Authors: William Lashner
It started with a phone call in the middle of the night.
No one calls in the middle of the night to invite you to a party or set up a dinner date, not unless her wireless plan is seriously deficient. No, a phone call in the middle of the night is the heart-stopping herald of tragedy, of calamity, of nightmare become real. So when my phone rang in the middle of the night, yanking me out of a fitful sleep, between the time I realized what was going on and the time I was able to pick up the handset, the horrifying possibilities tortured me. My apartment building was on fire. My father had died. My mother was calling from Arizona to say hello.
“What is it?” I said, on the verge of panic.
No response.
“Hello. Who is there?”
No response.
“Mom?”
Nothing.
After a few more moments of silence, I hung up. Wrong number, I figured, but even so, it wasn’t easy to get back to sleep. The call had jacked my heart rate, the scenarios of calamity were still flitting through my brain. Where my sleep had been fitful before, it became impossible now. I tossed and turned and stared at the shaft of streetlight that painted my ceiling.
It felt as if I had just fallen back into slumber when the phone rang once more. I jerked awake, noticed that it was light out, grabbed at the handset.
“What?” I said.
“Dude, about the car.”
“What car?”
“The red Caddie ragtop. Is that price firm?”
“What price?”
“It says here twelve hundred. I was wondering if there’s any wiggle room.”
“No,” I said. “No wiggle room, and no car. You must have the wrong number.”
“You sure?”
“Quite.” I hung up and looked at my clock. It was seven in the morning, I had barely slept, and I was due in court at ten that day. I tried to shake my brain awake when the phone rang again.
“What?”
“Dude, about the car.”
“Didn’t we have this conversation already? What number are you trying to reach?”
He told me.
“That’s my number, but there’s no car,” I said. “Really there isn’t. It must be a misprint. Please, don’t call again.”
I was getting out of the shower, toweling off, when the damn thing rang again. Still dripping, I bolted into the bedroom and picked it up.
“Yo,” came a slow, deep voice. “I’m calling about the convertible.”
I left a new message on my answering machine—“There is no car”—and slipped on my suit and tie. I stopped in the diner for a coffee, large, before heading on. I had just reached Twenty-first Street, and the caffeine had just started opening my eyes, when my cell phone rang.
“Victor Carl here,” I said.
“Hello, yes. Thank you for answering.” It was a woman’s voice, very proper. “I understand you have a litter of Labradoodles you are trying to sell.”
Sometimes, I admit, I can be a little dense, but suddenly I knew who had rung my phone in the middle of the night.
My office, when I arrived, was a madhouse. There were a score of applicants for the open paralegal position, with a base salary of $45,000, plus benefits, plus bonuses, all of which would have made it a pretty sweet gig, except that there was no open paralegal position at our office, and $45,000, plus benefits, plus bonuses, was more than Beth and I were pulling down as lawyers. The group of job seekers was standing in front of my secretary, Ellie, pointing their fingers at the large advertisement in the classifieds.
“I don’t care what it says printed there,” she was telling them, “there is no job. It’s a mistake. Go home.”
When she saw me, she raised her hands in exasperation.
I slipped to the front of the crowd, leaned over, said softly, “Sorry about this. Any messages?”
“You have seven offers for the Jimmy Page–autographed guitar.”
“Jimmy Page? From Led Zeppelin?”
“I didn’t know you had a Jimmy Page–autographed guitar.”
“Neither did I.” I looked around at the crowd. “I’ll be in my office. I need to make a call. Just thank them for coming and tell them all that the job’s been filled. It will be easier.”
“What’s going on, Mr. Carl?”
“Someone’s having a little fun with me.”
“With all this, I’m going to need a raise,” she said.
“Sorry,” I said. “After we pay the paralegal, there won’t be enough money left for paper clips, let alone a raise.”
I closed the door to my office, sat down at my desk, drained the coffee, watched the lights of my office lines twinkling. So Bob was playing games, calling me in the middle of the night, placing false advertisements in the newspaper to tie up all my phones. He’d have to do better than that, I figured, but still, it was annoying, and I didn’t have any doubt as to how he’d found out about my questions to Torricelli the day before. When a line cleared, I quickly snatched up the phone and dialed.
Whitney Robinson III laughed when I told him what had gone on that morning.
“You didn’t think he’d be happy, did you?” said Whit.
“No,” I said.
“Or that he wouldn’t find out.”
“No, not that either.”
“So there you go, my boy. What else could you have expected? It was a mistake to bring him into it. You are endangering his work.”
“Dentistry?”
“More like a ministry.”
“Whit, I don’t have a choice here.”
“We all have choices.”
“And you chose to act as a spy.”
He chuckled at my accusation. “I like to think I’m performing a service to both of you. Think of me as a conduit. I’m very fond of you, Victor, you know that. And he is a remarkable man, truly an extraordinary man.”
“He’s a dentist.”
“Oh, my boy, he is more than that. He is a sterling example to the rest of us. We all wander through the world spotting poor souls in trouble, and what we do is cluck our tongues in sympathy as we go on our way. But he stops, takes their hands in his, does something to help. I can’t tell you the number of people he’s helped in so many ways, large and small. And you are one of them, Victor, don’t forget. He’s helped you plenty already, and those young children you are so interested in. And he can help you more.”
“Sounds like a bribe.”
“If it does, then you still don’t understand. There is nothing venal here. He sees a woman in trouble, becomes involved in her life, and acts toward her as if she were his responsibility. You aren’t yet a father, Victor, but let me tell you from personal experience, a father will stop at nothing to save his child. Nothing. Remember that. But the extraordinary thing about this man is that he feels that same way toward total strangers. He sees a way he can help and he strikes out after it.”
“Like some sort of Lone Ranger riding the range, trying to lend a hand.”
“And succeeding, my boy. Succeeding.”
“Like he succeeded with Lisa Dubé?”
“He did what he could.”
“He killed her, Whit.”
“Oh, no, he did not. You’re being silly now. His whole life is about helping others. He’s not a murderer. He’s a lifesaver, if anything.”
“He killed her.”
“Stop it, now. You are upset, you haven’t thought this through. Listen to me, my boy. I know you don’t trust me as you used to. I understand that. Divided loyalties. But if ever you did trust what I said, then trust this: He didn’t kill that woman.”
“Who did?”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Even if I believed you, Whit, I still have an obligation to my client.”
“Save your client without bringing him into it.”
“But the only way I can see to save my client is to use him to at least create reasonable doubt.”
“Think about it, Victor. Examine all your options. You are endangering more than you know. Not just him, but his mission, too, and that he can’t allow. He can be a wonderful friend, as he has shown, but he can also be a most dangerous foe.”
“I don’t know about that. A few false ads, a few late-night calls. I can handle it.”
“Oh, Victor, my boy. Don’t underestimate him. Our mutual friend is just clearing his throat.”
I liked the image, Mia Dalton swaying on a hammock in a soft breeze, eyes closed, an umbrella drink in her hand and a rumba playing softly on the radio.
“The prosecution rests,” she said.
“I could use a little rest myself,” I mumbled to Beth.
“Did you say something, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.
Why did I feel like I was back in fifth grade? “No, sir.”
“Do you have witnesses to present?”
“Yes, we do.”
“Let’s have the jury take a break while we go over some legal matters, and then you can begin your case.”
“All rise,” shouted the bailiff. We all rose. The key for a defense attorney as jurors file out of the courtroom is to maintain your air of benign confidence until the door closes behind them. Then all bets are off, and you can sink back into your seat with a despondent expression of utter defeat.
Beth made the usual motions to dismiss, raised the usual arguments, accepted stoically the usual denials.
“Anything else I can reject?” said the judge.
“My credit card was refused last week,” said Beth, “so I suppose that’s about it.”
“Fine,” said the judge. “Twenty minutes, folks,” and we rose once again when he made his way off the bench.
“That went well,” said Beth.
“About as well as could be expected,” I said as I stood at the table. “Dalton’s case was pretty thorough.”
“Are we ready for our defense?”
“I think so,” I said, but just as I said it, Beth’s eyes grew large and I felt a lurking presence behind me. I winced even before I turned around.
Torricelli.
“His name’s Pfeffer,” said Torricelli. “Robert Pfeffer.”
“How’d you find him?”
“One of the victim’s friends told us. A Mrs. Winterhurst. Turns out she was the one who recommended him to Leesa in the first place. So after we got the name, we swung by his office. Nice little guy. And he seems to know what he’s doing. I had a dental question that he answered quite thoroughly.”
“You make an appointment?”
“As a matter of fact. He seems quite competent, and I heard he has gentle hands. Of course, it turns out he also has an alibi for the night of the murder.”
“Of course he does,” I said. “You check it out?”
“It holds,” he said. “He was with someone the entire night.”
“Dr. Bob, that dog,” I said, shaking my head. “Who would have figured? You mind telling me whom he was with?”
“Confidentiality prohibits it, but let’s just say he had his hands full.”
“Got you.” Tilda. Oof.
“So that’s that, right?” said Torricelli.
“I suppose.”
“And we can forgo all the dental crap in this trial?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Carl, you know what you are? Vexing. You are one vexing son of a bitch.”
“Thank you, Detective. Can I make one suggestion?”
“Go ahead.”
“Before you sit in Dr. Pfeffer’s chair, you might want to check out his diploma. There’s a little smudge where his name is. Turns out he wasn’t born a Pfeffer. Before you let him reach into your mouth, I suggest you find out why he changed his name.”
I might beweep a bit too much my outcast state, but there are admitted joys in this job. Chief among them is cashing a retainer check. I also like cross-examining fools, reading deposition transcripts—that’s a little sick, I know, but there it is—and instructing my secretary to hold all calls. I especially like the way people recoil when I tell them I’m a lawyer. Try it sometime at a party or on the street, tell someone you’re a lawyer and watch as they dance away. It almost makes me want to sign up to work for the IRS. And it was a joy just then, let me tell you, when I told Detective Torricelli that his new dentist, Dr. Pfeffer, had doctored his diploma and changed his name for some unknown reason, and then watched as Torricelli’s eyes boggled and he nervously rubbed his tongue across his teeth.
“Call your first witness, Mr. Carl,” said the judge.
“Your Honor, the defense calls Arthur Gullicksen.”
Arthur Gullicksen approached the stand wearing an expensive gray suit, black loafers with tassels, and a fine head of gray hair sleeked neatly back. In fact,
sleek
was exactly the word for him, his trim figure, his polished nails and sharp teeth, the way his face came to a razor’s edge at the front. You might remember the name Gullicksen, he was Leesa Dubé’s divorce attorney, whom we had tried to keep off the stand during the prosecution’s case. Now he was our first witness. Funny how things change. To see Gullicksen in the flesh was to open once again the eternal debate of nature versus nurture. Are lawyers that look like Gullicksen attracted to matrimonial law, or is it the job itself that turns them into such repulsive specimens?
As Gullicksen sat on the witness stand, he pulled out his cuffs, smoothed his jacket sleeves, adjusted his tie so it sat neatly between the points of his collar. His yellow tie. The very same tie I now was wearing. Would the humiliation over my neckwear never cease?
“Thank you for coming back, Mr. Gullicksen. I have only a few questions. You testified before that you were Mrs. Dubé’s divorce attorney, is that right?”
“That’s correct,” he said while examining his manicure.
“How was it going?”
“Excuse me?”
“The case. From the pleadings you put into evidence in your prior testimony, it is apparent that you and Mrs. Dubé were fighting for custody of the daughter, you were fighting for a lion’s share of the matrimonial assets, including a piece of François Dubé’s restaurant, and you were fighting for a substantial amount in child support and alimony.”
“We were only seeking what she was entitled to.”
“Fine, we’re not going to dispute any of that here. But what I want to know, Mr. Gullicksen, is how was your case proceeding? Did it look like you were going to be successful on all those requests?”
“It is hard to say.”
“Try, Mr. Gullicksen. Let’s take the child-custody issue. You alleged physical abuse of Mrs. Dubé and Amber Dubé at the hands of the defendant. What kind of evidence did you have for that?”
“Leesa Dubé was prepared to testify.”
“But you had no other witness, did you?”
“Leesa had told her friends of the abuse.”
“That was hearsay, and so not admissible. And the pediatrician, as we’ve heard already from Detective Torricelli, saw no indications of abuse. Did you have any other witnesses or admissible evidence on the abuse issue?”
“Not at that point, but I was looking for others.”
“Now, in his responsive pleadings, Mr. Dubé alleged that his wife was addicted to painkillers, often dumped her daughter at her mother’s house while she went on unexplained trips out of town, and was in many ways an unfit mother, isn’t that right?”
“Those were his allegations.”
“Did he have witnesses to back up those allegations?”
“He claimed he did.”
“You depose them?”
“Some of them, yes.”
“How’d the depositions go?”
“There were avenues to discredit the testimony.”
“I’ve been a lawyer long enough to interpret that. The testimony was pretty strong, wasn’t it?”
“It had some strength to it, yes.”
“Mr. Gullicksen, in your opinion was there a chance that Leesa would lose custody?”
“Objection as to relevance of the witness’s opinion,” said Mia Dalton.
“Mr. Carl? Is this whole line of questioning relevant?”
“Yes, Your Honor. I ask for some leeway here. I am not attempting to try the divorce case in this courtroom. But I do think it extremely relevant what Leesa Dubé’s lawyer thought of the case and what Mrs. Dubé thought of her chances in turn. Her fear of losing her child is at the heart of our defense.”
“Go ahead, then, but be careful.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. Mr. Gullicksen, was there a chance that Leesa would lose custody?”
“Yes.”
“A pretty good chance?”
“A more-than-negligible chance.”
“And as per the ethical requirements of the Bar Association, you relayed that to your client?”
“I did.”
“How did she take it?”
“I can’t disclose anything she told me.”
“Of course not, but you can tell us her state of mind. How did she take the very real possibility of losing custody of her daughter, Amber, to the defendant?”
“Not well.”
“How about the money stuff? How was that looking?”
“There was going to be some alimony, absolutely. I was convinced we could get a significant amount of Mr. Dubé’s income, but, unfortunately, that income was limited. Child support depended on the custody issue, so that, too, was in doubt. And our investigation showed that there was really no equity in the restaurant, due to the financial structure of the business. So there was a chance that Leesa might have ended up with very little.”
“And you told her that, too?”
“Of course.”
“How’d she take that?”
Gullicksen smoothed back his hair. “Divorce is a very difficult time for all the parties.”
“She was upset?”
“You could say that.”
“Distraught at the possibilities?”
“If you choose to be dramatic about it, yes.”
“What would have helped, Mr. Gullicksen? How could she have improved the outlook of her case?”
“A divorce case is like every other type of trial. The quality of the lawyers is important, that’s why I get paid, but by and large it depends on the evidence.”
“So what she needed was more and better evidence, is that right?”
“Yes.”
“And you told that to Mrs. Dubé?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Did you tell her what kind of evidence might be most helpful?”
“I told her evidence that cast doubt on her husband’s ability to care for the child would be most valuable.”
“Evidence of drug use?”
“Absolutely.”
“Evidence of multiple sex partners?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Evidence of bizarre sexual perversions?”
He smiled and bared his teeth as if he were being offered a plump swimmer’s leg. “Such evidence is always helpful in these cases.”
“Did you suggest to Mrs. Dubé that she hire an investigator to see if such evidence existed?”
“I did, but she claimed she didn’t have sufficient funds after paying my retainer.”
“How much did you get up front, by the way?”
“Objection,” said Dalton.
“What’s the purpose of that question, Mr. Carl?” said the judge.
“Professional curiosity. I might be in the wrong branch of the business.”
“Objection sustained.”
“Thank you, Judge,” I said. “And thank you, Mr. Gullicksen. I have no further questions.”