Sideswiped: Book One in the Matt Blake legal thriller series

by Russell Moran

  “Hello, Mr. Blake, do you mind if I call you Matt? Please call me Diana.” She had a soft voice, but not without volume, sort of like a singer between acts. Her voice was much softer than the one she projected in the lecture hall.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” she said. “Aren’t you the guy with the beard at my lecture yesterday?”

  Caught in the act.

  “I know you were aware that I might be there, what with all the paperwork. I just didn’t want to put pressure on you, knowing that your lawyer was in the room. How did you know it was me?”

  She reached over and brushed a low hanging clump of hair from my forehead, flashing a dazzling smile as she did that.

  As any litigator is trained to do, I was sizing up Diana’s qualities as a witness on the stand. She’ll be great, I thought. Poise, good looks, and a strength of character that seemed to radiate. She’ll have a jury in the palm of her hand. I also felt like she had me in the palm of her hand. She was beautiful, simple as that. Okay, you’re here to get some work done, I reminded myself. Now where was I?

  I don’t like to have a desk between me and a client. It creates a barrier, the last thing I want when I’m trying to read someone. We sat at a small conference table in the corner of my office. What is that perfume? I thought. It’s not Chanel, but it was somehow enchanting.

  “So, Matt, you’re the famous war hero I’ve heard so much about. I guess Woody told you that I observed you try a case a while back. I was very impressed. Tell me some more about yourself.”

  As she said that she never took her eyes off of mine. I always appreciate it when an interviewee can look you in the eye. It says a lot about someone. But when people look me in the eye, it usually doesn’t make me perspire, which is what I was doing.

  As an attorney, I like to be in charge of a conversation, especially when that conversation is also an interview. It puts me in control, where I have to be. It enables me to call the shots and to guide the discussion.

  But I wasn’t even fucking close to being in charge of this interview.

  “Okay, Diana, I’ll be happy to tell you about myself. Usually I ask the questions, but it’s important that you should know and trust the guy who will represent you, so just fire away.”

  “Matt, tell me about Maggie.”

  I had a fleeting image in my mind of me lying on the floor while an EMT tried to resuscitate me.

  “Why would you want to know about Maggie?”

  “Because you and I have one big thing in common, Matt. We were both robbed of our loved ones by some asshole on a cell phone. I’ll soon be telling you everything about Jim, but I just want to know about Maggie, the lover you lost.”

  “It happened over two and a half years ago. She was a beautiful woman, and I fell deeply in love with her. I didn’t know what hit me. Our personalities sort of, I don’t know, just kind of meshed. I hated to be out of her sight. And then one day, as you know, she was gone.”

  Diana got up from her seat and walked over to a bookshelf and picked up a picture frame.

  “Is this a photo of Maggie?”

  “Yes, a week before she was killed.”

  “She was beautiful. She is beautiful, in your memory. You must miss her.”

  “She’s my guardian angel. She’s still around when I need her.”

  Diana started to cry. “Matt, that’s so beautiful. Your guardian angel. I love that.”

  Of course I didn’t tell her that it was a mental image I learned in rehab trying to shake a heroin addiction.

  After attending her lecture yesterday, I expected a dose of “I am woman, hear me roar.” But no. The woman I spoke to, while self-assured, didn’t project any feminist bullshit, just a pleasing, confident femininity. Her commanding authority showed up in class, but her warmth glowed in close quarters.

  She came back to the table and continued to look me in the eyes.

  “So why don’t you tell me about you and Jim,” I said, as I wiped some sweat off my forehead.

  “Well, like your relationship with Maggie, Jim and I were very close. We had only been married for two years when he was killed. I still miss him. Maybe he’ll be my guardian angel, just like Maggie is for you.”

  A tear rolled down my face. I could not fucking believe that I was actually crying. I don’t think I learned that in law school. What is it about this woman? I thought.

  “I’m sorry, Diana, I guess you and I are still emotional over events we couldn’t control. You’re right. You and I share something.”

  “No apologies, Matt. I think it’s important for a man to be in touch with his emotions, especially when he’s an attorney. I think it’s adorable.”

  Holy shit, she thinks my crying is adorable. Whatever control I tried to have in the conversation was quickly slipping away. There was something about this woman that was hitting me—hard.

  She reached across the table again and flicked the clump of hair that hung down over my forehead.

  “I really have to snip that off,” I said. “It’s like an inverted cowlick.”

  “No, no, no. Don’t clip it off. It’s so cute,” she said, as she reached over to flip it again.

  Cute? She thinks my hair flop is cute?

  “Barbara, please bring us another pitcher of ice water,” I said over the intercom.

  “Dianne...”

  “Diana.”

  “Yes, of course, Diana. I’d like to review the outlines of how this case looks. We’ll get into more detail on the damages aspect of your case, but for now I’ll just tell you that the potential damages are enormous. I’m not supposed to say that, because lawyers shouldn’t raise a client’s expectations.”

  “Why shouldn’t a lawyer raise expectations?”

  “Because if the lawyer screws up, the client can’t say, ‘But you said so and so.’ It’s one of the many ways that lawyers use to cover their asses.”

  “You’re refreshingly honest, Matt.”

  And your perfume is driving me insane, I thought.

  “Diana, you’re an intelligent woman (not to mention gorgeous) so I’ll be straight with you. This case has an enormous potential. Jim earned a handsome income as a political journalist. He averaged over $200,000 a year for the five years before his death. He was only 30 when he died, so projecting his income loss into the future gets us into the multiple millions. Also, and this may be tough for you to think about, Jim went through some nasty suffering before he died. We have three witnesses who have given statements that they heard him groan and at least one witness who heard him scream in pain. His suffering lasted for as long as 45 minutes.”

  At that point, Diana began to cry.

  “I won’t go into any more of that, Diana. I’m just letting you know what the case looks like.”

  ***

  “I have to talk about a strange part of this case, Diana. The liability.”

  “But Matt, I thought liability was almost black and white. Woody told me that he has eyewitnesses who saw Morgan on his cell phone, and he even admitted it in the police report.”

  “Yes, from a point of view of negligence, the case looks open and shut. That’s why they already offered $8 million, as you know.”

  “Matt, do you think I should just take it? Your father advised against it because it’s still early in the case, but I don’t want this thing to drag on forever. As you already know, I’m in pretty good shape financially. I have an excellent salary at Northwestern, I earn a lot from my writing, and Jim had a good amount of life insurance. But I just want to see justice done. Isn’t that the bullshit thing to say that makes the whole personal injury business run?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So what do you think? Should I take the $8 mil and be done with it?”

  “Well, let’s see what you think after I tell you a few things about my recent meeting with Woody. To get right to the point, Diana, Woody has a theory that this may not be a case of negligence at all.”

  “Are you saying that it may have been inte
ntional?”

  “There are only three ways that a car crash can happen. One is pure accident, such as a person’s car slipping on black ice and going out of control. Another is negligence, where somebody does something careless. The third possibility is an intentional act.”

  “Matt, are you telling me that Jim may have been murdered?”

  Now it was Diana’s turn to perspire. I handed her a glass of water.

  “Here’s what we’ve got, hon.” (Hon? Hon? What the fuck am I saying? This woman is a client.) I poured myself some ice water.

  I sneezed, and then I sneezed again. I get sneezing fits every now and then, for no apparent reason.

  After 10 sneezes, I blew my nose and continued.

  “I hope you’re not allergic to your new client, counsellor.”

  “It happens when I least expect it. No, I’m not allergic to you.” (or to your wonderful perfume).

  I reviewed our physical analysis of the impact, how defendant first swerved to the left, and quickly to the right, colliding with Jim Spellman’s car. I discussed Morgan’s making it obvious that he was holding a cell phone, and that he even had his window rolled down in a sub-freezing temperature, almost as if he wanted people to see him.

  “And here’s the most interesting part, Diana. Harold Morgan was once a famous Hollywood stunt car driver, one of the best, if not the best. And, even though he was just a salesman for Gulf Oil, his pickup truck was over-fortified with a steel cage to protect the occupant, much like a stunt car. No direct evidence yet, but enough to grab our attention.”

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Jim may have been murdered.”

  “Diana, at this point it’s only a hunch, a hunch based on Woody Donovan’s findings. Now I’m going to ask you to wrack your brain. I need you to think of anybody or any group who may have wanted Jim out of the picture. Anything at all out of the ordinary. You’re going to sit down with Woody and myself in a few days and we’re going to have a brainstorming session. You’ll also meet with a guy named Dr. Benjamin Weinberg, a psychiatrist and detective on contract with the NYPD and FBI. Now, before we break for the day, I want you to tell me anything that you can think of that may be of some help.”

  “Holy shit,” said Diana. “I just thought of something. I can’t believe I didn’t tell Woody Donovan about this. About a month after Jim died our apartment was burglarized. Not much was taken except for one big thing, the hard drive from Jim’s computer in the den.”

  “Did you have a backup?” I said.

  “Yes, both Jim and I were fanatical about computer backups. We use an online system to back up to the cloud, and I also have everything on a flash drive that I’d slip into my purse every morning.”

  “She reached into her purse and withdrew a flash drive.

  “This contains everything.”

  “Yes, but somebody else has everything as well.”

  “Hey, Diana, I’ve put you through a lot today. You look tired (as well as beautiful). We’ll continue this with Woody and Bennie in a couple of days. Now I want you to know something. If you ever have any question at all or if you want to see me, just call. We’re not the kind of firm that will pass you off to a paralegal. If you want to see me personally, just call.”

  As we shook hands, she reached up and flipped my hanging hair off my forehead.

  “Do not, counselor, under any circumstances, cut that off.”

  “I promise.”

  I wanted to flip her hair as she did with mine, but she had no hair draping over her forehead. I just wanted to reach over and stroke her hair, but, of course, I didn’t.

  What the hell was going on?

  Chapter 27

  “Matt, Diana Spellman just called. She wants to see you, this afternoon if possible.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I just saw her two days ago. Maybe she’s got some new evidence to tell me about. Ask her to be here at 3 p.m.”

  The day was warm, in the mid-80s, and Diana wore a sun dress and sandals. The dress was modest, not low cut, but low enough to suggest a lovely cleavage. Her suntanned legs stood out against the pale green dress. I downed a glass of ice water.

  Diana walked up to me and we shook hands. She also kissed me. I’ve noticed that over the past few years it’s become common for a woman to kiss a man who’s a casual acquaintance. Modern times, I guess. After she kissed me on the cheek, she held her face against mine for two, maybe three seconds, longer than I would have expected, and long enough for me to feel her warmth—and long enough to scramble my brain. She also reached up and brushed my hanging hair clump. I love modern times.

  “Good to see you again, Diana. Barbara said you wanted to see me.”

  “Barbara was right.”

  “Well?”

  “Well, what?”

  “Well, what did you want to see me about?”

  “You said that if I wanted to see you all I had to do was call. So I wanted to see you. Here I am.”

  “So, nothing in particular?”

  “Nope. We’re going to go into details with Woody and that guy Bennie in a couple of days. I just wanted to see you.”

  I’ve been through combat and was almost killed. I’ve been through love and loss. I’d become a heroin addict and kicked it. But this was something new and I wasn’t sure how to feel, so I just let my emotions follow themselves. I felt wonderful.

  “While I’m here, I do have a legal question.”

  Shit, I thought. I was just getting to like the idea that she came to see me for no reason.

  “I’ll try my best to answer it, Diana.”

  “Is it against the legal rules of ethics for an attorney and a client to, well, you know, like pal around?”

  “Well, I guess you mean, like uh, sort of a...”

  “Yeah, like a boy and girl sort of friendship.”

  “It’d strictly forbidden in a divorce case, naturally. But in other matters, it’s what’s called an ‘ethical consideration.’ The thinking behind the consideration is that the attorney can exert undue influence over a client, in other words, too much control.”

  “Do you think you can control me?” she said with a laugh.

  “You know what I think, Diana?”

  “Tell me, handsome.”

  “I think our next meeting should be in a nice restaurant.”

  “Are you asking me out on a date, counselor?”

  “Let’s just call it a scheduled appointment at an out-of-office venue. How about Saturday night?”

  “That would be great. Hey, I have to run. I have class in half an hour. And remember not to do anything with this,” she said as she flipped the hair on my forehead.

  Another conversation with Diana Spellman over which I lost control. I was getting to like it.

  Chapter 28

  Ben and Woody came to my office to prepare for a big week of depositions.

  “We start this afternoon at 2 p.m. with Roger McDougald, one of the eyewitnesses, I said. “From the guy’s statement, he gives us liability, which is the crazy thing about this goddam case. This guy will testify that he saw Morgan on the phone. A lot of people seem to be invested in that story. What is your impression of the guy, Woody?”

  “He’s full of shit. I can’t wait for Bennie to see him in action.”

  “Why do you think the guy is full of it?” asked Bennie.

  “Well, check this out,” said Woody, looking at his notes. “He says things like ‘dad gum.’ I mean who, besides cartoon characters, says ‘dad gum’? And at one point during my interview he even said ‘tarnation.’ Who the fuck is this guy, a Disney character?”

  “Well maybe he’s a folksy mountain guy and likes to sprinkle his talk with hillbilly phrases,” I said.

  “Matt, the man was born and raised in Evanston. I’m telling you, he’s full of shit.”

  ***

  A deposition is part of the process known as discovery. A deposition, or dep, is usually conducted in the office of one of the attorneys, but it can take
place in court. A witness is sworn to tell the truth under penalty of perjury, just as he would be at trial. The witness is questioned by the attorneys present. A written transcript is prepared and filed in court as part of the record of the case. Before it’s filed, the transcript is given to the witness for review. If a witness realizes he said something wrong, he can correct it. The correction gets attached to the transcript and also becomes part of the record. A deposition can be critical in a case. If the witness says something in court that contradicts his deposition, it can make or break a lawsuit.

  ***

  “Mr. McDougald and Mr. Mason are here, Matt,” said Barbara over the intercom. “I’ll show them to the conference room. The court reporter is already there.”

  Phil Mason is an attorney with the firm of Bigelow & Cole, one of the more prominent law firms in Chicago, and a firm that you would expect to see represent a client like Gulf Oil. Bigelow & Cole is what is known as a “white shoe” firm, a wealthy upper crust outfit that handles large clients. Firms like Bigelow seldom get into the personal injury gutter, and when they do, they usually get roughed up. As Bill Randolph likes to say, “We eat these people for lunch.”

  We exchanged pleasantries, and, after his oath was taken by the court reporter, I began to question the witness, Mr. McDougald.

  “Please state your name for the record.”

  He answered me like a high school kid auditioning for a play. Woody was right. The man sounded like a character from the old TV show, The Beverly Hillbillies. I then asked Mr. McDougald basic information such as his address. I also asked him where he was born and raised. I couldn’t get over such an accent from a resident of Evanston, a suburb just north of Chicago.

  “Objection, irrelevant,” said Phil the attorney. That was such a stupid and erroneous objection, I was almost speechless.