The Associate Page 10

  Chapter 12

  I went to see Amelia that night. She was sitting up in bed, looking healthier than I had ever seen her. When she saw me, she smiled and I went over to the bed. I still had to wear a mask and gloves, because I still had to be sterile. But, the way that Amelia was looking, I thought that there was a glimmer of hope. No matter how slight.

  “Dad,” she said with obvious delight. “I’m so happy to see you tonight. I mean, I’m always happy to see you, but especially tonight.”

  “Especially tonight, huh?” I asked teasingly. “Why especially tonight?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I feel pretty decent tonight,” she said. “For the first time in a long time, I actually feel like getting out of this bed. I need to do something other than watch those stupid television shows all the time. I wish that I could have a sterilized iPad or something like that, but my nurses tell me that I can’t. I just can’t wait until I get my surgery, though.”

  “I can’t wait for you to get your surgery, either,” I said. And then I paused. I was going to have to tell her about her mother. Not that she would be surprised in the least, though. I knew that she wouldn’t be. She had to know that her mother and I were having problems. It was obvious that Sarah had checked out on Amelia long ago. Really, Amelia didn’t have a mother, and she hadn’t had one for quite some time. “But Kitten, I hate to tell you something.”

  “You and Sarah are getting a divorce,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “I know. Sarah was by earlier today to tell me all about it.” She rolled her eyes. She had recently started referring to her mother as “Sarah.” I knew why – Amelia apparently wasn’t feeling that Sarah was her mother anymore. Sarah was really a stranger to her. “It’s no big deal, of course. Sarah hasn’t been my mom pretty much since I got sick. It’s not like I’ll be missing out on some kind of undying devotion or anything like that. She wasn’t like Austin’s mom. That woman was dedicated.”

  I blinked my eyes. It never occurred to me that Amelia might know Austin. “You know Austin Ward?” I asked her. “I mean, you knew him?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “When I first got here, before I started all that chemotherapy and stuff that lowered my immunity system so much, I was able to actually go around and see other kids in the cancer ward. And Austin was one of the kids that I saw. He taught me how to play chess. That was before he was isolated, too, for his surgery. Turns out I’m a natural, or at least that’s what Austin tells me. I’m gonna take lessons when I get out of this place.”

  “You know what happened to him, right?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. That’s pretty sad. He was a good guy.” She looked down at her hands and then looked up at me. “I met his mom, too. She really loved Austin. Austin thought it was kinda weird, though, because his mom was dating one of his doctors. Nobody really knew about it, but Austin did. He didn’t like that his mom was dating his doctor, though.”

  My ears perked up when Amelia said that. “Dating one of Austin’s doctors? Do you know which one? Did Austin tell you which doctor his mom was dating?”

  “Yeah, he did. He told me that his mom was dating a doctor in the hospital. He wasn’t really Austin’s doctor, but I knew that he does lots of surgeries. He’s one of those guys who puts people to sleep before they get operated on.”

  I closed my eyes. “Was his name Dr. Kim, by any chance?”

  “Yeah,” Amelia said, pointing at me. “Dr. Kim. How did you know that?”

  “A hunch,” I said. I wondered what was going on. That was the strangest thing. Betsy never told me, once, that she and Dr. Kim once dated. I would have thought that was really odd, to say the very least. She dated him and now she’s suing him?

  I didn’t really think much of that fact, other than I knew that I was going to have to have words with Betsy about what Amelia just told me. I couldn’t have my clients hiding such huge facts from me. It was bound to affect her case against Dr. Kim and against the hospital. I was happy that Amelia outed the two of them, however. If she didn’t, I might not figure out what was going on until it was too late. Garrett was bound to find out, but he hadn’t so far.

  I wanted to change the subject. I was going to get to the bottom of the Dr. Kim thing with Betsy in due time. For now, though, I needed to really see how my daughter was doing emotionally. Now that she knew that her mom and I were going to split up, it had to affect her. “How do you really feel about your mother and I splitting up?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “It’s fine. Most of the kids around here have parents who are splitting up. We had this group therapy when I first got here, and most of the kids talked about that. The therapist told us all that splitting up is what happens to parents when their kids get sick. I guess people can’t really handle their kids being sick and maybe gonna die, and they end up breaking up. It happens.” She shrugged her shoulders again. “But are you going to start dating again?” She scrunched up her nose and shook her head. “Tell me you’re not going to be bringing a lot of women to the house.”

  That was something that I wasn’t going to do. I didn’t tell her why I wouldn’t do it, but I knew the truth. After the way that my mother brought guy after guy to our trailer home, I promised myself that I would never do that to a kid of mine. That pretty much meant that I wasn’t going to be bringing a woman home to meet Amelia and Nate until I was sure that I was going to marry the woman. And that wasn’t going to be for a long, long time. Maybe never. After the way that Sarah burned me, I didn’t think that I would be able to trust anybody for awhile.

  “I won’t be bringing women to the house,” I said. “I promise.”

  “Pinky swear?” she asked me, holding out her pinky.

  “Pinky swear,” I said, holding out my pinky. We both wiggled our pinkies at each other, since we couldn’t actually touch.

  “That’s good,” she said. “I mean, Sarah already has a dude. His name is John, and he looks sleazy. Hair all greased back like a douche. He brought me a gift, it’s over there,” she said, pointing to a stuffed animal that was on a little table next to her bed. “I guess he thinks that I’m some kind of baby or something.”

  I closed my eyes, feeling the rage bubbling to the surface. “Your mother brought her new boyfriend here? To your hospital room?”

  “Yeah,” Amelia said. “You’re much cuter than he is, though,” she said. “And much cooler, too. He’s so weird. He just tells stupid jokes. Knock knock jokes.” She rolled her eyes. “Again, he must think that I’m a baby. Or in kindergarten. I told him that I’m in second grade, and he’s all ‘knock, knock.’” She rapped the air. “Lame.”

  Amelia was in the second grade, even though she was only six. That was because she skipped a grade. My daughter was brilliant, and I still couldn’t believe that Sarah had given up on her so quickly. She would be sorry one day when Amelia wins the Nobel Prize for finding a cure for cancer one day. If anybody was going to go on to cure cancer, it would be Amelia.

  I straightened up in my chair. “Tell your mom not to bring him around anymore,” I said. “That’s not right that she would do that.”

  “I don’t care. Sarah is dating a douche. I guess that’s news to the world, but it is what it is. I just don’t want you to bring women around, because I’ll apparently be living with you. Sarah told me that, too.”

  I smiled. “Is there anything that escapes you?”

  “No.” She laughed. “Nothing.”

  I wanted so badly to smooth back her hair. Tell her a story like when she was three years old, and wanted to hear Half Magic for the eightieth time. That was a book that I loved when I was a kid, and I wanted to share it with her. She understood it, even at a young age. The kids in that book had a magical talisman that granted them half a wish. Soon, they were going to King Arthur’s Court, and then the youngest child became half there – she was in the movie theater and wished that she weren’t there, and, since the talisman only granted half the wish, she was immediately half there. I told Amelia that sto
ry and so many others. But there wasn’t going to be any of those stories anymore. She had already outgrown them. That made me sad, in a way, but I was also looking forward to the day when she really outgrew them. I was looking forward to the day when we could put cancer behind us, and when her doctor actually tells me that Amelia can expect to live a long and fruitful life.

  The nurse came around. “Visiting hours are over,” she said. “I know that you’re her parent, so technically, you can visit her anytime, but she needs her rest. Her big day happens next week.”

  She was referring to the date of Amelia’s surgery. I looked forward to that day, yet also dreaded it. After all, Betsy was looking forward to her son’s surgery, too. She obviously had high hopes. Her son never came out of surgery.

  Was that going to happen to Amelia?

  Chapter 13

  The next day, I decided to do some digging of my own. Garrett’s report about Wells Armstrong got me curious. I decided that I was going to go ahead and call Irina myself and ask her some questions over the phone. Hopefully she would answer them truthfully.

  Harper and I met in the conference room to get a status update on the Erik Gregorian case. We often did this to brainstorm, and I was going to tell her what was on my mind. I needed to clear with her what I was going to do.

  She brought in some Krispy Kreme donuts. “I know, I know,” she said. “Donuts are crap. They’re terrible for your health and clog your arteries and there’s way too much sugar in them.” She looked at me apologetically. “But they sure do taste amazing.”

  I picked up a jelly-filled one, finding that it was warm. “Are these right off the line?” I asked her.

  “I wish,” she said. “No, I just come in here and put them into the microwave for about twenty seconds.” She went over to the Keurig machine and made me a cup of a coffee and sat down with her bottled water. I was starting to learn that Harper wasn’t fond of caffeine. I never saw her drink coffee or even tea. In fact, the only thing I did see her drink was bottled water. I wondered if she ever got bored.

  “Now,” she said, “we found out some pretty good information from Garrett. That might be why Nick Wright just called me wanting to see if I was interested in a plea deal. We have our first pre-trial conference next week with the trial judge, Judge Clarion, so I want to try to get a lay of the land before I go before him. He’s going to want to see if we can plea this case out, but I want to get a better idea of how strong the DA’s case is before I commit to anything.”

  “What are you thinking about?”

  “Well, obviously, we have to find some major holes. I got a court order allowing us to inspect the car, and I’m sending an expert down there to do just that. I thought it was pretty odd that witnesses told the police that Shelly was driving at a high rate of speed. If it was simply that her brakes weren’t working, then why was she slamming her foot down on the gas? Most people would try to slow down by taking their foot off the gas and hope to coast to a stop that way. Or they might be even smarter than that, and they would pull up on the emergency brake or turn the car off. Shelly didn’t strike me as being a stupid woman. Surely she was smart enough to figure out how to maneuver a car that didn’t have brakes.”

  “She might have panicked,” I said. “That’s what I think happened. She was driving on the highway during a busy part of the day. She was probably going 70 or 80 before she realized that she didn’t have brakes. So, she’s driving at a good clip, she puts her foot on the brake, and nothing happens. At that point, she panicked and she puts her foot on the gas. That happens when people panic – their brain somehow confuses the pedals. When I was in law school, I interned for an insurance defense firm. They had a case where somebody got behind the wheel and got confused and hit the gas instead of the brake. He ended up pinning a woman’s legs against the wall. She lost both of her legs from the knee down. I’m telling you, it happens more often than you might think.”

  “I know,” Harper said, nodding her head. “And I totally get what you’re saying. I’m saying that it needs to be looked into a bit more. So, I found an expert to examine that car. His name is Nick Savolo, and he’s been a car mechanic for twenty years. He’ll testify in court if we ask him and he finds anything out about the car that is suspicious.”

  “I guess I don’t really know what that will prove,” I said. “So, he finds out that there was something else wrong with the car. How does that exonerate Erik?”

  “It’s a causation thing,” she said. “Yes, her brake lines were completely cut, but that didn’t actually cause her death. Maybe there was some other kind of defect that caused the car to careen out of control. If we can present to the jury that Shelly wouldn’t have died but for the other defect, then…”

  I shook my head. “I know what you’re saying, but it sounds like a losing strategy to me. You can’t show that Shelly wouldn’t have died if the car wasn’t defective in some other way. Assuming that you find some other kind of defect. The truth of that matter is, she was driving on the highway when her car went out of control and she was killed. Just having her brake lines cut would possibly be enough to kill her, even absent some other defect. Go ahead and have your expert, Nick Savante, take a look at the car, but I don’t think that this is something to hang our hat on.”

  “Savolo,” Harper said. “Nick’s last name is Savolo, not Savante.”

  “Oh,” I said, shaking my head. Truth be told, Nick Savante was on my mind and had been every day for the past 17 years. Him and Tommy and Jack and Connor. All the guys were on my mind constantly. “Savolo.”

  Harper cocked her head and stared at me. She seemed to know that something was bothering me. “Anything you want to tell me?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You just got this funny look on your face. Not funny ha ha, but funny strange.”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, nothing. I was just thinking about a buddy of mine that I used to know. Wondering how he’s doing. What he’s up to.”

  “You should go and visit him,” Harper said. “If you’re thinking about him, I’m sure he probably thinks about you, too. Trust me, it’s always a good thing to reconnect. I had a girlfriend that I haven’t seen in about 10 years. Then I looked her up on Facebook and we had dinner and it was just like we never stopped talking to one another. I always used to think about her, and now she and I are friends again. I wondered why we ever lost touch in the first place.”

  I swallowed hard. I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t exactly like that. If I wanted to see Nick, I would have to go to Cameron prison to see him. “Yeah,” I said. “Maybe I’ll just do that. What you say – look him up on Facebook and see if I can catch up with him.” I cleared my throat. “Anyhow, I was going to go ahead and call Irina Kovokosky today. I’m going to see if she can tell me anything more about Shelly and the work she was doing for her. I hope that she talks to me. I’ll get a feel for her, see if she might make a good witness for Erik’s trial.”

  Harper nodded. “That’s a good idea. I was going to go ahead and put in a phone call to Wells Armstrong myself today. I’m hoping he’ll meet with me. Maybe you work the Irina angle and I’ll work the Wells angle, and we can meet here after both of us talk to our respective witnesses. I have a feeling that we’ll be going down a fruitful path if we work it this way. At any rate, it will give us some indication on where this case will be heading and what our strategy is going to be.”

  Harper gathered together the documents that she had spread out on the table and looked at her watch. “Well, I have to get going. I have a pre-trial conference on a different case. It’s also a murder case, but I think that this one is going to plead out. It’s death penalty eligible, but I have an offer on the table for 30 years. I think I’ll tell my client to jump all over that one.”

  I nodded my head. “Careful, though, Harper. You know what they say when you sell your house and somebody takes your offer within a day. That means that you priced your house too l
ow. If the prosecutor is offering you 30 years on a death penalty case, that might mean that there’s something that you’re overlooking about the case. Something that the prosecutor knows that you don’t. All I’m saying is this – if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Look closer.”

  Harper nodded her head. “I know what you’re saying, and you’re probably right. I’ll have to figure that out, though. In the meantime, get on the horn with Irina and see what you can find out. I’ll set up an appointment with Wells in the next few days. I’ll see you later.”

  At that, she walked rapidly out the door of the conference room and disappeared down the hall.

  Chapter 14

  I called Irina after Harper left the conference room. I fully expected to get her voice mail, so I was surprised when she actually answered the phone. “Irina Kovokosky,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  I cleared my throat. “Ms. Kovokosky,” I said. “My name is Damien Harrington, and I would like to speak with you about one of your girls. Shelly McMason.”

  “Yes,” she said. Her voice was dripping and strong, like honey. She had a definite accent, although I could distinctly understand every word she said. “Mr. Harrington. I was expecting your call. That is why I picked up the phone. I usually let it go to voice mail, because nobody calls me on my cell phone except those sleazy telemarketers trying to sell me everything under the sun. But I recognize your phone number – 816 area code. I thought it might be you calling me.”

  This was encouraging. I thought that she might be reluctant to speak with me. After all, her business was technically illegal – she was sending out call girls. Garrett told me that Irina had billed her company as an escort service, but it apparently was no more an escort service than all those Las Vegas “escort services” were. I always had to laugh when the street vendors handed out those little flyers with the naked women on them on the streets of Las Vegas. They were advertising for escorts, but the girls in the pictures were naked, so you had to know that they were offering something other than just a date for lonely men.