by Diane Capri
Smyth said, “The firm believes in investing in art. One of our partners is quite knowledgeable. He travels to New York galleries and auction houses. Our collection adds significantly to the firm’s net worth.” He sounded like a docent. Was the entire firm was populated by the law office equivalent of Stepford wives?
“That’s a rather unique practice isn’t it?”
“Unique for Tampa. Firms in major cities invest in art. Here we are.” He knocked on a large mahogany door, grasped the crystal doorknob and pushed simultaneously.
O’Connell stood to greet me and dismiss Smyth while my mouth hung open.
The opulence was awesome.
O’Connell’s personal office was on the south west corner of the building, the best view the building had to offer. He had floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Harbour Island, Davis Island, Plant Key and the Bayshore. I could see our Minaret clearly in the distance. The floors were hardwood, with antique Iranian rugs under the desk, the coffee table and the conference table. Navy and Burgundy leather upholstery covered most of the room. On the credenza and several of the walls were pictures of O’Connell and Cilla at various milestones: their wedding, their children’s weddings, their 45th anniversary party and last year’s awards banquet where O’Connell was named Lawyer of the Year. The opposite wall was O’Connell with the governor, O’Connell with our Senators, O’Connell with our last four presidents.
“Wilhelmina, I’m so pleased you were able to stop in for a few moments. Can I get you a cup of coffee or a glass of wine?” I told him I would take a glass of Merlot and watched him open the door that concealed a wet bar. The wine rack held a selection of red wines, about twenty bottles. The white wines were in the wine refrigerator visible below. As he opened the bottle, I told him how impressed I was with his offices.
He handed me a Baccarat balloon glass, about two thirds full of Stag’s Leap and motioned me onto a sofa. While he remained standing, we were eye to eye. “I didn’t realize you hadn’t been here before. We’ve had these offices about four years. One of the first firms to lease space in this building. It’s been a pleasure putting it together.” We raised our glasses in a silent toast. To what?
“How much space do you have, O’Connell, and how many lawyers have you got?” I might not be a practicing lawyer anymore, but I still know how success is counted in the business.
“We have four floors here, 42, 41, 40 and, just recently, 39. We added ten new lawyers last year, bringing our total to 85.” The open pride was uncharacteristic, but unmistakable.
“I had no idea you had so many lawyers in your office. Twenty percent growth in one year must make you about the fastest growing firm in Tampa. What’s your secret?”
He smiled, smoothly conspiratorial. “Since you’re not in competition with me, I’ll tell you. We’re strictly a litigation firm. We’ve been involved in some of the largest litigation in the country over the years. In 1991, when it all started, we were hired by one of the large manufacturers to defend breast implant cases. We’ve been on their national trial team since then. That’s really fueled our growth.”
“Didn’t that company go into bankruptcy a year or so ago? That impacted your business significantly.”
“Fortunately, no. By that time, we had also picked up the defense of another large manufacturer, even larger than the first. I’m sure you’ve heard of them--General Medics. Because of trial team experience and ground floor work with the first company, we were able to take an increased role with the new client immediately. That assignment has led to additional work from the second company, and others, and the result is what you see.” He spread his left arm out, indicting the office, the view, everything.
“Well, I’m sure you’re the envy of all your colleagues. In fact, didn’t I hear that some of the firms involved in breast implant litigation have gone out of business?”
He nodded. “We’ve been fortunate, but it’s impolite to say so.”
I sat my wine glass down, and leaned forward, “Tell me, just because I’m interested. With all the experience you’ve had defending breast implant cases, what do you personally believe the problem is?”
“There’s still a debate among the experts over that subject, and I’m certainly no expert.” He looked away.
“I know that, but I also know that good lawyers, such as yourself, learn a great deal about the cases they’re defending. I always had my personal opinions, unrelated to what I could prove or not prove, about the facts in my cases. Surely you must have some opinions of your own based on the work you’ve done.” Seeing his reluctance, I added “Which wouldn’t, of course be admissible at trial.”
He paused with his wine glass held out as if he were about to make a formal toast. His voice took on the stentorian quality he used in opening statements and he started to walk around the room, still carrying his wine glass. “On a personal level, and not as lawyer to judge, I’ll tell you that I think this is the greatest miscarriage of justice that has happened in this country since the McCarthy hearings. There is no evidence that breast implants, or any form of medical grade silicones, cause any type of health-related problem whatsoever.”
“If that’s true, how did we get to the point where there are more than 200,000 claims filed by women around the world?” I was challenging him, and it was clear he didn’t like it. He began to get red in the face and his tone took on a sterner quality. I was grateful not to be one of his junior lawyers.
“If my car is wet, does that mean it’s raining outside?” He expected an answer.
“Of course not. There could be any number of explanations for a wet car.”
“Exactly!” He said, as if I was an exceptionally bright student. “That’s the evidence that’s been admitted in trials in these cases and upon which juries have been allowed to conclude that a sick plaintiff with breast implants means that breast implants caused the illness. No reputable scientist believes that. And on the basis of evidence no scientist accepts, one very reputable company is in bankruptcy and others have spent literally millions of dollars defending themselves.”
“Then how did this all happen?” I asked, almost afraid to push the point, he had gotten so excited. The hand gripping his wine glass was white-knuckled. I carefully moved outside the path of breaking glass.
“It happened the way all of these goddamned products cases happen. The plaintiff’s bar is so organized these days that they can make a mountain out of any molehill.”
“I’m not sure what you mean,” I said.
The vein over his temple was bulging now, pulsing rhythmically. “Well, they get together and contribute one-hundred-thousand dollars or more to a fund to begin litigation in a given area. Then they let it be known that they’re the experts with the money and they’re planning to launch an attack. Smaller scale plaintiffs’ attorneys come along and contribute smaller sums of money until a war chest is developed. They advertise for plaintiffs, stir up public opinion and before you know it, you have Mount Everest created out of an anthill. Look at Bendectin or Phen-Fen. It’s disgusting. No evidence to support those cases at all. None.”
He was practically shouting at this point. I guessed this was a speech he had given many times before. Maybe he was practicing for the next Defense Research Institute meeting, or his presentation to General Medics’ board of directors. Any good trial lawyer can turn on indignation in a moment, and turn it off just as quickly. We’re all actors at heart.
I had the impression, though, that O’Connell’s current display of anger was not completely acting. It was time for me to take my leave before the old gentleman had a heart attack and I had another death to deal with. That old law school brain teaser came back to me--can words alone, if they lead to death, be murder? I turned the conversation to safer topics for a few moments and then said I needed to get back to my office.
We walked to the lobby and O’Connell asked the Barbie to have the chauffeur drive me back to the federal building. He thanked me for coming and escorte
d me to the elevator, once again the perfect gentleman.
When I got to the curb at the corner of Florida and Jackson, it was already dark. The only car parked there was a navy Lincoln Town Car and the driver, dressed in a blue blazer with the now easily recognizable AB&W logo on the breast pocket, was standing on the curb. He opened the door for me and asked “Where to?” During the short drive, I asked him if he liked his job. Like every cab driver, he was loquacious.
“Yes, Ma’am. I retired from First National Bank here in Tampa five years ago and Mr. Worthington was our lawyer. I mentioned to him that I’d like to have part-time work and he put me on the payroll. The only thing I do is keep this car clean and drive people around town and back and forth to the airport. If there was an easier job in the world, I’d be ashamed to get paid for it.”
“Sounds good to me,” I told him.
“It’s the only job in town like it. And I get to drive any kind of 4-door full size car I like. I get a new one every year. This baby’s only three weeks old. What do you think of it?”
I said I thought the car was very nice and that he did, indeed, have an enviable position.
The traffic lights on Florida Avenue are timed, but we hit all the red ones, getting in more quality time together.
“What kind of car did you have before this one?” I asked.
“Oh, man, a beautiful Cadillac de Ville. Black. Prettiest car I’ve ever had the pleasure to drive. I was sorry to see that one go. I wanted to keep it, but the boss, he said Mrs. Worthington’s car was getting old, and she wanted that one. So I gave it to her and got me this one instead.”
He dropped me right next to my Mercedes CLK 320 Convertible I called Greta, and I thanked him for the ride.
On the way home, my reverie was about the reasons I was no longer working for a firm like Able, Bennett & Worthington.
About a year before George and I moved to Tampa to get off the “up and coming” merry-go-round. I looked around me and saw the partners in my firm and George’s corporate superiors living the life George and I would be living in ten years, and I didn’t like it. One of the senior officers at the bank owned five homes, each mortgaged to the point that his $350,000 annual salary fell far short of his payments and his private school tuition obligations for three children. The year he asked one of the bank’s secretaries to drive him back and forth to work because his lease car was over the mileage allowance and he couldn’t pay the ten cents a mile surcharge, I realized just how precarious his position was. His salary easily exceeded hers by fifteen times, yet she could afford to buy a car, and he couldn’t afford to rent one.
Another bank officer divorced his wife of twenty-five years to marry a service clerk thirty years younger than he. To say the divorce was costly is putting it mildly. His ex-wife was not just bitter, she was vicious. On any given day, he could be seen eating his $2 lunch of hot dogs and cottage cheese in the cafeteria, while telling anyone who sat down next to him just how many more alimony payments he had to make before he’d be able to afford hamburger. When his new bride promptly had twins and quit her job, he stopped eating lunch all together.
The stories were so typical, after a while they weren’t even interesting. There was the junior associate in my firm whose husband was in business school. Not only couldn’t they make it on his $75,000 salary, they lived on credit card debt that would feed an entire third world country for a year. When they wanted to take a vacation, they counted up their available credit balances to see if they could drive somewhere. A mid level partner, living in a three-story Victorian home in Indian Village couldn’t afford a car and had to take the bus to work; another mid level partner had to borrow money to pay the deductible on his health insurance for his newest baby; a third, more senior partner took a loan to pay for more equity in the firm.
All around me, people were working harder, earning more and having less. They were required to work a staggering number of hours just to earn salaries that (while in the top 1% of all salaries in the country) didn’t buy even a modicum of time and peace of mind. So I got off the merry-go-round. When Aunt Minnie died and left us Minaret, we simplified our lives, moved to Tampa, cut back on the dollar hunt. But sometimes, like today, when I saw how successful some of my colleagues were who hadn’t dropped out of the race, I wondered if I’d made the right choice.
That evening over cocktails, I told George about my visit with O’Connell Worthington and the splendor of his offices. “It’s been pretty well known for quite some time that O’Connell has had a significant reversal of fortune,” he told me as he was turned the page of today’s Investor’s Business Daily. “Five years ago, his house was in foreclosure and he’d been posted at the Club for failure to pay dues on four or five occasions. Now it’s quite a different story and I’m glad to know what the explanation is. There’ve been some very wild stories around town about the source of his wealth. I like O’Connell. I’m glad to learn his financial reversal is due to good old American hard work and nothing else.” Nothing else that marrying money didn’t cure, at any rate. That’s what I thought at the time.
CHAPTER TEN
Tampa, Florida
Thursday 7:20 p.m.
January 7, 1999
Later, I changed into a canary-yellow sweat suit and made myself a drink. I went out to our balcony and sat with my feet propped up, lighting up my first Partaga of the day. It was after dusk, but not dark. The sky was filled with reds and oranges. Tomorrow would be another beautiful day. I was still sitting there, contemplating what to do about Carly’s problem when George came out to join me. I was glad to see he’d brought a larger than usual glass of Glenfiddich.
“How do you feel about room service tonight?” he asked me as he sat down in the rocker next to mine. “I can order up some poached salmon over greens with raspberry vinaigrette and fresh sourdough rolls. What do you say?”
“Sounds good to me,” I answered him, still contemplating.
“I’ll give you a silver dollar for your thoughts. They look valuable.”
“I was just thinking how really unfortunate it is that the police department never closes.” Then, I told George, my partner in all things, about Carly’s visit.
“What is it about you that brings everyone with a problem to your door?” The question was rhetorical. It was far from the first time I’d been asked. Nor the first time I’d asked it of myself. For a long time I felt as if I walked into every room with a large sign around my neck that said “bring your problems to Willa.” In every crowd, at every party, in every organization I joined, it seemed I soon became the “mother” of the group. Messy divorce? Problems with your children? Out of money? Weight problems? Drugs, alcohol, gambling? Ask “Dear Willa a/k/a Mighty Mouse.”
Now that I know myself better, I know I wear my philosophy on my sleeve. You see, I believe all problems can be solved. It’s that simple. And most people don’t. Most people just want to wallow in it, but they don’t want it fixed, especially if the fix requires the acceptance of personal responsibility and personal change. On some level, I like solving problems, other people’s problems anyway.
I accepted that was why Carly had come to me in the first place. Not because she had any special affection for me. It’s just that I’ve always been the problem solver. And she certainly had a problem. Where else would she go?
But this time, George was as distressed by Carly’s situation as I had been, maybe more. If I try to mother everyone who comes along, George takes in strays, any stray, as long as they’re a stray. Because Carly had been estranged from the family lately, George was particularly protective. He’d always liked Carly and he felt protective of her.
“Don’t you know someone to whom you could entrust this information in confidence? It seems the sort of thing that needs to be disclosed, but I certainly wouldn’t want Carly to be arrested just for having suggested the possible identity of a dead man,” he said. George still believes in all American institutions.
“I think I’d h
ave to give some reason for my suspicions. Since I never learned why Carly was asked to leave the prosecutor’s office, I’m not sure that if I disclosed her name, she wouldn’t become a suspect. I can’t risk that.”
George and I debated the ethics and the practicalities for another hour before concluding that perhaps the tried and true “anonymous phone call” was the best way to go. Since it was scrupulously important, at least to me, that I not be involved, George volunteered to make the call from a pay phone in the local supermarket. I was amused and surprised. Until he suggested it, I wasn’t really sure George knew where the local supermarket was, and cloak and dagger is clearly not his style. I’m not sure he even knows who James Bond is. George really is a sport.
We agreed on what he would say and how he would say it. I told him it was important to keep the call to less than three minutes so that it couldn’t be traced. After we got everything worked out, he went downstairs to drive himself to the phone.
I waited for what seemed like forever. By the time George got back, I’d already finished three more drinks and smoked two more cigars. One a day is my usual self imposed limit. I saw his car pull up in the driveway and I poured us both another drink. George is not a man meant for intrigue and I knew that he would be at least as shaken as I was.
“Well, what happened?” I pounced on him as soon as he walked in the door.
“It went as well as can be expected. I called the downtown branch instead of 911. I know all 911 calls are taped. I disguised my voice and I said ‘I think the body you found yesterday morning in Tampa Bay is Dr. Michael Morgan’.”
“Did they act like they believed you?”
“They asked me to repeat the information. After I repeated it twice, making a total of three statements in the very same words, I hung up. I think the whole call took about two minutes. Then I got back in my car and drove directly here.”
“Were you followed?”
“Christ, listen to you! I don’t know whether I was followed. I’ve never been followed in my life except in a funeral procession. I’d have no idea how to find out. Did you see anyone else come up the driveway behind me?”