I blinked my eyes, not quite understanding what I was seeing and why. The day after the judge was killed and Gerald changed the terms of the prenuptial agreement. I shook my head. Why? Why did he change the terms? What did Kayla do for Gerald to get him to make such a drastic change? That would certainly explain why Kayla didn’t really care that she incriminated herself in her deposition by telling me that Michael was her boyfriend.
It explained that much. But what else did it explain? Dammit, this was significant, but I was missing the puzzle piece. The piece that brought everything together.
I sat back in my chair, feeling completely frustrated. I pinched my nose with my thumb and forefinger, feeling nauseated.
I was just going to have to walk away from this case for now. Walk away from it and, hopefully, when I was more relaxed, the missing puzzle piece would come to me. It could be a coincidence that Gerald changed the terms of the prenuptial agreement the day after Judge Sanders was murdered. It could be.
It could be, but it wasn’t. There was some level of involvement that I simply wasn’t seeing.
I wasn’t seeing it, but I was going to. I was determined that I was going to figure it out.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
That night, I was home with the girls. Abby had her flute and she was practicing in the living room. Rina, for her part, was sitting on the floor next to Abby, and she kept howling like a dog.
“Rina,” I said. “For the last time, let your sister practice her flute.”
She crinkled up her face. “She sounds terrible, Aunt Harper. She sounds like one of those geese we see in the park.”
In spite of myself, I laughed. “No, she doesn’t sound like that. Now if she was playing the oboe, I would say that you would be absolutely correct. But a flute sounds nothing like that.”
“Whatever. She sounds terrible, though.”
Abby put down her flute and looked embarrassed. “Aunt Harper, I would like to just practice in my room, if that’s okay.”
“No,” I said. “I’m going to make sure that your sister is quiet from now on. I really would like to hear you play.”
Rina was right, in a way, because Abby wasn’t able to play the flute very well. Of course – she had just started to learn how to play the instrument. Rina couldn’t expect much. Neither could I. Neither could Abby. I remembered when I first started to learn how to play the flute, and I couldn’t get the fingerings down for months. My flute wasn’t as nice and expensive as Abby’s was, though. She and I went shopping and we found her the top of the line instrument.
“But Aunt Harper-“
“Play, Abby. Rina, be quiet. If you’re not quiet, then you’re going to be on restriction for the rest of the evening.”
Rina gave me the stink-eye, got up off the floor, and dramatically went to her room and slammed the door. I tried to suppress a smile. Anymore, Rina’s histrionics were amusing me. I knew that they shouldn’t amuse me, but they were. She was always slamming doors and pouting and giving me dirty looks. I knew that she wasn’t over finding out that I defended her mother’s murderer. I hoped that, in time, she would get over it, but if she didn’t, then I was going to have go to family therapy with her.
Abby sat down on the chair, her flute in her lap. Tears were in her eyes. “I’m not good, am I, Aunt Harper?”
I sat down next to her and put my arm around her shoulders. “Abby, Buttercup, you just got that flute last weekend. You just started to learn how to play. You have to walk before you can run, and, right now, you’re still mastering your fingerings and your scales.”
She nodded and then looked up at me. “James doesn’t think that I’m very good. He teases me every day when my teacher makes me stand up and do my scales in front of everyone. My teacher singles me out, it seems like, because I’m new. And I’m last chair.”
“Buttercup, you’re being too hard on yourself.” I took her chin in my hand and looked into her pretty blue eyes. “And if James is teasing you, it’s a good sign. It means that he’s noticing you and he probably likes you too, but he just doesn’t have a good way of showing it.”
She seemed to brighten when I said that. “Really?” Her voice was hopeful. “You think that he likes me too?”
“I do. Why else would he tease you? What does he say to you when you stand up and do your scales in front of everyone?”
“I don’t know, he kinda dances around and screeches. Like this.” Abby got up on her feet and danced a little jig and screeched, her voice going up several octaves. “He says that’s what I sound like. He’s kinda goofy I guess.”
“He sounds like it. Tell you what, why don’t we have a little party over here Friday night and you can invite a bunch of your classmates, including James, and I can check him out? Do you think that he would come?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know, but a party sounds nice. What will the occasion be? What will I tell them? Me and Rina don’t turn 12 until December.”
“Rina and I, Buttercup. Not me and Rina. And I know that you two turn 12 in December, but you don’t need an excuse to have a party, do you? What kind of things do kids of today do at parties, anyhow?”
“I don’t know, Aunt Harper. I would really love to have a laser tag party for my 12th birthday. I don’t think that Rina is up for that, though. She wants a DJ and a dance party. Maybe we can transform the backyard so that both of us can have what we want.”
I smiled. “Yes, those are really good ideas, but Abby, your birthdays are in December. I think that you two should probably schedule a sledding party instead. I’m talking about now. If I throw a party so that you can have James at the house, what would you two like to do?”
She looked embarrassed. “Maybe have the birthday ideas? Since we’re not going to be able to do it for our birthdays, maybe do the laser tag and dance party now? Then when our birthday comes, we can just hang out and watch movies or something.”
“You got it.” I tousled her hair. “I’ll call Axel to have him come and help out. Will the kids come to this on such short notice?”
“I think so. Kids like to come to parties in general and they really love laser tag. I’ll let everyone know. How many kids can come?”
“What about ten for you and ten for Rina?”
She nodded and smiled. “I’ll go up and tell Rina. I’m sure she’s going to be excited.”
At that, she ran up to Rina’s room and I soon heard shrieking. Two seconds later, Rina came running down the stairs.
“You’re gonna get a DJ, Aunt Harper? Or maybe a Karaoke machine?” She wrapped her arms around my waist and I squeezed her tightly.
“Let’s have the Karaoke machine, Lady Bug. I don’t think that I can line up a DJ on this short of notice.”
“That’s okay, my friends love Karaoke. I can have 10 kids and Abby can too? Why are we having this party, Aunt Harper?”
I cleared my throat. “It’s an early birthday party, since you guys turn 12 in December, and there won’t be much karaoking in the backyard, nor laser tag. But Rina, you have to be good. No more insulting your sister. She’s trying to learn the flute and she doesn’t need your put-downs.”
“I’ll be good.” She hugged me tighter. “I love you, Aunt Harper.”
I laughed. Those words, from Rina, were music to my ears. I didn’t know if that meant that she forgave me for not telling her about John Robinson, but that’s how I interpreted her telling me that she loved me.
“I love you too, Ladybug.”
THAT NIGHT, I was suffering from yet another sleepless night. I tossed and turned and looked at the clock, and was frustrated that it was 4 AM and I still wasn’t close to sleep. In fact, I had no idea the last time I was able to sleep. It had been several days.
I decided, once again, to get on the computer and do some more digging. After all, since I was awake anyhow, I might as well get something done in the meantime.
I was still trying to figure out the connections between Kayla Stone, Gerald Stone, Michael an
d the murder of the judge. If there was any connection, that is.
The first thing that I did was check and see if Stone Enterprises had any lawsuits pending in front of Judge Sanders. I booted up the computer and got on the website for the Western District of Missouri. I typed in the name “Stone Enterprises,” and found nothing. I tapped my fingers on the desk and got up to get a glass of water.
As I was standing at the sink, filling my water glass, I heard Rina. “Aunt Harper,” she said. “What are you doing up?”
I spun around, startled. “I could ask the same about you. What’s wrong, Lady Bug? Can’t you sleep?”
She shook her head. “I had a bad dream. Aunt Harper, I don’t like what you do. I don’t like you having those bad dudes as your clients.” She started to cry. “I don’t want to lose you, Aunt Harper.”
I put my arms around her. “Now, why would you lose me?”
“Because. You have all these murderers around you all the time. I’m afraid that one of them is going to come after you and you’re going to end up like our mom.” She cried harder and I stroked her hair.
“Shhhh,” I said. “Tell me about your dream.”
She shook her head. “I just dreamed that you were killed like my mom.”
“Oh, Ladybug,” I said. “I’ve done this job for years and years. I’ve never had a problem with any of my clients.” That was a lie. It was a big, fat lie. Elmer threatened me and put me in the hospital. That gangbanger, years ago, Randall Thompson, almost strangled me.
But somehow, Michael threatened me even more than Elmer and the gangbanger did. He was sociopathic. I knew that. I could feel it. I was getting closer to proving it.
If anybody was going to try to kill me, it would be him. That thought popped into my brain and it startled me.
If anybody was going to try to kill me, it would be him.
I shuddered, in spite of myself.
“I don’t believe that, Aunt Harper. You’ve had clients like John Robinson. Look at what he did. He could have done that to you too. He couldn’t control himself. He got angry and he just couldn’t control himself. You’re around men like that all the time, Aunt Harper. All the time. I just wish you would get out of it. Get out of having these bad men as your clients.”
Her words were stabbing me like daggers, but I couldn’t let on. In a way, she was right – I was representing bad dudes. Bad dudes who threatened me. She was also right to worry. “Ladybug, please stop worrying. Now, go on back to bed. Try to get some sleep. 7 AM comes early.”
She hung her head, hugged me again, and ran back up the stairs.
I sighed and returned to my office. To my computer.
Stone Enterprises didn’t have any lawsuits pending in front of the judge. I decided to go ahead and Google it to find out if it had any major environmental violations, violations like Dowling Chemicals did, and I didn’t find anything about that, either.
Was there something else? Some other violations that would cause it to be sued? I shook my head. None of that made sense. Number one, if there was a lawsuit pending on some other issue, like a labor issue or a safety issue, then it would be doubtful that it would be specially assigned to Judge Sanders. They might, but most cases were assigned randomly. Number two, my gut was telling me, loudly, that the entire case was going to turn on environmental issues. Issues like Dowling Chemicals.
I put my head down, trying to think. It was difficult to think right at that moment, though, because of my encounter with Rina. She always seemed like she wasn’t bothered by the fact that her mother was killed. Abby was much more transparent – I often saw her cry, and she would tell me that she was thinking of her mother. But Rina, aside from her getting angry with me and teasing Abby, always seemed like she was okay. I now knew that she wasn’t.
Being a parent was tougher than I thought that it would be. Not that I thought that my parents had it so easy, but-
With a shot, my head was off that table.
A parent. A parent. That’s it! That was the part of the puzzle I was missing!
I immediately got on the Internet to find out who was the parent company of Dowling Chemicals. Just like I thought – it was Stone Enterprises.
Stone Enterprises was the parent company of Dowling Chemicals.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I felt my heart pounding and my breathing going faster and faster. That was another piece of the puzzle, and I was going to figure out the rest of it. But Stone Enterprises, as the parent company of Dowling Chemicals, stood to lose millions of dollars when this class action goes into effect. When this class action was filed, if they got the “wrong” judge, they would go down and go down hard. Punitive damages alone could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, and, since there were thousands of people who were hurt by the contaminated groundwater, the actual damages were going to be millions more.
On the other hand, if this company could draw a different judge – a judge who wasn’t known to be a bleeding heart plaintiff’s judge – then they could definitely limit their liability.
I was suddenly excited. I was onto something, but I was going to have to do even more digging. Who was going to replace Judge Sanders? Whomever it was, he or she was going to be a lot more of a defendant’s judge than Judge Sanders was. That was safe to say, as our Republican President was going to be the person who was going to appoint this judge. The Senate was also Republican. Judge Sanders was a Clinton appointee. Guys like him were not going to be on the bench in today’s climate. That was clear.
But what about the other issue? The lawsuit hadn’t yet been filed, so there wasn’t ever a guarantee that Stone Enterprises was going to be assigned to Judge Sanders anyhow. They might have been assigned a different judge. Why would they choose Judge Sanders, out of all the judges, to knock off? Was it just because he was the most liberal judge, in terms of siding with the plaintiffs, the little guys, against the large corporations?
Those were questions that I was going to have to answer before I became more confident that Stone Enterprises would have done something like this. Because knocking off Judge Sanders would be pointless if Stone Enterprises would have just drawn a different judge anyhow.
After all, why wouldn’t Stone Enterprises just have filed the case and then knocked off the judge once they figured out he was going to be the one who was going to be hearing it? Wouldn’t that have been more logical?
I was going to have to go down to the courthouse when it opened and do some more investigation. Maybe speak with the chief judge and see if she had any insight on whether or not the Dowling case was going to come before Judge Sanders. That would be the smoking gun, in my opinion, on whether or not Stone Enterprises was behind the murder of Judge Sanders.
RIGHT AT 8 AM, I went down to the courthouse and spoke with the clerk behind the glass in the lobby. “Hello,” I said. “It’s me again. I need to speak with Chief Judge Sally Haynes please. It’s important.”
The clerk grimaced. “She has some time right now. She doesn’t get on the bench until 9 AM. She ordinarily doesn’t like to be ambushed by attorneys, so can I ask what this is regarding?”
I drew a breath. “I’m in the middle of a murder case, and I really need to find out about a case that is going to be filed. A major class-action lawsuit that will be coming down the pike. Soon.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about the Dowling Chemical case?” she asked.
“Yes. The Dowling Chemical case. That’s right. The Dowling Chemical case.” I was repeating myself and I knew it. I was feeling funny again, as if my thoughts were racing 100 MPH. I had energy like I had never had before, even though I didn’t sleep a wink and I hadn’t slept a wink in several days.
“And what do you need to know?”
“What judge was going to be assigned to that case.”
“Well, it was actually filed late last night. It has been assigned to Judge Perez.”
Judge Perez. He was a well-known defendant’s judge. He was someb
ody who was known to be skeptical of plaintiffs’ claims and almost always bent over backwards to make sure that corporations either won their cases or, at the very least, their liability was severely limited. I thought about how convenient it was that Dowling would draw that judge, but, then again, Dowling would have been better off under any other judge besides Judge Sanders. Judge Sanders was, by far, the most liberal judge on the District Court bench. He was, by far, the most likely of any of the Western District judges to find for the plaintiff and slap huge punitive damages on the defendant.
“Thank you,” I said. “But could I still speak with Judge Haynes?”
“Just a second, I’ll call up there and make sure she has a minute.” She got on the phone, said a few words and then nodded at me. “She has about ten minutes to speak with you right now. Go on up.”
“Thank you.”
At that, I ran to the elevator.
I got to the suite where the Chief Justice sat and talked to her personal clerk. “Hello,” I said. “The clerk downstairs called. My name is Harper Ross, and I need to speak with Judge Haynes.” My speech was rapid, as rapid as my thoughts. I couldn’t help it, though – I was amped.
“Yes,” she said. “She is expecting you. This way.”
I followed the clerk to the Chief Judge’s chambers, which was twice as large as ordinary judicial chambers, which were large enough, and even more ornate. I felt almost like I was walking into a museum room when I walked into the chambers, because of the high ceilings, the wood paneling and the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked over the expanse of the city.
She stood up, an imposing woman who stood over 6 feet tall. At 5’9” myself, I was very tall for a woman, but I felt like a midget compared to her. “Your honor,” I began, “Thank you very much for seeing me.”
She nodded. “Have a seat,” she said. “I have a few minutes to speak with you. I understand that you were asking questions about Dowling Chemicals?”
Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 51
