As he watched the jury file out, Rep sensed his scheduling conference slipping away, along with any chance of a quick, clean end to Angstrom’s case. He was wrong. The instant the door closed behind the exiting jurors, the judge crooked his index finger at the Goettinger v. Angstrom group, which obediently trooped up to the bench.
“We’re gonna be awhile sorting this out. Since my calendar has probably just been blown to hell for the foreseeable future, I have an idea. The newsies are all going to be here waiting for the next thing to happen in this circus or outside reporting on the last thing. The press room should be nice and quiet. As long as you’re going to be here for awhile anyway, why don’t you go down there and see if you can get this case settled?”
“Your honor,” Rep’s adversary, Jeff Glendenning said hesitantly, “given the lateness of the hour—”
“Despite the delicate politesse of my diction,” the judge said, “that was not a suggestion.”
They obeyed. Sort of. As they approached the elevators, Glendenning started muttering something. Rep turned toward the burly, white-maned man who towered nearly half-a-foot over Rep’s five-nine.
“Gerry and I are going out for some fresh air,” he said. “Thirty-thousand for a bullet-proof muzzle, plus we’ll drop our claims. Best I can do. Talk it over with your client and we’ll see you in twenty minutes.”
He didn’t wait for an answer. Just walked away and started down the stairs with Geraldine Lindner, Goettinger’s in-house general counsel.
“Does he piss you off as much as he does me?” Angstrom asked.
“He’s not having a good day,” Rep said. “Let’s go down and talk.”
The judge was kidding about the press room. Milwaukee’s federal courthouse doesn’t have one. Ordinarily, reporters camp forlornly in the corridors or on the front steps along with everyone else. Rep and Angstrom went to a conference room behind a first-floor bankruptcy court, whose own judge would be busy with insolvencies in Green Bay for a month or so. Given the press attention that the sex-or-swim case had generated, the chief judge had grudgingly allowed the media to base themselves there during the trial instead of cluttering up the rest of the courthouse.
Rep usually enjoyed negotiations, but he couldn’t see the point of these. Negotiation is based on information and fear. Rep didn’t have enough of the first, and Goettinger Corporation didn’t have enough of the second.
“The answer to thirty-thousand is no, by the way,” Angstrom said as they worked their way toward the conference room. “But you knew that.”
“Best case, you win two-hundred-fifty-thousand on your counterclaim. Worst case, they win their claims and bankrupt you. Lawyers call that an asymmetrical risk. So think hard about your counteroffer.”
“What do you recommend?”
“Seventy percent of two-fifty is one-seventy-five.” Rep opened the conference room door. “There’s no such thing as a seventy percent chance of winning a civil jury trial unless you’re in a wheelchair.”
“Only twenty-two percent of American adults still smoke,” Angstrom said in unruffled disgust as they stepped inside, “and apparently they’re all reporters assigned to this case.”
“Counteroffer. Focus.”
“Well would you look at that? What have we here?”
Rep followed Angstrom’s gaze. In the center of the scarred and mottled conference table, surrounded by Styrofoam cups used as ashtrays and evidence of hastily digested pizza, lay a thick, cardboard, aqua-colored file-folder with “GOETTINGER—RISK MANAGEMENT (2004)” written on its tab in bold felt-tip.
“An anonymous benefactor, perhaps,” Angstrom said.
“No one could have known that we’d be down here alone,” Rep said. “If someone planted that folder they weren’t leaking it to us. They left it for reporters covering the sex-or-swim case.”
“All the better for us then, no?”
Rep gazed at the folder’s opaque cover, as if it were a work of art whose deeper meaning would yield to patient study. Angstrom watched him for a few moments, then pulled a chair out and got comfortable, leaning back to balance it on its two rear legs and bracing his forearm against the table’s edge.
“You’re thinking it’s odd that a Goettinger file turns up in the middle of the sex-or-swim case on the day we have a court appearance in a separate case against Goettinger, aren’t you?”
“The word ‘coincidence’ had crossed my mind.”
“It’s a mystery.”
“So is the doctrine of the trinity—or so my wife tells me.”
“Well, however it got there, the file is within reach. Perhaps if we page through it the price of poker will go up.”
“If we find nothing we will have compromised ourselves to no purpose. If we find something ugly enough to make a difference, on the other hand, we’ll have a legal obligation to disclose it. We might make some work for the FBI but because Goettinger would have no reason to pay you to keep it secret, we wouldn’t help your case a bit.”
“In other words, two things can happen if we look at the file, and both of them are bad.”
“Right.”
Rep pulled a thick, brown envelope holding a copy of the pleading file out of his saddle-leather briefcase. He stuffed the pleadings themselves back into the briefcase, and then fussed the Goettinger file folder into the envelope. Looking around for a writing instrument more muscular than his blue Bic, he found only a green Magic Marker. He shrugged, sealed the envelope, and then signed his name in garish strokes across the seal.
“Your turn,” he said to Angstrom.
“We’re not actually going to return this to Goettinger without looking at it, are we?”
“Of course not.”
“Then what’s this rigamarole all about?”
“We found this on federal property, outside Goettinger’s custody and control. We’re going to give it to the first deputy marshal we can track down, and tell Goettinger to ask the court if it wants the file back.”
“And we’re doing this business with the Magic Marker to prove we didn’t peek?”
“No. We’re doing this to make Goettinger think we did.”
Chapter 9
“No plea bargain,” Kuchinski said quietly to Rep as he joined him outside the courtroom some six hours later. “Finnegan won’t come off felony.”
The two men leaned against the maple railing that surrounded an atrium yawning two stories below them and several more above. Despite the late hour—almost ten—scores of pacing footfalls still echoed off marble floors and walnut wainscoting. The light seemed unnaturally bright in a building that seldom saw much activity after dark.
“Does your jury consultant think the holdout will hang tough?”
“Yep. Same consultant who told us we’d get an acquittal without breathing hard. Ninety-eight thousand dollars for being one-hundred-seventy-nine degrees wrong. Hell, I coulda guessed wrong for ten-thousand.”
“Maybe he thought the trial was in California.”
“That just might be it. What with global warming and everything, it’s an easy mistake to make.”
“When did the jury start deliberating again?” Rep glanced at his watch.
“Sevenish. Took the judge quite a while to question them one by one. Then he let them eat dinner while he heard us out on our mistrial motion.”
“Three hours and no word. Maybe the consultant is right.”
“Miracles happen. Your settlement negotiations have been plugging along since four o’clock or so. It doesn’t take that long to say ‘no and goodbye.’ Is something really happening or are you just trying to make it look good?”
“The other side is polling board members by phone about our latest offer.”
“Sounds promising. They wouldn’t need the board’s permission to settle a case out of petty cash. Why do you look like your client will be writing the check instead of cashing it?”
“Because there’s no good re
ason for them to be talking about that kind of money this early in the game.”
“There’s always a reason.”
“I know,” Rep said. “I just said there’s no good reason.”
“Ah. One of those reasons that’s a buzz-killer.”
Both men turned as they heard steps approaching. Angstrom ambled up to them and rested his hips against the railing.
“Do you two know each other?” Angstrom asked.
“Walt has been kind enough to sub-lease part of his suite in the Germania Building to me while I’m trying to get my firm’s Milwaukee office up and running.”
“And Rep has been kind enough to dress the place up with framed copies of classic advertising prints and keep the fridge stocked with Leininkugel. Plus he pays the rent on time. That’s the real reason I referred you to him. Speaking of which, I wish one of the candy-ass suits he represents would get nailed with a DUI so he could return the favor.”
“I’m working on it,” Rep said.
“You’re a celebrity,” Angstrom told Kuchinski then.
“Greta Van Sustern doesn’t have me on speed-dial yet.”
“The reason I came over,” Angstrom said sotto voce to Rep, “is that on my way back from the men’s room I saw Goettinger’s general counsel having a little heart-to-heart with Clevenger’s mom. Maybe one more item for the implausible coincidence file.”
“Maybe. What do you think, Walt?”
“Not necessarily. Valerie Clevenger did corporate regulatory work for Goettinger even before she turned herself into a white collar crime specialist. Then she handled a criminal investigation that Finnegan was pursuing against the company. They dumped her when Goettinger died a couple of years ago, but she may still know where some bodies are buried.”
“Corporate regulatory to white collar crime is kind of a major re-invention,” Rep said. “When did she do that?”
“Oh-one, oh-two, something like that. A Houston firm sent her up here to open a Milwaukee office focusing on energy stuff. Hummed along for about ten years, did all the right things, got mentioned in the business press, helped out with the grunt work on the bar committees. But when you have a niche practice and the niche disappears, so does your practice.”
“What happened?”
“About five minutes after Enron cratered her partners down in Houston decided they didn’t need anyone doing energy work in Milwaukee. Wrote her a check and told her to pursue other opportunities. Instead of finding an inside counsel slot to use as a glide path to retirement, she decided to build herself a white collar crime practice from zero. And damned if she didn’t bring it off.”
“Even though she’d never been a trial lawyer?”
“Oh, she doesn’t do the grubby white collar crimes that go to trial. No doctors triple-billing Medicaid or bartenders keeping two sets of books for her. She does strictly big-league, Fortune Five-Hundred, crime in the suites stuff. Those cases always settle.”
“By having the defendant pay a lot of money without admitting that it did anything wrong?”
“Right. Give her credit, though. She got some sweet deals and built a reputation fast. There are some insiders who’ll tell you she walked off with Terry Finnegan’s testicles in her briefcase more than once.”
“Don’t look now,” Angstrom said, “but Mr. Glendenning is coming our way and looking dyspeptic.”
Kuchinski moved discreetly away. Glendenning strode up, his lips slightly parted in an expression that combined resignation and disgust.
“The board won’t go one-seventy-five. One-sixty. Half now, half after the first of the year. No interest, no costs, dismissal with prejudice, no book, watertight non-disclosure agreement.”
“We’ve got a deal,” Angstrom said before Rep could open his mouth.
“Let’s put it on the record,” Rep said.
“We might have to wait a bit,” Angstrom said. “A gaggle of lawyers just started streaming in.”
“Quarrel of lawyers,” Glendenning said with considerable asperity. “Gaggle of geese, quarrel of lawyers.”
“Whatever it is,” Rep said, “let’s join them.”
They did. The jury box was empty. Eight minutes later, when the judge came in and waved everyone into their seats, it was still empty.
“The jury reports that it’s still deadlocked,” he said. “I’m going to let them go tonight and come back at nine tomorrow. At eight tomorrow you gentlemen will be here, at which time the court will entertain all the motions the defense is panting to make—including, unless I miss my guess, a request that I reconsider my denial of the motion several months ago to dismiss the indictment on its face. Don’t draw any inferences about how I might rule if the jury deadlock continues and you guys can’t agree on a plea bargain—but one way or another, ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to be done with this case by the close of business tomorrow.”
The gavel began to fall and Rep began to rise at the same instant.
“Your honor, we have a settlement to report in Goettinger.”
The gavel didn’t stop, but it slowed long enough for the judge to speak one sentence.
“Write it up and send it in.” RAP! “I’m glad someone in this courtroom knows how to settle a case. Court’s adjourned.”
The cheerful handshakes that Rep exchanged amid the hubbub in the hallway outside the courtroom came on automatic pilot. He turned his cell-phone on as soon as he legally could in case he had a message from Melissa. Maybe Angstrom’s case had ended up morphing into borderline extortion, but he’d save that for a law school exam question in case he ever became a professor. At the moment, Melissa’s green-flecked brown eyes, arch banter, and educated sense of the artful massage monopolized his mental processes.
He was finishing one last hand-shake when six bars of Can-can announced a call. He almost answered with something sweetly suggestive, then remembered that Melissa might not be the one calling.
She wasn’t.
“Mr. Pennyworth?” The voice was female and sounded rather younger than Melissa’s thirty-two years. “The attorney?”
Unwilling to tell a bare-faced lie in a federal courthouse, Rep said “Yes.”
“My name is Tereska Bleifert. Professor Pennyworth gave me your phone number a couple of weeks ago because I said I might have a question for you, but then I decided not to call you, but now I’m here, and I do want to ask you something, although not the thing I was going to ask in the first place. When she gave me your number. I’m wearing a red sweater and waving my arm.”
Rep looked toward the doors to the elevator lobby and spotted her. He’d guessed right about her age. She hadn’t seen twenty yet. Fairly recently, from the looks of it, she had shaped her brown hair into a no-nonsense, low maintenance cut that barely reached her neck. As Rep moved toward her, he saw a fiercely intense look in her eyes that tried to seem hard but couldn’t quite bring it off. She was standing about three feet from a man whose name Rep didn’t know but whom he recognized as a local reporter. The man was edging closer to Bleifert, but Rep didn’t pay any attention to that.
“Hi,” Bleifert said with a hint of a blush when Rep reached her. “I came down here to pick someone up that I thought would be ready, because the trial was supposed to be over, but I guess it isn’t over and I couldn’t get into the courtroom and now I can’t figure out what’s going on.”
Rep explained quickly.
“Who were you supposed to pick up?” he asked then, wincing as he imagined Melissa’s reaction to ending a sentence with a preposition and disregarding the objective case in the same question.
“One of the jurors. Grady Schoenfeld.”
“Uh, yeah,” Rep said.
“Is that one n or two in ‘Pennyworth?’” the reporter asked. “Boone Fletcher, by the way. Two o’s.”
Chapter 10
The second Friday in October, 2007
“So Jimmy Clevenger is off the hook?” Melissa asked Rep.
/> She parked their Taurus behind a brand new, pale green Toyota Prius hybrid about a hundred yards down Terrace Avenue from Villa Terrace, where tonight’s Brontë Convocation events would take place.
“Not necessarily off for good. The jury hung and the judge didn’t acquit him. He granted a motion to dismiss the indictment on its face. Finnegan plans to appeal, get the ruling reversed, and try again with a different jury.”
“Wouldn’t that be double jeopardy or something?”
“It’s not my field, but Walt says no. Because it was a defense motion and the judge ruled on a question of law rather than fact, Finnegan can get another kick at the cat. All he has to do is convince the Court of Appeals that attempted rape is piracy if you try it on a ship.”
“‘Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum,’” Melissa said as they climbed out.
“Unless I’m very much mistaken, by the way, that shiny new Prius with the IM4KARL license plate belongs to my recent client. It’s the first thing he bought on the strength of the Goettinger settlement.”
They strolled together through the comfortable evening air. October weather is fifty-fifty in Wisconsin, and the Brontës had lucked out. When they reached Villa Terrace Rep stopped and frankly gaped.
“Yeah,” Melissa said. “The program says we owe this gem to Lloyd R. Smith and his blushing bride—two crazy Milwaukee kids who didn’t have a thing in the world except their love for each other and several million dollars.”
“And that was back when several million dollars was regarded as a considerable amount of money.”
“They went to Italy on their honeymoon and, like every tourist in history except Martin Luther and the odd Visigoth, they fell in love with it. So they decided to bring a little back with them. Several thousand orange barrel tiles, a few tons of Italian limestone, a brace of statues, and voilá—their very own Tuscan villa on the east side of Milwaukee.”
“Amazing what you can do when there are weak unions and no income taxes.”
Shoot the Lawyer Twice Page 4
