I can still remember the February afternoon she came in to read the counterclaim. She’d arrived around five o’clock, pausing outside the doorway to stomp the snow off her boots. It had been gently snowing all day—big, fluffy snowflakes floating out of a milky white sky. We talked about the weather and the traffic as I got her a cup of hot tea. I handed her the document and took my seat behind the desk. I watched as she slowly read through it, bracing myself for the tears. Beckman Engineering’s counterclaim was startling in its spitefulness—as if the company had decided to stake Ruth Alpert out there on the hillside as an example to all would-be plaintiffs.
As she reached the last page of the counterclaim, I glanced toward the box of Kleenex tissues on my desk. A minute passed. She was still staring at that page, the only sounds the faint hum of my computer and the syncopated clicking of the radiator. I waited and watched, looking for a telltale sign—a sniffle, perhaps, or the trembling shoulders. Finally, she closed the document and looked up. Her eyes were clear, her expression firm.
“So,” she said in a calm voice, “they raised the ante.”
I gave her a smile of commiseration. “I’m afraid so.”
She rubbed the back of her neck thoughtfully. “Then we should, too.”
“We?” I asked, puzzled.
She nodded. “I worked there a long time, Rachel.” She paused, arching her eyebrows. “A girl hears things.”
“Things?”
She nodded again, this time with the hint of a smile.
***
Jacki brought me back to the present by poking her head in my office to announce, “Ruth’s here.” She paused, widening her eyes in a show of relief at finally escaping from the latest Lauren saga.
I smiled. “Send her in.”
A moment later, Ruth Alpert came in. She was carrying a tin of what I knew were homemade ginger snaps. I loved her ginger snaps.
“Hello, Rachel dear.”
“Ruth, I love your hair.”
“Really?” she asked, self-consciously touching it. Since we’d last met two weeks ago, she’d had her long gray hair chopped off. “Your mother told me to do it,” she said with an embarrassed giggle. Her hair was cut in a close shag. “She told me I looked like an old bubba.”
“A new outfit, too?”
She nodded. “Your mother again.”
Ruth was wearing khaki slacks, a pink cotton Oxford shirt, and a navy blazer. I suppose she was aiming for that country club matron image—or perhaps the zoo docent look—but she actually reminded me of Miss Hodges, my high school field hockey coach who spent her summers in the Wisconsin Dells running a crafts store with her horsy companion, Miss Gulden. Still, it was a definite improvement over her usual outfit.
Despite the new ’do and clothing, she remained the same old Ruth—a woman who seemed a full generation older than my mother, not merely pre-Beatles but pre-Elvis, stuck in a Lawrence Welk world of accordions and tiny bubbles. During a pause in our conversation, she wrinkled her nose and made tsk, tsk sounds.
“What?” I asked.
“I keep thinking of that poor woman.” She shook her head in consternation. “Killed in front of your eyes. Barbarians.” She pressed an index finger against her plump, rouged cheek. “Do you think there might be a connection?”
“The police don’t really know what to make of it yet.” I shrugged. “Neither do I. That’s why I’m going up there on Sunday to talk to them.”
“The police?”
“No, the two men in jail.”
Ruth’s eyes widened in concern. “My heavens, is that safe?”
I nodded reassuringly. “Perfectly. I’ve done it before, and this time I’ll be with a friend who used to be a prosecutor.”
“Oh, I could never.” She shuddered. “I would be so horrified.”
“Well,” I said with a weary sigh, “if you’re looking to be horrified, you don’t need to go to Springfield. There’s plenty to horrify you in this case right here—including yet another day of your deposition before the end of the month. Let me tell you what happened in court yesterday afternoon.”
I brought her up to date, including the decision by the Department of Justice to pass on our case. “Looks like we’re on our own, kiddo,” I said with a fatalistic smile.
“What can we do, Rachel?” she said, a tremor in her voice. “Everyone at Beckman pretends they don’t know anything. Former employees won’t talk to us. That woman in Springfield—good heavens.” She was wringing her hands.
I gave her a plucky smile. “Don’t bury us yet, Ruth. There’s still a heartbeat.”
“Barely,” she said, her eyes welling up in frustration.
“Hang in there, Ruth.” I leaned forward and took one of her hands in mine. “We’ve had some setbacks, but it’s not over. If there was a conspiracy, we’ll find it. Trust me, you can’t hide something that big and that complicated without leaving behind some stray pieces of evidence. They’re out there. We’ll just have to keep looking.”
“But where?”
“For starters,” I said, “the bid documents on the water and sewer projects. Beckman Engineering is delivering them today.”
Ruth frowned. “What will that do for us?”
“Define the universe.”
“What universe?”
I patiently explained it to her again, for what seemed like the tenth time. Our lawsuit alleged a bid-rigging conspiracy on certain federal water and sewer projects in the Midwest. That meant that the bad guys got together to divide up the bids and decide who would win each one. The documents Beckman Engineering was delivering today would presumably identify the universe of projects involved in the alleged conspiracy. Once we defined that universe—no easy task—we’d have to figure out who had the winning bid on each of the projects, since Beckman Engineering’s alleged co-conspirators would presumably be among the winners.
Ruth looked confused. “But that won’t be in the bid documents. They announce winners after the bids are in.”
I nodded. “But apparently we can get that information from that publication you once mentioned to me. The Commerce Business Daily. Do you have any copies?”
“I’m sure I do. I’ll drop some off later today.”
There was a knock on my door. Jacki opened it and peered in. “They’ve arrived,” she said.
“The bid documents?” I asked.
She nodded ominously.
“A lot?”
She gestured toward my office window. “See that?”
There was a yellow Ryder truck parked out front. Its rear doors were open. A worker was pushing a handcart loaded with three boxes down the ramp from the back of the truck to the street.
“How many boxes?” I asked.
“Thirty-three,” Jacki said.
I sat back in my chair and stared at her. “Thirty-three?”
She nodded. “Containing seventy-three thousand pages. I signed the receipt.”
I groaned. “Wonderful.”
***
At 5:35 p.m. I leaned over, put the lid on the box, and slumped back in my chair.
“Two down,” I announced to the empty office. Glumly, I surveyed the solid wall of boxes. They were stacked four feet high and ran the entire length of the side wall of my office. Two down, thirty-one to go.
Once all the boxes had been unloaded and stacked along the wall, I’d closed the door, taken a deep breath, psyched myself up, and reached for the first box. Three hours later, I’d gotten through a grand total of two. At that rate it would take at least forty more hours to finish them all—and the task would have to be divided into small segments spread out over many days. Examining just two boxes of documents—thousands of pages of technical financial and engineering materials—had turned my mind to mush. I didn’t know whether I had enough mental stamina to look at any more documents
tonight.
I bent down, grasped box number two through the handhold openings on either side, lugged it over to the side wall, and dropped it on top of box number one. I turned toward the far end of the mountain range of boxes and stared at box number three as I carried on a silent debate. It was 5:45 p.m. If I started another box now, I could finish it and be home by eight with the satisfaction that I’d gotten through one-eleventh of the documents on the first day. On the other hand, if I left now, I could be home by six o’clock. It was Friday night, the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath. I needed to get home to light the Shabbat candles—a ceremony I’d performed every Friday night since my father’s death. You’re supposed to light the candles at sundown to welcome the Sabbath. I glanced toward the window. Too late for that. I turned again toward box number three. Well, if I could knock off one more tonight, that would be three in one session. Three more tomorrow morning, maybe another three in the afternoon, three on Sunday, keep up the pace, and I’d be done by the end of the week.
But that meant box number three tonight. My shoulders sagged.
As I stood facing the rows of boxes, trying to get motivated, there was a knock at the outer door to my office. I turned toward the sound, concerned. I wasn’t expecting anyone. Ruth had already been by to drop off several old issues of Commerce Business Daily.
Cautiously, I opened my office door and walked through the reception area toward the outer door. There was a spyhole at eye level. I peered through it and saw a most unusual sight: a grinning Benny Goldberg holding aloft several carryout pizza containers. He was wearing a black T-shirt with the legend, Please Help Me—I Am An Endomorph. Behind him stood five young men and women casually dressed in jeans or khakis. One of the guys was holding two six-packs of beer.
“Benny?” I said in amazement, still peering at him through the spyhole.
“Come on, Rachel,” he hollered, “open the door already. These goddamn pizzas are hot.”
I unlocked the door and pulled it open. Benny moved quickly toward Jacki’s desk to set down the carryout containers. As he did, the room filled with the yummy scents of spicy tomato sauce, crusty dough, oregano, and pepperoni.
“Professor?” the young guy with the two six-packs asked. “Where should I put these?”
Benny surveyed the office. “Over there, Jake,” he said, pointing to a side table. Benny turned to me with a broad smile. “Well?”
I gave him a baffled look. “Well what?”
The other five had gathered around us. Benny gazed at them with a smile. “Folks, this is the great Rachel Gold—lawyer extraordinaire and total babe, with the brains of a Brandeis and the stems of a showgirl. Rachel,” he said, making a sweeping gesture toward the others, “these are your shock troops.”
I smiled at them uncertainly, not sure what to make of Benny’s description.
Benny turned to me. “Your law student volunteers, remember? These are Wash U’s finest. That’s Jake over by the beer, and Zack next to him.”
Jake and Zack were a pair of big burly kids with lovely blue eyes and shy smiles. Jake was wearing an Amherst College sweatshirt and Zack had on a St. Louis Blues jersey.
“They both have engineering degrees,” Benny explained, “which means they ought to be good with the technical stuff. And this is Josh.” He gave him a playful punch in the arm “This dude is my man.”
Josh looked like a dude: a slender athletic build, long brown hair, and one gold earring. He was wearing baggy army pants, a green Miles Davis T-shirt, and a battered St. Louis Browns baseball cap turned backwards. “Hey,” he said to me, flashing a marvelously roguish grin that revealed perfect white teeth.
“And this is Kayla,” Benny said.
She had short, dark brown hair and stunning brown eyes.
“You’re a CPA, right?” Benny asked her.
She nodded and turned to me with a lovely smile. “I used to work at Price Waterhouse.”
“That means she can make sense out of all the cost-accounting documents in the bid materials,” Benny said. “Believe me, she’s smarter than shit. And finally, say hi to Hanna.” He pronounced the name to rhyme with Donna.
Hanna stepped forward with a cheerful smile and held out her hand to shake mine. “Benny told us all about the case, Miss Gold.” Hanna was striking in a Cindy Crawford sort of way: tall, long brown hair, exotic green eyes. “We’re really excited to be able to help you and Mrs. Alpert.”
“That’s—that’s wonderful,” I stammered, overwhelmed.
“So,” Benny said, rubbing his hands together, “have the documents arrived?”
I nodded. “Thirty-three boxes. They’re stacked in my office. I’ve been through the first two.”
“Thirty-three?” Benny said. “No problem. We ought to be able to knock off a third tonight, a third tomorrow, and finish by our deadline.”
“What deadline?” I asked.
“Seven o’clock Sunday.” Benny winked. “Your mom has invited us all for dinner.” He solemnly placed his hand over his heart and looked heavenward. “She’s making her brisket, praise the Lord.”
He paused as he felt something in the breast pocket of his T-shirt. “Oh, yeah,” he said. He removed two blue birthday candles from his shirt pocket and handed them to me. “Almost forgot.”
I took the candles from him. “What are these?”
He shook his head, amused. “Now that you’re Miss Super Jew, I figured you’d be getting spilkes about lighting the Shabbat candles.” He nodded toward the birthday candles. “It’s the best I could do on short notice. God won’t mind.” He turned to the others. “What do you say, gang? Let’s put on the old feed bag.”
As the students moved toward the pizzas and beer, I grabbed Benny by the arm and pulled him back.
“Thanks,” I said, kissing him on the cheek, my eyes watering.
“Aw,” he said, shrugging it off, “no big deal.”
Chapter Five
It was four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Two hours ago we’d finished the last of the thirty-three boxes. In celebration and gratitude, I’d taken everyone to lunch at Balibans in the Central West End. After lunch, the students headed back to Wash U and Benny, Jacki, and I walked back to my office.
It had been amazing—no, wonderful—to see how quickly those fresh, intelligent eyes could review and categorize seventy thousand documents. They’d ended last night’s session at eleven o’clock, started again this morning at eight-thirty, and finished by two. Even Benny—the man who had earned the nickname “Iron Butt” during our years together at Abbott & Windsor for his marathon document review sessions in In re Bottles & Cans—was impressed.
As a result of their efforts, we’d at last defined the universe: one hundred forty-eight federal construction projects in the field of wastewater, groundwater, and other water control on which Beckman Engineering had submitted bids over the past ten years. It was a much larger universe than Ruth or I had imagined. Almost twice as large. Then again, until that snowy day last February, I’d no idea that any such universe existed, large or small.
***
A girl hears things,” Ruth had told me that day.
“Things?”
“Bad things.”
Specifically, she’d heard over the years that something fishy was going on with the bids on certain federal government water-control projects in the Midwest.
“It was odd,” Ruth said with a puzzled look, her index finger pressed against her cheek. “It was as if we knew in advance which contracts we would win and which we would lose.” She raised her eyebrows knowingly. “You might want to keep that in mind, Rachel. It could embarrass them.”
I can still remember that moment. I can remember turning toward the window to watch those big snowflakes waft down out of a pale sky. I can remember the bottom of the window scalloped with miniature snowdrifts like a Hallmark Cards Christmas s
cene. I can remember a vision of huge stacks of money, mountains of dollar bills thrusting upward into that pale sky. But most of all I can remember another vision, a far more troubling one—a vision of our tidy little lawsuit morphing into that rarest of litigation weapons, a lethal juggernaut known to few within the law and even fewer outside. Even its name is tinged with portent: qui tam.
I had probed gingerly at first, asking in an almost offhand manner whether she had any specifics, any examples of what she had labeled the “inside track.” She’d overheard talk among her superiors about certain bids: “This one’s ours” and “We don’t get that one” and “We’re supposed to bid this one at nine point five mill.” She’d observed odd conduct surrounding certain bids. Some took weeks to prepare and included several site visits; others were literally slapped together overnight—an impossible time frame for a real bid. Even more unusual, she remembered a major project for the construction of a new wastewater treatment plant on an air force base in Oklahoma; the project team worked around the clock for two weeks to come up with a bid of $9,232,350, and then, unbeknownst to them, one of the higher-ups “rounded” the number up to $10.6 million—and Beckman Engineering was still low bidder.
But most of all, I can remember Ruth’s complete obliviousness to the implications of what she had observed. She saw it as gossip that might make her former employers squirm—that might embarrass them in the eyes of the federal government the way their counterclaim had embarrassed her in the eyes of her former colleagues. I saw something far different. If the bits and pieces of what she had observed were more than mere coincidence, then Beckman Engineering was a participant in an illegal bid-rigging conspiracy in violation of the Federal False Claims Act. That meant that Ruth had an opportunity to become a qui tam relator—in plain English, a bounty hunter.
Qui tam is derived from the Latin qui tam pro domino rege quam proseippso, which means “he who as much for the king as for himself,” or, for short, “in the king’s name.” It’s legal shorthand for a special type of lawsuit in which an ordinary citizen is allowed to wrap himself in official garb and take action in the name of the government. It dates back to thirteenth-century England, where clever litigants used the qui tam maneuver to avoid corrupt local tribunals, gain access to the royal court, and, by purporting to align themselves with the king’s interest, claim as their reward a percentage of the penalties levied against the wrongdoers. The qui tam action entered this country in a statute enacted at the height of the Civil War in response to allegations of fraud and price gouging by unscrupulous contractors. The goal was to encourage whistle-blowers by giving ordinary citizens the chance to share in the bounty. In more recent years, Congress turbo-charged the statute by adding treble damages and a bigger slice of the pie (up to 30 percent) for the successful qui tam relator.
Bearing Witness Page 5