False Accusations (17 page)

Hellman did not know what to make of it either. “Maybe she found out about the settlement, and you weren’t home to explain it.”

“Jeffrey, if that’s it, I’m going to wring your neck. Again, I should’ve told the truth and didn’t, and now it’s come back to haunt me—”

“Hold it, hold it,” he said, waving a hand out in front of the dashboard. “You’re jumping to conclusions. Let’s just wait till we get there.”

Leeza’s van was not in the garage. He opened his front door and everything appeared to be dark. Scalpel came running into the entryway and licked him on the face. Madison walked into the den, looking for a clue of some sort, something to explain what the hell was going on. Leeza usually left notes for him on the desk.

Hellman threw on some lights in the hallway and walked into the kitchen to look around for a message of some sort.

Madison looked down and saw an 8 by 10 photo on his desk. He picked it up. “Jeffrey,” he called, his voice weak and unsteady. “Jeffrey!” he tried again, attempting to muster more force through his choked throat.

He turned the picture over and saw a copy of the settlement check Hellman had sent to Harding’s attorney. “Oh, my God,” was all he could mumble.

“What?” Hellman asked, walking into the room. “What’s the matter?” He must have seen the ashen color of Madison’s face because he sat down next to him. Then his eyes found the copy of the check. “Why do you have—” he started to ask as Madison flipped the picture over in front of it. It was a photo that appeared to depict his client kissing Brittany Harding. “Oh, shit.”

They sat in silence for a moment, both staring at the picture. “Phil, what is this? What are we looking at?”

Madison cleared his throat. “This was taken at the Fifth Street Café. She said she’d been on the phone a lot that day and had some kind of sharp pain in her ear. She wanted me to take a look at it, but when I couldn’t see anything, she moved closer. Somebody must have snapped the picture at that moment. The whole damned thing was orchestrated.”

“Why was she laughing?” Hellman asked, still looking at the picture.

“She said it tickled.” He let loose a stifled grunt. “I wasn’t even touching her.”

“But it looks like—”

“I know what it looks like!” Madison bit the inside of his cheek, then said, “Apparently, so did Leeza.” He continued to stare at the picture. “She’s left me, Jeffrey. She’s taken the kids and left me.” He said it matter-of-factly, like no amount of explaining in the world could reverse it. A done deal. Set in stone. Fact.

“Shit, Phil. I’m sorry.” He shifted in his seat. “How the hell did she get this? Where...” he said, as his voice trailed off.

Madison reached for the manila envelope on the desk.

“Don’t touch anything,” Hellman said. “Put the picture down.”

“Why—”

“Just do it. I’m going to have it dusted for prints. I bet I know exactly who sent this.”

“Harding.”

“Had to be,” Hellman said. “Who else would have a copy of the check?”

Madison did not answer.

“Movis Ehrhardt,” Hellman said.

“Who?”

“Harding’s attorney.” He rubbed aggressively at his forehead. “Right before we settled, he said that there was more evidence, but the detectives never said they had anything other than the belt and the phone bill. After you assured me that nothing else had happened, I thought he was bluffing.” There was quiet again in the room. “She never gave the police this picture. My guess is that she was going to turn it over to them if we didn’t pay her off.”

“But—but didn’t we have agreement, a contract?” Madison asked.

“In a perfect world, yes. But she’s a sick individual, Phil.” He sighed. “I’ll get on Movis’s ass Monday morning. File a claim with the bar...”

Madison wasn’t listening. New Orleans had popped into his mind. New Orleans and Leeza, and how nice their trip might have been.

“YOU’RE A goddamned fucking sleazebag, you son of a bitch,” Hellman yelled into the phone.

“Must be Jeffrey Hellman,” Movis Ehrhardt said.

“You’re a double-crossing extortionist.”

“Just let me know when you’re done.”

“Done?” Hellman asked. “I’m just getting started.”

“How about telling me what this is all about?”

“Let’s start with the destruction of a family, you unethical son-of—”

“Whoa, counselor, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Either you or your client sent Madison’s wife a picture that makes it look like he was kissing Harding in a restaurant.”

“And I assume it’s your position that that’s not what he was doing.”

“She was complaining of ear pain. She asked him to take a look.”

“And you think that this picture was sent to Madison’s wife by me?”

“You or your client. And given my past dealings with you, it wouldn’t surprise—”

“Why do you think I had anything to do with it?”

“The picture was accompanied by a copy of the settlement check I sent to you.”

There was no response at the other end. The usually vociferous, answer-for-everything Movis Ehrhardt fell silent.

Finally, Hellman broke the interlude. “Well?”

“I need to look into this.”

“You sound like you already know what happened.”

“Well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but before my client left here, she asked me for a copy of the check. I thought she just wanted it for her records.” There was silence again. “If she did this, I’m very sorry. Regardless of what you may think of me, I’m really sorry about this.”

“I’m having the picture dusted for prints. If those prints come back a match for you or your client, that money better be returned in certified funds within twenty-four hours of my call—or I’m going to find a way of tying you into this scheme and have you disbarred. I’ll make it my personal hobby.”

“I didn’t have anything—”

“We’ll talk tomorrow,” Hellman said just before he slammed the phone down.

IT WAS one o’clock in the morning and Ryan Chandler was yawning, fighting to keep awake.

“You’ve been talking for hours, Phil, but you don’t even look tired.”

“Dredging all this up has been very…difficult. I miss Leeza and the kids. It’s been almost a month since they left. I can’t tell you what it’s done to me.”

“It would tear me apart if Denise and Noah suddenly left me. But I can’t even imagine what you’re going through.”

“Let’s just say that I hope you never have the experience.”

Chandler yawned again; he was half slumped in his chair, and his low back ached. “I think it’s time for me to hit the sack, or I’ll be useless in the morning.”

“We’re almost through,” Madison said.

They said good night and Chandler was asleep five minutes later, not even bothering to take his clothes off.

Madison lay awake the rest of the night. The morning brought welcome sunshine; it was supposed to be 60 degrees today, a refreshing respite from the rain and 45-degree weather that had been feeding Madison’s depression.

When he walked into the kitchen, Chandler was sipping coffee and scanning the morning paper. Madison said hello and then launched into the rest of the story, as if he had been a movie placed on “pause” for the evening.

Chandler figuratively hit “play” by acknowledging his presence.

“I awoke the next morning and found a fax in my machine from Leeza,” Madison said. “She was staying at her sister’s in the Bay Area—I recognized the number at the top of the fax.” He found the handwritten letter, which was stuffed into a cubby next to the kitchen phone, and handed it to Chandler, who began to scan it:

...Please don’t call around looking for me. The boys and I are safe. I need some time to sort all this out. I can’t tell you how much you’ve hurt me. I feel like I don’t know you anymore. You never lied to me before, and this was such an important thing. I don’t know what hurts me more, the fact that you lied to me or your infidelity. Maybe you thought you were protecting me from getting hurt. But how can I forgive the fact that you slept with this woman? Did you really feel the need to go elsewhere? I always felt secure with you. I thought that that was one of the safest things in my life. The money was nice, sure, but nothing can replace your soul, your heart. This has taught me that people can say anything they want, but it’s their actions that really count. Talk is worthless if the actions don’t back it up.

I feel betrayed.

I need time to think things out, decide what to do. Maybe it’s best that we just part now and go our separate ways, before the kids get too much older. I’ll contact you soon.

After Chandler finished, he handed the fax back to Madison.

“I felt the same way about our relationship as she did, Ryan. Trust isn’t something you can buy, for any amount of money. It’s earned. And once it’s lost, it’s real hard to get it back.”

“There’s no doubt she was very hurt by what she thought was going on, Phil. But things have a way of working themselves out. Let things calm down a bit. She’ll come around.”

Madison was staring at the letter. “She was a part of me, Ryan. I don’t know how to describe it. She gave me balance, made me see things in ways I was too busy to see. It’s like Harding destroyed a part of me when she made Leeza walk out that door.”

“Stop talking about your marriage in the past tense. She’ll be back, I know it.”

After a long moment of silence, Madison folded Leeza’s letter, shoved it back into the bin next to the telephone, and continued the story.

After reading the fax, Madison felt like running into the middle of the street and screaming as loud as he could. But he had patients to see, and a facade that was in need of some repair. He walked outside into the cool, still air, took a few deep breaths, and left for the office.

The day was routine, which was good: he needed that. No important decisions, no critical diagnoses, no unusual test results to interpret. Tomorrow three surgeries were scheduled. He had another fourteen hours to get his head into shape before taking the scalpel in hand.

Madison sat down at his desk and signed a few reports without even bothering to proof them. When his phone buzzed, he glanced at his watch. He had been sitting there, lost in a thoughtless daze, for nearly twenty minutes.

“Jeffrey Hellman on line two,” Monica said.

He looked down at the phone, noticing the blinking red light. He had not even retrieved his messages. “Have him hold for a moment,” he said as he dialed into his voicemail, hoping there was a call from Leeza. Nothing. Just Jeffrey teasing him with “finally some good news.”

He disconnected the voicemail and returned the call.

“Jeffrey.”

“I would’ve thought you’d have called me by now, with that message I left.”

“Just got it. Been a little preoccupied, I guess.”

“Want some good news?”

“Hit me with it,” he said in a monotone that reflected his emotional fog.

“I have a forty-thousand-dollar check in my hand. Certified funds, signed by Movis Ehrhardt.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He and I had a conversation yesterday about the picture. Both his and Harding’s prints were all over it. By sending it, she broke the terms of our agreement. I threatened to sue both of them for damages, pain and suffering, extortion, assault, and whatever else rolled off my tongue at the moment. He knew it wouldn’t be worth the thirteen grand he made off it. He cut us a check this afternoon.”

“That’s great,” Madison said flatly.

“Yeah, I can tell. What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“I’ve got a lot on my plate right now. I’m thinking about Leeza, my marriage, my kids. I’m not handling it very well. I didn’t think it would get this bad.”

“Maybe you should see a shrink.”

“I’ll put myself on some Elavil. Got some around here somewhere...”

“Be careful with that stuff, Phil.”

“Thanks,
Doctor
Hellman.”

“That has a nice ring to it,” Hellman said, trying to lighten the conversation. “Maybe I should’ve listened to you. Gone to medical school, become a surgeon. We could’ve been in the same class. Pity that instructor.”

The attempt at levity was futile. “I’ve gotta go,” Madison said. “I have to pick up some food at the market tonight. There’s nothing in the house.”

“You want me to come over later?”

“Nah, I’m not really in the mood for company.”

“If you need to talk, give me a call. I’ll be home.”

The neighborhood Food & More market was a bright, upscale full-service facility, complete with child-care-while-you-shop, a Bank of America branch, espresso bar, sushi counter, and Chinese take-out. He had wandered through the frozen foods section, stocking his basket with ready-made dinners on which he would subsist for the next who knew how many days until Leeza would allow him to explain the check and picture.

As he headed down the aisle to the registers, his basket collided with one that belonged to another shopper. He looked up to apologize and upon seeing Brittany Harding’s face, froze instantly. “What the hell are you doing here?” he managed to blurt. This was not the neighborhood he expected to find her in.

Her face contorted in anger as she opened her mouth and let loose a barrage of expletives at a volume that made the nearby checker down the aisle turn his head.

“...You bastard,” she continued. “You and your attorney think you’re so smart, huh? Rape never goes away. You’ll have to live with that, just like I will. What nerve you have thinking you can violate a woman’s body and get away with it. You cost me my job, you pervert!”

Between anger and the embarrassment of being called a rapist in his neighborhood market, Madison broke out into a sweat and his heart began to pound. Hiding his face, he looked down and noticed a six-pack of beer in her cart. Instantly, Jeffrey’s admonition about appearing confident popped into his head. He looked up, directly into Harding’s enlarged pupils. “Why don’t you go home and drown yourself in that beer? Drown out the pitiful life you lead. Look at yourself! What drugs are you on now, anyway?”