Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1)

by Trueman, Debra

  “Thank you. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Johns.”

  “Call me Andy.”

  “It’s nice to meet you, Andy.”

  I made my escape and left the group standing in my front yard. I fully expected the cat to be back on my hearth when I got back inside, but he was nowhere in sight.

  Thirty peaceful minutes went by before there was a knock at my door. It was Mrs. Johns with a stack of papers and a Tupperware container in her hands. She was wearing an apron that proclaimed her to be the “#1 Cook.”

  “This is our old will,” she said, waving the document in the air. “And I’ve made a list of all the beneficiaries’ latest addresses and what we want to leave them.” She handed me the documents. “When do you think you can have it ready?”

  “Let me look it over and see what’s involved and I’ll let you know Monday.”

  “Okay,” she said cheerfully. She handed over the Tupperware container. “This is some King Ranch chicken casserole that you can have for dinner. I figured all of your cookware was probably still packed away.”

  I could feel the neighbor situation spiraling out of control, but I took the container from her nonetheless.

  “Thank you, Mrs. Johns. That’s nice of you.”

  “Call me Verna. After all, we’re neighbors.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Verna. I’ll give you a call Monday. Do I have your phone number here?” I asked, motioning to the documents in my hand.

  “It’s there, but I’ll just stop by and see what you come up with,” she said.

  I made a mental note to call her first thing Monday morning so I could avoid a face-to-face. “I’ll talk to you Monday then.”

  “Give us a call if you need anything.”

  When I finally got rid of her, I took the Tupperware container into the kitchen and opened it up. It was divided into three sections and each one was filled to the brim with something different. One section had the King Ranch casserole, a creamy concoction made with layers of chicken and corn tortillas, another was filled with Mexican rice with peas and corn mixed in, and the third contained homemade ranchero beans with bits of bacon, onion and cilantro floating in the juice. It looked awesome. I heated the food in the microwave, cleared a space at my dining room table, and rummaged through a box labeled Kitchen and located utensils. Then I sat down and polished off the entire meal in less than five minutes. If nothing else, my intrusive neighbors knew how to cook. Between breakfast and dinner, I hadn’t eaten as well since Christmas.

  I spent most of the evening unpacking boxes, then I took a break and pulled out the documents that Mrs. Johns had brought over. Their estate was larger than I had guessed. The Johnses had three children, all sons, and eight grandchildren, none of whom lived in Texas. The bulk of their estate was to be divided evenly between the three sons, but there was a sizeable chunk that was to be left to a Landra Krally. As in the Welcome Lady? As far as I could tell from my cursory perusal of the old will, that was the only major change. I smelled a rat. I put the documents in my briefcase and called it a night.

  Saturday is my favorite day of the week, and the next morning promised to be a beautiful one. It was barely past 8:00 a.m. and I had just put on a pot of coffee when my doorbell rang. It can’t be. I opened the door, and sure enough, there was a smiling Mrs. Howard with another basket of baked goods.

  “These are poppy seed muffins,” she said, holding the basket out to me.

  I could smell them from three feet away and my mouth started watering remembering her sweet potato muffins. With mixed emotions, I contemplated my dilemma: If I accepted the muffins, I would be setting a dangerous precedent. Mrs. Howard could very well be on my porch every morning at 8:00 o’clock with a basket of muffins in her hand. I certainly couldn’t have that. On the other hand, as long as she left the muffins and didn’t hang around to chat, would that be so bad? As it was, my olfactory sense got the best of me and I found myself reaching out to accept the basket.

  “It really wasn’t necessary,” I said, taking a peek under the red cloth napkin. The smell of almonds and butter wafted up through my nostrils and I wanted badly to pop one into my mouth right then and there, but I didn’t dare. She’d know instantly that she had me hooked. I covered them back up to reduce the temptation.

  “Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said cheerfully. “Verna and Andy told me you were revising their will for them. I’d like to hire you to revise mine too.” She handed over a stack of papers. “Whenever you get around to it is fine.”

  I set the basket down and took the papers from Mrs. Howard and gave them a quick glance. My mind was on the muffins – Mrs. Howard had to go. “All right. I’ll look over everything and get back with you.”

  “Okay. Thank you, Sam.”

  I closed the door and scarfed down three muffins before I got to the kitchen. They were just as good as the sweet potato muffins, if not better. I went outside and sat by the pool with my coffee and muffins and started looking over Mrs. Howard’s papers. When I got to her bequests a chill ran down my spine and my neck hairs bristled. Mrs. Howard was changing her will to leave a sizeable amount of her estate to one Landra Krally.

  I picked up the phone and called a friend of mine who owned Lautrec Investigations and asked him to do some digging for me, then I put the matter out of my mind. The day was already warming up, and even though it was early January, the temperature was predicted to be in the 70s. It was a perfect day to do some yard work, so I put on my old jeans and went outside and started up the mower. I had mowed two rows when Oliver came out of his house and headed in my direction with a miniature football in his hand.

  “Hi, Samuel,” he yelled over the sound of the mower. “Look. I have a football.”

  “Yeah.” I continued to mow, hoping that if I ignored him, he would go away. Instead, he walked beside me up and back, up and back, up and back. It was apparent he wasn’t going to leave, so I turned off the mower, crossed my arms, and gave him a look that I hoped expressed my irritation.

  “What’s up Oliver?”

  “Want to see me throw my football?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to give him a flat-out no. “Okay. But just once. Then I have to finish mowing,” I told him.

  He put his little hand around the ball, wound up his arm, and gave the most pathetic attempt at a pass. I was appalled. The kid couldn’t throw at all.

  “Wait a minute,” I told him. “You’re throwing like a girl.” I picked up the ball and placed it in Oliver’s hand, and I positioned his fingers correctly on the ball. “This is how you hold a football,” I instructed. I pulled his arm back and went through the motion of how to throw the ball a couple of times, while Oliver smiled happily, listening intently as I coached him. “Now, give it a try,” I told him, and I handed him the ball.

  He clutched his little fingers around the ball just as I had instructed and cocked his arm back, then threw a pass that went spiraling a good 15 feet. A huge smile spread across Oliver’s face and he ran to pick up the ball.

  I figured it was a fluke. “Here. Throw it to me,” I said.

  He repeated the process, concentrating on his new technique, and once again he threw a whopper. It was off to the left by a couple of feet, but the kid had an incredible arm.

  “That’s really good, Oliver. Can you catch?” I threw him the ball and it hit him smack in the chest, but he dropped it. He picked it up happily and threw it back to me, and his aim was dead on. “Good throw,” I told him. “All you need is practice.” I handed him the ball and went to restart my mower, when I noticed that Mrs. Howard and the Johnses were huddled together watching us and smiling. They waved when I looked at them and headed in my direction. Shit.

  “Good morning, Samuel. Hi, Liver,” said Mrs. Johns.

  “You can’t call me that any more,” Oliver said, then he added, “Samuel said so.”

  All three neighbors looked at me with the same shocked expression, which I couldn’t quite read. I took the ball from Oliver.


  “Go out for a pass, Oliver,” I told him, then I waited until he was out of earshot. “You want him to get beat up when he goes off to school?” I asked the group, looking from one to the other. There. Now maybe they’d leave me alone.

  Mr. Johns was the first to speak. “We’ve been trying to come up with a way to tactfully tell Oliver’s mother the same thing,” he said, sounding relieved.

  “Well, why didn’t you just come out and say it?” I asked.

  “We didn’t want to hurt her feelings,” said Mrs. Johns. “Bless her heart, she works so hard, and raising those kids all by herself.”

  “Where’s Oliver’s father?” I asked.

  “He died in a car accident last year, right before Oliver’s little brother was born,” Mrs. Johns said, and gloom spread across her face.

  So Oliver didn’t have a dad. Bummer. I threw the ball to him and he dropped it again. He picked it up and threw it back to me and I ran to catch it.

  “Good throw,” I said, and Oliver laughed. He walked back to where we were standing and addressed Mr. Johns.

  “Want to throw the ball with me? Samuel teached me how to throw.”

  “Taught me how to throw,” I corrected.

  “Samuel taught me how to throw,” he repeated. “Want to throw the ball with me?”

  “I’d like that very much, Oliver,” Mr. Johns said, over-emphasizing the name.

  Oliver looked at me and smiled triumphantly, then he took off with Mr. Johns. I thought about broaching the Landra Krally subject with the two women, but decided I should address it with each separately. The neighbors left and I resumed mowing my lawn. I had just emptied the grass catcher for the second time and when I turned around there was a blond woman with big hair, big eyes and big breasts standing right behind me. The similarity in the eyes told me instantly that this must be Oliver’s mother.

  “I hear you’re a lawyer,” she said with a heavy Texas drawl. She pronounced the I like Ah.

  “News travels fast,” I said. “You must be Oliver’s mother.”

  She stuck out her hand and I wiped mine on my pants leg before shaking it. “Maddie Griffin,” she said, giving me a firm handshake.

  “Samuel Collins.”

  “Well, Samuel Collins, you’re an answer to my prayers,” she said smiling.

  “I doubt it,” I told her. I didn’t like flirty women, especially ones with big hair.

  She either didn’t notice my nasty tone, or she chose to ignore it. I wasn’t sure which was worse. “Can we sit on your steps?” she asked, but it was more of a statement than a question, and she grabbed me by the hand and practically dragged me across my lawn.

  I finagled my hand away from her when we got to the steps and I sat down with a good four feet of space between us. She moved over and closed the gap to less than two.

  “I need a lawyer,” she declared.

  “For what?”

  “Sexual harassment.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised? “Someone’s charged you with sexual harassment?”

  She held her hand to her large bosom and I couldn’t tell if she was feigning shock or if she actually was. “Charged me?” she said in disbelief.

  “Well, you do come off as a bit of a flirt,” I told her.

  “Why would you say that? You’ve only known me . . .” She stopped mid sentence. “Why you . . . you think I’ve been flirting with you? Is that it?”

  “Are you saying you haven’t been?”

  “Why the hell would I flirt with you?” she demanded.

  “It seemed like . . .” I started to say, but she cut me off.

  “What is it with you men?” She said men like it was a dirty word. “How can you possibly translate my telling you I need a lawyer into flirting?”

  “I’m sorry, it . . .” She cut me off again.

  “You are sorry. You’re a sorry excuse for a human being. Just like my boss. Screw you both!” She got up and stormed off back towards her house.

  She was right. There was no reason why I should have assumed she was flirting. It was the hair. I had taken one look at that hair and automatically assumed she was a flirt.

  “Maddie wait!” I said, chasing after her. I caught up to her and got in front of her so she had to stop. “Your boss is harassing you?”

  “Yes,” she said, and she burst into tears. “That’s why I need a lawyer.”

  “Well now you have one, so stop crying. Here, let’s try your steps,” I said, motioning to her porch. She wiped her eyes and we sat down on her front steps. “Tell me.”

  “My husband died last year and ever since, my boss has been coming on to me.”

  “Coming on how?”

  “He makes lewd comments.” She looked down at her chest. “I have a baby that I breastfeed and I’ve got these enormous things,” she said, as if they were foreign objects. “Yesterday, he promised me a promotion if I’d let him touch them.”

  “Who’s your employer?”

  “Datacare.”

  “Really?” I knew of the company. It was a national research and development company and they were big. “What do you do there?”

  “I’m an Administrative Assistant.”

  “How long has the harassment been going on?” I asked.

  Maddie looked away and got real quiet, then she started crying again.

  “Okay, let’s get something straight,” I told her. “Tears are not going to solve anything. I need you to be in control and just tell me the facts without getting all emotional.”

  She wiped her eyes again and tried to regain her composure. “Last year, we were about to undergo a reduction in force and my supervisor told me that if I had sex with him, I’d keep my job.”

  I did my best to hide my shock, but my heart started racing. I was seeing big-time dollar signs. “And did you?”

  She nodded her head and started crying again. “Just the once. I couldn’t afford to lose my job. I had just lost my husband and I have two kids to support. After that, he started touching me and saying disgusting things to me.”

  “Did you ever complain to anyone in management?”

  “Yes. To his immediate boss. He told me not to take it seriously – that Larry was just teasing.”

  If what she was saying was true, we had a major cause of action. It had the potential for being the biggest case to come across my desk since I’d been practicing. The kind of case that Plaintiffs’ lawyers dream of.

  “Monday morning, we’re going to file a sexual harassment charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission,” I told her.

  “So you think I have a case?”

  “I think you might just be sitting on a gold mine.”

  I took the case on a contingency fee basis, under a 60-40 arrangement. We spent most of the weekend working on her affidavit that she would submit with her charge, and by Sunday afternoon, it was polished to perfection. I decided to have her file the charge on her own, hoping the company would screw up even more if they didn’t know that a lawyer was already involved.

  I was bringing over the final version of the affidavit and I had just knocked on her door, when I heard Maddie yelling from inside. Oliver opened the door and I raced to the back of the house, following Maddie’s screams. A foul smell hit me as I approached what turned out to be the baby’s room, and I could hear Maddie saying, shit over and over again.

  “What’s the matter?” I shouted, but as I stepped into the room, the problem was evident. There was a screaming baby standing in his crib, naked from the waist down, and there was crap everywhere.

  “Shit!” Maddie said again. “He took off his diaper!”

  It was the most disgusting thing I had ever seen. Evidently the kid had finger-painted with his shit, because it was all over the place. On his hands, in his fingernails, in his hair, on his face and arms and legs. It covered the sheet from one end to the other and was all over the slats of the crib and on the railings. The kid had had a hell of a time, and if it weren’t so disgusting, it would have
been hilarious. As it was, I was horrified and backed up trying to get out of the room.

  “Can you take him?” Maddie asked, trying to hand me the kid.

  “No way!” I said, throwing my hands up in the air. “I can’t do it!”

  Oliver had come into the room and was looking around at the mess with a horrified expression on his face.

  “Oliver, run get Mrs. Johns,” I told him, backing away from Maddie and the smelly, dirty baby. “Quick!” I added, giving him a shove to get him started.

  Oliver took off running as fast as he could, slamming the front door as he made his exit.

  “I need your help,” Maddie pleaded. “Hold him so I can get his shirt off.”

  No way in hell was I going to hold that filthy kid. “You hold him and I’ll take off his shirt,” I countered.

  We went into the bathroom and she held the baby out while I tried to take his shirt off without getting shit all over myself. The kid had settled down and was no longer crying, but he kept reaching for me with those disgusting little shit-covered hands. I finally managed to remove his shirt and I tossed it on the ground in the corner of the bathroom. Having done my duty, I tried to retreat, but Maddie wasn’t going let me get away so easily.

  “Can you run the bath?” Maddie asked.

  I turned on the water and again tried to leave, but then she needed wipes.

  “Wipes?”

  “Wipes,” she repeated. “They’re in a blue box in his room on the changing table.”

  Oh, God. Not back in that room. I looked at Maddie and then at the kid and decided that getting the wipes was the lesser of the evils, so I braved the smell and raced in and retrieved the wipes. I had another quick glance at the crib and decided if it were me, I’d throw the damn thing out, bedding and all, and go out and buy a new one.

  Maddie laid the kid down on a towel and started wiping him off starting with his face and hands and working her way down that dirty little body. I looked at my watch and wondered what was keeping Mrs. Johns. Apparently Oliver had not conveyed the urgency of the situation.

  “Have you ever bathed a baby?” Maddie asked, with a hopeful note in her voice.