Final Exam: A Legal Thriller

by Terry Huebner

  “Of course, Your Honor. Mrs. Cavallaro isn’t going anywhere. She looks forward to clearing her name, and the only way to do that is in a courtroom in this building.”

  “Very well,” the Judge said, “she surrenders her passport. What else do we need here?”

  “Might I suggest home confinement?” Bridget Fahey said. The Judge raised his eyebrows and turned to Ben.

  “Frankly Judge, I think home confinement is a little extreme. There is no significant evidence of flight here. She has a child in school and significant ties to the community. I’m just not sure that’s warranted.”

  “Perhaps not from your point of view,” the Judge said, “but it doesn’t appear to be terribly unreasonable either. Can you live with home confinement, Ms. Fahey?”

  “If we must, your Honor.”

  “Okay then,” the Judge said, “home confinement it is. Counsel,” he said holding off Ben with a shake of his head, “home confinement isn’t that bad. She’ll still have some freedom to come and go if she can make a case for it and you clear it ahead of time. This will allow her to be with her son after school, things like that. That seems fair. Now we’re left with the amount of bond. Ms. Fahey, what do you think?”

  “The People would suggest ten million dollars, your Honor.”

  The Judge whistled. “I’m assuming you mean ten million dollars bail which means one million dollars in bond, correct?” Fahey nodded. “I take it you believe the Defendant and her husband have those kinds of resources?”

  “We do, Your Honor.”

  “I can’t wait to hear your reaction, Counsel.”

  “Well my reaction ought to be obvious, Judge. Ten million dollars is excessive in light of the fact that you’re talking about home confinement. I mean, what are the odds that she’s going to go anywhere now? You essentially have a tracking device on her. That should lower the amount of bail required substantially. I wouldn’t think you’d need bail in excess of five hundred thousand dollars given the fact that you’re talking about home confinement.”

  The Judge shrugged. “That means fifty thousand dollars bond, which isn’t very much, even when you consider home confinement. But, Ms. Fahey, he does have a point.” He considered it for a moment, then nodded. His decision was made. “Let’s make bail at an even one million dollars, which means a bond of one hundred thousand dollars. Okay. That’s enough. Why don’t we go back in and put it on the record.”

  16

  It took over two hours to effectuate Meg’s release. Following much haggling and a great deal of pressure from her husband, Meg agreed to move back into the brownstone on Astor Street and stay there pending the outcome of this ordeal. After completing the paperwork in the clerk’s office, Ben, Mark and Joe Cavallaro were ushered into a small room, where they were joined by Detective Nelson, a uniformed officer and eventually by Meg herself.

  “You look like you survived okay,” Ben said when he saw her.

  She shrugged and seemed more interested in seeing Ben than her own husband, who made an excessive production out of being reunited with his wife.

  As they were getting ready to leave, Nelson took Ben aside and said, “You might want to have somebody pull up her car. There are a lot of media types out there and it’s a long way between the entrance and the parking garage.”

  Ben looked slightly puzzled. “What do you mean? There weren’t that many media people in the courtroom, maybe ten or twelve,” he said.

  “Well, there are a lot more of them now,” Nelson said. “Once they found out who was arrested, the story has taken on a new life.”

  They all looked at each other for a minute. Finally, Cavallaro spoke up. “I guess I’ve got to get the car. She’s driving with me after all.”

  “You do that,” Nelson said. “We’ll let you pull up out front.” He looked around. “You’re going to have a hard time getting through all the reporters without making some sort of a statement.”

  Meg looked horrified. “I don’t want to say anything.”

  “You’re not going to say anything,” Ben said. “I’ll make a brief statement, proclaim your innocence, and we’ll get you to the car.”

  “I’ll be out there with a handful of uniforms to make sure nothing crazy happens,” Nelson said.

  “Thanks,” Ben replied.

  “I’ll pull my car up behind Mr. Cavallaro’s,” Nelson continued. “We’ll be following you over to your house so we can hook up all the monitoring equipment. It shouldn’t take too long. Once we’re there, I’ll be able to give you a brief rundown on how things work. It’s not that bad really.”

  Nelson led them through a series of corridors, up one set of stairs and down another, until they came out a side entrance to the building. Nelson looked back when he reached the doorway. “Once I open the door, you’ll probably be able to hear the commotion out there. Are we ready? Okay, c’mon, follow me.”

  Nelson went first, followed by a uniformed police officer, Ben, Megan, Mark and then two sheriff’s deputies. They went down along the side of the building and turned left and came out on the front steps. An army of reporters greeted them at the bottom of the steps near the street. Megan saw them before they saw her and whispered, “Oh my God,” under her breath.

  Ben, too, was slightly taken aback by the size of the throng and stopped, taking Meg by the arm and leading her out in the direction of the reporters. A couple of reporters saw them and cried out and the horde turned and rushed toward them. Nelson stopped and let them gather around, but did not allow them to get too close. Additional officers joined them in an effort to keep the crowd at bay. Cavallaro, who had parked his black Mercedes on the street at the bottom of the steps, circled around the reporters and pushed through the perimeter of uniformed officers to emerge at his wife’s side. Ben stood on the other side of Meg, flanked by Mark. Nelson stood off to one side eyeing the crowd.

  As camera lights half-blinded him and microphones wagged in his face, Ben realized that his mouth was dry. He worried for a second that if he tried to speak, no words would come. Reporters started throwing questions at them from all directions, most of which Ben couldn’t understand in the jumble of competing voices. He held up both hands in an effort to quiet the crowd, the noise barely subsiding. An odd thought flashed through his mind - why didn’t I comb my hair before we came out here?

  “Good morning,” he said in a tentative voice. The crowd grew quieter and pushed toward him. “As I said to some of you earlier, my name is Benjamin Lohmeier. I’m with the office of Schulte & Luckenbill in Ithaca. To my left is my colleague, Mark Schaefer.” Several reporters shouted out questions toward Meg. Ben put up his hands again and said, “Hold on a minute. I’m sorry, but my client will not make any comment here this morning. I can tell you this, however,” he said glancing to his right and noticing Joseph Cavallaro’s expression, “Mrs. Cavallaro has the full support of her family and friends as she embarks on this ordeal. As you can see, her husband, Joseph Cavallaro, is here providing his full support.”

  Ben’s voice grew more confident. “These charges are very serious, and we will approach them very seriously. Rest assured, Mrs. Cavallaro looks forward to her day in Court, for she knows that when a thorough and complete examination of all the evidence occurs, there will be no doubt whatsoever in anyone’s mind that she is innocent of the murder of Daniel Greenfield. That’s really all I have to say right now. Obviously, we’ll know a lot more when we see what evidence the prosecution thinks they have.”

  He turned and took Meg’s arm and a voice called out, “What’s your reaction to the bail situation?”

  “Bail?” he said, “I can only say that Judge Quinn is one of the most highly-respected judges in this division. Making decisions on the amount and the availability of bail is one of the most difficult decisions any judge has to make. While we believe that home confinement is not necessary under these circumstances, we respect the Court’s decision and firmly believe that he did what he thought was right. We certainly acce
pt that. Thank you very much folks.”

  With that, Ben raised his arm in almost a wave of goodbye and ended the short press conference.

  Nelson and his men pushed through the reporters, who parted only grudgingly, and made their way down the steps to Cavallaro’s car. Cavallaro went around to the driver’s side and Ben held the door open for Meg to get in on the passenger’s side. Before he shut the door behind her, he leaned in and said, “You did a great job. We’ll see you back at the house in a few minutes.” She nodded and smiled, every moment of the scene captured by cameras.

  17

  Later that afternoon, after getting Meg settled in at the brownstone, Ben rounded the corner and looked for Professor Samuel Dorlund’s office. Finding it, he knocked on the door, which was slightly ajar. He pushed the door open only to discover that no one was inside. “Damn,” he said aloud. Closing the door, he started to turn and go back toward the elevators when Professor Dorlund himself turned the corner and walked toward him. Seeing Ben standing at his office door, Dorlund said, “Hi, can I help you with something?”

  “Yes, I hope so,” Ben said. Dorlund walked by him and opened the door and entered his office and began putting his class materials on his desk as Ben followed him inside. “My name is Benjamin Lohmeier. I represent Megan Rand who …”

  Dorlund turned at the sound of her name and gave Ben an angry look. “I know who she is,” he said. “She’s the one who murdered Daniel. I don’t have anything to say to you.”

  “She didn’t kill anyone,” Ben said, “but obviously, I’d like to find out who did.”

  “I’m sure you would,” Dorlund said. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

  “No,” Ben said, “I’m not going to excuse you.”

  “I beg your pardon?” Dorlund said.

  “Professor,” Ben said holding up his hand, “just hold on a minute. I’ve known Megan Rand a long time. We were in the same section together at this law school. I also knew Professor Greenfield. And most importantly, I know that Megan Rand did not kill Daniel Greenfield.”

  “Is that what you think?”

  “That’s what I know. Now, I also know that you and Daniel Greenfield have been close friends for a very, very long time, and I’m sure that you would very much like to see the person who did this caught and punished. One way to do that is by talking to me.”

  The two men stared at each other for several seconds before Dorlund realized that Ben would not take no for an answer. He relented. “Okay,” he said, “Mr. Lohmeier is it? Sit down. I have a few minutes for you. What do you need to know?”

  “Thank you,” Ben said taking off his overcoat and placing it on a chair next to his briefcase. He sat down in another chair. Dorlund’s office was cluttered and disorganized, books and papers everywhere. “I don’t want to take up a lot of your time, Professor. I’m sure we’re going to have a lot of opportunities to speak in the future. The first thing I’d like to know now though is who should I be talking to about Professor Greenfield? Who are the people on the faculty and staff of this place who could tell me about him, tell me about what was going on with him, what he was working on, that kind of thing.”

  Dorlund was a short, round man with a soft body that had long since gone to seed. He had dark curly hair that never quite seemed combed or washed, bushy eyebrows covering slightly bulging eyes, a large, flat nose and thick puffy lips that would make a catfish proud. He always seemed kind of sweaty. Amazingly, despite these physical characteristics and a less than winning personality, he still considered himself something of a ladies man, although few ladies shared this perception. He leaned back in his chair. “Dan and I have been friends for twenty years and as you can imagine, his death has hit me pretty hard. I don’t think anyone is as close to him …” He hesitated. “Or was as close to him, in this law school or outside of it as I was. But if you want some other names, some of the professors who were here when you were here would probably be a good place to start. I can’t think of anyone in particular.”

  “Okay,” Ben said, “that’s what I figured.”

  Ben spoke to Dorlund for about twenty minutes and Dorlund slowly opened up and grew a bit more cooperative. He told Ben that Greenfield and his wife had divorced about three years earlier, but that Greenfield seemed to be handling it better and better in recent months. Other than that, he knew of nothing in particular that had been troubling Greenfield recently, and suggested that Greenfield had been in a pretty decent frame of mind. Finally, Dorlund told him that Greenfield had seemed particularly excited about a new law review article he had been working on in recent weeks. The article concerned DNA testing and its use in criminal law, but Dorlund told Ben that he wasn’t really familiar with any of the details.

  The two men shook hands when Ben got up to leave and agreed to talk again when Dorlund had more time. Seeing that it was getting fairly late in the afternoon, Ben decided to forego a trip to Hyatt’s office - he probably would be gone anyway - so he could get back on the road before traffic became too unbearable. As it turns out, it didn’t matter. He’d waited too long. He didn’t get back to the office until almost five and went directly out to the garage, where he found Mark working on some discovery matters.

  “Hey,” he said walking through the door.

  “You’ve become quite the little celebrity in this part of the world,” Mark said.

  “Oh, really,” Ben replied. “Isn’t that just great?”

  “Well, I don’t know whether it’s great or not, but the phone’s been ringing off the hook. You’ve got reporters calling all over the place.”

  “Is Phil here?”

  “I don’t know, but I’m sure the secretaries are getting pissed enough.”

  “Okay, I’d better go upstairs and try to smooth things over.”

  Ben went to take his medicine. At the top of the stairs, he glanced to his right - Swift was on the phone again, but gave Ben a thumbs-up sign as he walked by.

  “Hey, the celebrity is back,” Dianne Reynolds said as he walked into the room. “We saw you on TV earlier.”

  Hearing that, Nancy spun around in her chair and came out of her office to join them. “Yeah,” she said, “you were pretty good, not stiff or anything.”

  Ben shrugged. “I’ll take that as a compliment, I guess,” he said. “What were we on?”

  “We saw it on WGN in Phil’s office,” Nancy said. “The story only lasted for a couple of minutes. They said who she was and that she lived downtown. Then they showed the part outside on the steps where you said that she looked forward to clearing her name, or something like that. You were good. You made a good impression.”

  Ben rolled his eyes. “I understand from talking to Mark downstairs that you guys have been getting a few phone calls.”

  Nancy growled. “A few?” she said. “The phone’s been ringing non-stop.”

  “Well, today was the first day it was on TV. Maybe it will slow down.”

  “Hope so,” Nancy said returning to her office.

  “It hasn’t been that bad,” Dianne added. “It’s actually kind of exciting.”

  “So what have you been doing?” Ben asked, “dumping them all into my voicemail?”

  “Yes, but I think your voicemail box is full. A couple of people have called back in the last hour or so saying they couldn’t get through, so we had to write down their messages.”

  “Great,” Ben said. Dianne handed him two pieces of paper with the names and telephone numbers of two people he didn’t know. He looked at them and went into his office. He dropped his stuff on the bench and sat down at his desk to check his e-mail. Only a couple of new messages, nothing urgent. “That’s good,” he said aloud.

  He checked his voicemail next. The female voice intoned, “Your mailbox is full. You have nineteen new messages.”

  “Shit,” he said.

  He listened to each message - seventeen were from reporters or somebody asking for information about the case, while the other two concerned his other fil
es.

  Nancy’s voice came over the intercom. “I’ve got Ken on the phone. He said he wants to talk to the TV star.”

  “Tell him to wait in line,” Ben said. “Unfortunately, I probably need to talk to him. Tell you what, bullshit with him for a couple of minutes and then transfer the call to the garage. I’m heading down there right now.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Did you fix it?” Mark said when Ben entered the garage.

  “Not really. They didn’t seem too mad.”

  Mark laughed. “That’s not the story I heard.”

  “My voicemail box was full. I had nineteen messages and seventeen were reporters.”

  “That’s a lot,” Mark said. “That’s one of the things I think you’re going to have to get used to on this case. Handling the press. That will take a lot more time than you think.”

  “Maybe,” Ben said. “Hopefully it will level out after the first couple of days or so. I can’t imagine that this case will be that big a deal for the entire time. Of course, I may be full of shit given that I’ve never really handled a case like this before.”

  “It may depend on what the evidence is. If Bridget Fahey starts alleging something really spectacular, the media could get all over this thing.”

  “True,” Ben said. Then the phone started ringing. “That’s Ken. I’ll put him on speaker.” Ben punched the button for the speakerphone and said, “Hey, Ken what’s up?”

  “Hey, Perry Mason, can I have your autograph?”

  “Sure, anything for the Public Defender of DeKalb County. Of course, I charge twenty bucks a pop now that I’m famous. By next week, it’ll be up to a hundred.”