No Legal Grounds (31 page)
Authors: James Scott Bell
Tags: #Christian Books & Bibles, #Literature & Fiction, #Mystery & Suspense, #United States, #Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, #Thrillers, #Legal, #Suspense, #Religion & Spirituality, #Fiction, #Mystery, #Religious & Inspirational Fiction, #Contemporary, #Christianity, #Christian Fiction
Shot would be nice, Sam thought as he drove to Beverly Hills. Take it out of the system altogether. No muss, no fuss.
But first they had to find him.
Sam needed to calm down before the business at hand. He found a parking spot on the street, across from the Connelly Building on Camden, and listened to the radio. He had a final pretrial memo to deliver to Larry Cohen, and instead of sending it by messenger he’d decided to go himself. Maybe getting face-to-face with Cohen would convince him, finally, to give a decent settlement offer on Harper. Showing up unannounced would give Cohen less time to prepare a canned response.
The radio was playing his favorite kind of music, the most mellow kind he could find, mellow being the new watchword for his life. The tune was Larry Carlton’s “Minute by Minute,” which soothed like a Burke Williams masseur.
The song was just about to end when something across the street caught his eye.
And tore him right out of mellow.
It was the blond guy. The guy who had been staking out his house. Had to be. That same guy was walking out of the building doors, strolling toward Wilshire, as if he were as much a part of the fabric of everyday business as Sam and Cohen.
Slowly, Sam got out of the car, wheels turning in his head. The wheels took him across Camden and into the Connelly Building and up to reception at Cohen, Stone & Baerwitz.
“I’m here to see Larry Cohen,” Sam said.
“Do you have an appointment?” snapped the young receptionist, a raven-haired ice queen.
“Yeah. I just made it.”
Her face didn’t crack. “I’m sorry, but — ”
“Never mind. I’ll let myself in.”
He walked past the desk and went through the inner door, the ice queen barking something about waiting.
Sam headed for the office at the end of the corridor. He’d been in the corner digs of Larry Cohen before. No doubt this would be the last time.
He threw the door open.
Larry Cohen was on the phone. His face tightened when he saw Sam.
“I’ll call you right back,” Cohen said, then hung up. He stood and forced a smile. “Sam, hey, this is a surprise.”
Sam ignored Cohen’s hand, extended over the desk. “You wanted it too much,” Sam said.
“Excuse me?”
“The W. The win. You couldn’t stand the possibility that you’d get your head handed to you.”
“Sam, you don’t look good. You okay?”
“What I want to know is, when did it occur to you?”
“Please, sit down and — ”
“Was it when I deposed the doc? Was it when we were in the judge’s chambers?” Sam slapped the desk with his open palm. A small pewter statuette of a football player that sat on Cohen’s desk fell over, clanking against the glass top.
“Hey, hey,” Cohen said.
“I saw him,” Sam said. “The Viking coming out of the building. He’s your guy. You had him watching my house.”
Cohen’s eyes narrowed. “Sam, take it real easy.”
“Who is he?”
“Sam, are you talking about one of my investigators? Be cause — ”
“Why was he watching my house, Larry?”
“You want the Nicholson on this? Because I don’t think you can handle the truth.”
“Try me.”
“You’re unhinged, Sam. That’s a legitimate part of this whole thing. So I had my guy give you a little look. So what?”
Sam looked at him long and hard. Cohen stared back, trying not to blink. Then Cohen’s eye twitched.
“You knew I’d see him,” Sam said. “You were rattling my cage, weren’t you?”
“Please.”
“You wanted me to crack.”
“You have cracked, Sam. You’re the only one who doesn’t know it.”
“My
wife
, Larry. You scared my wife.”
Cohen stood up behind his desk. “Listen very carefully, Sam. You’re unbalanced. You really are. It happens. The stress.”
For a second Sam thought maybe Cohen was right.
He didn’t care.
“You instructed your guy to watch my house,” Sam said. “And be
seen
watching my house. That’s harassment. Well, you know what? I’m an expert on harassment now. I’m going to make sure you’re held accountable.”
Red-faced, but with a cool voice, Cohen said, “You can’t prove anything. And if you were to try, to the state bar or even with some loose comment in a dinner conversation, that would be slander. I’ll fight you, and I don’t lose fights. With your record lately, the way you’ve handled yourself, who are they going to believe? You’re not a rational man, Sam.”
“We’re going to trial, Larry. Then we’ll see who’s rational.”
“That’s a very unwise move. Now why don’t — ”
“Can it. I’ve had my fill.”
Sam was shaking in the car. His body was at the breaking point. He hated to give Cohen any credence, but maybe somebody looking at him would have thought the very same thing.
Crack-up.
And he knew he couldn’t just will it away.
He almost hit a Caddie turning onto Wilshire. The adrenaline
that kicked in put his brain into hard focus, got him on the freeway. He cruised with the light traffic to the valley. But instead of the turnoff going to the house, he found himself heading for church.
The prayer chapel was the original building on the property, a small A-frame that Solid Rock had preserved as a quiet place for prayer. Wooden pews, a stained-glass window depicting the risen Christ.
He stayed until dark.
The moment he pulled into the driveway he sensed something was wrong. The house looked as it always did, even in the darkness. And yet . . .
Sam popped the trunk where he kept the Browning case. He opened the case and took out the weapon.
Maybe foolish, maybe not. But a live fool was the best option for his family.
He unlocked the front door and pushed it open, pausing before going in, leaning to the side like a movie cop.
Nothing.
And then a muffled scream.
“What, you don’t like it here?” Aunt Nancy said.
Linda put her hand on her big sister’s arm. “Of course he does. What’s not to like? This is pizza central.”
They were all sitting around the dining room table in Aunt Nancy’s. She’d been married twenty years, then her husband left her. At least he’d left her the house, a classic Craftsman that was quaint and warm. The interior design was reflective of Nancy’s eclectic artistic tastes. She had kept up her career as an artist and was doing pretty well at it.
The deep-dish pizza from Flannery’s was the best on the West Coast, at least according to Flannery’s itself, and this was the second night they’d had it for dinner.
Heather was eating it too. A good thing, Linda thought. Heather had found an appetite, something scarce in the last couple of years.
“I think we should be with Dad,” Max said. “Even if he doesn’t want us to.”
“We will be,” Linda said. “Soon.”
“Can we call him?” Heather asked. “I didn’t talk to him today.”
“How about after dinner? We’ll all sit around and have a good long conversation with Dad.”
Sam dropped to his knees, held the gun in front of him. Pain shot through his tender thigh.
Could see nothing but amorphous forms in the dark house.
He thought about hitting the lights but immediately rejected that. That would make him a perfect target.
So why wasn’t he a target right now?
He was trigger-ready but frozen.
Another scream, as if into a pillow.
It was coming from the living room.
Sam heard his own breath, as loud as a steam engine.
He was sure someone was going to die, and soon.
A lamp clicked on, pouring thin light into the entryway. Sam’s body tensed as he pointed the gun toward the light.
“Don’t do anything, Sam. It’s under control.”
Case?
Sam still had the gun raised when Case stepped into view. “Don’t shoot, Sam,” he said. “Not yet.”
Sam didn’t move. “What is going on?”
“Lower the gun.”
“Who screamed?”
“Your old friend.”
Slowly, fighting to find a coherent thought, Sam got to his feet,
left leg throbbing.
“Come in and look,” Gerald Case said. “He’s not going anywhere.” Sam pointed the gun at the ground but kept his hand ready. He
Bound to a chair by yellow rope, with a knotted gag over his mouth, was Nicky Oberlin. Or what looked like Nicky Oberlin. His hair was almost entirely gone. What was left were anemic tufts hanging, like dead grass, from a scarred red landscape. The whole left half of Nicky’s face was lumpy with charred skin. But nothing obscured his eyes, which glared at Sam with an otherworldly hate.
“Now listen,” Case said. “Here’s how it has to go down. Nicky Oberlin broke into your house tonight. Picked the lock on the back door. By the way, I’ve got your house key. Wayne gave it to me. So Oberlin got in, waited for you to get home. He had a knife with him. You managed to get your gun, as you have it right now, and got off a couple of shots as he came toward you.”
Sam looked at him. Case’s face was as cool as Sam’s was hot. “It’s the only way to settle this,” Case said. “It’s really selfdefense, if you look at the big picture. He won’t stop otherwise. And you never know what will happen in court.”
Nicky screamed through the linen again.
“He’s not someone who can be cured, Sam. This is a war, and he’s one of many players who only wants to do bad things to people. You can do this.”
Sam looked at Nicky again and knew Case was right about one thing. Nicky would never stop as long as he drew breath.
Sam felt the weight of the gun in his hand.
“Don’t hesitate about this,” Case said.
Nicky’s eyes burned into Sam.
“Take off the gag,” Sam said.
“What? No. That would be the wrong — ”
“Do it, Gerry, or I’ll do it myself.”
Case hesitated. Then he went to Nicky and untied the gag.
Nicky shook his head once, then bared his teeth in an animal smile. The left side of his mouth was little more than a jagged maw of scorched lip. He spoke out of the right side. “He’s right, you know, Sammy. It ain’t ever going to be over for you.”
Sam approached, stopping three feet in front him. And raised the gun.
“Not so close,” Case said. “And make it two to the heart.”
“Why me, Nicky?”
Nicky smiled more broadly.
“Jealousy?” Sam said.
That took the hideous smile from Nicky’s face. “Of you? Don’t make me laugh. You’re scum. You treat people like scum, because you can. You knock people up without a thought, you rip people off. And you hide behind a plastic Jesus. You’re the one who should be wiped off the earth.”
Knock people up . . .
“This was about Mary, wasn’t it?” Sam said.
Nicky was silent.
“You had a thing for Mary, didn’t you?”
“You didn’t care about her. You didn’t care about anything but getting her in bed — ”
“You’ve carried that around all these years?”
“ — and then you paint yourself as this paragon of virtue — ”
“She doesn’t even remember you.”
“Didn’t know I existed, right? But you both know now, don’t you? You’ll always know — ”
Gerald Case said, “Don’t prolong this, Sam. It has to be now.”
“Yeah,” Nicky said. “Do it, Sammy. And when you go to hell I’ll be waiting for you.”
“Now,” Case said.
“Call the police,” Sam said.
“No, Sam — ”
“Do it.”
Case took a deep breath. “You’re right, of course,” he said. “I’ll make the call.”
“Big mistake, Sammy,” Nicky said. “This was your last chance.”
A unanimous jury recommended yesterday that Nicholas Stephen Oberlin should die for the murder of local music producer Charles “Scat” Lundquist.
Oberlin, who represented himself during the trial and penalty phase, showed no reaction to the verdict reached by the jury of eight women and four men. The jurors appeared resolute as their unanimous verdict was read after a day and a half of deliberations. The panel rejected a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
“This is a just verdict,” Deputy District Attorney Cameron Bellamy told reporters afterward. “Nicky Oberlin will never hurt another human being again. And make no mistake, he would if he could.”
On the last Friday in May, at three thirty in the afternoon, after a grueling, three-week battle with Larry Cohen, Sam Trask concluded his closing argument on behalf of Sarah Harper.
“You all know about Lady Justice,” he said to the jury, “whose statue can be seen in virtually every courtroom in the land. She is blindfolded and she holds scales in her hand. The party who has the burden of proof in a civil case, and that would be Sarah Harper today, need only provide enough evidence to tip the scales in her favor. It’s not like the burden of proof in a criminal matter. I explained that to you at the opening of this case. His Honor will also go over it with you when he gives you the law you are to follow during your deliberations. But there’s something else I must talk about now.
“Lady Justice holds the scales in her left hand. Do you know what she has in her right hand? A sword. It is the sword of justice, and it symbolizes her duty to cut through the distortions and the lies and see to it that the truth comes out and right is vindicated.
When you march into that jury room, you are Lady Justice. You carry the sword. You have sworn to do your duty, and I know you will.
“I’m almost finished. You’ve heard all of the evidence relating to Sarah’s future, a future that is no longer bright because of the recklessness and unwillingness of the defendants to take responsibility. We leave the matter of damages to you now but will remind you of only one thing. Today is the one day in your life that you can take care of Sarah Harper. Two weeks from now, you can’t wake up and say, ‘Wait, I’d like to open this up again, I think I made a mistake.’ There is no coming back. This is Sarah’s one and only day in court. We are confident that we can leave the matter now in your capable hands.
A jury has awarded $10 million in compensatory damages to Sarah Harper, an Olympic figure-skating hopeful who is now blind and confined to a wheelchair.
Court watchers expressed surprise at the unanimity of the jury. Most thought Larry Cohen, the noted insurance defense attorney, would continue his near-legendary string of trial victories. That all twelve jurors, five men and seven women, sided with the plaintiff’s lawyer, Samuel Trask, was seen as almost shocking.
“In simple terms, Cohen got his clock cleaned,” said Loren Levy, law professor at Loyola Law School and frequent commentator on Court TV. “Nobody thought that would happen. This trial makes Sam Trask the new superstar lawyer in town.”
Trask, former partner in Newman & Trask of Beverly Hills, recently opened his own office in Sherman Oaks.