Harper Ross Legal Thrillers vol. 1-3 Page 3

  “Harper,” Tammy said. “You need to come back to the office and get sober, for good this time. Our books haven’t been healthy ever since that drug case fell through on appeal. We both were hoping for a decent settlement there, and now it looks like no checks are going to be cut for a long time, if at all. We need money coming in, and that means that both of us need to get out there and make it. In other words, if you don’t get your ass back into the office and into life, I’m going to have to dissolve the partnership and find somebody who is going to be active in the business.”

  I took another swig of my drink, which finished it off. I knew that she was right, and I knew that I had to make things right. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll come back to the office and try a little harder. It was nice having this vacation for awhile, and thanks for letting it go on as long as it did. But I’m not doing anymore criminal defense, so don’t even ask me to.”

  She sighed. “About that…”

  I groaned. “About what?”

  “I signed up a new client today. While you were here in the bar, I signed him up. His friend came in and paid a $25,000 retainer.”

  I shrugged. “That’s good. If he’s a criminal defendant, then you try the case. I’m fine with that. You can give me all the…” I shook my head. All the what? What cases did I want? After the whole Gina thing, I knew that I was gun-shy, and I didn’t want any case where there was a chance that I could totally screw up somebody’s life if I lost or, god forbid, if I won and the bastard went on to do it again. That pretty much left very little for me to do, because, if there’s one thing that you can say about the law, it’s that you have your client’s life and livelihood in your hands at all times. If you took a custody case and lost it, your client is devastated. If you took a criminal case and lost it, your client could literally lose his or her life, or be behind bars for the duration of his or her natural-born years. If you took a personal injury or medical malpractice case and lost it, your client might be living in chronic pain with no compensation for the rest of his or her life.

  To top it off, all of those outcomes could also mean a big, fat malpractice suit against me and the firm. Being a lawyer meant constantly playing with people’s lives and livelihoods and, if you rolled the dice and lost, it also meant possibly answering to the State Bar and possibly getting sued and losing your own practice.

  I had no desire anymore to deal with any of that.

  “Harper, you know that I don’t do criminal cases.”

  That was true enough. Tammy pretty much stayed on the “safe” side of the law, while bringing in the big bucks. She settled estates, set up corporations, constructed trusts and did the occasional will contest. That was as far into litigation as she dared wade into. A criminal defense attorney she wasn’t.

  “Yes, I know that, but you apparently are going to be doing at least one criminal defense case, since you saw fit to sign one up without my knowledge.” I glared at her. I knew her game – she was going to force my hand. She saw me as a prize fighter who took one punch too many and decided to get out of the ring. The best way to get that prize fighter back on his feet would be to sign him up for a fight and make him face his fears.

  I wasn’t about to fall for that, though.

  “If I took this case, there would not only be a malpractice claim coming down the pike, but also an appeal for ineffective assistance of counsel. My ass would be dragged through the mud by a strong mule,” Tammy said.

  “True that, but Tammy, you should have thought of that before you signed this guy up. Now, here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to give that guy his retainer back and give some referrals to people who actually would like to take him on. And you’re going to lay off of me and let me come back on my own time schedule.” I crunched the ice in my glass and rattled it a bit more. I hoped that Sally would notice and come and refresh my drink once more. Or twice more. Or…

  She finally sighed. “I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t. But I need you to know that I’ve already seen an attorney about dissolving our partnership. She said that I would have grounds to do just that, seeing as you’ve checked out of our business altogether this past month or so. She’s drawn up papers. All I have to do is sign.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She was going to blackmail me into doing something that I didn’t want to do.

  I had to give her credit. I didn’t think that she had it in her. I never pegged Tammy as being a shrewd businessperson, but, when the chips were down, she was showing her true colors. I had to grudgingly respect that.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “Well, don’t think too long about it. His initial appearance is at 1:30 today, and he’s likely to be assigned to the rocket docket. Especially since this case is pretty high profile.”

  The “rocket docket” referred to the cases that were assigned to Judge Reiner in Division 33. He was known as a judge who didn't mess around with continuances, and he had no patience with dragging things out. He generally wanted his criminal cases to be tried and gone within a year, maximum, and, most of the time, he demanded that cases be done within three months. The ones that were allowed to go for one year were the ones that were truly exceptional. Like high-profile capital cases. I hoped and prayed that this case wasn’t one of those.

  “How high profile?”

  “Very. The name of the defendant is Heath Morrison, and-“

  “Heath Morrison. You mean Heather Morrison, don’t you?” I had heard about this case in the paper. I didn’t read too much about it, except that Heather Morrison was a trans-gender youth who was accused of killing her mother by stabbing her. It was one of those things that the media decided to blow up, for whatever reason, and the whole thing had been front-page news since it happened. Again, I hadn’t been paying too much attention to all of it, but I did see front-page headlines about it, so I had concluded that this was something that, for whatever reason, was generating quite a bit of public interest.

  “Heath Morrison was his birth name, so that’s the name on the docket. But, yes, you’re correct. Heath Morrison has been known as Heather Morrison for the past three years.”

  I shook my head. “No. Not doing it. No way am I going to allow myself to get in front of that spotlight again. It’s bad enough you sneaked me into a criminal defense case, when you know damned well how I feel about that. But to get me into something where the media is going to be crawling up my ass again…no. I mentally can’t handle this right now. Or ever for that matter. Now, you tricked me into this, and you’re going to get me out of it. You’re going to visit Heather in jail and explain the bad news. In the meantime, you’re going to contact Tom Peabody or Rex Arnold. Those two love the limelight.”

  Tom Peabody was nicknamed Tom Peacock by most of the Bar, and it wasn’t a meant as a compliment. The guy preened worse than any multi-colored bird with fabulous plumage. Rex Arnold was just as bad. Those two would always fight over who would get the big cases, the cases that would make them famous. If there was something that the media was blowing up, they were both on the case like flies on shit. I would imagine that one or both had probably already visited Heather and tried to steal her away with promises of a book deal when everything is said and done.

  So be it. Either of those men could deal with this, because I certainly wasn’t going to.

  “You are doing it, because if you don’t, I will sign that paper dissolving the partnership. I have grounds to do that. You know that I do.” She crossed her arms in front of her. “1:30 is quickly approaching. Tick tock.”

  Tick tock? Tick tock? She had her nerve.

  “Go to the initial appearance. You know that nothing happens on that docket.” That was true – the initial appearance was simply where the girl was brought in to have her charges read and she can either plead guilty or not guilty. She would also get her statement of information, which details the crime and would tell her what the state has against her, as least preliminarily. After that, it was si
mply a matter of the case being turned over to the grand jury, and, after that, assignment to the permanent docket, arraignment and setting a trial date. There was very little in the initial appearance that necessitated my being there.

  “Nothing doing. Heather wants to meet you. I’ve already told her that you were going to be her attorney, and that means that you’re going to be with her every step of the way. That means every step, even this first little baby one. Besides, she’s going to have a bond set today. She needs you to argue forcefully that the bond shouldn’t be astronomical, and that she should only have to come up with 10%. Only you can do that, Harper. I wouldn’t be able to do her justice.”

  “What is her bond now?”

  “$250,000 cash,” she said. “Obviously that means that she’s going to have to stay in jail unless you do something about it.”

  I rolled my eyes. $250,000 cash? For most defendants, that bond was completely out of reach. Might as well be 250 million.

  On the other hand, if I could convince the judge to make it $250,000/10%, then Heather would only have to come up with $25,000 to get out of jail. If she jumped, then she would be on the hook for the whole $250,000, however. That was how that worked.

  $25,000 might be doable, or, at least it was for many defendants. They would get their aunts, uncles, cousins and friends to come up with a thousand here and a thousand there. A house or two would be mortgaged and that would be that. At least, that was my experience – most criminals have multiple people who care enough about him or her to get that person out of jail.

  I crunched my ice some more, realizing that I wasn’t going to get another drink. Number one, Sally wasn’t going to serve me. But I had to admit that, even if Sally did want to serve me, I probably wouldn’t have accepted another drink.

  For whatever reason, I knew that I was going to be sucked into this Heather Morrison case against my will. I didn’t want to lose Tammy as a partner, and if I had to take this case in order to keep her, then that was what I was going to have to do.

  I ran one hand through my hair.

  “I hate you.”

  Tammy smiled. “I know.”

  “Well, I better get home and put on the old monkey suit. Sounds like this Heather needs me.”

  And, just like that, I had a purpose again.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “So that’s your plan, Heath? To find a sugar daddy and marry him? Doesn’t sound like much of a plan, especially since you don’t cook or clean.”

  Heather Morrison’s bunkmate was named Charlie Charleston, or Char Char for short. She got extremely lucky in her forced selection of bunk mates, as Charlie was an enormous black man but, when he opened his mouth, Heather knew that he was family. His voice was several octaves higher than the voice that should have been coming out of his enormous mouth, and he moved with a slight swish of his hips and with ramrod straight posture. Sure enough, the first night that they started talking, Char Char came clean with the fact that he was openly gay. Which was one of the reasons he had a drug problem, he had explained, which led him to holding up a liquor store, which, in turn, led him straight into the Jackson County Jail to be held over for his trial for armed robbery.

  “Honey, with my tongue, I don’t need to know how to cook and clean,” Heather said. “And how many times have I asked you to stop calling me Heath? You know my name is Heather.”

  “If your name is Heather, then how the Hell are you here bunking with me?” Char Char knew the answer to that, because that same question had been asked and answered between the two since they both arrived at the jail. Heather knew that Char Char was just busting on her, but that didn’t mean that she liked it.

  “Good question, love. My lawyer is going to be here soon, and Imma ask her to have me transferred over the ladies’ side, where I belong. But I’m sure gonna miss your black ass.” Heather blew Char Char a kiss and Char Char grinned.

  “You’re not gonna get transferred, so you might as well get comfortable here. This is Missouri. Missouri don’t give no rights to us gay boys or trans girls. You know that as much as I do. You’re just going to have to suffer.”

  “I’m not going to suffer. I know I have rights. I have my civil rights, and that means that I don’t need to be suffering here by showering with these awful boys. But then again, I could make the shower very interesting for just the right guy. No offense, though, Char Char, but I don’t do chocolate. I’m a straight vanilla girl, although I sure don’t like vanilla sex.” Heather started to laugh. She knew, as well as Char Char, that she wasn’t going to get out of the men’s jail, even though that seemed to be discrimination at its finest in her eyes. She was born female, goddammit, so why did everyone want to force her to be male? People got so weird about trans people in the bathrooms and locker rooms and all of that, and she couldn’t count the number of times that she heard the word “freak” called right to her face. Her own parents refused to accept her, and they both refused to call her Heather or even refer to her with the female pronoun.

  If Heather lived to be 100, she would never understand why other people gave two craps about how others lived their lives. If she wanted to be called Heather and referred to as a female, then how is that hurting anyone? Yet, judging by the way that she had been harassed and picked on all of her life, her gender identity apparently hurt everyone somehow. How they were hurt, she didn’t know. But considering how much everyone in her life had tried to get her to conform to “the rules,” whatever that meant, Heather had concluded that the world was full of busy-bodies who had no patience for anyone who was different from them.

  The fact that her mother went another step from refusing to refer to her as “Heather,” was the reason why Heather was in this hell-hole. But that was a story for her lawyer. Harper Ross was going to get more than she bargained for in this case. Heather was going to make sure of that.

  “Now tell me again how you’re going to marry some rich dude who is just going to let you live the life of a princess? And you do know that today’s princesses pretty much have to do a ton of work, right?”

  “Well, okay, maybe he won’t treat me like a princess, but a lady of leisure. He’ll give me my own new Beemer and let me take tennis lessons and have lunch with the girls and go shopping and not expect me to do anything around the house. Because we’re going to have a fabulous maid named Marguerita who’s gonna do everything. And all that I have to do for him will be sexual favors, which I’m very good at.”

  “It ain’t called ‘favors’ if you’re married to the guy. It’s more like an obligation.”

  “Sexual favors, sexual obligations, whatevs. The point is, I’ll make him so happy that there’s no way he’ll expect me to do any kind of work. That’s my dream.”

  Char Char rolled his eyes. “You expecting a lot there,” he said. “Considering where you are right now.”

  “Well, I know that I’m here right now, but I don’t belong here, and Imma get out of here as soon as my bond is reduced and I can post it.”

  “Your bond ain’t gonna be reduced, so you might as well just sit a spell here and stop your bitchin’. We’re gonna be joined at the hip by the time it’s all said and done.”

  “Char Char,” Heather said, dangling one leg over the side of her bed while she stared up at the ceiling from her vantage point of the top bunk. “Do you think you and I got something in common?” Heather was genuinely curious about how other people were treated – people who weren’t quite mainstream, not part of the white male Anglo-Saxon Protestant group. That group seemed to think that the world owed them, and if others tried to get a piece of the pie, they seemed to feel that was unfair somehow. As if their slice of the pie was going to necessarily be diminished by people of color or LGBTQ people trying to get something out of life, too. Heather never quite understood that, either.

  “Whatchou mean?”

  “Well, you’re a black man and I’m a trans girl, and you’re gay. Even if you weren’t gay, you’re automatically seen as not eq
ual. You know that, don’t you?”

  Char Char started to laugh. “Why do I have a white boy telling me that? I think you know the answer to that question.”

  “I do. And stop calling me boy, please. I would never call you boy, so why you gotta call me boy?”

  “Because you are. You ain’t got no sex change yet, you still have your boy plumbing, so you a boy.”

  Heather rolled her eyes. “Listen, we gotta stick together. I’m your queer sister, so you gotta show some respect. At any rate, have you ever thought about why those religious white folks hate us? I gotta theory about that.”

  “You do? Lemme hear it.”

  “Yeah. Their Flying Spaghetti Monster tells them that we’re bad and evil and all that. But I just think that they need somebody to hate and blame for their shitty lives. You ever notice that the dumber and poorer they are, the more they want to harass us?”

  Char Char shrugged his shoulders. “I dunno. I guess that’s right. But I sure have been harassed by some educated rich folks, too, even ones who aren’t religious. I just think that people need to live and let live, but they don’t. They don’t.”

  Just then, the guard showed up. “Heath Morrison,” he called out. “You have a professional visitor.”

  “A professional visitor? That sounds like fun. Oooh, I wonder what kind of profession my visitor is in. Maybe he’s a professional dancer or a professional actor. Or maybe he’s part of the oldest profession. That sounds like a lot of fun, too.”

  Heather knew that the professional was an attorney, but she liked making Char Char laugh, so she kept on with her lines. “A professional poker player or a professional porn star. Just think of the possibilities, Char Char.”

  The guard stood there with handcuffs in his hands, waiting for Heather and looking annoyed.

  Heather jumped down off the bed and put her hands out in front of her. “Cuff me, big boy,” she said, and then she winked over at Char Char. “I always wanted to say that.”

  The guard put handcuffs on Heather and led her down a long hallway. “You’re going to be meeting with your new attorney,” he said. “Her name is Harper Ross.”