Final Exam: A Legal Thriller (11 page)

11

 
Nothing happened over the following weekend.
 
Ben kept his cell phone handy and jumped every time either that or his home phone rang.
 
He didn’t hear from anyone.
 
He tried to keep himself busy to keep his mind off things.
 
It didn’t work.
 
Meg’s pending arrest and the connection between her and Professor Greenfield gnawed at him the entire time.
 
It kept turning up unwanted like his least favorite cousin - when he shoveled snow, when he folded some laundry and when he vacantly watched a movie with his wife on Saturday night.
 
He just couldn’t drive it out of his head.
 

He didn’t have Court on Monday so he stopped at Jiffy Lube on the way into the office for an oil change.
 
It snowed overnight and traffic moved much slower than usual.
 
He didn’t hit the office parking lot until almost ten.
 
In deference to the weather and the forecast for more snow later that afternoon, Ben wore jeans, a black sweater, brown suede casual slip-on shoes and his brown bomber jacket.
 
He ran into Nancy on her way to the bathroom as he kicked the snow off his shoes just inside the back door.
 
“Where have you been?” she asked, pausing when she noticed his clothing.
 
“Whoa, casual day today, huh?”
 

Ben nodded.
 
“Yeah, well, it’s shitty out there.”
 

“It’s shitty in here too,” she said.
 
“That husband’s been calling non-stop.
 
He’s probably called four or five times already.
 
You’re right.
 
He is an asshole.”
 

“Why?
 
What did he say?”
 

“It wasn’t so much what he said.
 
He was just rude and obnoxious to both me and Dianne.
 
I don’t know who he thinks he is.”
 

“Oh, I can tell you who he thinks he is,” Ben said, “and I can also tell you who he actually is.
 
Did he leave any messages?”
 

“At least one.”
 

“Well, whatever you do,” Ben said, “
don’t
give him my cell phone number.
 
Tell everybody.
 
Just be civil to him and offer him my voicemail.
 
But don’t, under any circumstances, give him my cell phone number unless I tell you to ahead of time.
 
I want to be in control of when I talk to him, not the other way around.”
 

Ben listened to his voicemail messages even before he took his jacket off.
 
The only message on his system was one from Joseph
Cavallaro
, who was indeed belligerent and berated Ben for not returning his calls in a timely fashion.
 
He also said that he needed to see Ben as soon as possible.
 
Ben deleted the message, took off his jacket and threw it over the bench opposite his desk.
 

A few minutes later, Nancy joined him.
 
“Well, was he an asshole or what?” she said.
 

“Of course.
 
I’m sure he got worse every time he called.”
 

“What does he want?”
 

“I think he wants me to cater to him more and he’s probably pissed off that she hired me at all.
 
Oh, and I’ve been summoned.”
 

“Summoned?”
 

“Yeah, he wants to see me at his office.”
 

“What are you going to do?”
 

“I’m going to go.”
 

“Are you going to call him first?”
 

“No, I’m just going to show up.
 
If he wants to see me that bad, he shouldn’t complain when I show up unannounced.”
 
Ben rubbed the side of his nose.
 
“I’ve got to call Mark and Ken and talk to Funk and Conlon,” he said.
 
“In the meantime, print me two copies of the Retainer Agreement.
 
Put them in a manila folder.”

Both Mark and Ken were in Court so he left messages.
 
He met Dan Conlon and Brad Funk in the garage for a quick update on their research projects.
 
Ten minutes later, after putting on his jacket and stuffing the Retainer Agreement into his briefcase, he headed for the door.

The SUV cut through the remaining snow and slush with relative ease.
 
Cavallaro’s
office was located in a mid-story office tower downtown that overlooked the Chicago River.
 
Ben found a parking garage down the street and parked.
 
He eased through the revolving doors at the north end of the building and strolled up to the automated information screen in the center of the lobby and punched in CAV at the prompt and touched Enter.
 
A second later, Joseph
Cavallaro
& Associates, Suite 2050, lit up the screen.
   

Ben picked his way through the growing crowd of office workers on their way to lunch and located the correct elevator bank.
 
A bell rang and an instant later, the middle door opened, releasing two men and three women to the corridor.
 
Ben stepped on, hit the number 20 and the doors closed in front of him.
 
He had considered his course of action carefully while driving downtown from Ithaca.
 
The elevator reached the 20
^th
floor and the doors opened.
 
Ben stepped into a small lobby area and looked to his left, then back to his right.
 
There, on the other side of an intersecting hallway, stood two ornate wooden doors on which the words “Joseph
Cavallaro
& Associates, Ltd., Attorneys and Counselors at Law” were emblazoned in gold letters.
 

Ben pulled the door open and walked quickly inside.
 
A pretty blond girl in her early-twenties sat at a reception desk and looked up as he entered.
 
“Hi, can I help …” was all she got out before Ben interrupted her.
 

“I’m here to see Mr.
Cavallaro
,” he said without breaking stride.
 
He turned to his left and strode down a long hallway with secretarial stations and offices on his right.
 

“Hey, you can’t go down there,” the blond said from behind him.
 

“That’s okay,” he said over his shoulder as he kept walking, “he’s expecting me.”
 
Ben reached the end of the corridor and found another blond sitting at a secretarial station.
 
This one was maybe ten years older than the first, but no less attractive.
 
Seeing Ben coming and hearing Blond #1’s attempt to slow him down, Blond #2 stood up and made a weak attempt at blocking his path.
 
He quickly stepped around her and said, “Excuse me,” as he grabbed the doorknob, opened the door and stepped inside.
 

There he found Joseph
Cavallaro
holding court behind a large, ornately carved mahogany desk the size of a small boat, his feet propped up on the stern and a telephone receiver wedged between his left shoulder and left ear.
 
He was filing his nails.
 
Cavallaro
looked dumbstruck.
 
Ben fixed him with a firm gaze, his green eyes blazing.
 
After a moment, he looked down to his immediate right, where a bookish-looking brunette sat on a black leather sofa with a yellow notepad and a gold Cross pen.
 
This one was a lawyer, Ben thought to himself.
 
He looked at her and said, “You can leave now.”
 
She neither moved nor replied, a shocked, mouth-open look on her face.
 

Right then, Blond #1 and Blond #2 stumbled through the door behind him.
 
Sensing a pending disaster, Blond #1 stuttered as she tried to compose herself.
 
“I’m, I’m sorry, sir.
 
But this man just, just went right by me.”
 
Ben gave her a deadly glare.
 
Cavallaro
, still on the telephone, waved her off with his right hand, still holding the nail file as he sat up.
 
The two blonds didn’t know whether they should shit or take notes until
Cavallaro
mouthed the words, “Go, Go” and again waved them toward the door.
 
The two blonds stepped back outside and closed the door behind them.
 

The bookish brunette didn’t move.
 
Ben looked down at her again and she stared back, eyes transfixed.
 
He lowered his head until it was almost at her level and said in a much louder voice as though he was talking to someone who was hard of hearing, “I said you can leave now.”
 

He turned back toward
Cavallaro
, who was still on the telephone, although paying more attention to Ben than he was to the person on the other end of the line.
 
Ben took two steps in his direction and said, “Hang up the phone.”
 
At this, the brunette rose slowly from the sofa and slipped quietly from the room.
 
Ben ignored her.
 
He continued to stare directly at
Cavallaro
, whose expression morphed from shock to disbelief to confusion to anger in a matter of seconds.
  

Getting no response, Ben moved to the front of the desk and leaned over and pushed the button on the receiver, disconnecting the call, never taking his eyes from
Cavallaro’s
.
 
He repeated, much softer than before, “I said hang up the phone.”
 
Ben turned and walked slowly back to the couch as
Cavallaro
slammed the handset back down on the telephone.
 

“Who the fuck do you think you are coming in here like this?”
 

Ben ignored him and sat down, crossing his legs and putting his hands in his lap as though a priest patiently awaiting the report from one of his altar boys.
 
Cavallaro
rose to his feet, a fury building within him.
 
“I said, who the fuck do you think you are?”
 

Ben didn’t say anything for a moment and
Cavallaro
appeared to struggle to find stronger words with which to make his point.
 
Ben continued to look directly into his eyes.
 
“I believe you summoned me,” he finally said.
 
A knock came at the door and a tall man poked his head in.
 
“Apparently they’re worried about you, Joe,” Ben said with a sly smile.
 

Now
Cavallaro
was embarrassed in addition to angry.
 
He tried to compose himself.
 
“It’s ah …
it’s
okay.
 
We
 
… ah … have an important meeting here that we need to attend to.
 
I just … ah … I just didn’t know that Mr.
Lohmeier
was coming right now.
 
That’s all.
 
That’s all.
 
You can leave us now.
 
Thanks.”
 
Cavallaro
waved the man out, while Ben continued to smile at him.
 

“Now that you’ve summoned me and I’ve come,” Ben said, “what is it that you’d like to talk about?”
 

Cavallaro
, all five-foot six of him, attempted to pump himself up like a third world dictator, his reddening face a marked contrast with his thick gray hair.
 
Ben always thought Joseph
Cavallaro
looked like Eddie Arcaro, although he had never seen the famed jockey in such a state.
 
“I don’t know who the fuck you think you are,”
Cavallaro
said, “but I’ve got a god damn wife on death row practically and you stroll in here and pull this bullshit?
 
I should come around this desk and kick your ass.”
 

The smile vanished from Ben’s face and he continued to look
Cavallaro
straight in the eyes.
 
“I would have thought,” he said finally, “that you would be too busy allowing your wife to speak with the authorities without the benefit of counsel to kick my ass.
 
Particularly an experienced advocate like yourself.
 
I would have thought that the mother of your youngest son would have merited a bit more concern from the great Joseph
Cavallaro
than to allow her wade helplessly into a thicket with the police and perhaps even implicate
herself
in a capital murder.
 
Nevertheless, I’m quite sure that you had your reasons for what you did.
 
But never mind, we’re beyond that now.
 
Thankfully, we have extricated Megan Rand
Cavallaro
from those people who appear more interested in implicating than exonerating her.”
 
Truth be told, Ben couldn’t really hold
Cavallaro
responsible for Megan’s conversations with the police.
 
They had appeared out of nowhere with questions Megan couldn’t comprehend.
 
Not much damage was done.
 
Since
Cavallaro
had never practiced criminal law, Ben thought he could use that fact to his advantage.