Family Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 2) (5 page)

After a night of passion and romance with my long-lost wife, I
attacked my work at the office the next morning with renewed vigor.  The storm
had left an incredible day in its wake, with clear skies and cool morning
temperatures, but with the promise of a hot afternoon.  I’m not a vacation kind
of guy, but it was the kind of day that made me want to reform and take off for
the beach. 

My first order of business was to schedule mediation in a race
discrimination case I had pending in court.  Every once in a while an attorney
comes across a defendant whose behavior is so appalling, that he knows he has a
gold mine of a case.  Maddie’s lawsuit had been like that, and my gut feeling was
that the DIFCO lawsuit would be the same. 

I was representing the plaintiff, a 30-year-old black male
named Earl Jefferson, who worked for DIFCO, an auto parts manufacturer. 
According to Earl’s stories, he had endured more racial slurs and
racially-based harassment in the two years he had worked there,  than would
normally happen to a guy in a lifetime, even assuming he was black.  Either my
client was a really good liar, which was always a possibility, or DIFCO’s
management team was the most inept, unprofessional, and immoral group of idiots
I’d ever had the pleasure of suing.  They’d been adversarial from the start,
which was the way I liked it.  When I sent DIFCO’s president a courtesy letter
offering to settle the matter before we filed suit, not only did they not agree
to settle, but their response consisted of two words:  “Fuck off.”  I actually
laughed out loud.  I could just imagine what their attorneys would say when
they got hold of the document. 

Of course, there were big differences in this plaintiff and
Maddie, and the way a jury perceives a plaintiff is every bit as important, if
not more so, than the way they view the defendant.  In Maddie’s case, she’d
have won the jury hands down.  She was attractive and well-spoken; extremely
likable as a witness.  I hadn’t spent all that much time with Earl, so I wasn’t
sure how the jury would take to him.  He wasn’t exactly what you’d call
attractive, although he certainly wasn’t ugly.  It was his teeth, mainly; there
were just too damn many of them.   Plus, the guy was huge; not fat, just
enormous.  And right or wrong, that would have a bearing on the jury’s
perception of him too.  For some reason, juries equate physical size with
emotional endurance, and a big guy like Earl would be expected to put up with
more crap than an average size guy.  But even if there was just a fraction of
truth to what Earl had told me, no jury in their right mind could ignore what
he’d had to put up with at DIFCO, regardless of his size.  

I buzzed my secretary and he picked up with one ring.

“Sir!”

“What dates am I available next month for the DIFCO mediation? 
I’m going to need a full day.”

“Stand by.”  I could hear paper shuffling as he turned the page
on the calendar.  “You’ve got the 16
^th
, 17
^th
and 18
^th
available, or the 26
^th
through 28
^th
.”

“Call opposing counsel and see if any of those dates are okay.”

“Yes, sir.  Sir, I’ve got Felicia Armstrong holding on line 2.”

“You don’t have to call me, sir, Russ.”

“Very good, sir.  What should I tell Miss Armstrong?”

“I’ll talk to her.”  I hit the button for line 2.  “Good
morning, Felicia.”

“Hi, Sam.  Have you heard from your investigator friend?”

I looked at my watch.  “Felicia, it’s not even 9:00,” I pointed
out.  “He’s probably just now getting the information to his staff.”

“Did Maddie get back okay?” she asked.

Thinking of my wife made me smile.  “She did.  Why don’t you
call her.  I told her about your brother.”  I thought Maddie could be a calming
force to her; a voice of reason that Felicia so sorely lacked. 

“What about the guy who ran me off the road.  When are we going
to sue him?”

I’d hoped that with the development on the brother front, she’d
have lost interest in the Porsche guy.  I should have known better.

“I haven’t had a chance to look over Russ’ notes.  What exactly
happened?”  I sifted through a stack of papers and pulled out a legal pad.  I
heard Felicia slurp something and swallow before she started. 

“I was driving down Highway 281 in the inside lane, this is
during morning rush hour mind you, and this guy in a Porsche cuts right in
front of me, wedging his car in between me and the Suburban in front of me.  I
had to slam on my brakes to avoid hitting him.”

“Okay.” I was taking notes as fast as she was talking.

“So I backed off and put some room in between us.  Then he
couldn’t get around the Suburban lady, so he whips back into the center lane
and cuts off the person next to me.  She had to swerve into the right lane to
avoid an accident.” 

“Okay.”

“Then I sped up so he couldn’t get back in between me and the
Suburban.  I mean, I was tailgating the woman so there was no room whatsoever, and
the asshole whips over anyway, forcing me onto the shoulder.”

“What’d you do?”

“I laid on the horn and flipped him off.”  Exactly what I would
have done.  She took another slurp of her drink before she continued.  “So now
I’m behind him again, and I decided I didn’t want to be anywhere around him.  I
moved into the center lane to get away from him and the jerk cut right in front
of me
again
!  So I floored it and rammed my truck into the back of his
car.” 
Slurp.

I could just picture it.  Felicia would suck on the witness
stand.  As a client, she was an attorney’s biggest nightmare. “You mean, you
weren’t able to hit your brakes in time, right?”

“I mean I rammed the shit out of that prick’s shiny little
Porsche.  He deserved it!”

I put my pen down and leaned back in the chair, rubbing my
temples.  How could I make her go away?   “What happened next?” I asked without
enthusiasm.

“We pulled over and he got out and he acted like he was going
to hit me, so I told him to go ahead.  I dared him to,” she said defiantly. 

“Do you think that was smart?”

She ignored the remark and continued.  “I have a witness too. 
The Suburban lady pulled over.  Actually, she had to exit and circle around,
but she came back and gave me her name.”

“You’re kidding?”

“No, I’m not kidding.  He could have killed us both, the way he
was driving, and she had a kid in the car!  The jerk needs to be taught a
lesson, and I intend to do it.  With your help,” she added.  “So what do we
allege?”

I didn’t want to encourage her, but I figured I could at least
look into the guy’s driving record before I told her no.  “What’s the guy’s
name?”

“Hold on.” 
Shuffling papers; slurp.
  “Hawthorne Graves.”

I’d written half the name down before I realized what she’d
said.  “Hawthorne Graves!”

“Yeah.  Don’t tell me you know him?”

“Hawthorne Graves is a big-shot Federal judge here in town.”

“A judge?  Well now I’m really pissed off.  If anybody needs to
be taught a lesson, it’s a Porsche-driving Federal judge who runs people off
the road.”

On the whole, the prospect of suing a judge was daunting, but I
must admit that a part of me was dying to do it.  “Listen, Felicia.  There are
all kinds of implications in suing a judge.  I’ll do some checking and get back
with you, but don’t get your hopes up.”

“Too late. They’re already up.” Now she was chewing something
in my ear.  That’s where I drew the line.

“I’ve got to go.  I’ll talk to you later in the week,” I said
hurriedly, and I hung up before she could argue. Russ was standing in my
doorway. 

“We’re on for the 16th” he informed me.

“Good.  Put in on my calendar.”

“It’s already done, sir.” 

He handed me some documents and I looked them over, signed
them, and handed them back to him. 

“Thanks, Russ.”

“Not a problem.”

He swiveled on his heel and headed back to his desk.  All that
was lacking was a salute.

“Hey, Russ,” I called out.

He came back and stood in the doorway waiting for further
instructions. “Sir!”

“At ease.”

His lips curled almost imperceptibly at the ends into the
closest thing I’d seen to a smile, then he turned his back to me and headed to
his desk.  The temptation must have been too much, because he called out, “Yes,
sir!”

The phone was ringing before he got back to his desk so I
picked it up.

“Samuel Collins.”

“Mr. Collins, this here’s Earl Jefferson.”

“My father is Mr. Collins. Call me Samuel.”

“Okay.  Samuel.”

I waited, but he didn’t continue.  “What can I do for you,
Earl?”

“I was told to call you so that’s what I’m doin’.  A man from
your office called me – said he was your secretary.”  He pronounced it
secatary
.

“That was Russ.  He was probably calling to confirm the date
we’ve set for mediation in your case.”

“Wussup with you havin’ a dude for a secatary?”

“Nothing’s up, and no, he’s not gay.”

“No kiddin’?”

“While I’ve got you on the phone, we need to get together for a
couple of hours so I can get some details from you.  I’m working on discovery.”

“Wussat mean, discovery?”

“Questions.  I’m working on questions that we’ll submit to
DIFCO.  We’ll also request that they give us copies of documents that we feel
are relevant to the case.”

“No kiddin’?  Howsat work?” Earl asked.

“Well let’s see . . .You ever play
Go Fish
?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s kind of like that.”

Earl was quiet while he mulled it over.  “I can come down today
if you want,” he offered. 

I looked at my calendar.  “Can you make it here by 11:00.  I
have to be somewhere at 1:30.”

“Ain’t no problem.”

“Good.  We’ll make it a working lunch.  Bring anything you have
that relates to the case that I don’t already have.”

*    *    *    *

Earl arrived at my office at 11:00 on the dot, and he came armed
with a box of incriminating evidence against DIFCO.  I leafed through page
after page of offensive, racially-oriented material that had been taped to his
locker or left at his work station; some he had received in the mail; some had
been handed to him right to his face.  Some were even signed by the co-worker who
had given it to him, which in many cases was his immediate supervisor.  There
were cartoons, notes, memos, calendar pages, drawings, poems, stickers,
buttons.  I was floored. 

When Earl had approached me about representation, he was
sitting on the deadline of his right to sue.  It was literally the eleventh
hour.  We’d had to make a mad dash to the courthouse to get the lawsuit filed
on time, and I’d prepared the complaint on the limited information that Earl
had brought with him, basically the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
determination, the notice of right to sue, and copies of a couple of the
documents he’d brought as proof of the harassment he’d gone through at DIFCO. 
He had told me there were more documents, but he never mentioned that there
were 40 or 50, maybe even 60 more.  It was better than I’d ever imagined.  We’d
hit pay dirt.  

I glanced over every document and when I got to the bottom of
the box I picked up the last item and turned it in my hand.  It was a little
white tube with a black man’s face on it, and all you could see were the whites
of his eyes and his teeth. I turned the tube over.  “
Darkie Toothpaste
.” 

“No way!” I laughed.  “Where’d you get this?”

“My boss brought it back from Africa.  Gave me some hair cream
too.  All oily and nasty.  Same
Darkie
stuff as that there,” he said,
pointing a huge finger at the toothpaste.

I opened the lid and smelled the toothpaste.
Spearmint.
“Let
me ask you something, Earl.  Why do you continue to work there?”

“I need the job.”

“Why that job?  Why don’t you just quit and go out and get
another job?”

Earl looked down at his monstrous feet.  “I ain’t got no
college education.  I can’t walk into an office like yours and them give me a
job.  It don’t work like that.  I got a job that makes me pretty good money. 
Ya see, I got a little girl that I need to take care of.  Her mama don’t want
nothin to do with me, but I take care of my little girl.  So I need to keep
that job.”

I smiled inside.  The jury would love him.  “Did you ever
consider doing anything about your teeth?” I asked. 

He looked puzzled.  “Wussamatter with my teeth?”

“Never mind.”

It was just over a week when I heard back from Niki, and rather
than picking up the phone and calling me, he graced me with his presence by
showing up at my office unannounced.  By that, I mean that he strolled right
past Russ and straight into my office with my secretary on his heels.  Russ
stuck his head around Niki in the doorway. 

“This gentleman is here to see you,” he announced, clearly
perturbed. 

Niki laughed.  “Oh, sorry.  I didn’t know you worked here.”  He
held out his hand.  “Niki Lautrec.”

The two shook hands and Russ made his exit, closing the door as
he left.

“New attorney?” Niki asked.

“Secretary.”

“Really?  You have a male secretary?”

“Yes, I have a male secretary,” I said, sounding as bored as I
possibly could.

“Well, that’s very progressive of you, Collins,” Niki laughed.
“I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“Didn’t know I had
what
in me?” I said irritably.

“Oh, you know.  I’m sure everyone thinks the guy’s probably
gay.  Guilt by association and all that,” he said with a wave of his hand.

He plopped down in the chair in front of my desk and leveled
his creepy eyes on me.  Even a red-blooded heterosexual male couldn’t help
notice the guy’s good looks.  His hair was a mass of wavy curls that he was
wearing almost to his shoulders and his eyes were the most unique shade of
green I’d ever seen.  He was as rugged and ruthless as they come, but there was
this almost angelic quality to him.  I considered him one of my best friends;
someone I could rely on 110 percent.  He could also piss me off faster than
anyone else I knew, except maybe Felicia.

“So what are you saying?  That people think I’m gay because I
have a male secretary?”

“Not the ones who know you.  They’ll think you’re bi.”

“Fuck off, Lautrec.”

He laughed out loud.  “Actually, I think men make better
secretaries than women. We’ve had male secretaries at Lautrec Investigations
for years.”

“Bully for you.”

“Oh, quit pouting.  Let’s go get some lunch and I’ll tell you
what I found out about your cousin’s brother.”

“Maddie’s cousin,” I clarified.  Not for a minute was I going
to let that one slide.

We drove to Shilo’s, an old German restaurant that has been on Commerce Street for about 100 years. I ate sausage and sauerkraut washed down with a mug of
root beer while Niki filled me in on his investigation.   

It turned out that Felicia’s brother had been placed in a
private institution called Serenity several years after a football injury left
him paralyzed from the neck down.  He was 18 at the time of the accident.  The
institution had changed hands and locations several times.  It was currently
located outside a small West Texas town called Harmony.  I’d never heard of it.

“I drove through there once; there’s not much to the place,”
Niki said.  “A couple of traffic lights, a gas station, lots of oil rigs.  It’s
a speed trap, and they’d just as soon throw you in jail as give you a ticket,
so watch your speed.”

“I won’t be going anywhere near the place,” I informed him. 
“This is strictly Felicia’s deal.  So her brother’s still there?”

“He’s still there.”

“Felicia will be ecstatic. I’ll give her the news over the
phone so I don’t have to deal with her in person.”

Niki laughed.  “Why don’t you give her a break.  She can’t be
all that bad.”

“You haven’t met her,” I asserted, but I felt a twinge of guilt
after the vomit episode.  “Bill me directly on this.  I kind of owe her one.”

*    *    *    *

When I got back to the office, I called Felicia’s cell phone
but got voicemail, so I left her a message that I’d talked to Niki and I had
word on her brother, and I left the same message on the answering machine at
her house.  Felicia seemed like the type of person that would check her
messages at least hourly, so I fully expected to hear from her almost
immediately.  When she hadn’t returned the call by the time I left the office,
I started to wonder if maybe she was out of town.  No such luck.  She pulled
into my driveway right behind me, and she was out of her truck, pounding on my
window before I could even turn off the engine.  Maddie and the kids came out
to greet us, providing a welcome distraction for me from Felicia.

Maddie and Felicia hugged.  “Look at your hair!” Maddie
exclaimed.  “Oh, I love it!”

“It’s not too red?” Felicia asked, fluffing the top of her
head.

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“She wasn’t asking you,” Maddie stated, then she turned back to
Felicia.  “It’s not too red at all.  You look glamorous.”

Either she really believed it or my wife was an excellent
liar.  I wasn’t sure which was worse.  I hugged my wife and three kids in turn
and I had no choice but to acknowledge Felicia.  She was practically panting she
was so excited.  She had a bad habit of touching me, not in a sexual way; she
was just one of those touchy feely people, and she had wrapped her arm around
my bicep and was squeezing it.

“Did Sam tell you that he got word on my brother?” Felicia
asked Maddie.

Maddie’s eyes got big.  “No!  What did you find out?”

I’d really hoped to have gotten this over with on the phone. 
That way the two could have already yakked about it and my involvement could
have been kept to a bare minimum. 

“Let’s talk inside,” I suggested.

“Fee, stay for dinner,” Maddie said.

I thought about being put out, but Maddie was just way too cute
to be mad at.  We went inside and I filled them in on what Niki had told me. 
Felicia listened with her mouth gaping open and when I finished, she was so
excited that her brother was still alive that I thought she might cry.  Maddie
would have for sure.  But I have to give Felicia credit – she never did shed a
tear and I’d yet to see her cry in the year that I’d known her.  She actually
did have one redeeming quality.

Later that night, I was bathing Max and Oliver in the tub while
Maddie bathed Morgan in the sink. 

“Felicia asked if I’d go with her tomorrow to Serenity,” Maddie
said.

I was afraid that was coming.  “What’d you tell her?”

“I told her I didn’t see how I could.  Unless my mom can take
care of the kiddos.”

I knew how important family was to Maddie, so I knew that she
really wanted to go.  And as much as I disliked the idea of her going anywhere
with her cousin, much less to some corrupt small town in the middle of West Texas, my wife had long ago proved that she was capable of taking care of herself even
in the worst of circumstances.

“If your mom can’t do it, they can hang out with me at the
office.  Penny would love it.” 

Maddie smiled.  “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

I was just about to go sentimental on her, when Max killed the
mood by dumping an entire big-gulp cup of water onto my crotch. 

“Ahhhhhh!” I yelled out and jumped up, soaked from the waist
down.

Oliver and Max were howling. “Max dumped water on Dad’s
wiener!” Oliver exclaimed.

Maddie and I looked at each other, and I could see she was
fighting laughter as much as I was.   “On Dad’s what?” Maddie asked.

“His wiener,” Oliver repeated.  “That’s penis in Spanish.”

Now she did laugh. “No, it’s not; wiener’s German.”

Oliver looked confused.  “Then what’s penis in Spanish?”

“I don’t know,” Maddie said.  She looked at me, but I shrugged
my shoulders. 

“I don’t know either,” I told him. “My Spanish isn’t very
good.”

“What’s bum in Spanish?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Maddie said, and Oliver looked at me. 

“Me neither.”

“It’s bumholio,” Oliver said knowingly

Maddie gave me look. “I told you not to watch that in front of
him.”

“Yeah, well, when you’re right, you’re right.”