Wrongful Termination

by Mike Farris

  The footsteps in the house stopped. “J.D., if that’s you, please say something. I’ve got the phone in my hand, and I’m dialing nine-one-one if you don’t.”

  The lawyer lay still. A pool of blood formed on the concrete floor around his head, like a grotesque halo. No sound passed his lips, no breath escaped his nostrils. The only noise was the gurgle of fluid in his windpipe.

  The attacker heard the beeping sound of numbers being punched on a cell phone, followed by the muted sounds of a woman’s voice, speaking low, but still near. Talking to the emergency dispatcher, no doubt.

  He straightened up and punched the button next to the door. The light came back on as the garage door groaned and rattled its way upward. Halfway open, he punched the button again. The door halted its rise then kicked into reverse and started descending once more. He grabbed the lawyer’s wallet, turned, and raced for the exit, then dove forward. The closing door just grazed him as he rolled out, and it slammed into the concrete.

  From inside the garage, a woman screamed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  I struggled with my emotions as I watched Meg pack. I felt as empty inside as her office was starting to look. Three banker’s boxes had already been stacked next to the side wall. Her bookshelf stood empty, the walls stripped bare of their hangings. She threw personal belongings from the desk drawers into an open box on her desk.

  I checked my watch. Almost five o’clock.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  She picked up an envelope and held it toward me. I opened it and took out the single page inside. Set in memo form, she had addressed it to Alvin Peoples as managing partner. The terse message said:

  I hereby tender my resignation, effective immediately.

  She continued packing. I folded the memo, put it back in the envelope, and tossed it on her desk.

  “I can’t let them fire me,” she said. “Not if I want to get on with another firm. It’ll be better if I’m on record as quitting.”

  “If they fired you for whistle-blowing, you could sue them.”

  “If I can prove it. Which I can’t. I’d need all the detailed back-up on the billing, and I don’t have that.”

  “But you’ve got the memo on the Swanson case.”

  “Which Tripp will say I wrote after the fact. It doesn’t prove anything.” She shook her head and closed another box. “No, the billing’s the thing. I’ve only got what I’ve got, and I’ll never have what I can’t get. So it’s better this way. The firm said they’d give me a recommendation if I resign.”

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means I don’t have all the billing records, and I’ll never be able to get them. I figure they’ve already cancelled my security code, so I won’t be able to get back in after I leave today.” She laughed. “It could always be worse. I saw in the paper that a lawyer got killed in his garage last night.”

  “You’re kidding me. Who?”

  “Some guy named J.D. Douglas at Freeman and Willis. The paper said he did a lot of white collar criminal defense. Mostly government contractors working in Iraq. Somebody stabbed him in the back, then cut his throat. All just for his wallet.”

  “Unbelievable!”

  “So, see, things aren’t so bad for me.” She came around from behind her desk and hugged me, then kissed me on the cheek.

  “Aren’t you afraid someone’ll see us?” I asked.

  “Screw ’em.”

  I squeezed her tightly. “Yeah. Screw ’em.”

  *

  The elevator opened on the dimly lit level where Black West’s partners parked their cars. I got off and headed toward my Jeep, eyes fixed on the concrete floor. The darkness was oppressive. Each step seemed like a weight that threatened to pull me down. Things would be different with Meg gone. I would no longer be able to see her every day, to drop by her office whenever I wanted, just to say “hi.” I hoped we would stay in touch, but random phone calls and the occasional lunch would be a poor substitute.

  I had just reached the car when I heard a sharp voice call my name. I turned and saw Tripp Malloy approaching.

  I held my ground until he reached me. “Not now, Tripp. It’s been a bad day.”

  “I heard you went whining to the Management Committee about your little girlfriend.”

  I threw a finger up in his face. “Watch your mouth.”

  He flinched then backed off a step. Like all bullies, he was a true coward at heart.

  “You did go to the committee, though, didn’t you?” he said.

  “I called Steve McGinnis, but you already know that. And you already know what he said.”

  He laughed. “I guess you’ll have to give up getting it at the office, won’t you?”

  I mustered all the calm I could. I was a hair-trigger away from assault and battery.

  “You’re a real dick, you know that?”

  His voice dropped to a low monotone. I was shocked when I felt a chill course down my spine. “Don’t underestimate me, Muckleroy. I ran Meg off, and I can run you off, too.”

  “You think so?”

  “No one wants to see what’ll happen to this firm if I yank my business and go elsewhere. If I call for your ass, I’ll get it.”

  “That’s a challenge I look forward to. By the time I get through pulling all your skeletons out of the closet, it’ll look like we dug up a graveyard.”

  Tripp pulled himself to his full height. It looked as if he was standing on his tiptoes, trying to stretch to my eye level.

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” he asked.

  “You’ll hang yourself with your own records.”

  “Dream on.”

  “You just better be sure you’ve got ’em all. You don’t want things falling into the wrong hands. Like Horace Swanson’s.”

  I turned to open my car door, but Tripp grabbed my arm and jerked me around.

  “Have you got that memo?”

  “I thought there wasn’t one. Or was I misinformed?”

  I opened the car door and tossed my briefcase inside. Then I slid in behind the wheel.

  “As of right now, you’re off the Patterson case,” Tripp said before I could close the door.

  “I thought Bill Patterson personally asked for me.”

  “You are to send all of the file back to me, ASAP. I don’t want you to have any more contact with anyone there. You got it? It’s my client, my file. You stay the hell away from both.”

  He let go of the door, and I slammed it. I cranked the engine then powered down the window as Tripp walked to the elevators. I backed out of my space and drove up beside him. He glanced over his shoulder as though I might run him over. The thought did cross my mind.

  “If I were you, I’d button it up about Meg,” I said. “Your bones definitely look brittle.”

  I rolled up the window and burned off. Tripp double-timed it to the elevators before I could throw it in reverse and back over him.

  *

  I waited until after midnight to return to the office. The cleaning crews were finished by then and, other than the night word-processing crew, the office should be clear.

  I pulled into the parking garage in the building across the street. I had no reason to think my steps would be traced later, but I also saw no reason to be careless. I had to use my security code to access the office, but that couldn’t be helped. If things went well, no one would have reason to suspect I had been there. If things didn’t go well, using my security code would be the least of my worries.

  After parking, I crossed the street and entered the firm’s building. I wore a suit with my tie tugged down and carried my biggest briefcase, a clue to the security guards at the front desk that I was just another harried, overworked lawyer in the middle of a big trial. Rather than give me away, my obvious case of nerves reinforced the charade. I punched in my security code to call an elevator then walked quickly to the open car and boarded.

  I got off on my floor to darkn
ess. Only a faint light over an emergency phone by the elevators offered any relief. I rounded the corner, went down the hallway in front of the library, and entered another security door after punching my code on the keypad beside it.

  I was afraid to turn on lights, so I went to my office in the dark, where I took a pair of tennis shoes and a flashlight from the briefcase. After putting on the shoes, I descended two flights on the stairwell. The darkness made maneuvering a bit tricky, so I went slowly, feeling my way. The rubber-soled shoes muffled my footsteps on the marble stairs.

  Unfortunately, the accounting and billing departments were housed just beyond the word-processing department. I knew that a night crew of at least five women was hard at work typing documents that last-minute lawyers insisted on having Monday morning. Luckily they all wore headsets or earbuds as their fingers stroked keyboards, oblivious to my presence as I passed by.

  I reached the file room, stepped inside, and closed the door. Only then did I click on the flashlight. I found the hard copy of Tripp’s billing records easily enough. The file on Patterson McBain, which included the computer time-entries on a daily basis, filled a folder eight inches thick. I grabbed the entire file and tucked it under my arm. As an afterthought, I also grabbed the Lacewell Industries billing files—about half the thickness of Patterson’s—on the way out. Before I left the room, I turned off the flashlight and stuck it in my pocket.

  Slowly, I opened the door and peered outside.

  No one in sight.

  I slipped down the hallway, around the corner, and to the stairwell. A few minutes later I was back on my familiar floor. Files in hand, I entered the photocopy room directly across from my office. As I had done downstairs, I closed the door then turned on the flashlight.

  The photocopier had an attachment that required entry of a valid attorney number and client-matter number. I found an attorney roster on the cabinet that listed every attorney’s number. I ran my finger down the list until I came across a corporate associate who had just joined the firm. I plugged in his number then punched in a general code for firm administration.

  I copied the documents and put them back in the file in the proper order. Even with the speed of modern photocopiers, it took close to an hour to complete the process. Undoing staples proved the biggest drag on time. I felt as if I had held my breath the entire hour, causing a little light-headedness toward the end. Great lakes of sweat soaked the armpits of my suit jacket.

  After I turned off the flashlight and returned to my office, I put the copied documents in the trial briefcase then took the original files back to the file room. Again, I encountered no one. I replaced the files and went upstairs. I had one more stop to make.

  Tripp officed on the floor above mine, just around the corner from Meg. As I thought of her office, soon to be home to a new associate, I remembered that our practice of my giving her massages had originated there. Had Tripp noticed how often I had gone in there and closed the door? Or, worse yet, had Tripp bugged her office? Had he bugged all his associates’ offices? I knew he was fanatical about associates keeping regular office hours and always seemed informed as to their comings and goings. He kept charts and graphs on their productivity, which he used to justify higher or lower raises and bonuses. More than once I had heard associates, besides Meg, complain about his lectures on profitability, billable hours, and efficient use of time. Had he gone so far as to bug their offices to keep track?

  I racked my brain to remember what Meg and I might have said behind closed doors that could incriminate us. I knew we hadn’t engaged in the behavior he had accused us of, but a partner massaging a beautiful young associate’s shoulders, with the accompanying moans and sighs, no matter how soft, might create a damaging sound record.

  Tripp’s door was closed. I opened it slowly, just an inch at first, and peered in. Empty.

  I stepped inside and closed the door behind me. He had a huge corner office, befitting his status as the firm’s most profitable partner. Guided by the flashlight, I went to his oversized desk, its surface unmarred by the clutter one might expect from a busy lawyer. Everything about Tripp screamed ex-army, from the ramrod stiffness of his bearing to the military precision of the perfectly aligned papers on his desk. I knew he had retired as a major—the country’s loss becoming my thorn in the flesh. It was a shame he had traded in duty for dollars.

  In an age of computers, Tripp was still old school—at the far edge of the desk, front and center, lay a three-year calendar. I grabbed it and hustled downstairs to the copy room. It took only five minutes to capture that much of Tripp’s legal career on photocopy. I put the copies in my briefcase then returned the calendar.

  *

  Rufus barely stirred when I arrived home, so I closed the door to the bedroom and left him asleep, angled across the center of the bed. I went to the kitchen, put on a pot of coffee, and cranked up the stereo to keep myself awake.

  According to Tripp’s calendar, he had been in the Caribbean for a week the past August. I matched up the dates with the time entries on the bills and discovered that he had billed Lacewell Industries, Steve McGinnis’s client, forty-seven hours that week—ten a day, Monday through Thursday, and seven on Friday. Exactly as Meg had said.

  I remembered that he had been in trial for a different client for two weeks the past October, and found those dates in his calendar. Then I compared them with the billing records and found that he had billed Lacewell five hours a day for each of the weekdays and six hours a day on the weekends. Although I was confident he had worked fourteen and fifteen hour days during those two weeks—what good litigator didn’t when he was in trial?—I felt sure that he had not spent any of that time for Lacewell Industries.

  Everything I saw in the documents supported Meg one hundred percent. Steve McGinnis had said the Management Committee looked at these records. If they did, they either didn’t look very closely—or deliberately overlooked fraud. I found the latter hard to believe, at least as far as Steve was concerned. Surely he wouldn’t risk his biggest client for the likes of Tripp Malloy.

  But if it was the latter, then the firm was Tripp’s co-conspirator. And it had fired Meg Kelly to cover up.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Bill Patterson and his wife typically watched the ten o’clock news each night then flipped off the lights and went to sleep. At his age, mornings came early, usually before the newspaper had even arrived. That night was no exception. The Pattersons slept soundly by 10:35.

  The silence of their Highland Park mansion was shattered by the phone ringing. Bill peered at the clock radio—3:17 a.m. He felt his wife stir.

  “Go back to sleep,” he told her. He patted her on the hip then heard her breathe deeply and roll over.

  He picked up the receiver. “Hello.”

  A deep voice, muffled and heavily disguised—gender indistinguishable—answered. “I think you’d be interested if you looked real close at Tripp Malloy’s attorneys’ fees.”

  “Who is this?”

  “Check out how many hours he billed on days he couldn’t possibly have worked on your cases. Like when he wasn’t where he said he was.”

  “What are you talking about?” Patterson asked.

  “Just do it.”

  The caller hung up, leaving a stunned Bill Patterson holding the phone to his ear.

  *

  Horace Swanson grabbed the mail stacked on his secretary’s desk and carried it into his office. Small, windowless, with a battered steel desk and worn chair, the office did not befit the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. But when you were trying to hide assets, you didn’t advertise.

  One envelope drew his attention. Thick, addressed to him in pencil with big block letters and no return address. And no stamp. Swanson slid a letter opener along the edge of the envelope and freed ten pages that had been folded. He opened the pages and looked at the document. He knew immediately what he had.

  Styled as a memo from Meg Kelly to Tripp Malloy, it began:


  The procedure you have outlined for Swanson Industries to shift assets is illegal and would constitute fraud on creditors.

  He slammed a big fist on the desktop.

  *

  Tripp Malloy sat in his office and spread the Wall Street Journal on his desk. He turned to the financial page and ran his finger down the columns, tracking his investments. His phone rang, but he ignored it. A few seconds later, his secretary buzzed him on the intercom.

  “Bill Patterson is holding. He says it’s very important.”

  Tripp punched on the speakerphone then leaned back in his chair. He crossed his arms and draped his tie—red silk with tiny, royal blue polka dots.

  He put on his best schmoozing voice. “What’s up, Bill?”

  “I’ve got a problem.”

  “Well, that’s what you pay me for.”

  Silence from the other end of the line, then, “Well, that’s the problem.”

  “What is?”

  “What I pay you.”

  “I don’t follow,” Tripp said.

  “I got a call last night from someone raising questions about your bills.”

  “From whom?”

  “I don’t know. The voice was disguised.”

  Tripp sat forward and snatched the phone up. “It was just a crank. I wouldn’t pay any attention to it if I were you.”

  Sounds of breath exhaling. “It’s not that simple, Tripp. I’m already taking a lot of heat from my directors. I don’t really have any choice. I’ve got to audit your bills.”

  “Have you told anybody else? Anyone on the board?”

  “I want to wait until after the audit. Then, if there’s nothing wrong, there’s nothing to tell.”

  “And what if you find something wrong?” Tripp asked.

  “Is there something to find?”

  “I’m just asking what if.”

  “Depending on what it is—”

  “You won’t find anything.”

  “They might want to sue.”

  “For God’s sake.” Tripp paced behind his desk. “This is a waste of time. The bills are fair, and I always win. Isn’t that enough?”