Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1)

by Trueman, Debra

  “Collins!” Niki clapped me hard on the shoulder. “You remember my fiancée, Stacy Trent.”

  I halfway stood up and shook her hand. “Stacy, nice to see you again.” It wasn’t a lie, but it also wasn’t altogether true. The last time I’d seen Stacy she’d given me the third degree and chewed me out for fighting with Niki. I didn’t easily forgive and I didn’t forget either. “You met Landra?” I asked her.

  “I did.” She looked over at Landra and smiled.

  Niki and Stacy joined us at the table, but before I started up another conversation, I had to make sure the old one was retired. I turned back to Landra. “Are you okay with everything then?”

  “Yeah. I’m fine,” she said. “But I don’t want to stay here for a long time.”

  “Me neither. Let’s have one more drink then pick up some Chinese and go to your house,” I suggested.

  “That’s perfect,” she said.

  “What’s up?” Niki asked. “Why are you two so serious?”

  “Landra has been subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury tomorrow in the Drake Reeds case,” I said.

  Stacy piped in. “I knew Drake Reeds,” she said. “In fact, I even went out with him a couple of times, but he turned out to be a creep. I can’t believe you were engaged to him,” she told Landra.

  “Neither can I,” Landra said.

  “I went to a UT game with him up in Austin one time,” Stacy said. “He got very physical with me down on 6th Street afterwards. All the bouncers came and threw him out of the bar we were in, and I had to call a girlfriend to come pick me up. That’s the last time I ever saw him,” she said.

  Her eyes were amazing. And as hard as I tried to hold a grudge, I was having a hard time doing so. She was so . . . something.

  “In what way was he physical with you?” I asked. If Landra’s case went to trial, maybe I could get Stacy to testify about Drake’s violent streak.

  “He grabbed me by the arm and tossed me around when I refused to go somewhere with him. You could clearly make out his fingerprints on my arm the next day.”

  “That pisses me off,” Niki said.

  Stacy looked back over at Landra. “As far as I’m concerned, they should pin a medal on you, not prosecute you,” she said.

  Landra smiled. “Thanks. Tell that to the DA.”

  Landra and I hung out for another drink then made excuses to leave. We stayed up much of the night going over her testimony for the next day. She was foggy on what went on between the time Drake went out the window and when I found her, but that didn’t surprise me, considering the condition in which I’d found her. Everything else, she seemed to remember with perfect clarity.

  When it got to be midnight, I called a moratorium on the topic of Drake Reeds’ demise. I’d been itching to get my hands on Landra since we’d been at Chuy’s, but out of respect for her concentrated state of mind, I’d refrained from anything more than a bare minimum of kisses. Now, with the topic banned, all bets were off.

  I tackled her on the bed and jumped on top of her and breathed heavily on her neck, and she squirmed underneath me laughing.

  “Stop it! You’re giving me goose bumps,” she said.

  I laid on her more heavily and she poked her fingers into my side and damned if she didn’t find my Achilles heel. If my sparring partners had known how ticklish I was when I was a kid, they could have kicked my ass every time. All they would have had to do was to stick their finger in my side and I would have crumbled like a sissy. It was by far my worst weakness. Of course, as an adult, there are not that many occasions when one is subjected to tickle torture. But now that Landra had found my weakness, I knew she would never fight fair again.

  “Oh! You’re ticklish!” she said, sounding pleased with her new weapon.

  I managed to find her hands even as I curled up laughing and I pinned her down on the bed. She was laughing and her hair was splashed out all over the pillow as I held her down and kissed her, playing with her. Maybe it was that I’d waited so long to make a move, or maybe it was something else, but I couldn’t keep up the pretense of play. I let go of her hands and I kissed her like I loved her. Landra wrapped her arms around my neck and it turned into one of those long, drawn out kisses that we’d gotten so good at. When I made love to her, it never even occurred to me that after that night, things might never be the same. All I was thinking about was how good and how right it felt to be with her at that moment. It was well past 2:00 a.m. when we finally fell asleep, Landra curled up beside me, hogging my pillow.

  But when I woke up the next morning, the gravity of the situation hit me. I’d known all along how serious the allegations lodged against Landra were. If she was convicted of murder, she could get from 5 to 99 years, or life. I guess I’d done a better job of distancing myself than I thought, but all of a sudden I felt panicked. Maybe it was a mistake to have Landra say anything to the grand jury. Maybe she should take the Fifth and not say a word. Damn, damn, damn!

  “What’s the matter? You don’t look so good,” Landra said over coffee the next morning.

  “I’m just preoccupied.” This was not the time to change strategy. I decided to keep my mouth shut and stick with the original game plan.

  I left Landra and went home to shower and change clothes. Landra was scheduled to testify at 10:00 o’clock, so she was going to meet me at my office at 9:30. That would give me plenty of time to conclude an 8:00 telephone hearing and get some phone calls out of the way before we walked over to the Justice Center.

  I’d given myself enough time with traffic to make it to the office by 7:50, but when I pulled in to the parking garage, I noticed an old guy in a wheel chair out in the street. He was taking up a whole lane of traffic, moving at a snail’s pace, and there was a huge line of cars stacked up behind him.

  I drove up to the 4th floor of the garage and pulled into my reserved spot, then I took the elevator down to the street level. I was hoping that the man would have pulled up onto a sidewalk, or would have already made it to his destination, but when I got out to the street, he’d barely moved 10 feet from where I’d first seen him.

  I guessed that the man was probably a retired veteran. Both of his legs were missing from the knee down and it looked like he was using extreme effort to move even at the pace he was going. I looked at my watch. Five minutes to 8:00. Damn, damn, damn! There was no way I’d make my hearing if I stopped to help the guy. I took three steps in the opposite direction towards my building and stopped and looked at my watch again. Maybe I’d read it wrong.

  “Shit!” I said out loud. I turned around and ran over to the man. “Can I help you get somewhere?” I asked him.

  He looked up at me with glassy, blood-shot eyes, and gave me a toothless smile. “I’m going to the church down there,” he pointed. He was wearing an old tattered glove and three of four fingers were poking out of holes in the ends. His nails were long and filthy.

  I looked down the street to where his dirty finger was pointing. The closest church I could see was three blocks away. At the rate he was going, it would take him half the morning to get there and he’d probably get struck by a car in the process. I looked at my watch again.

  “Hold my briefcase,” I said, stuffing it into his lap, and I took off running behind the chair. I didn’t even bother to roll the damn thing up onto the sidewalk, so we were still taking up a lane, but at least we were keeping up with the crawling traffic. I caught my breath while I stopped at a red light, and then I took off running again until we made it to the church, up the ramp and just inside the door.

  “That’s as far as I can take you,” I said, puffing hard.

  “Thank you, son,” the man said. He was reaching his grubby hands towards me, and I flashed back to Maddie’s kid reaching at me with those little shit-covered hands.

  “No problem,” I said, dodging before he could touch me.

  I stuffed a $20 dollar bill in the man’s shirt pocket, retrieved my briefcase and sprinted back the way I’d
come, all the way to my office. I busted through the door, sweating and panting, and Maddie looked at me with big eyes.

  “I’ve got the hearing officer holding,” Maddie said relieved.

  “Thanks.” I went straight to my office and closed the door and hit the speakerphone. “Samuel Collins,” I said. I slumped down in my chair trying to catch my breath as I listened to the hearing officer give his obligatory introduction.

  Maddie came in a minute later with a cup of coffee and set it down on my desk. “What happened?” she mouthed silently.

  I rolled my eyes and shook my head, then I scribbled on my legal pad, “You wouldn’t believe it!”

  Maddie smiled and turned around and left, closing the door behind her.

  * * * *

  “What in the world happened to you?” Maddie asked, when I came out of my office an hour later.

  “I was late and I had to run all the way from the parking garage,” I said.

  She looked at me like she knew there was more to it, but she didn’t pursue it. “What time is Landra testifying today?”

  I looked at my watch. “In an hour.”

  “How do you feel about it?” she asked.

  “Honestly? I’m scared. But only because she’s my girlfriend.”

  Maddie smiled. “On a totally different matter . . . Did you tell Oliver that you were going to take him up in the Hemisfair Tower tomorrow evening?”

  Uh oh. “Yeah. I think I did. But it was last week when we talked about it. I can’t believe he remembered.”

  She looked perturbed. “Of course he remembered.”

  “Oh . . . well . . . can we go? You too. You want to go?”

  “I wish you wouldn’t tell him something like that unless you intend to do it.”

  I couldn’t believe she was lecturing me. “I had every intention of doing it. I just forgot. And if it doesn’t happen, it’s not going to be because of me, it’s going to be because of you. I’m more than happy to take him.” So there.

  “Next time, I’d appreciate it if you run something like that by me first before you mention it to Oliver.”

  I looked at her for a second thinking of a bunch of rude comments I could make, but I reconsidered. I decided to start over.

  “Hey Maddie, you want to go up in the Hemisfair Tower tomorrow? We could take Oliver. I think he’d really like it!”

  “You’re such a jerk.”

  “So are we on?” I asked.

  “We’re on.”

  * * * *

  Landra and I walked in silence the whole way to the Justice Center. We’d already covered everything the night before so I didn’t feel like there was any point in rehashing it. I wished there was more I could do, but as it was, I felt pretty useless.

  Landra looked perfect. She’d dressed in a blue suit that had a narrow skirt and a fitted jacket with two buttons at the waist. It was conservative without being prim; and classy without being pretentious. Her hair was down and silky-straight and she’d worn simple earrings and a watch, and no other jewelry.

  “I see you found a brush,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  Landra smiled and hugged me. “I’ll be fine, Sam,” she said, trying to reassure me.

  “I know you will,” I told her.

  The door opened and a man walked out. “The grand jury is ready for you.”

  I hugged her again before she went in. “I’ll be sitting right out here,” I told her, and Landra nodded.

  I’d brought some work with me, but I didn’t really expect to get anything done. I had no idea how long the grand jury would keep Landra. It could be an hour or it could be much more. She’d been in for 45 minutes, and I was beginning to think that the wait was unbearable when it got worse. Landra’s parents showed up.

  It’s not like me to take an instant dislike to someone, but for some reason, Landra’s parents fell into that category. Ever since I’d met them after Landra’s arrest, something about them rubbed me wrong. And just the sight of them at the Justice Center pissed me off. It was like they didn’t belong there, even though technically, they had just as much right to be there as I did, if not more. I knew my dislike was irrational, but that didn’t stop the way I felt. The best I could do was act civil to them and try to hide my feelings. For Landra’s sake.

  I stood up and shook hands with her father first then I offered my hand to her mother, but she felt compelled to hug me instead.

  “Is she in there?” her mother asked. She looked at the door like it was infected with something she might catch.

  I nodded. “For about 45 minutes now.”

  “Is that normal? That seems like a long time,” she said.

  I felt like asking how she would know, but I bit my tongue. “Don’t worry, I think its normal,” I said instead.

  She tried to smile, but it came off as a grimace, and I felt a little sorry for her.

  “Really, try not to worry,” I said. “Why don’t you sit down.”

  I motioned to the bench and she sat where I’d been sitting when they arrived. Her husband sat next to her, and just like that, I’d been displaced. I moved over to the bench across the hall and acted like I was working, but they kept making small talk – one of my pet peeves. My philosophy is that if you don’t have anything relevant to say, keep your mouth shut, but it was apparent that we didn’t subscribe to the same philosophy.

  I sat through an hour and a half of their nonsense before the door opened and Landra came out. Her face was flushed and I could tell she’d been crying, but she still looked beautiful. If she hadn’t already been my girlfriend, I would have asked her out for a date.

  She looked around when she found her parents on my bench, barely affording them a hello.

  “Right here,” I said, and she spun around and ran over to me.

  “They don’t have the pictures!” she exclaimed.

  “What?”

  “They don’t have the pictures that the police took that night!”

  “The grand jury doesn’t have them or the prosecutor doesn’t have them,” I asked confused.

  “The grand jury doesn’t have them. I don’t know if the prosecutor has them or not, but the grand jury has never seen them.”

  “You’re kidding,” I said. I was thinking back to my conversations I’d had with the ADA and I knew for a certainty that he’d been in possession of the photos when we’d spoken about Landra’s case. He’s specifically told me that he thought Landra’s bruises were self-inflicted, and the only way he’d know that she had bruises was if he’d seen the photos. I couldn’t imagine that he would have withheld evidence from the grand jury intentionally, but even if it was an oversight, it was a huge. As far as I was concerned, the whole case turned on the photos.

  “What’s happening in there?” I asked Landra. “Are you done?”

  She nodded. “I’m done. And it sounded like they were quitting for the day,” she said. “What are we going to do?”

  “You’re going to go home and relax, and I’m going to go to the DA’s office.”

  * * * *

  I was so wound up that if someone had looked at me wrong, I probably would have slugged him. Knowing that it wasn’t a good idea to approach anyone in the state I was in, I walked around the block twice to clear my head before I confronted the ADA.

  “You’re about to have a serious problem on your hands,” I threatened. “Withholding evidence? Did you really think you’d get away with that?”

  “I turned over everything in my possession,” he said, and he looked down and examined his nails like I was wasting his time.

  “You’re a liar! And you’re harassing my client because your previous investigation against her turned up nothing.”

  “My pursuit of this case has nothing to do with anything but this case.”

  “Like I said, you’re a liar. And I promise you . . . you’re going to lose your job over this one.”

  “Samuel? What are you doing here?”

  I turned around an
d my friend from the DA’s office was standing in the doorway. He probably saved me from punching his co-worker in the face.

  “Calvin,” I said. “Actually, I was coming to look for you.” I left the red-faced ADA in the hall and walked off with Calvin. “I need your help.”

  Chapter 24

  I got to the office early the next morning but Maddie beat me there.

  “So you had to run from the parking garage yesterday?” she said with a funny look on her face.

  “Yeah,” I said skeptically. I was hesitant to embellish the lie because I could tell she had something on me. “Why?”

  She tossed the Metro section of the newspaper at me, and much to my horror, my picture was on the front page. It was a close-up action shot, taken head-on, of me wheeling the legless guy down the street, him clutching my briefcase in his grubby hands and smiling like it was Christmas.

  “What the hell!” I read the caption underneath and wanted to puke.

  Good Samaritan: Local attorney Samuel Collins assists disabled veteran Clarence O’Malley. Number three in our photographic series on People Helping People.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I said. I threw the paper down on her desk, but picked it back up again for a second look. “I ought to sue their ass!”

  “Why?” Maddie exclaimed. “You look adorable! Check it out . . . you can even see your beautiful blue eyes,” she said, pointing to the picture. “Every girl in the city is going to be in love with you!”

  “That photo’s going to put me out of business! People don’t want a nice lawyer. They want someone who’ll get out there and kick some ass, not push some old fart around in his wheelchair!” I threw the paper back down and stomped off to the kitchen.

  When Maddie made her way back there, she was trying unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

  “It’s not funny, Maddie,” I said irritably.

  “I just have to give you a hug. I’m so proud to be your friend.” She came over and hugged me, but I didn’t reciprocate. The whole thing was so stupid that I wasn’t about to encourage her.