The Mourning Sexton

by Michael Baron

  “That's wonderful.”

  “Oh, he's a good boy, Samson. A good boy.”

  The mere mention of Nathan's name made Rosenbloom smile. For Hirsch, though, the mere mention of Nathan's name made him wince with shame. He'd skipped Nathan's bar mitzvah to attend the bar mitzvah of a prominent real estate developer whose business he'd been hustling at the time. He'd missed Nathan's high school graduation party to attend a fund-raiser for a state senator who'd agreed to help his riverboat casino client.

  And the neglect extended beyond Nathan. The year the bankruptcy bar honored Rosenbloom as man of the year at their annual banquet, he'd bought a ticket and sent a telegram but hadn't attended. On the morning of the funeral for Rosenbloom's beloved wife, Sarah, dead of breast cancer just two months before their twenty-fifth anniversary, he'd been in a hotel room in the Central West End fucking a lissome paralegal named Stephanie. He showed up on the second night of shiva, and assumed that his reliable secretary had made the appropriate donation to an appropriate charity in memory of Sarah.

  “She didn't use her own name?”

  Hirsch looked up. “Huh?”

  “Judith. You said when she made her calls she used another name.”

  “Oh, right. She told people her name was . . .” he paused to check his notes, “Esther Summerson.”

  Rosenbloom chuckled. “Nice touch.”

  “You know her?”

  “In a way. You ever read Bleak House?”

  “No.” He remembered his conversation with Dulcie. “It was one of Judith's favorite books.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “Why?”

  “Bleak House is Charles Dickens's version of a legal thriller—and believe me, Charles Dickens could kick John Grisham's ass. Then again, Dickens could kick just about any writer's ass. At the heart of Bleak House is this massive lawsuit—a humongous probate matter called Jarndyce and Jarndyce. By the time the novel opens, the case has been pending in chancery court for decades. It's so complex that none of the lawyers or litigants is even sure what it's about anymore. Esther Summerson is this sweet innocent girl who finds herself trapped somewhere in the middle of the case.”

  “Just like Judith.”

  “I suppose.” After a moment, Rosenbloom added, “An ugly, messy case.”

  “Peterson Tire?”

  “No, Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Lots of waste and corruption.”

  “Happy ending?”

  Rosenbloom smiled. “It's Dickens, man. He loved happy endings.”

  “Must be nice.”

  Rosenbloom nodded. “Yeah, to have that kind of control. You don't get that in real life. Bummer, eh?”

  CHAPTER 13

  The Family Justice Legal Clinic occupied a storefront in an older brick building along Delmar Boulevard about a mile east of Skinker. If you stared hard at the faded letters chiseled into the concrete slab above the storefront, you could just make out the words CHOSID KOSHER POULTRY. This area had once been the heart of the Jewish business district. David's father grew up in a three-flat just a few blocks away, went to services at the synagogue around the corner, and met his mother at nearby Soldan High School.

  Since then, the three-flat had been razed to make way for public housing, the synagogue became a Baptist church, Soldan hadn't graduated a Jewish student for more than half a century, and his parents were dead.

  He stepped into the small reception area of the clinic. Seated behind the metal desk was a heavyset young black woman with braided cornrows. She was on the phone.

  “We're open Tuesday through Saturday,” she was saying.

  He nodded at her and she smiled back, holding up the thumb and forefinger of her free hand to show that the phone call was almost over. Behind her spread the main office area of the clinic, which had been divided into a half dozen cubicles, each large enough to accommodate a desk and three chairs. He could see the tops of heads in several of the cubicles.

  A baby was crying. A phone rang in one of the cubicles. A cell phone sounded in another. A mother scolded a child: “Put that down, Demetrius.”

  On the right side of the room along the storefront window was a law library with several low bookshelves and a rectangular table with four chairs. On the other side was a row of filing cabinets. Along the back wall was a conference table with seating for eight. He could see Dulcie back there, seated alongside a young Hispanic woman who was taking notes on a yellow legal pad. A student, he assumed. Dulcie was paging through a file and making comments to the Hispanic woman, who was jotting them down.

  “Can I help you, sir?” the receptionist asked.

  “I'm here to see Professor Lorenz. My name is David Hirsch.”

  A warm smile. “Just a moment, Mr. Hirsch.”

  She got up and walked toward the back of the office. The front door opened, and Hirsch turned to see a slight black woman in her twenties enter. She was holding the hand of a little black girl, maybe three years old. The woman glanced up at him with tired eyes and then averted her gaze. She took one of the seats in the reception area, pulled the little girl onto her lap, and began unbuttoning her coat as the girl squirmed. In the back of the room, the receptionist was leaning over talking to Dulcie. Then she turned toward the front, and both of them looked at Hirsch. The receptionist gestured for him to come back.

  Dulcie stood as he approached. She was wearing brown corduroy slacks, a tan turtleneck sweater, and hiking boots. The colors contrasted nicely—well, strikingly—with her dark curly hair and dark eyes. The look was academic but alluring. Very alluring.

  “Welcome to our clinic,” Dulcie said.

  There was a drop more warmth in her voice today, although just barely.

  She turned toward the student, who was gathering her things. “Gloria, this is Mr. Hirsch. He's an attorney in town. Gloria is a third-year from Chicago.”

  They shook hands. The young woman excused herself, explaining that she had to get back to school to work on a paper.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” Dulcie said, nodding toward the chairs around the conference table.

  He took a seat across from her.

  She opened her briefcase. “I was able to match several of those names,” she said, “although I doubt whether I found anything worth a special trip to the clinic.”

  “I had a meeting in Clayton this afternoon,” he lied. “Since I was already in the vicinity, I thought I'd drop by.”

  She was sorting through her papers. “I had the alumni office run your list of names against their lists.”

  She pulled out a few sheets of paper.

  “You had twelve names. There were nine hits. Four were in law school with her. Five were in the same undergraduate class. The alumni offices had current addresses for all nine.” She shrugged. “Not much else.”

  “It's a start. Maybe one of them knows something.”

  “Something?” She frowned. “Something about what?”

  As he weighed his response, he noticed her gaze shift above his left shoulder.

  From behind him a young woman said, “Professor Lorenz?”

  The voice was familiar. As he started to turn toward the speaker, he made the connection—and the room suddenly seemed to tilt.

  He struggled to his feet. She followed him up with her eyes. He took a small step backward as he gazed down at her—at those big green eyes, at the freckles sprinkled over her nose and cheeks, at that red curly hair.

  He'd thought about this moment for years. Yearned for it. Worried about it. Wondered how he should handle it if ever given the chance.

  “Lauren,” he said finally, his voice hoarse.

  She lowered her eyes.

  He gazed at his baby girl, nearly grown now.

  He wanted to hug her to him, to tell her how much he loved her, to apologize. But he didn't. He knew it would startle her, maybe upset her, definitely embarrass her, especially here.

  She looked toward Dulcie, her lower lip quivering. “I'll talk to you later.”

  Tu
rning away, she hurried toward the front, head down. He watched her grab her coat off the rack and push open the front door, stepping into the winter air with her coat only half on, moving now at almost a jog.

  He watched her disappear into the night.

  And then he turned back. Dulcie was staring at him.

  CHAPTER 14

  She shook her head. “I never made the connection.”

  “Why would you?” he said.

  “Same last name.”

  “Lots of same last names. I went to high school with a guy named Lorenz. Ted Lorenz. Any relation?”

  She put her hand over her heart in mock surprise. “You knew Great-grandpa Ted?”

  He smiled and lifted his pint of beer toward her in appreciation. She touched her martini glass in acknowledgment and gave him back a smile. It was a lovely smile.

  Back at the clinic, Dulcie broke the silence by suggesting they go have a drink. She phrased it diplomatically, mentioning that this terrific jazz trio played down the block at the Delmar Lounge every Thursday during Happy Hour and wouldn't it be nice to catch a session or two before going home.

  The trio was playing when they arrived. The two of them nursed their first drink without a word, listening to the remainder of the session, or at least pretending to. By the time the piano player announced a break, Hirsch had regained control of his emotions.

  But just barely.

  He hadn't seen either of his daughters in a decade. He missed them both keenly, but his estrangement from Lauren was the most painful. At the time of his arrest, Melissa had been a seventeen-year-old princess immersed in her own world. Lauren had been the baby sister in every respect. The softer one. The vulnerable one. Daddy's little girl, worshipping a daddy who was seldom at home and who rarely had time for her. When he left for prison, Lauren had been an awkward, plump eighth grader with braces and pimples and none of the charm and self-assurance and good looks of her older sister, now an account executive in a Seattle ad agency.

  Dulcie asked him about his daughters. He gave her the abridged version. Liza divorced him during his first year in prison and moved back home to Chicago with the girls. Two years later she became Mrs. Ronald Greenbaum, complete with a Gold Coast condominium featuring a breathtaking view of Lake Michigan. Liza made sure he knew that Lauren had gone into therapy shortly after his imprisonment and continued twice a week until she went off to college. She also made sure he understood he was to have no contact with his daughters during his incarceration, claiming it would scar them, driving the point home with a hammer letter from her lawyer.

  When he finished, Dulcie said, “Divorce can be cruel.”

  “I put them through more than a divorce.”

  He took a sip of beer. They were silent for a while.

  He finally said, “I need you to solve a personal mystery.”

  She gave him a bemused look. “Okay.”

  “Let me start by narrowing the possibilities. Can I assume that I've never slept with you?”

  She laughed. “That's a safe assumption.”

  He nodded. “Even as boozed up as I occasionally got, I would have remembered someone as remarkable as you.”

  “That's quite an unusual compliment. Thank you. I think.”

  He studied her. “If sex wasn't the reason, it must have been an old lawsuit.”

  “What must have been a lawsuit?”

  “The reason you hate me.”

  She gazed at him. “I don't hate you.”

  “But once upon a time?”

  She thought about it. “Maybe.”

  “Even so, I'm surprised I don't remember you.”

  “We never met. We talked on the phone once, but mostly I dealt with your henchmen.”

  “Which ones?”

  “Brian Morgan and Gino Vitale.”

  “So it was an employment case.”

  She nodded.

  Back then, Brian Morgan had been a junior partner and Gino Vitale an associate at the firm. The two specialized in defending companies sued for employment discrimination. They handled all of the discrimination cases for Hirsch's clients, who loved them. They were a pair of bullies who relished the mismatch of such cases—the big corporation with its litigation war chest versus the lone wage-earner plaintiff and his contingent-fee attorney.

  “Who were the parties?” he asked.

  “My client was Willie Freeman. Yours was Arch Shipping.”

  The case didn't ring a bell.

  She shook her head in wonder. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “That was a long time ago.”

  “Not for Willie.”

  He could hear the anger in her voice.

  “Refresh my recollection,” he said.

  “My client almost died in your conference room.”

  “Oh, that one.”

  “Yes, that one.”

  “You were there?”

  “I was the one giving him CPR when the paramedics arrived.”

  He nodded, trying to find the appropriate words. “You saved his life.”

  “But not his lawsuit.”

  “His life is more important.”

  “His job was his life.”

  Willie Freeman had been a fifty-four-year-old black man who'd sued Hirsch's client for age and race discrimination when his position as loading dock foreman was eliminated and his duties transferred to the warehouse foreman, a thirty-eight-year-old white male. Hirsch's litigation platoon waged a war of attrition that ended when Willie suffered a massive heart attack seven hours into the fourth straight day of his videotaped deposition.

  Hirsch later viewed the moment on videotape. Brian Morgan had just asked him a question about a negative statement by one of Freeman's co-workers. The court reporter was waiting for his answer, fingers poised above the keyboard. Freeman scowled, his breathing shallow. The silence lengthened. Off-screen, the sound of Morgan leafing through his notes stopped. The court reporter leaned toward the witness.

  “Sir,” she asked, “are you feeling—”

  Suddenly, Freeman grimaced and lurched backward. He grabbed his chest as he fell sideways off his chair and disappeared from the screen. The court reporter cried, “Oh, my God!”

  Hirsch had been across town at a board meeting when his secretary called to tell him what had happened. He hurried back in time to see them loading the black man into the ambulance parked in front of the building.

  Ten days later, while still in the intensive care unit of Barnes Hospital, Willie dropped his lawsuit. Or rather, Dulcie filed the necessary court papers for him.

  After their initial shock, Morgan and Vitale milked the victory, entertaining others in the firm with the play-by-play of what came to be known as the Demolition Depo. Hirsch's client had been quite pleased with the result, especially, according to the company's general counsel, with the “deterrence value” of the finale.

  Looking back now, of course, he felt sympathy for Dulcie. It was hard to imagine a more crushing defeat. But as he sat there in the bar, the details of the case gradually coming back, he remembered how thin her client's case had been. The court would likely have thrown it out before trial anyway. She would have lost.

  Which proved what?

  That there were two sides to the story?

  There were always two sides.

  She had good reason to be angry with him. He'd been lead counsel on the case, the first name on all the pleadings, and thus the person ultimately responsible for everything his firm did in that case, including the implementation of a macho litigation strategy that nearly killed her client and did kill his case.

  “If it makes you feel any better,” he finally said, “the wheel has turned.”

  “What's that mean?”

  “Judith's case. I'm on the receiving end this time around.”

  She took a sip of her martini. They were on their second round.

  She asked, “How many defendants?”

  “Three.”

  “Represented by big firms?�
��

  “Of course. My old law firm represents Ford. Emerson, Burke represents Peterson Tire.”

  “Who at Emerson, Burke?”

  “Lead counsel is Marvin Guttner.”

  “He's a creep.”

  “But a prince compared to Jack Bellows. He's lead counsel for Ford.”

  “I wouldn't call Bellows a creep,” she said. “I'd call him a miserable prick.”

  “I wouldn't disagree.”

  “Who's the third defendant?”

  “The air-bag manufacturer. They're represented by two lawyers at Egger and Thomas. They've been fairly low key so far.”

  “Even so, that's three law firms plus one creep and one prick. Do you have any backup?”

  “I have an excellent paralegal. She's been helping me with some of the factual research. Once we get into discovery, I'll have her help with the documents.”

  “One paralegal? That's it?”

  “Not quite,” he said, smiling. “I have this brilliant law school professor. She's been helping me identify some of Judith's former classmates.”

  That drew a grudging smile. “Brilliant, yes. But that still doesn't even the odds.”

  “It gets me closer.”

  “Speaking of those names, I don't want you to get your hopes up. I don't remember Judith talking to me about any of them. I doubt whether any will have been close enough to qualify.”

  “Qualify for what?”

  “For a loss of companionship claim.”

  “I'm not looking for that.”

  She gave him a puzzled look. “Then what are you looking for?”

  He chose his words carefully. “I am looking for someone that Judith confided in.”

  “About what?”

  “About her judge.”

  “What about her judge?”

  “I'm not sure. You told me her attitude toward her judge changed that last year.”

  She nodded. “It did.”

  He took a sip of beer. “From what I've learned so far, she seemed to have some concerns about the Peterson Tire case.”

  “What kind of concerns?”

  “I don't know, yet. But maybe they included the judge.”

  “Why would that matter?”

  “That's what I'm trying to find out.”