The Professor

by Robert Bailey

  Maybe, Rick thought, opening his own door and walking the cobblestone path toward the house. But I doubt it.

  A woman of about fifty answered the doorbell, looking suspiciously at Dawn and Rick.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Ms. Bulyard?” Rick asked, trying to sound as pleasant as possible.

  “Yes.”

  Rick sucked in a quick breath. “My name is Rick Drake and this is my law clerk, Dawn Murphy.”

  Ms. Bulyard narrowed her eyebrows. “OK . . . oh . . .” Her eyes flickered as she looked from Rick to Dawn and then back to Rick. “You’re that lawyer who’s been calling.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I was hoping you could give me those fifteen minutes now.”

  Ms. Bulyard—who was a tall, athletic woman—looked behind her and then at her watch. “I really wish you had called. I was about to go to the gym, and I need to get back to fix dinner for the boys.”

  “I did call, ma’am. I’ve called several times and left at least a dozen messages. Please, it will only take fifteen minutes.”

  Ms. Bulyard turned her back on them, and for a minute Rick thought she was going to slam the door in their faces. Then she turned her head and motioned for them to follow. “Come on. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.”

  Five minutes later the three of them were seated at a round table in the breakfast nook of Faith Bulyard’s kitchen. The aroma of fresh-brewed coffee filled the room, and Rick breathed it in, beginning to feel better about the meeting. He heard footsteps and yelling upstairs, sprinkled in with laughter.

  “Sorry for the noise,” Ms. Bulyard said. “The boys just got home from football practice and . . .” She sighed, smiling. “What can I say? They’re teenage boys.”

  Rick smiled back at her. “No worries. I was a teenage boy not that long ago, and my mom still tells me I’m too loud in the house.”

  Ms. Bulyard laughed and took a sip from her coffee cup. “So how can I help?”

  Instead of explaining all of the background again, Rick chose to get right to the heart of it. “We met with Hank Russell over a month ago at the Ultron plant in Montgomery. Ultron’s lawyers were there, so I couldn’t really talk with him. He gave me his business card, and after we left the meeting we noticed that your name and cell number had been handwritten on the back. We thought he might be trying to help us and that you must know something about the accident that killed our client’s family or perhaps something else that might be relevant . . . like maybe the schedule that Willistone’s drivers were on.”

  Ms. Bulyard held her coffee cup with both hands, gazing down at the dark liquid. After several seconds she sighed and looked back up. “What you have to understand is that Hank was sort of a mentor for my husband, Buck, who . . . died in the fire.”

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” Rick offered.

  “Thank you,” Ms. Bulyard said, drinking a sip of coffee. “Anyway, Hank was a few years older and had been with Ultron longer. When problems would arise, Buck liked to run them by Hank and get his take before he called the corporate brass.” She paused. “Buck talked with Hank about the Willistone . . . problem.”

  “The Willistone . . . problem?” Rick repeated.

  Ms. Bulyard nodded. “They were too good to be true. Once Buck signed the contract with Jack, deliveries picked up by twenty percent. Everything ran faster. We delivered gas faster and more efficiently than we ever had, which meant our clients were able to sell more gas and we made more money. The partnership with Willistone made Buck the most valuable plant president in the southeast. At that time the only Ultron plant in Alabama was in Tuscaloosa. The Montgomery plant was under construction, but it wasn’t a reality yet. Hank Russell was actually working at the Chattanooga, Tennessee plant at the time.”

  Rick narrowed his eyebrows. “So working with Willistone was good for your husband and good for Ultron. How is that a problem?”

  Ms. Bulyard took another sip of coffee. “Like I said, they were too good. Buck said he thought they were breaking DOT regulations. He had looked at some of the bills of lading and the times didn’t match up.”

  “What do you mean?” Rick asked.

  “When a Willistone driver picked up a load at the plant, he got a bill of lading. The bill had the pickup time stamped on it, and it also had the expected delivery time. So, let’s say we had to deliver gas to a Chevron station in Huntsville. It’s about three hours from Tuscaloosa to Huntsville, give or take fifteen minutes. Willistone would pick up the load and our loader would stamp the time on the bill as 1:00 p.m. and the delivery time might be 3:00 p.m.” She shrugged. “Well, that only gives the driver two hours to get there.”

  “So . . . were they late a lot?”

  Ms. Bulyard shook her head. “That’s just it. They were never late. Like I said, our clients loved Willistone because they were always on time.”

  “Then how did . . . ?” Rick stopped, feeling his stomach constrict into a knot.

  Ms. Bulyard smiled sadly. “How do you think?”

  “They had to speed,” Dawn piped up, her eyes wide as she looked at Rick.

  Ms. Bulyard nodded. “Buck knew it and I’m pretty sure he told Hank about it. Buck thought we’d eventually get bitten by it and”—she gestured with her hands to Rick and Dawn—“I guess we did.”

  Rick blinked his eyes, trying to process everything Faith Bulyard had just said. “So, according to Buck, it sounds like these bills of lading would have been very damaging evidence.”

  “They would have been,” Ms. Bulyard said, shaking her head. “But now they’re gone.”

  The fire, Rick thought, also shaking his head. “Did you see any of the bills of lading that Buck was talking about? The ones where the numbers didn’t match up?”

  Faith Bulyard shrugged. “I’m sure I did. That’s probably why Hank led you to me. My job was records custodian, so I always signed the bill when the loader brought it to record keeping.” She sighed. “I just never paid attention to the times. My signature reflected that we had received the bill and the delivery had gone out of the plant. It was purely a record-keeping function, and I never looked at the times. I . . . I didn’t have a clue what was going on until Buck told me.” She cut off, and her eyes welled with tears again.

  “Would any of the gas stations have kept copies of the bills of lading?” Rick asked, feeling desperation kicking in.

  “No. The driver would get a copy and we would keep the original. That’s it.” She shrugged. “You might see if Willistone has any of them, but I doubt they do.”

  Rick had already asked Willistone in his request for production for bills of lading, and they did not have any. Also, since Newton’s rig had exploded in the accident, there was no hope of getting Dewey’s copy of the bill.

  “Ms. Bulyard, do you have any personal knowledge beyond what your husband told you regarding the pickup and delivery times being too tight?”

  She shook her head. “Just what Buck told me.”

  Rick felt his spirits sink. If Faith Bulyard had any personal knowledge beyond what Buck had told her, then he could destroy Willistone and probably add Ultron as a defendant. A conspiracy to make faster deliveries by forcing Willistone’s drivers to speed to make the load on time. Combined with Wilma’s testimony and the evidence of Dewey Newton going eighty in a sixty-five, Ultron and Willistone would be begging for a multimillion-dollar settlement. But with the documents gone and nothing beyond hearsay evidence . . .

  Rick sucked in a breath, knowing that Buck’s statements to Faith would not be considered hearsay if he sued Ultron. Admission by party opponent, Rick remembered, thinking back to the Professor’s Evidence class. Buck was the president of the company. His comments to Faith would be an admission by party opponent, which by definition isn’t hearsay. Then Rick felt his stomach tighten. But they’d also be protected by the husband-wife privilege. If
I sued Ultron based solely on Faith’s memory of what Buck told her, Faith could claim the privilege and kill the case.

  “Is there anything else?” Faith asked, looking from Rick to Dawn. “I really need to get to the gym if I’m going to be back in time to make dinner.”

  “Ms. Bulyard, if we sued Ultron for negligence, would you be willing to take the stand and tell a jury what your husband told you about the bills of lading?” Rick asked, feeling his heart racing in his chest.

  Faith raised her eyebrows. “You want me to sell out my own husband so you can win a trial?”

  “No. I want you to expose a conspiracy between two big companies that ended up killing my client’s family,” Rick said, his voice firm. “No way Hank Russell risks his job to help us. With the documents gone, you’re my client’s only hope of a jury hearing the truth. Please, Ms. Bulyard . . .”

  “No,” Faith said, shaking her head. “I . . . I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  Rick started to protest, but Dawn’s voice, hyper and high, cut him off.

  “Ms. Bulyard, do you think Willistone or Ultron had something to do with the fire that destroyed the documents and killed your husband?”

  Damnit, Rick thought, sensing an opportunity being lost as Faith’s face turned pink. “Don’t worry about that, Ms. Bulyard,” he said, shooting Dawn a hard look. “What we really need is—”

  “I don’t give a damn about what you need,” Faith said, standing up from the table, her hands trembling with anger. She pointed a shaky finger at Dawn. “The fire marshal ruled out arson.” Then she turned to Rick and pointed at the door. “Your fifteen minutes are up.”

  33

  “I’m sorry,” Dawn said, hanging her head once they were back in the car.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rick said, trying not to be mad. Even if Dawn hadn’t interrupted, his gut told him that Faith Bulyard wouldn’t have budged on testifying.

  “I shouldn’t have blurted it out like an amateur. That was really uncool, and it messed up what you were doing.”

  Rick shrugged. “I think we probably got all we could get from her. Besides, she didn’t really answer your question.”

  “True,” Dawn said, nodding her head and coming out of her funk. “She didn’t answer the question. And after everything she said about her husband and Willistone, the fire seems even more fishy than before. Those bills of lading would’ve killed Willistone.”

  “Ultron too,” Rick added. “If Buck Bulyard knew about the DOT violations and acquiesced to them because his company was making more money, then we could have also sued Ultron. But with Bulyard dead and the documents destroyed in the fire . . .” He sighed. The meeting had been one big tease. The information they learned was fantastic. But we can’t prove any of it in court.

  “I guess, unless we were to sue Ultron, everything Buck Bulyard told Ms. Bulyard would be hearsay,” Dawn said, reading Rick’s mind.

  “Yep,” Rick said. “With Ultron as a defendant, it comes in as an admission by party opponent. Without Ultron in, it’s rank hearsay.”

  “But we can’t force her to testify because of the husband-wife privilege,” Dawn added.

  “Bingo. Glad I wasn’t the only one paying attention in Evidence.”

  “So we can’t get anything she told us into evidence?” Dawn asked, her agitation matching Rick’s.

  “Nope.”

  “What about Wilma? Think she might have seen a bill of lading or two?”

  “I guess it’s possible,” Rick said, shrugging. “Our better bet would be Dick Morris.”

  Again, Dawn hung her head. “I’m sorry, Rick. I know I should’ve found Morris by now, but we’ve been so busy the last month and—”

  “It’s not your fault,” Rick cut her off as he pulled the Saturn into the parking lot outside his office. “I’ve been trying to find him myself with no luck, and my buddy Powell, who goes to Faunsdale every year for the Crawfish Festival, hasn’t had any luck either.”

  “Isn’t the Crawfish Festival going on this weekend?”

  Rick chuckled and opened his car door. “Yeah, and Powell’s going again. He said he’d ask around, so maybe he’ll get lucky.”

  As they walked toward the building, Dawn caught Rick by the arm. “I really am sorry for ruining the conversation with Ms. Bulyard. I just got too excited.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Rick said, opening the door that led to the stairs. “I think she was done talking anyway.”

  Rick waited for Dawn to walk through and then followed her up the steps.

  When they stepped into the reception area, Rick saw a piece of paper taped to the computer screen on Frankie’s desk. Must have got some mail this afternoon, he thought, knowing that Frankie liked to tape deadlines from the court or deposition notices on the computer screen so she’d remember to calendar them. Rick started to walk down the hall to his private office but stopped when he heard Dawn’s voice.

  “Rick, you better come here.”

  He did as he was told, and Dawn pointed to the computer screen.

  “Read it,” she said, her eyes looking anxious.

  Rick strode to Frankie’s desk and ripped the page off the screen. When he saw the case caption, his stomach turned a flip. Then he read the words.

  I’ll be damned.

  It was an Order from the Circuit Court of Henshaw County. Rick glanced up at Dawn, knowing his eyes looked a lot wilder than hers. Then he lowered his gaze to the paper, his hands shaking as he reread the order.

  “This case is set for trial on June 7, 2010.”

  34

  Faith Bulyard didn’t go to the gym. Instead, she cracked open a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass. Then another. And then another. By the fourth glass, her hands stopped shaking. Then she cracked open another bottle and walked down the hall to her bedroom. The boys would be fine. In the months since Buck’s death, they had leaned on each other. Once one of them walked downstairs and saw the empty bottle on the kitchen table, they’d know to leave her alone. Faith shut the door to her bedroom, locked it, and took a long sip from the glass. The first month after Buck’s death she had drunk herself to sleep every night. The next month she had cut back to twice a week. By the end of November, she found she was able to go long stretches of time without drinking. Only when someone brought Buck up or when a particular memory struck her did she turn to the bottle.

  Tonight was one of those nights. Talking with Rick Drake and Dawn Murphy had brought it all back. The sadness. The emptiness. And most of all the guilt.

  It’s my fault, she thought. If I had only been more under-standing . . .

  Buck hadn’t been himself the night of the fire. He had gotten home from work and immediately poured himself a Jack and Coke, which was unusual because Buck wasn’t a big drinker, especially during the week. Faith knew something was wrong and asked Buck about it, but Buck just waved her off. While she and the boys ate dinner, he paced in the den, watching the news. When Faith heard glass shatter, she ran into the den, and Buck wasn’t even making an effort to clean it up. On the television screen a reporter was talking as a field burned behind her.

  “Everyone died,” Buck had said. “Everyone.”

  Faith watched as the reporter recapped that there had been an accident in Henshaw with a Willistone Trucking Company eighteen-wheeler hauling Ultron gasoline and a Honda Accord. Faith had put her arm around Buck, trying to console him. She knew immediately that this was what Buck had always worried about when doing business with Jack Willistone.

  “Have you talked to Hank yet?” she had asked.

  When Buck turned to her, the fear in his eyes had been palpable. “Hank can’t help. Not this time.” It looked like he had wanted to say more, but instead he walked past her and grabbed his keys. At the door to the garage he stopped and without turning around said, “I’m sorry, Faith. For everything.”
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  Five hours later Faith got the call from the fire department.

  If we had just been able to talk. If we could talk . . .

  She drank a gulp of wine, set the glass on her bedside table, and rocked back and forth on the bed. In the last two or three years of their marriage, Faith knew something had been wrong. Buck had rarely touched her, but Faith had been too selfish to notice. She was so busy with the kids’ different activities, work, and all of her social clubs that she barely had time for sex herself. Being the manager of the plant, Buck worked late a lot, but sometimes he smelled funny when he got home. Smoky, like he’d gone to a bar. Had he been having an affair? She knew it was possible, maybe even probable. Their lives had become all about their boys, neither of them making time for the other.

  Buck had talked with her many times in the last few months of his life about his worries over Willistone, but she had never given him the advice she should have: Cut the cord. It doesn’t matter how great things are now. Eventually, dealing with Jack is going to burn you.

  And it had. Literally, she thought, laughing bitterly as the tears fell. She didn’t have any evidence that the fire was intentionally set, but it had never seemed right to her.

  Faith took another sip of wine and was pondering pouring another glass when the phone came alive on the bedside table. She closed her eyes, deciding not to answer it. Maybe it was for one of the boys. She cringed when she heard Junior’s high-pitch yell.

  “Mom, it’s for you!”

  Great, she thought, sitting up again and grabbing the handle of the phone. Please let this be quick.

  “Hello.”

  “Well, hello, Faith.” The voice was male, loud, and eerily familiar. “This is Jack Willistone.”

  35

  Rick sat on the dusty couch and sipped bad coffee from a paper cup. As was customary whenever he was nervous, he was fighting a queasy stomach and had already taken about four trips to the bathroom this morning. Now, though, in the living area of Ms. Rose’s apartment at the back of the Texaco, there was nowhere to go. He’d have to suck it up and hold it in. He leaned forward and, looking down, noticed that his pants were showing leg between the cuff and his socks. Nice, Rick thought. Sitting next to him, Jameson Tyler was the picture of cool. Charcoal suit, red power tie, crossed legs, not a single hair out of place. They were waiting for Ms. Rose to take her leave from the front desk, which should be any minute.