Chapter 28
Hoping the element of surprise would work in the absence of an actual plan, they breezed past the front desk in the Frick Building like they belonged there and made a beeline for the elevator. Connelly jabbed the up button and they hustled into the waiting elevator before anyone could stop them.
When they reached Mickey’s office suite, the receptionist was gone for the day. Her station was empty and her computer monitor dark.
Naya grabbed the arm of a paper-laden associate passing through, and he pointed them toward Mickey’s office.
They marched down the uninspired hallway. Mickey might have spent his cut of his verdicts on an expensive car—and maybe alimony for Judge Dolan, considering an Article III judge, appointed by the President of the United States, earned less per year than a first-year associate at Prescott & Talbott (before associate bonus)—but he definitely did not spend it on interior decorating. Unless he was going for a drab motif. Tan carpet that was worn and dull, blank walls, save for some scuff marks, and fluorescent lighting that made everyone—even Naya—look a little green.
It was all part of the game. Just as Prescott & Talbott’s clients expected their attorneys’ offices to be well appointed and refined, Mickey’s clients expected his office to be a barebones, threadbare operation. He was their champion, a fighter for the little guy. The fact that he belonged to Oakmont Country Club and sent his kids to Shadyside Academy was his dirty little secret.
The door to his office was ajar, so they sailed right in.
Mickey was packing up to leave for the day. When he saw Sasha, he put down his battered leather satchel and gave her a big smile that faded into a look of concern as he remembered the news about Noah.
He came around the front of his walnut desk and grabbed both her arms, more than a handshake, but not quite a hug. “Sasha, I’m so sorry about Noah.”
Then he focused on her bruised face. Flicked his eyes to Connelly’s injuries. “What happened to you?”
“Mickey, we need to talk.”
He gestured for them to have a seat on the worn green couch along the wall. Naya and Sasha sat, while Connelly shut the door and Mickey dragged over an extra chair from in front of his desk.
He ran a hand through his slightly too long, wavy silver hair. The criminal defense attorneys tended to wear ponytails in an effort to appeal to their clientele. The big firm lawyers were all clean shaven with haircuts that conformed to military regulations to appeal to theirs. The plaintiffs’ bar straddled the middle. Some had beards. Others, like Mickey, grew their hair until it touched their collars.
“What’s going on?” He cut his eyes back to Connelly.
“Mickey, you remember Naya, I’m sure. This is Special Agent Leo Connelly with the Department of Homeland Security.” It was technically true and sounded scarier than air marshal.
Connelly extended a hand but didn’t smile. “Mr. Collins.”
Mickey shook it with clear reluctance. “Agent Connelly.”
Then he turned his charm on for Naya. “I’m glad to see your gorgeous face doesn’t have a scratch on it.”
Naya gave him a tight smile.
“Listen, Mickey,” Sasha said, watching his face for a reaction, “Agent Connelly is investigating the crash and Noah’s death. He came to me for information about you. He wants to take you into custody as a material witness. I told him there must be some misunderstanding, and I know you can clear it up.”
Not bad for no plan, she thought.
Mickey blanched gray under his perpetual tan. His eyes grew wide. “What?!”
Sasha said nothing. She hoped Naya and Connelly would follow suit. If Mickey had one weakness as an attorney it was his inability to stand silence.
She’d seen Noah get him to negotiate against himself simply by remaining silent. Mickey couldn’t take it; he would lower his settlement demand to try to get a response.
Mickey spread his hands wide, “Why? I don’t understand.”
He looked from Sasha to Connelly and back.
She waited.
Mickey’s eyes filled with understanding and he slumped in his chair. “It’s Irwin, isn’t it?”
“Why don’t you tell us about your relationship with Mr. Irwin?” Connelly said.
“We were roommates in college,” Mickey said. “At CMU.” He shook his head. “Freaking Jerry Irwin.”
“Did Mr. Irwin approach you with the plan or did you approach him?”
“Approach? What plan?”
“Mickey,” Sasha said, “we don’t have time to play around. We know you and Irwin crashed that plane. Which one of you killed Noah?”
Mickey’s head snapped back. “What the hell are you talking about, Sasha?”
“Seriously, Mickey. I went out on a limb for you. Tell Agent Connelly what you know already.”
“What I know? What I know is Jerry Irwin is a goddamn psychopath. I would cross over and work with you assholes before I would get in bed with Irwin.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say about your old college buddy,” Naya observed.
“Irwin is no buddy of mine.” Mickey was tugging at the buttons on his white-collared blue dress shirt.
He struggled with them and ripped open the shirt. He wore no undershirt.
“Look at this! You see this scar? Irwin did that.” Mickey pointed to a jagged line that ran diagonally across his chest from his clavicle to his rib cage.
Connelly leaned in for a look. “How?”
“With a broken beer bottle.” Mickey started to button back up. It was slow going because his hands were shaking. Sasha looked away.
Naya asked in a soft voice, “Why?”
Mickey met her eyes. “Because he’s crazy. We were roommates our freshman year. Assigned, not by choice. I was taking political science classes and he was in the engineering school. He was a typical nerd—awkward, analytical, humorless. I made a lot of friends pretty quickly. Irwin, not so much. I felt bad for him. So, during Tech Fair . . .”
“What Fair?” Connelly asked.
“Tech Fair,” Sasha said. “It’s like a spring carnival, with booths and rides. The engineering school is really strong at Carnegie Mellon, so they design amazing stuff. But there’s bands and partying, too.”
“Right. Anyway, I was a pledge in a fraternity and I had been invited to a bunch of parties.”
Sasha nodded. Beginning in high school, she and her friends had been able to wander away from the games and into the fraternity parties. Back then at least, there was an unusually high male-to-female ratio at CMU, so just about any girl over the age of fifteen could walk into a party, but guys had to know someone. Although the eager fraternity brothers had discriminated on the basis of gender, they didn’t do so on the basis of age. Her first taste of alcohol had been warm grain punch served in a plastic cup at one such party when she was a sophomore in high school.
Mickey continued, “I had one invite for this party, so I took Irwin along. You know, to be nice.” He pulled a sour face at the memory. “And Irwin got really drunk. He had been trying to talk to some girl all night and the more he drank, the more he pestered her. The brothers were starting to get pissed off, so I tried to talk to him. Told him we should go get some air. He agreed right away. Like, no problem. Brought his beer bottle with him. Once we were outside behind the house, he smashed it against the wall and just lunged at me. He was a madman, slashing at me, screaming that I was trying to move in on his action. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like it. Some of the fraternity brothers ran out and wrestled him off me. Got me to the hospital. I needed forty-two stitches. Lost a ton of blood.” Mickey shook his head like he was trying to dislodge the memory.
“Did you press charges?”
“No. I slept at the fraternity house for the rest of the semester. Stayed away from him.” His face was etched with fear and hatred at the memory.
Sasha and Connelly exchanged a look. Then Sasha glanced at Naya, who nodded. They all believed
Mickey was telling the truth.
“That’s why you didn’t sign Mrs. Calvaruso up as your class rep after you heard Irwin had made her husband’s reservation?” Sasha said.
Mickey cocked his head at the information. Sasha watched him consider asking who in his firm had been yapping and saw him decide to let it go.
“That’s right. I don’t want anything to do with Jerry Irwin.”
“Someone does, though. He’s behind the crash, Mickey. And behind Noah’s death, I think. But he has a partner. Someone local. Any ideas?”
Mickey shook his head. “Not really. Did he do that to you?” Mickey waved a hand at Sasha’s face.
“Yes.”
“And you?” He pointed to Connelly.
“No. That was her.” Connelly pointed at Sasha.
Mickey took that in.
“But Irwin did have one of his employees killed.”
Mickey nodded, “So, what’s the plan?”
And this time, Sasha had one.
“We think there are at least four more planes that he has the ability to crash,” Sasha said, skimming over the details. “All owned by Hemisphere Air. If someone filed a temporary restraining order tomorrow morning seeking an injunction to ground those planes, thousands of lives will be saved.” She stared at Mickey.
Mickey stared back. “Hemisphere Air’s your client. Why doesn’t Bob Metz just ground the planes? Hell, ground the entire fleet.”
“Metz is off the case. Vivian’s running it.”
Mickey groaned. “Let me guess, Viv Coulter won’t take those planes out of service because she has a duty to her shareholders to maximize their profits?”
“If she said something amazingly similar to that it would be an attorney-client privileged communication,” Sasha said.
Connelly was getting antsy again. He stood up and paced over to the window behind Mickey’s desk. He pressed his forehead against the smeared glass and stared down at the parking lot below. He zeroed in on the silver Camry with Maryland plates parked next to Mickey’s ride.
Mickey shook his head, “I don’t have the manpower to draft up a TRO tonight. Not to mention, I don’t have any factual basis for one. Judge Cook would laugh me out of court.”
“Cook?”
“Yeah, Judge Cook is hearing them tomorrow. I have a friend in the clerk’s office call me at the end of the day to let me know who’s up for emergency motions the next day. Some emergencies, they can wait a day or two for the right judge.” He smiled.
Naya sat up a little straighter. Sasha knew she was making a mental note to talk to her own friend at the courthouse about getting that same advance information going forward.
“Cook is perfect,” Sasha said. “I can guarantee you’ll win.”
Mickey looked like he didn’t want to know any details. “I do want to help you, but I’m not kidding, I can’t draft a TRO overnight.”
An emergency temporary restraining order, or TRO, wasn’t the sort of document an attorney could just dash off. The standard for obtaining one was very high because the effect of a TRO was to immediately restrain or enjoin a party from taking some action.
Under the rules of procedure, a federal judge could actually grant a temporary restraining order ex parte, or without notice to the defendant. But, in the Western District of Pennsylvania, the practice was to provide notice to the other side when it was feasible. Often, the parties would work something out without court involvement after notice of the motion for a temporary restraining order. In this case, Sasha would show up and argue against the restraining order. She had no doubt that once he heard Hemisphere Air’s position, Judge Cook would trip over himself to grant it.
“No worries. What’s in your bag?” She nodded at the leather case he’d dropped on the desk when they barged in.
He didn’t answer.
“Nothing, right? Maybe some legal magazines, some administrative paperwork? Just enough to weigh it down so the underlings think you’re taking work home when you cruise out of here early?”
Partners were all the same. Didn’t matter if they were plaintiff side or defense. They wanted their associates to feel like they were rolling up their sleeves, too.
Mickey gave her a wry smile. “More or less.”
“Give me your bag. I’ll have it messengered out to your house before midnight with a motion for a TRO ready for your signature. All you’ll have to do is file it when the courthouse opens in the morning.”
Mickey looked at her for a very long time. “We could both lose our licenses.”
“We could. Or we could just agree that you lost your briefcase and, nice girl that I am, I found it and returned it. And I’ll lose an argument on a motion for an emergency TRO tomorrow. That’s it.”
Mickey traced the path of his scar through his shirt. He swallowed, then he nodded
“Sasha, I’m not so worried about me. Hell, a temporary disbarment would be great advertising for me—Mickey Collins puts his client’s interests before his own or something. But, you could tank your career at a place like Prescott.”
Sasha didn’t want to talk about it. “We’ll get the motion to you as soon as we can, Mickey.”
Connelly picked the bag up from the desk and Naya and Sasha stood to leave.
“Good night,” Mickey said.
“See you in court,” she replied, mainly because no one ever said it in real life and she’d always wanted to.
When they reached the ground floor, Connelly said he had some business of his own to attend to. He didn’t say what it was.
Sasha and Connelly agreed to split up and meet back at her place for a very late dinner and to work out their next steps. She gave him her spare key.
Connelly walked them back to their building. At the entranceway, he told Naya he needed to speak to Sasha alone, so Naya went in and called the elevator.
Sasha shivered. It was almost dark now and the wind had picked up. A discarded fast food wrapper whipped against her ankle. “What’s up, Connelly?” she demanded, hopping from foot to foot to stay warm.
“You can’t let your guard down,” he said.
“I know.” She was annoyed.
“I’m worried about those guys who jumped you. They have to be somewhere nearby. The car’s still here.”
“They’re probably holed up in a hotel room near the courthouse, like you said,” she answered. “That first guy is in no condition to travel.”
“Even so,” he said. He was staring at her.
“Connelly, it’s cold out here. Give me Mickey’s bag. I’m going in.”
He held the bag out to her. As she reached for it, he wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her tight against his body. Anyone watching would have thought they were lovers saying good night.
He bent down and put his mouth to her ear. His breath was warm. “I’m putting my gun in your purse right now,” he whispered. The strap tugged against her shoulder as her bag took on the extra weight. “The safety’s on.”
She pulled her head back and craned her neck to see his face. “I don’t want your gun.”
“Just humor me, Sasha.”
“Whatever, Connelly. Fine.” Her back was getting tight from the cold.
He tightened his grip on her waist. “Why don’t you ever call me Leo?”
“Okay, Leo, let go of my waist right now.”
He dropped his arm abruptly, and she stumbled. She caught her balance and headed for the door without looking back.
Naya was holding the elevator door open. “You okay?” she asked, as Sasha hurried into the elevator car.
“Fine. Why?”
“You’re shaking.”
“It’s just from the cold.”
Irreparable Harm (A Legal Thriller) Page 41
