Джон Гришэм - Camino Winds

Grattin itself was forced into involuntary bankruptcy, and an emergency receiver was appointed to protect its forty thousand patients. The company was far from bankrupt, as the receiver, a Houston law firm now on the clock at $100,000 a month, soon learned. Grattin was flush with cash and had almost no debt. To stay in the game, the receiver convinced the bankruptcy court that it was needed to run the company, which appeared to be a fair argument, according to cable news legal experts. All the bosses were either in jail or out on bond.

Vitamin E3 was immediately removed from circulation. Regulators in fifteen states, suddenly awakened, watched intently, along with a gaggle of journalists, the FBI, the FDA, and who knew how many other government agencies, as the number of deaths among the severely demented spiked in Grattin facilities. Clear proof, agreed the cable news legal experts, that the drug worked. If not for its horrible side effects, what was the problem?

Undaunted by the bankruptcy, and in a frenzy at the smell of fresh blood, the tort lawyers attacked with a vengeance and were soon bellowing from billboards and early morning TV. Class actions sprang up overnight in a dozen states. Cable news legal experts, throwing darts, estimated as many as two hundred thousand potential plaintiffs.

David Higginbotham, Karen Sharbonnet, and Matthew Dunn were indicted in federal court in Ohio for the capital murders of Linda Higginbotham and Jason Jordan. David was in custody there, while Sharbonnet and Dunn fought extradition. The family of Jason Jordan filed a $25 million wrongful death case against all three defendants. According to the Dayton Daily News, Higgs’s hard-earned net worth was about $15 million. His lawyer, who was expected to get most of the money in fees over the next ten years, vowed to fight all charges until the end of time.

On his deathbed, Rick Patterson had confessed to the murder of Dr. Rami Hayaz, a prominent plastic surgeon in Milwaukee who was at war with some ex-partners over the patent for a medical device. Dr. Hayaz had been murdered outside a shopping center in an apparent carjacking. He’d been robbed, shot in the head, and left for dead. His Maserati was found two days later in a chop shop in a bad part of town. For four years, the police had found no viable clues and the substantial reward money had proved useless. Rick admitted to the killing, the first with his new partner, Karen. The Milwaukee prosecutor called a press conference and announced a full investigation, vowing justice for Dr. Hayaz.

As Karen Sharbonnet’s rather substantial legal troubles mounted, she remained in isolation at an unidentified jail in the L.A. area. She spoke to no one, not even the guards. She hired a tough defense lawyer, an aberration in his field in that he ignored the media and hated press conferences. But the flood of attention could not be stanched. Her story was simply too sensational to ignore, and her attractive mug shot, indeed the only known photo of her, was plastered on every tabloid magazine.

Nick collected them all. He missed nothing.

One morning he reported that Danielle Noddin had filed for divorce in Houston. She had hired a fancy New York litigator known for her ability to unravel lopsided prenuptial agreements. There had been several reports of the money Ken Reed had hidden offshore, before and during their fourteen-year marriage, and it now appeared to be fair game. Dane’s lawyer had plans to get a chunk of it.

On the literary front, the sensational story of Nelson’s murder and its alleged connection to Pulse spun the book’s presale orders into another orbit. Simon & Schuster announced an earlier release date of October 15, just in time for the holiday season. It also announced an increase in the first printing from 100,000 to 500,000, with plans to perhaps go even higher.

2.

The decision was made in Washington, at the Department of Justice. The question was: Of the three murders on the table, which was their strongest case? For obvious reasons, each of the three U.S. Attorneys wanted the first crack at Karen Sharbonnet. The Attorney General gave each half an hour to plead his case.

Western Ohio went first, followed by Southern Wisconsin.

The U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Florida made the most persuasive argument. Not only did he have proof that she was in the deceased’s condo—a single fingerprint—but he also had an eyewitness who saw her stagger away into the night, into the storm in the direction of the condo. Then the phone call to the witness from the deceased verifying her presence at about the time of his death.

All three cases had the deathbed confessions of Rick Patterson, which would pose enormous evidentiary problems at trial, but at least in Florida Sharbonnet had committed the actual murder. In Ohio and Wisconsin she had been the accomplice.

Another factor was Florida’s history with the death penalty. Its U.S. Attorney proudly rattled off the statistics that proved without a doubt that jurors in his state were far more likely to impose death than Ohio. And Wisconsin had abolished the death penalty in 1853.

At the end of the two-hour meeting, the Attorney General, with far more important matters at hand, ordered that Florida would go first.

The following day, Karen Sharbonnet was flown on a commercial flight nonstop from L.A. to Jacksonville. The details of her clandestine trip were somehow leaked and reporters were crawling all around the Jacksonville airport. The U.S. Marshals went to plan B and ducked through a side door, but one camera caught her. For about five seconds she was seen, under a baseball cap and behind thick sunglasses and with hands bound, getting hustled by heavy men in suits as they pushed her into a van.

Bruce watched it in his office, with Nick of course. The cable news legal experts were of the opinion that her trial would be at least a year away. Her codefendants, Ken Reed, a man she’d never met, and Matthew Dunn, one she knew well, would be dealt with later. Of all the charges Reed faced, federal capital was by far the most serious. One expert predicted that Dunn, the middleman, would cut a deal to save his neck and squeal on both Reed and Sharbonnet.

“It’s a storm, Bruce, and you’re in the eye,” Nick said.

“Get back to work.”

3.

Two whole days passed with nothing new. Nick seemed lost without any breaking news, then sprang to life one afternoon when he found a story out of rural Kentucky. The police in the small town of Flora had closed their investigation into the death of Brittany Bolton and declared the cause to be just another opioid overdose. They had found no viable witnesses to her disappearance, no sign of foul play. Her family was too distraught to comment.

4.

About once a month, Bruce chatted by phone with Polly McCann in California. She had been following the unpredictable events of the past few months, and while encouraged by the news that her brother’s killers might actually be found and brought to justice, she was not looking forward to drawn-out criminal proceedings on the East Coast.

She had recently been approached by a well-established Florida trial lawyer who had proposed the filing of a huge wrongful death claim against Ken Reed and the others. This lawyer had done impressive homework, and even flew to California to meet with her, her husband, and their personal attorney. He was of the opinion that Reed certainly had pockets deep enough to pay a sizable award, and that the wrongful death claim would take priority over all other civil matters. He suggested the sum of $50 million as an opener, with 20 percent for him if the case settled and 30 percent if it went to trial. The lawsuit would not be initiated until after the criminal trial, and, assuming Reed was found guilty, their case would not be difficult to prove.