Legal Thriller: Michael Gresham: A Courtroom Drama (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 1) (7 page)

A
fter dinner
, I get a call. It is the Cook County Sheriff's Department, and it is important I come see my client tonight. There is nothing I can do but suit up and show up.

It is 8:30 by the time I get back out to California Avenue. I park in the visitors' lot and walk up the sidewalk to the entrance.

The jail is busy; regular visiting hours are underway, and the lobby is crowded. I wait in line and finally get to flash my bar card and driver's license to the woman behind the bulletproof glass. Wearing the liver and brown uniform of CCSD, she is all business and ramrod straight in her chair. She is surrounded by CCTV screens and keeps her eyes bouncing between the screens as she helps me.

"Who you here for?"

"James Joseph Lamb"

Her eyes flip down to her computer screen, "Lamb, Lamb, Lamb, here we are. Uh-oh, he's in Cermak, Sir."

"Cermak Hospital?"

"Uh-huh. Right next door."

"Why's he in the hospital?"

"You'd have to ask him that. The computer don't tell us."

I hustle back the way I just came in and move down the sidewalk to the entrance of Cermak Hospital. Like the jail, it also begins and ends with a woman sitting at a computer screen behind bullet proof glass. A microphone allows us to talk.

Cermak Hospital is one of a kind in the United States. Every day it provides healthcare to the twelve thousand detainees at the Cook County Jail. It offers primary care, specialty care, dental and mental health services. In the back is a complete medical laboratory. On this end is a 129-bed infirmary. It is the largest single-site correctional health service in the U.S., I am told, and it's heavily guarded from end to end. Getting in to see Lamb in the hospital is no less difficult than down the street in the DOC.

I am admitted to the place, and a jailer takes me to my client.

The beds themselves are contained within small fenced enclosures, each one large enough to accommodate a bed and two chairs. The fencing is actually vertical straps of steel to which the inmate/patient is at all times chained. We pass a dozen such enclosures, and I am reminded of dog kennels.

The deputy stands aside and ushers me inside the second-to-last cove. James Lamb is lying beneath a sheet, and his head is propped up on a pillow. He has a tube going into his nose and has a tube inserted in the large vein on the back of his left hand. He is right-handed and is holding a Superman comic book.

"Is that all you can find him to read around here?" I ask the deputy.

She smiles wickedly. "Counselor, it's what he asked for. Bright guy, this one."

She steps back into the corridor where she waits for me. I doubt we'll be speaking privately with her standing right there, but I nod to Lamb and start in any way.

"So. What the hell happened?"

Lamb's face and forehead are badly bruised, his eyes—while able to read—are all but swollen shut. One ear has a bandage covering it. His hands are battered and bruised as well.

"Fell down," he says nonchalantly. "Shit happens."

"You fell down in your cell?"

"Fell off the top bunk. Splat! Thought I was paralyzed."

"The deputy mentioned they were investigating a fight you started. Any truth to that?"

"What? Get outta here. I don't start fights; I finish them."

He turns a page in the comic book and his eyes come to rest on its pages. His lips move.

"So how long will you be in here? We've got a trial going on, you know."

"Couple of days. I'm pissing blood. Prison doctor says I have a lacerated something—kidney? Does that sound right?"

"Was someone kicking you in the back?"

"Naw. Like I said, I fell outta bed, Mr. Gresham. Must've landed on my back."

"Right. Somehow I can't feature how that would lacerate a kidney, but I'm not a doctor."

"No. You're a lawyer. I'm down with that. You're doin all right by me."

This is the most I've ever heard my client talk. I previously thought his mostly silent affect was because of his low IQ. But he doesn't sound all that low IQ right now. There's even a hint of sarcasm in what he's saying and how he's saying it. Low IQ doesn't do sarcasm. At least not that I'm aware of.

"So what's my outlook, Mr. Gresham? You goan get me off?"

He flips a page, and I am treated to a passing view of Superman prone in the sky, his cape trailing behind.

"I don't think they have a case against you, except for that damn confession you signed."

He opens his mouth and displays his gold crowns. "Beat it outta me. No two ways about that."

"Well, that's what we're going to argue to the jury."

My cell phone goes off. I quiet it.

"Hey," he says, "can I use that to call my girlfriend?"

"James, do you see the deputy standing right outside? You think she won't hear?"

"So? What they gonna do? Put me in jail?"

This one requires a belly laugh, and he winces as he overdoes it.

"No," I say, she's gonna put me in jail if I let you use my phone. That's called contraband and giving a prisoner contraband is a very serious crime."

"Well, could you get a message to my girl?"

"I could try."

"Could you tell her that I'll be out of here before much longer, and we can get down on the baby thing."

"Baby thing?"

"She has my baby. Her baby, but I'm its dad. You follow?"

"I do. So, tell her you can soon get down on the baby thing? Got it."

We chat for another five minutes about nothing in particular, and then I leave the cell. The deputy has moved to the other end of the hall. I should have let James use my phone; I'm thinking. But she quickly walks the length of the hallway and speaks into her shoulder mike. We then retrace our steps back to the entrance of the ward. The door buzzes and I am out.

It is a cool April evening, and a light breeze is moving clouds overhead. A few patters of raindrops can be felt in the spaces between the overhanging trees along the sidewalk. I hunch my shoulders and pick up the pace to my SUV.

The parking lot is filled with headlights and moving cars, in and out, and people talking as they come and go, some of them angry and acting out because a loved one is in jail. I click my door lock and climb in.

As I exit the lot, a car parked along the street starts up and falls in behind me. I think nothing of it. But then, two turns later, when it's still on my tail, and I take a left and it follows me without its blinker, I begin thinking something of it. I'm not alarmed; I know Fordyce and Burns are interested in me—I'm a bad guy because I'm defending Lamb. Or, the MexTel thugs could very well be out following me to see if I might lead them to Arnie. That's possibility number two. Possibility number three is that I'm paranoid because I'm drained right now. That's the door I choose to walk through.

The rest of the drive home I pay no attention. Once I'm safely in my garage, and the door is lowering, I exhale and allow myself to slump and slowly drag inside.

I check my messages; nothing there. Then I go into my bathroom and brush my teeth, take my cholesterol pill, and pull off my suit. In my bed five minutes later, I am falling asleep, and it's the first time all day I've felt really good.

Then I remember Lamb is on trial tomorrow, and he's in the hospital. I need to notify the court.

Into my office I go, wearing my robe, and sit down at my laptop. I log into my office network, pull up all the necessary emails of all parties I must notify.

Then an email arrives from the Circuit Court. No trial tomorrow due to Lamb's hospitalization. They're one step ahead of me, and I'm glad. I can always use a day off during a trial.

Finally, at twelve-thirty, it's lights out.

I toss and turn in my bed, unable to sleep. My mind bounces from James Lamb to Arnie to Sue Ellen. Finally, I climb out of bed and go into the family room and stand staring out of the back window at the newly mown lawn. I lean and crack open a side window and the grass smell transports me away. It is real and pure and hopeful.

With that fragrance lingering, I at last find peace. Just as I am drifting off, I hear my laptop chime on my nightstand. Email announcement.

Without looking, I already know.

Arnie has reached out.

I
t is
my habit to check my office email before leaving home each morning to go to work. I check this morning's and, lo and behold, there is a new email from Arnie. It's multi-addressed to me, and Sam Shaw, Roberto Aguilar, Juan Carlos Munoz Perez, three in-house attorneys with MexTel extensions in Mexico City, and Hon. Sylvia M. Prather, Judge, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois.

Great, Arnie's getting everyone on the same page as only the unmedicated Arnie would ever deign to do. This is not going to be good, I'm thinking, as I read on.

The gist of the email is that Arnie is calling a settlement conference—usually the judge gets to do that—unilaterally, at which he is going to provide everyone with "documents that will change the course of the underlying litigation, documents that place a smoking gun directly in the hands of the criminal conspiracy at MexTel, documents that will elevate me [Arnie] to a position of ultimate trust among the federal bar of the Northern District." Then he adds, with a flourish thought humorous only by the writer himself: "Who knows? I may even be spontaneously appointed to the federal bar to mediate all controversies including truth, honesty, and the American way." Superman language, directly out of the old TV show intro.

I am dumbstruck. The crazy son of a bitch is actually going to turn over records that have been hidden—he has been the chief hider—that will ruin his client. Great. Whatever it means to the litigation, I am suddenly filled with great apprehension for Arnie's safety. Now MexTel has a compelling reason to hunt him down and silence him forever so that its secrets are never revealed. If they weren't desperately seeking Susan before, brother, they certainly are now.

Into the kitchen I go, in panic. I pull open the refrigerator and pour myself a large glass of orange-pineapple juice. Then I return to my home office and my laptop and read through the email again. This time much slower. He is definitely greasing the skids for MexTel. He has, in effect, signed his own death warrant if ever any lawyer did.

I consider the bigger picture. Today is Friday, April 3. He has set the settlement conference for Monday, April 6, at ten a.m. in Attorney Conference Room A just outside the courtroom of Judge Prather in the Federal Courthouse on Dearborn Street. That leaves me from noon today until Monday morning to hunt him down and get his medications down his throat and hide him somewhere they will never think to look. Left to his own devices, Arnie's own notion of a safe hiding place will be the five-star hotel in whatever city he has lodged himself. MexTel and Sam Shaw will know this; all they need to do is look over his expense accounts to see that he has always considered no hotel too upscale for him, no five-star restaurant too pricey. Of course they've never cared before either; he has carried their water and so far they haven't had to pay one dime in damages for the Mexicans they've killed and given cancer. But that "so far" ended at 6:04 a.m. this morning when his email was blasted out to all the players in the case. Now they definitely care.

Where will they begin looking? Meaning, where should I start looking? Arnie has spent three years in vexatious litigation over MexTel. Most likely he has no other case assignments during those three years because the one case is full-time for several lawyers. What does this point to? For one thing, Arnie's travel has been restricted to Chicago and Mexico City, where MexTel is headquartered. And maybe side trips to the offending groundwater sites throughout Mexico where the populace was poisoned and killed. But those places can immediately be erased, because, while Arnie may be ill, he isn't stupid. He knows he would stand out like a carrot in a jar of pickles if he were to decide to be the only Anglo living in Boulavares City, Mexico, or wherever the hell else he might have visited. Those places I can forget about. That leaves Mexico City and Chicago.

I recall our last conversation. Come to Cozumel and then call the number he used. Why do I need to go to Cozumel? I wonder. Why can't I just dial it now?

Which I decide to do. I fish my cell phone out of my jacket pocket and go back over the recent calls list. There it is; the number he called me from. I punch CALL.

It rings once. Twice.

Arnie answers on the third ring.

"Michael? Are you calling me from Cozumel?"

"No, Arnie, I'm—"

Dead.

The bastard hung up on me.

I love the guy, I really do, but right about now my patience is all gone.

Still, he is my brother, and someone has to save him.

I wonder if I should send Marcel after him. Marcel was at one time an agent of Interpol, the international police agency when he was a much younger man living in Warsaw before he came to the U.S. as a political refugee. His Interpol training has served him—and, indirectly, me—well. He can find anyone, anytime, anywhere in the world, inside of twenty-four hours. All I've ever had to do is give him a name and last-known, and he's off and running, returning with the game slung across his shoulders usually in just a matter of hours.

So be it. I'll give the case to Marcel.

I knock back the last swallow of my orange-pineapple juice, and head for the shower.

Before my life can be allowed to unravel in dealings with my half-witted brother, there's the matter of my own law practice and clients awaiting me. The Hudson case beckons, for one.

Including one innocent Lamb, who needs all the help I can provide.

At noon, I am meeting Sue Ellen for lunch. We are going to discuss her offer to remove her alimony claws from my back for ninety grand. A bargain basement deal for a guy like me.

I'm only too anxious to meet her.

I
'm back
in court at nine o'clock on the Hudson case.

I'll be honest with you. Most lawyers my age would have given up trial practice five or ten years ago. It's a young man's game, and I'm no longer a member of that group. I'm not only not a member, but I also don't even want to be a member. The classroom for young lawyers is too rough and tumble, too physically and mentally exhausting for me ever to want to go there again. No, I've made most of the rookie mistakes, and I'm still standing and still have a law license—so I'm one of the lucky ones. The problem is, I have nothing set aside for the coming winter. And that coming winter portends to be a cold one.

Today I'm appearing in the United States District Court, Room 9089, in downtown Chicago. My client is Bill Hudson, the CEO of a large Midwestern chemical company, Organo. Hudson is accused of insider trading. Insider trading happens when someone with inside information about a company uses the information to profit from the stock market. Hudson allegedly knocked down seventy-five million dollars based on his company's upcoming merger with Magnachem. The merger was a sweet deal for Organo. It meant a four hundred percent increase in Organo's stock value, of which Mr. Hudson owned a truckload by the time the merger went public. His stock soared. Of course, the SEC keeps tabs on employees whose stock sharply increases in value where there's a change in how the company does business. The SEC turned over what it knew to the FBI. The FBI looked into it, indicted Mr. Hudson, and now he's looking at twenty years in a federal prison. Twenty years of despair and self-loathing, followed by the inability to make a living even laying bricks, once he's branded with the C of convict. It's my job to make sure this final act of his financial Hamlet never appears onstage.

My client is sitting at our table trying to call out on his cell phone. I leave him to it; it keeps me from answering the same questions for the tenth time. Not that I mind, but I'm tired today. My brother Arnie had a restless night and called me at four a.m. After listening to his darkest hour, I couldn't get back to sleep.

"I'm stepping out to the hallway to see if I can get reception," says Hudson.

"No, you're sitting in your seat. The judge will be here any second now."

He sniffs and looks away.

We are awaiting the arrival of Francis Pennington, Jr. While he is the alleged victim in the Lamb case, we have agreed that my cases in his court will continue unabated as if the other matter never existed. Lawyers and judges can actually pull off a balancing act like this; we do it all the time, it's part of our training. At last, he appears and ascends the bench and seats himself quickly. He glances at the Assistant U.S. Attorney, a dour man named Ingersoll McDermott. Then he fixes his eyes on me. Immediately I am nervous and full of regret. I should have asked for a different judge, and I kick myself for failing to do so.

"Mr. Gresham," he says, "I have read your motion. Why wasn't this worked out with the Assistant U.S. Attorney?" Not exactly a friendly reception. Maybe everything isn't as stitched off as I thought.

"Your Honor," I begin, "My client, Mr. Hudson, needs to leave the state of Illinois on company business. The government wouldn't agree."

"So you want me to enlarge the geography of conditions of release. Isn't this something a phone call could have settled between you and Mr. McDermott?"

I shake my head. "Tried and failed. Mr. McDermott voiced several reasons why he couldn't agree to Mr. Hudson leaving Illinois. His main reason is his belief my client has hidden fifty million dollars offshore. McDermott says Mr. Hudson is just looking to flee the country and beeline to the Bank of Cayman Islands. But there is no evidence that my client has transferred money out of the country. Which leaves me trying to prove a negative, which, we all know from our debate days, is impossible."

"Mr. McDermott, what say you?"

McDermott, a fit man in his late thirties—a marathon man, I hear—shoots to his feet and exclaims, "The FBI believes we haven't uncovered all illegal profits taken by the defendant in his insider trading scheme. We believe huge sums are hidden offshore. Within forty-eight hours, I can come into court with documentary proof of this. I'm only asking that you delay this hearing for two days, Judge Pennington until I can get you that proof."

Beside me, I can sense William Hudson shaking his head in complete disagreement with the AUSA's representation to the court. "I can explain that," he whispers to me.

"One moment, please, Your Honor," I say, and bend to my client. "What?"

"The stock in the bogus account they traced back to me? Remember?"

"What about it?"

"I have all the brokerage invoices and receipts. One hundred percent. We can easily prove there is no other money."

I shake my head. "No, we can only prove what has been found. We can't prove a claim that there's no more. Besides, that's not our job. Hang loose." I squeeze his shoulder and return to my upright position at the lectern, standing there beside AUSA McDermott.

"Your Honor, my client is needed in Seattle and Portland over the next forty-eight hours. It would be a denial of due process to keep him from his business only because the government is chasing a will-o-the-wisp."

Judge Pennington rocks sideways in his chair. "A will-o-the-wisp? Haven't heard that term for a long time, Mr. Gresham. Okay, counsel, here's what I'm going to do. Mr. Hudson may travel to Seattle and Portland. Likewise, the FBI can send along an escort on the airline. While I doubt that escape is in Mr. Hudson's mind, the government can indeed follow him if it likes. There's no law against following him. Tagging along might be a better word. But after this trip, unless the government brings proof to me that Mr. Hudson indeed has funds squirreled away someplace, I'm going to enter a restraining order for the government to cease tailing the defendant." He raises his hand and continues, "No, hold on, Mr. McDermott. I know this will raise the ire of the Justice Department and that I'll probably get a call from the Attorney General, but we're not going to make a federal case out of it. I will enter that in my written order to follow later today. Thank you, gentlemen, you've been more than a little helpful this morning. By the way, give me your cell numbers in case there's a problem. Here's mine on these two Post-Its."

McDermott and I jot our numbers on a single sheet of paper, and I pass it up to him.

Judge Pennington studies the numbers and nods. "Dismissed, gentlemen."

McDermott, Hudson and I duck out to the hallway and McDermott puts a hand on my shoulder.

"Hold on, Michael," he says, "I need your guy's itinerary."

"What for?"

"We're going to tag along."

"I thought the FBI already had everyone's itinerary. I thought you guys already knew when and where I last peed."

"Funny man. Please email it over. You have my email."

"No, I'm not going to do the FBI's work for them. Besides, my client has no itinerary. He's taking the corporate jet to Seattle. In about thirty minutes."

McDermott's face purples with rage. "You should have told Judge Pennington about that!"

"You should have asked. Was there anything else?" I am moving toward the bank of elevators halfway down the hall, and Mr. Hudson is following along, a small smile playing at his mouth. He looks at his watch.

"I should be airborne in thirty, Michael. Thanks for your help."

I look at him. "That's what you paid me for, Bill. We've only just begun."

I look back. McDermott has disappeared, probably back inside the courtroom.

Rather than wait for the elevator and a frantic shout from the judge's clerk, I push Hudson through the door leading to the stairwell, and we descend two steps at a time. Three floors down, we bounce out and ride the elevator the rest of the way.

We step out on the sidewalk of Dearborn Street, and Hudson is swallowed up by a waiting Mercedes limo.

I head toward the corner, breathing in the sweet spring air of Chicago. My city is coming back to life after an eternity of snow and bluster and ice that lasted from late October to April 1.

At the corner my light is green, and I step down onto the crosswalk.

The green light is a sign my life is finally coming together, I tell myself.

The prevarications just never end.