Brice waved a hand. “All right, let’s all just cool down now. Ms. Howington, I’m sorry you think you weren’t properly represented. You’re of course free to retain any attorney you like. And as you know, our fee structure was explained to you from the outset. You signed a document to that effect.”
Yvonne grabbed her pocketbook and backpack. “Bunch of crooks,” she muttered. She put her hand on the little girl’s shoulder. “Come on, child.” She yanked the door open and led the girl outside.
Wendy watched the two depart, a sour expression on her face. “I told Drue to get rid of her an hour ago. Next time she shows up, I’m calling the police.”
Brice placed an arm around his wife’s shoulder. “She’s upset. Just let it go.”
“Easy for you to say. She didn’t call you a heartless bitch,” Wendy retorted. “When the final papers for her settlement arrive, I’m having it messengered over to her house. I don’t want potential clients to be subjected to her harangues.”
“Good idea,” he agreed. He looked over at Drue. “You’ve been promoted to receptionist?”
Through the reception room window Drue watched as Yvonne Howington loaded Aliyah into the back of an ancient rust-bucket Plymouth that was parked at the curb. The car’s engine belched and backfired. Plumes of black smoke streamed from the tailpipe as she backed out of the parking space. The little girl was turned around in her seat, gazing toward the law office.
“I feel terrible for that lady,” Drue murmured. She turned to Brice. “That doesn’t seem fair. The girl was murdered on their property, and the hotel only pays one hundred and fifty thousand?”
“Blame the insurance lobby,” Brice said mildly. “They’re the ones that convinced the state legislature to cap worker’s comp benefits.”
“You have no idea how complicated these cases are, or how hard it is to prove wrongful death,” Wendy said, her voice terse. “This firm wasted tens of thousands of dollars investigating that woman’s claim. What we’ll recover is a pittance of what we spent. You can go on back to the bullpen now, Drue. I’ll cover the phones for the rest of the day.”
Drue walked over to the seating area and picked up the abandoned art supplies. She scooped up the markers and looked down at the top piece of paper. The little girl had drawn an undersea tableau featuring a mermaid with long, flowing yellow highlighter hair, a grinning crab and a jolly yellow flounder. On the bottom, she’d signed her name in the tiniest letters possible. Aliyah.
When she got back to her cubicle, Drue pinned the drawing to the wall above her computer screen.
11
“Okay, team, listen up.” Wendy stood at the head of the long table in the law firm’s windowless conference room. She wore a sleeveless, form-fitting white dress and sling-back nude stilettos that, Drue thought, must be excruciatingly uncomfortable.
“Today is day one of our new elder abuse ad campaign. Last night, during Wheel of Fortune, we started airing the new commercials. Those will be on heavy rotation for the next six weeks. We’ll supplement with radio commercials, and of course, print and social media, with a heavy emphasis on Facebook advertising. We’ve also bought three billboards, one over near the Bay Pines VA hospital, the other on I-75, north of the first Tampa exit, and the third on U.S. 19 in Clearwater.
“Last night’s shift experienced a huge volume of calls spurred by the new campaign, and I’m expecting the same today,” Wendy went on. “We know from our market research in Arizona, California and, of course, Florida that juries are more and more willing to award huge settlements for these nursing home cases, which also means insurance companies are being pressured to settle quickly, and out of court. So I’m giving all of you a new case quota. We want to see three confirmed ‘viable’ cases from every member of the team this week. And for every prospective client who does go ahead and sign with us, that team member will be entered into a drawing for a one-hundred-dollar Visa gift card!”
“Awesome!” exclaimed Ben, who was, as usual, sitting beside Drue.
“Okay, then,” Wendy made a sweeping motion, “everybody get out there now. I want to hear those Justice Line phones ring!”
* * *
“Good morning.” Her first caller, Drue thought, sounded surprisingly articulate. “I believe I might have an excellent case against the assisted living facility where my mother has been living for the past two years.”
Drue went down the questionnaire, filling in the potential client’s information, her excitement mounting. She had a referral!
“It’s probably financial abuse more than anything,” the woman said. “You see, my late father was meticulous in his financial planning. Mother has a set amount of money in her bank account, and up until now that’s been more than sufficient. But lately, we’ve noticed that her spending habits have gone through the roof. It’s only May, and she’s already run through all her money for the year.”
“Okay,” Drue said. “Do you believe she’s being coerced, or somehow blackmailed by one of the employees? Is it embezzlement? Or possibly identity fraud?”
“Nothing like that,” the woman said. “It’s the damned Home Shopping Network. I’ve asked, I’ve put it in writing, I’ve even gone to the director of the home himself, but they refuse to do anything about it.”
“About what?”
“The Home Shopping Network! I want it blocked. Or disabled. Or something. Her entire suite is full of Capodimonte porcelain shepherdesses and sets of nonstick copper cookware. Cookware! She didn’t cook when she had a kitchen. And don’t get me started on the electronic toothbrushes that arrive every month like clockwork. Mother wears dentures! Now they’re shipping the stuff to my house. My garage is full of this crap. It has to stop!”
Drue looked at the other cube rats, all of them busily typing away.
“I guess I don’t understand how that constitutes abuse. Or neglect,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Maybe you could just have a talk with your mom? Explain that her spending has gotten out of hand? Take away her credit card? Or, I don’t know, remove the television?”
“I took Mother’s credit card away and she called her attorney and directed him to have me written out of her will,” the caller said. “And did you just say take her television away? You have no idea what you’re suggesting,” the woman said. “That television is her best friend. Her only friend. I just want them to block the damned HSN.”
Drue took a deep breath. “All right. Well, I’ve got your information, and I’ll, uh, forward that to the appropriate associates.”
She disconnected, switched her phone to Off and headed for the break room.
* * *
Jonah was standing with his back to the counter, sipping from his mug of coffee. He spotted her before she could slink silently away. They were the only ones in the room.
“How’s it going?” he asked. “Sign up any cases yet?”
“Not really. You?”
“I’ve got one really solid prospect. The caller claims his grandfather’s nursing home was negligent because they allowed the old guy to have unsupervised visits with his wife,” Jonah said.
“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but how is that negligent?”
Jonah sniggered. “It turns out the granddad is quite wealthy, eighty-two and frail, and the wife, it turns out, isn’t legally his wife at all, but a twenty-eight-year-old ‘masseuse’ whose brother is a maintenance worker at the home. Seems the maintenance worker struck up a friendship with the patient, who expressed his, ah, longing for female companionship. Apparently some money changed hands and a date was arranged.”
“I’m guessing the date did not include scripture readings?” Drue asked.
“You are correct,” Jonah said. “And to make sure the patient and his bogus wife were afforded privacy, the maintenance worker stood guard outside the room. Eventually things got a little rowdy, and the patient actually fell out of bed and fractured his hip.”
“You’re making that up,” Drue said, struggling to mai
ntain a straight face.
“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” he pledged. “Got to love an octogenarian horndog, right?”
Drue went to the refrigerator, got a bottle of water, uncapped it and took a swig.
“That’s a good case, right?” she asked.
“It’s a no-brainer. The maintenance worker has a criminal record, which the nursing home should have known about, the masseuse works for an escort service, and, get this, now Granddaddy has an STD. Brice is absolutely gonna love it.”
“All I’ve got is a woman who wants us to sue the nursing home because they won’t cut off her mom’s access to Home Shopping Network,” Drue said glumly.
“Weak sauce,” he said, sounding sympathetic.
Drue was trying hard to cling to her childish and unreasonable loathing for Jonah, but the fact that he was so annoyingly funny made it hard for her to maintain her grudge.
Over coffee earlier in the week, Ben had confided that Jonah had interned summers during law school at Campbell, Coxe and Kramner and was still at the firm because he’d failed his first try at the Florida bar exam. Jonah, she realized, had institutional memory.
“Hey,” she said, trying to sound casual. “You know anything about the Jazmin Mayes case?”
He ripped open two sugar packets and dumped the contents into his mug. “That’s the girl whose body was found stuffed into a dryer at the hotel on Sunset Beach? Like, two years ago?”
“It was actually a laundry cart, but yeah.”
“I know Brice thought it was a slam dunk for criminal negligence and/or wrongful death. Why do you ask?”
“Her mom, Yvonne Howington, came into the office this week. She was raising hell, because we settled it as a worker’s comp case. She as much as accused my dad of taking a payoff from the hotel’s insurance company.”
Jonah snorted. “That’s how it is with some of these clients. They don’t want to hear the bad news, so they blame it on the messenger. Assume the worst, accuse the firm of bribery, bad faith, the works.”
“But this girl was murdered. Strangled to death. It’s so horrible. I can’t believe the best we could do was get a worker’s comp settlement,” Drue said.
“Why do you care?” He sipped his coffee.
“Because,” she said, sputtering. “It’s not right. Jazmin Mayes left behind a six-year-old daughter with serious medical issues. So now the grandmother’s a single mom, dealing with that stuff. And we settle it for chump change?”
“You’re right, it sucks, but it’s the law.”
“I don’t care what you say. Something’s seriously wrong if that’s the best Brice could do. The grandmother swears her daughter was being harassed at work, and that she was not on the clock that night. She never worked past eleven.”
“Don’t know what to tell you,” Jonah said. “I’m sure Jimmy Zee looked at it from every angle. The guy’s slick.”
“And a little girl lost her mom,” Drue said. “I just lost my mom too. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive about this stuff right now.”
Jonah nodded. “I gotta get back to my cube. Gotta make my granny quota. One down, two to go.”
“One down, two to go,” Drue mimicked. She needed to get back to her own cube, but her heart wasn’t in it. She kept thinking about that Aliyah with her shy smile and her Band-Aid-rigged eyeglasses. Who was working the Justice Line for her?
12
Drue’s phone lit up and she eagerly stabbed at the button on her console. It was Friday and she still hadn’t booked a single nursing home case referral. In fact, she hadn’t had anything close to a solid case lead in the two weeks since she’d started work.
“You’ve reached the Justice Line at Campbell, Cox and Kramner. This is Drue speaking.”
The caller was a youngish-sounding woman. “Hi. I wanna talk to somebody about how I fell in the 7-Eleven and broke my tailbone, and I got doctor bills and so I went over there to tell them they needed to give me some financial help, and the store manager called the cops on me.”
“Okay,” Drue said slowly, wishing she’d let the call roll over to the off-site phone center.
“First, what’s your name?”
The woman on the other end of the line paused. “Why do you need my name?”
Drue inhaled and exhaled. “If you’re going to be a client of the law firm, and we file legal action on your behalf, we need your name. And your address, and all your other personal information.”
“Oh. I got ya. Sure. It’s Vyckylynn. With y’s instead of i’s.”
“I’ve never seen a name spelled like that,” Drue said as she typed.
“Yeah. My mom always liked to be unique. You want my real last name?”
“That’d be best,” Drue said.
“Okay. It’s Young. Spelled the usual way.”
“Okay, Vyckylynn. Why don’t you tell me about your accident?”
“I already told you. I was at the 7-Eleven in Pinellas Park, well, me and my boyfriend were there, and he’d already left, and I was about to leave, and I slipped and fell, like, really hard on my ass. I, like, passed out. And when I came to, they were putting me in the ambulance. They took a bunch of X-rays and did some tests, and finally just said I broke my tailbone, which I coulda told them my ownself. I was bruised all up and down. Had some cuts, too, from all the broken glass. My boyfriend took a bunch of pictures on his phone. I can send ’em to you.”
“Maybe later,” Drue said. “Let’s go back to the part about the broken glass. How did that happen?”
“He dropped the bottle of Smirnoff Ice, when the lady at the counter started chasing him, and it busted all over the floor, and that’s when I slipped and hurt myself.”
“Who’s ‘he’?”
“My boyfriend. Glenn. I already told you that part.”
Drue was having a bad feeling about this call.
“Why was the clerk chasing your boyfriend?”
“I don’t know. I guess she thought he was trying to steal something.”
“Was he? Trying to steal the Smirnoff Ice?”
“Why are you asking me all these questions? I seen a billboard, right across the street from that 7-Eleven, it said, ‘Slip and Fall? Give Brice a Call,’ so that’s what I’m doing.”
Drue felt a tap on her shoulder. She looked up. Ben and Jonah were standing by her cubicle. “It’s quitting time,” Ben said. “We’re headed over to the Chattaway. Wanna come?”
“Hello?” Vyckylynn said. “Are you even listening to me?”
“I am,” Drue assured her. “But one of my colleagues has an important matter to discuss. Can you hold for a moment?”
She took off her headset and rotated her shoulders. “Sorry. I need to finish this call. You guys go on without me.”
Ben’s face fell. “We can wait a few minutes.” He looked over at Jonah. “Right?”
Jonah shrugged. “Why not. Is the call legit?”
She rolled her eyes. “Her boyfriend got caught trying to shoplift a bottle of Smirnoff Ice at a convenience store, and he dropped it when the clerk chased him, at which point she slipped and fell and broke her tailbone.”
Ben snickered. “Go ahead and disconnect. This one’s bogus.”
But Jonah leaned over the cubicle to read what she’d typed on the intake form. “Hang on. A slip-and-fall at a franchised store could be golden. They all carry major liability insurance.”
Jonah looked at Drue. “You need any coaching? I can walk you through it.”
“I think I can handle this,” Drue said.
“Suit yourself,” Jonah said. “If you get done anytime soon, you know where we’ll be.”
He started to walk away, then came back. “Okay, I know you don’t want to hear it, but ask her if either she or the boyfriend were in any way detained or arrested. Find out if the store filed charges against them. If they didn’t, you’re golden.”
“I got this,” Drue said, turning back to her phone.
“Hi. Vyckylynn? Are you still there
?”
“I got no place else to go,” the caller said, smacking her gum loudly.
“Were the police called? Were either of you arrested and charged?”
Click. Her caller had disconnected.
* * *
The office was deserted. She’d watched while the rest of the staff drifted out of the building, headed off for their weekend plans. Her own weekend plans consisted of ordering takeout pizza and using her first paycheck to start painting the cottage.
Somewhere outside, a car backfired and an image flashed in her mind: of Yvonne Howington, and her Plymouth, and the face of Aliyah, as she peeked from the backseat of her grandmother’s rusted car. It had been a busy week, but every time she’d looked up she’d seen the child’s mermaid drawing pinned to her cubicle wall, and she thought about Aliyah’s mother, Jazmin.
Drue logged back on to her computer and toggled around the firm’s database, looking for the Jazmin Mayes file. She pulled up the file and looked guiltily around the empty room.
Wendy had left shortly after five, and she hadn’t seen Brice at all that day, which wasn’t an unusual occurrence.
Drue had signed a nondisclosure agreement her first day of work, and she’d had the words “client confidentiality” drilled into her brain every day since. As far as she knew, there wasn’t an official policy forbidding her from removing files from the office, but she could assume such an action wouldn’t meet Wendy’s approval.
She pushed the Print button and stood nervously over the printer, snatching up each page as it slid onto the paper tray and shoving it into her backpack.
While she waited for the documents, she thought again of all the unanswered questions surrounding Jazmin Mayes’s murder. Why had she agreed to work a later shift, knowing she needed to get home in time for her mother to leave for her own job? Who was the supervisor whom Jazmin told Yvonne was sexually harassing her? Had she reported the harassment to management? And if so, what, if anything, had been done?
The printer clicked off and Drue leafed through the stack of sheets she’d accumulated. Less than three dozen pages? Was that all the life of a twenty-four-year-old mother amounted to?
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