Advice of Counsel (The Samuel Collins Series Book 1) (15 page)

“That’s nice.  You’re a good mom, Maddie.”

She smiled like she was embarrassed.  “Why don’t you come with
us?  Like you said, he’d be a good distraction for you.”

“You just told me that the two of you never get to be
together,” I reminded her.  “I thought that was the whole point of your going
out.”

“Whale, it’s not so much it being the two of us,” she said
backtracking, “as it is that the baby’s not there.  He has a tendency to
monopolize my attention.  That’s what it’s really about.  So even if you were
there, Oliver could still have my undivided attention, plus yours, for that
matter,” she said cheerfully.  “I’d like you to come with us, Samuel.”

Oliver came barreling in the door and Maddie stuck her head out
and waved to her mother as she drove off.

“Hi, Samuel!” Oliver said.

“Hi, Oliver.  Did you tell your grandma about the snowmen you
built?”

“Yeah.  When is it going to snow again, Mom?”

“Probably in another 15 years,” Maddie said.

I ended up going with the two of them to McDonalds, and Maddie
and I sat there while Oliver played in the tunnels, then we went out for an ice
cream on the way home.  We were back by 8:00 o’clock, but it seemed much later. 
I called Landra at her parents’ house and she sounded amazingly good.  In fact,
she was practically consoling me.  She gave me a pep talk and I felt a lot
better when I hung up than when I had called her.

I wasn’t really up for it, but I knew it would be a good
distraction; so when Oliver invited me to go out to the river on Saturday with
him and his mom, I reluctantly agreed.  Landra was still in seclusion and I’d
had back to back nights of drinking with my buddies that had left me feeling
pretty seedy.  I suggested we go to Guadalupe State Park instead of the spot
where Maddie wanted to go.  For one, it was closer; but more importantly, we
could avoid the riff-raff that came with Maddie’s favored stretch of the river. 
I’d convinced Oliver that my spot was better than his mother’s since there were
tons of rocks that he could play in by the river.  He jabbered incessantly
during the entire 30-minute drive.

“What if we see a water moccasin?” Oliver asked.

“I don’t think we will, but if we do, we’ll stay away from it,”
I said. I could see his big blue eyes in the rearview mirror.

“What color are water moccasins?” he asked.

“I think they’re dark brown – almost black.”

“Do water moccasins swim on top of the water or under the
water?”

“Both.”

“Well then I’m not getting in the water.  No way!” he said,
shaking his head.

“We’ll stay where it’s safe,” I assured him.

“How do you know where it’s safe?”

“Well, water moccasins like to hang out in brush and sticks and
sometimes under big rocks,” I explained.

“Then I can’t play in the rocks,” he said deflated.

“Yeah, you can.  You just have to play in the safe rocks.”

“How do I know which ones are safe?”

“I’ll tell you.”

“How many safe rocks are there?”

“Cut it out, Oliver!”

Maddie laughed out loud and turned around to face the back
seat.  “Let’s play the quiet game for a couple of minutes,” she suggested.

When she turned back around she was still laughing.

“Is he doing that to irritate me?” I asked her.

“No.  He’s just very curious,” she said.

I hadn’t spoken to Maddie about the tape we’d found of her at
Datacare or of the mirror in the ladies’ restroom.  I knew how mad she was
going to be and I’d had so much to deal with on the Landra front that I hadn’t
gotten up the nerve to broach the subject.  But I knew I couldn’t put it off
much longer, so I decided that day was as good as any.

We pulled into the park and wound our way down the road toward
the river.  I parked by the restrooms and we walked down the trail, lugging all
the picnic gear to a spot where a picnic table was bolted to the ground next to
a bolted-down barbecue pit.  The river was wide and there were a couple of
enormous boulders plunked down in the middle that had dislodged from the
60-foot cliffs that bordered the opposite side of the river.

We’d been at the park for about an hour and I’d just put the
hot dogs on the grill.  Oliver was playing with rocks by the river, well out of
earshot.  I cleared my throat and it got Maddie’s attention immediately.

“What is it, Samuel?”

“What is what?” I asked.

“What is it that you have been avoiding telling me for the last
four or five days?”

I guess I didn’t hide my surprise very well, and I’m sure I
looked guilty as hell.  “What makes you say that?” I asked, genuinely keen to
know how she knew I was hiding something from her.

“I can just tell.  Now come on . . . Out with it!”

I wanted to put it as delicately as possible.  “I have a tape
of you in your office . . . of you . . .you know . . .” I motioned to her
chest, “hooked up to that machine.” 
There.  I said it
.  I caught myself
holding my breath waiting for her to explode.

“You what?”  She was way too calm.  Obviously she was still
processing the info.

“I found a tape of you . . .”

“Pumping my breasts?” she finished the sentence.

So
that’s
what it’s called.  I flinched and nodded my
head yes.  I watched her face turn deep red, but I knew she wasn’t
embarrassed--she was mad.  In fact, I don’t know that I’d ever seen a woman so
furious.  She was looking around our picnic area for something to throw.  If the
table hadn’t been nailed down, I’m positive she would have up-ended it, but as
it was, that wasn’t an option.

“I’ll kill him,” she said.  She had balled her hand up into a
fist and, for lack of a better target, she was looking at me like she wanted to
hit me.  I thought maybe I should let her, but I knew that as mad as she was
she wouldn’t hold back and it would hurt like hell.

“Do you want to hit me?” I offered reluctantly.

“No, I don’t want to hit
you,
you idiot!  What good
would that do?”

“Don’t call me an idiot. And don’t act like the thought never
occurred to you.  I could tell by the look on your face that that’s exactly
what you wanted to do!”

“Oh shut up, Samuel!” she said, and she turned away from the
confrontation.

I wasn’t about to let it go at that.  I surprised her from
behind, and picked her up and started carrying her towards the river.

“Put me down!” she yelled.  She was kicking her feet and
squirming in my arms trying to get free, but I was way too strong for her.  I
gripped her tighter.

“Damn it, Samuel!  Put me down!”

Maddie’s yelling captured Oliver’s attention and he was
watching with curiosity as I carried his mother, kicking and screaming, closer
to the water’s edge.  He came over and fell in stride beside me.

“Where are you taking my mom?” he asked.

“She wants to go swimming,” I said.

“Samuel, stop!” Maddie shouted.  She was laughing now, but she
was fighting like crazy to get away.  I squeezed tighter--she wasn’t going
anywhere.   We’d come to the water’s edge at a spot where the river was clear
and deep.

“Hey Oliver, take her shoes off,” I said.   She stopped kicking
long enough for Oliver to get her shoes off and get back out of the way.  “Good
mom,” I told her.

Then Maddie changed tacks.  Instead of fighting to get away,
she clutched on to me for dear life, wrapping herself around me so tightly that
there was no way I could peel her off to get her into the water.  So I jumped .
. .

I heard Maddie screaming as we hit the water with a huge
splash.  It was  freezing.  When I came to the surface, Oliver was on the
riverbank, jumping up and down, laughing and clapping.  Maddie had already
surfaced and she was pushing her hair off of her face.

“You jerk!”  She swam over to me and dunked my head under,
putting all of her weight into it trying to keep me down, but I locked my arms
around her waist, demobilizing her.  I was laughing so hard I swallowed a whole
mouthful of river water.  The thought of contracting typhoid crossed my mind,
but I decided it would have been worth it, just to see the look on Maddie’s
face right before she hit the water.

We swam to a shallow section of the river and waded over to the
bank.  Maddie was ahead of me and she turned around once she got to the side
and shoved me back down in the water before she got out.  Oliver met us back at
the shallow end, wearing a huge smile.  I got out and lay down on the rocks,
still laughing, and Maddie came and stood over me, dripping wet.  At least she
wasn’t mad about the tape any more.  She sat down beside me and shoved my head to
the side and I swatted her hand away.  I couldn’t look at her without
laughing.  She picked up a rock and tried to skip it, but it sunk straight to
the bottom as soon as it hit the water.

“That’s not how you do it,” I told her.  I found a good flat
rock and flicked it into the river.  It skidded across the top of the water, at
least a half-dozen skips before it disappeared.  I looked at her and smiled.

“Okay, smarty-pants,” she said.  She searched around for the
right rock and when she found it, she looked over at me and smirked.  I smirked
back.  She flicked her wrist and the damn rock skipped a good ten times across
the river until it hit the bank on the other side.

“Yea, mom!” Oliver yelled.

“Humph.”  I didn’t even realize I had done it, but Maddie seized
upon it immediately.

“Did you
humph
me?” she asked.

“What?”

“You
humphed
me.”

“I did not.”

“You did too.  You can’t stand to be upstaged by a woman,” she
asserted.

She was right, but no way was I wasn’t going to fess-up to the
accusation.  I was getting ready to ask if she wanted to go for another swim,
when I smelled something burning.

“The hot dogs!”  I jumped up and raced back to our picnic area
where smoke was billowing from the barbecue pit.  Oliver was right behind me;
Maddie bringing up the rear.  I picked up a water bottle and squirted the
flaming dogs and there was a hissing sound as the water snuffed the fire.  The
three of us peered into the grill at what was left of the hotdogs.  They were
charred and shriveled, not the least bit appetizing.

“You burned the hotdogs,” Oliver said.

“No kidding,” I told him.  “It’s your mom’s fault.”

“My fault?” Maddie exclaimed.  She was standing there still
dripping, looking really cute with her wet hair, and for some reason I felt a
surge of admiration for her.  I smiled at her and put my arm around her
shoulder and squeezed her, but she pushed me away.

We started over on the dogs and Oliver went back down to play
in the rocks.  For a while, neither Maddie nor I was talking, but the silence
wasn’t awkward. I was thinking about where to go with Maddie’s case, and I’m
sure she was thinking about the tape. After a while she brought up the subject.

“Okay,” she sighed.  “I think I’ve settled down enough to
discuss the tape rationally.”  She crossed her arms, bracing herself for the
worst, and it made me smile.  “How’d you get it?” she asked.

“Niki and I broke into Datacare the other night.”

Her eyes got real big.  “You what!”

“You heard me.”

“You realize that if you’d been caught you could have lost your
license to practice law?”

“Well I didn’t get caught, did I?”

She shook her head.  “That Niki Lautrec is a bad influence. 
You should stay away from him.”

“Agreed.”

I related our caper and about Niki and I finding the tapes in
Larry’s office. Angry women scare me, especially when I’m the only one around
for them to take it out on, so I was hesitant to bring up the ladies restroom
matter, but I knew I didn’t have a choice.

“Which restroom do you use at work?” I asked nervously.  She
knew immediately that something was up.  Her eyes narrowed and she kind of
pursed her lips, glaring at me.  Damn.

“What is it?  Does the son of a bitch have a camera in the
ladies room too?”

I shook my head no.  “A two-way mirror.  In the CEO’s office.”

“You’re fucking kidding!”

I’d never heard her use the word before and it added tremendous
oomph to her statement.  For some reason I felt that surge of pride again.  She
wasn’t going to lie down and take a beating . . . not this girl.  I had to try
to hide my smile - heaven forbid she think I was laughing at her - so I turned
around to check the dogs.

“He watched us going to the bathroom?” she asked in disbelief.

“Apparently.”

She actually started laughing, but I knew she didn’t think it
was the least bit funny.  “What a pervert!” she said.  “That’s just sick.  What
kind of a person does that?”

“One who’s going to make us very rich.  How many women use that
restroom?”

“I don’t know.  Probably four or five.  Maybe six.”

She was quiet for a minute then she asked, “Was there anything
else on the tape?” and I knew what she was referring to.

“To tell you the truth, I only watched the first couple of
minutes, so I don’t know what’s on the rest of it.  I didn’t think you’d want
Niki and me to see any more than we did.”  Maddie looked at me and smiled.  “Doesn’t
that thing . . . you know . . . that pump thing . . . hurt like hell?”

She laughed.  “It’s not as bad as it looks.”  She shook her
head and looked down at Oliver playing.  “How embarrassing.” She said it so
quietly, it could almost have been to herself.

I probably felt as embarrassed as she did, having watched just
those couple of minutes of the tape.  “Don’t worry,” I said.  “I’ve got
sisters.  If you’ve seen one pair . . .”

She looked at me and smiled.  “We’re going to get even, aren’t
we?” she asked.

“We’re going to get even,” I assured her, and we high-fived on
it.

“I’ll give you the tape and you watch it and let me know what
else is on it.”

“Okay,” she nodded. “Thanks, Samuel.”

“Don’t thank me yet.  I haven’t done anything.”

*    *    *    *

We stopped and picked up the baby on the way home and I dropped
the three of them off at their house, then went back to my house.  I went out
to the street to check my mail and Maddie and the kids were checking theirs at
the same time.  Oliver waved to me like he hadn’t seen me all day.  I waved
back at him and started up towards my front door, when Maddie called out my
name.  She was waving a letter in the air and started walking across my yard.

“It’s a letter from the EEOC.”  She opened it and handed it
straight to me without looking at it.

I read it over then told her, “They’re ready to make a
determination and want to know if there’s anything else we want to add before
they do.”

“Is that good or bad?”

“I’m not sure.  It’s awfully fast.”

“Is there anything else we want to add?” she asked.

“Can you think of anyone who might provide a statement to
corroborate your allegations?  Anyone who might have been subjected to the same
kind of treatment you were?”

She thought about it for a second.  “Kathleen Zapata, but I
don’t know if she’d give a statement or not.  She likes her job.  I don’t know
if she’d risk it.  But we’ve had numerous conversations about what’s gone on
with Larry and female employees.”