Chapter 24 #2
“Okay, send the X-rays,” he finally said. “I’ll take a look and tell you what I think.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.
I hung up and immediately called Brenda Randolph back.
“I really don’t want to take a deal” were the words she opened with.
“I understand that completely,” I said. “But I’m obligated to bring this to you. I mean, lawyers have been disbarred for not bringing settlement offers to their clients. Besides, they have jacked up the offer significantly, and, I’m just saying, you might want to think about it.”
“No, but go ahead. What is it?”
“I’m going to read you the email so you get exactly what they’re offering.”
I was two-thirds through reading and well past the money offer when Brenda interrupted with a loud “No!”
“Let me just finish reading it,” I said. “Then we can discuss it.”
“I don’t want to discuss it,” Brenda said.
“Okay, well, let me finish, all right? I need to give you the full offer and the parameters.”
“Go ahead, but I’m not doing this.”
Thirty seconds later I finished delivering the offer.
“Brenda, I know what you said, but I have an obligation to tell you to think twice about this,” I said.
“It is a lot of money. You could do a lot of good things with it. You could set up a foundation in Rebecca’s name.
It could be a force for advocacy. And you have to remember, anything can happen in a trial.
I think we’re in good shape, but anything can happen. ”
I, of course, was not telling her that we might have lost a key witness, Naomi Kitchens. I wasn’t going to reveal that until I took a run at bringing Kitchens back into the fold.
“Even if we lose, we’ll still get the story out,” Brenda replied. “In the trial. And that’s more important to me than the money.”
“You’re right about that. The media will be all over this trial.”
“Have you talked to the Coltons? I’m sure Bruce wants this.”
“I did, and you’re right, he wants to take the money. But you control this, Brenda. What you decide goes.”
There was a long silence on the line before she spoke again.
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I took it,” she said.
“A foundation sounds nice but this whole thing is about holding that company accountable. Publicly accountable. And this… this is just a payoff. Fifty million dollars to shut up and just accept what happened to Becca. I can’t do it, Mickey.
How could I live a rich life on blood money? Her blood.”
“I didn’t expect that you could, Brenda,” I said. “But it was my duty to bring it to you.”
“Are you mad at me? You would have made a lot of money yourself. You could start a foundation.”
“Maybe a home for wayward lawyers? No, Brenda, I’m not mad. I’m proud of you. I’m proud I represent you. And I won’t let you down next week. We’ll tell the world.”
“Thank you, Mickey.”
“Listen, I’m going to call you tomorrow. I’m not ready now, but I want to go over your testimony and how that should go.”
“I’ll be here.”
After we disconnected, I grabbed the file of X-rays and left the office. Lorna and Cisco were in the cage. When I pushed through the copper curtain, I was already talking.
“I just got off the phone with Brenda Randolph,” I said. “She turned the offer down and we’re going to trial. Cisco, I need you to go to San Francisco and set up a watch on Naomi’s daughter.”
“Copy that,” Cisco said. “All right if I bring in some backup? One-man surveillance is always a recipe for failure.”
“Do it,” I said. “The more the merrier, because I’m going to use this show of force to help convince Naomi to come back on board as a witness. Just try to keep the expenses down.”
“You mean I can’t stay at the Hopkins?” Cisco asked.
I smiled and shook my head.
“You’re not staying anywhere,” I said. “I want you on the street outside this girl’s dorm. You can get her details from Jack.”
“What about Harry Bosch?” Cisco said. “Can I call him?”
“You can call him,” I said. “But last I heard, he wasn’t doing so good. You might want to get somebody who can move quickly if they have to.”
“Got it,” Cisco said.
“What’s wrong with Harry?” Lorna asked.
“He’s now got some heart stuff going on,” I said. “He’s on blood thinners for blood clots, stuff like that.”
“Oh boy,” Lorna said.
“What about Bamba?” Cisco asked. “Could use him if he’s free.”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “Uh, I’d prefer it if you used people with legit PI licenses for this. I have to make some calls now.”
“What do you need from me, Mickey?” Lorna asked. “I could go to Frisco with Cisco. Has a nice ring to it.”
I handed her the file.
“No, I need you down here running the show, Lorna,” I said. “And I need you to get these X-ray copies to Cassandra Snow’s doctor.”
“Will do,” Lorna said.
Back in my office, I sat down and felt relieved that I had stopped Cisco from calling Bamba Bishop to be part of the Lily Kitchens protective detail. Possible disaster averted. I called Jack McEvoy up in Palo Alto.
“Jack, I want you to stick around up there,” I said. “No settlement. We aren’t folding our tent.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” McEvoy said.
“I bet you are. Wouldn’t be much of a book if everybody signed NDAs.”
“There would be no book.”
“That still might be the case if we don’t get Naomi Kitchens back on our witness list.”
“So what do you want me to do?”
“I’m sending Cisco up with a crew to watch over her daughter. Tell her that.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to me.”
“Come on, Jack, you’re a journalist. You must encounter a lot of people who don’t want to talk to you.
But you always find a way, I bet. Same thing here.
You have to impress upon her that she and her daughter won’t be safe until she testifies.
Once her story is on the record, there’s no reason for Tidalwaiv to do anything to them. ”
“Got it.”
“We need to get her down here so I can work with her a little bit before the trial starts. She’ll be on the stand by Tuesday, I’m thinking.”
“Okay, I’ll try.”
“By the way, did you ever look into the voice Tidalwaiv used for Clair?”
“I did. They tested several voices. There was a lot of research put into it, but I haven’t had time to dig further.”
“Okay, let me know when you do. And let me know if anything changes with Kitchens. If you need me to come up there, I will.”
“I’ll let you know.”
I hung up, took a few deep breaths, then picked the phone back up and called Bruce Colton. It would have been easier to deliver the news to Trisha, but I kind of relished the idea of giving the bully the bad news.
When he answered, I said, “Bruce, I’ll make this short and sweet. We’re going to trial. Brenda has turned down Tidalwaiv’s offer.”
There was only silence.
“Bruce, are you there?” I asked.
“You convinced her to go to trial, didn’t you?” he said.
“Actually, no. I read her the email like I did with you and she said no. That’s it.”
“Then all I can say is that you better not fuck this up, Haller. And you better get us more than fifty million dollars.”
“I can’t make you any promises, Bruce. Like I’ve told you many times, anything can happen in a trial and usually does.”
“Fuck that. It was a big mistake bringing this to you in the first place. Last time I ever listen to my wife.”
I was surprised to hear that he had ever listened to his wife.
“We’ll see,” I said. “I’m going to hang up now, Bruce. I’ve got a lot to get done by Monday. Have a good weekend and I’ll see you in court.”
I disconnected before he could hit me with another verbal threat. It wasn’t what I needed to hear. I already knew how high the stakes were in this case.
I set an alarm on my phone for 4:59 p.m. and went to work sketching out what I would say to the jury in my opening statement Monday.
While the opener was not evidence and the judge would instruct the jury to that effect, to me it was one of the most important moments of a trial.
It was when I would stand before the jury and sell myself and my clients to them.
It would be my first chance to draw their sympathy to my clients.
And it would be when I laid the foundation I would build my case on.
I would make this stand directly in front of the jury, and that was why they called that spot where there was nothing between you and the jurors the proving ground. It was where you put up or shut up.
In the last hour before five o’clock, I got two calls from Marcus Mason that I let go to voicemail.
“What’s it going to be, Haller?” he said in the first message. “You got an hour and then fifty million goes away.”
His voice was a couple of octaves higher in the second message.
“Haller, what the fuck, your time is running out,” he said.
The increased tone of desperation in the second message told me that Tidalwaiv was seriously concerned about what would come out at trial and how it would affect the prospects of an acquisition or merger.
At 4:59 my phone alarm buzzed. I put down my pen and sent Mason a text.
See you Monday at the courthouse, Marcus.
Get some rest. You’re gonna need it.
Then I sent him a second text.
And by the way, stay the fuck away
from my witnesses.
These messages brought another call from Mason, but once again I let it go to voicemail. I wasn’t interested in talking to him.