I cut my eyes at him as hard as I could, then screeched off.
CHAPTER 14
On Friday morning, three days after my parking lot conversation with Hamilton, I was standing in line at the Starbucks in the lobby of the O’Reilly & Finney office building when an L.A. Times headline caught my attention. Faulty Micronics Navigation System Blamed for Crash of U.S. Transport Plane in Iraq.
I started to step out of line and grab a copy of the newspaper, but I was up next. The clerk, who took my order five days a week, gave me a look that said she hated to see me coming.
“Caramel Macchiato with non-fat milk, sugar-free vanilla syrup—four shots—an extra shot of espresso and hold the whipped cream.” She hurriedly scribbled my order on the side of a small cup that Starbucks insisted on calling tall.
I paid for my coffee as well as a copy of the Times, then grabbed one from the newspaper stand. The article stated that twelve U.S. soldiers had been killed in Iraq when their transport plane crashed outside Baghdad a week earlier. Preliminary reports blamed the accident on a mechanical defect in the plane’s navigation system, which was manufactured by Micronics Corporation. I read further and lost my breath when I saw a reference to Micronics’s GAP-7 Program.
Alarm bells sounded in my head. Randle had alleged fraudulent billing on the GAP-7 Program.
When I heard my name being called, I grabbed my drink and headed for the elevators. For the past few days, I had been racking my brain for a way to get Hamilton and Reggie to the negotiating table without signaling that I was running scared. So far, luck was on my side as far as the news about Karen Carruthers. I found out that Randle was visiting relatives in Atlanta, so he probably had not heard about her death yet. Fortunately, the local media had not reported the accident because a recent spate of freeway shootings had dominated TV and newspaper coverage all week. But I knew I only had a matter of days, if that long, before Hamilton and Reggie found out. Did the Times story about the GAP-7 Program add another twist to the case?
I heard the ping of an available elevator car and took it to the twelfth floor. When I arrived at my office, I set my coffee on the corner of my desk, opened a file drawer and pulled out all four volumes of Randle’s deposition transcript. Micronics’s former in-house attorney had taken Randle’s deposition before the case was transferred to O’Reilly & Finney, so I never had a chance to depose Randle myself. I flipped to the index in the back of each volume and wrote down every page that referenced the GAP-7 Program.
An hour later, I had reread every allegation Randle had made about the program. GAP-7 stood for Global Assisted Positioning system. Randle’s complaints were limited to claims that Micronics had overbilled the Air Force for the program. He had made no allegations, pro or con, about the navigation system’s technical capabilities. That made sense, of course, since he was an accountant in the Finance Department, not an engineer.
Micronics had always insisted that Randle’s allegations of overbilling were untrue. And based on the documentation they had provided to me, that appeared to be the case. An outside consultant brought in to audit the accounts Randle had identified also confirmed that nothing was amiss.
I took a sip of my coffee and was disappointed that it was now lukewarm. I did not know what I had expected to find in Randle’s deposition transcript. I was just glad there was nothing about the GAP-7 Program that might further sink my case. Hopefully, if Hamilton or Reggie saw the Times story they would not link it to the Randle case. After draining the rest of my cold coffee, I decided to put Henry Randle and Micronics Corporation out of my mind and focus on my other cases.
Just before noon, I was inches from the doorway of my office, purse in hand, when the telephone rang. I had a one o’clock hair appointment and I had just enough time to make a stop at Jack in the Box before hauling it over to the Emerald Chateau in Inglewood. I tried to ignore the ringing telephone, but force of habit compelled me to check the caller ID display. It was Special, so I picked up.
“I think I’m in love,” Special swooned.
“And I love you, too,” I said, laughing.
“Not you,” she said dreamily. “That fine ass Hamilton Ellis. I think this is fate. We were just sitting there talking about your case and Hamilton appeared right before our eyes. The Lord works in mysterious ways, don’t He?”
“Special, you just met the man three days ago. I think you need to slow your roll. And I told you he’s one of the biggest players in L.A.”
“A player can only play a woman who lets herself get played,” she said. “I know how to handle my business. The man just sent me four dozen of the most beautiful yellow tulips I’ve ever seen. He called my secretary and found out my favorite flower. I sure do deserve his ass.”
“Just be careful,” I said. “I really don’t want you to get hurt.”
“If anybody’s going to get hurt, it’s him, not me,” Special insisted. “I’ve already got that brother’s nose wide open. We had lunch at the Water Grill on Wednesday and dinner last night at this cute little Italian place on Venice. Tomorrow night we’re going to one of your favorite spots, Crustacean.”
“I’m telling you, Special, you need to slow down. At least give the man time to breathe.”
“This is my fish,” Special replied. “You let me worry about reeling him in.”
“Okay, whatever you say. Just make sure you don’t tell him anything I told you about the Randle case.”
“Girl, if you tell me that one more time, I’m gonna pull off my wig and throw it out the window.”
“All right, all right.”
“Anyway,” Special said, “I was calling because I need to borrow your green earrings with the silver beads. They’ll look good with this green leather miniskirt I’m wearing tomorrow night.”
“You got it,” I said. Maybe Special’s hooking up with Hamilton was not such a bad thing, after all. If Hamilton was all tied up with her, he might not be as focused on the Randle case.
“Just drop by before six,” I said. “I have a banquet to attend. You’re really going all out for Mr. Ellis. I hope it pays off for you.”
“It will,” she said, full of confidence. “If he’s still spending big cash in three months, then it’s on.”
I laughed. “Girl, Hamilton Ellis is not waiting three months to get with you.”
“Oh, he’ll wait,” Special said, even more emboldened.
“A man like Hamilton is all about the chase. And when that brother sees how hot I look tomorrow night, his ass’ll chase me for as long as it takes.”
CHAPTER 15
A lawyer of Joseph Porter’s stature was accustomed to giving orders, not taking them. So he was not pleased about the call from Micronics Corporation demanding his presence at the General Counsel’s office at two o’clock on a Friday afternoon.
It further perturbed him that the underling who delivered the message had no information regarding the specific nature of the meeting. Only that it involved a highly confidential matter.
Porter checked his Timex, then picked up O’Reilly & Finney’s New Business Report from his in-basket and stared at it in disgust. The report listed six new cases for Jim O’Reilly and zero for himself. Client development was not Porter’s strong suit. He despised the idea of prostituting himself by wining and dining people he didn’t know or care to. It violated his sense of ethics. Good lawyers did not have to beg for work. Clients came to them.
He also loathed the fact that Jim O’Reilly was running the firm. Porter considered himself far brighter and a much better administrator. On top of that, he consistently billed more hours than any other partner in the firm. But when you happened to be the grandson of the firm’s founding partner and an egomaniac to boot, some things simply fell into your lap whether you deserved them or not. Unfortunately for Porter, the managing partner title was not the only thing O’Reilly had stolen from him.
Porter tossed the report into his trash receptacle and glanced at his watch again. It was time to leave.
He grabbed his briefcase and headed for the door.
As was his custom, Porter arrived exactly fifteen minutes early and was shown into an empty conference room. Porter hated wasting time. In his world, time literally was money. He pulled out a copy of the Daily Appellate Report and started browsing the day’s new court decisions.
When the door to the conference room opened eleven minutes after the hour, three men with grim expressions stepped inside. Porter recognized Bob Bailey, Micronics’s General Counsel, and Rich Ferris, the VP of HR, but not the third man.
“Good afternoon, Joe,” Bailey said. “Thanks for coming by on such short notice.”
Porter extended his hand and gave him a curt smile. “I prefer Joseph.”
“Forgive me,” the General Counsel replied awkwardly.
Porter greeted Ferris and the other man, who was introduced as Nathaniel Hall, Micronics’s Chief Financial Officer. The three executives sat on one side of the eight-foot table, leaving Porter alone on the other.
Bailey did not waste time with small talk. “We wanted to speak with you about the Randle case,” he began. “We’re concerned about the fact that Ms. Henderson has not gotten it settled. We—”
“I’m confident that we can get it resolved,” Porter interrupted. “Though perhaps not as quickly as you might like.” He hated groveling. He wanted to tell all three of them to back off and let O’Reilly & Finney do the job Micronics was paying them to do.
Ferris, the HR exec, gripped the edge of the table with both hands. “It needs to be settled now. Before they learn about Ms. Carruthers’s death.”
Their high level of anxiety about getting rid of the case signaled to Porter that Micronics probably had something to hide. Something significant. CFOs did not attend meetings involving employment cases. Neither did general counsels.
This was not the first time the company’s executives had sat before him sweating bullets over the possibility of having their dirty laundry exposed. After Enron and Sarbanes-Oxley, every top executive in America wanted to avoid even the appearance of an impropriety that might land them in jail.
“Hamilton Ellis is the lead attorney on the case now. He’s a pretty savvy lawyer. We can’t just snap our fingers and settle the case,” Porter said. “But I’ll be sure to communicate the urgency of your wishes to Ms. Henderson.”
“We’ve had enough communications,” the General Counsel replied. “We need resolution.”
Ferris nodded. “You may not be aware of it, but Randle’s attorney has been trying to stir up some media attention,” Ferris said. Hall, the CFO, had yet to open his mouth.
It was not Porter’s job to put a muzzle on opposing counsel. “I don’t watch much TV,” Porter replied unapologetically.
“Even if you did,” the General Counsel said, “you probably wouldn’t have seen Mr. Jenkins’s performance a few nights ago. He was on some public affairs talk show on one of the local cable channels.” Bailey pulled a videotape from a large envelope and handed it to Ferris, who walked over to a TV monitor built into the wall and slipped the tape into a VCR machine. Ferris remained standing while the tape played.
The grainy picture showed Jenkins sitting on a shabby-looking set decorated with a chair and love seat that looked like Goodwill rejects. A dusty fake cactus stuffed inside a straw basket appeared close to tipping over. The whole room had a faded appearance that had nothing to do with the quality of the videotape.
“I know for a fact that Micronics had at least six confirmed cases of sexual harassment in the last five years,” Jenkins ranted. “Yet my client—the only black man falsely accused of this heinous offense against women—was the only one they fired.”
The host of the show, who resembled a thinner version of Al Sharpton, sat across from Jenkins and pitched him one softball question after another. In response to each inquiry, Jenkins went into a long, repetitious diatribe about how Micronics had bilked the Air Force out of thousands of dollars on an Air Force contract and fired his client based on trumped-up charges of sexual harassment for trying to expose the fraud.
“I think we’ve seen enough,” Bailey interrupted. Ferris hit the Pause button and returned to his seat.
Porter did not wait for the General Counsel’s next words. He had no idea how Jenkins found out about the cases in that memo, but it was not his job to play spin doctor. “I’m afraid we can’t keep Jenkins from talking to the media, and I use that term loosely with respect to what we just saw. If I’d known you wanted to discuss the Randle case, I would’ve invited Ms. Henderson along.” Porter could not have looked any more indifferent.
“She’s the very reason we called this meeting.” The General Counsel suddenly looked uneasy. “We have reason to believe that Ms. Henderson has committed a very serious ethical breach.”
CHAPTER 16
I returned from my hair appointment just after four and found my secretary, Shelia, packing up to leave.
Shelia followed me into my office with a worried look on her face. “I have to tell you something that I’m not supposed to be telling you,” Shelia said after she had closed the door.
Loyalty was Shelia’s middle name. She had worked for O’Reilly & Finney for more than fifteen years and had seen hoards of attorneys come and go. She was only ten years my senior, but still treated me like a daughter. “Just before you got here, I got a call from Joseph Porter’s secretary,” Shelia began. “She asked me to bring over your cell phone records for the last six months.”
I was putting away my purse, but Shelia’s words stopped me in my tracks. “My cell phone records? Did she say why?”
Shelia glanced behind her at the closed door. “No, but she did say Mr. Porter was calling from his car, and that he left specific instructions directing us not to tell you about his request.”
I had never seen Shelia look so troubled. I sat down behind my desk. “Why would Porter want my cell phone records? And why not ask me for them?”
“I think it may have something to do with the Randle case,” Shelia said.
“What makes you think that?”
“Right before his secretary called, Haley went into your office and took some of the Randle files. And when I delivered your cell phone records to Mr. Porter’s office, Haley was sitting in there with the files.”
She waited for me to speak, but I was too stunned.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but thanks for having my back, Shelia.” I gave her a hug.
She walked out, then popped her head in again. “That haircut is the bomb.”
“Thanks.” I absently ran my fingers through my hair.
What in the world was Porter up to? Had Haley run to Porter with something else to try to screw me? I thought about giving O’Reilly a call to see if he knew anything, but doing that would reveal that Shelia had tipped me off.
I pulled out the drawer behind my desk to see if I could determine exactly which files Haley had taken. All of the deposition transcripts, the pleadings files and my interview notes were gone. Maybe Porter had decided that he would get the case settled himself. But there was no reason for him to do that without telling me first. And that still didn’t explain why he wanted my cell phone records.
I tried to finish revising a discovery motion in another case, but I couldn’t think straight. Haley and Porter were up to something and I needed to know exactly what it was.
I got up and took off toward Haley’s office.
CHAPTER 17
I knocked lightly on Haley’s open door, but she was staring at her computer screen and apparently didn’t hear me.
I was practically standing over her desk when she finally noticed me. The girl jumped a good ten inches in her seat, then hurriedly clicked out of her computer screen before I could see what she had been reading so intensely.
What in the hell was going on?
Haley swung around to face me. A different bouquet of flowers sat on the corner of her desk. Shelia had told me that Haley had fresh flowers delivered every
Tuesday and Friday morning and got her nails done twice a week. She even had a professional masseuse come to the office three times a month to give her a fifteen-minute neck massage.
“I just dropped by to say hello,” I said, unable to come up with something more creative. “Since we’re going to be working together, we might as well get to know each other.”
The look in the girl’s bold blue eyes told me she saw right through me.
“Great,” Haley said, her voice just as insincere as mine.
“Have a seat.”
“I finally had a chance to read that trial strategy memo you prepared.” I was hoping that a compliment would loosen her up. “You did a really good job. You must’ve seen a lot of trials when you clerked.”
“Yes, quite a few.”
Haley evidently didn’t believe that my friendly overture was legit and was not about to make this easy for me.
“Too bad we won’t be able to take the Randle case to trial,” I said. “It would have been a good experience for you.”
“Really? I heard it was definitely going to trial,” Haley said.
“And where did you hear that?”
“One of my law school classmates works at Hamilton Ellis’s firm. Ellis is apparently pretty psyched about trying the case.”
I felt my stomach lurch. “Really? What else did your friend tell you?”
“That was about it,” Haley said.
I tried to keep my smile from turning into a smirk.
“Anything else going on in the Randle case that I should know about?”
“Nope. You’re the senior associate on the case. You would certainly know more than me.” Haley paused and a contemplative look glazed her face. “How well do you know Mr. Ellis?” she asked.
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