“Oh, poor little Judith,” she'd said. “I miss her so.”
From her tone of voice and the number of calls Judith had made to her home number, he'd assumed the two had been dear friends. Instead, he learned that they'd been merely casual acquaintances in college who'd gone their separate ways after graduation. They met freshman year in Political Science 101, a lecture class with assigned seats in alphabetical order. Thus Shifrin found herself next to Shields. They became friendly that semester and occasionally had lunch together. The relationship went nowhere, though. Judith was living at home, and Missy was pledging a sorority. They lost touch after that first semester. Both were poli-sci majors, though, and they got reacquainted senior year when they shared the same faculty adviser and took the same honors seminar on the Vietnam war. After graduation, Missy moved back home to south Florida. She didn't see or talk to Judith again until a Peterson Tire hearing in St. Louis nearly five years later.
When she'd mentioned that hearing during their first phone call, Hirsch had been surprised, wondering what she'd been doing in that courtroom, never even imagining from her “whatevers” and “for sures” that she was an attorney, thinking instead that perhaps she was related to one of the claimants, or maybe she was someone's paralegal.
But when he asked her if there would be a good time for them to talk about Judith, she answered, “How 'bout like over lunch the day after tomorrow?”
“Down there?”
“No, silly. In St. Louis. I've got to be up there in the morning to argue a motion before Judge McCormick. I'll be done by noon. We can talk then, but only if it's over lunch at Crown Candy Kitchen.”
“Crown Candy?”
“For sure. Their BLTs and shakes are to die for.”
She was working on that milk shake now—a peanut butter one, her head bent over the tall glass, lips puckered around the straw.
As he'd learned over lunch, there'd been no grand reunion when the two women spotted each other that first time during a court hearing. It had been about a week after Halloween the year before Judith's death. Judith had been seated in the empty jury box, a yellow legal pad on her lap, taking notes as Missy argued the motion. Although she looked familiar, Missy couldn't connect the face with a name or a history. After the hearing, Judith approached and introduced herself. She suggested maybe they could meet that afternoon for a cup of coffee. Missy said absolutely yes.
“It was like a totally awesome opportunity for me,” she explained to Hirsch.
Missy knew that a relationship with her old college acquaintance would give her unique access, since Judith was the sole law clerk assigned to In re Turbo XL Litigation. That meant that Missy could giggle with her over college memories and gossip about former classmates and catch up on their lives since graduation and along the way try to pick up some insights into the judge's attitude and perspective on the case, especially specific claims. She just had to be careful not to cross the line and place Judith in an awkward position by initiating any conversation about the case.
But Judith had no interest in giggling over college memories or gossiping about former classmates or catching up on their lives since graduation. And Judith hadn't invited Missy for coffee to reminisce. She wanted to talk about the case, but not the merits. Instead, she wanted to talk about the discovery materials, namely, the documents produced, the answers to interrogatories, the testimony at depositions.
Missy quickly saw that Judith's focus was not on the topics Missy had expected. Judith had no interest in the physics of tire tread separations or the testimony of the engineering experts concerning manufacturing defects or the economic losses to the victims' loved ones or any of the other issues that Missy viewed as the heart of the case. Instead, Judith was fascinated by the corporate structure of the Peterson Tire Corporation—the chain of command, who did what, who was there now, who'd been there before but was now gone, what positions each person had held while employed at the company's headquarters. And not just the top executives. She was interested in everyone within the organization, including secretaries and filing clerks and mailroom employees. Anyone and everyone who'd worked at the headquarters.
“Is that in Knoxville, Tennessee?” Hirsch asked.
“That's right.”
He was thinking of all the calls on Judith's phone bills to the 423 area code. Unlike the pair of phone numbers in the 561 area code—one for Missy's home phone and one for her office phone—at least three dozen different phone numbers in the Knoxville area code had appeared over a five-month period beginning in April of Judith's last year. She'd called the same number more than once only four times, and none more than twice.
Hirsch asked Missy about her telephone conversations with Judith. What did they talk about? What did Judith want?
Judith's first call was just a few days after they'd met for coffee in St. Louis. She wanted to know: 1. What kinds of discovery materials existed, 2. How much of it there was, and 3. how much had been converted into computer files.
The answers were: 1. every kind, 2. tons, and 3. all.
As Missy explained, over three hundred witnesses had been deposed. Transcripts of those depositions totaled almost four hundred thousand pages. As for documents, Peterson Tire alone had produced more than one million pages of them. With numbers that high, computer storage-and-retrieval systems were indispensable. Missy's firm had all of the deposition transcripts entered into a searchable database. You typed in a key word or phrase, pressed the search key, and the computer retrieved every reference by every witness to, say, the March 4 memo from Terry Fitzgerald to Jim Hedstrom. So, too, Missy's firm had used imaging software to replicate, one by one, the entire warehouse of documents produced by Peterson Tire. Those documents were also in a searchable electronic database. Thus, if you wanted to see all memos between Terry Fitzgerald and Jim Hedstrom, you could type in the search request and the computer would retrieve an image of that March 4 memo along with dozens of others between the two men.
Judith called back a few days later to ask for copies of those databases to load onto her computer. Missy was taken aback by the request. She'd never had a court ask for the raw discovery data; instead, the court only addressed those discovery materials that became an issue, either before or during trial. Judith assured her that she wanted nothing of an attorney-client nature, and certainly nothing privileged. She explained that as the sole law clerk on the case, she needed an efficient way to access the voluminous discovery records. That way, whenever certain testimony or category of documents became the subject of a motion filed in the case, Judith could quickly retrieve the relevant materials and, if necessary, print off copies for the judge.
The request sounded reasonable to Missy. Even better, it would give her firm a chance to do a favor for the judge's law clerk at little cost, since it simply involved copying existing electronic files onto CD-ROMs.
Hirsch asked, “Was she getting similar materials from lawyers for the other parties?”
“I have, like, no idea. I didn't ask, and she didn't volunteer.”
“Were you able to get her what she wanted?”
“Totally. Next time I went to St. Louis, I brought along the disks.”
“What about your subsequent phone calls with her?”
“She had lots of questions.”
“About what?”
“Like I said, mostly about employees at the headquarters. Who was this guy? Was he still there? If not, did I know where he lived now? What did he do for the company? That sort of thing.”
“Anyone specific?”
She thought about it. “No one stands out. Just lots of names and lots of questions.”
“Did you get all her questions answered?”
“I guess, but it took awhile. Judith was an e-mail fanatic. Sometimes I'd have five from her in one day.”
“Same types of questions?”
“Pretty much, but she started having specific questions about documents, too. I finally put her in touch with Becky, who
was one of our document paralegals. Judith kept poor Becky busy answering questions.”
“How long did that last?”
“I think like a couple months. I guess she finally got all her questions answered, 'cause it was like, poof, and then no more.”
“No more?”
“No more e-mails, no more questions.”
“When did that happen?”
She thought about it. “March maybe.”
“You mentioned her e-mails. Do you still have any of them—the ones to you or to your paralegal?”
“I'll ask Ray tomorrow. He's our systems guy. If they're still in there, Ray will know how to find them.”
“If he finds any, could you ask him to print out a copy for me? I'm interested in the ones she sent to you, the ones she sent to your paralegal, and the replies.”
“For sure.”
“One last thing. Did Judith ever talk to you about Judge McCormick?”
Missy gave him a curious look. “Talk about him? In what way?”
“In any way—personally or professionally.”
She thought about it as she poked her straw around the bottom of her empty milk shake glass.
“Not exactly . . . well, there was this one time. It was several months later. I was up for some mini-trials that summer. We were riding down the courthouse elevator over the lunch break, just Judith and me. She asked what we thought about the mini-trial procedure. If we were satisfied with the outcomes.”
“How'd you answer?”
“I told her we were generally happy, which was pretty much true. We had issues, but I didn't want to cross any line with her.”
“What kind of issues?”
“That was what was so weird. Our main issue was the size of the damage awards. And that's the very next thing she asked me. I was, like, ‘Whoa.' I wasn't sure how to answer. I mean, she was his law clerk, and he's the one handing out the awards. I finally said that some of us thought some of the awards were on the low side, and she asked, ‘By how much?' I told her it varied case by case. Sometimes the numbers were real good, but other times they were, like, low. I was careful not to sound like I was whining.”
“How did she react?”
“She wanted specific examples. I was like so uncomfortable, but I finally mentioned a couple recent cases. Like we'd submitted this case the month before that was worth nine hundred and twenty thousand dollars and the judge awarded only seven seventy-five.”
“What did she say?”
“Nothing really. She mostly just listened and thanked me. Then the elevator doors opened, we stepped off, and we never talked about it again.”
She thought back. “That was like our last conversation. Ever.”
CHAPTER 12
Hirsch leaned back in his office chair, laced his fingers behind his head, and stared out his office window into the night. Silhouetted against the dark sky to the north were the factories and warehouses along the Mississippi River, smokestacks pointing to the stars.
So what had he learned? he asked himself.
And where exactly was he now?
He'd spent the last three hours dialing the thirty-eight telephone numbers in the 423 area code—the numbers that had begun showing up on Judith's phone bills in March of the year she died. Eight numbers were disconnected. Twelve were picked up by answering machines, and on each he'd left a short message: his name, telephone number, and a request that they call him collect. Four other numbers rang and rang until he hung up. Three were answered by people who'd had the telephone number less than three years, and thus not at the time of Judith's call. The final eleven were answered by someone who'd had that telephone number back at the time Judith called it. Seven of them had been employees of the Peterson Tire Corporation back then. The other four were wives of employees.
None of the four wives remembered Judith's call, but each promised to ask her husband that night. Five of the seven employees he spoke with remembered the call; the other two didn't. Of the five who did, none recognized the name Judith Shifrin. Three of them couldn't remember any name, but two recalled that the woman had identified herself as—and Hirsch had written it down to be sure—“Esther Summerson.” All of the five remembered that she had told them she was a private investigator looking into matters surrounding the handling of the Turbo-XL litigation. Not into matters surrounding the litigation itself, but into matters surrounding the handling of the litigation. He wasn't sure whether the distinction made a difference, but the last of the five, and one of the two who'd specifically remembered the name Esther Summerson, insisted on the distinction. His name was Ralph Kindle.
“No, sir,” Kindle told him, “the lady said she was investigating the way the case was being handled. That was why she wanted them other names.”
Hirsch leaned back in the chair and mulled over what Kindle had said. Off in the distance, beyond the factories and warehouses, he could make out the lights of a towboat pushing a double row of barges upriver.
“What the hell are you still doing here?”
He turned from the window as Rosenbloom wheeled himself into his office. He had on his overcoat, unbuttoned, and his fedora was resting on his briefcase on his lap.
“Working,” Hirsch said.
“Something profitable, I hope.”
Hirsch gave him a shrug. “Maybe some day.”
“Not that goddamn Shifrin case again. Talk about pissing up a rope.” He gave him a jaded look. “Nu? You making any headway?”
“Hard to say. I spent the afternoon calling people in Knoxville.”
“Tennessee?”
Hirsch explained about the phone bills and Missy Shields and his thirty-eight calls.
“What do you think she was she looking for down there?” Rosenbloom asked.
“Sounds like she was trying to find someone in the executive offices who could talk to her about the tire case. None of the five who remembered her call worked in that area. They were all in sales or marketing or production.”
“Isn't Peterson a publicly held company?”
Hirsch nodded. “New York Stock Exchange.”
“So why would she bother calling those people? She could find that information on her own. The head honchos are listed in their annual report and in their ten-Ks.”
“She wasn't looking for head honchos. She wanted to talk to the people who worked for the head honchos. Secretaries, file clerks, office personnel.”
“Why?”
Hirsch shrugged. “She didn't say—or at least the ones I talked to don't recall her saying.”
“Did they give her any names?”
“Only one of them did. Guy named Kindle. Retired last year. He was a sales manager when Judith called him. She promised to keep his identity confidential if he would give her some names. He did.”
“How many?”
“Two. His secretary was friends with the CFO's secretary. A woman named Ruth. He couldn't remember her last name. The other was a guy on the accounting staff named Ron Gammons. Gammons had been Kindle's fraternity brother at the University of Tennessee.”
“Did you try to call them?”
Hirsch shook his head. “Gammons is a dead end. Literally. He died of a heart attack about a year ago. As for Ruth, I don't have a last name yet. I'm hoping her telephone number is one of the others on Judith's list. If not, maybe one of those people will know.”
Rosenbloom scratched his neck. “There could be a completely innocent explanation to her phone calls.”
“Such as?”
“Maybe there was a pending discovery motion in the case. Something having to do with getting access to documents at the company's headquarters.”
“I checked the court docket. No such motions.”
“The whole time?”
“There were motions. Lots of them. But none that would have caused her to make those calls.”
“Nothing's easy, eh?”
Hirsch nodded wearily.
“Hang in there, Samson. You're my man.�
�
Hirsch felt a surge of affection. The bond between them was as intense as it was illogical, and even without the age difference. They had nothing in common but three luminous summers in Minnesota as Sancho and Samson. Hirsch had grown up in the comfort of a middle-class Jewish family of the 1950s—father a mildly successful optometrist, mother a housewife, little sister an annoying presence in the background. Rosenbloom had grown up on the fringe—the only child of a struggling accountant who committed suicide when Rosenbloom was nine, forcing his mother to get a job at the perfume counter at Famous-Barr to put food on the table. Hirsch had a car at sixteen; Rosenbloom rode the bus until he was twenty-five. Hirsch's high school class voted him “Most Likely to Succeed.” Rosenbloom's high school class remembered him as the fat kid with the infectious laugh who couldn't do a single pull-up in gym but who regularly corrected errors Mr. Kohler made at the chalkboard while writing out solutions to calculus problems. Hirsch went to Princeton with a monthly allowance from his father. Rosenbloom went to Washington University with a scholarship and a night job. Hirsch was the golden boy of the law, a Harvard grad who became the youngest chairman in his law firm's history. Rosenbloom, despite an honors degree from the University of Chicago Law School, was deemed “too Jewish” by the major St. Louis firms. Like other brilliant lawyers of his generation deemed “too ethnic,” he fashioned a remarkable career handling collection matters and bankruptcy cases, often on referral from the very firms that had rejected him.
Hirsch glanced at his watch. Quarter after seven.
“Me? What are you doing here so late?”
“I was talking with Nathan. It's his birthday.”
“Mazel tov.” Hirsch felt a pang. “How's he doing?”
Nathan was Rosenbloom's only child—a florist living in Seattle and sharing a condo with his boyfriend, an architect named Todd.
Rosenbloom beamed. “Life is good for my little boy. The shop is doing well. He's playing the piano again. Jazz, God bless him. Even gets an occasional gig at one of the coffeehouses. He and Todd are going up to Vancouver this weekend to celebrate his birthday.”
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