Firm Ambitions (5 page)

Chapter Five

By 12:25 a.m. I knew it was going to be a rotten day.

Twelve twenty-five
, I said to myself as I turned in bed and stared at the alarm clock.
That's not so bad. If I fall asleep in five minutes, I'll still get six hours of sleep
,

The next time I checked, it was ten minutes after one.

No problem
, I assured myself. I
can still get more than five hours of sleep
.

I tried breathing slowly. I tried breathing deeply. I tried breathing through my nose. I tried breathing through my mouth. At 2:45 a.m. I turned the alarm clock toward the wall and told myself that all I really needed was three and a half good hours of sleep. I revised the estimate to three hours at 3:10. The next thing I knew the alarm was ringing and it was 6:30.

The same thing happens to me every night before a trial or an appellate argument. I get in bed after telling myself how important it is to get a good night's sleep—which for me is the best way to ensure that I won't get a good night's sleep.

But this time my insomnia was due to more than nerves. I had a loser. A fascinating loser, but a loser nevertheless. My client was an elderly man who had lost his life savings in an investment partnership that owned, according to the prospectus, a huge quantity of frozen semen collected from several prized Brangus bulls, including 200,000 “straws” of semen (surely the least appetizing unit of measurement ever coined) from a blue-ribbon stud named Lucille's Grand Slam. But when the bottom fell out of the show cattle market and the bank foreclosed on its collateral, it discovered a distressing lack of congruence between the descriptions of the collateral contained in the security agreements and the actual collateral contained in the storage freezers. Even in a depressed market, a bucket of Grand Slam's
liqueur de vivre
had real value. Two hundred thousand “straws” of frozen milk, however, did not.

My client had come to me with a judgment for $380,000 against the general partner of the partnership. Unfortunately, the general partner had a negative net worth. I struggled with the appellate brief for weeks, trying to find a way to break into the corporate fortress and get at the folks with the money. I even went to the extreme of citing a line of California decisions. Benny Goldberg warned, “Hey, trying to get a Missouri court to buy a California precedent is like trying to get June Cleaver to buy a set of gold nipple rings.” By the time oral argument ended that morning, it seemed obvious that the three appellate judges weren't in a buying mood either.

As I trudged out of the courtroom and down the hall, I heard someone call, “Miss Gold!” I turned. It was one of the assistant court clerks. “Your secretary called, Miss Gold. She needs to talk to you right away.”

I returned the call from a pay phone down the hall. “What's up?”

“You need to get right over to the Clayton police headquarters. Mrs. Landau called from there an hour ago.”

“Eileen? She called from the police station?”

“She left the number.”

“Damn. Is this about Andros?”

“I think so. The police asked her to come down for questioning.”

“Call her back. Tell her I'll be there as soon as I can. Tell her not to talk to anyone until I get there.”

***

The first person I saw at the police station was L. Debevoise Fletcher.

“Well, well, well,” he said with a big, hearty smile. “The lovely Rachel Gold.” He held out a huge paw. “Delightful to see you, dear.”

We shook hands. His face became solemn and he covered my hand with his other one. “I am terribly sorry about your father, Rachel.” There wasn't a trace of sympathy in his slate-gray eyes.

“Thank you, Deb,” I said.

Deb Fletcher was, as usual, outfitted for the part he had so adeptly played throughout most of his legal career: the role of “show” partner. He definitely
looked
the part: tall, tanned, thinning brown hair tinged with gray, a London-tailored suit. His teeth were capped, his voice was deep and booming, his hands were huge, and his brain was small. Like most litigation show partners, Deb Fletcher kept a pair of tortoiseshell reading glasses in the inside pocket of his suit jacket. The glasses were pure stage prop, as I personally witnessed several times during my days at Abbott & Windsor in Chicago. When a judge asked him a tough question during oral argument, he would remove the glasses from his pocket and pensively chew on one of the ends, thereby creating the impression that he was actually familiar enough with the facts and the law not only to understand the question but to formulate an intelligent response thereto.

In fact, Fletcher was rarely well prepared on any of his cases. He brought to the practice of law a lethal combination of mental sloth and sixty-watt intellect. Nevertheless, he had parlayed stellar family connections, a patina of charm, and a sixth sense for even the subtlest of shifts within the Abbott & Windsor hierarchy into a lucrative career in the law. And given that 95 percent of all significant commercial lawsuits settle before trial, the huge gaps in Fletcher's mental armor could be concealed behind a phalanx of brilliant young attorneys whose job it was to get him ready for show time.

To put it mildly, Deb Fletcher and I did not get along. On my first day as a lawyer, fresh out of law school, I had received my first assignment from L. Debevoise Fletcher. One day later, when I returned to his corner office to ask a question about the assignment, Fletcher gave me my first partner's-arm-around-the-waist. Two weeks later, as we were walking down the hallway in the federal courts building, Fletcher gave me my first and my last partner's-pat-on-the-tush. It took a moment to overcome the shock and react to what he had just done.

“Mr. Fletcher—”

“Please, Rachel,” he had interrupted, “call me Deb.” And then he placed his hand on my shoulder to give me a friendly squeeze.

I had shrugged out from under his hand and turned to face him. “Don't do that, sir.” My voice quavered from a combination of fury and fear. After all, I was a first-year associate and he was not only a corner-office partner but a member of the firm's executive committee. “If you ever touch me again,” I warned, “I'll take you to court and make you sorry you did, so help me God.”

The only thing worse than our three-block walk back to the office from the courthouse was the elevator ride up to the Abbott & Windsor offices. For all fifty-one floors it was just the two of us in that little room. The ride seemed as long as an Apollo moon shot. Although we never worked together during the rest of my years at Abbott & Windsor, Deb Fletcher always took the time to write down a few corrosive observations about me for the annual associate reviews each spring. The partner who conducted my review told me each year, “With one notable exception, Miss Gold, you seem to have many admirers and supporters among the partners.”

And now, standing in the lobby of the police station, I looked up at the notable exception and asked, “What are you doing here, Deb?”

“The police wanted to talk to young Thomas. I stayed here with him while his father arranged for appropriate criminal counsel. As you may recall, criminal law is not my area of expertise.”

I resisted the temptation. Instead, I asked, “Tommy's a suspect?”

“I don't believe he is anymore. However, I fear that the same can't be said for Eileen Landau.”

“Where is she?”

He chuckled in a patronizing way. “I believe she is with her attorney.”

“I'm
her attorney.”

“And I'm sure you'll do a fine job for her in the dissolution proceeding. However,” he said with a condescending smile, “as we both know, criminal law is hardly your metier.” He mispronounced it
ME-dee-er
. “When Thomas no longer needed the services of a criminal defense specialist, his father arranged for the retainer to be applied to Mrs. Landau's representation.”

“So Tommy's criminal lawyer is now representing Eileen?” I asked incredulously. “That's outrageous. I want to see her immediately.”

I pushed by him and walked up to the desk sergeant. Deb Fletcher strolled over as I demanded to see my client. I was infuriated by the presumptuousness of Fletcher and the Landau males.

“There's hardly anything sinister going on here, Rachel,” Fletcher said after the sergeant told me he would send someone to fetch Eileen. “The Landau family hires only the best.”

“How humble of you.”

“Now, now, Rachel,” he said with an avuncular chuckle, “I doubt whether even you would quibble with the qualifications of Charlie Kimball.”

It made me pause a beat. “Charles Kimball is going to represent Eileen?”

“If you and your client will allow me to, Miss Gold,” said a familiar gravelly voice from behind me. It was a voice I had last heard in a lecture hall at Harvard Law School.

I turned to find Charles Kimball smiling at me. Next to him stood a flustered Eileen Landau.

Kimball reached out to shake my hand. “Charles Kimball, Miss Gold. I am delighted to meet you at last.”

I reached for his hand, trying to act like an adult, trying to mask my awe. Ever since I had heard him speak at a memorial service for Martin Luther King back when I was in sixth grade, Charles Kimball had been in the lawyers' wing of my pantheon of heroes, right up there with Clarence Darrow, William Kunstler, Thurgood Marshall, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Now in his mid-sixties, he still had radiance and he still looked damned good. He had dark green eyes, that trademark dimple in the center of a strong chin, and the same unruly mane of hair. Back when I heard him speak at the Dr. King memorial service, the hair was black and hung down to his shoulders. He still wore it brushed straight back, but now it ended at his shirt collar, and now it was gray. The gold medallion was long gone, and—I noted by quickly glancing down—so were the cowboy boots, replaced by shiny cordovan Bass Weejuns.

“Actually,” I said as I shook his hand, “we've met before.”

“Good God,” he responded with mock dismay, “this must be the first sign of senility. While I may forget an occasional face or name, I take pride in my perfect recall of two things in life. One is the federal rules of evidence. The other is the face of every beautiful woman I have ever met.”

I shook my head good-naturedly. “No wonder you do so well before women jurors.”

He put his hand over his heart. “Do I detect a skeptic? Wait…” He studied my face for a moment, and then he smiled. “Harvard Law School, right?”

“Right,” I said, still skeptical. After all, Deb Fletcher could have told him a little about me.

He had his hand on his chin. “About ten years ago, I believe. You asked me a question after my lecture.”

I was stunned. “That's remarkable,” I said.

His eyes twinkled. “I told you I don't forget.”

“Which reminds me,” I said, trying to get us back to the topic at hand, “I need to talk to Eileen.”

Deb Fletcher, who had been observing our conversation, jumped in. “Charlie, I told Rachel that you'd be handling this matter for Mrs. Landau.”

Kimball held up his hand to Deb. “Well, I think that's a decision for Rachel and her client to make, Deb, not us.” He looked at me with a friendly smile. “There's a small conference room down the hall on the right. Eileen and I were back there when you arrived.” He turned to Eileen. “Why don't you and Rachel go on back and talk it over. I'll wait out here.”

Eileen and I walked back to the conference room. It was small and cramped, with three metal chairs and a metal table. “He's a terrific lawyer,” I told her after I closed the door.

She pulled a chair up to one side of the table and sat down. “Tommy thinks he walks on water.”

I sat across from her. “How 'bout you?”

She shrugged. “I like him. But I like you, too.”

“Eileen, if you can get Charles Kimball to defend you, do it. He's one of the finest criminal defense lawyers in the country. He can handle the criminal side, and I'll take care of the divorce side.”

“You're sure?”

“Definitely. This isn't a popularity contest. I'm not a criminal defense lawyer. Charles Kimball is. I can work with him. Now tell me what's going on here.”

“It's horrible, Rachel,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “They know I was in that room with him.”

“How'd they find out?”

She shook her head in displeasure. “I'm so stupid. One of the hotel security guards remembered my car was in the parking lot.”

“How did he remember it?”

“He saw it there.”

“There must be dozens of cars in mere.”

“Not dozens of red Corvettes with my vanity plate?”

“What's your vanity plate say?”

“‘EILEEN-L.'”

I smiled. “Well, I guess that would tend to narrow it down.”

“One of the girls at the front desk recognized me, too. A couple weeks ago my picture was in Jerry Berger's column. She remembered.”

“Have you talked to the police yet?”

“No. I did exactly what you told me to do. And when Mr. Kimball arrived, he wouldn't let me talk to them either. He met with the detective for a while, then he asked me some questions about the death, and then he went back to talk to the detective some more.”

“And that's all?”

“So far. He said we should wait until you got here.”

“Let me go talk to him. Wait here.” I looked at her and shook my head in puzzlement. “I can't believe that they really think you're a suspect.”

She reached across and grabbed my arm. “Rachel, there's some vile little man from the
Post-Dispatch
hanging around out there. Don't let him find out why I'm here.”

I gently patted her hand. “I'll see what I can do.” She released her grip and I stood up.