James Grippando - Blood Money

Jack put the car in gear and drove. Instinct told him that Mrs. Laramore would have preferred to ride in silence, but questions remained, and Jack was running out of time. He’d spoken to Ben Laramore about the visitation records from the women’s detention center and gotten no explanation. He needed to ask again.

“Why did Celeste visit Sydney Bennett in jail?”

Mrs. Laramore was looking out the side window. “I’m no more help than Ben on that one. We don’t know.”

“Why do you think she went? Your best guess.”

“No idea.”

“Celeste’s roommate told me that Celeste also visited Neil Goderich, Sydney’s first lawyer. We’ve searched through all Neil’s notes and can’t find a single record of their meeting.”

“Maybe it never happened.”

“Can you think of any reason why Celeste would have met with him?”

“A formality, maybe? She wanted to visit Sydney and needed to clear it with her lawyer. But that’s just a guess.”

It seemed like a reasonable guess. “But that still doesn’t tell us why she wanted to visit Sydney.”

“No,” Mrs. Laramore said as she massaged the bridge of her nose. “This is giving me a headache.”

“I’m sorry, but I have to press. This adoption news may be leading me down the wrong path, but it may be the answer to some of the questions I’ve been asking myself. Questions that started with those photographs of Celeste that Ben sent me.”

“What about them?”

Jack cut across traffic to take the expressway on-ramp. “There’s a definite transformation in Celeste’s appearance.”

“She grew up.”

“No, it’s not just the difference between being seventeen and being twenty. Sydney Bennett was arrested three years ago. That’s when her face first appeared on the news. There’s a vague resemblance between Celeste at age seventeen and Sydney when she was arrested. Over the next three years-as Sydney’s face was more and more on television-the resemblance gets stronger. Mostly due to the way Celeste started wearing her hair, how she wore her makeup.”

“Are you saying she was trying to look like Sydney?”

“Maybe I am.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“Is it? I don’t mean to pry,” said Jack, “but if you’ve never told Celeste that her mother was abusive, you probably haven’t told her much at all about her. Is it possible that Celeste started to wonder?”

“She never asked me about her.”

“Did she ask Ben?”

“Not that he ever told me. But I honestly don’t see where you’re going with this. And could you please drive faster? I really want to get back to the hospital.”

Jack’s focus on the conversation had dropped his speed well below the limit. He took it up to sixty, which still left him in the slow lane on the busy westbound Dolphin Expressway. They were coming up on the exit for Jackson Memorial Hospital when the real question finally popped out of Jack’s mouth.

“Virginia, do you know who Celeste’s birth mother was?”

“No. Ben and I were never foster parents. We came into the picture after the birth mother’s rights were terminated and Celeste’s foster parents decided they couldn’t afford to adopt another child. I got medical information and such, and I think under Florida law I could have gotten the mother’s first name, if I’d wanted it. But the birth mother’s identity was just something I never really wanted to pursue.”

Jack turned at the Twelfth Street exit, and they stopped at the red light at the end of the ramp. The hospital where Celeste lay in a coma was in sight. Jack glanced at her adoptive mother.

“I’m thinking it may be time to find out,” he said.

Ted Gaines’ flight landed at LaGuardia Airport a few minutes before nine P.M., just in time to see the Tuesday-evening edition of the Faith Corso Show . He didn’t like what he was seeing.

“Friends,” said Corso in a somber tone, “it was a dark day for this network in a Miami courtroom today.”

Dark day?

Confused, Gaines stepped closer to the flat-screen television that hung by a bracket from the ceiling. He was in Figaro’s, a bar directly across from the gate where his flight from Miami had deplaned.

Corso continued, “As her twenty-year-old daughter lay in a coma, Virginia Laramore was viciously attacked on the witness stand by prominent attorney Ted Gaines. The issue in the case was simply this: Who caused Celeste Laramore to go into a coma? Of course, we here at BNN deny any responsibility for that tragic course of events. But Mr. Gaines simply went too far. In the worst case of overzealous lawyering I have ever witnessed, he proceeded to accuse Mrs. Laramore of abusing her own child and causing the heart condition that resulted in her slipping into a coma. In support of his attack, he introduced into evidence a series of medical records showing that, before the age of two, Celeste Laramore had visited the emergency room more than two dozen times. Mr. Gaines should be ashamed of himself, and he should have done his homework. My own reporters have investigated this matter, and we have this exclusive story for you, and this important message for Mr. Gaines: Celeste Laramore was adopted, you moron!”

Gaines shuddered. It was suddenly hard to breathe.

“Yes,” said Corso, “adopted. Those medical records showing physical abuse were all before Celeste was adopted-‘rescued’ may be a better word for it-by the Laramore family. Now, friends, as I mentioned, Mr. Gaines is the attorney for this network. I’m risking my own job by saying this, but I pray for the sake of the Laramore family and for the sake of Lady Justice that Mr. Gaines will no longer be the lawyer for the network I am proud to call home, the network that prides itself on getting the story right and on doing the right thing-your Breaking News Network.”

Gaines ground his teeth together, clenched his fists tight, and tried to breathe. The anger inside was more than he could contain. He stepped out of the bar and found a quiet place by the kiosk for a “lids” vendor that sold baseball caps. His hand trembled with anger as he dialed Keating’s private line. The CEO answered as if he were expecting the call.

“How goes it, Ted?”

“You son of a bitch, you set me up.”

“Well, hold on there, counselor.”

“Hold on, my ass. It wasn’t my idea to go after Virginia Laramore as an abusive parent. You wanted it. You gave me the records. You said your investigator checked it out. That was all a lie. You knew all along that Celeste was adopted, didn’t you?”

“Now, why would I do that to you, Ted?”

“Why? What better reason to ruin a trial lawyer’s hard-earned reputation than to manufacture ten minutes of self-righteous glory for Faith Corso on national television?”

“That was awfully brave of Faith, wasn’t it?” Keating said smugly. “To risk her job and call on her own network to fire its high-priced lawyer?”

“It was staged .”

“It’s all staged,” Keating fired back. “You know that better than anyone.”

“I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing. But I’m done with it. I quit.”

“Too late,” said Keating. “Check your e-mail. A letter went out from my office two minutes ago dismissing you from the case.”

Gaines moved away from the kiosk and the businessman who was checking out a Yankees cap. “You are as low as they come,” Gaines said, hissing into the phone. “Is there anyone you won’t destroy in the name of entertainment?”

“My mother died six years ago. So the answer is no. Good luck to you, Mr. Gaines.”

The call ended.