Authors: William Bernhardt
“Fine.” Crichton checked his calendar. “The Board meets tomorrow morning. I’ll present your package to them then.”
“I’ll be waiting to hear the result.”
“And if they refuse?”
“Then I go public with the documents.”
“You are a lawyer representing the Apollo Consortium. You owe us a duty of zealous loyalty. In fact, those documents are covered by the attorney-client privilege. It would be a gross ethical violation to disclose them to the general public.”
“I don’t give a damn. If the Board doesn’t cooperate, I’ll send copies to every newspaper in the Southwest.”
“I’ll see that you’re disbarred.”
“And I’ll see that you’re arrested. Negligent homicide. Aiding and abetting, at the least.”
Crichton laughed, but the laugh sounded very hollow. “That will never stick.”
“Do you really want to take the chance?”
There was a long silence as the two men stared at one another across a much too small expanse of carpet.
“Have you no sense of propriety at all?” Crichton asked. “No sense of loyalty?”
“To you? No.”
“You were hired to assist the Apollo Consortium.”
“I wasn’t hired to be a patsy.”
A hideous grin spread across Crichton’s face. “You still haven’t figured out why you were hired, have you?”
Ben raised his chin. “What do you mean? I was hired to work on your litigation team.”
Crichton shook his head. “You stupid fool. Blinded by your own egotism. Surely you didn’t believe all those nauseating compliments I paid you?”
“I…don’t know what you mean…”
“You were hired because we learned you had represented the Nelsons on a prior personal injury matter. Period. We were searching for something we could use against them in their suit against Apollo—something to force an early settlement and ensure their silence thereafter. We learned from the court records that your lawsuit for the Nelsons involved mental injuries as well as physical. If we could find a doctor’s report, or perhaps a deposition transcript, indicating that one or both of them had mental problems…well, obviously, that would undermine their credibility. It would reinforce our argument that the Nelsons were paranoid, unbalanced people desperately searching for a scapegoat.”
“Surely you didn’t think I would give you access to any incriminating records from a prior lawsuit.”
“No, I didn’t. Not a self-righteous snot like you. Not if you knew. But you may recall, one of the first things Howard Hamel did after offering you this job was to arrange for the transfer of your files.”
Ben pressed his fingers against his temples. “That’s why your attitude toward me changed after I won the lawsuit.”
“Did you think I would shovel out that nauseating crap forever? It made me sick, believe me. But we needed your files. Or so we thought. Little did we know, you were such a stupid, unquestioning soldier, so eager to please your new masters, you won the case on your own. You didn’t need the medical files; you did it with some fancy legal footwork. No matter—the result, was the same. But as soon as the case was over, I assigned you to Harry and put you on the track the hell out of here.”
Ben could feel the bile churning in his stomach. “You’re disgusting, Crichton. And the worst thing is, you’re a perfect exemplar of this whole disgusting operation.”
Crichton made a tsking noise. “Sticks and stones.”
“I’ll be calling tomorrow as soon as the Board meeting ends. And I’ll be calling from the lobby of the
Tulsa World
.”
“I’ll be waiting with bated breath.”
“You may consider this my resignation.” Ben stood up and started toward the door.
“Fine. Of course, we’ll give you the customary two weeks.”
“Don’t bother,” Ben said, “I’ll leave today.”
“S
ERGEANT TOMLINSON, I’D LIKE
you to meet my friends Ben Kincaid and Christina McCall.”
After Mike introduced them, Ben extended his hand to the lean figure lying on the St. John’s hospital bed. He still had tubes attached to his nose and mouth, the lower half of his body was in a cast, and dark circles underscored his eyes. His coloring was fairly normal, though, and he appeared strong. “Glad to meet you.”
“I want to congratulate you on that astonishing undercover work you did,” Ben said. “You showed a lot of promise as a homicide detective.” He nudged Mike. “Didn’t he, Mike?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah. I suppose.”
“I should be congratulating you,” Tomlinson said. “I understand you found the creep after I let him get the best of me.”
“You saved a girl’s life by doing what you did.” Ben kept his inevitable tag to himself: saved her life for another three days.
“How are you feeling?” Christina asked.
“Much better,” Tomlinson replied. “Still sore in places. Legs ache when I try to move them. If you see my wife outside, though—don’t mention it to her. Karen tends to worry.”
Imagine that. “I saw your daughter outside,” Ben said. “She’s a cutie. How’s she taking it?”
“Oh, Kathleen is fine. Except she keeps wanting to crawl around on my cast and stitches. The doctor doesn’t approve.”
“I can imagine. So, Mike,” Ben said pointedly, “wasn’t there something you wanted to tell Sergeant Tomlinson?”
Tomlinson’s eyes perked up.
“What?” Mike said. “Oh…er…well…I guess I wanted to say…you did all right, Tomlinson.”
“Oh. Thank you, sir.”
“Not perfect, of course, but certainly not bad. You showed a lot of guts out there.”
“And that’s what you wanted to tell me?”
“Yes. That’s it.”
“Oh.” The gleam faded from his eyes. “Thank you.”
Mike turned away, then stopped. “Oh yeah. One other thing. I approved your transfer to Homicide.”
“You—” His eyes ballooned. A vivid smile spread across his face. “Why—thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Very very much. I won’t disappoint you, sir. I promise. Thank you very very much.”
Mike grinned. “My pleasure. You earned it, kid. Say, if you get bored, you can swap notes with Buddy, the guy who hid the girl. He’s in a room just down the hall. We found him in a warehouse off Eleventh. He was seriously torn up, lost a lot of blood, but I think he’s going to pull through.”
“That’s great,” Tomlinson said. “I’m glad someone else came through this alive.”
Yeah, Ben thought. Someone.
“Don’t kid yourself, Tomlinson. If Fielder hadn’t been stopped, he would’ve killed every name on the Kindergarten Club list. You’ve saved a lot of lives. Right, Ben?”
Ben was no longer standing by the bed. He was facing the window, staring out at the sun setting across the western horizon.
Mike saw something glistening in Ben’s hand. It was a golden necklace, a half-heart with a jagged tear down the center.
Mike and Christina exchanged a meaningful look. If there was something they could do, they’d do it. But there was nothing. It would just take time.
A nurse came through the door pushing a wheelchair.
“Who’s that for?” Mike asked.
“You,” she said briskly.
“Now wait a minute—”
“Don’t bother arguing, Mike.” Christina steered him into the chair. “You’ve been putting off these tests since you tangled with Fielder. For all we know, you could be hemorrhaging in a hundred different places.”
“But—but—”
“Save it.” She waved at the nurse. “Take him away.”
The nurse pivoted by the door. “Oh, Mr. Kincaid?”
Ben turned his head a fraction from the window.
“There’s someone outside who would like to speak to you.”
Ben returned his gaze to the window, then, a few moments later, left the hospital room.
He found Shelly in the visitor’s lounge. She was dressed in a formal business suit—probably came straight from work. She was holding a baby girl in her arms, trussed up in blue ribbons and a white frock.
“This must be Angie,” Ben said.
“Yeah. I just picked her up at day care. Isn’t she beautiful?” Angie rubbed her little fists in her eyes and peered sleepily at Ben. “Can we talk?”
“Sure, Shelly. What’s on your mind?”
“I just…wanted to thank you.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. I know you know.”
Ben took a paper cup from the water dispenser and poured himself a small drink. “Want to tell me about it? I promise it’ll remain confidential.”
She sighed, then pressed her baby against her chest. “I’ve been with the Apollo legal department for six years now.”
Ben was surprised. Judging from her position, he would’ve guessed she had been there a year, perhaps two.
“They always say corporations are the best places to work when you want to have a family as well as a legal career. Nine-to-five days, no billable hour demands. I didn’t want any special favors; I just wanted some common decency.” She inhaled sharply. “Common decency. Now there’s an oxymoron.
“I learned right off the bat that everything I’d been told about corporate legal staffs was a lie—at Apollo, anyway. The corporation worked its employees just as hard as the firms, maybe harder. Crichton always acted as if he owned me. And there was no outside client to prevent him from exercising complete control over his department—his private kingdom. He did anything he wanted. Crichton and the other men called me
honey
and
sweet young thing
. They asked if I was
getting any
and when I was going to start making babies—and if I wanted any help. If I complained, they said I didn’t know how to take a joke.
“Anyway, so I’ve been here six years, and I’m still in an Attorney One position. Herb’s been promoted. Chuck’s been promoted. Even Doug has been promoted, for God’s sake. Every man in the department has been promoted. But not me.”
“You should file a complaint,” Ben said.
“Oh, they’re way ahead of me there. They’ve been papering my file since day one. You know, I wasn’t always the quiet, mousy, pathetic nonentity you’ve known. When I first came here, I could belly up with the best of them. And on my very first review, they complained that I was too aggressive. Strident. Can you imagine them ever telling a male attorney that he was too aggressive? But that’s what they told me.”
“Crichton, I assume.”
“Yeah. The thing is, I’m not even sure he realizes that there’s anything wrong with that. I don’t think he’s intentionally discriminating against women. I think he’s oblivious to it. I think his sexism, his different standards and expectations, his preference for working with other men, is so deeply ingrained that he isn’t even aware of what he’s doing.
“Anyway, it was clear that if I continued behaving as I had—actively, aggressively—I was going to be out on the streets.”
“So you…changed?”
“Of course. I didn’t feel I had any choice. It was a real compromise—but you know how bad the job market is in the Southwest right now, and it would be even worse if I were fired, or if I quit after receiving a negative review that every subsequent employer would read. So I did what they wanted. I did my work, and I did it quietly. But as you may have noticed, I still haven’t been promoted.”
“Perhaps you should file a Title VII lawsuit.”
“I threatened to do just that, when Crichton started giving me grief about taking maternity leave. So what did they do? They promoted Candice. Not far—certainly not as far as her male peers, but they did give her a token promotion. And we both know why they chose her—she only got that tiny promotion after she gave Herb what he wanted.
“The point is, if I claim Apollo engages in systematic sex discrimination, they’re going to haul out Candice, their token female attorney with a promotion, and deny everything. The only reason Shelly wasn’t promoted, they’ll say, is her poor work performance. And then they’ll haul out all these bullshit evaluations they’ve been writing to prove it.”
“That’s insidious,” Ben said quietly. “You should fight them. Surely some judge would listen to you.”
“Ben, I can’t afford to lose my job. Who’s going to hire me now—a single mother with a three-month-old baby? Forget it. They know I’m helpless. As Crichton himself said, ‘Screw you—where are you going to go?’ ” She pressed her free hand against her forehead. “And then Chuck started doing his junior supervisor routine on me, threatening to get Crichton to fire me. I was so scared. I guess you know Howard was Angie’s father.”
“I suspected.”
“And then he was killed, and I didn’t know what we were going to do.”
Ben kept his personal opinion to himself—that she was better off without him.
“It all welled up inside me at that retreat at Camp Sequoyah. Crichton was complaining that I was spending too much time with my baby, and Chuck was threatening to get me fired. You probably remember that big scene at Crackerbarrel, when Chuck said he was going to get Crichton to can me. The next day, I’m sure you also saw him huddled with Crichton on the High Course. I knew I was the topic of conversation. And Crichton looked like he was buying every lie Chuck told him.”
“So you cut Crichton’s belay line.”
Shelly nodded. “How did you know?”
“Well, after I didn’t find the knife up on the high course, I realized my initial theory was wrong. So I just kept thinking about that morning, where everyone was sitting, what everyone was doing. And I finally remembered you, spreading mayonnaise on sandwiches. With a knife.”
“Just a kitchen knife. But it was sharp enough. When I was done, I put it back where it belonged with all the other lunch paraphernalia. It was the Purloined Letter principle—since it was in plain sight, exactly where it was supposed to be, the cops overlooked it.” She smiled faintly. “Thanks for covering for me at the staff meeting.”
Ben tossed his paper cup into the trash. “No problem. I didn’t figure you were the hardened criminal type.”
“If Crichton knew, he’d fire me. It would be just the excuse he’s been waiting for. And he might have me arrested as well. I don’t know what Angie would do if I went to prison.” She kissed Angie on the cheek. “But taking the blame onto yourself like that. You could get into some big trouble. Crichton might bring charges.”
“I don’t think so. I have a bit of leverage over him at the moment. I also have a friend, Clayton Langdell, who could probably give you a job—outside Apollo. Or I think I can ensure that you keep your present job for some time. Whatever you want.”