“What is that supposed to mean?” Did they know something about the past? Was Ashe really responsible for Brynn’s death? As much as Brandon wished that were the truth, he knew it was his stupid drunken irresponsibility that caused the accident.
No one answered him. They just drilled into him with their stares. Responsibility weighed down his soul.
Chapter Sixteen
Under duress, Jackie took the next three days off, staying with Marilyn. As the doctor ordered, she spent most of her time in a dark room without any stimulation. No books. No TV. No computer. No texting. Her headaches waned in intensity and frequency. Although she couldn’t deny that a few more days of rest would help, she needed to talk to the Kovels.
On the fourth day after the accident, she was in the office by eight o’clock. Jackie called the Kovels and set up an appointment for later in the afternoon. Marilyn was out when they came, so Jackie escorted them through the reception area into her office. Mr. and Mrs. Leo Kovel shuffled in, dueling canes swatting each other and Leo’s oxygen tank in tow.
“Leo, Bernice, thank you for coming over on such short notice.” Jackie gave each a quick hug and showed them into the two chairs close to her desk.
“It’s good to get out, right, Leo?” Mrs. Kovel nudged her husband.
“Huh?” Mr. Kovel, fiddling with his hearing aid, dropped his wife’s purse, which she’d pawned off on him the minute they entered the office.
“Oh for Christ’s sake, Leo. You dropped my purse again. Did you grease up your fingers before coming in here?”
“Maybe you should hold your own purse. What do you carry in here, rocks? Where’s that nice young lady, Marilyn, anyway?”
Bernice gave him a swat. “Once a pervert, always a pervert. Are you flirting with Marilyn now?”
Jackie couldn’t keep from giggling. They were always this way. They bickered constantly, yet had been together for over sixty years. One minute Bernice would be haranguing Leo; the next minute they were smooching like teenagers.
Jackie smiled. “I think you’re safe there, Bernice. And, Leo, you shouldn’t tease your sweetheart. You are one lucky man to have this saint as your wife.”
Leo slapped his wife’s knee. “Don’t I know it. Sixty-four years and counting.”
“Sixty-five, if you really could count. Thank God I was his assistant in the pharmacy. Every man needs a better half. I’m sure you know exactly what I’m talking about, Jackie. All you ever do is work. How are you going to find that special somebody?”
Jackie’s stomach seized. She grimaced. No, she didn’t know what that was like. Would she ever?
Leo gave a sharp tap with his cane. “What’s that sour face for, sweetie? Do you mean to tell me you still don’t have a boyfriend? At your age? Jesus, Bernice and I were married before we were twenty. The odds of us making it weren’t exactly good, I admit.”
Bernice pulled herself up as tall as she could get in her chair. “Says who?”
“Your daddy and ma for one. My parents for the other. And let’s not start counting the rabbis and priests, aunts, uncles, and half the riffraff running around the streets of Baltimore. How many times did we have to hear about being loyal to our families, our churches, and our communities? How many?”
Jackie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her head had begun to pound again. Waves of nausea rippled through her. This was not the conversation she wanted to have. Even though her relationship, whatever that meant exactly, with Brandon had driven her to this point, thinking about the possibility that he might be “the one” for her terrified her.
The office was silent except for the occasional wisp of Leo’s oxygen tank. When she opened her eyes, the Kovels were holding hands and staring with concern at her.
“Honey, is everything all right?” Bernice looked at her through fish-eyed glasses. “You wanted to talk to us about the case. But I didn’t raise six kids to be ignorant when something else is really going on. You can talk to us. Your grandpa was best man at our wedding and godfather to our first son, so we’re as close to kin as you got. Think of us as your grandparents, not your clients.”
For someone who’d practically raised herself, Jackie suddenly felt inundated with surrogate relatives. First Marilyn pulled the mother thing on her; now the Kovels yanked the grandparent rug right out from under her feet. Where were all of these people twenty years ago when her father split and her mother hopscotched from psychiatrists’ offices to hospitals?
“Bernice is right. Think of us as family. We help each other. Family does that. I know we probably could have done better by you when you were growing up with that nutso mother—”
Bernice gave him a swat. “Leo.”
Jackie laughed. “She is nutso.” She looked at the Kovels. They
were
like her grandparents. Marilyn
was
like her mother. Maybe Marilyn was right about the lone-wolf thing. Maybe she didn’t have to do this on her own. Brandon had said that to her once too. Where was he? Why hadn’t she heard from him?
“Spill the beans, kiddo.” Leo rubbed his hands together.
Jackie outlined her dilemma to the Kovels, although not without some guilt. She was the one supposed to be taking care of them, not the other way around. During her exposition, the Kovels kept sneaking annoying little grins and smirks and nods at each other, as if she couldn’t see them winking and nodding right there in front of her.
“So I needed to see you both and talk to you before making a decision. I can’t tell you how much this has meant to me. You are like grandparents to me. I’ll never forget that. For that reason—”
Leo stood up faster than she thought he could move. “You’re fired!”
Bernice popped up too. “I second that!”
“What? You can’t fire me. I was trying to tell you that I decided to stay with this case.”
“I think we can fire you. And we just did, didn’t we?”
“Yes, we did. What was the name of the fellow you said you could get to help? O’Reilly? O’Keefe?”
Bernice threw her arms up. “His name’s O’Malley. We’ll call him right away. Can we use your phone?” She reached across the desk for Jackie’s phone.
Jackie snatched it from her grasp and cradled it in her arms. “No, you can’t use my phone. Why are you firing me? Did we not just have an intense bonding moment or what?”
The couple sat themselves down. Leo said, “I’ve been married for sixty-four years—don’t argue with me on numbers, Bernice—to my sweetheart, my soul mate, my best friend. We gave up everything to be together. Money, our religion, our families, our friends. All gone. I have not regretted that decision for one second of my life, no matter how hard it was to rebuild what I had. She makes me the man I am, and I like to think she gives me the honor of making her just a little bit of the woman she is.”
Bernice stole a kiss from Leo and took his hand. “Do we want our savings back? Of course we do. But we’d rather go to the grave poor as church mice like we started and know that you followed your heart to your true love. Besides, this O’Malley fellow should be able to finish up. You’ve done all the real work.”
Jackie relinquished her death grip on the phone and slid it across the desk. “You old people are a pain in the ass, but I love you for it. Let’s call Simon.”
Chapter Seventeen
Judge Alexander Brownley, red-faced and fleshy as ever, looked over his glasses at the lineup of attorneys in front of the bench. “Mr. Stone, you have no objection to Ms. North’s withdrawal as counsel?”
“No, your honor,” Gary said without hesitation.
“Fascinating,” commented the judge. “A few weeks ago and you were at that matter of the witness substitution like two dogs after the last bone on earth. I didn’t think you were one to give up a good fight, Mr. Stone.” With a deep gaze at Jackie, he rumbled, “You either, Ms. North. You either.”
Simon O’Malley raised a hand. “Your Honor, if I could explain—”
“Mr. O’Malley,” the judge boomed, “did I ask for your opinion on the matter? I have your motion and supporting briefs. I can read, you know.”
Jackie willed Simon to shut up. He knew better. Brownley was of the school that lawyers spoke to the judge when spoken to. Period. This was supposed to be a done deal according to Marilyn’s “inside source,” but the sweat had already pooled between Jackie’s breasts. She prayed the makeup covering her blackened eye would hold up.
“Counselors, this is highly unusual. It is with grave reservations that I grant Ms. North’s motion to withdraw as counsel and permit substitution of Mr. O’Malley.”
He raised his gavel but laid it back down. He pulled off his glasses and leaned forward over the bench toward the lineup of attorneys. With a subtle glance at the court reporter, he said, “Off the record. Is there anything I should know about, Counselors?”
Simon, Jackie, Gary, and his associate looked back and forth at each other. Their mouths opened and closed like a school of fish looking for food. No one spoke, however.
“Nothing?” The judge’s face was beet red. He strained over the edge of his bench.
Silence.
“On the record.” The bang of the gavel rang out like a shot. “Motion granted. Given this late substitution, I grant Mr. O’Malley a one-month delay in trial. Good day.” He stood up and left the courtroom to his chambers.
Jackie let out the breath she’d been holding and turned to gather her briefcase from the counsel table behind her.
Gary pulled at O’Malley’s arm. “Simon, can I have a moment. We have an issue about our expert.”
Jackie’s ears perked up, and she slowed her pace to pick up on the conversations. She caught snippets of words and sentences.
“Time…without word…missing…judge…”
Jackie swung her briefcase over her shoulder and left the courtroom. A glimpse over her shoulder as she left showed Gary and Simon in a heated discussion. What the hell was going on? Was Brandon missing?
She parked herself on a bench outside Judge Brownley’s courtroom. Her case file with basic information, including contacts, was in her briefcase. She pulled it out to get to Brandon’s office number.
The secretary politely rebuffed her demands to speak with him and asked to take a message. Jackie gambled and asked, “Will he be back in the office tomorrow, or is he staying on in Baltimore longer?”
The polite voice answered, “He’s sailing and will be gone until next week.”
Jackie hung up quickly. He was not in DC. He must still be in town. She punched in his mobile phone. Voice mail clicked in after one ring. Paralyzed with indecision, she finally hit the button to end the call as Simon and Gary emerged from the courtroom.
Simon’s hair was ruffled on one side as if he’d been running his hand through it.
“Simon.” She waved to him and stood up.
“Christ, he’s an asshole,” Simon said as he slammed his briefcase violently onto the bench.
“Simon, you’ve litigated how many cases against Gary? At least a dozen? Are you just coming to the conclusion that he’s an asshole?” Jackie nodded toward the bench to get Simon to sit and settle down.
A broad smile spread across Simon’s wide, boyish face. Simon was tougher than his short, round, prepubescentlike physique revealed. “Oh, hell no. Disparaging Stone has become a competitive sport around my firm, so I’m just trying to warm up for the report when I get back.”
“Disparage away. What’s his latest bait and switch?”
Simon narrowed his eyes at Jackie. “I should technically tell you that it’s none of your bee’s wax, missy, as you’ve officially withdrawn from the case. Surely you are not fishing for information you shouldn’t have.”
Jackie gasped and held her hand to her chest. “Simon, that hurts.”
He shrugged. “It’s nothing confidential.” In spite of his jocularity, Simon was dead serious when it came to ethical behavior. Jackie knew he wouldn’t reveal anything confidential.
“Gary is moving through experts faster than a Ginsu knife through butter.” Simon leaned in. “Guy number two is missing.”
Jackie’s heart skipped a beat. Brandon was guy number two. She swallowed hard. “Really? When did this come up? Stone never mentioned this to me. Did he tell the judge? That would have been relevant to the motion this morning.”
“He found out just before the hearing, apparently. I think missing is probably a bit of an overstatement, to be honest. The guy had discussed resigning from the case with Gary, and now Gary can’t reach him.”
“I see.” Jackie bit her bottom lip.
“Can you get your files to me this afternoon? Do you want me to send a messenger to your office, or were you planning on having them delivered?”
Jackie stared out the window. Where in the world was Brandon Marshfield? And why would he resign from the case? Without telling her!
“Jackie?” Simon snapped his fingers in front of Jackie’s face. “The files? How do you want to handle that?”
“Right. The files. Most of them were produced electronically. We’ve digitized the rest, except for the humongous production from last week. There are about forty or fifty boxes.”
Simon’s eyes bulged, and a choking sound emitted from his throat. “Shit.”
Eager to begin tracking down Brandon, Jackie got up and took a few steps back from the bench. “Call Marilyn. She’ll coordinate everything.”
Jackie’s heels clicked an accelerating staccato down the stairs, out the building, and down the sidewalk toward the marina, where Brandon had moored his boat.
After walking nearly a mile to get to the marina, the balls of her feet burned and her toes throbbed. So much for being stylish and comfortable. Out of place at the marina in her suit, high heels, and briefcase, Jackie trolled the docks praying she’d find Brandon’s boat. The few people around working on their boats gave her suspicious looks. A tall man in a blue polo shirt approached her.
“Ma’am, can I help you with something?” His shirt bore the logo of the port authority for the city.
“I’m looking for a friend. I thought he might have docked his boat here.” Jackie covered her eyes with a hand on her forehead and squinted into the sunlight reflecting brightly on the water.
The man pulled a small yellow phone from his belt and flipped it open. “Do you know the name of his boat?”