by Dave Daren
Clara straightened and gave a few quick nods. When Calhoun raised his eyebrows, I nudged my plaintiff gently to remind her to speak.
“I understand,” she said with yet another nod to punctuate the sentence.
Calhoun then looked over at Knox.
“And you are also aware that this does not pertain to any of the defamation suits you have raised against the residents of Piney Crest, correct?” the judge asked as he raised a single, bushy gray eyebrow.
Knox gave a smile so fake it made me feel sick as he nodded, just once.
“Yes, of course,” he simpered.
I could have hit him, and judging by the reactions of my crew, so could just about everyone else in the room. I heard Calhoun huff, and then he made a small gesture toward our side of the room.
“You have the floor,” he said.
I felt the nerves in my body rev to life with those words. It was like someone had waved a flag or fired a pistol to indicate the start of a race. It was time to go, and I nearly leapt forward. But I gathered myself and then cleared my throat as I went with a calmer approach.
“Thank you, Your Honor,” I said. “We are here today to file a class action suit against Knox Chemicals for the damages caused to the residents of Piney Crest as a result of Knox Chemicals illegal waste drops.”
Calhoun’s face was an unreadable mask, but I continued on anyway.
“Our lead plaintiff, Ms. Clara Shepard, is here to represent the other nineteen residences of Piney Crest in the suit, and all have agreed to these terms with no disputes between them.”
I didn’t dare look over at Knox’s herd of lawyers out of fear it would break me from my stride.
“We have all of the documentation supporting that claim here,” I added as Evelyn stepped forward to pull a packet of papers from the stack and pass them to Calhoun.
He nodded and glanced down at the stack to give them a cursory look before he nodded again and gestured for me to continue.
“The real crux of the class action suit we’re presenting relies on the fact that Knox Chemicals knowingly dumped biohazardous waste upriver of a residential neighborhood and knowingly caused the residents irreparable harm,” I said with a simple, sweeping gesture.
I heard a titter from someone on the Knox side, but I ignored the sound and continued on with our chain of evidence.
“Our claims of the physical harm suffered by the residents is substantiated by the reports of Dr. Sandra Gupta out of Baylor in Dallas, as well as Dr.s Weston, Quinn, and Li from the Cook Children’s Hospital in Fort Worth,” I said as Evelyn passed Calhoun another pile of papers from the stack.
He gave these another glance as well and nodded once more.
I could feel myself winding up toward the precipice of our claims, and my skin crawled with anticipation. I cleared my throat and adjusted my tie as I moved on to our next point.
“We also have the results of a mass spectrometer test performed on a water sample drawn from the river that runs alongside Piney Crest,” I continued. “Our tests were conducted by Dr. Therman, a chemist at Tarleton University after we were turned away from the EPA.”
I let the last words hang in the air for a moment as I finally let myself give a glance over to Knox.
His face was as smooth as stone, his thin lips set into an impenetrable line. I wanted to punch him once again, but, instead, I continued on in my hopeful decimation of his case against us.
This time, it was Brody that passed the sheets of paper over to Calhoun, and I gave him a small nod of thanks.
“The results uncovered that the water in the river alongside Piney Crest is dangerously polluted,” I said. “As you’ll see in our compiled results, the levels of chemical waste in the water are off the charts compared to that of similar streams in the area.”
I took a moment to take a breath before I continued on in my science lesson.
“The chemicals are also congruent with those found in petrochemical waste and have been found to be dangerous to organic material,” I said with a hard edge to my tone. “Organic material, which, unfortunately for the residents of Piney Crest, includes people.”
From the corner of my eyes, I could see Clara shift on her feet. I wanted to offer her some sort of comfort, but it wasn’t the time for that, and so I turned my full attention back to Calhoun.
“And because of the pollution that has affected their water supply, the residents of Piney Crest have grown dangerously ill,” I said and softened my tone, just a little.
“Some of them are more than dangerously ill,” Evelyn interjected. “They’re dying.”
Unlike me, she seemed to have no qualms with staring directly at Knox as she said it.
I could have hugged her for that, but one of Knox’s lawyers gave a loud snort that caused me to turn and stare at him instead.
“This is all conjecture,” the man with the shiny bald head declared. “He can’t prove that Knox Chemicals is polluting any water supply, and so the entire sob story falls apart.”
I took a deep breath and couldn’t help the glee snaking its way through me as I cocked my head to the side before I looked back at Calhoun.
The judge seemed like he was about to say something to the other lawyer, but I just gave an easy smile.
“Which brings me to my next bit of evidence,” I announced as I pulled the last remaining piece of evidence from our now depleted stack.
“Thanks to an anonymous tip,” I replied in a nearly triumphant voice. “I was able to obtain photographic proof of Knox Chemicals partaking in an illegal chemical dump in a small lake, just offsite of Prism Industries, a now defunct oil rigging company that was bought by one Abraham Knox two years ago.”
It was like I had dropped a bomb in the tiny office.
Calhoun flipped open the manilla folder I’d passed him, and even he couldn’t keep the look of surprise off his face as he flipped through photo after photo of Knox Chemical employees dumping a large barrel of waste into a river. In their white Tyvek suits, the men were illuminated like ghosts in the flash of the camera.
I smiled wide and easy like a shark as I watched the judge flip through the shots. When he was done, I finally bared my teeth at Knox for just a heartbeat.
“We also had the water from the dump site tested by the chemists at Tarleton University,” I said, this time with my words aimed at Knox. “And the results show that it matches the same proportions of chemical waste found in Piney Crest’s river. If you trace the river at Piney Crest north, wouldn’t you know, it opens into the dump site.”
I couldn’t fight the smile on my face and didn’t bother now. I knew that Knox and his brigade of lawyers still had a chance to rebut everything I’d said, all the evidence we’d gathered, but I couldn’t help the radiant sort of glee that threatened to burst from my chest at the look on his face.
Knox’s leading lawyer, the severe-looking woman, shot an angry look toward her bald co-counsel.
It was obvious they’d assumed that my phone had been damaged beyond saving the photos I’d taken, but clearly, they were wrong. I had the evidence they’d tried to bury, the people they’d tried to scare away, the chemical tests they’d tried to sabotage.
Next to me, Clara bit her lip to seemingly force back a smile.
I turned my focus back to Calhoun and opened my palms up toward him.
“That’s all, Your Honor.”
Calhoun rubbed his fingers along his jiggling jowls before nodding his head with a labored exhale.
“Very well,” the judge said a moment later. “Defense, if you’d like to present your evidence now?”
I couldn’t be sure, but from the look on Calhoun’s face, I felt near-certain that we had our certification in the bag.
To my right, Knox’s lawyers quietly whispered amongst themselves before they separated, and the woman cleared her throat.
“Right,” she began in a nasally, reedy tone. “We’ve compiled here the backgrounds of the residents that have agreed to j
oin suit.”
As she spoke, the other lawyer, the one with hair that looked shellacked to his head like a Ken doll, passed Calhoun a thick folder. While Calhoun accepted the folder, the lead attorney straightened the collar of her blazer.
“We’ve found that quite a few of the residents are undergoing financial hardships and could easily be going along with the idea of a suit in the hopes of a large windfall,” the lawyer continued.
I didn’t dare look at Clara, but I could feel the way her body went tense next to me. I knew what point she’d want to make, because I wanted to make it, too.
Of course, the residents of Piney Crest were undergoing financial hardships, and the metric ton of medical bills they’d been saddled with weren’t exactly going to help that hardship in going anywhere.
But the vulture of a lawyer continued on with her own defamation of our clients and our experts.
“We also have information from the EPA that there isn’t anything wrong with the water supply, whatsoever,” she said and didn’t even pretend not to be snide about it. “Which we have documented here, along with the medical records from a local doctor that claims there isn’t anything wrong with the patients he’s seen.”
As she effectively lied out of her ass, the Ken doll lawyer passed the files to Calhoun.
But we all knew that it didn’t matter what she said. On Calhoun’s desk, the photos of the illegal chemical dump sat face up and reflected the fluorescent lights overhead. How did you deny that? How did you work around that?
The lawyers obviously knew, and better yet, Knox clearly knew it, too.
When I finally let myself look at the big, scary businessman again, I didn’t see a titan of industry or someone with more money than he knew what to do with. Instead, I saw a feeble, evil old man gripping his cane like it would give him some sort of control. He looked almost frightened under his slipping facade of calm.
Good. Let him be frightened, let him feel powerless and out of control, just like all of the people he’d knowingly hurt.
The lawyer continued to monologue to Calhoun, but I wasn’t listening anymore. Instead, all I heard was the blood as it rushed through my head, and all I felt was my heart beating in my chest. The angry fire that had licked up my throat had changed into something new.
There wasn’t any more anger. Instead, I just felt the burn of victory. Yes, we still had a long road to travel, but at least we’d be given the chance to make our argument in court.
I suddenly realized that Knox’s attack dog had gone silent. I ignored her and turned to Calhoun, who looked between the stacks of evidence on his desk.
The judge looked up at us, at Clara, before he glanced back at Knox and his small army of counsel. And then Calhoun’s eyes fell back onto the incriminating photos that I’d risked my life to capture.
After what felt like an eternity of waiting, he looked back up to address the room. His eyes met mine, and I could have sworn I saw the faintest trace of a smile pulling up at his lips. Maybe it had just been a trick of the light. He folded his hands in his lap and leaned back in his massive chair.
“We’re moving forward with Shepard v. Knox Chemicals as a class action suit,” he said.
I felt all the air rush out of my body in an instant as a wave of relief crashed over me. I felt like I might drown in the relief and joy and sense of victory that roiled through me like a joyous storm.
I didn’t dare look over at Clara, Evelyn, and Brody because I knew if I did, I’d let out a very unprofessional whoop of joy.
Instead, I kept my eyes on Calhoun as I sucked in a deep breath.
He gave a singular nod in my direction.
“Get ready,” Calhoun said. “This is just the beginning.”
Chapter 16
I hefted another box up onto the newly cleared desk in the former office of Landon Legal with a grunt. Sweat clung to my back, and I could feel my hair sticking to the nape of my neck.
I’d continued to put off going in for that haircut that I probably still desperately needed, but I had almost started to like my hair on the longer side. I might have been kidding myself, but I thought the look suited me.
Or maybe I had suffered heat stroke thanks to the unforgiving Texas heat and the general lack of air conditioning in the now unused office space.
I leaned up against the edge of the desk with a deep sigh and used the hem of my thin t-shirt to wipe sweat from my brow before I looked around the empty space.
The office hadn’t even been empty when I’d moved in nearly a year ago because the prior residents had left it scattered with empty file boxes and cabinets that I’d co-opted into my own.
But now, the only things left in the space I’d started to think of as my home away from home in the time I’d lived in Crowley was my desk and the meager four boxes that I hadn’t been able to fit in the back of the U-Haul Brody had rented.
After Judge Calhoun had given us the class certification ruling, time seemed to move in fast forward. It felt surreal in a way that I still couldn’t quite explain, even after nearly a month for the ruling to sit with me.
I pulled my phone, a newer model than the one that had been shot, out of my back pocket to check through my notifications. I had a message from Brody that informed me he was still helping unpack the U-Haul at the new office space, a missed call from Evelyn that had come in nearly the same time as Brody’s text that I was certain was to complain about Brody’s unpacking methods, a few messages from my mother from the night before that I’d been too exhausted to open about her new book club, and a photo attachment from Clara.
A small smile danced at my lips as I clicked Clara’s bolded contact in the messaging app. I tapped at the new photo message to expand the image to fill my screen.
The picture was of a sheet of yellow construction paper decorated with dozens of little, crayon drawn butterflies and a scrawled, near-illegible signature in the corner that let me know they’d been drawn by Emma. They were surprisingly good for having been drawn by a ten year old.
My smile spread a little wider across my face at the sight of the drawing. It was the fifth one that Clara had sent me in the last month.
Ever since the ruling had moved the case forward, it seemed like everyone in Piney Crest had tried to adopt me as some sort of pseudo-neighbor. I couldn’t even count the number of casseroles I’d been sent in the last week alone.
I swiped out of the picture to see the message attached.
She told me to tell you thank you again and that she isn’t mad you lost her butterfly pictures.
I let out a loud laugh in the otherwise silent space as I read the message, and then read it again.
I suppose only a ten year old could hold a grudge that you lost access to the pictures she’d taken because your phone had been shot out of your hand.
A new wave of thanks and casseroles had started flooding in after the settlements started pouring out.
In what was clearly an attempt to avoid publicity about the case and further damage to the already toxic reputation of Knox Chemicals, the company had offered to settle the dispute out of court.
Each of the residences in Piney Crest that had signed onto the class action suit had been offered two-million dollars a piece. The number was large enough that it was hard to wrap my head around. A grand total of forty-million dollars for a payout felt like the sort of number that only existed in Scrooge McDuck’s money pit.
It also, unfortunately, only felt like a slap on the wrist for the company and Knox himself. People like Hannah Rietvald were going to lose their lives over the pollution. Children like Emma had lost their childhood to disease because of Knox and his damned company.
I’d spent days debating on whether or not two-million dollars could really settle those debts.
When I’d finally approached the residents of Piney Crest about the settlement offer, however, I was able to see how naive I’d been about wanting to brush off the offer in favor of pressing harder against the company.
All the struggles they’d been through, and hell, all the troubles they were still going through might have been worth more than two-million dollars, but that didn’t mean the two-million wouldn’t help.
It helped that I’d heard a few rumors swirling around about Knox Chemicals, too.
While Dr. Torres from the EPA was still as skittish as a feral cat, he had reached out to me once news broke about the class action proceedings.
It had been a brief conversation, mostly featuring the apologies he gave me for being nervous and turning me away, but he’d also let a key little thing slip.
I had no real way of verifying it, but Torres had mentioned in an offhanded way that was too casual to really be casual that the EPA might have been looking into Knox Chemicals following the news of the suit.
The rumor had assuaged my own moral qualms with settling out of court so easily. Knox would get his comeuppance, just maybe not from me.
My thumbs ghosted over the keyboard on my phone as I read over Clara’s message again. I wasn’t quite sure what to say, but I wanted to say something.
I chewed at my lower lip for a moment before I slid my phone back into my pocket with the promise to myself that I’d reply later.
Once my phone was safely put away, and I’d managed to catch hold of my second wind, I picked the heavy box up from the desk and made my way outside to the curb to finish loading my open trunk.
I figured we’d have to send the U-Haul back to pick up the desk because there wasn’t a chance in hell it was fitting into the tiny, already nearly packed trunk of my car, but it’s not like the drive between the old office and the new one was very far.
After the settlement had been agreed on, Landon Legal received a decent payday that I honestly hadn’t been expecting.
The amount wasn’t “change your life money,” not like what the residents of Piney Crest had received, but it was more than enough to find a new office space.
