Chapter 24
brUCE AND TRISHA Colton were not in the same place—Trisha was at home and she said her husband was out. I waited while she phoned him and connected all of us.
“What’s this about?” Bruce said in his usual gruff manner. “I’m in the middle of a round of golf with a client.”
I thought it must be nice to get out on the golf course on a Saturday while your son the killer was being probed by the shrinks at the Sylmar juvenile hall.
“I have a new offer from Tidalwaiv,” I said. “We can talk when you’re free, but the offer expires at five this afternoon.”
“No, no, I want to hear it,” Bruce said. “Go ahead with it.”
I switched to speaker, opened the email Marcus Mason had sent, and read it verbatim in a flat voice that conveyed none of my feelings about the offer.
“What does that part about division to be discretionary between plaintiffs mean?” Bruce asked the moment I finished.
“It means the offer is fifty million that’s split whichever way the plaintiffs decide they want to split it,” I said.
I suspected the offer had been structured that way because the Masons either knew or sensed that Bruce had wanted to take the last settlement.
By creating a possible windfall increase for the Coltons, the Masons were hoping to enlist Bruce, at least, as an ally who would press the others to take the money.
“So you’re saying it could be a third, a third, and a third?” Bruce asked.
“It could be, but that’s not going to happen, Bruce,” I said. “You and Trisha are one plaintiff, Brenda Randolph is the other.”
“That’s not what it says in the consolidated lawsuit,” Bruce said. “It names all three of us. All three of us should get a vote.”
“Bruce, you’re not listening,” I said. “You and Trisha do not get two votes. The two of you get one. Brenda gets one.”
“Well, what is she saying?” Bruce said. “This is serious money.”
“I haven’t talked to her yet,” I said. “I’m going to call her next.”
“What happens if we say yes and she says no?” Bruce asked.
“Then we pass on the offer,” I said.
“Listen to me—you have to convince her to take it,” Bruce said. “This kind of mon—”
“Bruce, she lost her daughter,” Trisha interrupted. “We can’t demand that she—”
“And our son’s going to the nuthouse,” Bruce interrupted right back. “Nothing changes that. But we are victims just as much as she is.”
I found myself wishing I hadn’t taken on the Coltons as clients and combined the cases. And I was beginning to see why their son became so alienated in their home that he fell in love with and obeyed an online fantasy.
“Look, I just want to get a read on this from you both,” I said. “Bruce, you want to take the deal. Trisha, I need to hear your answer as well.”
“She’s a yes,” Bruce said.
“I need to hear it from her,” I said. “Trisha?”
There was a long silence on the line, followed by a prompt from Bruce.
“Tell ’im, Patricia,” he said. “This is change-our-lives money. It’s the lottery.”
More silence, and then:
“I guess so,” Trisha said. “But only if Brenda wants to.”
“Well, she’ll have to agree,” I said, “or there’s no deal.”
“Let’s get her on the line right now,” Bruce said.
“No, that’s not how this works,” I said. “This is a question I discuss with each client separately and privately. I’m going to see if I can get hold of Brenda as soon as we hang up. I’ll then let you know what has been decided.”
“I don’t understand why she has all the power in this thing,” Bruce said.
“It’s because her daughter was murdered, Bruce,” I said. “By your son. I’ll call you back after I talk to her.”
I disconnected before Bruce could get another word in.
I stood up and walked around the desk, trying to shake off the greasy feeling I had gotten from the conversation.
This was the downside of civil work. In criminal, it was often your client’s freedom at stake.
Yes, my clients had often been criminals already, but there was something noble about defending the damned and trying to win their freedom or at least ameliorate their situation.
It was you against the power of the state.
In civil, it was usually about one thing: money.
Using money as punishment. Clients might claim they wanted to protect others from dangerous products or reprehensible behavior, but when the lawyers and corporations and insurance companies started adding zeros to their settlement offers, those noble foundations often crumbled.
Bruce Colton was in this camp and might always have been.
But I’d take one of my old criminal clients over a Bruce Colton any day of the week.
I sat down and called Brenda Randolph’s cell but she didn’t pick up.
I left a message saying I needed to talk to her before five.
Despite my misgivings about the Coltons, it was my guess that Brenda would decline the offer.
I was more looking forward to passing the news to Bruce Colton than to Marcus Mason.
But in case I was wrong about Brenda, I didn’t want to spin my wheels prepping my opening statement or doing any other work on the Tidalwaiv case.
I got up from my desk and went to the side table where Lorna had put the stack of files from the Snow case.
Lorna had organized the copies she had made in the courthouse basement into six separate manila files with tabs reading TRANSCRIPTS, POLICE REPORTS, CHRONOLOGY, X-RAYS, PSI/SENTENCING, and APPEALS.
At the moment, I was interested in the X-rays, though I knew I should read the presentencing investigation report because it would be a concise summary of the case and would include the psychological evaluation made of David Snow shortly after he was convicted.
It would be a good way to immerse myself in the case again and get up to speed.
But for now I took only the X-rays file back to my desk.
It was the thinnest file in the stack. It contained photocopies of the thirteen X-rays of Cassandra Snow’s bones that were found to have been broken during the first two years of her life.
The X-rays were marked at the bottom corner with their exhibit number.
They included images of humerus and ulna fractures in the arms, the tibia in the left leg, various finger and rib fractures, and the crushed vertebra in Cassandra’s spine that had made the pediatric ER doctor call in the police.
From day one and all the way to his sentencing, her father had claimed the vertebra fracture happened when the girl fell while climbing out of her stroller.
But the prosecution’s medical experts testified that it could not have happened that way and that it was the result of a harsh blow or kick to the back.
Add to the David Snow package the other untreated broken bones, a list of witnesses who said the baby was heard crying constantly, and a prior accusation of violence, and you got a quick conviction and an overly harsh sentence from a judge up for reelection.
Snow got a longer sentence than some convicted murderers of children.
I was surprised by the quality of the photocopies.
They were not as clear as the originals on a light box, but I could see the healed break lines of the older injuries as well as the T12 vertebra break that had rendered Cassandra paraplegic.
From my briefcase I pulled the legal pad that I had written notes on during my lunch with Cassie Snow.
I flipped through the pages and found the names and numbers of the doctors who had treated her following her recent car accident.
I grabbed the desk phone and called the orthopedic surgeon who had suspected she had osteogenesis imperfecta and sent her to the geneticist for the official diagnosis.
The call went to an answering service, as the office was closed for the weekend. I left a message explaining that I was an attorney representing his patient Cassandra Snow and urgently needed to speak with the doctor. While I waited for the doctor to call back, Brenda returned my call.
“Sorry,” she said. “I had my phone turned off for a therapy session.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “We have another offer from Tidalwaiv I need to go over with you.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes, but this one you might want to consider, Brenda.”
“Okay, I’ll listen.”
But then the landline started to buzz, and I saw that Cassandra Snow’s doctor was calling.
“Brenda, I need to jump off to take a call I’ve been waiting for,” I said. “Stay by your phone and I’ll call you right back.”
I hung up my cell and grabbed the desk line before it went to voicemail.
“This is Mickey Haller.”
“This is Dr. Sheldon, how can I help you?”
“Yes, Doctor, thanks for calling me back. I represent your patient Cassandra Snow. I—”
“If this is about insurance, I don’t handle—”
“No, it’s about osteogenesis imperfecta. You diagnosed her with it.”
“Well, I suspected she had it and sent her to the geneticist. What is it you need?”
“What I would like is for you to look at copies of X-rays taken when Cassandra was two years old, when a lot of the old breaks you saw on your X-rays were recent, including the T twelve break in her spine.”
“And what would be the purpose of me looking at these X-rays?”
“Cassandra has hired me to help get her father out of prison. He’s been there for twenty years, ever since he was convicted of hurting her.
I was his lawyer then and I am now. If Cassandra had OI then, we might be able to prove what her father has said all along—that she broke her back falling out of a stroller, not because he abused her. ”
There was no response. I waited. Then I prompted, “Doctor, you still with me?”
“I’m here. I’m deciding whether I want to get involved in this.”
“David Snow, Cassie’s father, is dying. He’s got cancer. The prison doctors have given him nine months to live. Cassie wants to bring him home. She never believed he did the things he was accused of. He has always denied it, even when admitting it could have gotten him parole.”
This time I waited out the doctor’s silence.