by Sam Cade
Bill explained that he traveled halfway around the world to seek her assistance in a lawsuit. It would be money that could provide the finest medical care for sweet Abigail. There would also be money to upgrade medical facilities in the Didinga Hills and provide for Dr. Bell’s mission.
What came next hit Bill like a sledgehammer.
“Mr. Burnham, God provides, not the courts. Under no circumstances will I participate in a lawsuit.”
“I’M BACK.” SEVEN DAYS LATER BILL STROLLED into his office through the front door in the middle of the afternoon.
Liz stood, surprised. Bill hadn’t called. “So, how’d it go? Did you find her?”
Full of smugness, Bill replied, “Signed and sealed with all the I’s dotted and T’s crossed. She welcomed me and said God delivered me to her as one of His great miracles. Everything’s a go!”
30
CLYDE BOLAND, ONE OF BROYLE’S MORE RELIABLE ETHICALLY CHALLENGED employees, pulled into the shelled parking lot of the Rusty Anchor. He drove in immediately from Texas carrying some photos of Dude from Facebook, a small duffel he left in the car, and a nine-millimeter pistol in his waist at the small of his back.
It was dark, 7:40 p.m., three days after Dude’s escape from Texas. Clyde walked in, took a distant table from the bar and scanned the place. He saw some NHL and NBA rolling across the big screens. He wore a fur-lined cowhide range jacket over jeans and scuffed Lucchese boots. His dark hair was pulled back in a short ponytail. A good portion of his rugged face was pockmarked. He was a big man and moved with the sway of a dangerous beast. Because he was.
An overweight, jolly black man approached the table. Alonzo, the assistant manager. “What can I get you to drink, sir?”
“Beer. Whatever’s cold.”
“Miller okay?”
“Sure. And I’ll take the shrimp platter with slaw and fries.” Clyde had scanned the blackboard menu as soon as he walked in.
He ate slowly. His team was playing the Maverick’s. That made it easy to pass the time and watch and wait. He didn’t see a hint of Dude in two and a half hours. Alonzo strolled over.
“How ‘bout one last beer. Closing down in twenty minutes.”
“No, thanks. Say, last time I was here the olive-skinned, dark-haired guy shot the shit with me for thirty minutes. Nice guy. You let him off for the night?”
“Nawww. We ain’t seen him since last Friday. Can’t reach him on the phone, either. But you heard about his family, didn’t you?”
“Huh? No.”
Alonzo filled him in.
Clyde paid and went back to the Chevy. He tapped a contact on his cell. Two rings and Broyle answered. “The prick wasn’t at the bar. The guy running the place says nobody’s seen him for six days and can’t reach him on the phone. But listen to this.”
Broyle sat in a cold truck wearing his bomber jacket with his hands in the pockets watching Dude’s trailer. The place was completely dark. A thermos of coffee and a crumpled bag from Guthrie’s Chicken Fingers sat in the passenger seat.
“You’re kidding,” said Broyle. “Killed?”
“Yep, except for one of the little girls. She’s in a hospital in a coma.”
“Had the funeral yet?”
“Don’t know. But I don’t think so. Just happened three days ago.”
“If that son of a bitch is breathing, you know he’ll be at the funeral,” Broyle said.
“Just promise me one thing, Broyle. Let me shoot him first.”
31
Summer 2018
Black Point, Alabama
WILD BILL BURNHAM WAS DRESSED FOR WAR wearing his cowboy power suit, a black George Strait-style Stetson, a bolo string tie with a turquoise and silver slide over a white shirt, and a black western-cut suit jacket. On his feet were new caiman belly cowboy boots with three-inch risers he had custom made at a small boutique bootmaker in Austin. He wanted to look Texas because Texas was BIG. Big land, big cattle, big oil, big business, and big, big, big money.
The courtroom looked like a knot of people rustling for cheap TVs on Black Friday. Harsh, cool fluorescent lights turned their faces a sickly shade of pale, fitting for the revelations to follow. Bill and the herd of defense lawyers met with the judge yesterday, so no need for further discussion.
The judge took his seat at precisely 8:00 a.m., glanced around, observed that there wasn’t an empty seat anywhere and everyone was ready to begin. He outlined to the jury the rules of the court and the order of events in which the trial would proceed.
“Mr. Burnham. You may begin.”
Wild Bill rose from his seat wearing the face of a funeral director, buttoned his suit coat, walked around the desk trailing a vapor of arrogant confidence, gave a perfunctory head bow to the judge, shot a glance at the table of four concerned defense attorneys, went right to the jury box, placed his left hand on the railing, and let his eyes run across the face of every juror. Each one locked his gaze, focused. Bill liked what he saw. His people, every one of them.
He was silent for thirty seconds, pulled his right hand in a fist to his mouth, bumped his lips lightly with the thumb end, thinking mostly about everything his acting instructor taught him. Memory-driven tears, the woman said. Bill flashed a thought of his mother dying two years ago from brain cancer. He held her hand as her spirit left with pain not even morphine could stifle. That moment felt like someone shot him through the gut with a cannon, left him hollow and crushed with the finality of her life, and immediately thinking of things he should have said, should have done. And then it came, right here right now, finally. One tear from his right eye for every juror to see. He made a vivid show of pulling his handkerchief from his pocket, dabbing his eyes.
“Folks, I apologize.” Bill stepped back four feet, centered himself for the jury, put the handkerchief in his coat pocket, unbuttoned his coat, assumed a casual stance, slid his hands in his pockets, looked down at his boots, then raised his head, sniffled, and spoke to the jury.
“The needless death of this family has weighed upon me for many months now. It really has.”
Recomposed, he began. “My name is Bill Burnham, the attorney for the Codger family.” His tone was bleaker than his face. “People call me Wild Bill because I chase justice like a wild man. I don’t stop, I mean I never stop until the truth overtakes all the lies and propaganda you will hear thrown at you by a desperate legal team representing two different companies who through both poor product design and equally poor decision-making caused the deaths of two children and their mother. Needlessly, absolutely needlessly. And the third child, oh dear Lord... in a coma. Paralyzed from the neck down.” Burnham paused, went to the railing in front of the jurors and leaned on it with his left hand.
“Folks, I’ve handled over THREE THOUSAND vehicle accident cases. Out of those, forty-eight people have lost their life. But listen to me good here. Not one of those cases had the egregious negligence perpetrated by the school bus company and the trucking company you will hear about in this trial. Not a one of ‘em. Let me tell you what happened.”
“A tractor-trailer driver decided to,” Bill shook his head like who in his hot damn right mind, “park his flatbed for the night only a few feet from the edge of a busy U.S. highway. Highway 98, you all know it, I’m sure. Now get this, the truck was carrying steel, the truck fully loaded. Steel, now. Twenty-two TONS! This is Hendrickson Trucking, one of the largest trucking outfits in the southeast. Here’s the real rub. The driver wasn’t some new guy, some guy with no experience that made a horrible decision. Wasn’t some greenhorn that went to some two-week fly-by-night trucking school. No, sir. The truck was parked there by Crede Hendrickson, the CEO. The head man, people. Mr. Hendrickson’s lazy, foolish decision allowed his truck to wipe out a woman and her three kids. I mean, good gosh, people, a few feet from the road!”
“Now let’s talk about Gemini. Gemini School buses, a seventy-five-year old bus company. The company has received twenty-eight field reports of failed windshield wip
ers in wet weather over the last three years on the A390 model, the one Ella Codger was driving. What did they do about it?” Bill shrugged his shoulders, arms in front bent at the elbow, palms facing the ceiling, face slack. “Well, nothing, not that we can see. Did you hear that? They did nothing. No recall. A subpoena for bus maintenance records from our Bay County School system show they have received no information regarding this. Not so much as a phone call. And Bay county has sixty of these buses.”
“One final thing. I’ve got one thing for you that I have never had in any previous accident case. Three thousand cases, now, remember that. In not one case of a human casualty accident case have I ever had inside-the-vehicle, crystal clear video footage showing exactly what I’m telling you. I have never had a case where the jury had it so easy to make the right decision for justice. But let me forewarn you. After you see the video, you will be scarred for life. This is dramatic, brutal footage of a horrific crash and the death of young children and their mother.” Bill took a big breath, let it out. “It’s ugly, people. I’m telling you right now, it’s brutal and bloody. So, let’s do this, let’s do our jobs, let’s come quickly to justice. Then let us all thank God for each and every day we receive.” Wild Bill went back to his seat.
The lead defense attorney for Gemini rose and approached the jury. He was from a large New York firm. Thick salt and pepper hair with a $200 dollar cut from a Manhattan salon, dark Armani suit, Italian calfskin loafers, red power tie, and a healthy bronze facial glow from a week of tanning visits before the trip. He spoke with a tone of upper crust derision to the jury, as if he felt like they were a group of cornbread-chomping illiterates. The message carried the tone of castigation of one of their own, Ella Codger, for driving in the rain, doing her job.
The New York slicky-boy stepped off the airplane neck deep into quicksand.
32
WILD BILL THREW OPEN THE DOORS TO HIS CASH VAULT on this case. No expense spared on his crash consultants. He had to have the best and research told him the best were in Tallahassee, Florida. Impact Collision Engineering, preeminent specialists in tractor trailer, bus, and motor coach crashes.
Brian Peterson, Impact Collision’s lead engineer, was Wild Bill’s first consultant called to the stand.
“Mr. Peterson, would you mind sharing for us your educational and professional background for the jury and the courtroom?”
“Certainly. I grew up in the Midwest and received a combined academic and baseball scholarship to the University of Nebraska. There, I received my Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering. From Nebraska, I went to CalTech and received a Masters’ degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics. After that I worked for two years for Boeing in Seattle. Then I decided to get my PhD, so I moved to Palo Alto to attend Stanford. My PhD is in Mechanical Engineering and Materials Engineering.”
Wild Bill popped his head back as if he’d been struck. “Impressive. Very Impressive. Baseball. What position did you play?”
“Shortstop.”
Bill nodded. “Shortstop. One of the fast, athletic guys, sharp mind, quick reflexes. By the way, is this your first case?”
“No, sir. I’ve consulted on over 800 truck accidents, 273 plus motor coach crashes, and 96 school bus accidents. Oh, and I forgot to mention one thing. I’ve published twenty-eight professional journal articles as the lead author and have co-written another forty-one.”
“Extraordinary. Let’s get right to it, shall we. Mr. Peterson, what can you share with us about the camera system that was on the Gemini A390 school bus Ella Codger was driving?”
“Well, prudently, the school system purchased one of the best on the market, a system from Child Safety Industries. They had a three-camera setup in the bus which covered all aspects of the activities of the parties in the bus as well as the accident itself.”
“So, good documentation?”
“Not just good, it was perfect documentation.”
Bill walked around in front of the jury speaking both to the jury and the courtroom. “I’d like to thank all of you who have come out to support the Codger family in this time of tragedy. But what we are about to show you on these large screens,” Bill pointed to the two facing the courtroom, “are images you will never be able to erase from your minds. It is frightening, it is bloody. This is actual video of three people losing their life in an instant and a child being left brain dead and paralyzed. Judge, do you want to add anything?”
“Yes, Mr. Burnham, I do. People, I have viewed the video several times. It is intense. It is very disturbing to view. Truthfully, except for the jurors, I urge all of you to leave the courtroom. There is also audio with this footage.” The judge paused, scanned the room to see who might accept his advice.
Not a soul stood to leave. Bill was ready. “Alright, then.” He stuck his right hand up, swirled his pointer finger like a ceiling fan. The room went dark. The screens lit up.
The video began with the bus traveling north on Highway 98, swaying like a westbound freight in the Rockies. Peterson’s audio-visual team took all of the camera footage from the three cameras, edited it, and spliced it into one video with improved color grading and enhanced audio. Next, they slow-motioned the video to approximately sixty percent speed.
The first scene was from the rear of the bus, the camera mounted above the emergency escape door. Bobby Carl, Jr. stood behind his mother, something he liked to do before other kids loaded in. The blond hair of the twins was seen bobbing in unison. They sat together in the first seat on the right side just behind the entrance steps. Windshield wipers could be seen feverishly sweeping one tub of water after another off the glass.
The film morphed into the view provided from the camera that was to the left of Ella Codger’s head. It covered sixty percent of the right-side windshield and the twins. Their lips were moving, sometimes looking at each other, sometimes glancing forward. The audio only carried diesel engine noise, not picking up a word of the girl’s conversation. Bobby Carl’s head and chest were in view. He focused straight through the windshield, a degree of concern in his eyes.
The driver’s camera displayed excess footage of the bus ceiling. It had been improperly installed, the focal plane shooting too high. It only captured a tiny portion of the hair on the top of Ella’s head. There was not one frame from any camera that identified Ella’s full face or lateral face.
The final scene was taken from the mid-bus ceiling camera, the forward-facing video component only. Ella was hidden by her son’s back as he stood. Rain blasted the bus windshield like it was rolling through a monster carwash with spitballs of ice smacking it like thrown rocks. The wiper noise was audio enhanced. A constant Whoosh, Whoosh, Whoosh. Two cars moving cautiously passed the bus in the opposite direction with shears of water hissing out of the wheel wells like water shooting off the bow of a ski boat.
An operating digital clock was visible in the lower right of the video, moving forward on the day. The eyes of the courtroom were on the passengers, not the clock.
All except two people.
One was dressed up like an animated clown in a Roy Rogers get-up. The other was a willowy man with dark chin scruff sitting in the most distant seat in the most distant row in the courtroom. He wore a navy-blue hoodie over stone washed jeans with Vans skater shoes on his feet. His hair was mussed after slipping off the hood. He took in the show through faddish retro engineer glasses, the nerd style Malcolm X wore.
Only those two knew it was a stone-cold fact that Ella’s phone was answered only seconds before the crash. The digital film clock said 6:59 a.m. Not a single camera captured Ella pulling her phone from between her legs, flip it open with her thumb, and bring it to her left ear. Audio didn’t pick up a ring because the phone didn’t ring, it was set to vibrate.
But the audio picked up one word. “Yes.” Not “hello.” An assumption could be made by the viewers that she was responding to something Bobby Carl said to her. But, in fact, Ella heard Dude’s frantic voice, somethi
ng about kidnapping and Mexicans. Phone died in mid-sentence like someone pulled an electrical cord from the wall.
Then something happened with the weather. The audience saw the rains increase heavily. It took a moment, only a moment, and they realized why. They had been warned it would happen. Wild Bill made sure of it. The rain didn’t increase. The wipers came to a dead stop, two dead strips of useless rubber frozen to the glass. It looked like fire hoses were trying to blast the windshield out of the frame.
The courtroom didn’t see Ella’s right hand leave the wheel to try to redial Dude. They didn’t see her left knee come up to attempt to steer a twelve-ton yellow steel box on a wet, icy road.
Bobby Carl’s words, “Mama, truck!” boomed through the courtroom, audio-enhanced, of course.
The bus immediately leaned down to the right. Wheels in the ditch.
The AV technicians sped the video into real time as the impact approached. It was fast and harsh. It sounded like a spaceship fell from the sky into a cargo ship. The AV team set up ten large speakers in the courtroom to hear the noise. It was almost IMAX quality.
Most of the courtroom’s spectators jerked in their seats as they were swallowed by the impact. It was like riding in the bus themselves.
Bobby Carl was airborne for not even a moment. Launched head-first into the windshield. The safety-glass windshield shattered into a brittle spider web. The boy’s head blew apart like a sledgehammer crushing a coconut. The hollow pop sound was lost in the crush of metal. Blood and pulp covered the glass.
The twins flipped over the rail slamming the firewall with their head and neck. They came to rest as flaccid as Raggedy Ann.
The speed of sixty miles an hour shot Ella’s heft over the steering wheel and her head and chest through the windshield. She never wore her seatbelt. Her blue jean covered thighs rested on the steering wheel.