A House Divided

by Robert Whitlow

  But what upset Corbin more was the judge praising Ray’s decision to join forces with Simpkin, Brown, and Stamper. Judge Perry was right about the development of Ray’s ability as a trial lawyer, but both he and Roxy were wrong that Ray should throw away his talent working for someone like Darryl Simpkin. Corbin’s relationship with his son wasn’t what it should be, but he still had an obligation as his father to try to keep him from making a huge mistake.

  Corbin pulled out his phone and called Ray.

  EIGHTEEN

  Roxy stared out her office window. She and Ray had just finished one of their more honest discussions about their father, a conversation that was long overdue.

  “You’ve made the right decision about what’s best for Billy,” Roxy said after Ray explained what he’d done. “Just because Dad didn’t put up a fight, don’t get blindsided if he comes at you from another angle. He’s cagy.”

  “I don’t know. You should have seen the look in his eyes at the hospital. He was hurt in more ways than one.”

  “That’s what I’m talking about. He’ll mess with your mind. He’s never honestly looked in the mirror, so when he tries to manipulate everyone around him, he doesn’t feel guilty about it. Mom never could separate the image of who she wanted him to be from the reality of who he was.”

  “And she never stopped hoping and praying for him. Who’s going to do that now?”

  “Not me. I used to lie awake at night worrying about him getting drunk and killing someone, but I had to stop because it was out of my control. Now I don’t expect anything from him, so I can’t be disappointed. Make your decision and stick to it. Protecting Billy from danger isn’t an option. Cindy is 100 percent right.”

  “I guess so.”

  “Oh, and I told Dad the other day to stop pestering you and let you find your own way as a lawyer.”

  “You talked to him?”

  “After I found out he’d cut his face. For us it was a good conversation. I told him it would be great if you went to work for the Simpkin firm and warned him not to jump in and micromanage your career. I also told him to steer clear of a crazy lawsuit he was thinking about filing against the fertilizer company. For once he seemed to listen.”

  “It still hurts to think—”

  “Hold steady,” Roxy cut in. “Living in Alto you can’t avoid him like I can, but you need to transition to as healthy a relationship as possible. Using the word ‘limits’ with him is perfect. It sounds harsh, but it’s the truth.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Ray replied slowly. “As usual.”

  “Let’s talk again soon.”

  Roxy replayed in her mind what she’d said to Ray. As the child of an alcoholic, she knew the desire to control as much of her life as possible was based on the emotional chaos she’d experienced growing up. A troubled childhood could either destroy a person or make her stronger. She’d chosen the path of survival and strength. But that didn’t help her shake the memory of the sorrow that never left her mother’s eyes. Kitty had been too sweet a soul to suffer such deep disappointment.

  Corbin ignored Janelle, went into his office, and closed the door. He stared at a picture on his credenza of Billy holding a long stringer of fish. One Saturday they’d happened on a bunch of bream huddled together at the shallow end of Hackburn’s Lake, their other favorite fishing spot. Billy pulled the fish out of the water as fast as Corbin could bait the hook. Corbin cut off thin filets, rolled the fish in cornmeal, and fried them in hot oil. The sweet meat tasted better than candy.

  There was a light knock on Corbin’s door. He didn’t respond. Janelle should have been able to tell from his body language that he wanted to be left alone. There was another knock, and then the door opened and Ray appeared.

  “I got your call,” he said. “How’s the eye?”

  “What do you think?” Corbin replied, touching the bandage.

  “The bruising is worse. Has there been any bleeding?”

  “No. Come in and have a seat.”

  Although they’d meet for lunch occasionally, it had been months since Ray had visited the office. Corbin glanced around and regretted the mess he’d failed to clean up.

  “There’s something I need to talk to you about,” Ray began.

  “I already know. Judge Perry couldn’t wait to congratulate me about your move to Simpkin, Brown, and Stamper. You’d have thought you won the lottery. Have you signed an employment contract yet?”

  “No, but the offer is solid. Nate Stamper confirmed it yesterday. All we need to work out are the specific terms.”

  “Then it’s not finalized.”

  “In my mind it’s set,” Ray said, looking directly into Corbin’s eyes. “I know what you think about it and why you feel that way. But it’s my life, my career, and my family.”

  Corbin shifted in his chair. “But I thought we were going to talk seriously about the possibility of you coming in with me. The potential you could earn in a contingency practice is way more than what you’re looking at grinding it out by the hour over there.”

  “Potential isn’t what I’m interested in, Dad. I want security, and a chance to learn.”

  Corbin leaned forward. “Colonel Parker was the finest trial lawyer in this circuit, and he passed everything he knew along to me. I admit that I’ve not applied myself as much as I should have the past few years, but if you were in the office it would be like fresh wind in my sails.”

  “I don’t want to hurt your feelings.” Ray shook his head. “But that’s not happening. Not now, not ever.”

  “Is this you talking or Cindy?”

  “It’s my decision. She agrees.”

  Corbin glanced down at the floor for a moment, then looked up with obvious disappointment in his eyes. “I had to try.”

  “I know, and I appreciate the opportunity even though I’m not going to take it.”

  Corbin swiveled sideways in his chair.

  “One other thing,” Ray said. “I need to talk to you about Billy.”

  “What about him?”

  “You saw this coming the other night in the ER. We’re going to put limits on your time with him. I know you love him, but we can’t risk a situation where your drinking puts him in danger. It was bad enough that you got hurt, but what if something had happened to him?”

  “He wasn’t in any danger.”

  “You drove him to our house after you’d been drinking on the boat. That’s not going to happen again.”

  “I was fine.”

  “No, you weren’t, Dad. I’m not saying you slipped and fell because you were drunk, but you were impaired. It was obvious to me at the hospital, and I bet your blood alcohol content would confirm it.”

  Corbin wrinkled his brow and pushed his hair away from his face. “Is this your idea of punishing me?” he asked in a husky voice. “I’ve made plenty of mistakes in my life, but my relationship with Billy isn’t one of them.”

  “Are you even listening to me?” Ray asked in exasperation. “All I’m saying is there are going to be limits. If something happened to Billy while he was with you, it would devastate you.”

  “He broke his arm when Cindy took him to the playground.”

  “Come on. You know what I’m talking about.”

  “What kind of limits?”

  “Cindy and I will talk it over with you later.”

  “I can imagine how that conversation will go,” Corbin grunted. “Anything else you want to say to beat me down? You won’t listen to my advice about your legal career, and you don’t give a rip about my relationship with my grandson.”

  “That’s it for now,” Ray said testily.

  Corbin watched his son’s broad back disappear through the doorway. A few seconds later Janelle appeared.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened in court?”

  “That’s not important. I just talked to Ray, and he’s not going to let me see Billy on my own.”

  “Wha
t?”

  Corbin pushed his hair out of his face with his hand. “That’s not totally accurate, but it feels like it to me. He and Cindy are going to limit my ability to see Billy. They’re worried he might get hurt when we’re together.”

  “Oh . . . it’s because . . .” Janelle hesitated.

  Corbin, who was staring at the top of his desk, glanced up at her. “Yeah, they’re trying to make my drinking into a bigger deal than it is. I’ve never gone too far when I’ve been with Billy, and I never would.” He touched the bandage on his face. “This was caused by wet grass, nothing else, but they’re using it as an excuse.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, clearing her throat. “Maybe Billy could come over here every so often after he gets out of school. You could spend time with him in your office, reading a book or playing a game.”

  “With you as a chaperone?”

  “If that’s what it takes,” Janelle replied with an edge to her voice. “Look, I’m trying to help. If you want to mope around and feel sorry for yourself, that’s your choice.”

  “I can count on you to turn a feather into a sharp stick,” Corbin said bitterly. “I’ll probably end up standing alone outside the fence while he plays ball or sitting by myself in the school auditorium watching him in a play.”

  “You should have been doing that already. Corbin, you decide in your head what you’re going to do in a situation, and that ends any discussion. That’s the way you act with Ray, me, anybody. If you were a little more flexible, people would appreciate it.”

  “I’ve been getting more than my share of free advice lately.”

  “Which should tell you something.”

  Corbin pointed to the Anderson file that he’d dropped on his desk. “I have a lowball offer to settle, but before I call the client, get on the phone with the hospital and the chiropractor’s office and see if you can convince them to reduce their liens by half. Remind them that if I don’t collect anything they won’t get a dime. I want the client to get something out of this.” Corbin paused. “And I need to make enough to buy a pair of socks that match.”

  NINETEEN

  Once the lingering effects of any hangover passed, mid- to late morning was Corbin’s most productive time of day. Concepts that had been fuzzy the previous afternoon came into clearer focus. He quickly concluded there was only one way to proceed against Colfax—file a multicount complaint that alleged liability under every possible legal theory, then use discovery to separate the wheat from the chaff. He hoped there would be a few kernels of wheat left after the sifting was complete.

  Under the notice pleading rules it wasn’t necessary to lay out exactly what the company did wrong, but Corbin wanted to include enough specific information to convince the company that he’d been investigating it. He went out to Janelle’s desk.

  “Who do you know that works at Colfax?” he asked.

  “Uh, that would be half the people with jobs in Rusk County.”

  “I need an employee willing to nose around and provide information about what they dumped on the land near our client’s property.”

  “I’m not sure about that. Maybe Tommy Kilpatrick has a contact who would help.”

  “Good idea.” Corbin turned on his heel and returned to his office. When he called Tommy’s number, Larissa answered.

  “This is Corbin Gage. Is Tommy available?”

  “We talked about the lawsuit until late last night,” Larissa said, ignoring his question. “Could we end up owing money if we lose? Or have to pay Colfax’s lawyer bills? If that happened I know we’d have to file for bankruptcy like Millie, which would make it hard for Mitchell to get the treatment he needs. There’s no way, we’re—”

  “No, no,” Corbin cut in. “As long as we have any kind of argument that Colfax is responsible for Mitchell getting sick, there’s no chance you’d get hit with attorney fees.”

  “That’s not what Tommy saw on the Internet.”

  Corbin rolled his eyes. The World Wide Web was great for some things, but it was a headache for lawyers whose clients mined it for dubious data used to second-guess what their attorney told them.

  “Print it off if you want and bring it into the office the next time we meet, and I’ll explain why that’s not likely or even possible. May I speak to Tommy now?”

  “All right,” Larissa said slowly. “I’ll fetch him.”

  Tommy came on the line, and Corbin told him what he wanted to find out.

  “Yeah, I can ask a buddy to pull the material safety data sheets from the drums of chemicals that may have been involved. The only thing is he won’t know for sure if that’s what they broadcast on the ground.”

  “It’s a start.”

  “Okay, I’ll send him a text message as soon as we hang up.”

  “Warn him to be careful that no one knows what he’s up to. Don’t mention we’re filing a lawsuit.”

  “He’ll want a reason.”

  Corbin thought for a moment. “Tell him it’s because your water tastes funny and you want to have it tested to see if there’s anything in it that came from the plant. That’s the truth because we’ll have the groundwater analyzed as part of the litigation.”

  Corbin ended the call, and Janelle buzzed him.

  “Mr. Anderson is on the phone.”

  “Were you able to make any progress knocking down the medical liens?”

  “Yes, with the chiropractor. He’ll take 60 percent. The woman at the hospital has to get back to me.”

  “Okay.”

  After Corbin explained the options to the client, he agreed to settle.

  “Take it,” Anderson said. “The insurance adjuster who called me after the wreck wasn’t going to give me anything, so I’ll be tickled to get a check.”

  “Oh, you’d be interested to know the insurance company sent someone out to spy on you.”

  “Yeah, I knew they was snooping around. No strangers come down our road without us knowing about it. A man and woman in a car with heavy tint on the windows parked near the garden while my brother was hoeing. I bet they took a bunch of pictures of Sammy. People mix us up all the time.”

  The news made Corbin pause. He could let Henry Byram or his boss argue that the client wasn’t injured and produce a video as proof. When the jury realized the investigator filmed the wrong person, it could bust the case open. It was the type of evidence that produced courtroom laughs that translated into verdict dollars. Corbin explained it to his client.

  “That might be fun for you, Mr. Gage, but I’m glad we don’t have to go to court. I wasn’t looking forward to it.”

  “Okay, we’ll see what we can do with the bill to the hospital. That will have an impact on what you clear.”

  “Do your best. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me. No one else was willing to take on my case.”

  “That describes a lot of what I do,” Corbin replied.

  After Janelle left for the day, Corbin stayed at the office working on the Colfax complaint. But in the back of his mind was the message he’d listened to on his phone inviting him to supper the following evening with Ray, Cindy, and Billy. He knew the invitation wasn’t about fried chicken and creamed corn. He was a convict waiting to hear his sentence. Checking his watch, Corbin had an idea how he might enhance a plea for mercy.

  Getting in his truck, he drove away from the center of town, but instead of accelerating once he reached the city limits, he slowly approached the Hopewell Methodist Church. Again there was a handful of cars in the parking lot, including Max Hogan’s older model sedan. Corbin put on the blinker of his truck and eased into the space beside it. He turned off the motor but didn’t move. What seemed like a brilliant strategy while sitting in his office had turned daunting during the three-minute drive to the church.

  Like everyone, Corbin was familiar with the famous introductory line for AA participants: “My name is _______ and I am an alcoholic,” and the standard response, “Hi, ______.” He was aware of the existence of a twelve-
step plan for recovery that included reference to a “higher power,” the “God of your understanding,” or something like that, but he couldn’t name a single one of the steps if someone pointed a gun to his head.

  Corbin didn’t consider himself an alcoholic, because he could go several days without drinking. He only drank because of the mellow state of mind it brought him. As he sat in his truck he felt the twinge of a headache, which reminded him that he also drank to ward off headaches. And he frequently drank alone. And he drank when he started to feel shaky on the inside. And he drank when he felt depressed. And he drank because it made him feel more alive. And he drank to ease an inner pain that nothing else could touch. He paused. And he knew that many people in his life considered his drinking a problem. Otherwise he wouldn’t be eating supper with Ray and Cindy in twenty-four hours to find out how they were going to restrict his contact with Billy.

  Corbin looked at his reflection in the rearview mirror of the truck. His right eye was bruised; his left eye slightly runny.

  He thought about Kitty.

  Death was more final than divorce. When Kitty was alive he could always do something nice for her to let her know he cared even though he’d messed up their marriage. Pay Branson Kilpatrick’s bill for cutting the grass and putting out extra fertilizer on the plants; ask her to make a list of things that needed to be done around the house and take care of them while she was out running errands on Saturday mornings; buy her a gift card for her favorite dress shop and leave it peeking out from the edge of the mat in front of the door. He’d write notes, especially after he’d had a few drinks, begging for her forgiveness, none of which he ever gave her. Now there was no way to touch her, even from a distance.

  He knew Kitty would want him to go inside the church. She’d want him to do it for himself. She’d want him to do it for Billy. She’d want him to do it for her. Corbin tightly gripped the steering wheel with his hands, but in his heart he knew it was time to let go.