I put my head down, trying to think. It was difficult to think right at that moment, though, because of my encounter with Rina. She always seemed like she wasn’t bothered by the fact that her mother was killed. Abby was much more transparent – I often saw her cry, and she would tell me that she was thinking of her mother. But Rina, aside from her getting angry with me and teasing Abby, always seemed like she was okay. I now knew that she wasn’t.
Being a parent was tougher than I thought that it would be. Not that I thought that my parents had it so easy, but-
With a shot, my head was off that table.
A parent. A parent. That’s it! That was the part of the puzzle I was missing!
I immediately got on the Internet to find out who was the parent company of Dowling Chemicals. Just like I thought – it was Stone Enterprises.
Stone Enterprises was the parent company of Dowling Chemicals.
Twenty-Four
I felt my heart pounding and my breathing going faster and faster. That was another piece of the puzzle, and I was going to figure out the rest of it. But Stone Enterprises, as the parent company of Dowling Chemicals, stood to lose millions of dollars when this class action goes into effect. When this class action was filed, if they got the “wrong” judge, they would go down and go down hard. Punitive damages alone could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and, since there were thousands of people who were hurt by the contaminated groundwater, the actual damages were going to be millions more.
On the other hand, if this company could draw a different judge – a judge who wasn’t known to be a bleeding heart plaintiff’s judge – then they could definitely limit their liability.
I was suddenly excited. I was onto something, but I was going to have to do even more digging. Who was going to replace Judge Sanders? Whomever it was, he or she was going to be a lot more of a defendant’s judge than Judge Sanders was. That was safe to say, as our Republican President was going to be the person who was going to appoint this judge. The Senate was also Republican. Judge Sanders was a Clinton appointee. Guys like him were not going to be on the bench in today’s climate. That was clear.
But what about the other issue? The lawsuit hadn’t yet been filed, so there wasn’t ever a guarantee that Stone Enterprises was going to be assigned to Judge Sanders anyhow. They might have been assigned a different judge. Why would they choose Judge Sanders, out of all the judges, to knock off? Was it just because he was the most liberal judge, in terms of siding with the plaintiffs, the little guys, against the large corporations?
Those were questions that I was going to have to answer before I became more confident that Stone Enterprises would have done something like this. Because knocking off Judge Sanders would be pointless if Stone Enterprises would have just drawn a different judge anyhow.
After all, why wouldn’t Stone Enterprises just have filed the case and then knocked off the judge once they figured out he was going to be the one who was going to be hearing it? Wouldn’t that have been more logical?
I was going to have to go down to the courthouse when it opened and do some more investigation. Maybe speak with the chief judge and see if she had any insight on whether or not the Dowling case was going to come before Judge Sanders. That would be the smoking gun, in my opinion, on whether or not Stone Enterprises was behind the murder of Judge Sanders.
Right at 8 AM, I went down to the courthouse and spoke with the clerk behind the glass in the lobby. “Hello,” I said. “It’s me again. I need to speak with Chief Judge Sally Haynes please. It’s important.”
The clerk grimaced. “She has some time right now. She doesn’t get on the bench until 9 AM. She ordinarily doesn’t like to be ambushed by attorneys, so can I ask what this is regarding?”
I drew a breath. “I’m in the middle of a murder case, and I really need to find out about a case that is going to be filed. A major class-action lawsuit that will be coming down the pike. Soon.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about the Dowling Chemical case?” she asked.
“Yes. The Dowling Chemical case. That’s right. The Dowling Chemical case.” I was repeating myself and I knew it. I was feeling funny again, as if my thoughts were racing 100 MPH. I had energy like I had never had before, even though I didn’t sleep a wink and I hadn’t slept a wink in several days.
“And what do you need to know?”
“What judge was going to be assigned to that case.”
“Well, it was actually filed late last night. It has been assigned to Judge Perez.”
Judge Perez. He was a well-known defendant’s judge. He was somebody who was known to be skeptical of plaintiffs’ claims and almost always bent over backwards to make sure that corporations either won their cases or, at the very least, their liability was severely limited. I thought about how convenient it was that Dowling would draw that judge, but, then again, Dowling would have been better off under any other judge besides Judge Sanders. Judge Sanders was, by far, the most liberal judge on the District Court bench. He was, by far, the most likely of any of the Western District judges to find for the plaintiff and slap huge punitive damages on the defendant.
“Thank you,” I said. “But could I still speak with Judge Haynes?”
“Just a second, I’ll call up there and make sure she has a minute.” She got on the phone, said a few words and then nodded at me. “She has about ten minutes to speak with you right now. Go on up.”
“Thank you.”
At that, I ran to the elevator.
I got to the suite where the Chief Justice sat and talked to her personal clerk. “Hello,” I said. “The clerk downstairs called. My name is Harper Ross, and I need to speak with Judge Haynes.” My speech was rapid, as rapid as my thoughts. I couldn’t help it, though – I was amped.
“Yes,” she said. “She is expecting you. This way.”
I followed the clerk to the Chief Judge’s chambers, which was twice as large as ordinary judicial chambers, which were large enough, and even more ornate. I felt almost like I was walking into a museum room when I walked into the chambers, because of the high ceilings, the wood paneling and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the expanse of the city.
She stood up, an imposing woman who stood over 6 feet tall. At 5’9” myself, I was very tall for a woman, but I felt like a midget compared to her. “Your honor,” I began, “Thank you very much for seeing me.”
She nodded. “Have a seat,” she said. “I have a few minutes to speak with you. I understand that you were asking questions about Dowling Chemicals?”
“Yes. I was. I know that’s probably going to be one of your largest cases this year.”
“You’re not kidding about that.” She shook her head. “But what do you need to know about it?”
“It’s been assigned to Judge Perez, I see. I guess what I wanted to know was if the case was to be assigned to Judge Sanders.”
She nodded her head. “Yes, it was, as a matter of fact.” She looked sad. “You’re right, that is going to be one of our biggest cases this year. Judge Sanders, as a former EPA attorney, has the expertise to handle a large case like this with very complex issues. He’s handled some our largest class-action suits in the past, too. So, yes. This was going to be Judge Sanders’ case. Ordinarily the cases are randomly assigned, as you know, but once in awhile, when there’s a large case like this one, I try to assign them to judges who really know an issue inside and out. Judge Sanders was that man.”
I felt excited as I spoke with her. “Can I ask you if Dowling Chemicals was informed that they were going to be in front of Judge Sanders?”
“Yes. The attorney for Dowling Chemicals was informed about this months ago when he inquired as to who was most likely going to be trying their case. I told him that I was going to go ahead and assign it to Judge Sanders.”
Months ago. That was about when everything was blowing up in this case. That was about when the Kansas City Star had run their story about the peopl
e being sickened by those chemicals. I was sure that was when the attorneys for the plaintiffs were interviewing plaintiffs and trying to get people into the class.
“And how did it end up with Judge Perez?”
“Well, when Judge Sanders was murdered, I decided that it was best that it was randomly assigned. After all, all the other judges on the bench are equal as far as this case goes. None of them have a particular expertise in environmental concerns. The only reason why I wanted Judge Sanders to have that case was because he was an environmental lawyer for so many years before he was appointed to the bench, so he knows those issues inside and out. Once he was murdered, I knew that it was better off that the case be randomly assigned.”
I nodded my head. “Thank you, your honor. You don’t know how much you’ve helped me out here.”
She smiled. “I’m happy to help.” She looked at the clock. “I have to get ready for my 9 AM docket, so is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, thank you very much.”
We shook hands and I left her chambers and exited out the suite, saying goodbye to the clerk on the way out. Judge Haynes was immensely helpful, because she answered the one nagging question – how did Dowling Chemical know that Judge Sanders was going to be their judge? Judge Haynes answered that question for me.
Now, I was just going to have to piece the rest of the puzzle together. I still hadn’t tied Michael into the crime. Yet I knew that there were only a few more pieces to fit together until I could prove that he was in on the murder, if not the actual murderer.
Then I was just going to have to prove it.
Twenty-Five
After I saw the judge, I knew what I had to do. I went over to the prosecutor’s office to tell her my suspicions. I was violating every single ethical duty in doing this, because I was going to point her in the direction of a possible motive. The motive was only possible, at this point, because I still hadn’t quite figured it out.
What I did figure out was that, as far I could see, Stone Enterprises was probably behind the murder of the judge. And it seemed as if Kayla Stone was also in on it. That suddenly seemed like the most likely and logical explanation for why it was that the pre-nuptial agreement was changed in her favor. She didn’t care that I knew that Michael was her boyfriend. She was open about this in her deposition, and, considering she stood to lose millions if Gerald found out that she was sleeping with Michael Reynolds, I would have thought that she would have kept her mouth shut about her having a boyfriend. Yet she wasn’t trying to cover that up.
Might she have agreed to kill the judge in exchange for Gerald Stone changing the prenuptial agreement? She had special access to the judge, after all, through Michael. That was how I started to think it went down. Michael killed the judge for Kayla.
But how to prove it? How would the prosecutor go about proving it? The connections were tenuous and circumstantial. Worse, the connections possibly could be all in my mind. My imagination was active, too active, and this whole thing was shaping up like a bad pulp novel. A really bad pulp novel. One that was unbelievable.
The prosecutor was probably going to laugh me out of the office, but I was determined to put my theory out there for her. April Todd was going to hear my story. She was either going to bite or she wasn’t, but I was determined to give her food for thought.
I went to the prosecutor’s office, hoping to see her. I knew that she probably was going to be in her office, because she didn’t have an early docket that I knew about. In fact, I knew that April Todd didn’t have a docket until 1:30, which is when she did her probation violation dockets.
“Hey,” I said, going into the prosecutor suite where the clerk, whose name was Mika Coulter, was sitting. “Is April in?”
“She is. Do you want to speak with her?”
“Yes, I do. I need to speak with her about the Michael Reynolds’ case.”
She nodded. “Go on back. I think that she was going to be calling you about it, too, so I’m sure that she’ll make some time for you.”
“Thanks.”
I went back to the office and knocked on the open door. April turned around, her face somewhat startled but, when she saw me, she smiled. “Hey Harper,” she said. “I was just going to call you. Where are we on the Reynolds’ case?”
I sat down. I was going to have to deftly handle this so that she didn’t suspect what I was doing. I was going to help her, but I didn’t want her to openly know this fact. “I don’t know, where are we? I did some depositions, so I’ll send you those transcripts. That’s been the only discovery I’ve done so far, however.”
She nodded her head. “I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t been doing as much on this case as I should be. I’ll get you my discovery by the end of next week. The results of our investigations and reports and deposition transcripts. I’m so sorry, I’m very behind on this.”
I leaned back in my chair and regarded the frazzled prosecutor. I knew how she felt. I was a Public Defender at one time, and I knew what it was like to have case upon case piling up on you. I looked at her desk and saw the files piled up, and looked around her tiny office and saw the white file boxes that were filled to the brim, and I knew that she was going to need a lifeline on this. I doubted that she had all that many trials scheduled, because prosecutors never do try too many cases, but she had probation violations to attend to and plea agreements to figure out and victims to speak with. Her work was never done, and somehow, someway, in the middle of all she had going on, she was going to have prepare for this enormous trial.
I didn’t envy her.
“Is there anything particular that you need to speak with me about on the Reynolds’ case?”
“No. I was just wondering what you were thinking about as far as my clients’ motive goes. Where is your head on this?”
“I’m in the process of figuring that out,” she said. “I need to speak more with the investigators on this case. They’re trying to piece that together. And, by the way, I do have an offer for you to take to your client. Life in prison without a possibility of parole. It beats the death penalty, and you know that your client is going to get the death penalty if he takes this to trial and loses. Food for thought.”
“I’ll be sure and get to that. I mean, I’ll tell him about this offer. I’m sure that he doesn’t want to take it, but I’ll tell him about it.”
“It’s not nothing, the offer. I don’t think that I need to tell you that life in prison is much better than spending years on death row, waiting for the needle. You should probably tell your client as much.”
“I know.” How was I going to put the bug in her ear about the judge and the Stone case? All I need to do is point her in the right direction and hope that she picks up the ball and runs with it.
I felt frustrated because I didn’t quite know the proper way of throwing Michael under the bus. I didn’t want April to have any suspicions about my motivations for being on this case, because I didn’t know if she would have ended up gossiping about me. She might tell other prosecutors that I was in the office helping her out, and that would mean that my career could be in trouble.
I rose to my feet. I was going to have to figure something else out. Some way of letting April know that she needed to look into the Stone case and see how it tied in with everything that was going on.
Not that I was for sure, myself, of what was going on. I knew that I was getting close, though – close to proving I was correct about my hunch. Not getting closer to letting the prosecutor know what I knew, though.
“Thank you, April, for seeing me on such a short notice.”
“Of course. I’ll be in touch with my discovery within the next week or so.”
I left the office, frustrated with my inability to figure out how to tell the prosecutor what I knew. I was going to throw Michael under the bus, just like Christina Sanders hoped that I would.
I was going to. But how?
Friday night, and the girls’ party was goi
ng to go on. I had the laser tag company bring over the laser tags, I had a tent set up in the backyard, and I had a karaoke machine set up. Rina and Abby both had invited 5 boys and 5 girls, and everything was set up and ready to go. Axel had even taken off of work early, so he was over at my house right at 5 PM to help me with whatever I needed.
“Hey, lass,” he said, coming in the door with five 2 liter bottles of various soft drinks. “Tell me what I need to do. Put me to work.”
I handed him an apron and he readily put it on. He put his hands out and smiled and I grinned at him back. “That suits you, it really does.” The apron had little cherries on it and it was too small for him, but I had to admit that I liked seeing him in it.
“I’ve always wanted to wear an apron,” he said. “So, what are you serving these rugrats?”
“I have some stuff I bought from Costco. Some pizzas that I picked up from there, and some frozen buffalo wings. Some chip and dip. And a cake. Look at this cake.”
I opened up the ice cream cake I bought from Baskin Robbins, and it was decorated to say “Happy Early Birthday Rina and Abby.”
He smiled. “Now remind me again on why you’re having this party now, in the first part of November, instead of when their actual birthdays are?”
“Well, two reasons. One, their birthdays are in December, so there’s not much that we can do outdoors at that time. It’s going to cold as it is, but I have outdoor heaters, and they’re going to be running around, so I don’t think that they’re really going to feel the cold. But there’s bound to be snow on the ground in December, so I don’t anticipate that they’re going to be able to do much on their actual birthdays that involve being outdoors.”
“Okay. That makes sense. But this party came on suddenly. Why did you decide to do it so quickly?”
Justice Denied - A Harper Ross Legal Thriller Page 19