The Death of Distant Stars, A Legal Thriller

by Deborah Hawkins

  She followed him past the glass-walled room that led onto the patio, deeper into the house, to his study. The walls were covered with awards and pictures of Hugh with politicians and other famous lawyers. He motioned for her to take a seat on the small sofa in the corner of the big room, away from his monstrous desk. He poured himself a scotch from the open drinks tray.

  “One for you?”

  “No, I’m driving.”

  He sat down again on the soft leather chair facing her. Despite the coffee, he’d had a lot to drink, and Kathryn knew the alcohol was talking. “So here’s the story of Hugh Mahoney–in his own words. William Mahoney, my father, who was always called ‘Bill,’ grew up Irish and poor in Boston. He met my mother at a USO dance in Fort Ogelthorpe, Georgia, during World War II. He was a private in the army on his way to the European theatre. She was a kindergarten teacher from Chattanooga. He fell head-over-heels in love with Sharon Murphy.

  “He managed to stay alive, even during the Battle of the Bulge; and he kept his sanity after the horror of liberating Dachau, in order to make his way back to her after the war. Later he would say that knowing my mother was waiting for him was the only reason he had to stay alive.

  “Because they both were Catholic, their families gave them their blessings, but Mom didn’t want to live in Boston although Dad desperately wanted to go back home. To make her happy, he scraped together enough cash to buy a twelve-hundred-square-foot tract house and to open a Ford dealership on Ringgold Road in East Ridge, a suburb of Chattanooga. My brother Patrick was born in 1950. I was born in 1959. My father did his best to make a living selling cars, but we only scraped by. In a word, we were poor; and poor people are powerless, I quickly discovered.”

  * * *

  Mid-October, 1969, Chattanooga, Tennessee

  Hugh perched on the arm of the saggy living room chair that sat in front of the picture window, a position which allowed him a panoramic view of the street in front of 4507 Maple Court Drive. He was waiting for his father to come home. Decimals, the obsession of his fifth-grade teacher, had all the charm and comprehensibility of ancient Greek for him; so he looked to his father night after night to get him through his homework. Although Hugh hated math, he spent the day anticipating those hours alone with his father, who was otherwise too busy to spend time with him.

  Nevertheless, Hugh had no doubt his father’s lack of time had nothing to do with how much Bill loved him. Or Patrick or his mother. At ten, Hugh was too young to fully comprehend his father’s extraordinary capacity to love. But even then, he sensed that Bill’s enormous heart set him apart.

  Hugh squirmed on his uncomfortable perch and wondered when his father would be home. The house smelled of boiling cabbage and potatoes, a meal his parents loved, but he hated. The ugly, round, plastic black clock on the cheap veneer oak end table by the sofa said six-fifteen. His father was late. He was always home by six. Every night he drove up in one of the brand new dealership cars and hurried straight to the kitchen to kiss Hugh’s mother and to get a Pabst Blue Ribbon out of the fridge. By six-thirty, Bill would be seated on the saggy brown sofa watching Walter Cronkite on the CBS evening news with Hugh perched adoringly at his feet. By seven, his mother would have supper on the red linoleum table in the kitchen. By seven-thirty, Hugh would be deep in the throws of his math homework with his father.

  But that night, six-thirty came and went without Bill. Hugh’s mother wandered in from the kitchen and stood next to Hugh, peering into the chilly autumn dark where maple leaves detached themselves and drifted into piles on the lawn.

  “He’s late,” Hugh said.

  “Probably traffic,” Sharon observed.

  She turned to go back to the kitchen but paused for a moment. “Hugh?”

  “What?”

  “Tell him I’m in the kitchen when he comes in.”

  He nodded, and then once again was alone with his thoughts in the living room.

  A gray car pulled into the drive with a dent in the back bumper that made it look as if it had been kicked in. Bill Mahoney, looking tired and haggard, got out with a six-pack of beer.

  “Mom!”

  Sharon hurried in from the kitchen.

  “He’s home, and something terrible has happened.”

  At that moment, Bill’s key turned in the front door; and he stepped inside, his face worn and deeply lined.

  Sharon ran to him and put her arms around him. He hugged her while still clutching the six-pack.

  “What’s happened?” she asked.

  Bill looked down at her. “Ford’s taken over the dealership. Their people arrived from Detroit today and told me to leave.”

  Hugh’s mother sucked in her breath. “Twenty-three years,” she whispered. “Why come and take it over after twenty-three years?”

  Bill Mahoney shook his head. “They didn’t say. They just told me to empty my desk and go home in the used car they said I could keep.”

  “But you have a contract for another seven years!” Sharon frowned.

  “I told them that, but they didn’t care. They claimed I was underperforming, but I know my sales numbers are as good as Perkins Ford in Fort Ogelthorpe.”

  Bill looked over at Hugh’s frightened face. “Don’t worry, son. Everything will be okay. Your mother has her job, and it won’t take me long to find something else.”

  But, in truth, Hugh could see his father was very worried. He barely touched his favorite supper of corned beef brisket with the boiled potatoes and cabbage. He told Hugh that Sharon would have to be his homework tutor for the night. He sat on the sofa, blankly staring at the television and drinking himself into a stupor.

  * * *

  Friday, April 11, 2014, Crown Manor, Coronado

  It was midnight when Hugh paused the story of his father and got up to pour himself yet another scotch. He was an absorbing storyteller, Kathryn reflected. She felt as if she’d actually been in the little house the night Bill came home defeated. She could smell the boiling cabbage and potatoes.

  “What happened after that night?” she asked.

  Hugh settled back into the soft leather chair. He took a sip of his drink and propped it on his knee. “For a while he stayed in bed all day, too depressed to get up. The profits from the dealership had always been an up and down sort of thing, so we were used to getting by on my mother’s teaching salary. It wasn’t easy, but we made it.

  “Finally, my older brother Patrick came home from college for Thanksgiving. He was a sophomore at UT in Knoxville. Full scholarship, so his education went on as planned. Somehow he managed to cheer Dad up enough to get him out of the house. In December, my father started selling door-to-door for Fuller Brush. I bet you don’t even know who they are.”

  “I do. One of their salesmen used to come to our apartment when I was pretty small. I can barely remember my mother buying some hair brushes.”

  Hugh smiled. “My dad was a gentle giant of a man with kind brown eyes and a great smile. He actually did pretty well selling for Fuller Brush. But he was fifty-one, and it was hard on him physically to drive everywhere, hefting those big cases door-to-door.”

  “Didn’t he ever think of suing Ford?”

  “No, of course not. The only lawyers my parents knew anything about were the ones who wrote wills. In their world, you only saw a lawyer to write your will or when someone died and left one to probate. There were no firms like Goldstein, Miller to take on giants like Ford for a man with nothing like my father.”

  “Is that why you do it?”

  “You mean why I’m a plaintiff’s attorney?”

  She nodded.

  “I didn’t start that way. I worked for Craig, Lewis, and Weller in New York when I got out of law school. I defended big business.”

  “So how did you cross over to plaintiff’s work?”

  “It took me a long time. Craig, Lewis sent me to San Diego to defend a pharmaceutical company that had made a defective surgical implant. I liked the weather so much, I took a job
at Warrick, Thompson and made partner in their litigation section. But I was still doing defense work, like your friend Paul.

  “Then I met Rick Peyton. His wife committed suicide after taking an antidepressant that Rick was sure had caused her death. I left Warrick and opened my own shop, so I could take Rick’s wrongful death case.”

  “Wasn’t that a big gamble?”

  “The biggest. But I’d been waiting for a chance like that since my father died.”

  “Why?”

  Hugh settled back in his chair, took a sip of scotch and said, “My dad lugged those big black cases around for two years. Then one morning, in May of 1971, he got up with the worst stomach ache of his life. The doctors found a tumor, but they couldn’t know how bad it was without surgery. A week later he died on the operating table because they had given him the wrong anesthesia. He had told them the ones he couldn’t tolerate, but the anesthesiologist was an arrogant SOB who refused to read the nurse’s notes.”

  “So your mother sued the hospital?”

  Hugh shook his head. “Like I said, lawsuits didn’t exist in my parents’ world. The hospital handed her a check for $2,000 and made her sign a release. The hospital’s lawyer said that was all my father was worth because he had cancer and would have been dead within three months anyway. I was twelve when I saw her take that check, and I vowed I’d find a way to get revenge. When I won Rick’s case, I realized I’d found my calling.”

  “Is that why you took Tom’s case?”

  “It was one of the reasons.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Early Hours of Saturday morning, April 12, 2014, Coronado, California

  It was one-thirty a.m. when Hugh walked Kathryn to her, car parked in the magnificent drive. He repeated the air kisses of his original greeting and patted her on the shoulder.

  “Don’t worry about the deposition. But make an appointment to come in next week and do some preparation with Mark or Patty. I will try to come by to help out.”

  “I will. Thanks.” She slid into her little car and moved forward toward the turn onto Ocean Boulevard. In her rear-view mirror she saw Hugh standing in the drive, watching her leave.

  She was tired, but emotionally unsettled. She was having trouble pigeonholing Hugh back into the arrogant, aggressive, money-making machine she’d seen that first night with his arm around Logan Avery. He’d just shown her a human and very down-to-earth side she had never dreamed existed.

  She felt as if she needed protection from the racing thoughts threatening to transform Hugh Mahoney from a cold-hearted, big-firm lawyer into a flesh and blood man with a heart. She drove down Orange Avenue, past the dark and shuttered businesses of the little town, and turned left onto First Street, where the homes on the right side of the street had sweeping views of the bay and the lights of downtown.

  She counted the houses to her right until she reached 817 where Paul lived. The house sat on a small private street that ran parallel to First. Kathryn swung her little car onto the private road and looked for a parking spot. She needed Paul at that moment. She needed his arms and his warmth and his steady reassurance that everything was going to be all right. He was the one person in the world she could turn to at this hour of the morning.

  But just as she switched her engine off, she saw it parked in Paul’s drive behind the low gates that allowed the house to be visible from the street but kept tourists from occupying his driveway. Her heart sped up, and her stomach churned. Shannon Freeman’s sleek red Corvette was nestled in for the night. The old hot waves of jealousy overwhelmed her.

  * * *

  December 2009, 1845 Ocean Place, Pacific Beach

  By December, Kathryn knew Shannon well. She knew the way she wrinkled her nose when she laughed, the way she tossed her waist-length blonde mane, and the way she brushed up against Tom in doorways or at restaurants when the four of them went out for brunch. She knew the way Shannon smiled at Tom with her heart in her eyes, and she wondered if Steve ever noticed.

  He didn’t seem to. The two of them gave the appearance of a happy couple. Not long after that August morning when Kathryn first saw Shannon with Tom, he told her Steve had asked Shannon to move into his cottage, not far from 1845 Ocean Place.

  It had been a Saturday in early September, and they’d walked up to The Yellow Café on Garnet for brunch.

  “I never thought it would happen,” Tom said over scrambled eggs. “I never thought Steve would actually ask someone to move in with him.”

  Kathryn scanned his face for signs of jealousy, but there were none. His lovely eyes were clear and blue, his smile genuine and happy. “What made him do it?”

  “All I can say is he really, really likes her. She can surf with him.”

  “But he’s had other surfing girlfriends.”

  “Shannon is world class. She can keep up with us.”

  Kathryn hoped she didn’t flinch when he said “us.” “She’s a good bit younger, isn’t she?”

  “Eleven years. I don’t think Steve even thinks about it.”

  What about you, she wanted to ask. Do you think about a woman who can do all the things with a surfboard that you can and who has a lot more time to have children than I do? And who looks at you as if you hung the moon?

  As the days stretched into California’s version of autumn, Tom began to surf with Shannon and Steve six days a week. Sunday was the only day she woke to find his side of the bed still occupied. She knew Paul was rarely with them because Tom had mentioned he was living out of a suitcase in Dallas doing discovery in a case that might go to trial in a few months. And his marriage was starting to crumble.

  As the days went by, she tried not to think about the child she so desperately wanted. But one Saturday morning in late October when the few precious fertile hours came round again, she reached out and pulled Tom back into bed.

  “Don’t go.” She smiled at him, hoping he would understand what she wanted.

  The trouble was, he understood all too well. “Not this morning.”

  “But this morning is important.”

  He sighed. “I’m sorry. I know what this means to you, but I just can’t. Not anymore. We took temperatures, we lived our lives around the calendar, we made love when it wasn’t love at all. I can’t get back on that merry-go-around again.”

  “But it’s not a merry-go-around. It’s now. Once. This morning.”

  But he shook his head and got up. “I would if I could, Kathryn. But I can’t.”

  * * *

  Early Hours of Saturday Morning, April 12, 2014, Crown Manor, Coronado, California

  Hugh watched Kathryn’s tail lights disappear through his impressive entry gates, then turned back to the house. He poured himself a Glenlivet nightcap with a twinge of guilt because he had an appointment with the cardiologist on Monday, and his blood pressure was working its way to new heights. Dr. Tilson would give him another lecture about how much the heart hates alcohol. Although Hugh doubted the truth of that. Without scotch, the pressures in his life would drive his blood pressure even higher.

  He walked upstairs to his room where the light by the bed burned softly. In the dimness, he put on pajamas and brushed his teeth. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He looked so old. The old-man pj’s didn’t help. He shouldn’t be sleeping with Logan. She couldn’t possibly have any interest in him other than to advance her career. He should stop pretending she found him attractive.

  He sighed and got into bed with the remainder of his Glenlivet and a Tom Clancy novel. But Jack Ryan did not hold his interest. He kept thinking about Kathryn. She was lying about her marriage. Something had been wrong. Hugh guessed it was something badly wrong since she was working so hard to cover it up, and she obviously didn’t trust him enough to share her secret. They desperately needed to teach her damage control. She was a transparent liar. They had their work cut out for them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Monday, May 5, 2014, Office of Hugh Mahoney, Emerald Shapery Center, Sa
n Diego

  Mark Kelly was annoyed by Hugh’s summons at eight on Monday morning. He’d spent the weekend fighting with Rachel over the nuptial extravaganza she was planning. Two hundred guests and a sit-down dinner at the Hotel Del made him queasy, although not because of the cost. He could handle that. But more and more, he wasn’t sure that he was in love with Rachel. If he went through with the wedding and it turned out to be a colossal mistake, fewer witnesses to his folly were far preferable. Two days of turmoil had made him long for the moment when he’d hit the peace and quiet of his own office at eight that morning. He needed some solitude before putting on his lawyer-face for the week.

  But no luck. He was summoned like a first-year associate to the great man’s office the minute he arrived. Patty was already seated in one of the chairs in front of Hugh’s desk. She looked impeccable as always, hair slicked into a tight bun, perfectly tailored black suit. She was cradling a Starbuck’s cup in her heavily diamonded left hand and listening to Hugh, who looked up when she entered. Was it ever weird, Mark wondered, to work with the man she’d slept with for her first two years at the firm?

  “Ah, there you are. Logan will be along in a few minutes. She’s found something in Wycliffe’s documents that she wants to tell us about.” Hugh sipped from his own paper-lidded Starbuck’s Café Americano.

  Mark pulled up a chair from the conference table in the corner of Hugh’s office to leave the remaining chair for Logan. He wondered if he had time to retreat downstairs for his own cup of coffee.

  But the answer was no. The door burst open, and Logan appeared, looking like Patty’s opposite number. Instead of a suit, she wore a bright red dress that hugged her curves. She shook her shoulder-length hair out of her eyes and looked at Hugh seductively.

  Mark felt uncomfortable when Logan was coming on to their boss. And Monday morning was way too early for seduction.