by Anne Hagan
“If we can’t come to some sort of agreement with them, what are our chances of getting another hearing scheduled before the dam bursts with a flood of new cases?”
“The docket is full for the next month plus, but that means those other cases will be waiting too. We’re in the driver’s seat. We don’t have a lot to lose by either settling or by being first.”
I twisted up my face and drummed my fingers on the table top as I thought about the two options. Letting out a small sigh, I told Rufus, “I’m just not real confident that I’m not going to get screwed over again.”
“I’m not going to let that happen Barb. We don’t like their offer, we walk and we let a jury dictate what they pay. My job is to get you the best deal I can.”
“And yourself.”
He nodded. “Precisely. I haven’t been in business this long by not doing right by people.”
“Okay. Get them in here.”
Chapter 9
I was dumbfounded as I sat scribbling on a notepad while my lawyer and the team of three lawyers from Denver General bickered back and forth. The total of Lisa’s medical bills, for a botched surgery, came to well over $700,000, some that our insurance paid and a lot that I paid. If Rufus got his way – and it was starting to look like he might – all of it would be repaid apart from any other award. That alone made me feel more at ease.
Keeping to myself, even though I was seated right in the thick of things, I just listened as they carried on. True to his word, Rufus was my steady advocate. He looked to his left at me for confirmation frequently but I just nodded and kept my face as unreadable as I could otherwise. I certainly didn’t want to give anything away and I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high either.
After a bit of listening to their negotiating, my mind started to wander, going back over what had brought me to this point. It had been a tough stretch for me since that last night at Willie’s. Stephen and Roger and later even Kane joined in on prodding me to sue. I wasn’t as sure as they all were but, after a couple of days of thought, I decided they were right.
Stephen telling me Simmons had lost his license to practice had opened a fresh hole in my wounded heart and the pain was nearly unbearable as I contemplated over the next 48 hours whether he’d been directly responsible for Lisa’s death. I felt like I needed to find out for sure.
Our usual law firm wouldn’t take the case on. They weren’t ‘tort lawyers’, they told me. They referred me to a firm in Denver that turned out to be little more than an ambulance chasing operation; not at all what I wanted.
The Bar Association gave me Rufus James’ name, along with a couple of others. I looked them all up. Rufus was the best. He was also the most expensive on an hour by hour basis. If we didn’t win, I was going to owe him the moon. That’s why I’d sold everything I had remaining. Now, that was dwindling away too as the last of the medical bills had rolled in and other expenses, like costs for selling my home, popped up.
I wasn’t necessarily sorry to let the house go. We…I…hadn’t even been there a year. With Willie’s sold, I had no ties at all to Steamboat. Unfortunately, there was little equity there either. The small gain the market had made during the time we owned the beautiful house was more than negated by the cost of listing the place for sale and then closing the deal.
Moving the three-hour drive to Denver to be closer to everything seemed like a smart move at the time. I took the cheapest place I could find that was close to center city. When all the preliminary wrangling for discovery and such went on and on with no end in sight, I took the job at the club just to get myself out of the apartment and earning some money rather than spending everything that I’d set aside. The job didn’t help me stop thinking about Lisa but it dulled the pain just a little while I was on duty.
Without thinking, I shook my head. Rufus paused in his patter and looked at me. “Sorry. You were saying?” I said to him.
He continued laying out a case for a ‘Pain and Suffering’ award by ticking off the points of my distress on his fingers. I tuned him out again, on purpose this time. Outside of work, where I had no other distractions, my pain was still very raw and every one of these types of meetings made it that much sharper.
“Let me confer privately with my client,” Rufus was saying, several minutes into my reverie. I simply nodded. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts; I wasn’t quite sure where things stood.
He indicated we should step out of the little conference room. “Gentlemen, give us about twenty minutes or so to go over these numbers.” There were murmurs of agreement from the other side as he collected up all of his papers and then we were moving into the hallway.
“Coffee?” he asked me once we were out of earshot of the conference room.
“Sounds good.”
The elevator was full. We stayed silent as we rode down to the cafeteria. I felt bad that I’d been so out of it, I didn’t even know what sort of deal we were about to discuss but I had the strange feeling Rufus already knew that.
We got coffee and took seats at a corner table in the mostly empty cafeteria. It wasn’t time for the lunch rush yet. He popped his briefcase back open, took his pad out and turned it to face me.
Tapping some figures with his pen, he said, “They’ll cover all medical bills. We have an accounting from the insurance company of everything that passed through them, the claims they paid and the amounts that were not covered. We have copies of all of the bills you received, your canceled checks, the statements and so forth. All of that, every cent, to be reimbursed, one for one. It comes to $757,000 and change. Nearly $300,000 of that goes to you.”
I nodded. “And you get a part of that, right?”
He shook his head, “Not a dime, not a dime. That’s all reimbursement and pretty standard in medical negligence cases. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Rufus sipped his coffee before continuing. He pointed back at the paper as he told me, “the State of Colorado” limits compensatory damage awards and pain and suffering awards that can be granted by a jury. We’ve talked about that.”
“Yes.”
“There are no such limitations on private settlements. In exchange for this being settled out of court and for you signing a non-disclosure agreement barring you from ever talking about the settlement, they’re offering $1,890,000; roughly two and a half times the medical claims.”
I nearly spilled my coffee, catching it only as it was almost completely toppled. A little of the hot liquid sloshed out of the lidded cup onto my hand. I felt the sting but, after the catch, I was rendered nearly oblivious to it. The liquid dripped off onto the table edge and down to my slacks as I put my hand to my mouth.
Rufus quickly handed me a napkin but was otherwise patient. He let me absorb what he’d just told me for several long minutes.
When I finally found the ability to speak again, I asked him, my voice shaking, “Could you break that down for me please. I’m…I’m trying to get my head around it…”
“It works out to just over $297,000 for the medical bills that you’ve paid out of pocket and about a million, two-fifty or a little more after my fees and court costs for the pain and suffering award they’re proposing.”
I just let the tears fall.
###
Friday, March 14th, 2014
Denver was in my rearview mirror by 5:00 AM on a mid-March Friday morning. Once everything was settled with the hospital, there wasn’t a reason in the world for me to stay there. I couldn’t stay there. I just couldn’t.
I’d packed up the personal belongings I knew I’d need over the next couple of weeks, picked up Lisa’s urn and got on I-70. I drove it all the way to Zanesville over the next couple of days.
My parents were happy to have me back in town. I never thought I’d be there long term again but then, they’re all I have left in the world now.
Part Two
Janet
Chapter 10
Janet Mason
April 23rd, 2008,
Somewhere in the Middle East
“What took you so long, Mason?”
“Top wouldn’t shut up. I swear that man likes to hear himself speak.”
Kyra tugged me into a curtained off shower stall. “Get that gear off. We don’t have a lot of time before the privates take over.” She was already naked herself and wet in more ways than one.
“Yes ma’am!”
“That’s Sergeant to you, Corporal,” she ordered, her tone only half official.
“Yes Sergeant!” I responded enthusiastically.
I dropped my flak jacket and web gear on the little bench just outside the stall and bent to unlace my boots. Kyra took my flipped over state as an opportunity to hump my still camo clad ass.
“My favorite Sergeant is a horny toad today,” I called up to her.
“Who you calling a toad? You’ll pay for that!”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Sarge.”
Quickly, I stripped out of the rest of my uniform and my skivvies while Kyra restarted the water flow.
Moving in behind her, I embraced her and started teasing her nipples with my fingers. I was determined to give her a ride this time she wouldn’t forget. Knowing she was already wet, while one set of fingers worked a nipple, I dropped the other hand to her pussy and ran my fingers through her shower dampened curls to her slit. It too was slick with moist heat, this from her core.
Kyra arched her ass into my own center and ground herself against me. I groaned in both pleasure and pain but I was determined to stay focused and give the butch beauty as good a fuck as she’d given me days before.
My own breasts tingled against her back as she bucked and tried to mount my fingers. “The tables are turned Sarge,” I said as I dipped my head and bit her gently at the curve of her neck.
“No marks Mason!”
“No marks, Sarge; just a hard fuck.” I pulled her tight back into me and pushed two fingers as deep as I could into her swollen center.
She was dripping with her own juices. “Somebody started the party without me,” I said into her neck as I moved my fingers in and out.
“Told you we don’t have a lot of time,” she panted.
Taking the hint, I quickened the pace and watched over her shoulder as she bit down on her bottom lip to keep from crying out. Moments later, she came in a sticky burst. I thumbed her clit as I continued to stroke her slit with my other fingers and she orgasmed again in a shudder.
“Your turn,” she said as she tried to turn into me on shaky legs.
“Nope,” I said. “Not this time.”
“Hey, I’m supposed to be the aggressor here…”
“We don’t have a lot of time; you said it yourself and, anyway, Happy Birthday.”
“So that’s what this was all about?”
“My gift to you.”
“Well now how will I ever thank you?” She lifted her eyebrows suggestively.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll think of something demeaning and degrading.” I grinned to show my pleasure at the thought of another lovemaking session with her and I tried to lean in for a kiss.
Kyra backed off. “We need to get dressed,” she said hurriedly.
Figuring she was just nervous about being caught when NCO time in the shower bay was up and the free-for-all of privates and specialists descended upon the makeshift building in the middle of nowhere, I didn’t really make anything of her withdrawal or the change in her tone. Instead, I asked, “Since it’s your birthday and all, do you wanna, I don’t know, hang out tonight? Play cards or something?”
“You can buy me a birthday Coke at the Den, Mason.”
Chapter 11
‘The Den’ as ‘The Devil Dogs Den’ was called for short, to appease local sensibilities, was slammed. I scanned the crowd looking for Kyra and spotted her holding court with some of the other female NCOs in the unit at a little table off to one side of the makeshift tent turned clubhouse.
“A Coke and a diet, please,” I told the sergeant taking orders at the counter. I took the drinks and weaved my way through the throngs of soldiers crowded in for lack of any other place to go and hang out when they were off duty.
“Hey,” I nodded in greeting to the five women gathered around the table. Most of them nodded back at me.
I handed the Coke to Kyra. “Happy Birthday Sarge.”
“Thank you Corporal Mason. That’s very nice of you.”
So we’re being formal now. Okay. I can do this. While I composed my face, I swiveled looking for an empty chair to grab and managed to swipe one from a couple of tables over just before a Private attempted to commandeer it for himself.
As I set it down at our table, one of the other Sergeants present, Gevona Moore, waggled a finger at me. “Now I owe her Mason, thanks to you. I didn’t get her anything.”
“As if there’s much to get out here in the desert,” one of the other women snickered.
“Oh that?” I played it off. “It’s nothing. I owed her that myself.”
Gevona looked at Kyra. “Girl, I’m broke till payday but you know I got you. Hit me up next week and, well hell, it’ll be Cokes all around.” She bobbed her head to indicate all of us at the table.
“Mm, Mm, why so generous, throwing three bucks around, Moore?” Kyra asked her. Everyone laughed.
“Hey, you all know I’ve been sending most of my money home these last couple of months. I need a security deposit, first month’s rent, utility deposits…”
“Why? You aren’t going anywhere,” Kyra chided her.
“The hell I ain’t,” she retorted, in a slightly lowered voice.
“You’re not going to re-up and do another tour to hang out here with all of us?” another woman asked.
“No ma’am, not me. I only took the tour extension I did because the commander agreed to let me halve it. At my liberty break next month, I’m going back stateside and staying. I ETS out in 62 days.”
“What are you in such a hurry to get back to – Indiana is it? – for?” Kyra put in.
Gevona leveled her coal black eyes on Kyra. “I didn’t join the Army for it to be a career. You know that.” Kyra shrugged but held her gaze. “I never said that, not once,” she continued.
“What will you do when you ETS?” I asked her.
“For one, I want to be a real cop, not an MP that gets sent off to pull duty in Godforsaken places like this place for months on end.”
“What else Moore?” Kyra prodded her. Gevona just looked at her.
Kyra wouldn’t let it go. “You said, ‘for one’. There must be something else, right?”
Deep down, I thought I knew what the something else was. I was pretty sure the caramel skinned beauty played for the same team as Kyra and I did but, if she had any interest in any of the women in the unit, she was very discreet about it.
“Look, I just want to be a cop when I’m on duty and a civilian free to live my life, my way when I’m off, that’s all. I’m tired of playing by military rules 24/7.”
Well that confirms it for me.
I almost choked on my Diet Coke when the conversation suddenly turned my way. Sargent Cami Streit, who was the unit admin and who’d been quiet to that point, focused on me. “Isn’t your ETS coming up quick too, Mason?”
“Yeah, in a coupla months.”
“You re-upping?” she quizzed me. Kyra and Gevona both watched me closely.
Under the scrutiny of everyone at the table, I felt myself waver a little bit but I bucked up and told them what was really going through my head. “The only reason I joined was because I was too young to go to OPOTA, the Ohio Peace Officer’s Training Academy course, when I got out of school. All I really want to do is to be a cop too.”
“So, you’re getting out?” Gevona asked me.
I looked at her and then at Kyra who was now feigning interest in the nearest support post holding up the tent wall. I could almost feel her disinterest. “I’m not sure. Probably.”
Chapter 12
&nbs
p; April 24th, 2008
“Kyra’s a player. You ain’t gonna’ change that.”
Gevona and I were talking quietly while we waited out by the Hummer for the Private that was assigned to be our M60 gunner to draw his ammo for convoy escort duty.
I just looked at her and didn’t say anything.
“You wanna be a cop, right?”
I nodded.
“Where you going back to? Ohio, you said?” She leaned back against the vehicle.
“Don’t know…that’s my problem. I want to get out and get on a force somewhere but I don’t want to go back to frick’en Zanesville, Ohio.”
“That where your family is?”
“Yeah. And they’re okay…sorta. My mom and I don’t really see eye to eye and…there’s nothing there for me, you know?” I shot her a look. She gave me a slight nod in return.
“I grew up on the west side of Indy. I’m not in an all fired hurry to get back there either but anywhere in Indy is better than anywhere in the Army right now, if you know what I mean.” She didn’t look me in the eye but stared straight ahead watching the supply line for the progress of the Private.
“Did you apply somewhere there already?”
Turning back to me at that, she said, “Just between you and me – not that anyone else here really cares – but I’m applying to be a deputy with Hancock County, just east of Marion County.”
“That near Indy?”
“Yeah, Indy takes up most of Marion County.”
“Why there? Why not the Indy city department?”
“Because it’ll be a lot easier to get on and I can still live and play in the city. Hancock’s actively hiring women right now. They’re busy and they need to get their quota up. I fit the requirements on two counts and, with my MP experience…” She shrugged.