Final Exam: A Legal Thriller

by Terry Huebner

  Unusual though this may seem on the surface, small firms often see the support staff possessing much more power and control over the operation of the firm than even the vast majority of the lawyers themselves. Several factors explain this reality. First is longevity. Support staff members typically stay with the firm for many years, so long that they accumulate increasing levels of autonomy and control. Conversely, many young lawyers move around a lot in their early years trying to find a niche that best suits their skills, interests and temperament. Moreover, autocratic senior partners view new lawyers as somewhat fungible commodities. They can always move mid-level attorneys out, or make them want to leave, and replace them with newer graduates who make less money and suffer fewer expectations. Finally, and most significantly, it is a matter of control. Senior partners do not want to share power with the underlings. This is, after all, not a democracy. No, this is a dictatorship with one, or maybe a couple of occasionally benevolent despots. One means of ensuring this control is to empower the support staff and use them against the younger lawyers. Because senior partners typically have great demands placed on their time, they are frequently unable to efficiently keep an eye on things themselves.

  In the case of Schulte & Luckenbill, this is why Casey Gardner had been named the Senior Associate for the firm. His job, among other things, was to handle some of the more routine decision-making and provide an element of management and control over the other attorneys during Phil Luckenbill’s frequent absences. Luckenbill also utilized the support staff as a kind of mini-intelligence service, not unlike the CIA, who would keep him informed of events in the firm when he was away. Some might call this spying, and they’d be right. Others might call this keeping in touch with your employees, and to some extent, they would be right too. Whatever you called it, however, it served to frequently drive a wedge between the attorneys and the staff members who were supposed to support them. Nancy Schulte probably handled these issues better than most. Even though she was at all times aware that her loyalties to Phil Luckenbill superceded all others, she didn’t tell him everything, only those things he truly needed or really wanted to know.

  Megan called again on Friday afternoon at four-thirty just as Ben was getting ready to go home.If anything, she was even more upset than before. The police had come again, this time with a search warrant. The hope that Greenfield had died from natural causes had pretty much vanished now. They searched both the condo and the brownstone, concentrating mainly on winter clothing. They took a wool coat, a couple of wool scarves, some gloves and a hat. They were looking for trace evidence of some kind, Ben figured, blood or fibers that could tie Megan to a crime scene or Greenfield to Megan. He tried to make light of it to her even as he became increasingly convinced that she was indeed a prime suspect. Finally, Meg asked him to represent her and he quickly agreed. She needed a lawyer now, that much was certain. Everything else couldn’t be more unclear.

  8

  After Ben hung up the phone, he turned the case over and over again in his mind. From a couple of cases back when he was a prosecutor, Ben knew that Detective Scott Nelson was both thorough and very good. There was no question now that Meg was a suspect and that the police were trying to build an evidentiary case against her. Yet he couldn’t understand the connection between Meg and Greenfield. She insisted there was none, and he didn’t know of any reason to disbelieve her, yet her denials notwithstanding, Nelson had to have something connecting the two. He wished he knew how Greenfield died. That would make it a little easier at least. The uncertainty gnawed at him. Perhaps he could check with some sources he still had in the department; poke around a little bit, see if he could find out anything. Or maybe he could just call Nelson directly. Tell him that he was on the case now and that any communications with Meg had to go through him. He would do that, he decided. He would call Nelson in the morning.

  The following day, as he pulled his car around the back of the office after returning from Court, he saw Phil Luckenbill’s black Lexus parked in the first spot next to the garage. When he got inside, he headed upstairs. He walked through the open area where Dianne Reynolds sat and entered his office. It was a long alley-shaped room that formed the northwest corner of the old Victorian house. The door was located at about the mid-point of the interior wall. A large wooden desk sat in the far point of the room in front of a spacious double-hung window cut into the north wall. Along the western wall stood four more double-hung windows with lace curtains consistent with the style of the building.

  Ben dropped his coat and briefcase on the bench opposite his desk and sat down in his brown leather chair. To his right and under the first of the four double-hung windows on the western wall sat a computer table with Ben’s computer on it. To his left and filling the interior wall from the corner of his office to the doorway were built-in bookshelves filled with law books, assorted knickknacks and files. Beyond the doorway were some more built-in shelves. Opposite the bookshelves, and up against the windows, stood a small round conference table flanked by four chairs.

  As Ben sat at his desk, he looked directly into Phil Luckenbill’s office, the two rooms separated by a set of narrow French doors, currently closed. Phil’s office took up the remainder of the western wall of the house and ran largely perpendicular to Ben’s office along the southern side of the house. A large bay window faced out of Phil’s office to the west. Without shades or window treatments of any kind, this window supplied continuous daylight and brutal afternoon heat, particularly in the summertime. Phil either didn’t notice, didn’t care or was too cheap to do anything about the problem. After a moment, Ben decided to go in and tell Phil about Meg.

  Phil Luckenbill was a tall man, about six-foot-five, with an athletic build growing slightly paunchy as he neared forty. He had dark olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes inherited from his mother. He was not a particularly outgoing man, and he suffered through terrible mood swings, frequently ranging from dark to darker. On his darker days, he tried to avoid inflicting his mood on other people in the office, unless it simply couldn’t be helped. Being a natural introvert, a perfect day for Phil probably meant that he didn’t have to deal with any of the other attorneys or staff members at all. Sometimes, though, dealing with Phil was unavoidable, and Ben all too frequently found himself in the line of fire because of his close proximity to Phil’s office. Since Phil rarely ventured to the upstairs at the other end of the building, those stationed there were rarely the victims of a spontaneous combustion.

  Ben stuck his head through the French doors and said, “You got a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he replied without looking up, “come on in.”

  “My friend, Megan, appears to be getting unwanted attention in my old law professor’s death.” Phil looked up and arched an eyebrow. Ben continued. “They showed up at her brownstone over the weekend with a search warrant and took some clothing, coats, things like that. She wants to hire us.”

  Phil leaned back and stuck the end of his pen in his mouth contemplating the news. “Do we even know he was murdered?”

  Ben shrugged. “Not for sure, but is sure seems like it. I know the detective. I was going to call him later today.”

  Phil stared at him for a long moment. “You sure you really want to do this?” he finally asked. Ben nodded. “Okay then,” he said with a sigh, “how do you think we should set this up?”

  They agreed on an arrangement that sounded workable, assuming Megan actually got charged with something. Two fellow associates, Dan Conlon and Brad Funk, would help out as needed. Another former associate, Ken Williams, currently the Public Defender in one of the collar counties, would provide behind-the-scenes assistance. Finally, if a trial was to take place, Ben would recruit Mark Schaefer, an old friend of Ben’s with significant criminal defense experience to serve as co-counsel on the case since the firm couldn’t afford to devote half the lawyers in the office to just one case.

  Just then Nancy’s voice came over the intercom. “Is Ben in t
here?”

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Joseph Cavallaro is on the phone for you.”

  Ben and Phil made eye contact and Phil arched his eyebrows again. “Here it comes,” he said. “Probably doesn’t like his wife’s choice of lawyers.”

  “Voicemail,” Ben called into the speakerphone and Phil gave him a questioning glance. Ben responded, “This guy’s an asshole. He’s got to be handled or he may be a pain in the ass the entire time we’re in this case.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  Ben returned to his office and left messages for Mark and Ken and got Nancy working on the preparation of the retainer agreement. He spent the next hour at his desk brainstorming about the case with a notepad and pen. At three, he hunted down Scott Nelson’s number and left him a message saying that he would now be representing Megan Rand and any further communications with her now had to go through his office. He also told Nelson that he would like to get the lay of the land in light of all the contacts between Meg and the police. Nelson called him back a short while later and confirmed for the first time that Professor Greenfield had been the victim of a homicide and that Megan Rand was being investigated in connection with the murder. In light of their previous relationship, Nelson agreed to meet Ben the following afternoon in the main lobby of the law school.

  Mark Schaefer called late in the day and Ben briefly laid out the facts and invited him to come aboard and join the defense team. Mark quickly agreed and they decided to meet the following day for a quick bite to discuss the case before heading downtown. Ken Williams called a little while later and told Ben that he would help out any way he could. At six-thirty, Ben looked at his watch and thought about calling and leaving a message for Joseph Cavallaro at his office. He decided not to.

  9

  “This is quite a place,” Mark Schaefer said as he shook hands with Ben in the lobby of the office. “There are no signs or anything. I thought I was lost.”

  “A common reaction,” Ben replied putting on his coat. “Let’s go out and grab something and bring it back, then we can talk in the conference room.”

  Twenty minutes later, after a quick stop at a greasy spoon down on Irving Park Road, Ben led Mark down a couple of steps, through a hallway jammed with old typewriters and even a pinball machine and out to the garage. Mark laughed as he entered the room. “And I thought the lobby was something.”

  About the size of a normal two-car garage, the garage had tall ceilings that reached a peak in the center. A beam ran across the room parallel to the peak on which stood various military helmets and headgear of the last century. On the far wall, underneath a set of smallish windows, sat two barber chairs and an old shoeshine stand. The wall on the left contained an entrance from the parking lot masquerading as an entrance to a barber shop, complete with a barber pole on the outside wall. The near wall heading to the right contained built-in bookshelves where the firm housed much of its law library. In the corner stood a five-foot high cast iron antique bank safe, which didn’t house much these days. The wall opposite the outside entrance held a stained glass window highlighting the scales of justice.

  A large wooden library table, approximately ten feet long and stained in light oak, dominated the middle of the room, surrounded by wooden library chairs. As if this weren’t enough, the truly distinguishing feature of this room was the series of stuffed animal heads mounted and hung on the walls - deer, elk and even a razorback. All of these were actual trophies from Jim Schulte’s hunting days. In the corner above the old-fashioned safe hung a stuffed horse’s ass. Schulte commissioned this trophy and presented it to a friend of his, who also happened to be a local judge, complete with the caption “Res Ipsa Loquitur”, Latin for “The Thing Speaks for Itself”.

  Mark’s reaction was fairly typical - wide-eyed amazement. He let out a long belly laugh. “I like this.”

  “Yeah, I do too,” Ben said. “I think it’s my favorite room in the building. It’s a great place to work when you’re by yourself. And it’s really a great place to take depositions. I think it intimidates witnesses.”

  They sat down to a quick lunch. Mark had gyros, fries and a Diet Coke, while Ben ate a burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake. Grabbing a handful of fries, Mark said, “I think I can feel my arteries hardening as we speak.”

  Ben nodded. “Mine too, but the fries are good and the chocolate shake is extremely good. I think all the grease helps you clean out your system.”

  “That’s one theory, I suppose,” Mark replied. He looked over at a potbelly stove that sat against the far wall between the barber chairs and the shoeshine stand. His eyes traced the metal grating as it vented through the roof. “Does that thing really work?”

  “Yeah, it does, but Jim Schulte and Ken Williams were the only ones who ever really used it. After Schulte rented out his office, and before he moved north to Hayward for good, he spent a lot of time out here and used the garage as his office, which really sucked for the rest of us who wanted to use it as a conference room or a library. As he was going through all his shit trying to decide what to get rid of, he used to shove old law books in the stove and burn them up. The fire would get so hot you could look out from the second floor balcony and see flames and black smoke shooting out of the stack. Then with the fire raging, Schulte would just go off somewhere and not come back. We’re probably lucky he didn’t burn the place down.”

  They talked about the case as they ate and Ben told Mark everything he knew, which wasn’t much. “So what do you think?” Ben asked.

  “Well,” Mark said pushing back from the table and taking a long drink of his Diet Coke, “my view is probably the same as yours. She’s clearly a prime suspect, a ‘person of interest’ they call it these days, and they must have found something in that office or somewhere else which caused them to think that. Clearly, there’s a lot more that we don’t know than we know.” Ben nodded. “So,” Mark continued taking another drink, “you say you know this Nelson guy?”

  “Yeah. I had a couple of cases with him when I was a prosecutor. He’s a pretty good guy for a cop. He’s a pretty straight shooter.”

  “There aren’t many of them,” Mark answered.

  “Spoken like a true defense lawyer.”

  “Well, as you well know, I was never a prosecutor so I would have to acknowledge that my view of the police and the prosecutors is somewhat jaundiced.”

  Ben looked at his watch. “We should probably get going. It’s getting late and we may catch some traffic going in.”

  They pulled into the parking lot across the street from the law school at one-thirty. After paying the attendant, the two men weaved their way through the parked cars toward the back of the parking lot, which faced the law school building across Adams Street. They hopped the metal parapet and crossed in the middle of the block, pushing their way through the revolving doors ten minutes early. “There he is,” Ben said nudging Mark and pointing to a man standing next to the main stairway with his back to them.

  “Detective Scott Nelson,” Ben called out as they approached.

  “Counselor,” Nelson said as he wheeled to face them. “Good to see you again,” he said extending his right hand, which Ben took in a warm greeting.

  “This is my colleague, Mark Schaefer,” Ben said gesturing. “Mark, this is Detective Scott Nelson. He’s one of the good guys.”

  “You say that now,” Nelson said with a laugh. “You may not be saying that by the time this thing is over with.”

  Ben patted him on his shoulder. “Don’t underestimate yourself, Detective.”

  Although Ben genuinely liked Nelson, he also knew that his prior relationship with the Detective could ultimately prove beneficial to him and his client. He hoped that it would cause Nelson to cut him a break now and then. All he really wanted was some consideration. Defense lawyers didn’t usually get much of that.

  “Why don’t we head upstairs?” Nelson said as he turned for the elevators.

 
“This looks like a pretty nice building,” Mark said to Ben as they entered the elevator. “Did you go all three years here?”

  “No, just my last semester. We were supposed to be in here for my entire third year but, you know, with construction, they never get things done on time. It was a lot nicer than the old building over on Wacker, which is gone now.”

  Nelson looked over at them. “I didn’t realize you went here. You must have known Greenfield then.”

  “I had him twice - for Criminal Law my very first semester of law school and for Criminal Procedure my last semester. Of course, I didn’t do as well as I should have either time. He definitely took a hit on my GPA. I suppose that probably makes me a suspect too.”

  All three of them laughed. “Have you ever been to his office before?” Nelson asked as they got off the elevator.

  “Yeah, I guess I have. I came to see him after my Criminal Procedure grade came. I thought he kind of screwed me so I came to his office to talk to him about it. Didn’t get anywhere though. I think I was just venting. I wonder how many people actually do that. Quite a few probably.”

  Nelson looked over his shoulder as he turned the corner toward Greenfield’s office. “A very good question,” he said.

  The whole area around Greenfield’s office was surrounded by yellow police tape and a security guard sat in a chair outside the door. The sickening smell associated with rotting human remains grew stronger as they approached the door, but it was a mere echo of the scene more than a week before when Professor Hyatt discovered the body. The three men navigated the police tape and found themselves at the door to Greenfield’s office.

  Turning to Nelson, Ben asked, “Now that we’re here, what happened?”

  Nelson didn’t answer at first. Instead, he took a key from his pocket and unlocked the door. He opened it slowly and stepped inside, Ben and Mark following him. He didn’t feel the need to warn them that what they were about to see would be most unpleasant. He knew this wasn’t the first murder scene for either man. Not knowing in advance how Professor Greenfield died, neither Ben nor Mark knew exactly what to expect, yet probably expected the worst. Nelson stepped to the center of the room and placed his hand on one of the guest chairs. Ben stepped around Nelson to the left and got his first long look at the carnage in the back corner of Greenfield’s office. Mark stood next to him also taking in the scene.