The Law Partners (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by John Ellsworth

  "Here's an order requiring immediate transport of Michael Gresham to UC Neuro-ICU. Please deliver this to the sheriff."

  The receptionist, a sleepy-eyed gal dressed like Betty Boop, lip-read the TRO.

  "You don't need to read it," I implored her. "Just hand it to the sheriff."

  "Honey," she said with a surprising drawl--Illinois is Yankee land--"I need to see if that's the appropriate thing to do, first. Please try to cool your jets."

  "Jets-Schmets," I said. "This is a federal court order. Do I need to get Judge Maxwell on the phone to talk to you? If I do, it won't be pleasant. And if I do, I'll be adding your name to the lawsuit."

  She immediately stood up and disappeared down a brightly-lit hallway. We could watch her only so far, but she entered the door at the far end without knocking. No more than five minutes later, she returned.

  "Well?" I asked her.

  She said with just the hint of a huff, "The sheriff will have your client over to UC-Neuro by five p.m. Is that soon enough, Ms. Sturgis?"

  "You really want to piss me off, lady?" I shot back. "Because you're about to get that done. In fact, why don't you just give me your name? If he's not there by five, I'm amending the lawsuit and adding you in."

  She swallowed hard and pushed back from her desk.

  But she gave me her name. I even made her spell it twice.

  "J-O-N-E-S," she said, flustered and toned way down. "My name is Jones."

  By five o'clock we were sitting at the University of Chicago's Neuro-ICU glassed-in room where they'd placed Michael. He wasn't even cuffed at this point.

  First there was a battery of CT scans and other machines, which took a good hour. Then they brought him back. He was more awake and said he was relieved we had him moved to UC. The University of Chicago's Neurosciences Intensive Care Program is world-class and is known throughout Chicago as the place you want to be. UC is staffed 24/7 by neurointensivists and that makes it the only facility of its kind in the area. We brought my brother here when he fell from the second floor of a building under construction. He survived and is back on the job today, thanks to UC-Neuro. So I felt like I’d made a good start toward representing Michael and it was a day well-spent so far.

  Michael's eyes shut when he realized he was safe, and he didn't wake up again until just after seven. Danny and I were waiting, talking quietly, laying plans for his defense and the pursuit of the Civil Rights case against the CPD. Michael was in terrible pain the moment his eyes opened and continued that way until the morphine load took him away again. That was close to seven-thirty. Danny and I then took turns going downstairs to the cafeteria and grabbing a bite. At nine o'clock I left for the day; Danny was committed to staying all night, as the hospital had provided a rollaway, a blessing given her pregnancy discomfiture. Their daughter Dania was spending the night with her nanny.

  At 2:25 a.m., in the middle of that first night, Danny called me in a panic. It was time for his twelve-hour neuro exam and they couldn't get Michael to awaken. They had tried all the usual tricks with him and, while his eyes moved around, the lids wouldn't open. His doctor was called and it was decided to let him sleep through the night and try it again in the morning. Danny, however, was beside herself, crying and reaching out for support. I couldn't stand that she was alone, although she said Michael's investigator Marcel had arrived and stayed after work. But I felt like Danny and I had connected woman-to-woman and I knew deep down that she needed me. So, up I jumped, dressed, grabbed a protein shake, and left for the hospital. Despite it being three a.m., traffic was still a tear. Somewhere along the way I decided it was time to hire a driver. I called Angelina and left her a message, tasking her with locating a full-time driver. Chicago law was stressful enough and my work load had almost doubled in the last three months, so it was time.

  Michael's initial appearance had been scheduled for the morning but now that was impossible so I told Angelina she would need to notify the court about Michael's condition.

  Then I lit up a Tareyton, opened the sun roof, and let my bleached locks blow in the night air. I needed space to think about Michael's case. The indictment that had been served on him was still in my briefcase, riding in the backseat of my Jag. I hadn't even had time to get up to date on the charges against him, so I decided I would use the long early-morning ahead to get into it.

  On the way, I found a Jungle Joe's all night coffee shop and hit the drive-through. Danny would at least have the macchiato she requested when I checked with her. That would be a good start, the kind of thing friends do for each other. Which we had become, friends.

  Back at the hospital, we had our hugs, got her relaxed in her bed after a few sips of her drink, and I took the recliner. It would be me staying awake to watch over Michael. It would be me reading the indictment, too, and getting up to speed with it. I had Westlaw and Lexis-Nexis on my laptop and that made legal research two clicks away.

  The next time Michael and I discussed his case, I would be ready.

  22

  Hospitals, in case you've never gotten to stay overnight in one, are desperately noisy and interruptive places. As a patient you may get some shuteye but that won't be because of your normal sleep patterns; it will be because some medication has rendered you unconscious. And so it was with Michael. At four a.m., the nurse came in and did vitals. She talked out loud to me like it was noon the entire time. Michael soon opened his one operating eye and peered around.

  "Where am I?" he asked.

  "UC Neuro-ICU," I told him.

  "What?" Danny said, coming awake.

  "Go back to sleep, both of you," I said. "It's Harley, Michael, and I'm sitting in the visitors' chair in your ICU station. You were sleeping until this lady--" she was still poking and prodding--"came in to take your temperature and see if your heart's still beating."

  The nurse shot me a glowering look. "Smart tonight, aren't we?"

  "Why do you people act like it's broad daylight and everyone else should be awake just because you have to be?"

  "Comes with the territory," she said. "It's routine."

  "Well, please pipe down and let my client sleep, okay?" I said.

  "Client? You his insurance agent?"

  "Cute," I said. "I'm his lawyer and I'm just pissed enough to add someone to the lawsuit I filed on his behalf today. Care to give me your name?"

  She stood fully upright and shook her head. "I'm only doing my job," she allowed.

  "I could say the same thing," I said. "I'm trying to see my client get the help he needs, including mine if that's what it takes for him to try and sleep. So let's all pipe down and let our patient get some shuteye, what do you say?"

  "I'm sorry," she said. "We are pretty thoughtless on graveyard."

  "And call it something besides graveyard. That's very morbid, all things considered."

  Which went right over her head. She finished and moved away to the next bed, where yet another patient's family member--presumably--was on night watch. She smiled at me across the dim light and nodded. She gave me a thumbs-up and we connected. The thing about being quiet went for her too, her movements said.

  And I then got back into Michael's indictment.

  Here's how it stacked up, none of which was easy.

  First, they had charged him with being an accessory to the crime of murder. The allegations said he hadn't been at the scene when the shooting occurred but that he had arrived after and had helped to cover up evidence.

  Keep in mind that these allegations are pled in the alternative, meaning that the DA can say one thing in the first count against Michael and then say the opposite thing, or something quite different, in the second count, and so on. I only mention this because several counts down the page the DA alleged that Michael had not only been present when the trigger was pulled but that he had actually been the gunman who pulled that trigger.

  This pleading in the alternative had been used in no less than nine different felony charges against Michael Gresham, defendant. />
  Having read through the indictment, I then began collecting up the cases using online legal research. I wanted to have a compendium of law and evidentiary rules ready for Michael for when he was able to talk again.

  Which was when two detectives unexpectedly showed up. It was just eight a.m. and I was sitting at Michael's bedside, nursing a fresh cup of coffee from the thermos of the good stuff that Danny brought from Starbucks when they opened. I planned on staying around the hospital until noon when I would go back to my office and check in. My cases for that day were being attended by my staff attorneys--I had a staff of three attorneys--so my time out of the office was covered around the courthouses in Chicago.

  The first detective through the door was Jamison Weldon. He was wearing a light gray suit and white shirt with a narrow black necktie, Florsheim's scuffed all around, and Ray-Bans. A toothpick was kept moving from side to side in his mouth as he positioned himself at the foot of Michael's bed, looking down at my semi-conscious client.

  "So, Michael," he said, totally ignoring me and Danny, who had been sitting on her rollaway, studying her Kindle, "you might remember me, Jamison Weldon. I was at Miranda Morales' condo the night Harrow was murdered. Can I ask you some questions?"

  The hair along the back of my neck prickled up. Was this guy serious?

  "Hey," I said, "I'm his lawyer. Why don't you ask me if you can talk to my client? No, on second thought, no need to ask. The answer is hell no he won't talk! Not only that, thanks to your friends down at CPD who almost killed him, he can't talk even if he wanted to. So why don't you address your questions to me, Mr. Weldon?"

  "Detective Weldon," he said, wheeling on me.

  "Whatever," I said and stifled a fake yawn.

  "We need another set of prints. The idiots out at California Avenue smudged his right hand. Possible you can help us there?"

  "Not possible," I said. "Get a court order."

  "Well that's not very cooperative. I can get that order, you know."

  "Be my guest. Now leave my client's area on the floor, please. You're not an approved visitor and you're not family. Shoo!"

  "Shoo you, too," said the smaller detective who had accompanied Weldon into our area of the floor.

  "Oh, what's this?" I said. "Do I need to call security and have you bodily removed? I'm more than willing to oblige, mister."

  Weldon raised his hand. "No need. We'll get our court order and then we'll be back."

  "Like I said, be my guest. But if there's any form of cooperation you're hoping for at any point in this case, you can forget it. After what your men did to Mr. Gresham there will be no cooperation and no deals. So you run along and put on your big boy pants, detective. You're going to need to be dressed like a big guy from here on."

  "Yeah and fuck you, sister," said the smaller man.

  "Why don't you give me your name, asshole," I said. The night had been long, I was in a rage over Michael, and I just didn't like the little guy's looks. I was ready to go to the mat and have it out. Which was when he took a step in my direction. So I reached down and clicked Michael's pager. In less than a minute, his nurse had appeared from two beds over.

  "These men aren't visitors on the list and they aren't family. Please call security."

  "They said they were family," the nurse began.

  "Well they lied to you. They lied because they think they have that right. Now you call security this minute and get them out of here or else the hospital itself is going to be looking at a serious medical malpractice complaint that you really don't want to see. Should I begin counting? I know my way to three before I dial 911."

  With the mention of 911, the dicks began removing themselves from our area of the neuro-ICU floor. It was a large area, open on two sides, consisting of four beds. Right down the hallway was another four-bed unit, and on around the entire floor. The detectives had no place to hide or lurk and no other direction to go but toward the elevators. I followed them over to the open hallway and watched as they made their way past the main nurses' station and across to the elevators. They turned back to see whether I was watching. I was, and their faces fell.

  "Sons of bitches," I told Danny. "Tell you what, I'm hiring a security service to keep Michael undisturbed while he's here. I'll get someone on that right now."

  "Go for it," said Danny. "I was thinking the same thing for when you left. When my bulldog leaves I'm going to be feeling very vulnerable here all alone."

  Two hours later, we had armed security at Michael's bedside.

  Now the game was evened up. The guys I hired were ex-FBI and weren't afraid of anyone.

  We were manned up.

  23

  At noon I left the hospital, went down to the visitors' lot, and climbed inside my Jag. The air was warm, the sun was bright, and I was ecstatic to be out of the hospital. They are not my favorite places.

  I was cutting up the parking lane toward the exit when I noticed that a luminous black sedan had pulled around my parking row and was rolling up behind me. With the addition of the two probing detectives in my life I was being super cautious and noticing things I would ordinarily pay no attention to. So the car caught my eye and I watched it keep back a respectable distance as I turned right at the short row that paralleled the street. Another stop sign, another left turn and I was on the main drag, headed downtown. The black car stayed right on me. So I decided to run a test and find out whether I was, indeed, being followed.

  At the first traffic light, I suddenly swerved from the center lane to the far right lane and hung a right on Rockaway Avenue. Pulling into high speed traffic, I jagged left to the center lane went up one block and took a sudden left on a stale yellow light. No longer attempting to keep a nonchalant distance behind me, the black car sped up, hung right on my rear bumper and went through the yellow with me.

  Now there was no doubt it was cops on my tail and, worse, they were making no attempt to cover-up the fact they were following me. It looked like they meant to harass.

  But what they hadn't counted on was this: When I hired the security service to come to the hospital and watch over Michael, I had hired an extra service on their menu: vehicle monitoring. Now, behind the cop car, was a third car. This was a tan Chevy Suburban transporting my own bodyguards. And they were filming everything the cops were doing with me. So when the cops lit me up with their emergency lights and I pulled over and the cops tucked in nice and tight behind me, who should also pull over but my men. Without waiting for the cops to make it up to my window they suddenly lurched ahead, intercepting the cop who had been driving, as he walked up to my window.

  The Suburban stopped in the right lane almost up with my Jag and turned on its hazard lights. Following traffic was forced into the center lane and made to go around. The roadway had suddenly become crowded and horns were honking and middle fingers displayed. There were cops and security and together they were impeding the flow of traffic. Which my forward-reverse rearview camera was recording as the moments ticked by.

  "Hey, Officer," yelled the Suburban driver loud enough that I could hear. "Before you confront my client, you should come see the video we've got of you following her. She violated no traffic laws since leaving the hospital lot, yet here you are, pulling her over in this busy traffic, with nothing more on your minds than harassment."

  Which was when I got a good look at the cop's face in my outside mirror. It was Jamison Weldon, rumpled suit and all, his trouser legs flapping every time an eighteen-wheeler flew past. He was obviously uncomfortable as he stood there deciding between coming up to my window and attempting to frighten me or returning to his vehicle and forgetting the whole thing. Luckily, he chose the latter, suddenly spinning on his heel and returning to the black sedan. He hadn't said a word to my security team, but he didn't have to. They pulled up ahead of me and pulled into the curb lane. Now they were directly ahead of me and they led me on the way down the street. The last time I looked, the cops were still pulled over to the curb, unmoving, eviden
tly giving up on the game.

  Late that afternoon, as I was sitting in my office taking assignments off my calendar for the remainder of the week, my phone buzzed.

  "Harley? Danny Gresham here."

  "Hey, how are we doing?"

  "We just heard from Michael's doctor. Evidently his tests are looking normal although he has suffered a concussion--the doctor called it multiple concussions, actually. But he gets to go home in the morning."

  "Great news!" I tell her. "And it's great for another reason, too. Michael's arraignment got moved to Monday. The judge's clerk called me for an update and I told her Michael would in all likelihood be able to come to court Monday. I had put in a call to Dr. Rudiger myself for an update as soon as I got back to the office. He had told me Monday would probably work, so I was ready for the clerk's call. So it's good news."

  "Has bail been set?"

  "It's covered. Bail was set at one million, Mrs. Lingscheit made a trip to the jail and posted the hundred grand. Michael's free to go home when he's cleared by Dr. Rudiger."

  "You've been very busy," Danny said. "That means everything to me, Harley."

  I smiled. "That's what I'm here for. You and Michael."

  "How did you get bail set without an initial appearance?"

  "Let's just say a certain judge with a certain case assignment was agreeable. I called him up and reminded him that I had chaired his committee to reelect over the past eight years. He hadn't forgotten, tit-for-tat, Chicago style, and here we are. Michael gets bail, it gets paid, and the patient goes home. All neat and tidy."

  "You're a genius."

  "I keep the odds low by staying involved in the legal community down here. Anything I can do to buy influence with the judges and police, I'm all over it," I told her. "And there's one more thing. I've got an appointment with the chief at nine tomorrow morning."