DONE GONE WRONG

by Cathy Pickens

  I tried a gentler tone. Threatening him wouldn’t work—he had adequate coverage for that event. I decided to appeal to something more basic. When one tactic isn’t playing to a jury, try another one. Quick.

  “Mr. Rabb, I know your company’s reputation. You would want to know if anything threatened your company’s reputation or your customers.” I talked to Pendle-ton, but for the first time, I included Mrs. Rabb in the conversation. She had just joined us, coming from the powder room. Judging from her carefully colored hair and swollen feet jammed into luminescent pearl pumps, she knew the fragility of appearances.

  ‘Two people—a physician and a patient—have died. I think it’s related to the contraceptive project Hilliard is working on. I wanted you to be warned.”

  “That’s ridiculous. How could birth control kill anyone?” Pendleton Rabb found his voice but not his sense of irony.

  “I don’t know that it did, but someone didn’t want Dr. Tilman raising questions about the project and stopped him. Permanently.”

  “Miz Andrews,” Barden said, “if you are alleging that Mr. Rabb or anyone at Rabb & Company knew anything about these deaths, that’s absurd, my dear.”

  “It’s not absurd that Mark Tilman made two phone calls to Rabb headquarters warning that some research subjects developed an allergic sensitivity to the drag. I need to know if Hilliard also reported those occurrences, through official channels. If Rabb & Company has invested in this project, I do hope you had the research subjects sign some extraordinarily well-written disclaimers of liability.” Offering to help wasn’t working, so I took off the gloves.

  As corporate counsel Barden shifted from one foot to another, his expression told me we were finally sight-singing from the same sheet of music.

  Mrs. Rabb spoke for the first time, her accent a deep Georgia drawl but her tone sharp. “What is she talking about?”

  “That new contraceptive, Adrienne,” Pendleton answered, ignoring her and staring at me.

  “That nose drops idea? That whole thing is crazy anyway.”

  “Spray, Adrienne. A nasal spray.” To Wix, he said, ‘Tell her to go away.”

  “Pendleton, they’re waiting our table.” Mrs. Rabb wanted to get on with the important business of the day. John Barden sidestepped Wix and took my arm, leading me toward the exit.

  Rowly followed at a respectful distance, looking a little forlorn that the party was ending.

  “Miz Andrews.” The counselor leaned close, talking in an insistent tone. Anything to get me gone. “You are correct. Dr. Tilman called the corporate offices. I took his call a week ago Thursday. Tilman’s call prompted us to delay our final contract with Hilliard and his colleague, pending our audit of their research protocols and results.”

  “What kind of contract?”

  His expression said I was pushing his beneficence.

  “Customarily, when external researchers develop products that interest us, we compensate them either with consulting fees or stock options in the future development of the drag or product.”

  “Doesn’t that create a conflict of interest?”

  “Do your homework, Miz Andrews. It’s quite common, when anyone has a potentially lucrative idea and needs financial help to make it marketable. Dr. Hilliard has performed clinical research for several drag and biomedical firms, so we rely on his reputation, both in his field and as a research team head. Our dealings with him were standard.”

  “What did Mark Tilman say that caused you to delay?”

  Barden hesitated. Over his shoulder, I saw Pendleton and Adrienne disappear into the dining room. Wix stood guard near the door. Across from him, Rowly leaned against the richly paneled wall.

  “He reported the incidents you mentioned. We decided closer audits of the early stages of the research project were in order.” He looked me right in the eye.

  “So you’re suspicious enough to doubt Hilliard’s results?”

  “That’s all I can tell you, Miz Andrews. Whatever wild scenario you’ve invented is just that, an invention.” He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, both hands in his jacket pockets. “The death of Dr. Tilman and the death of that patient are, as far as we would know, simply unfortunate. I trust that answers your questions.”

  “One more, please. Will you still contract with Hilliard after you examine his research records?”

  He smiled with only one comer of his mouth. “That will depend on our audit, now, won’t it? Good day, Miz Andrews. Have a safe trip back to Charleston.”

  He turned toward the dining room, but I called to him. “When was the contract supposed to be signed?”

  He turned, looking exasperated. “The preliminary agreement was to be faxed last Monday.”

  He spun around and padded down the thickly carpeted hallway. Wix kept his post.

  Rowly joined me. “Get what you needed?” He asked too loudly for the hushed setting of the Peach Way Club.

  I really wasn’t sure.

  20

  SUNDAY AFTERNOON AND MONDAY MORNING

  Shopping malls overwhelm me into a stupor. To shopping maven Lydia, though, the loss of my purple suit gave her a mission. I got to admire the expert in her element as she led me through store after store, and we both allowed ourselves to ignore what Monday would bring.

  For supper, we talked and laughed over salads at the hotel before I left to catch my late-night flight.

  From the airport, I called Cas Kirkland’s office and left a message: “Tell the medical examiner Tunisia was enrolled in a medical experiment studying a hormone-based intranasal contraceptive.” When I had to tell the kid cop on the phone that intranasal meant “up your nose,” I knew I’d better call Cas again tomorrow with more details.

  Tomorrow. Damn. The trial. Even though I wasn’t trying this case, I still had a touch of the stage fright that normally sets in the night before a trial. Maybe everybody gets it—actors, ballplayers, country music singers. I once sat in the Charlotte Coliseum watching the Hornets play, wondering if those guys got stomachaches or hives before trotting out wearing skimpy clothes in front of twenty thousand people. I just needed to be more like Rowly, thinking about how good Jake’s case was and how much everybody would enjoy listening to him.

  For most of the flight back to Charleston, I flipped aimlessly through my Uplift notes, with stray thoughts darting about in my brain. Looking back, I felt a tad embarrassed about my brazen idiocy with Pendleton Rabb, but polite phone calls wouldn’t have shaken loose the admission that Hilliard’s lucrative little deal was now on hold. Now to figure out how Jake could make use of that.

  Traffic on I-26 into downtown Charleston was light. I fell in bed without brushing my teeth but had to get up to brush them anyway because I couldn’t sleep without doing it. Finally, I slept.

  The next morning, I slipped into one of the theater seats in the fourth-floor courtroom. The judge’s bench sat empty, but a couple of bailiffs and the court reporter milled around down front, indicating the judge might appear at any moment. Jake, Lila, and the defense counsel were also in absentia, their tables Uttered with papers, and Jake’s laptop screen discreetly folded over. The defense table didn’t display such sophisticated toys.

  I looked around the elegant courtroom, trying to put the attendees into appropriate categories—regular court watchers, press, lawyers or clerks with motions pending in other cases. A faded, matronly woman halfway down the aisle stared at me, and I turned to smile at her, just being polite.

  She leaned over. “Are you a lawyer?” she asked in an exaggerated whisper.

  One never knows how to answer that question, though it’s usually safer to admit it in a courtroom than it is out in polite society. “Yes, ma’am.”

  She slid down until she was two seats from me. “Can you tell me how long this case will last? The one against the drag company?”

  I took a wild guess. “Are you one of the plaintiffs? One of the people suing?”

  She hesitated, then nodded.


  Best to know who you’re talking to, especially in South Carolina, where attorneys—or their representatives—risk censure or worse for talking to anyone related to the other side in litigation. I doubted she was the CEO’s mom in court for the day, but better safe.

  “I’m Avery Andrews. I’m helping Mr. Baker with the case.” I offered her my hand, then regretted it. That business reflex felt inappropriate with folks older than my mother. Her hand rested in mine like a fragile-boned bird.

  “It’s difficult to say how long it will take. This judge likes to move things along, I’m told. But it could still be several weeks.”

  She adjusted her purse in her lap and sighed, studying the judge’s bench.

  “Your name is ...?”

  She blinked out of her reverie, her upbringing kicking in as a reflex. “Ada. Ada Jones.” She nodded politely.

  What was the protocol here? I was allegedly helping represent her, but I had no idea who she was or whether she or someone in her family had been hurt. I felt as though I’d shown up at a funeral for someone I didn’t know and for whom, at any moment, I might be asked to say a few words.

  She kneaded the handle of her black pocketbook, but her angst had nothing to do with what to say to me. From the look on her face, her thoughts were all far away and very much at home in her head.

  “I never dreamed I’d be in a place like this.”

  The courtroom looked like a well-to-do church social hall, but I doubted that’s what she meant. Her bewilderment had nothing to do with her physical location.

  She sighed, shaky at the end. “James would’ve known whether this was worthwhile. Or whether to just leave it alone. Part of me says if they made that man crazy, they should be made to pay. That I ought to fight for James, because he’s not here to do it. But another part of me hears him saying, ‘Go home, Ada. This is none of yours.’”

  James Jonathan Jones. One of the names listed as plaintiff on the court filings.

  “Your husband was killed.”

  Her head tilted, like a bird who has heard a sound. “Yes.” She blinked rapidly, to see past the tears that crowded her lower lashes.

  “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Jones.”

  A quick nod. Another sigh, as if gasping for air. “It’s the first time he ever went anywhere without me.” She continued looking toward the judge’s bench. “He’d known Ray Vincent Wilma as long as he’d worked there. Fifteen, sixteen years. They was friends, much as anybody is with folks they work with. How could he...”

  Another deep breath. “I heard he walked up to James. They heard him shooting, off in the plant. I guess you just get confused. Don’t know what to do, what to make of it. Then Ray Vincent come around the comer. This other guy, Milt, Ray Vincent come to him first. ‘Get outta here, Milt. Now,’ he said.”

  Her voice growled the command, as if she’d heard it firsthand. She probably had, replayed endlessly in her head.

  “Then he come to James. ‘Sorry, man.’ And he shot him.” Her voice carried the same hushed surprise as if she’d said, And Jesus came out of the spaceship. “Shot him five times.”

  She was silent for several seconds, staring ahead. Her hands gripped the handle of her purse, but the kneading had stopped. “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  She didn’t expect a reply. She just needed to say it out loud one more time.

  I reached over and put my hand on top of hers. “I don’t know.”

  With moist blue eyes, she stared, as if gauging me, and asked, “Did that medicine make him do it?”

  She asked in a way that said she wanted the truth. But I couldn’t comfortably tell what I believed. “It’s—complicated, Mrs. Jones. There are studies ...”

  She stared at me a moment more, then turned back to the front. “Seems to me folks have choices in life, to do what they do. Seems to me Ray Vincent Wilma decided to shoot some folks and shoot himself. Make a name for himself. Get on the news. Couldn’t be big any other way. He made a choice. He made a choice to shoot James and not shoot Milt.” A small sigh. “Don’t quite see how a pill could make him do that.”

  She looked down at her hands, then back at me, waiting for a response.

  “No, ma’am. Things don’t always make sense, do they.” A statement, not a question. I waited a polite interval and said, “It was nice meeting you, Mrs. Jones.”

  She nodded.

  I slipped out of the courtroom. I didn’t know where I was headed. I just knew I didn’t want to face any more difficult questions.

  This case finally had a face. A bewildered, pained face. Some couples get to a place where they just tolerate each other. Not Ada Jones; she really missed her husband. It’s the first time he ever went anywhere without me.

  I wandered down the thickly carpeted courthouse hallway, the floor-to-ceiling windows gathering what light they could from the overcast sky outside. When I pushed through the heavy door to the plaza downstairs, the harbor breeze blowing up the street felt cool and damp, but I didn’t need anything heavier than my suit jacket.

  Avoiding the congregated smokers, I shuffled toward an empty bench, planning to wait a few minutes for the recess to end before I returned to the courtroom.

  As I started to dial my voice mail, my phone buzzed.

  “Avery. Gahdammit. Where the hell are you?”

  Jake’s voice hissed from the phone as if he were trying to whisper.

  “Outside the court—”

  “More to the point. Where the hell were you this weekend?”

  “I told y—”

  “Why the hell are you trying to wreck my case? I knew you could be a loose cannon, but gahdammit, Avery, why you got it aimed right for my balls?”

  “Jake.” I barked to get his attention. “Jake. I’m outside the front door. Maybe we could talk better—”

  The phone beeped. He’d cut me off. The smokers stayed in their circle, ignoring me. I didn’t know where to look for Jake, so I waited until he appeared through the oversized glass doors.

  I rose to meet him as he steamed toward me, his tailored jacket tails flapping behind him. His face was almost purple and his jaw muscles bulged. He came at me with such force, I took a step back.

  “Do you not know the rales about lawyer-witness contact? Do you want to be disbarred? Do you want me disbarred? Are you demon-possessed? What? What is it?” He screamed his last words, giving a Rumplestiltskin-like hop.

  “Whoa. Jake. Whoa. Back up. What are you talking about?”

  “I just got a severe ass-chewing from that lisping idiot Judge Bream, and you don’t know what I’m talking about.”

  At least his voice had come down an octave, though the smokers could probably still hear every word.

  “You don’t know what it means for an attorney—that would be you—to approach an opposing party in litigation—that would be Pendleton Rabb—without counsel present?”

  “Wha-at?” Omigosh. “Party? Pendleton Rabb? How?” I reached for the bench and sat down. Omigosh.

  Jake stood there, blinking. “So you did talk to him. Or rather, you did ‘violate the sanctity of his home and club with threats and innuendo.’ I believe that’s how Arthur Vendue put it to the judge.”

  “Pendleton Rabb is a party to the litigation?” My stomach churned. My breakfast bagel almost ended up in the potted shrubs.

  “Avery. Gahdammit.” He grabbed my arms and shook me. He was in my face, but I was too stunned to object. “Rabb’s the CEO of Perforce Pharmaceuticals. Sure he’s a figurehead, but he’s still treated as a freakin’ party to the litigation. What the hell were you doing stalking him around Atlanta?”

  I shrugged myself out of his grip. “As God is my witness, Jake, I didn’t know.”

  He stared at me, slack-mouthed; his shoulders slumped, looking like a banty rooster who’d just discovered he wasn’t six feet tall. “Shit.” He kicked the bench and spun away, then paced back. “How’d you miss that?”

  I really felt like throwing up, but I wasn’t going to
let Jake see that. “How would I have known, Jake? I just joined this case. I couldn’t possibly have covered it all. He’s not named personally in the suit; he’s just a corporate officer. How the hell was I supposed to know the head honcho at Rabb & Company also headed Perforce? How? None of my research mentioned that relationship.”

  In the back of my head, my guilt complex taunted me. If you ‘d done your homework, A-ver-ee.

  Jake slumped onto the bench. “Rabb & Company is Junior’s personal undertaking. His father didn’t quite trust him to ran Perforce, so they named their new CEO from outside when Dad stepped down. That still doesn’t explain why the hell you’re chasing Rabb around Atlanta.”

  Both of us had quieted down, which was good. Folks were dribbling out the door of the courthouse, and the smokers had enjoyed enough of our street theater.

  “Hilliard is working on a research project that involved Rabb & Company, a project that’s gone seriously wrong. I wanted to learn more about it. I thought maybe you could use it to discredit Hilliard on the stand.”

  Jake stared at me, his arms limp at his side.

  “I thought it would help. I wasn’t finding anything that directly attacked Perforce or Uplift.” I shrugged. “I thought it would help.”

  “Crap. So the best thing we got so far gets us a possible contempt-of-court charge and maybe even a professional reprimand. Great.”

  I let the silence settle before I asked, “Now what?”

  He stood and paced a narrow area in front of me. “We can prepare an affidavit, or maybe you can present your version before the judge in chambers. But we’re going to have to nip this one in the bud pretty damn quick. We got a case to try. Gahdammit.” He stomped his foot. “Something’s gotta fall our way in this freakin’ case sooner or later.”

  21

  MONDAY AFTERNOON

  The Judge had, in chambers, scolded me and Jake soundly for my misbegotten midnight excursion, but he’d apparently been convinced of its innocence. After all, no lawyer would be that stupid on purpose.