Family Tree

by Susan Wiggs

Fletcher felt like taking a sledgehammer to the monstrosity. “Dad wants me to haul it to the dump so it won’t crush anybody else.”

  “The dump. I hear Degan Kerry works there now. Guess his reign of terror in high school came to an inglorious end.”

  “I’ll get started as soon as the insurance guy finishes.” He walked slowly around the collapsed car lift. It still had its shiny new decals, touting its features—fifteen-thousand-pound lift capacity. Powder-coated paint finish. Solid steel construction.

  He bent and studied the sticker, now peeling from the twisted metal. “Solid steel, my ass,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” Gordy asked.

  “Look at this garbage. The decal says solid steel, but it was stuck here to cover a weld. So it’s bullshit.” Upon further inspection, he found several more welds used instead of solid steel. A slow burn of anger started inside him. His father’s life had been ruined because the shady tool company hadn’t sold him the product it promised.

  “Can the two of us move this out of here?” Gordy asked, bending to grasp a broken piece.

  “Hang on.” Fletcher felt a surge of insight.

  “For what? The insurance guy?”

  “Yeah. We shouldn’t touch anything here. Not until it’s all documented.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We need pictures and some kind of accident report. Not just the one from the insurance guy. We need something that’s, like, totally official.”

  “Holy crap, you’re right.” Gordy quickly grasped the situation. “I bet your father could sue the pants off of Acme Automotive Lift.”

  Fletcher kept every single note and picture in the insurance-claim account, and he took plenty of his own, including a video he shot with a borrowed camera while the claims adjuster narrated the report. Fletcher also found a guy in town who was a safety inspector. His specialty was forestry, but he was a mechanical engineer who agreed completely with Fletcher about the defective equipment. Not only was there welding where solid steel should have been used; the lift lacked another key safety feature, something he called an armlock mechanism. The safety inspector prepared and signed an official report comparing the lift that was sold to Fletcher’s dad with the manufacturer’s product description and warranty.

  In Burlington, Fletcher went to the university library with a special pass from the hospital, and he used the Internet for hours, until his eyes blurred and his brain ached. He buried himself in information, absorbing facts and figures like a sponge, and also making notes just in case.

  The next day, he went to Courthouse Plaza and started knocking on doors of law firms. No one would let him past the receptionist desk. Before anyone would even talk to him, they wanted something called a retainer fee. The problem was, Fletcher and his dad had no money to spare. With the insurance claim taking forever and Dad in rehab for weeks, Fletcher could scarcely come up with the scratch for groceries, much less a lawyer.

  He went back to the library and the Internet, reading articles and abstracts and law books. He figured out that he didn’t actually need a lawyer. Any private citizen had the right to file suit if they were injured. Okay, then. His dad was a private citizen. He’d been injured. Fletcher was going to figure out how to file the suit. He worked for days, studying the steps involved in the procedure, taking piles of notes, and mapping out a strategy.

  Annie called him a lot, but he didn’t pick up. He had to stay focused, and she was a distraction. He sent her an e-mail saying he was busy with his dad and the garage. Since the accident, she seemed a million miles away. Then he felt guilty and called her.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I’ve got a ton of shit to do.”

  “I know, Fletcher.” There was a waver of hurt in her voice. “I wish I could help.”

  “I don’t need your help,” he said, and it came out sounding terse. “I mean, it’s just . . . ah, Christ. This is taking up all my time.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” she said. “Just know that I’m thinking about you. I miss you. I’ll see you at Thanksgiving break, okay?”

  “Sure. Okay.” He was pissed as he hung up the phone. Not at her, at himself. At the situation. But being pissed wasn’t going to get things done.

  He went over the plan with his father, who told Fletcher he was out of his gourd. “Remember that old saying, you can’t fight city hall?” Dad asked. “It’s true. You shouldn’t be wasting your time on some crazy idea. I need you to keep the garage up and running so we don’t go broke.”

  “I’ll do both,” Fletcher said. “I can look after the garage and work on the case at night. You worry about getting back on your feet—”

  “Don’t you mean foot?”

  “Whatever. Just let me worry about everything else.”

  In many ways, he’d been doing that all his life. His father had always been like a big kid—impulsive, adventurous, and irresponsible. Fletcher was often the one who remembered what they needed at the grocery store or when they were supposed to go to the dentist. At a ridiculously young age, he’d learned to forge his dad’s name on school permission slips and on checks, because Dad often forgot to pay the bills. Taking on a lawsuit was just one more thing he had to do on his own.

  It struck Fletcher now that he might have to take care of his father forever. Christ.

  Dad signed more papers—grudgingly. The documents were all available on the Internet for anyone to print out and use. They were official forms to show the court that Sanford Wyndham had legal capacity to sue.

  That was just the first step. Then Fletcher had to outline his case in a petition, submit his facts and findings to prove he had a case, and show that his dad was entitled to damages.

  Fletcher sweated bullets over the thing. He studied the process until his eyes practically bled. He painstakingly created and filled out all the necessary court documents. From the hours of reading he’d done, he knew that every single word, every punctuation mark, was crucial.

  His first seven efforts were quickly rejected on technicalities by the court clerk. Something was missing, or improperly filled out, or not relevant to the case. Each time he made the corrections and went back, the filing was rejected for a different reason. He started to feel like a contestant on a game show, getting eliminated and having to start again from scratch.

  Eventually, he got every single line of every single document right, and his hearing was scheduled. Gordy’s sister gave him a haircut. It wasn’t a very good haircut, but she did it for free.

  On his assigned court day, Fletcher dressed in his one and only suit, with a stiff-collared white shirt and a blue silk tie. He borrowed his father’s good shoes, the ones Dad had bought—coincidentally—the last time he’d gone before a judge. Only that time, Dad had not been the plaintiff.

  Fletcher stared down at his feet. He bent and tied the laces tight. In front of the courthouse he paced back and forth, going over and over the facts in his head. Prove you have the right to sue. Prove you have a case. Take it before the right court.

  There were guys and women in suits, hurrying up and down the stairs to the columned entrance, and they all looked as though they knew exactly where they were going. A woman in a lace dress holding some flowers came out of the courthouse with a guy in a pale blue tux—a bride and groom. Fletcher speculated that another stone-faced couple trudging slowly up the stairs were at the other end of the marriage spectrum, heading for divorce.

  He thought briefly of Annie. He hadn’t spent five minutes talking to her in weeks. This wasn’t fair to her. The decent thing would be to let her go. She was probably ready, anyway, meeting new people at college and moving into a life of her own.

  Then he reined in his thoughts and checked his paperwork for at least the tenth time. This should not be so complicated. His dad had been sold a defective piece of equipment. He’d lost his leg because of it. The case seemed simple, but after preparing and filing all the documents, he knew it wouldn’t be.

  He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers
and headed inside to Room 4. The bench seats reminded him of church pews, and he stood uncertainly, wondering where he was supposed to sit. He picked a spot at the end of an empty bench and sat down to wait.

  The judge was a woman who looked as if she ate little kids for breakfast. Ruth Abernathy wore her hair pulled back and kept her thin-lipped mouth set in a seam of disapproval. Thick, straight eyebrows met in the middle, creating a frown that appeared to be etched permanently into her brow. Dark-rimmed reading glasses were perched on the tip of her nose.

  Fletcher made sure he had his mobile phone on silent. Eyes straight ahead. One of the articles he’d read claimed that judges thrived on respect and dignity.

  He had to wonder about that when the first case came up. Some guy wanted to sue his neighbor whose black Lab wouldn’t stop barking. The neighbor intended to countersue the first guy for spray-painting an obscenity on his black Lab. He even brought the leashed dog with the bright pink phrase on its back, eliciting snickers from the gallery. Within a couple of minutes, the neighbors were shouting at each other, until the judge smacked her gavel on the desk and told everyone to simmer down. When it turned out the dog howled only as the shift whistle blew at the gravel quarry, she ordered the spray painter to pay for the dog’s bath, and sent them on their way.

  Fletcher tried not to jiggle his knee in impatience through the next couple of cases. Then a cop in uniform called his case number. Fletcher took a deep breath and stood.

  As he approached the long library table in front of the judge’s bench, he felt like a guy walking to an execution.

  Judge Abernathy consulted the packet of papers in front of her. “Mr. . . . Wyndham.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” His palms were sweating. “Your Honor.”

  “And you’re the plaintiff?”

  “No, ma’am, er, Your Honor. That would be my father, Sanford Wyndham. He’s in the hospital. Still in intensive care.”

  The dragon lady’s nostrils flared. “I’m aware of that. I do read everything.”

  Then why ask if I’m the plaintiff? Fletcher wondered.

  “And your father is unrepresented by counsel?”

  “That’s correct, Your Honor. I have his power of attorney.”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that, also. Who prepared this petition?” She referred to the legal document in front of her.

  “I did, Your Honor.”

  “You’re . . . a student?”

  “No, Your Honor. Er, not anymore. I graduated last June.”

  “From?” The unibrow lifted slightly.

  “Switchback High School.”

  The brow lifted even higher. “And you are bringing suit against”—she consulted the notes in front of her—“the Acme Automotive Lift Company.”

  “That’s correct.”

  She interrogated him rapidly and thoroughly, her questions shooting at him like a barrage of machine-gun fire. He thought he did okay, because he was prepared. He had spent weeks reading and researching and studying, all the while waiting for the next round of bad news about his father.

  “This is a serious claim,” said Judge Abernathy. “If you sincerely want this to go forward, you’re going to need representation.”

  “That’s good advice,” he agreed. “But my dad and I can’t afford a lawyer.”

  She glared at him for so long he thought she was trying to bore a hole in him. Then she said, “Mr. Wyndham, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is, the jurisdiction is clear and you have yourself a cause of action.”

  Yes. Yes. Yes. He did an invisible fist pump of triumph. “Thank you, Your—”

  “I’m not finished,” she snapped. “Don’t you want to hear the bad news?”

  Not really, no.

  “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “It’s possible that there is something here, but you are completely unprepared for the work a situation like this entails. Is this a case of product liability? Defective manufacturing? Negligence? Personal injury? Is the defendant truly at fault, or is it a parts manufacturer?”

  Shit.

  “This is not the domain of an untrained layman. Therefore, even though I am going to allow the suit to go forward, I have a condition. You need to find yourself a lawyer.”

  “But I—”

  “Now, I can’t force you to do that, but if you don’t, this won’t go well for you. Mr. Wyndham, you don’t want to go it alone. Have you gone to the Legal Aid Society?”

  “I have. There’s a backlog. No one could say when they could get to me.” The Legal Aid office had been like a developing nation, crowded and chaotic. After Fletcher had waited four hours to speak to someone, an intern told him it could be months or even longer before he could get help. Priority was given to guys stuck in jail, not suits against a big company.

  The judge drew her lips into a prune shape. “Keep looking, then. And don’t go calling one of those late-night eight-hundred-number lawyers you see on TV. You’re obviously good at research. So do your research and find yourself a lawyer who’ll work on contingency.”

  Shit. Shit. Shit. He’d spent nearly every waking hour just trying to get this petition in front of her.

  “But—”

  The gavel slammed down, and the next case was called.

  Finding a lawyer was easier for the judge to say than for Fletcher to do. It seemed most attorneys had no interest in a penniless kid whose father had lost a leg. He felt like defying the judge and making his own case anyway, but he kept thinking about her tone of voice when she’d said, “You don’t want to go it alone.”

  But the more he read about the case, the more confusing it became. He knew he needed help, and he was sick of doors being slammed in his face. Following Abernathy’s advice, he made a list of lawyers who specialized in injury cases, and scheduled appointments with the top three. This resulted in three rejections. They either didn’t believe him, or didn’t think he was worth their time.

  Fletcher changed his strategy. He selected four graphic photos of the accident—a shot of the collapsed lift, a close-up of the “solid steel construction” decal peeled away to show a failed weld, one of Dad’s mangled leg, and another of the stump on the first day postop. He printed eleven-by-fourteen glossies of the shots in vivid color. Then he made another appointment, this time with a guy named Lance Haney, who had once won a settlement for an injured worker of a lumber company. Instead of bumbling through an explanation to the law firm’s receptionist or paralegal, he walked directly into Mr. Haney’s office and placed the photos on his desk.

  “I’m Fletcher Wyndham,” he said. “That’s what happened to my dad seven weeks ago. It happened because there are welds where the manufacturer claimed there was solid steel.” He set down a file with the other photos, the insurance report, the OSHA affidavit, and the safety inspector’s report. “I need to hire a lawyer who will work on contingency.”

  Lance Haney was bald on the top with a fringe of dark hair around the sides, like a monk. He wore a Mr. Rogers–style sweater over a plaid shirt, which made him look nothing like the crusading consumer advocate Fletcher was hoping for.

  Haney stared down at the pictures. Unlike the woman at the copy shop who had printed them out, he didn’t look as if he needed to hurl. His mild, moon-shaped face was expressionless. Then he stared up at Fletcher and said, “We’re going to kick somebody’s ass.”

  It sounded so weird coming out of Mr. Rogers that Fletcher almost laughed. Almost. He noticed a gleam in the lawyer’s eye. It was cold, like a shark’s.

  “That’s the plan,” Fletcher said. “I filed a petition but Judge Abernathy said I have to hire a lawyer.”

  “You’ve been to Abernathy?” He studied a document, sucking his lips together as if he tasted something sour.

  “There’s a copy of the petition in the file. You’ll work on contingency?”

  He leaned back in his chair. “I will. I don’t collect unless you collect.”

  “How much?”

  “A case like th
is takes a mountain of research, investigation, discovery. Hundreds of hours, and Acme is going to have an army of lawyers at their disposal.”

  “But you can win this case,” Fletcher said.

  “I can get you a fair settlement.”

  “On contingency.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “How much?” Fletcher asked again.

  “I’ll need fifty percent.”

  “Half?” Fletcher reached for the photos. “Sorry, but no.”

  Haney leaned forward and pressed his hand down on the prints. “I’m the best you’ll find in this area.”

  “Says who?”

  He handed him a brochure. “Client testimonials. Feel free to call any one of them for a reference.”

  “I will. Did they all give you half the settlement?”

  “Each case is different.”

  “So that’s a no. Here’s how mine is different. You get twenty percent, Dad gets eighty.”

  Haney pushed the photos and the file across the desk. “See you around, kid.”

  In a strange way, Fletcher found himself enjoying the conversation. Haney was being a dick, but he clearly wasn’t stupid. Fletcher gathered up the file and put it in his messenger bag. “Have a nice day,” he said.

  “Sixty-forty,” Haney offered.

  “Dude, it’s my dad. He’s only forty-seven. Sank his life savings into the garage and has a small-business loan besides. He’s got to live the rest of his life with one leg. Twenty-two.”

  “Thirty-five.”

  Fletcher’s research had suggested a range of 20 to 35 percent, so at least the guy was in the ballpark now. “What’s your plan?”

  “I won’t have one until I do more research. But my strategy in a case like this is usually to sue everybody. For everything.”

  Sue everybody. Fletcher liked the sound of that. “Twenty-five.” He fake-looked at his fake watch. “I have to get to my next appointment.”

  “Twenty-eight and you’ve got a deal,” Haney conceded. “Leave the files and come back tomorrow at nine.”

  Fletcher walked out onto the street into a flurry of snow. How had it turned into November already? Where had the time gone? He should be feeling a sense of relief now that the case was in the hands of a lawyer. Instead, he was consumed. He woke up each morning thinking about the case and went to bed each night still thinking about it. In between, he kept the garage going . . . and he thought about the lawsuit.