The federal marshals, who were the bailiffs in federal court, brought out the jury, and we rose again. I said, “Your Honor, the plaintiff would like to call an impeachment witness before we move on to the next defense witness. We would call Michael Rucker to the stand.”
The boy was wearing a T-shirt and jeans, not a suit, and he looked as though he were about to give a talk in class without wearing pants. His eyes were wide with fear, and I could tell the jury instantly sympathized with him. I would have to be careful.
“Please state your name,” I said, after he was sworn in.
“Um, Michael Rucker.”
“How old are you, Michael?”
“Thirteen.”
“Darren Rucker, the COO of Pharma-K Pharmaceuticals, is your father, right?”
“Yes.”
I put my hands in my pockets and approached him slowly. Then I turned away and leaned against the jury box. “Michael, you’ve been sick before, haven’t you?”
“Um, sick?”
“Yeah, you know, sick. Like with a cough and fever and all that.”
“Yeah, I’ve been sick.”
“When was the last time you were sick?”
“I don’t know. Few months ago.”
“How often do you get sick?”
“I don’t know.”
“Few times a year?”
“I guess.”
I went to the plaintiff’s table and picked up something I had asked Olivia to bring: a bottle of Herba-Cough Max.
“Your dad ever give you this medicine?”
“No.”
“Not once. In all those times you’ve been sick, he never once gave you this medicine?”
“Not my dad, no.”
“You ever taken this medicine?”
“Once.”
He was staring at his father in the audience. I stepped between the two of them, forcing Michael to look at me. “What happened when you took it?”
“I don’t know. Nothing.”
I approached him. He was fidgeting. He didn’t know what this was about, and I was betting Rucker hadn’t told him the details. Michael didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Bob either hadn’t had a chance to coach his testimony, or was too scared to. Children were difficult to coach, and if asked, they would be honest as to what their preparation had been. If Bob were found to have influenced a witness’s testimony in that way—something he knew I would be able to tell within the first few questions—it would be felony witness tampering. He would risk a lot for this case, but probably not prison.
“Did your mother give you the medicine the one time you took it?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Bob said. “This is irrelevant.”
“Overruled,” the judge said. “I’m curious to hear this as well. You may answer the question.”
“Yes,” Michael said.
“Just that one time?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Why didn’t they ever give you this medicine again? Your dad works for the company. I doubt you’d have to pay for it.”
“I got kinda sick.”
“Sick how?”
“I was throwing up and stuff. My dad got home and told my mom to throw that medicine away. That we can never use that medicine.”
My heart was in my throat; adrenaline coursed through me. “Why did he say that?”
“Your Honor!” Bob nearly shouted. “None of this has anything to do with—”
“Sit down, Mr. Walcott. Your objection is overruled.”
“Go ahead, Michael. Answer the question,” I said.
“He just said we were never allowed to take it because it might make us sick.”
“When did he say that, Michael?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What grade were you in?”
He thought a moment. “Sixth grade, I think. So, like, a year ago.”
I stood next to Michael now. “Your father told you last year that you weren’t allowed to take this medicine because it would make you sick?”
“Yeah.” Michael nodded. He didn’t even realize what he’d just said.
I turned to Bob, who stared at Rucker in turn.
Rucker got up from the audience and rushed out of the courtroom.
44
In the attorney–client room at the courthouse, Bob sat across from me. We had sent everyone else away; it was just the two of us.
He ran his finger across the tabletop, then grinned. “How did you know he would say that?”
“It was a shot in the dark. But I was willing to bet Rucker didn’t give Pharma-K products to his own children. Yelling at me about how much they care was an act. They wouldn’t put their own asses on the line.”
He chuckled. “It was damn fine work. If you ever want to work for a real law firm, you should come talk to me.”
“I’ll pass, but thanks. Between me and you, Bob, how much did they know?”
He gazed at me. “Between me and you, Noah, the world is run by people like Rucker and people like me, who protect him. People like you just watch from the sidelines and follow our lead. It’s better people like you don’t know what people like us have to do to keep this world spinning.”
“There’s more of us than there are of you, Bob. One day, the tables will turn.” I inhaled and leaned back in the chair. “I want Pharma-K to pay up.”
“You could still lose, you know.”
“So could you. They could give me my one fifty.”
“And it’ll be knocked down on appeal.” He paused. “What’s it going to take?”
“First,” I said, “every executive involved in this has to be let go. Anyone who had anything to do with covering up the complaints can’t run that company anymore. Then I want ten million for Rebecca Whiting, with an apology. I want a third-party regulator to have access to the plant and figure out how the acetonitrile leaked into the cough medicine. I also want another ten million set up in a nonprofit dedicated to Joel Whiting. I want them to focus on consumer protection, and I want an independent board in charge of choosing their officers, no one from Pharma-K. And I want the other two sick boys to get good settlements. I know closing the plant is a deal breaker, but I’m serious about full access, and I’ll make sure the settlement contract reflects that.”
“Twenty million to make it go away?” He nodded. “We’ll do that.”
“And I want an additional hundred thousand for a special project.”
“What special project?”
I smiled.
When I stepped into the firm’s office, everyone froze. They stared at me like I had just walked out of a spaceship. Finally, one person in the back, the lawyer with anchorman hair, started clapping. Then everyone else started clapping. The Commandant came up and hugged me and wouldn’t let go. This case had come to symbolize something for them. I was witnessing all their worries and fears leaving their bodies. I managed to pull away from the Commandant and head to my office. Jessica saw me and started crying.
“Not you, too,” I said.
“Sorry. Um . . . Tia called.”
I shut the door to my office and sat. Exhaustion had eaten away at everything I had, and I felt like I needed to take a long absence and sleep eighteen hours a day. With our firm’s cut of the settlement, they certainly wouldn’t need me for a while. We had brought in, after expenses, six million dollars to the firm. The largest settlement we’d ever received.
I leaned my head back on the chair and stared at the ceiling. I could feel myself drifting off right then, except the adrenaline wouldn’t let me. Then I remembered that Tia had called and I picked up the phone and punched in her number.
“Hey,” I said as greeting.
“Rebecca called me. I can’t believe what you did for her.”
“It’s only money.”
She laughed. “Never thought I’d hear you say that.”
“Never thought I’d say it. How was the wedding?”
“It’s not until next week. Just going crazy planning everything. I kind of miss how we did it. Just ran off in a little chapel and didn’t tell anybody. I wanted to do that again at first, but Richard’s got eight siblings and said they would all freak if he didn’t give a big reception and all that. I was glad. I wanted to keep that memory between just me and you.”
I took a few breaths, remembering the smell of the chapel when we were married. It smelled like chrysanthemums and floor polish. “Are you happy?”
“Yeah, I think I am. Are you?”
“Getting there.”
“Nothing gets you there faster than finding someone who loves you.”
“I think I know that now. I’m sending you a nice gift. Tell Richard hello for me.”
“I will. Thank you, Noah.”
“Take care of yourself.”
I hung up and only noticed then that Marty was poking his head through a crack in the door. “We come in?”
“Sure.”
He and Raimi came in and sat down. The three of us looked at each other. Marty opened his mouth to say something, but no words came. He just smiled.
“I know,” I said. “I know.”
45
I went home early that night. I told the Commandant to clear my calendar, that I was taking a month off and when I got back I would take the entire firm to Mexico for a week. Fatigue had seeped into my bones and it felt like I was moving through water.
I sat on my balcony and closed my eyes, the setting sun warming my face. I heard the sliding glass door open in Jim’s house and he came out and sat in one of his chairs. He lit a pipe and took a few puffs.
“You okay?” he said.
“I think I’ve made myself sick from work and lack of sleep, but I’ve never been better. You?”
“All right. Woman and I broke up. It was for the best. Wasn’t the right fit.”
“How do you know when it’s the right fit?”
He shrugged. “I think you just know. You feel it in your guts. I been married three times and I only had that feeling once.” He chuckled. “I was fourteen and she was my nanny. Don’t choose who we love, though.”
“What happened to her?”
“She moved back to Toronto where her family’s from, and I stayed in the States. She’s married and has kids now, and I’m sure she’s content, but when I talk to her we both know we missed it. That person we’re supposed to be with. Plato wrote that the gods were jealous of man’s powers after the days of creation, that we had four arms and four legs and two heads, and were full of love and intelligence and grit, so they split us in half and threw our halves all around the earth. The point of life, then, is to find your other half and become whole again. The tragedy of life is if you find them and don’t hold on.”
I stared at him in the dying light of the sun. He took another pull off his pipe and then blew it out slowly through his nose.
“I’m too high. I gotta cut back on this stuff some.”
“I gotta go,” I said.
“Where?”
I rose, forcing every muscle to function when it didn’t want to. “I’ll tell you later.”
Olivia’s mother answered the door. She smiled pleasantly and said, “She’s in her room.”
I quietly peered into Olivia’s room and saw her busy on her Mac. I leaned against the door frame and watched her, the way her fingers moved deftly across the keyboard, the muscles in her arms flexing and relaxing, the way her hair fell naturally across her shoulders and seemed to dance there every time she moved her head.
“Hi,” I said.
She started, then exhaled. “Holy crap, you scared me.”
“Sorry. What you working on?”
“Blog post I’m writing about this case.”
I sat down on her bed. The room was too small for an adult and had only one window. I figured this was her childhood room. On the bed was a stuffed bunny, and I picked it up. “What I said before, about not becoming a lawyer . . . I was wrong. You’re good at it. I was just looking at it from the wrong view. You can help a lot of people with your skills.”
She rose from her desk and sat next to me. Her hand slipped into mine. “Do you know what Rebecca said to me on the way out of the courtroom? She said that Joel was smiling. You’ve changed the meaning of her son’s death for her. With the foundation, Rebecca’s gonna see that his death wasn’t for nothing. I don’t know of many professions where you can do something like that for people.”
I tossed the bunny on the bed. “I think you and I need to talk about that foundation. It’s going to need good leadership. But we can talk later. First, I’m going to give you a cut of the case. You’ve earned it. It will be enough to hire a full-time nurse for your mother.”
“Noah—”
“No, I want to. Then, after we get the nurse and you feel comfortable, I want you to go away with me. I’ve taken a month off. Let’s go lie on a beach in Fiji and do nothing.”
She smiled, and laid her head on my shoulder. “I think that would be something worth writing another blog post about.”
“Before we leave, though, we have to go to San Francisco. I have a promise to keep.”
EPILOGUE
The sun beat down on us and made me sweat. I wore a San Francisco Giants cap backward on my head as the team warmed up. The San Francisco sky was clear and blue, a perfect day.
Olivia sat next to me, wearing a Giants jersey. True to her word, she had quit our firm, but she hadn’t taken a job at the ACLU. She’d been appointed in-house counsel to the Joel Whiting Foundation, a foundation set up with the express purpose to evaluate products and investigate violations of consumer-protection laws. She smiled at me as she chewed her soft pretzel.
“So what’s this big surprise?”
“Look,” I said, pointing to the Jumbotron with my chin and trusting that Rebecca had turned on her television at home like I had asked her to.
An image came up. It was the photo of Joel taken at the hospital, his face twisted in a ridiculous expression, the light in his eyes still innocent and full of life.
“I promised him he’d get on the Jumbotron. And I wanted him to be here for this,” I said. I dipped into my pocket and came out with the small black case. Olivia saw it, and her eyes went wide and almost instantly became wet with tears. I opened it, revealing the ring inside, and said, “Will you?”
Tears rolled down her cheeks in silence as she stared at the ring. When she was able to move, she threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. The rest of the world disappeared, and I felt whole again.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © 2014 FotoFly Studios
Victor Methos is a former prosecutor and is currently a criminal defense attorney in the Mountain West. He is the author of over forty books and several short story and poetry collections.
After completing his undergraduate education at the University of Utah, Mr. Methos abandoned pursuing a doctorate in philosophy for law school. A partner at a law firm he helped found, he has conducted over one hundred trials and has been voted one of the most respected trial lawyers in the West by Utah Business Magazine.
Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and having lived throughout the world before settling in the United States, Mr. Methos loves experiencing new cultures and peoples. His current goal is climbing the Seven Summits and hopefully not dying in the process. He divides his time between San Diego, Las Vegas, and Salt Lake City.
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