“What happened?” I asked the group as a whole.
Andy stepped forward. “We’re not sure. It may have been a heart attack.”
Landra was beside Mrs. Howard, talking to the ambulance technician. She had tears rolling down both of her cheeks and she looked so vulnerable. I got the familiar urge to protect her. She looked over and found me in the crowd and she called out, “I’m going with her,” and I made my way to her through the wall of neighbors.
“What did they say?” I asked her.
“She’s having respiratory problems. Can you go to my house and turn off the stove?”
“Of course. I’ll meet you at the emergency room. I’ll be right behind you,” I assured her.
She nodded her head and climbed into the back of the ambulance and I saw her take Mrs. Howard’s hand in hers before they closed the doors. The ambulance drove off with its lights flashing and siren blaring while the neighbors stood there clustered in disbelief.
I felt a hand on my arm. “Was she conscious?” Maddie asked me.
“It didn’t look like it.” We all stood there in silence until the ambulance was out of sight then everyone spoke at once. “I just saw her this morning and she seemed fine,” I told Maddie. We walked across the street to my yard.
“I hope she’s okay,” Maddie said.
“Yeah. Me too,” I said. “What about you? Are you doing better?”
She looked embarrassed. “Yeah. But I was in bed most of the day,” she admitted.
“Where are Oliver and the baby?” The hood didn’t seem the same without Oliver running around.
“My mom’s bringing them home right now.” She stopped and looked up at me with a serious expression on her face. “I need to ask you for a huge favor, Samuel. And if you can’t do it, or if you don’t want to do it, I will totally understand. It won’t affect our friendship at all. Not at all. But I have to at least ask.”
I braced myself for what was coming. “What is it?”
“Whale, there’s this father/son outing that Oliver’s preschool is putting on this Saturday. It’s at a ranch just outside of town and they’re going to ride horses and . . .” I cut her off before she could continue.
“I’ll take him,” I said, but she kept right on talking.
“He asked me a couple of weeks ago if you could take him and I didn’t have the heart to give him an absolute no without even asking you. I told him that you have a very busy schedule and that I doubted that you’d be able to do it. And I suggested that he get one of his uncles to go with him; it’s just that he’s not very close to them, and . . .”
“I said I’d take him,” I told her, and she finally shut up.
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll take him?” She didn’t even try to hide her surprise.
“Of course I will.” Maddie’s mother was pulling into her driveway. “Here he is now. I think you should make him ask me himself.” Maddie looked up at me admiringly and I saw the lip start to quiver. “Ah!” I held my finger up. “Don’t even think about it! If one tear comes out, I’m not gonna take him,” I warned.
She took a deep breath and blinked back her tears. Oliver was running across the yard in our direction, and Maddie knelt down and he leapt into her arms almost knocking her over.
“Hi, Samuel!” Oliver said. The kid was always so happy.
“Hi, Oliver. Did you have fun with your Grandma?”
“Yeah.”
“Oliver,” Maddie said. “Why don’t you ask Samuel about this weekend.” She looked at me and smiled. I knelt down and he looked at me with those huge blue eyes.
“Do you want to be my dad for Saturday?”
Damn. Why’d he have to ask like that! It almost made me want to cry. “I would love to be your dad for Saturday,” I said enthusiastically. “Are we camping out, or what?”
Oliver turned to his mom. “Are we camping out?” he asked her.
“No. It’s just a day thing,” she told him.
He turned back to me. “It’s just a day thing,” he said in the same tone of voice as Maddie.
“Oh, okay.” I found myself almost disappointed. “Well that’ll be fun.”
Oliver took my hand in his and kind of swung my arm back and forth a couple of times. I twisted him around and put him in a headlock. “Do you know what a wet Willie is?” I asked him.
“No,” he laughed, struggling to get free.
“You’ve never had a wet Willie?” I asked in disbelief.
“No.”
“Samuel! Don’t teach him that!” Maddie said. “That’s disgusting!”
I stuck my finger in my mouth and put it in his ear and swished it around. “That’s a wet Willie.”
Oliver squealed in delight. In hindsight, I guess it was a mistake to have shown him, especially in light of his mother’s protest, because that made it all the more fun.
“Bend down, Mom!” Oliver said with an ear to ear smile.
“No way. Do it to Samuel.”
He got his finger good and wet and stuck the grimy thing in my ear then laughed hysterically.
“Come here. I’ve got to go.” I gave him a rough squeeze and messed up his hair. “I’ll see you Saturday.”
“See ya Saturday!” He stuck his finger in my other ear. Definitely a mistake.
* * * *
I took a 5-minute shower and went by Landra’s on the way to the hospital to turn off the stove. Damn Mrs. Howard’s timing. I was tempted to sample the veal, but I wasn’t sure how Landra would take it if my mind was more on food than my neighbor’s welfare. Although it was my favorite food. In the end, the smell was too overwhelming and I broke down and tasted a bite. I decided it was a good thing Landra wasn’t there because I might have asked her to marry me on the spot.
I found Landra in the Emergency Room waiting area. Her face was red and blotchy from crying and her eyes were swollen and bloodshot, but somehow she still managed to look beautiful.
“How is she,” I asked, fearing the worst based on Landra’s appearance.
“I think she’s okay. But they want to keep her here tonight, and she’s putting up a fight about it.”
“You’re kidding? I didn’t realize she was that stubborn,” I said, but then I thought about how possessive she was in her kitchen and I decided it wasn’t that surprising.
“Maybe you should talk to her,” Landra suggested.
“Why me? I don’t have any influence over her,” I pointed out.
“Will you just try? I’ve said everything I can.”
The nurse took me back to where they were holding Mrs. Howard. She was on a heart monitor and she was hooked up to some other machine that I didn’t recognize.
“What’s up Mrs. Howard? You trying to give the neighbors something to talk about?”
Her face lit up. “Sam!” She was surprisingly chipper. “What are you doing here dear?”
“Checking up on you. What do you think?”
She smiled self-consciously. “You’re a good man, Sam. How’s Landra?”
“She’s fine. Does she know what stuff you need from your house?” She looked confused, then she narrowed her eyes, but I interrupted her before she could say anything. “Don’t even try to argue with me, Mrs. Howard. I’m a lawyer; you’d never win. Now, does Landra know what you need or not?”
She held my stare, and I realized that she could be a formidable opponent if she wanted to be. Apparently she didn’t want to. “She knows what I’ll need,” she said, with a grin of resignation.
I smiled back at her. “Good girl. You just keep behaving and I won’t have to take desperate measures,” I warned her. Mrs. Howard laughed. “We’ll stay until they get you moved to a room, then we’ll go get your stuff.”
“Thank you, Sam. If I had a son, I’d want him to be just like you.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Howard. I’m going to send Landra back in.”
I went back to the waiting room and Landra stood up when she saw
me coming.
“She’s staying.”
Landra threw her arms around my neck. “Thank you. I knew you could do it.”
“I just talked my way out of my morning muffins,” I noted.
We were at the hospital until well past 9:00 o’clock and both of us were drained by the time we got back to Landra’s. But the house still smelled great and I was beyond ravenous, so I polished off two servings of Osso Bucco, potatoes and salad, and sat back on the couch feeling tired but extremely satisfied. Landra hadn’t eaten much at all and she was still visibly shaken by Mrs. Howard’s hospitalization.
“She’s gonna be okay,” I assured Landra.
“I hope so.” She curled up in my lap and rested her head against my chest. “Can you stay tonight?”
“I have to. I’m too stuffed to move. You planned it like that, didn’t you?”
Landra laughed. “I did.”
“Thanks for tonight . . . you know . . . for calling my mom, and cooking my favorite dinner and all. That was really thoughtful of you.”
“You’re welcome. It’s the least I could do. Your mother’s very sweet. We had a nice conversation.”
“You had a whole conversation?” For some reason, I’d envisioned solely a recitation of recipes.
“Well, yeah.”
“How long did you talk?
“I don’t know . . . maybe 20 minutes.”
“What’d you talk about?”
“None of your business,” Landra laughed.
Strangely, I was feeling guilty that I’d never introduced Landra to my family. I had a long-standing tradition of keeping my relationships from my family. That way, it was so much easier when I broke up with a girl not to have to explain anything to my parents or siblings. Thinking of Landra and my mom talking for 20 minutes set off a whole set of emotions that I wasn’t prepared for.
“I guess we should get together some time so you can meet my family,” I said.
She ran her hand through my hair. “When you’re ready,” Landra said, sounding tired.
“What do you mean, when I’m ready?”
At first I thought she wasn’t going to answer and when she did I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “I think you have issues with family introductions where your girlfriends are concerned. It’s like the introduction would lend too much legitimacy to your dating relationship and somehow elevate it to a place where you’re not ready to be.”
I couldn’t have put it better myself. She was so dead-on accurate that I was determined to prove her wrong. “Saturday. Let’s do it Saturday,” I said. “No wait . . . I’m taking Oliver somewhere on Saturday. We’ll do it Sunday.”
Landra laughed. “I’m so tired. Can we go to bed?”
“Are you free Sunday?”
“As far as I know,” she said.
“Good. On Sunday, you meet the family.”
Chapter 20
I woke up in a bad mood the next morning. Well, actually I woke up in a good mood but I got in a bad mood when I had to leave the soft arms of my girlfriend. I was sick of Dick; I was sick of Larry; and I knew that in no time, I’d be sick of the CEO. Landra had beat me to the coffee pot which meant that the coffee was way too weak, so I stopped at Starbuck’s on the way to work and got a grande cappuccino and a slice of lemon pound cake. The cake didn’t compare with Mrs. Howard’s hot fresh muffins, but at least it calmed the growling beast and I’d be able to conduct the deposition without embarrassing sounds from within.
I’d put a lot of thought into the CEO’s deposition and which questions I’d pose to him; even more importantly, the order in which I would ask them. But it came to me with such certain clarity that morning that I wondered why it had taken me so long to decide the inevitable. The case needed to settle without going to trial.
It was all Maddie’s fault that I wouldn’t be able to try the thing. If my client had been anyone else I wouldn’t have even considered settling. The trial would be a riot. Once the press got wind of it, the story would be plastered all over the papers, on the television and on the radio. The case had all the elements that the public wanted in a scandal: sex, a pretty blonde, a sleazy corporate executive, a huge corporation; throw in a dead husband and a new baby and it would make one hell of a story.
But I couldn’t do it. In this instance, I had to think of my client’s best interest, and for Maddie, that meant settling out of court. She’d proven by her performance in her deposition that she could hold up on the stand, but I knew that Larry wouldn’t sit back and do nothing. He obviously had no qualms about lying and I knew he would stoop low to paint Maddie as a horrible person, probably even a bad mother. I couldn’t do that to Maddie and I couldn’t do it to Oliver either. As much as I hated to do it, I’d have to settle the thing, and I decided the sooner the better.
The CEO was sworn in. I asked his name, address and phone number; his position with Datacare and how long he’d worked there; where he worked prior to coming to Datacare and his position at that company, and I jotted his answers down quickly on my legal pad. He was cooperative enough, but just. I could feel his disdain for lawyers in general and for me in particular, and I was glad, because it would make the glory that much sweeter.
I started flipping through my notes like I was looking for something and I could feel him getting more and more impatient. I took my time and when I finally looked up, I just stared at him for second.
“Where is your office in proximity to the ladies’ restroom?” I asked.
The CEO’s face went ashen white and Dick actually groaned audibly. The two looked at each other and Dick cleared his throat.
“I’d like to consult with my client off the record briefly,” Dick said in a voice that was an octave higher than it should have been.
I fully expected another emergency to crop up. It was almost 30 minutes later when Dick finally came back in and the CEO wasn’t with him. Dick asked me to step out into the hall so the court reporter couldn’t listen to whatever bowl of crap he was about to feed me. I consulted my watch conspicuously when I got out into the hall, just in case he hadn’t caught the irritation on my face when he finally resurfaced.
“In the interest of saving time and going to the expense of deposing everyone else we would need to call in this case, my clients would like to broach settlement.”
I couldn’t believe he could say it with a straight face. Part of me wanted to tell him how full of shit he was, but I decided that might be counterproductive.
“I’ll tell you right now that Madeline Griffin is not interested in settling,” I said. “She wants vengeance, Dick. She wants Larry’s balls in a sling; ditto for the CEO. You know how women are. They like their privacy when they’re pumping their breasts and using the bathroom. I don’t know . . . it’s a girl thing. Anyway, Ms. Griffin wants the world to know what Datacare did to her. And if the other women that use that ladies’ room find out just where the CEOs office is in proximity to it . . .” I let the sentence hang while Dick mopped his forehead with a neatly folded tissue. “Well let’s just say that she might even have a class action suit before it’s over with.”
I continued before Old Dick could say anything. “Now, if your clients bring an offer to the table, obviously I’m legally obligated to present it to Ms. Griffin. But I can pretty much guarantee you right now what her answer will be.
“I’ll have an offer to you by the end of the week.”
* * * *
Datacare’s settlement offer came in the mail the very next day. I’d been on the phone almost all morning and as soon as I hung up, Maddie was knocking on my office door.
“Come in,” I called out. I was already dialing a client’s number but I hung up when I saw the look on Maddie’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s a letter from Richard Stollins.”
“Well, open it!” I told her.
“I can’t. You do it,” she said, passing the thing off to me.
I was about to roll my eyes but I r
emembered the stink I’d made to Landra about doing that, and I didn’t want to be accused of being a hypocrite. Instead, I snatched the letter away from her in a manner that I hoped showed my exasperation. I read the thing over and threw it down on the desk for her to see.
“One hundred thousand.”
“One hundred thousand dollars?” Maddie said in disbelief. She picked up the letter and read it. “Is that good? Is that what you expected?”
“Is it a good offer? Hell no. But it’s a good starting point. They could have come in at $10,000 or $15,000. It tells me that Datacare knows they screwed up royally.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked nervously. She was chewing her cuticle again, and I reached over and physically moved her hand away from her mouth.
“Stop doing that,” I told her.
“You stop it!” she said, slapping my hand.
I looked at her but decided against a confrontation. I’d already been in a foul mood when she’d come in with the letter and although it was nice to have someone to take it out on, Maddie wasn’t the right person. She was my client. I wished Penny had been there.
“Why don’t you sit down,” I said, motioning to a chair in front of my desk. I sat down and picked up the letter and read it again. “What do you want out of this lawsuit?”
The question seemed to take her by surprise. “Whale . . . I guess the main thing is that I want Larry and the CEO to pay. The money is really secondary to me. Although it would be nice not to have to work for a while so I could be a full-time mom until the boys get into school.”
“Fair enough. Anything else?”
“I can’t think of anything.”
“Okay. Here’s what I propose we do . . . We come back with a counter offer of $10 million.” I was about to enumerate our other conditions, but Maddie interrupted.
“Ten million dollars! Samuel, are you crazy?” she exclaimed.
“Am I crazy?” I repeated. “Maddie, Datacare is a billion dollar corporation,” I explained. “Two of their agents, or I should say at least two, have engaged in grossly aberrant behavior towards subordinate employees. If we go to trial, Datacare could very well be looking at a multi-million dollar jury award. People don’t like to see big corporations screw hard-working rank-and-file employees. And they like to punish, and punish severely, corporations that do.”
Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) Page 23
