by Mike Farris
“God knows what else y’all have been doing in confidence,” Tripp said. “You know, if you’re intent on sleeping your way up the ladder, you should have picked someone who could help you get there.”
Meg shot to her feet, eyes aflame. “You have no right to talk to me that way.”
“Now, now, back off,” Alvin said. “That’s a complete other issue from what we’re here about.”
“It’s a non-issue,” Meg said.
“Well, it’s certainly not our topic right now,” Alvin said. “We’re talking about insubordination, not sexual politics. That’s for another time.”
“That’s for never,” Meg said.
“One goes hand in hand with the other,” Tripp said. “She’s started this campaign of slandering my reputation around the firm, and she’s using her bed-buddy to do it. Now, I don’t know if it started with Muckleroy hitting on her or her coming on to him, but he seems more than willing to be her messenger as long as she shows up in his office with her kneepads.”
Meg bolted for the door. She grabbed the handle and pulled it open. “I don’t have to listen to this,” she said.
“You damn sure do,” Alvin said. “Now you shut that damn door and get back over here.”
Meg stood rooted, her hand gripping the door handle, eyes flashing defiance.
“Now!” Alvin said.
She closed the door then turned to face her accusers. “I can hear you from here,” she said.
“I said sit down.”
“Or what? You’ll fire me? You can do that just as well with me here.”
Tripp strode across the floor, his long legs eating the distance between them. He grabbed Meg by the arm and jerked her toward the chair. Showing the reflexes of an athlete, Meg slapped him across the cheek with a resounding thwack. Stunned, Tripp let go and fell back a step. His check reddened in the shape of a handprint.
Steve quickly moved between them, while the other committee members stayed frozen to their seats, mesmerized. Used to intimidating, they didn’t know how to respond to an associate who refused to be intimidated.
“That’s enough,” Steve said. “If Meg wants to stay by the door, that’s fine.”
Meg glared at Tripp. “Does the term defendant have a nice ring to you?”
“You assaulted me,” Tripp said.
“I defended myself.”
“Now, nobody’s suing anybody,” Alvin said.
“That remains to be seen,” Meg answered.
Alvin studied her face, trying to gauge her resolve. “Meg, how long have you been with the firm?”
“A year.”
“What makes you think you’ve got enough experience to make accusations against Tripp? Do you really know what he’s doing or what his strategies on a case might be?”
“I don’t need more than ten seconds to know right from wrong. I know that billing tens of thousands of dollars for work that doesn’t have to be done is wrong. I know that billing ten hours a day when you’re on vacation is wrong. I know that destroying documents to hide your malpractice is wrong.”
“Do you have proof?” Matt asked.
“All you have to do is look at the bills on the Patterson file.”
“We’ve done that,” Alvin said. “They look fine to us. What doesn’t look fine is your time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It looks like you’ve padded your time.”
Meg looked sharply at Tripp, who pressed his lips together in a tight line.
“What about the Swanson file?” Meg asked.
“I realize we’ve got an unhappy client,” Alvin said, “but there was simply some miscommunication. Nothing more.”
“He destroyed my memo.”
“What memo?” Tripp said.
“You know damn well what memo.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Meg stepped back and slumped against the door.
“So you can see the situation we have,” Alvin said. “We can’t have associates going around slandering partners and making accusations. The documents back Tripp, so we’ve really got no choice.”
*
I let go of Meg’s hand and wiped the tears from her cheeks.
“I’ve got until five o’clock Friday to resign, or they’ll go public with the firing,” she said.
“Let me talk to them first. Maybe we can work this thing out.”
“I don’t know if I want to.”
“Just let it ride for a few days. Please, Meg.”
She thought for a long minute. “Okay.”
I gently brushed her hair back then took her hand again.
“There is a bright side,” she said. “At least, if I leave, we won’t have that employer-employee relationship to worry about anymore.”
She smiled when she said it, tears glistening in her eyes. I wondered if she meant it.
Chapter Fourteen
After Meg left, I called Steve McGinnis, the only current member of the Management Committee for whom I had any respect. We had grown up together in Pleasant Grove, a poorer section of Dallas on the southeast side of town. From there, I’d gone off to TCU, and he’d gone off to West Point, and we’d pretty well fallen out of touch when he’d accepted his commission in the army after graduation.
Our paths crossed again when the army paid his way through law school and, after separating from the military, he joined Black West & Merriam. He had actually worked for me for a while at the start, but from there his star had risen faster and higher than mine. Though we had drifted apart in the past few years, surely he couldn’t be happy with the current state of the firm. Maybe I would find a sympathetic ear in my old boyhood friend.
When he answered, I gave him no time to take control of the conversation. “Don’t you think y’all should have consulted me before you fired her?” I asked. “After all, she does most of her work for me.”
“You’ve barely got enough work to keep yourself busy. You don’t need a full-time associate. Besides, Tripp’s her section head, and he’s got that authority. With what he brought us, we had no choice.”
“All she did was ask him about a file.”
“Yeah. And accuse him of unethical conduct and spread that around to other lawyers in the firm.”
I exhaled heavily. “I’m the only one she talked to about it.”
“Doesn’t matter. She slandered him. Accused him of unethical conduct.”
“All of it true.”
Steve paused. “When did you get religion?”
“What’s that mean?”
“Did you really think we wouldn’t find out about the grievance Alyssa filed?”
I felt my blood rise. “That’s got nothing to do with this.”
“Just wanted to make sure we had all our cards on the table. Besides, how Tripp works his files and bills his clients is his business, not ours.”
“Are you telling me it’s not the Management Committee’s business when the firm’s lawyers act unethically?”
“This firm has never interfered in its lawyers’ practices. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s the way it’s always been.”
Steve was right, and I knew it. In the time I had been with the firm, each partner had pretty much conducted his practice as if he were a solo practitioner—handling his clients and billing his files as he saw fit. The firm had been there to provide support when asked, but it had never interfered unless a specific problem came up that called for its involvement. That autonomy was one of the most attractive things about the firm when I started.
Of course, the firm had once been home to honorable lawyers, steeped in ethics. But those times were long gone, chased out by lawyers like Tripp Malloy, with their multi-million-dollar books of business and sacrifice-ethics-for-wealth philosophies.
“Maybe it’s time for the committee to take a more active role in practice management,” I said.
“I hear what you’re saying, but there are other things to co
nsider.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Malloy, Tom Claxton, and Al Boston have been talking to another firm about moving their whole group over there. If they go, they take about twenty lawyers and over ten million dollars in business with them.”
“They made the same threat last year. And the committee kowtowed to them, bumping up their compensation at the expense of everyone else.”
“They earned it, Bay. You know what kind of money they bring in.”
“So disloyalty is rewarded.”
“We can’t take the hit if they leave,” Steve said. “So if Tripp says Meg’s got to go…if that’s what it takes to keep him here…so be it.”
“Doesn’t he worry you? And doesn’t it worry you when he bills twenty-five or twenty-six hundred hours a year when you know he’s not really working them? It’ll be too late to worry about it when the firm gets sued.”
“Don’t say that, Bay. Not even as a joke.”
“It’s not a joke, Steve. The firm better be prepared to deal with it.”
“What makes you so sure he’s lying about his billings?”
“What makes you so sure he’s not?”
“We’ve looked at them,” he said.
“Closely? Or just half-ass?” The way they usually did things.
“Unless someone’s willing to go through his timesheets one at a time and match up what he’s billed against what he’s really done, we can’t be sure he’s doing anything wrong.”
“Why doesn’t the committee do that?” I asked.
“We can’t audit his files just because he bills a lot and gets paid for it. And we also can’t go around accusing partners of defrauding clients without proof. Associates damn sure can’t do that.”
“Especially when Tripp threatens to take his marbles and go down the street to play.”
Steve fell silent for a long while. I heard him breathing, and I could almost see him wearing out the carpet in a five-foot strip beside his desk.
“What’s your interest here, Bay?” he asked.
“Meg works with me. I depend on her.” I paused then added, “And we’re friends.”
“Just friends?”
“Why do you ask?”
“I just want to be sure you’re not letting your judgment get clouded. I know she’s pretty, but—”
“Is this coming from Tripp?”
“It’s coming from all over,” Steve said. “It’s just sorta making the rounds.”
I stared at the wall. I found it hard to believe that the gossip had started with secretaries and rolled uphill to the top. That would defy gravity. It made more sense that it had started at the top, to discredit me. I just didn’t know that it had progressed this far.
“Are you sleeping with her, Bay?”
I stayed quiet.
“Huh? Is that what this is about, Bay? You sleeping with her?”
His question left me speechless. I couldn’t believe how well Meg’s firing had been orchestrated, with Tripp as the maestro. And now my old buddy was singing lead.
“He billed over a half-million to Lacewell Industries last year,” I said. “That’s your client. You sure he’s not screwing them, too?”
“Let me worry about my clients, Bay. You don’t have a dog in this fight, so do the smart thing. Just walk away.”
I stared at the phone in my hand, the click of Steve’s hang-up echoing in my ear.
Chapter Fifteen
J.D. Douglas moved gracefully—for a lawyer—across the outfield grass, eyes skyward. The batter, a bankruptcy jockey from a downtown firm, had already rounded first and was pounding for second. If J.D. blew this one, it’d be a double or triple. Maybe in the big leagues they’d call it a two- or three-base error, but lawyers never took errors into account. If the hitter made it to second, no matter how unlikely, you called it a double. Third, a triple. And home—depending on the gullibility of your audience—maybe even a grand slam.
The glare of the lights flashed across J.D.’s glasses, momentarily distracting him, but when he shaded his eyes with his glove, he regained sight of the softball. A few more steps, then he settled under the high pop fly and waited for it to come down.
“I got it!” he called to no one in particular. No one else was near. He’d better have it.
He pounded his fist into his glove once, twice, then raised it skyward and stabbed toward the falling softball. Every catch was an adventure in the lawyer league—the black socks and Bermuda shorts athletes. J.D.’s stab coincided with the ball’s descent and, almost in defiance of physics, the ball clung to the webbing of his outstretched glove. He clumsily clamped his glove shut and covered it with his other hand. Then, hope against hope, he lowered the glove and looked inside. Still there. Another spectacular catch of a routine fly ball.
*
The parking lot thinned out as the last of the games ended. The figure in the rented dark sedan watched as players straggled to their cars, tossed their equipment into trunks, pulled off cleats, and cranked their engines. He kept his eyes peeled to the southernmost fields, the ones where the law league had its games. One of the games had just ended, the other apparently headed for extra innings.
A noise from the parking lot alerted him to someone’s approach. The sound of hard cleats tapping on concrete. Squinting into the darkness, he spied a bespectacled lawyer with his bat swung over his shoulder approach then veer off toward a car three spaces over. The figure looked carefully through the windows of the cars between them and saw the lawyer’s destination—a Porsche.
He watched the lawyer throw open the Porsche’s hatchback and toss his bat and glove inside. Then the lawyer sat on the rear bumper and untied his shoes. With some effort, he removed them both then slammed them down hard on the concrete to dislodge any infield dirt that might have clung between the cleats. He tossed those in the back as well, then put on a pair of slip-on sneakers. The lawyer closed the hatchback, unlocked the driver’s side door, and got in.
The figure in the sedan heard the Porsche’s engine roar to life. Its headlights came on, then it began easing out of its parking space.
When the Porsche pulled past the back of the sedan, the figure turned the key, bringing it to life. He backed out, threw the car into drive, and followed the Porsche.
*
J.D. cruised to the end of the parking lot and stopped at the entrance to Buckner Boulevard. For a moment he hesitated, weighing the consequences of swinging by Billy Wayne’s Sports Bar for a quick one before heading home. How mad could Madeline be? It wasn’t like he stopped off for drinks with the boys every night after work. This was his only night out. His brother had once told him, speaking of spousal relationships, that it was easier to get forgiveness than permission. So, when in doubt, go for it. She’d get over it.
J.D. pulled onto Buckner and swung into the left lane for the turn to Billy Wayne’s. The light at Northwest Highway was a stale green, so he accelerated to make the turn. Just as he neared the intersection, two things happened at once—the light turned yellow, and his conscience kicked in. He swerved sharply to the right, cutting across three lanes to turn toward home. Fortunately, traffic was light, virtually nonexistent, and he made the illegal turn with ease, heading into his Lake Highlands neighborhood. He didn’t see the dark sedan behind him that made the same maneuver. He didn’t see it follow him onto a residential street and turn off its headlights.
One more block, one more turn onto another street, then left into an alley. J.D. slowed as he nosed his Porsche forward. Wooden privacy fences lined both sides of the pavement, interrupted only by entrances to driveways feeding into two-car garages. A claustrophobe’s nightmare.
J.D. turned right into a driveway and eased past overturned garbage cans. He punched the remote control on his visor and waited as the gears on the automatic door opener clanked into action. His headlights bounced eerily off the door folds as they wheeled around the track and snaked along the ceiling inside the garage. J.D. took his foot off th
e brake and idled ahead, pulling in neatly beside an olive green Prius. He eased to a stop, fiddled with the radio, then turned it off. He pushed the stick into park, jabbed the button to turn off the lights, and killed the engine.
As J.D. got out of the car—wallet in one hand, keys in the other—and slammed the door, he glanced toward the alley. Did he hear something? Probably not, he thought. Just the echoes of his own door slamming. Suddenly, the light on the door opener went off. He’d have to adjust that to keep it on a little longer. At least long enough for him to get into the house. He fumbled with his keys in the dark as he walked to the door.
Once there, he couldn’t see to fit the key into the door. He stabbed the button just to the left of the door and, with a groan, the door opener’s gears kicked into closing mode. The light came back on and he guided the key in. He had just turned the doorknob when—
A searing pain tore between his shoulders. He dropped his wallet and gasped for breath, then threw his right hand up over his shoulder, trying to feel the source of the pain. A gloved hand clamped over his mouth, its fingers squeezing into his cheeks, tips gouging skin, drawing blood. The pain was unbearable.
Something pulled his head back, stretching his throat taut. He gasped for air, his right arm up and back, the fingers on his hand desperately groping. It felt as if life itself was draining away. He moaned and slumped to his knees. He slammed his left arm forward and banged it on the door. It opened inward, swung wide, and bounced off a wall.
*
“J.D., babe, is that you?”
The woman’s voice came from somewhere inside the house. She must have heard the door open. A practiced hand brought a military-style K-Bar knife across the lawyer’s throat, driving the blade deep into the windpipe. Blood spurted—the lawyer gurgled. The light went off, leaving only faint illumination from a beam of light that made its way out the door from somewhere inside the house.
“J.D., is that you? Answer me, please?”
The voice sounded closer, almost plaintive. A little unsure. The attacker heard her footsteps approaching, not too far away. He held the lawyer upright with his left hand still clamped across his mouth. Slowly, he pulled his victim backward and stretched him out on the garage floor.