Siamese gave out a pitiful, weak meow, and tried to lift his head.

  “Oh my God,” Maddie said. By the time I got my shit together, she was already kneeling down beside the cat, running her hand over him, trying to figure out where he was hurt. It was impossible to tell because his entire coat was covered in blood. When she reached his back leg, the Siamese let out a yowl and flinched.

  “I’ll kill the mother fucker!” I said. My hand was clenched in a fist and I had to consciously will myself to release it. I knew there was no way the cat would survive – he’d lost way too much blood.

  “Who’s your vet?” Maddie asked.

  It took a second for the question to register, and even then I was at a loss for words. “I don’t know . . . I mean . . . I don’t have one. I’ve never needed one until now.”

  “There’s a feline clinic right down the street. We’ll take him there.” She was amazingly calm as she scooped the Siamese up and cradled him in her arms like a baby. “I think his back leg is broken,” she said.

  All I could think of was that Larry was going to pay for killing my cat.

  Maddie’s hands and shirt were covered in red. She was rubbing her fingers together as we walked towards the Suburban when all of sudden she grabbed my arm and pulled me to a stop.

  “It’s paint!” she said, holding out her hand for me to see.

  I ran my hand across the Siamese and rubbed my fingers together, then I held them up to my nose and sniffed. “Oh my God. It’s not blood!” I said with tremendous relief and renewed optimism for his chances of survival. “Someone painted my cat,” I said stupidly. The words, my cat, sounded funny, I guess because I’d never actually acknowledged that he was mine.

  “Poor baby,” Maddie cooed.

  “Let’s get you to the vet!” I told the bastard.

  I drove like a madman through the streets of the Park, hoping like hell that no deer would jump out in front of me. We were inside the feline clinic within minutes of leaving my house.

  The receptionist’s welcoming smile turned to a look of horror. “It’s paint,” Maddie and I said in unison.

  Maddie had been right – the cat’s hind leg was broken. The vet put a cast on it and I took the Siamese home, then I spent the rest of the day and most of the evening cleaning paint off the bastard. Between the snake and the cat, it was one of the worst days of my life.

  Landra called shortly after 9:00 o’clock and I was too drained to even begin to tell her what had happened, so I didn’t even mention it. When she asked what I was up to, I told her truthfully that I was messing with the Siamese and I left it at that. It was probably the first time I didn’t invite her to spend the night -- not that she would have -- but I usually asked anyway just for the hell of it. But that night, I was just too damn tired and I didn’t feel like company. Even Landra. I was in a bad way.

  Chapter 14

  I called Niki the next morning and told him about the Siamese. I knew it was Larry, but I felt like I needed to rule out the other possibilities. It was plausible that the rock-through-the-window incident was random, or at least I’d tried to tell myself that. But it was highly unlikely that the snake had found its way into my office by chance. And while it was also possible that the snake did not arrive packed away in the Datacare boxes, it was more likely that it did. I had to face facts. Larry was going to be a formidable opponent. The broken window was not the most original form of intimidation, but the snake-in-the-box trick was pretty damn good. It was a first for me, anyway. Thinking of the damn thing winding itself around my arms made me cringe. It gave me a whole new respect for the late great Steve Irwin.

  Up to the cat incident, Larry’s tricks had been fairly harmless. Unnerving but harmless. It would have been different if the snake had been poisonous or if we’d been in the office when the window shattered. But the cat was a whole different matter. Larry had messed with the wrong guy when he messed with my cat.

  Niki and I discussed all of this, and I took the opportunity to tell him that I was calling off his investigation of Landra. I felt better about our friendship instantly, and I realized it was something I should have done weeks earlier. While we were on the phone, Niki invited me to a black tie party that one of Stacy’s friends was throwing for them the following month, and I assured him I’d do my best to be previously engaged.

  I hadn’t had any luck in my attempt to allow Landra to testify before the grand jury and the date was rapidly approaching. The paper had run a column each day on the weekend, hyping Drake up to be a great guy. It made me want to puke because, as far as I was concerned, the guy was a loser. Fortunately, Drake’s parents had gone public with their opinion that there was no way Landra was capable of murder, so that was a huge consolation. I had been wrong in my assessment when I told Landra not to call them. While Drake’s mother never came right out and acknowledged that her son had tried to rape Landra, she admitted that Drake had been going through a tough time and that he hadn’t been himself. And both she and her husband had defended Landra when the reporter asked pointed questions about Landra’s guilt. But notwithstanding the Reeds’ opinion on Landra’s innocence, the reporter had still put a negative slant on Landra.

  I’m convinced that human beings are compelled to place blame, even in the case of an accident. Of course this truth is spurred on by the legal system where there’s no such thing as an accident, and someone is always at fault. And of course there are the pricks like me that capitalize on the system.

  After stewing over the articles for half the weekend, I finally folded up the paper and threw it in the recycle bin. I decided to salvage what was left of the weekend and devote it entirely to pleasure.

  Saturday had been chilly and drizzly, but Sunday promised to be warm and sunny. By noon, the sky was clear blue and the temperature was already in the upper 60s. Landra and I decided to take a drive to the Hill Country, so we headed out IH-10 and ended up in Fredericksburg, a quaint German town that has become a tourist Mecca. We had lunch at a brewery and sampled different beers, then we walked up and down Main Street with all the other tourists. We held hands as we walked and I don’t know if it was the weather or the place, but I was feeling very sentimental towards Landra. She was such good company. She never got on my nerves, even when she’d argue with me over something where she was clearly wrong. And even though she’d rarely give in and admit that I was right, it somehow made our relationship all the more satisfying. I’ve always loved a good argument and I could always count on Landra to give me one. In fact, I’d find myself coming out with outlandish remarks just to get her going. I’d done it a couple of times already that day when she finally called me on it. We were in a shop that had all kinds of stuff for the home and I made a comment about a piece of furniture that had Landra’s name all over it. I’d spent enough time with her so that I could spot which item in the store she’d go nuts over, and I knew she’d love this eclectic end table.

  “That’s got to be the ugliest coffee table I’ve ever seen,” I baited her.

  “End table,” she corrected.

  “Whatever.” I waited for the assault but to my disappointment, she walked past it without even giving it a second glance.

  “Damn. I’m losing my touch,” I said under my breath.

  She turned around and moved in close to me and smiled. “Gotcha.”

  “What do you mean?” I said playing dumb.

  “I’m onto your little game, Sam. And I can play it better than you can,” she said.

  “I have no idea what you’re on about,” I lied.

  “You’re so full of shit,” she said laughing at me. She had her hair pulled back in a ponytail and she looked like a kid. “You’re tryi
ng to get me to argue with you over that end table that you know I love. You walk into a shop and you pick out what you know will be my favorite thing in the store, then you tell me how awful it is.”

  “Now why would I do that?” I asked, unable to contain my smile.

  She poked me in the chest with her finger. “Because you like to argue with me. Too bad you never win. You’re just lucky I’m not one of your opposing counsel because I’d kick your ass in court every time. Just like I do in all the arguments you try to bait me into.”

  “You mean you’re on to me?”

  “Mister,” she moved in closer, “I am sooo on to you, it’s not even funny.” She looked in my eyes and started laughing. “You’re thinking of buying it for me, aren’t you?”

  “Damn! How’d you know?”

  “Because I know how you think.”

  “Well that sucks. You spoiled everything.”

  “I’ve fallen in love with you, Sam.”

  It was so out of the blue that at first I thought I must have heard her wrong. The woman next to us turned around and stared at me.

  “Did she say she loves me?” I asked the woman.

  “I believe she said that she’s fallen in love with you.” She gave a doting look that reminded me of Penny.

  I turned back to Landra and gave her a wicked smile. “Then I’ve got you where I want you,” I said in my best Dracula imitation, and I went for her jugular. “I’m gonna give you a hickey.”

  “No you’re not!” She was laughing, trying to get away, but I squeezed her tighter.

  I wasn’t really going to do it. Hickeys gross me out. But it was a good threat so I breathed heavily and slobbered on her neck for a minute. She was laughing and hitting at me, and trying to push me off, but after a while people started to stare. I let go of her and she slugged me in the chest.

  “Yuck! That’s disgusting!” she said, wiping at her neck.

  “Yeah, but you love me.”

  Landra rolled her eyes. “I never should have said anything.”

  “Hey, don’t be that way.” I pulled her close to me. “I like you too.”