Silent Justice (22 page)

The current witness was a man named Archie Turnbull. Although Colby had allowed Mark to prep some of the witnesses on his own, he had insisted on personally preparing all of the top executives and anyone who was personally involved in waste disposal. Turnbull fell into the latter category.

Turnbull was a tall, thin man with an elongated countenance; he looked rather as if he had been grabbed at both ends and stretched. He was beyond balding; there were two patches of graying hair over each ear, with a few pathetic wispy strands stretched across his head, masking nothing from no one. He was nervous, but then, so was everyone when they came in here. And even more so when Colby started in on them.

“I want to impress upon you the importance of what you are about to do,” Colby said in solemn tones. It was late at night, and Colby had been working all day, but he still cut an impressive figure. He was athletic and handsome for his age; his gray pinstriped suit was well-tailored and immaculate. “Sometimes corporate employees think, "Oh well, I don’t really know anything, so my deposition won’t be important." But they’re wrong. Every statement is important. The tiniest slip could change the course of an entire lawsuit.”

Turnbull nibbled at the corners of his fingernails. He had been nervous before, and this lecture from Colby evidently wasn’t helping.

“Make no mistake about what is happening here. These plaintiffs are after the heart and soul of H. P. Blaylock. They want to suck out its profits and drain it dry. They are greedy and undeserving, but they wouldn’t be the first undeserving plaintiffs who succeeded in the courtroom. If they prevail, there may well be nothing left of this company. You’ll be out of work—you and all your friends. And if that happens, what will you do? Where will you go?” He paused, allowing Turnbull to contemplate this unpleasant prospect. “Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Of course I do,” Turnbull said. He had to remove his fingers from his mouth to speak. “I’ll do whatever I can to help.”

“Good. That’s what I like to hear.” Colby briefed him on basic deposition procedure. “Here’s the most important thing for you to remember—don’t volunteer anything. Answer the question succinctly and then be quiet. If it’s a yes-no question, then say yes or no and clam up. Don’t explain. Don’t try to please the questioner. Don’t try to make everything clear to him. You’re not there to help, and you wouldn’t succeed, even if you tried.”

Turnbull’s voice squeaked a bit as he spoke. “Surely we don’t want to leave them confused.”

“And why not? Confusion is good. They can’t prove a case if they don’t understand what’s going on. Listen to me, my friend. I’ve been in the litigation game for a long time now. You start trying to be Mr. Helpful and you’ll end up putting a noose around your neck. So you just answer the question succinctly and clam up.”

“All right,” Turnbull said meekly.

“This assumes you know the answer. If you don’t, by God you just say so. You don’t guess. You don’t say what probably happened or what usually happens. Got it?”

Mark noticed that Turnbull’s left eye was beginning to twitch. “Got it.”

“Now let’s talk a moment about your testimony.” Colby eased back in his chair, relaxing his intimidating posture a hair. “Of course, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to say. That would be improper and unethical. I would never encourage a witness to do anything but tell the truth.”

Mark wondered why Colby paused. It was almost as if there was a
but
coming.

“Given the work you did at the plant, it is inevitable that you will be asked about the waste-disposal process. The plaintiffs" lawyer is desperate to prove that somehow Blaylock poisoned the Blackwood water aquifer—which of course was more than half a mile away from the plant. It’s ridiculous, but that’s what they want to do. So it’s important that we be firm and consistent in our description of the waste-disposal plan H. P. Blaylock maintained at all times and without exception.”

“Of course,” Turnbull said quietly.

“As I understand it, the runoff from all equipment tables—anyplace these chemical solvents would have been used—was collected in plastic bins. When they were approximately two-thirds full, the bins would be poured into steel drums; a drum was conveniently placed in every workroom. When the drums were nearly full, they were sealed—airtight—and carried to the back of the plant, where every two weeks they would be hauled to a federally approved waste-disposal site. There is absolutely no way any of that waste could have contaminated the groundwater. None whatsoever.”

Colby paused again, as if waiting for Turnbull to make some kind of response.

“Is that your understanding of the situation, too?”

Turnbull’s neck stretched. “Well … yes. More or less.”

Colby pounced forward. “More or less? What the hell does that mean? A wishy-washy answer like that could cost your employer millions.”

“But—you know”—Turnbull was struggling for words—“there were times—”

“Excuse me? Are you saying that wasn’t the policy? Because I have it from Myron Blaylock himself.”

“But … there’s a difference between policy and … implementation.”

“Are you saying there was someone who didn’t follow the official corporate policy?” He grabbed a legal pad. “Because if there are such persons, I want their names now. They will be subject to summary termination.”

Turnbull licked his lips, parted them, acted as if there was something he might say. But nothing came out.

“I’m waiting, sir. Was this waste-disposal policy followed or not?”

Turnbull finally managed to speak. “It … was.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it. You should have said so in the first place.” He peered directly into Turnbull’s eyes. “Please remember what I said. Answer yes-no questions with a yes or a no. Period.”

“Sorry,” Turnbull said, tucking his chin. “Yes. That’s how it was.”

“Fine,” Colby replied calmly, a small smile playing on his lips. “That’s how I thought it was.” He stretched out in his chair, his hands placed casually behind his neck. “Mark, bring in the next one.”

A
FTER MYRON BLAYLOCK, BEN
decided he needed a break from overtly hostile witnesses, so the next day he scheduled a few who didn’t work at Blaylock but whose testimony could nonetheless be critical.

He started with Blackwood’s city engineer, a quiet man named Nathan Tate. He had principal responsibility for the water wells in Blackwood—in theory, anyway—and he was the one who had finally shut down Well B, after chemical poisons were identified by the EPA. Unfortunately, he had conducted no studies of his own; he took action solely on the basis of the EPA report. He also had no idea how the contamination occurred.

“Have you made any effort to determine how the well became poisoned?”

Tate cleared his throat. “The EPA report suggests some possibilities.”

“I’m aware of that,” Ben replied. “But have you or anyone in your office tried to learn how the contamination occurred?”

“Er, no. I’m afraid we don’t have a budget for that sort of thing.”

“You’re saying you can’t afford to keep the wells safe?”

“As soon as we learned the water was tainted, I closed them.”

“But you haven’t determined the cause. Doesn’t that fall within your responsibility?”

Tate straightened a bit. “Sir, chemical testing is expensive. If the city chooses not to fund me adequately, there is precious little I can do.”

“So for all you know, the other water wells in Blackwood may be contaminated as well.”

“After the EPA discovered the contamination of Well B, they systematically tested the other water wells. None of them had any problems.”

“So there must be some specific distinctive event which caused the Well B water to go bad.”

“I … suppose that’s true.”

“But you have no idea what that event was.”

Tate glanced across the table at the Blaylock team, then returned his eyes to Ben. “I have no concrete evidence on that subject, no.”

Ben nodded. “Thanks a million.”

The government official who had direct authority over Tate was the state inspector, a man named Paul Schoelen. He was no more help than Tate—possibly less. He had received all kinds of complaints about the water in Blackwood, but nothing that concerned him until the EPA report was released. After that report, he would’ve closed down Well B—except that Tate had already done it.

“What kind of reports did you receive about the water in Blackwood?” Ben asked.

“Oh, the usual sort of thing.” The inspector was an average-looking middle-aged man, with a haircut that dated back to the Seventies and wireframe glasses. He’d held his position for over twenty years and, as far as Ben could tell, had survived that long by doing as little as possible. “Mothers complaining that their water smelled funny. That it had a bad aftertaste. A few letters suggesting that children developed rashes after baths or showers.”

“Did you investigate these complaints?”

“Not at that time.”

“Why not?”

He flipped his hand in the air. “You have to understand—there are literally thousands of water wells in the state of Oklahoma. I have a very small staff. Our budget is minuscule. We can’t go running around every time some mommy thinks the water smells funny.”

“So you did nothing.”

“Nothing at that time.”

“At any time?”

Schoelen squirmed slightly. “Well … after the EPA report …”

“You’re saying you didn’t become involved until after the well was closed?”

“That would be correct.”

“When did you first receive complaints about the water in Blackwood?”

“Oh, I couldn’t say for sure without checking my files. About five or six years ago, I’d guess.”

“Five or six years ago?” Ben was aghast. “Every one of the parents in this lawsuit lost their child in the last five years. If you had acted on those complaints, they might have been saved.”

“Now don’t you try to blame those deaths on me. I didn’t poison the well.”

“I didn’t say you caused the deaths. I said you might’ve prevented them.”

“Do you have any idea how many complaints I receive every week?”

“No,” Ben said, “but I know this. I know when people give their tax dollars to a state inspector, they have the crazy idea that he’s out there inspecting, not sitting behind a desk ignoring complaints.”

“I resent that remark.”

“And I resent the fact that if you’d done your job, some of these tragedies might’ve been avoided.” Ben pushed away from the table. “Taxpayers finance people like you to protect them from dangers they can’t possibly detect on their own.” He shook his head sadly. “But all that money really doesn’t buy them much, does it?”

After the lunch break, Ben started in on the Blaylock employees. There were dozens of potential witnesses, any one of whom might know something about the waste-disposal procedures followed at Blaylock. Ben had no way of knowing which witness might be more important than the others, and of course Colby’s interrogatory answers had intentionally given him no clue. So he would have to depose them all. And taking depositions was very expensive—usually a couple of thousand dollars per day.

In order to save time—and money—Ben tried to move as quickly as possible. But he knew that if he hurried too much he might miss something important, thereby defeating the whole point of the deposition in the first place. For the most part, he had to plod methodically through the long list of witnesses, doing his best to learn what he could, trying not to think about the huge bill he was running up but would eventually have to pay.

The first two Blaylock witnesses were executive types, vice presidents of this or that. Although Ben couldn’t avoid deposing them, he knew his chances of getting anything out of them were slim. They had far too much invested in their careers. They had fancy cars, stock options, and a medical plan. They weren’t going to risk angering Blaylock by giving Ben anything useful.

After the executive parade was over, Ben began deposing some of the men and women who worked in the plant-—chemical employees, machinery cleaners, janitorial squads. The timbre of these depositions was different; Ben didn’t sense so much evasion, so much artifice, so much concerted effort to mislead. Some of them had no idea how the chemical runoff was disposed of. Those who had an opinion on the subject toed the party line: it was carefully transferred to steel drums, which were then transported off the premises. Nothing ever spilled on the ground. They could not have contaminated the water supply.

On the fourth day of these depositions, Ben questioned a man named Archie Turnbull. He seemed a simple, prepossessing fellow; Ben initially liked him, which had not been the case with most of the witnesses he’d had to tackle. Turnbull had been supervisor of the machine room in the rear of the plant that transferred waste to cans and packaged them. Part of his duties included supervising the removal of the waste product.

“What kind of waste are we talking about here?” Ben asked.

“Principally spilled machine oil and grease.” Turnbull had a habit of biting his nails that reasserted itself anytime Ben asked a sufficiently long question.

“Any solvents?”

“We … do use solvents in the plant. To keep the machinery in top condition.”

“What solvents do you use?”

“I’m not in charge of ordering that stuff.”

“But you are the area supervisor. You must know.”

The nibbling intensified. “All those chemical names sound alike to me.”

Ben removed a document from his notebook. “Mr. Turnbull, during document discovery we received a copy of a receipt for the purchase by Blaylock of twelve gallons of perc.”

“Oh?” he said, raising his eyebrows.

“Yes. And unless I’m mistaken, those are your initials at the bottom.” He pointed to the spot. “Right?”

Turnbull swallowed. “Yes. I suppose they are.”

“So your plant does in fact use perc.”

“I … guess so.”

“And you also use or have used TCE, right?”

“Well … I …”

Ben reached into his notebook and retrieved another piece of paper.

“Yes, that’s correct,” Turnbull conceded. “We have used TCE. Though I don’t believe we do anymore.”