Impact (31 page)

“Where?”

“One Market Plaza. Hawley Chambers's office.”

“The guy who says my sister's worth twenty thousand dollars. Do you suppose that's for all of her or only the part they put in the casket?”

Hawthorne ignores the sarcasm. “Have you ever been deposed before?”

She shakes her head. “Am I on my own, or what?”

“A witness has a right to counsel anywhere but in a grand jury proceeding—Martha will be with you every minute.”

She freezes. “I hired you, not your maid.”

“You hired whoever and whatever I feel will most effectively advance your interests.”

“The second team for Brenda, huh? Well, it won't be the first time.” She makes a hatchet of her jaw. “So what happens at these depositions? They throw darts at me or what?”

He shakes his head. “Martha will meet you at Chambers's office. Some defense lawyers will be there, and a member of the plaintiffs' committee as well. A court reporter will put you under oath, take down what you say on her machine, type it up a few days later, and give you the transcript to review so you can alter anything that came out wrong or you want to change your mind about. When you sign it, it's filed with the court and can be used to perpetuate your testimony if you die or impeach you if you say something different at trial than you said in the deposition. Martha can object to the form of the questions to the extent they're confusing or vague, but objections such as relevance or hearsay are deferred till time of trial.”

“How long will it take?”

“Impossible to tell. I've had some I thought would go a day last a month, and vice versa. If you were a sole plaintiff they might string it out, make you miss work, delve into every corner of your private life until you start thinking maybe it's not worth the aggravation to go through a lawsuit after all, but since getting rid of you wouldn't do them that much good, I imagine they'll make it brief. On the other hand, if Vic Scallini shows up, there's no telling what will happen. Vic likes to hear himself talk, especially in the presence of attractive women.”

She digests the compliment without comment. “I've got a decade of sick leave coming anyway. So why am I here?”

“I thought we'd talk about what you're going to say.”

She recrosses her legs, causing her skirt to slide midway up her thigh. Her stockings are tan, with filigreed imprinting. Although they seem half the length of Martha's, her legs are nice enough to linger over. “So what
am
I going to say, counselor?” she asks with stale amusement.

“I never put words in people's mouths, Ms. Farnsworth; I just advise them to tell the truth. But I like to learn what the truth sounds like, so I can play the right accompaniment.” He smiles. “And jazz it up if it needs it.”

Her mouth tilts. “Like I said. What am I supposed to say about my sister?”

He maintains his smile despite her slander. “As I told you at our first meeting, your deposition will cover only the damages you have suffered as a result of your sister's death. As I also told you, those damages don't amount to much according to the letter of the law.”

“I remember. Believe me.”

“The usual claim—economic loss, or loss of income—is pretty much out in your case. Except for gifts to you and to your son, you didn't receive any payments from your sister when she was alive. Right?”

“Right. Though I could always lie about it.”

He shakes his head a single time. “No one's suggesting you do that. When your sister died, under California law her pain and suffering died with her. So that's out, as well.”

“Great. What about these punitive damages I hear so much about?”

“That depends on the conduct of the defendants—whether they were grossly or willfully negligent and by being otherwise could have prevented the crash. That's a possibility, but at this point a remote one. So we're stuck with a single claim—the loss of society of your sister. Okay so far?”

Her nod is minuscule. “This isn't exactly quantum mechanics.”

He swallows his reply and continues. “In talking with you before, it seemed clear that Carol was very close to you—your best friend, in fact. You lived in the same town, saw each other regularly, and so forth.”

“Correct.”

He nods. “Good, but it's not enough. The friendship was real and important, but it doesn't have that special something we can count on to capture the sympathies of the jury and make them want to reward you beyond the strict entitlements of the law.”

“Sure. No big deal. They kill your sister, it shouldn't cost them anything.”

“Unfortunately, that sometimes is the case. What
might
turn into some significant dollars is the situation between Carol and your son. Spitter? Is that what you call him?”

She nods, wary of revelation.

“Why do you call him that?”

“Why the hell do you think?”

Her look defies his grin. Hawthorne folds his arms and proceeds with care. The subject of her son is the one delicacy he has unearthed about the woman.

“I understand Spitter is … mentally disabled to a degree,” he continues.

She closes her eyes and speaks with suffering. “When he was little, I took him to doctors every other week. Some said he was retarded, others said he was autistic, others that he was emotionally disturbed—the old what-have-you-done-to-this-poor-child group—and a few said he was just weird and scary and I should dump him in the nearest home.”

“What did
you
think?”

“I thought it was the wrath of God.” Surprisingly, she smiles. “But that was back when I thought there was a
plan
behind it all, that things happened for
reasons
. Now that I know it's only a comic strip, I hardly think about it at all.”

Her nihilism spurs him to count the paltry blessings that beflower his relationship with Jason. “Could Spitter testify at the trial?” he asks finally.

She shrugs. “He's not an idiot or anything. What he'd testify
to
, I don't know. And neither will you. The thing about Spitter is that every minute is a brand new toy.”

“So it would be a risk to use him?”

“It would be a risk to have him in this room.”

He conceals a shudder. “You mean he's violent?”

“Only with me.”

“Has he hurt you?”

Her face is as empty as ice. “You mean physically, I presume.”

“Yes.”

“Not for a while.”

“Has he become more violent since Carol died?”

She hesitates. “It would help if I said yes, wouldn't it?”

Her question flushes anger. “Please don't keep implying that I asked you here to suborn perjury, Ms. Farnsworth. Would you be willing to tell a jury exactly how things have changed between you and Spitter since your sister's death?”

“I could tell them he quit his job and camps out on Carol's grave. I could tell them he sneaks into the house in the middle of the night and scares me half to death. I could tell them all
kinds
of things, Mr. Attorney-at-Law.”

“Could you make them believe you?”

She crosses her arms in the mode of wrestlers being interviewed about their trade. “I'm a teacher. It's my
job
to make people believe me. Even when they shouldn't.”

Her look reminds him of the earliest days of his practice, when he confronted corporate criminals who took delight in falsehood. “Would Spitter talk to a psychotherapist?”

Her eyes mist with memory. “At one point he talked to them till they didn't want to talk to
him
anymore. Why?”

“I'd like to have you and Spitter meet with a psychologist I know and talk about your relationship with each other and about Spitter's relationship with Carol, particularly about how things have changed since she died. If it goes well, the psychologist can testify that Spitter and Carol were symbiotic, that she was his emotional rock—his security blanket, if you will—and that your life has become much more difficult since Spitter lost that source of … serenity. That would pretty much be true, wouldn't it?”

She looks at him furiously. “You've
already
talked to him, haven't you?”

He considers but discards denial. “It's a her. And yes, I have.”

“You know
exactly
what she's going to tell the jury, and she hasn't even laid
eyes
on me or Spitter yet. And you preach to
me
about perjury.”

“You're pretty cynical, Ms. Farnsworth.”

“And each time I think I'm too cynical, I run into guys like you.” She thrusts her chest. “So tell me this. You know what
I'm
going to say and you know what the
psychologist
is going to say, so what's the fucking
jury
going to say?”

“How do you mean?”

“I mean what are they going to
give
me. How much is it going to cost that airline to have killed my sister?”

Their stares meet head-on. “Not enough, I'm afraid.”

“How much is not enough?”

“If we get a hundred thousand we'll be lucky.”

“What about those million-dollar verdicts I've heard so much about?”

“Those are for widows whose husbands make a hundred thousand a year and ten times that much in performance bonuses. Those are for people who have to live in pain every minute of the day and whose lawyer convinces a jury to award them a dollar an hour to compensate for it. You know what a dollar an hour amounts to for a thirty-five-year-old woman over the course of her lifespan?”

“What?”

“Almost four hundred thousand dollars. Would you take that amount of money to let someone expose a nerve in your tooth and leave it that way the rest of your life? Well, that's why people who do get a million deserve it. But that's not you and that's not Carol. So put the million out of your mind.”

Hawthorne looks at his watch. When she notices, Brenda Farnsworth laughs bitterly. “My hour is up, huh?” Tugging at her skirt, she starts to stand, then doesn't. “Is there time for one more question before you keep your lunch date?”

He shrugs. “Sure.”

“How much will Laura Donahue get out of this plane crash thing?”

“Laura? Or her husband?”

“Since he's a vegetable it's going to be all hers, right? So how much for the pair? A million?”

“More, if Tollison is any good.”

“Why would anyone give her a million dollars? I'd like for you to explain that to me.”

He shrugs. “Well, there's pain and suffering.”

“The man is paralyzed, for God's sake. He couldn't feel it if they cut his leg off with a saw.”

Hawthorne shrugs. “Tollison may dig up a doctor to say it's possible Donahue can feel pain anyway, even though he might not be able to express his feelings verbally. If the jury believes him, you've got a quarter million right there.”

“I'm sure you'll dig up a doctor that will say anything he wants. What else will he have up his sleeve?”

“Donahue worked in real estate, so Keith will send his records to an expert in evaluating businesses. The expert will project Donahue's future earnings over his work expectancy, which, since Donahue was forty-five when he got hurt, would be close to twenty years. Projecting real estate commissions that far in the future gives you a pretty big number if you consider population growth and inflation.”

“Inflation's next to nothing.”

“Inflation over the past thirty years has been about six percent as measured by the Consumer Price Index. But the expert will want to come out with as large a number as possible, so he'll look at real estate inflation instead of general inflation, and lately that's been more than fifteen percent per year in northern California. Population growth up around Altoona has been at least ten percent per year as well, and multiplying that out gets you close to a million dollars of lost commissions, even if Donahue couldn't sell a doghouse to a dog catcher.”

“So that's what Laura gets.”

He shakes his head. “The expert will discount the future earnings to present value. This time, the smaller the percentage the bigger the award, so the expert will say the discount rate should be something like four percent. That discounted sum will be what Keith will ask the jury to award for Donahue's lost earnings.”

“But—”

“Then there's his resort project. Keith will bring in someone to say it's the greatest idea since Disneyland, and if the jury buys it, we're over two million without even trying. Then there's Mrs. Donahue's loss of her husband's society—of his care, comfort, and companionship—which a good lawyer will make seem more delightful than Tracy and Hepburn in
Desk Set
, and that will be
another
half million easy, not to mention punitive damages or the expense of Donahue's medical care and rigging the house for a quadriplegic. There's your multimillion-dollar verdict. Simple. And appropriate. I wish to hell the case were mine.”

Brenda looks insulted. “But it's all a
guess
. It's hocus-pocus. It's—”

“It's not Donahue's fault no one can know for certain what he'll earn over the next twenty years. He just took a plane ride. Why should the airline take advantage of its misconduct by claiming this kind of projection is too speculative for a jury to consider? What should we do, say he gets nothing?”

“That's
exactly
what you should say, since that's exactly what she deserves.”

Hawthorne grins. “I thought we were talking about the husband.”

“Sounds to me like we're talking about the goddamn lottery. Jack Donahue isn't worth a million dollars to his
mother
.”

Hawthorne smiles. “Maybe he won't get that much. When it's his turn, Hawley Chambers will say Donahue wasn't a good businessman, the resort thing is pie-in-the-sky, the boom is over and real estate won't appreciate at anything like fifteen percent in the future, and that Donahue's share of commissions would inevitably decline because the increased population will bring an increased number of realtors into the area, which means more competition. Then he'll attack the numbers—that the CPI inflation rate is too high, since inflation for the past few years has been more like three percent; that the discount rate should be more like eight percent, which is what triple A bonds with a twenty-year maturity are bringing. Fighting over the numbers can reduce the bottom line to less than half of what Tollison's asking for.”