It didn’t take me long before I found just what I was looking for. The name of the company was Dowling Chemicals, and the news articles that I found indicated that the company had been accused of allowing Toluene into the groundwater in Raytown, Missouri, which was a suburb of Kansas City. The Raytown community had been suffering for years with a disproportionate incidence of birth defects, cancer and low-level sickness. Toluene had not yet been certified as a carcinogen, yet the articles in the Kansas City Star about this community indicated that the lawyers involved in the case were planning on demonstrating that the high levels of cancers were caused by the Toluene dumping.
The Toluene dumping was caused when the Dowling Chemical Company put the waste products into large barrels that they buried into the ground. The barrels disintegrated, which caused the chemicals to go through the porous containers and contaminate the ground water. This, in turn, made the community sick.
I nodded my head and immediately went through the list of cases that were pending in front of Judge Sanders, looking for whether the class action suit had yet been filed in the District Court. I found nothing that indicated that Dowling Chemicals was on Judge Sanders docket. Not that that meant anything, because I knew that class action suits weren’t always filed right away. It took some time to get these lawsuits together, although I knew that this suit was coming.
But how would the Dowling Chemical Company know that Judge Sanders would be overseeing the case? They would have the motive to kill the judge in this case, because Judge Sanders was probably going to slap them down hard. This was the kind of class-action suit that would cost a company millions, especially if there was punitive damages involved. The punitive damages would come if the lawyers could show that there was some kind of criminal act involved or if the conduct was willful, wanton or malicious. If Dowling was found merely negligent, then they wouldn’t have to pay punitive damages.
After carefully reading the article in the Kansas City Star, I knew that punitive damages would most likely be awarded in this case – especially by a judge like Judge Sanders, who habitually ordered severe punitive damages, much more than any other judge in the Western District of Missouri. The company wasn’t just careless in how they disposed of these chemicals – they flat-out broke the law. Although most of the chemicals were buried in the ground in barrels, the barrels were not rated for the kinds of chemicals the Dowling was burying, and, in some cases, the chemicals weren’t in barrels at all. The newspaper article, quoting whistle-blowers’ testimonies, indicated that thousands of pounds of paint thinner was simply thrown out and spread on the ground. They didn’t even bother to put the stuff into barrels in these cases.
Punitive damages in this case could very well soar into the hundreds of millions before everything was said and done – but only if the “wrong” judge heard the case. Judge Sanders would definitely be considered, by the defendant, to be the “wrong” judge.
Again, though, how would Dowling know for sure that Judge Sanders would be assigned to the case? It hadn’t yet been filed.
A quick search gave me the answer. Cases may be assigned to judges according to areas of expertise. That wasn’t a guarantee, since cases were typically randomly assigned, but when a judge has a certain expertise area, the judge typically would get cases of this kind. After reading about Judge Sanders’ background – he was an EPA attorney for twenty years before he came to the bench – it stood to reason that he was likely to get this Dowling Chemical case.
I then went through the list of cases that had been brought before the Judge over the years, and found that he had tried hundreds of cases involving environmental concerns.
No doubt about it, Judge Sanders was probably going to get that Dowling Chemical case, and he was probably going to hammer them.
I nodded my head. This was promising, although I almost hated to go down this lane. I still wanted to make Michael pay for the murder of his father-in-law and I hated to find some alternative explanation for the murder of the judge.
Yet there was still a nagging voice inside of me that was telling me that finding the Dowling Chemical case information was getting me closer to proving that Michael had done it, not further away. Why that was, I didn’t know – I only knew that there was still some missing pieces of the puzzle, pieces that I was determined to find.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next day was the day that I was going to have Kayla Stone in for her deposition. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I knew what questions I needed to ask. I was going to get to the bottom of her relationship with my client, find out if she was really with him at the time that the judge was killed, and ask her about whether or not her husband was really going to cut her off if he found out about her relationship with Michael.
She came in right at 1 PM, just after lunch. She was just how I pictured her in my head. She was about 5’7”, with long brown hair and big green eyes and a fake rack. At least, I assumed that her rack was fake, as it was extremely large and way too perfect and way too big for the rest of her frame. She looked like money, just like Christina Sanders did, but I had the feeling that she was going to be much more demure than Christina was. I didn’t know why I thought that, but I did.
She was dressed head to toe in winter white – her tightly-fitting dress was that color and so was her coat. Her shoes were colorful, though, as was her purse. Everything on her was designer, including her enormous sunglasses that had the trademark Chanel logo right on the arms of these glasses.
“Hello,” she said, her voice light and breathy, like Jackie Kennedy. She lifted her hand, and I shook it. “I’m Kayla Stone. This is my lawyer, Arnold Vogel.”
Arnold also shook my hand. He was a tall man, about 6’3”, with a completely bald head and glasses. He looked to be around 65 years old, and I could tell that, as a younger and thinner man, he was quite a looker. He had large dimples and large brown eyes and it looked like he laughed easily. He had that certain twinkle in his eyes that I usually saw in good-natured people.
“Hello, Ms. Ross,” Arnold said. “Where are we doing this deposition?”
“Right this way.” I led them into the conference room and offered them both some iced tea or bottle water. Kayla opted for a bottled water while Arnold joked.
“I’ll take some scotch neat, please,” he said with a smile. “Or a glass of iced tea if I can’t have the scotch.”
I smiled. “I would love to offer you some scotch, believe me. I know why you want it, too.” Just being an attorney is enough to drive sane men to drink.
I got the water and tea and all of us sat down while the court reporter got her machine ready to go. I was fascinated by court reporters – I had no clue how they were able to take those chicken scratches and somehow, someway, make heads or tails from it. I also admired the way that they transcribed everything that was said. If it were me, I would have problems focusing for such a long period of time, and my mind would wander and that would cause me to miss a ton of words.
One thing was for sure – court reporters earned every penny that they were paid.
We went through the preliminary questions – her name and her address – before I started in with the substantive questions.
“Ms. Stone, are you aware on the reasons why I am deposing you today?”
“Yes.”
“What is your understanding on why I’m deposing you?”
She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “Because Michael Reynolds is my, uh, boyfriend.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know what else to call him.”
“Mr. Reynolds is your boyfriend. How long has he been your boyfriend?”
“For the past six months.”
“And you are married, is that correct?”
She looked uncomfortable. “Yes.” Her face flushed red. “I know what you must be thinking.”
“No you don’t,” I said. “No judgments.”
She nodded, looking relieved.
“Where were you on the eveni
ng of October 19?”
“I was with Michael.”
“Were you with him the entire evening?”
“Yes.”
“What did you and Michael do that evening?”
“We went out to dinner and a movie and then got a hotel room downtown. The downtown Marriott. We planned on spending the night, and Michael was going to return home the next day.”
“What was Michael supposed to be doing?”
She sighed. “He was supposed to be looking after his father-in-law, who had been very sick. Very bad health problems. Nobody could figure out why.” She hung her head and then started to bite her nails. That was the one thing that I noticed about her – she was very well-groomed, with her hair perfect and her makeup just as perfect – but her nails were short and plain. It turned out that she didn’t have a decent manicure because she had an issue with biting her nails. I made a mental note that she was most likely nervous, because nail-biting was generally a nervous habit.
“So, he was with you the entire night?”
She nodded.
“Please verbally answer the question,” I said.
“Yes.” Her voice was weak when she said that word. I raised an eyebrow, knowing that she was lying.
“Were you present when Michael got a phone call from his wife, Christina Sanders?”
“Yes.”
“What happened after he got that phone call?”
“He rushed to the judge’s home.”
“Why did he rush to the judge’s home?”
“Because Christina told him over the phone that she couldn’t get in touch with her father.”
“What time was it when Michael got that phone call from Christina?”
“Around 11 or so.”
“And then he rushed out the door?”
“Yes.”
“Did he try to tell Christina that maybe she couldn’t get in touch with the judge because he was sleeping? Why did he think that it was such an emergency?”
She cleared her throat. “I don’t know. He just told me that it sounded bad.”
“Was there chicken involved that night?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Did he pick up fried chicken that night?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Why?”
“He told the police on the scene that he was out getting fried chicken at the time that his father was killed. He obviously didn’t tell them that he was with you.”
“Oh, okay. No, he didn’t pick up any fried chicken that night.”
“Are you aware that he showed the police on the scene that he had fried chicken?”
“No.”
“Let me pivot some. Tell me about your marriage to Gerald Stone.”
At that, her face got red. “I was told that I should plead the Fifth on this one.”
“Who told you that?”
“Michael told me that.”
“Why would testifying to the facts about your marriage cause you to self-incriminate?” All at once, I was suspicious. What about her marriage would cause her to plead the Fifth?
She shrugged. “I plead the Fifth. I don’t have to answer these questions, do I Mr. Vogel?”
“No,” he said. “Not if you think that answering that question would incriminate yourself.”
“Thank you. I plead the Fifth.”
I bit my lower lip. That was so weird, and it made me more and more suspicious. Was there something about her marriage that was significant in this case? Pleading the Fifth meant that she was going to say something that would implicate her. Was she involved with the murder? What motive did she have to murder this judge? I suddenly had about a million unanswered questions, questions that I needed to have answered.
I was going to have to answer these questions on my own, though.
“Thank you for coming in,” I said to Kayla.
“We’re done with our deposition?”
“Yes. We’re done.” I stood up and gathered my things. I walked out the door without shaking her hand or the hand of her attorney.
She was playing games and I was going to have to figure out exactly why.
“ANNA,” I said, calling Anna on the phone. “I need something from you.”
“What do you need, Harper?”
“I need a copy of the prenuptial agreement that was filed between Kayla and Gerald Stone.” I didn’t know if it was filed or if it was somehow on-line, but I hoped that it was. Attorneys often put their documents on their database, on their cloud, which was secure. But Anna could get past any security mechanisms, so if that pre-nuptial agreement was somewhere on the cloud, she would find it. I had faith in her.
“Okay,” she said. “Is there anything else?”
I bit my lower lip. “No,” I said, the wheels suddenly turning in my head. “That’s all I need from you.”
“I’ll have that for you in an hour,” she said. “I’ll put in a PDF and email it to you.”
“Great.”
I tapped my fingers on my desk as Tammy came into my office. There was a kernel in my brain, a kernel that was forming. It was nascent, though, unformed.
I booted up my computer and read about Stone Enterprises.
Stone Enterprises was a chemical company that was founded by Gerald Stone in 1991. I looked at the firm’s financials and found that the annual revenue of the company was $100 billion. Gerald Stone was not only the CEO of this company, but was also the largest shareholder and the founder – in 2016, he was paid $30 million and he also was the largest shareholder, so his stocks were worth another $150 million a year. Stone Enterprises was a international conglomerate, with sites located around the world. It also was a parent company to some 118 subsidiaries.
I nodded my head. This was something. I was on the right track.
As I read through the information on Stone Enterprises, I looked at my email and saw that Anna had sent me the PDF that I was looking for. I downloaded the PDF and printed it out.
This document made one thing clear – Kayla Stone was in danger of being completely cut out of a fortune. She had one thing in common with Michael, and that was that both of them went into their marriage with very little. At the time that Kayla married Gerald, she listed her property as a car. Just a car. Nothing else.
On the other hand, Gerald had already been established with Stone Enterprises, so he came into the marriage with millions. He had also made millions more since the marriage occurred 12 years ago. I looked at his list of pre-marital property and saw that, in addition to $50 million in cash, he also possessed four homes, paintings that were worth millions, stock worth hundreds of millions and he even had his own private plane and island. An island!
Since the two got married, the couple had apparently acquired several more homes, and several priceless paintings which were painted by Monet and Warhol.
I read through the prenuptial agreement, trying to find out what Kayla was entitled to in the event of a divorce. The agreement stated that, in the event of a divorce, she would be entitled to half of what the couple had accumulated during their marriage, and 25% of what Gerald brought into the marriage. That would mean that, at this point, if Kayla and Gerald were divorced, Kayla would be entitled to property that was worth more than $200 million dollars. The Monet alone would be worth almost that much. The couple acquired many millions during their marriage, and Kayla would get half of that.
I nodded my head and then saw the clause that Michael had told me about. Apparently, in the event that Kayla was unfaithful to Gerald, she forfeited everything. Everything. The couple had no children together, so this prenuptial agreement would be valid. If they had kids together, then Gerald would never be able to just cut Kayla off with nothing – he would have to pay support for his children. But that wasn’t the case. There were no kids that had been born, so Kayla would basically be out on the street if she and Gerald divorced, providing that Gerald would be able to prove that she was unfaithful.
I wondered if Gerald had definitive proof t
hat Kayla was having an affair with Michael. I suddenly knew that this was also why she refused to answer questions about her marriage in that deposition. She did admit to the fact that Michael was her boyfriend, so she was already incriminating herself. Her husband would be able to use that deposition against her, and would be able to take her testimony and use it to cut her off completely if he divorced her.
So why was she so willing to tell the truth about Michael? Why didn’t she lie about him and her relationship with him? She readily told me that Michael was her boyfriend. She was under oath testifying to the nature of her affair with Michael. She was admitting that she was with him in a hotel on the night that Judge Sanders was killed.
Why? If that were me, I would lie. I wouldn’t even care if I was under oath. I would lie and I would never let my boyfriend throw me under the bus like that. And, if I didn’t lie, I would quash the subpoena. I would fight it every step of the way.
Yet she didn’t do any of that. She just came right out with the fact that Michael was her boyfriend. She didn’t try to get out of the deposition.
Michael had tried to intimidate me out of asking her these questions, and that was another odd thing.
It was then that I went back to my email and saw that there was another PDF document that was attached. I didn’t even notice it before. I opened the second document and saw that it was an amended prenuptial agreement. The first thing I noticed was that it very clearly stated that this was a new document and that it superseded any previous documents, therefore all previous documents were considered to be null and void.
It was dated October 20, the day after Judge Sanders had been murdered.
I raised my eyebrows, looking for how it was different from the previous prenuptial agreement. The document itself was the same as the previous one – as in the previous one, Kayla Stone was entitled to 50% of the property that was acquired during the marriage and 25% of the property that had been brought into the marriage by Gerald. That part was identical.
After I carefully read the document, I realized just what was different – in this document, there was not an addendum that indicated that Kayla would forfeit any and all property if she was unfaithful to Gerald.
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 50
