David Ellis - The Wrong Man

Bradley showed me another document. Another subpoena. This one was issued to the state Department of Agriculture.

“Same day that LabelTek subpoenaed Summerset Farms,” he said, “January fifth, they also sent a subpoena to the state Department of Agriculture.”

Right. Same date, January 5. Same basic information requested. They wanted to know if the state had any records of Summerset Farms purchasing the Glo-Max product.

“Okay,” I said. “The lawyers for LabelTek weren’t going to trust their opponents in litigation to list all their customers. I mean, the more sales Global Harvest made, the more money LabelTek can claim as royalties, right? So they subpoenaed Summerset Farms and the Department of Agriculture. That makes sense. That’s what I would have done. Take a shot. See what you find.”

“Right,” said Bradley.

“And-what did they find?”

A wide grin spread across Bradley’s face. “Nothing,” he said.

“Okay, I’ll bite. Why did they find nothing, Bradley?”

He slid another document in front of me. The caption read, “Motion for Voluntary Dismissal and for a Good-Faith Finding.”

I was no expert in civil litigation, but I knew what a voluntary dismissal was-it meant the lawsuit was being dropped. I was vaguely aware, through Shauna, that settlements had to be approved by the court. The court had to find that the settlement was made in “good faith.”

Okay, fine-the parties settled. Civil lawsuits settle far more often than they go to trial. That’s one of the myriad reasons I loathe civil litigation.

“Check the date,” Bradley said.

The motion for voluntary dismissal was filed on January 8.

“Interesting,” I said.

“Three days after the subpoenas were issued,” said Bradley. “And that includes the time to actually reach a settlement. Look at the signed settlement agreement. The date is January seventh.”

He was right. The settlement was signed on January 7 by someone named Randall M. Manning, CEO and president of Global Harvest International.

“And factor in that it takes at least a few conversations to reach a settlement,” I said. “And then draw up the papers.”

Bradley was nodding enthusiastically. “That means they settled the lawsuit almost immediately upon seeing those subpoenas.”

Okay, but we were still missing something. I hadn’t read these documents, but Bradley obviously had.

“How much was the settlement?” I asked.

This kid couldn’t stop grinning. “Remember I said that LabelTek estimated damages at three mil?”

“I do.”

“They settled for four million, plus over a hundred thousand in attorneys’ fees.”

“Wow.” I got up from my chair and started pacing. I wished I had my football. “So Kathy Rubinkowski, preparing draft answers to written discovery in the lawsuit, makes a list of Glo-Max purchasers that includes Summerset Farms. Then somebody, ultimately, removes Summerset from that list. Then the enterprising lawyers representing LabelTek check the state database, take a shot, and issue subpoenas to Summerset and the Department of Agriculture.”

“Yep.”

“And basically before sundown the next day, Global Harvest has completely laid down. Not only do they settle, but they settle for more than LabelTek was requesting, and they pay their attorneys’ fees. That’s got to be the first time in recorded history that a case settled by giving the plaintiff every dollar they asked for, plus an additional third, plus fees.”

“And the case had only just begun,” said Bradley. “They hadn’t even taken depositions yet. It’s not like a witness turned on them or something. This is totally bizarre.”

“You forgot the best part,” I said. “Kathy Rubinkowski was murdered on January thirteenth.”

Bradley kicked up his feet onto the conference room table, his performance completed.

“You believe in coincidences, Boss?”

My young associate deserved a gold star. He’d found a thread. Now we had about two weeks to see how hard we could pull on it.

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” I said. “But I do believe in cover-ups.”

The law firm of Dembrow, Lane, and McCabe was twenty lawyers, covering the gambit for its corporate clients. They had a bankruptcy practice and an intellectual property group, but their bread and butter was serving the everyday needs of large companies, from labor and employment to regulatory compliance to transactional work to litigation.

A quick Google search told me that the firm laid off ten lawyers, a third of their workforce, just over a year ago. Corporate law firms rose and fell with the fate of their clients, and therefore with the economy. Some of these midsize firms were successfully using the economic downturn as a marketing tool- big-firm representation at a small-firm price, that kind of thing-but apparently not so for Dembrow, Lane.

Their offices were what you’d expect, designed to impress but not impressive. The conference room to which they led us on the thirty-second floor had a view of the commercial district, which was buzzing on a Friday morning.

I was alone. I’d thought about bringing along Bradley John, who had uncovered this information two days ago. And it would have been nice to have Shauna here, who can read people with the best of them. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought it was better just the two of us.

Bruce McCabe entered the conference room at nine forty-five-fifteen minutes late-without apology. He was about six feet tall and a little soft in the midsection. He had a high-and-tight haircut and dark, deep-set eyes. I knew from the bio on his firm’s website that McCabe started in the military, serving in the JAG Corps, before he moved to the private sector some twenty years ago. What the bio didn’t say, but what I caught as a vibe from the moment he entered the room, was that Bruce McCabe was a humorless man, with an intensity bordering on anger.

He made a point of checking his watch before he even offered his hand to me. “My morning is full,” he said. “I made some time for you but not much.”

“I appreciate you doing that,” I said.

“You didn’t exactly ask nicely.”

That was true. When I couldn’t even get him on the phone, I threatened his secretary with a subpoena. Then I repeated the threat to him. It was an empty threat, in fact. A subpoena would have tipped the prosecution to my strategy. My case wasn’t all that good on innocence, so I needed to at least keep the element of surprise. But he didn’t know that. The subpoena threat got his attention. That told me something, right there.

“Fifteen minutes,” he said.

“I represent Tom Stoller, the man charged with Kathy Rubinkowski’s murder.”

“You said that on the phone.”

“We have some questions about her death.”

“You said that on the phone, too. Are you going to tell me something new?”

I fixed my glare on him. Okay, asshole. Here’s something new: “Kathy Rubinkowski was working on a lawsuit filed by LabelTek Industries against one of your clients, Global Harvest International. We were wondering if Kathy had ever expressed concern with you over anything related to that case.”

McCabe studied me for a long time. Then he said, “I thought you were conceding that your client shot Kathy. I thought this was only about insanity.”

“We’re exploring options,” I said.

“I see.” He drummed his fingers on the countertop of the conference room table. “Well, the answer is even if she did express concerns to me, I wouldn’t tell you.”

That’s the same answer I would have given. Probably the only one he could give.

“I see that the case settled,” I said. “Not six months into it, before depositions, just after the New Year in January.”