Cutter's Run (34 page)

I’d been trying to remain open-minded, but I wasn’t convinced that Barbara Cooper was a responsible attorney. If she was in fact a ball-buster, as I was beginning to think, she’d enjoy putting Mick on the hot seat.

I was hoping she might hint at what she was after—if anything—although I didn’t expect it.

She didn’t. “Can you have all the documents in my office by, say, next Tuesday?” she said. “I’ll fax you a list of what we want.”

“Better make it Friday,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I want all of it Tuesday. We’ll take the deposition in my office the following Thursday—that’s the twenty-eighth—at ten o’clock. I hope that works for you.”

“I’ll have to check with my client,” I said.

It emphatically did
not
work for Mick, and when I told him on the telephone, his reaction reminded me of his old basketball reputation as a hothead, a guy who clutched and grabbed and used his elbows liberally and got kicked out of games for fighting. The Mick Fallon I’d seen drag two reputed hitmen out of Skeeter’s and throw them into the alley.

“What kind of bullshit is this?” he growled, and then I heard his fist—or maybe it was his head—crash against something.

“Calm down, Mick,” I said. “They just want to be sure they have all the facts.”

“You mean they think I’m lying. God damn it—”

“Take it easy, man. Calm down. Okay?”

He blew out a long breath. “She’s just trying to bust my chops.”

“Maybe so,” I said. “Attorney Cooper—”

“I don’t mean her,” he said. “I mean Kaye.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “If you refuse to be deposed, we’ll go straight to trial and she’ll ask you the same questions in front of the judge.”

“Fuck it,” he said. “Let’s go to trial, then.”

“Bad idea, Mick. Listen. I think this is bullshit, too, and it pisses me off. But trust me, if we have the choice between a trial and a deposition, we take the deposition every time. That way, if anything pops up we didn’t expect, at least we’re prepared for it.”

“What could pop up?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “You tell me.”

“Nothing,” he mumbled. “It’s bullshit.”

“You’ve told me everything?”

“Of course I have.”

“Then let’s get the damn deposition over with. Okay?”

He exhaled deeply. “Well, okay. So what do we do?”

“Attorney Cooper wants copies of all your tax returns for the past ten years, plus all your financial documents since you’ve been separated from Kaye. Tax returns, bank statements, canceled checks, deposit stubs, credit card and telephone bills. Everything.”

“Then what?”

“Then we go to her office and she asks you questions.”

“Questions about what?” he said.

“About anything.”

“Jesus Christ,” he growled. “Okay, so how does it work?”

“You bring in all those financial documents, and I’ll copy them and ship them off to Attorney Cooper. Then we meet in her office and she’ll ask you a bunch of questions. A shorthand reporter who’s also a notary public, an officer of the court, will be there to record it all.”

“Will Kaye be there?”

“She might. She has the right to be there, but she can’t participate.”

“You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Of course.”

“So what’m I supposed to do?”

“It’s easy, Mick. You just keep your cool and tell the truth.”

Mick was pacing the sidewalk in front of his apartment building in Somerville when I pulled to the curb around nine-thirty on the morning of May 28. He was smoking a cigar and sipping from a Styrofoam Dunkin Donuts coffee cup.

He opened the passenger door of my BMW and folded himself into the front seat beside me. His knees pressed against the dashboard.

“Reach down between your legs,” I told him. “You can push the seat back.”

He did. “I’m a wreck,” he said as I pulled onto the street.

“Relax,” I said. “The only thing I want you to remember is to answer the questions directly. If it’s a yes-or-no question, just say yes or no. Don’t elaborate. If you don’t know an answer, just say so.”

“What’s she going to ask me?”

“I don’t know. Questions about money, I’d guess.”

“I hate this shit,” he mumbled.

He sat quietly besides me while I negotiated the clogged roads through Somerville and Cambridge, and it wasn’t until I eased onto the westbound lane of Route 2 that he said, “Can I refuse to answer any of their questions?”

“Not really. The only time you shouldn’t answer would be if you’re asked for privileged information, or something that’s actually incriminating. I’ll be there to watch out for anything like that. But it’s not like court. Generally speaking, anything goes at a deposition. That’s because there’s no judge at a deposition. Later, if we end up going to trial and attorney Cooper tries to bring dubious testimony from your deposition into evidence, I’ll object to the question and let the judge rule on it.”

“So I just answer everything,” he said.

“Right. If a question is improperly formed, I’ll object to that and let her rephrase it.”

“What the fuck is she after?” he mumbled.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe she’s just busting your balls. We’ll find out soon enough.”

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

MIDDLESEX, S.S

SUPERIOR COURT

NO. 98D-1720-DV1

KATHERINE M. FALLON)

plaintiff)

VS.

MICHAEL S. FALLON)

defendant)

DEPOSITION OF MICHAEL S. FALLON
, a witness called on behalf of the Plaintiff, taken pursuant to the applicable provisions of the Massachusetts Rules of Civil Procedure, before Ellen R. Samborski, Shorthand Reporter and Notary Public within and for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, at the Offices of Barbara Arlene Cooper, 8 Muzzey Street, Lexington, Massachusetts 02173, on May 28, 1998, commencing at 10:15
A.M
.

APPEARANCES:

ON BEHALF OF THE DEFENDANT:

BRADY L. COYNE, ESQ.

25 Huntington Avenue

Boston, Massachusetts 02126

617-442-5500

ON BEHALF OF THE PLAINTIFF:

BARBARA ARLENE COOPER, ESQ.

8 Muzzey Street

Lexington, Massachusetts 02173

781-863-9290

KRAMER & DAWKINS COURT REPORTING SERVICES

1229 COMMONWEALTH AVENUE

BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS 02134

617-254-0089

Barbara Cooper’s suite of offices occupied the first floor of a big converted colonial house on a tree-lined side street off Mass Ave., which is the main drag in Lexington center. I parked out back, and Mick and I entered into a reception area decorated with watercolor landscapes, potted ferns, braided rugs, and leather-covered furniture. Copies of
Audubon
and
Yankee
and
Today’s Health
were scattered on the maple coffee table. I saw no ashtrays. Classical music—Schubert, if I wasn’t mistaken—played softly over hidden speakers.

A cheerful, gray-haired secretary greeted us by name and offered us coffee, which we accepted. Mick and I sat on the sofa. Mick’s knee was jiggling furiously.

I tapped his leg. “Relax, man.”

“Sorry,” he muttered. “I can’t help it.”

The secretary delivered our coffee in delicate bone-china cups. Mick and I sat there, sipping. His knee continued jerking up and down as if he was keeping time to a very fast piece of music. He kept clenching and unclenching his fists and glancing at his watch. “It’s after ten,” he said. “What the hell’s going on?”

“I should’ve fed you a few Valiums,” I said.

“Good stiff shot of Scotch’d be more like it.”

A minute later an inside door opened and Barbara Cooper came out. She had her hand on the elbow of a petite blond woman. Kaye Fallon. I remembered her from photos Mick had shown me.

She stood no more than five-one or -two, and she had a solid, athletic body. She was as small and compact as Mick was big and sloppy. Her hair, which was pulled back in a ponytail and tied with a red silk scarf, hung nearly halfway down her back. Her narrow blue skirt stopped several inches above her knees, showing her shapely, rather muscular legs to good advantage. She had a nice tan and large, wide-spaced blue eyes. From a distance, Kaye Fallon could have passed for a brighteyed college coed.

But when the two women approached us, I saw the crinkles at the corners of Kaye’s eyes and the creases that bracketed her mouth like parentheses. They betrayed her age, which I guessed to be about forty-five, and made her face more interesting.

Barbara Cooper smiled quickly and held out her hand to me. “Mr. Coyne,” she said. “The man behind the voice. Finally, we meet.” She had olive skin, high cheekbones, and flashing dark, slightly uptilted eyes, and she wore her black hair short and straight. Medium height, curvy, and busty, an altogether sexy woman who carried herself with the confidence of someone who knew it, enjoyed it, and didn’t mind using it.

I took her hand. “Hello, Ms. Cooper.”

She stepped back. “Kaye Fallon, this is Mr. Coyne.”

I nodded to her. “Mrs. Fallon. Nice to meet you.”

Kaye looked up at me. “Hello.” She had a soft, husky voice and a wonderfully warm, shy smile. She held out her hand, and I took it. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Coyne,” she said. “Michael speaks well of you.”

“He speaks well of you, too,” I said.

She glanced at Mick, then grinned and rolled her eyes at me. “You take good care of him,” she said softly.

I introduced Barbara Cooper to Mick. He shook her hand and nodded mechanically, but he didn’t take his eyes off Kaye, who was making a point of studying one of the watercolors on the wall behind his shoulder.

After an awkward pause, Mick said to Kaye, “Well, how’s it going, honey?”

She glanced at him, then let her eyes slide away. “I’m fine, Michael.”

“Talked to the kids lately?”

“Oh, sure.” She smiled. “Just about every day. They’re doing real well. We can be proud of them, Michael.”

His eyes suddenly narrowed, and I saw his hands clenching each other. “Well,
I’m
not doing real well,” he said. “Would you mind telling me what the hell—”

I grabbed his arm. “Come on, Mick.”

He glanced at me, then shook his head. “Sorry,” he grumbled.

I turned to Cooper. “Why don’t we get started?”

She frowned at Mick for a moment, then nodded. “Sure. Come on.”

We followed her into a conference room. The shorthand reporter was already set up. Cooper introduced her to the rest of us. Mick and I sat side by side at the rectangular table. She sat across from us, and the reporter was at the end. Kaye took a chair in the corner of the room, behind Cooper’s left shoulder.

The reporter administered the oath to Mick.

PROCEEDINGS

MS. COOPER: In terms of stipulations, Mr. Coyne, I consider the standard ones are reserving objections to the time of the trial as well as motions to strike, except objections to form.

MR. COYNE: That’s fine.

MS. COOPER: Privilege of course. I don’t know—do you want your client to sign the deposition?

MR. COYNE: No.

MS. COOPER: You will waive the signing and filing?

MR. COYNE: Yes. Waive it.

MICHAEL S. FALLON, a witness called for examination by counsel for the plaintiff, being first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:

EXAMINATION BY MS. COOPER:

Q. Your name is?

A. Michael Fallon.

Q. Your full name, please.

A. Sorry. Michael Simon Fallon.

Q. I’m going to be asking you a series of questions today. If there is any question that you do not understand or that you wish repeated, please just say so. Okay? Is that understood?

A. Okay.

MR. COYNE: You have to say yes or no, Mick, because the stenographer has to take down yes or no. All right?

THE WITNESS: Got it. Yes, I mean.

Mick’s knee was jiggling wildly under the table beside me, and his fists were clenched so tight that his knuckles were white. He kept glancing beyond Barbara Cooper to Kaye, who was sitting there with her fine legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap, and her head bowed as if the whole thing embarrassed her.

Q. Mr. Fallon, how long have you been unemployed?

A. What?

Q. I don’t know how to rephrase the question for you. Can you please tell me when was the last time you held a job?

A. I don’t know what you mean. I’ve always made money.

Q. I’m asking about the last time you earned an actual salary, went to work every day.

A. I guess the last time I got a regular paycheck, if that’s what you mean, was when I was scouting full-time for the Pistons, and that ended in 1984. But it’s not like I haven’t been earning any money. I’ve supported my family.

Q. How have you supported your family? What’s been your source of income?

A. Investments, mostly.

Q. Investments in what, specifically?

A. Look, she knows exactly what—

MR. COYNE: Please, Mick. Just answer the question.

THE WITNESS: They’re just trying to harass me. There’s no reason why—

MR. COYNE: I’d like a moment with my client.

(counsel confers with witness.)

I stood up, grabbed Mick’s arm, and said, “Follow me.”

I led him out of the conference room. His forearm felt like the business end of a Louisville Slugger where I held onto it. We stood in the corner of the reception room, and I looked up into his face. He was clenching his jaw, and his eyes blazed.

“We do not want this to go to trial,” I said. “But if it does, and if you behave like this, the judge’ll cite you for contempt and give everything to Kaye. Now listen to me. You’ve got to keep it together. Attorney Cooper will not put up with any more of your childish bullshit. She’ll terminate the deposition, and she’ll refuse to negotiate a settlement, and then we’ll have a trial where she’ll ask you the same questions all over again in front of a judge. Do you understand?”

Mick nodded. “I’m sorry, but this is ridiculous, Brady. I mean, what is this unemployed bullshit? Kaye knows perfectly well where our money comes from. What the hell is she up to?”

“Attorney Cooper wants to know what will make a fair settlement,” I said. “What’s fair depends on your income, and what your income will be in the future, and without an actual salary to base it on, it’s a little hard to figure.”