Overruled

by Hank Davis

“How old were you?”

  “Four.”

  “And you remember all these details?”

  He wouldn’t look at me. “Not really, but I’ve heard about it a thousand times. My parents couldn’t stop arguing about that day my dad took time off in the afternoon. He decided to surprise my mother over at the car dealership by bringing her a dozen long-stemmed roses.”

  “How romantic,” I said.

  “At the car dealership they take a late lunch hour so they can take care of the customer rush between noon and one. When my dad couldn’t find anyone at the reception counter, he went to the back room and opened the door—only to find my mom flat on the desk with her skirt hiked up to her hips, legs wrapped around Franklin’s neck, and him pumping away into her.”

  It wasn’t the first time I had heard this sort of story. “I can see how that would ruin a marriage.”

  “My dad went nuts. He tried to attack Franklin and as a result, ended up in jail with charges of assault. Franklin had most of our local officials in his pocket—small town. At first my mom insisted that Franklin threatened to fire her if she didn’t have sex with him. In the resulting scandal, she changed her story, saying that the affair had gone on for a while, that Franklin wanted to marry her. My parents split up, but as soon as the divorce was final, the creep wanted nothing to do with her. He kicked my mom out. She had no job, and by that time my dad had lost his furniture store.”

  “Sounds like a mess. So what happened to little Lionel?”

  “We lived in Seaside, California—that’s not far from Santa Cruz and Monterey. My dad got drunk one day and drove too fast along Highway 1.”

  I’d been there. “Some spectacular cliffs and tight curves on that stretch of highway.”

  Miserably, Lionel nodded. “The road curved, and my dad went straight. Suicide was suspected, but nobody ever proved it. Then, one day my mom just packed up, dropped me off at foster care, and left. Said she hated me because I was just like my father. I lived in six different homes until I was sixteen and old enough to emancipate myself.”

  I tried to sound sympathetic. “Not a very happy childhood.”

  “Meanwhile, Delano R. Franklin did quite well with his car dealership. In fact, he opened three more. He married some bimbo, divorced her when she got wrinkles, then married another one. Never had kids, but I think his wives were young enough to be his daughters.”

  I wanted to cut the rant short. “All right, but what does this have to do with deep-fried artichoke hearts?”

  Tears started running down his cheeks. “I remembered my mother yelling at Franklin once. He had wooed her by telling romantic stories, describing how his own parents met. The man who would be Franklin’s father came to the rescue, helped find a lady’s wallet at the artichoke stand, took her out to eat…and eventually spawned this inkblot on the human race, a uniting of sperm and egg that any compassionate God would have prevented!”

  I paced around the table, locking my hands behind my back. “So you figured that if you kept Franklin’s biological mother and father from meeting, he would never have been born, your parents’ marriage would have remained happy, and your life would have been wonderful.”

  “That’s about it, Mr. Paramus. But Franklin had someone watching me, so I got caught.”

  “Watching you? How could he possibly have suspected such an absurd thing?”

  “Because I, uh…” Lionel blushed. “I told him. I couldn’t help myself. I wanted the scumbag to know he was about to be removed from existence.”

  I groaned. In this business, the only thing worse than a hardened criminal is an unconscionably stupid client.

  “You have to get me out of here, Mr. Paramus!” Given the circumstances, an unreasonable demand. “That holding cell is a nightmare. It smells. There’s no privacy even for the toilet, and they took blood samples to test me for HIV and other diseases. They drew my blood! That means other people in the cell must have those terrible diseases. What if I—”

  “It’s just standard procedure, Lionel.” I snapped my briefcase shut. “Let me work on this and see what I can come up with. I’ll try to get you bail. I’ll talk to Mr. Franklin and his attorney on the off chance I can get them to drop the charges.”

  It was certainly a long shot, but I wanted to give poor Lionel something to cling to.

  * * *

  I set up a meeting in the “boardroom” of the dumpy offices Aaron and I shared. I doubted I could impress Delano Franklin, but maybe I could convince him it wasn’t worth the trouble to press charges. Lionel Hendergast had almost no money, and when I learned who Franklin had hired for his own counsel to go after civil damages, I knew that money—or at least showmanship—would be a primary factor in this case.

  If you look in the dictionary next to the definition of the word “shyster,” you’ll find a picture of Kosimo Arkulian. He was overweight, with thinning steel-gray hair in a greasy comb-over that fooled nobody. He wore too many rings, too many gold chains, and a too-large gold watch, and he spoke too loudly. You’ve seen Arkulian on television with his boisterous ads, flashing his jewelry and his smile, treating everyone with a hangnail of a complaint as the next big millionaire in the lawsuit sweepstakes.

  When Arkulian sat down beside his client, I could tell it was going to be a testosterone war between those two men. Both were accustomed to being in charge.

  I gave my most pleasant smile. “Can I offer you coffee or a soda?”

  “No, thank you,” Franklin said.

  “This isn’t a social call,” Arkulian answered in a brusque tone.

  “There’s always time for good manners.” I looked at the clock on the wall. It was 1:00. “How about Scotch, then?” I had to get Franklin to take something. “Or a bourbon? I have a very good bourbon, Booker’s.” From my research, I knew Franklin was quite fond of both.

  “If your bourbon’s expensive, I’ll have one of those,” he said.

  Arkulian shot him a glance. “I wouldn’t advise it—”

  “I’m not going to get sloshed,” Franklin said. “Besides, I see a genuine irony in soaking this guy for a good expensive drink.”

  Arkulian grinned. “Then I’ll have one, too.”

  I had been careful to wash everything in our kitchenette before the meeting started. I quickly poured three glasses of fine bourbon, neat, and handed one to Franklin and one to Arkulian. The third I placed in front of me in a comradely gesture, though I barely sipped from it. I had a feeling I’d need to keep my wits sharp.

  Franklin looked like a distinguished late-middle-aged businessman gone bad. If groomed well, he could have fit comfortably into any high-society function, but he had let himself grow a beer gut. His clothes were garish, something he no doubt thought younger women found attractive. The ladies probably laughed at him until they found out how much money he had, then they played along but still laughed at him behind his back.

  I tried my best gambit, pumping up the sob story, practicing how it would sound before a jury, although it was unlikely this case would ever go to trial. The law was too uncertain, the convolutions and intangibilities of time paradox too difficult for the average person to grasp.

  “None of this has any bearing on what your client tried to do to my client,” Arkulian said. “Sure, the poor kid had a troubled life. His mother had an affair with my client some twenty-six years ago, which led to the breakup of his parents’ marriage. Boo-hoo. As if that story doesn’t reflect half of the American public.”

  Maybe your half, I thought, but kept a tight smile on my face.

  “Mr. Hendergast attempted to murder my client. It’s as simple as—”

  Impatient with letting his lawyer do all the talking, Franklin interrupted. “Wait a minute. This is far worse than just attempted murder.” As if he needed the fortification of liquid courage to face what had almost happened, Franklin grabbed his tumbler of bourbon, and took a long drink. He set the glass down, and I could see the smear his lips had made on the edge. “If Lione
l Hendergast had gunned me down in the parking lot of one of my car dealerships, he might have killed me, yes, but my legacy would have been left behind—my car dealerships, my friends…”

  “Your ex-wives,” I pointed out.

  “Some of them remember me fondly.” He didn’t even blush.

  Arkulian picked up the story. “You see, what Mr. Hendergast was attempting to do would have erased my client entirely from existence. He would have obliterated the man named Delano R. Franklin from the universe, leaving no memory of him. Nothing he ever accomplished in this life would have remained. Complete annihilation. An unspeakably heinous crime! And if Mr. Hendergast had succeeded, it would have been the perfect crime, too. No one would ever have known what he did, since there would have been no evidence, no body, no victim.”

  I had heard my share of “perfect crime” stories, and I had to admit, this ranked right up there with the best. I didn’t offer them another drink. “What exactly is it you want from my client?”

  “I want him to go to jail,” Franklin said. “I want him to be locked up so that I don’t have to worry every morning that he’s going to sneak back on another time travel expedition and try again to erase my existence.”

  Arkulian smiled and folded his fingers. I couldn’t imagine how he could fit them together with all those rings on his knuckles. “I’m guessing the publicity on this case will give a remarkable boost to my business—and don’t expect me to believe you haven’t thought of the same thing, Mr. Paramus.”

  He was right, of course. I shrugged. “Publicity is free, after all, and TV ads are a bit out of my price range.” Ambulance-chasing seemed to be paying off quite well for Arkulian. I couldn’t resist taking a small jab at him. “How much do ten of those rings cost?”

  Miffed, Arkulian stood up. “If there’s nothing else, Paramus? We’ll see you in court.”

  I let the two men show themselves out, staying behind in the boardroom. When they were gone, I took a clean handkerchief, carefully lifted the near-empty bourbon glass Franklin had used, and made sure there were sufficient saliva traces on the rim. This was all I’d need.

  * * *

  Predictably, a media frenzy surrounded the case. Arkulian held a large press conference in which he grandstanded, accusing me of leaking the story in order to get publicity. Within an hour I had a press conference of my own, accusing him of the same. Both of us received plenty of coverage, and neither of us ever admitted to making a few discreet phone calls and tipping reporters off.

  Lionel put his complete trust in me, which always sparks that uncomfortable paternal feeling. But I hadn’t been kidding when I told him the law is still murky in these sorts of cases. Nobody had any idea which way it would go, and even my “ace in the hole” was a long shot. I still hadn’t got the lab results back.

  For the preliminary hearing, we were assigned an ancient female judge, the Honorable Bernadette Maddox. I was uneasy about her age. In my experience, elderly judges don’t deal well with the second- and third-order implications of rapidly changing technologies. I’d rather have had the youngest, most computer-savvy person on the bench.

  I still held out some hope that Bernadette Maddox was a sweet old lady, and the sob-story aspect would work on her. Not a chance.

  “Mr. Arkulian!” she roared from the bench in a battle-axe voice before he had even finished his pompous remark. “You will sit down, shut up, and let me run this show.” I looked over at my rival with a twinge of sympathy. So much for the nice old lady bit. “And you will remove that disgusting cheap jewelry in my courtroom unless you have an appointment with Time Travel Expeditions to go back to the days of disco.”

  “Your Honor, my personal appearance has no bearing on—”

  “You will remove the jewelry because it hurts my eyes. I can’t even see your client through the glare from all those rings.”

  Cowed, Arkulian left the room. A nervous Lionel sat at the bench next to me, whispering, “Was that a good sign?”

  “It wasn’t so much a sign—more like a demonstration. The judge is only showing him who’s boss. And let me warn you ahead of time, she’s going to feel she needs to even the score and scold me as well at some point. Expect it and try not to get too upset.”

  “What are we going to do, Mr. Paramus?” He sounded so miserable. I felt sorry for this kid who had lost his parents, his Norman Rockwell childhood, and a lifetime of happiness, all because of Delano R. Franklin.

  I had dug into Franklin’s background, perhaps even more than Lionel had. There was no question in my mind that the world would be a better place if Franklin had never been born. He had left a decades-long trail of ex-wives and shady business dealings behind him. His primary legacy was a handful of auto dealerships, but since he had no heirs and couldn’t keep employees around long enough to put them in positions of authority and responsibility, no one would take over the car lots upon his death, and they’d probably be liquidated. Even without Lionel’s time travel help, Franklin would vanish.

  Since we were the defendants, we sat back and listened as a now-unadorned Arkulian outlined the civil part of the case, explaining time travel paradoxes in painstaking detail, using examples culled not from any law library but from classic science fiction stories. He was long-winded and explained too much to the judge, treating her as if she were incapable of grasping the classic grandfather paradox.

  I kept checking my watch as I mentally rehearsed my opening statement. The courier should have been here by now. I would have preferred hard facts to fast-talking, but I could proceed either way. As Arkulian rambled on and on, even Franklin looked bored.

  Finally, it was my turn. I hoped the judge would stall just to give me a few more minutes, but she puckered her wrinkled lips and leaned over like a hawk from the bench. “Now then, Mr. Paramus, let’s hear what you have to say. I trust you can be more succinct—or at least more interesting—than Mr. Arkulian.”

  I stood up and cleared my throat. Still no sign of my delivery person, and I really wanted to know which direction to go. Either my ace in the hole was a high trump or a discard. With a sigh, I reached into my briefcase and pulled out a carefully prepared document. “Your Honor, I wish I did not have to do this, but would it be possible to request a brief continuance? I have not yet received an important piece of evidence that has a strong bearing on this case.”

  Lionel looked over at me, surprised. “What evidence?”

  “A continuance?” the judge said with a snort. “I’ve been sitting here all morning, Mr. Paramus! You could have said this at the very beginning. How long are you asking for?” I was about to get my scolding, and Judge Maddox was clearly primed to let loose with even more venom than she had inflicted on Arkulian.

  Suddenly the large doors were flung open at the back of the courtroom. The bailiff tried to stop a man from entering, but my partner Aaron Greenblatt sidestepped him. He marched in, waving a document in his left hand. “Excuse me, your Honor. Please pardon the interruption.”

  I stifled a laugh. It was a real Perry Mason moment. I suspected Aaron had always wanted to do that.

  My partner’s face was stoic; I hated the way he covered his emotions. He could have at least grinned or frowned to give me an inkling of what he held in his hands.

  Judge Maddox lifted her gavel, looking more inclined to hit Aaron in the head with it than to rap her bench.

  I blurted, “Your Honor, I withdraw my request for a continuance—so long as my associate can hand me that paper.” I turned, not waiting for her answer as Aaron handed the lab results to me. He finally broke into a grin as I scanned the numbers and the comparison charts.

  With a huge sigh of relief, I turned back to the bench. “Your Honor, in light of recent developments I request that the attempted murder charges against my client be dropped.”

  Arkulian growled, “What are you playing at, Paramus?”

  “I’ll ask the questions here, Mr. Arkulian,” the judge said, rapping her gavel for good measure. “
Well then—what are you playing at, Mr. Paramus?”

  Bernadette Maddox already knew the sordid Peyton Place story of the ruined marriage, the broken family, the miserable life Lionel Hendergast had lived because of Franklin’s actions.

  “Your Honor, the prosecution’s client was not entirely forthcoming about how long his affair with my client’s mother lasted. If I might recap: when Lionel Hendergast was four years old, his father discovered Mr. Franklin and my client’s mother in flagrante delicto, which triggered the chain of events leading to the crime of which my client is accused.”

  “And?” Judge Maddox said, drawing out the word.

  “In fact, the affair had gone on for at least five years previous.” I fluttered the sheet of lab data. “I have here the results of DNA tests comparing the blood sample my client gave to the county jail with samples I obtained from Mr. Franklin.”

  I smiled sweetly at them. Franklin appeared confused. Arkulian was outraged, realizing I had probably tested the saliva left behind on his drinking glass—an old trick.

  “These results prove conclusively that the father of Lionel Hendergast is not the man he always believed, but rather Mr. Delano R. Franklin.”

  Lionel’s eyes fairly popped out of their sockets. The judge sat up, suddenly much more interested. Both Arkulian and Franklin bellowed angrily as if in competition with each other until finally Arkulian stood up in a huff, reacting in the way he had seen too many lawyers react on TV shows. “I object! This has no bearing—”

  “This has total bearing,” I said.

  Lionel looked as if he might faint, slide off the chair, and land on the courtroom floor. I put a steadying hand on his shoulder. He looked over at the prosecutor’s table, and his two words came out in a squeak. “My father?”

  I forged ahead. “The prosecution has interpreted this crime entirely wrong, your Honor. My client is accused of going back in time with the intent of preventing Mr. Franklin from ever being born. But if he had done that, then Lionel Hendergast would’ve erased himself from existence as well. He would have wiped out his own father, thereby ensuring that he himself could never be born.”