by Martin Clark
Joe sat down again. “No. Period. But thanks. I appreciate your even considering it.” He sighed. “So this was your ace in the hole?”
“Give it some thought, okay? Please. Think about this compared to where we are and what we can expect. I truly believe your reluctance is more about breaking the rules than not being able to somehow figure how to make this work. Try separating the two. We have the DNA. Her DNA. All we have to do is find a way to use it. And yeah, I’d love to come up with a plan that doesn’t involve me if we can.”
“I’ll take my chances—my honest chances—in court and before the disciplinary committee. Maybe I can convert our goodwill there, where I’m supposed to. I’m not a hypocrite who jumps ship the first time we hit bad waves. I’ve invested decades in this system, and I’ve told hundreds of people it delivers fairness, and I’m not about to start acting like a scared punk. It would only make our situation worse, sweetie, your dishonesty.” He had the bourbon again. “But you’re quite a wife,” he said. “Yes you are. I picked the right girl. Thanks for the offer.” He sipped from the glass but suddenly stopped. He swallowed. He concentrated and looked at her hard. “Should I find it odd that you’re so eager to do this, and you’re the only person who claims to have seen Lettie? Quite an elaborate contingency plan for somebody who’s certain she’s alive. You haven’t been misleading me, have you? Planning your own sting to rescue us?”
“Meaning?”
“This is permanently and positively a no. I want your promise.”
“Joe—”
“Promise me as my wife and law partner that you’ll forget about this. I won’t have it, Lisa.”
“Okay, okay. I’ll forget about it.”
“It’s degrading too,” he said disdainfully. “Degrading. You’re a lawyer and a professional. Not a con artist or a boiler-room hustler.”
“You need to please go and check on Mr. Stone,” Betty said. It was another blistering August morning, two days after Joe had rejected Lisa’s cockamamie offer to cure their legal crisis by blinging her front tooth and temporarily painting herself with dragons, mythical birds, Chinese symbols, scrolls, crosses, tigers, flames, Celtic script slogans and a multicolored cobra head.
“Why?” Lisa asked. She was at her desk, sneaking a cigarette and playing Plants vs. Zombies, a small reward for finishing a tedious land deed that had nineteen grantors, one-sixty-fourth fractional shares and a handicapped minor heir in South Carolina. She was at level three, the living dead dressed in sport jackets and red ties trudging from the margins of her screen. “What’s wrong?” She looked up and waved a hand back and forth through the Marlboro Ultra Light smoke.
“I’m sure it has to do with a certified letter I signed for this morning. He took it real bad, Mrs. Stone. I can tell when he’s upset and brooding.”
“Huh. Certified mail is rarely good news. Yeah, thanks. I’ll find out what’s bothering him.” She clicked Quit Game, stubbed out the cigarette and made the trip over the worn hall rugs to Joe’s office. After all the time in their building, she knew the rugs’ patterns by heart, the swirls, shapes, figures, lines and designs, had crossed them until every woven detail was familiar, lodged in her mind.
She didn’t have to ask Joe anything, didn’t have to recite why she was standing there in his doorway with a worried expression. As soon as he spotted her, he tossed the letter—a chunk of stapled pages—across his desk in her direction. “My reward,” he said bitterly. “Joe Stone, the honest lawyer, receives his due. Thank you for being a true believer and honoring the system and refusing to compromise the rules. We appreciate your discipleship and dedication. Your 2009 Carrico ethics award.”
“Betty said something came in the mail and upset you.”
“That would be a fucking understatement, Lisa. Supreme Court Rules, Part 6, Section IV, paragraph 13-18: Bar counsel has certified to the Disciplinary Board that I am engaging in misconduct which will result in injury to others and that my practicing law poses an imminent danger to the public.” He collected a rubber band from his desk, stretched it from his thumb, released it. It plunked against the wall and fell to the hardwood floor, close to the baseboard. “They’re asking for an immediate suspension of my license. That shit doesn’t happen unless they’re figuring on a slam dunk. It’s a done deal. Forget about October. August twenty-ninth is my date. Sweet, huh? I was district committee chair for six years. For six years I handled ethics complaints. Now I’m the friggin’ respondent, the crooked lawyer, the threat to my community. And I’m going to lose—no doubt. They have the evidence. I have, what, my thin, flimsy words? Why the hell did I ever call Benecorp and fudge about the stupid trusts?”
“Whether you did or not, Joe, there’s still the fake will, Neal’s lies, video of an impostor in a bank supposedly collecting our money, incriminating signed documents and a deposition from a captain of industry who claims we tried to bribe him.”
“Thanks for the helpful reminder.”
“Robert and Phil expect to hear any day who our judge will be. They’ve already filed to extend the deadline for our discovery answers.”
“Great,” Joe snapped. “Doesn’t help me one iota with this shit.”
“I’m so sorry, Joe. God.” She walked to him and crouched beside his chair. She took his hand, wrapped it in both hers. She was sideways to him, next to his hip and shoulder. He didn’t look at her, stared at the far wall, angry and seething, a knot at the pivot where his jawline began curving toward his ear. He swallowed hard, and she could see it in his neck. “I’ve bombarded the chat room for the last week,” she told him. “From nine o’clock until past ten, every three or four minutes, every night, not just Thursdays. I wrote ‘Joe SOS’ or ‘Joe needs you ASAP.’ Nothing. What a bitch.”
“Thanks. If she’s alive, we’ve absolutely got to find her. We’ll get our clocks cleaned in court. I swear, now I’m worried that maybe she was hiding and Benecorp located her and finished the job. Or, shit, our luck, she got run over by a bus. Let’s hire a private detective, even though it’ll probably be a waste. I’ll make some calls and set it up, but where in creation do you start looking?”
“Okay. I agree. Who knows, maybe a pro can find her—it’s what they do. Billy Hamblin’s always been pretty effective. Let’s see if he’s available. And we have the Charlotte lead from Toliver.”
Joe didn’t reply, didn’t make eye contact, continued to peer straight ahead, rigid, fixed, resigned. “I miss Brownie,” he finally said. “The room seems too big with him gone.”
“I miss him too.”
“Oh—I canceled our off-duty cops. I told Chris Lampkins we didn’t need them anymore. The cost was putting us in the poorhouse, and I don’t think Garrison would dare harm us now, huh? Why would he? No need—we’re plenty dead as it is.”
—
In response to a mass e-mail Lisa had sent, the entire Martinsville–Henry County Bar, except for three members, turned out in person to support Joe at his August disciplinary hearing, drove several hours to Richmond, most of them on the road by 5:30 a.m., a few there the day before, staying in hotels on their own dime. The three who couldn’t make it because of such short notice sent long, favorable letters to the board. In all, thirty-six lawyers traveled from Henry County to the General Assembly Building, where the hearing was held in a side room adjacent to the main lobby. Mike Cannaday was suffering from cancer and clattered down the center aisle on his walker. “If they take Joe’s license, they might as well take mine,” he proclaimed, loud enough for everyone to hear, plainspoken as always.
More attorneys came from Roanoke and Salem and Danville, and Alan Black chauffeured a bunch from Stuart, a blue-moon rarity, as Patrick County was an extremely clannish place, especially skeptical of its “big-city” neighbors to the east. There were far too many people to fit comfortably in the space, so they lined the walls and spilled deep into the corridor. Joe didn’t know his friends would be there—Lisa hadn’t told him in case people decided not to make th
e trip—and he shook every hand, hugged several old friends and thanked them all, grudges and lost cases and local politics set aside for the day. Lisa could tell that he was moved, pleased, even gratified, and despite how strong the case against him was, seeing their colleagues buoyed her, gave her a dash of hope.
There was nothing from Lettie, nothing at all.
Bar counsel was a low-key pro named Kaye Slayton, and her presentation to the five-member board was methodical and powerful, a preview of exactly how the civil case with Benecorp would unfold. A pained Vicky Helms testified that Joe gave her the handwritten VanSandt will and that she personally scanned the document he brought to her. As she was leaving the witness stand, she volunteered that Mr. Stone never would’ve tried to do something dishonest, and Slayton coolly asked her again exactly who offered her the will. “Joe. Mr. Stone,” Helms said, barely audible.
A handwriting expert from the state police declared the recorded will was a forgery. There was an affidavit from Benecorp’s expert, too, confirming that the document wasn’t prepared by Lettie VanSandt.
Then the panel saw the contract with Joe’s purported signature, where he agreed to release the rights to an asset he owned only because of the fraudulent will. They watched a video of the money being collected in the Bahamas and were told that the respondent, Mr. Stone, had stipulated his wife was in Nassau on March 5, though he denied it was her in the video and denied receiving any payment whatsoever.
Over Phil Anderson’s vehement objection, the board reviewed Caribbean Fidelity International Bank’s paperwork and notarized affidavit, which showed $750,000 withdrawn from an account in the name of Lisa Stone. “This isn’t a court trial,” the chairman, Oliver Winston, reminded Anderson. “Our rules favor admission; the board members can give the evidence whatever weight they think it merits.” Another of the board members, a bald, pinched, suspendered lawyer from Bedford, scowled. To his left, a bony woman with narrow eyes and an austere blouse furiously scrawled notes.
Following lunch, Anton Pichler was sworn in and then explained how Joe had misled him and Benecorp regarding ownership of the VV 108. With Pichler still on the witness stand, Slayton played the recordings of Joe hemming and hawing about the possibility of a trust or foundation owning the rights to the wound formula. “It seemed like a double dip to us,” Pichler noted. “We’d paid Mr. Stone once, even though we were suspicious of his claim, and here he’s back at our door for a second round, demanding more money. It felt like a shakedown, really.” The best Phil Anderson could do on cross-examination was highlight that Joe had never claimed for certain Benecorp didn’t own the wound formula.
Kelly Richardson had rescheduled four cases so she could be at the hearing and was sitting beside Lisa in the front row, immediately behind Joe. “This isn’t my cup of tea,” Richardson whispered, her hand blocking her mouth. “I’m strictly a domestic relations gal, but this isn’t sounding so hot for our side.”
Slayton asked for a brief recess and left the room with the bar investigator, a retired cop from Grundy. Lisa assumed Slayton was reviewing her notes and trial outline, making sure she’d not forgotten any evidence or important testimony. She returned and instead of declaring she was resting the state bar’s presentation against Joe, she announced that Seth Garrison would be her next witness, and although she did her best to sound nonchalant, there was a peculiar, jazzed excitement in her voice, a mixture of awe and top-this-stunt satisfaction, and damned if he didn’t sweep in from a side door, Seth Garrison, Mr. G, the Benecorp king, an honest-to-goodness rich, reclusive celebrity, and he set the room on its ear, jaded lawyers, gigantic egos, men and women who’d tried death penalty cases, it didn’t matter, they were all rapt and spellbound, impressed to see TMZ fame and mammoth wealth incarnate. Lisa noticed Christina Phelps from the public defender’s office surreptitiously aiming her phone at Garrison so she could sneak a photo.
Garrison was comfortable testifying, relaxed, pleasant, not in the least haughty or condescending, a regular guy in an expensive tailored suit. He detailed how his company had determined the will was a fraud but, for obvious business reasons, decided to pay Mr. Stone anyway for a renouncement of all rights to the VanSandt estate. He identified his signature on the contract. He pointed to Joe’s signature, claimed the notary, an administrative assistant with Benecorp, had met Joe at the Greensboro airport to witness the signature, this because the company had been burned before, and he wanted his people to verify the signing. He produced the records showing a payment of $750,000 into the Bahamas account and its subsequent withdrawal. “If Mr. Stone had honored that agreement,” he said solemnly, “even as tainted as it was, we wouldn’t be here today. To the contrary, we now know he learned just how valuable this formula might be, and he then began hounding us for more money. He lied to us. He claimed we didn’t own the VanSandt wound medicine. He repeatedly told us it belonged to some trust, and we’d have to pay him again. It felt like we were being blackmailed.”
Phil Anderson objected to the characterization, and the board chairman agreed.
“Sorry,” Garrison said humbly. “I’m not a lawyer. I apologize. I’ll just leave it at this: He came to us seeking further payment based on complete untruths.”
“And then he sued you?”
“He did,” Garrison said. “We were shocked.”
“How much did he demand? The second time, when he incorrectly stated some fictitious trust actually owned the wound formula?”
“Five million dollars. Sitting there on my boat in Virginia Beach—five million dollars. I refused. Enough is enough.”
“Thank you, sir,” Slayton said. “And thanks for traveling here today. I realize you have a busy schedule.”
“No problem,” Garrison said amiably. Lisa noticed a dab of mousse and a decent cut had improved his Breakfast Club hair. Still, even in his commanding suit and spiffy white shirt, a touch of awkward, slide-rule geek bled through, made him that much more appealing despite his enviable success and reputation as a take-no-prisoners CEO.
Phil Anderson capped a ballpoint pen and walked toward Garrison, stopping midway between the witness stand and counsel table. Anderson tapped his palm with the pen as he spoke. “Assuming, Mr. Garrison, that Mr. Stone did in fact forge a will, and assuming he did engineer this secretive, highly irregular transaction in the Bahamas, and assuming for the sake of argument he later came to you seeking more money, assuming he’d done all these obviously corrupt things, why on god’s green earth would he then sue you and put this deceit on the table and make it public for everyone to see? He’d have to be an idiot, wouldn’t he?”
“Mr. Garrison isn’t a mind reader,” Slayton objected. “Any answer would be improper speculation on his part.”
Anderson smiled. “My very first question, Mrs. Slayton, and you’re already raising Cain.”
“I don’t mind answering,” Garrison volunteered. “The same thought occurred to me several weeks ago, when we were sued. Seems like a fair topic to me, though I don’t know the rules here.”
“Well, okay,” Slayton agreed. She glanced at Anderson, then the board members. “I’ll roll the dice. Go ahead. You may answer. Objection withdrawn.”
Garrison nodded. “You see, Mr. Anderson, so much of my business is about competitive advantage, and that means secrecy and lots of valuable information held tight to the vest. The suit was a bluff, a shot across my bow. Your client calculated I’d fold immediately and pay him off rather than watch this innovation dragged into the public arena. The lawsuit has put my competitors on high alert; Mr. Stone knew that would be a complication for us. The lawsuit has also cost me and Benecorp and our stockholders untold thousands of dollars because we’ve had to hit our brakes given the uncertainty generated by Mr. Stone’s false allegations. He made a judgment I’d pay him off quickly rather than see these things come to pass. He was wrong, simple as that.”
“Quite a gamble,” Anderson replied. “If he’d really done all this conniving, he’d have to r
ealize suing you was suicidal.”
“Only if I chose the more difficult route,” Garrison argued. “I could’ve negotiated a quick settlement and been on my way and no one is the wiser. Also he can still deny any wrongdoing and hope for the best with a jury in his hometown; he still has that chance remaining. In the final analysis, I was unwilling to be continually blackmailed, though that position has put proprietary information at risk and is costing my company money in delays. He didn’t think I’d choose this response. He told me as much at our Virginia Beach meeting.”
“You invited him to the beach?” Anderson inquired.
“Yes.”
“Although you claim that at the time you thought he was trying to scam you?”
“We felt the original will wasn’t genuine. We were highly suspicious of Mr. Stone’s later claim that a trust or foundation owned the VV 108 asset. I invited him to Virginia Beach so as to get to the bottom of matters once and for all.”
“But despite your testimony that you realized my client was a crook and an operator, you climbed right in bed with him, correct? You never called the police and said, ‘Hey, wait, I’m being flimflammed’?”
“I was willing to pay Mr. Stone on the first occasion because the numbers and risk avoidance made sense. I think I’ve explained my position.” Garrison leaned forward slightly. “It was a business decision.”
“So your issue with the alleged second request for money wasn’t about principle and ethics, it was about price? Mr. Stone, according to you, wanted too much?”
“I felt there was a small chance he might be telling the truth. When it became apparent he was lying, I concluded that no payment would make him go away. If we paid him five million, I believed he’d return a month later with more threats and dishonesty, hat in hand.”
“And he wanted, or so you claim, five million dollars?”
Garrison paused. He stared at Anderson, frowned. “Sir,” he said, lowering his voice, “I’m not ‘claiming’ anything. It happened. I have a recording of the meeting. Would you like to listen to it?”
