Mark Gimenez - The Color of Law

“Why are you standing on my Persian rug, Sid?”

“Oh, we signed up the environmental consultant on Dibrell’s land deal. He now works for Ford Stevens. That was a brilliant idea, Scott.”

Sid was in damage control mode.

“That it?”

“Well, no. One more thing, Scott.” He glanced at Bobby, then back at Scott. “Confidential.”

Scott said, “Close your ears, Bobby.”

He nodded to Sid to go on.

“Our discovery, production of documents, is due on that Dibrell lawsuit, the one where all the residents in his apartment complex are claiming they were harmed by mold in their apartments and he didn’t do anything about it?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So in going through Dibrell’s records, we found one letter that might prove troublesome. It mentions some of the symptoms of mold poisoning. But we’ve taken the position that Dibrell didn’t have any knowledge of the dangers of mold.”

Scott, to Bobby: “A goddamn lawsuit over mold. One jury in Austin comes back with a thirty-two-million-dollar verdict, next thing you know everyone’s dying of mold poisoning.”

Back to Sid: “How many pages of production are we giving the plaintiffs’ lawyer?”

“Twenty-seven thousand.”

“Okay, here’s what you do. Double copy everything, so we give them fifty-four thousand pages. And put everything out of order, a real mess. Then make one really bad copy of that letter, you know, like our secretaries do without meaning to, where you can hardly read it. And stick it right in the middle of those fifty-four thousand pages, see if they can find it.”

Sid was grinning. “That’s brilliant!”

“Aggressive and creative lawyering, Sid.”

Among lawyers, employing clever litigation tactics like hiding one damaging document in fifty-four thousand pages of discovery-not to mention just shredding the damn thing-is known as “aggressive and creative lawyering,” and it is a skill highly praised by members of the bar. Aggressive and creative lawyering is how successful lawyers become successful, that and not getting caught. A big part of being successful, Scott had learned, was not getting caught.

Sid scurried away, and Scott gestured after him.

“First in his class at Harvard. Might make a lawyer out of him yet.”

Bobby was giving him a look.

Scott held his hands up. “What?”

“That’s what you high-rent lawyers do, play hide the ball?”

“It’s just like football, Bobby-if you don’t get caught holding, you didn’t hold. When you’re playing this game against sleazy plaintiffs’ lawyers like Frank Turner, you play by the same rules they play by. You do whatever it takes to win-because rich clients don’t want ethical lawyers who lose, Bobby. They want lawyers who win.”

Bobby seemed unconvinced, so Scott pointed his finger at the open door.

“Bobby, that bastard Frank’s got a jet!”

Scott’s thoughts returned to Shawanda Jones, like one’s thoughts did to a recurring nightmare.

“Oh, and no interviews, Bobby. We want to keep the firm’s name out of the press.”

Bobby nodded. “I’ll get the police report, see what evidence Burns has got, hire a PI. He’ll interview witnesses, track down leads, do background checks on Clark and anyone connected to Clark. Name is Carl, he’s an ex-cop.”

“Dan’s gonna crap, paying for a private investigator.”

“Scotty, we gotta have a PI. It’s a death penalty case.”

Scott sighed. “Okay, but hide his fees in your bills to the firm. So Dan doesn’t see them.”

“Yeah, okay. Uh, Scotty, this case is gonna eat up a lot of my time. I’ll have to incur some expenses and…well…you think I could get an advance on my fees?”

“Sure.” To his secretary: “Sue!” She popped in within seconds. “Sue, get Bobby a firm check for twenty-five hundred.”

When she left, Bobby said, “Thanks.”

Scott waved him off. Twenty-five hundred was pocket change at Ford Stevens.

“Kind of funny, ain’t it, Scotty?”

“What?”

“Back in school, we used to talk about working together. After all this time, we are.” He shrugged. “Kind of funny.”

Scott stared at his former best friend.

“Yeah, Bobby, this is fucking hilarious.”

Boo screamed with delight. “A. Scott, you’re on TV!”

Her father and mother walked over to the kitchen TV and saw what she saw: on the evening news, A. Scott looking like a reluctant movie star, pushing through a crowd of TV cameras and microphones as reporters shouted questions.

“Did your client murder Clark McCall?”

“How will she plead?”

“What’s your defense?”

“This morning,” her father said. “The mob at the courthouse.”

“You couldn’t get out of the case?” Boo asked.

“No.”

“You’re going to trial?”

“Yeah.”

“When?”

“August.”

“Well, there goes Vail,” her mother said with an exasperated sigh. “We’ll be the only family in Highland Park suffering here in August. That’ll be embarrassing.”

“Can I go?” Boo asked.

“Yeah, you and Mom can still go to Vail,” her father said.

“No. To the trial.”

“You want to come to the trial?”

“I’ll still be out of school.”

“No, you may not, young lady,” her mother said. “A murder trial is no place for a nine-year-old girl.”

“But it’ll be like, history in the making.”

Her mother gave her another exasperated sigh. “Murder trials happen every day.”

“No, I mean A. Scott representing a human being.”

Her father looked at her and she at him; they both laughed.

Rebecca was not laughing.

“This won’t affect your position in the firm?”

Upon retiring to the master suite, that was Rebecca’s first and only question, her way of asking, Will this affect your income?

“No, of course not. I’m still Tom Dibrell’s lawyer.”

Her expression said she wasn’t buying it.

“Rebecca, look, I’ve got Bobby working the case. He’ll get me through it, she’ll get convicted, and things will go back to normal. Don’t worry.”

But Scott was worried. That feeling of impending doom had grown stronger. He plopped down in his chair in the sitting area off the master bedroom and used the remote to turn on the TV. The late news. A story about Clark McCall’s funeral this afternoon, video of people in dark suits and dark dresses entering Highland Park First United Methodist Church, wealthy people, white people, important people, the vice president, members of Congress, the governor, the mayor, and Scott’s senior partner.

The rest of June passed quietly. The temperature climbed steadily as summer set in so that by the end of the month the mercury was pushing one hundred degrees Fahrenheit. Rain became an infrequent occurrence and the sun beat down on the landscape with a vengeance. Native oak trees burrowed their roots deeper into the earth to suck the last drop of moisture from the parched Texas soil, and all God’s creatures hunkered down for another merciless summer, except those wealthy Dallas families who could afford to flee to the cool air of Colorado or California. The less fortunate remained behind and relied on air-conditioning and backyard pools to survive the heat.

Rebecca Fenney continued her relentless climb up the Highland Park social ladder; Boo Fenney occupied herself at home with her computer and her books; Consuela de la Rosa was reunited with Esteban Garcia, just back from the border; Scott Fenney billed two hundred hours at $350 an hour for Ford Stevens’s paying clients; Bobby Herrin billed one hundred hours at $50 an hour for the firm’s only nonpaying client; and the federal grand jury formally indicted Shawanda Jones for the murder of Clark McCall. The federal magistrate set her bail at $1 million, which meant she would remain in custody until the verdict was read, at which time she would be either set free or shipped off to a federal prison to serve her sentence or await execution. She called her lawyer daily, sometimes several times a day, always crying hysterically from the combined effect of craving both her daughter and heroin. Having no idea where he might acquire heroin for her, her lawyer did the only thing he knew to get her to shut the fuck up: he agreed to bring her daughter down to the detention center to see her. Or at least to have Bobby bring her daughter to her.