The Dead Room (2 page)

But this one was different. A favor for the president of the Pennwell Oil Company, who walked into Jim Barnett’s office and asked him to see what he could do.

Fifteen years ago the man’s son had been driving west on I-70 en route to college when he was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer carrying parsley and basil for Golden Valley Spices & Co. The accident had been horrific, the kid’s survival nothing short of miraculous. He’d been driving a Volkswagon bus and had stopped for road construction. The truck had plowed into the VW at full speed with the weight of the world behind it. The accident occurred in Washington, Pennsylvania, a small town about thirty miles south of Pittsburgh. When the ambulance arrived, the kid was taken to Washington Hospital, which was also under construction at the time and filled to capacity. After two hours, a doctor finally examined the young man and a series of x-rays were taken. When it was determined that no bones were broken, the kid was released without supervision or a place to go.

The next few days in the kid’s life were fairly complicated with most of the time spent in a local motel room. Unable to move due to a sprained neck and back, he was nursed by the motel staff until a college friend could make the five-hundred-mile drive to Washington. What was left of the kid’s possessions were then packed into the friend’s car, and together, they set off for school. The kid had been in strong physical condition when the accident occurred, running five miles a day and an active swimmer, which is probably what saved his life. After two months, his neck and back were healed and he was more interested in his studies than initiating a law suit that would require him to return home. His father agreed, thankful that his son had survived and made what he thought was a full recovery. Settlement was reached with Capital Insurance Life for material damages, though the father remembered being surprised at the time by the insurance representative’s tough attitude when it came down to negotiating the value of his son’s damaged possessions. The insurance company was getting off easy on this one and everyone involved knew it. Their bullshit attitude didn’t make sense.

Ten years passed, the accident forgotten. Then one day the son had to travel for business and got on a plane with a cold. When the plane landed, his right ear began ringing and wouldn’t stop. After the trip, he went to see a doctor. Tests were conducted and it was determined that he’d lost thirty percent of his hearing in his right ear due to the concussion he’d received a decade ago. The spectrum of sound lost was very specific and could not have occurred from a sudden loud noise or even music. Five more years passed, and the young man’s condition worsened. Now thirty-five years old, he was having difficulty maintaining his balance. Life had changed for the young man, and he was at his wit’s end. At the time of the accident he’d done what he thought was the right thing. But now he realized that he’d been burned.

The boy’s father had come to Jim Barnett with the problem knowing fifteen years had passed and there wasn’t much a lawyer could do now. Barnett explained the difficulties frankly, then asked Teddy to have a look in order to appease their client. The family had kept all their records from the accident, and Teddy examined them carefully. Three weeks later, and to everyone’s surprise, Teddy came through. That was a month ago, and Judge Brey had already agreed that the hospital released the boy prematurely. The proper care for a serious concussion required more than a simple x-ray for skeletal fractures. They should have checked out his hearing. Given the weight of the accident, they should have checked everything, whether it was convenient for them at the time or not. Teddy couldn’t help but notice that Judge Roland Brey wore a small hearing aid in his right ear.

But what Teddy really wanted was the insurance company. Capital Insurance Life, and their two well-fed legal representatives who wore thousand-dollar suits and drove matching Mercedes. After studying letters sent to the family by the claims representative at the time of the accident, it was clear to Teddy that Capital Insurance Life was working the Statute of Limitations like a cat standing over a wounded bird. Even worse, several letters seemed to indicate the insurance company was limiting their responsibility in the matter. If you studied the letters carefully, got past what they said to what they intended to say and really meant, it seemed to Teddy that it amounted to fraud and that he may have found a way around the Statute of Limitations. Judge Brey would be making his decision after lunch. If he interpreted the evidence as Teddy had and ruled there was enough documentation to prove fraud, then the case would either go to trial or the insurance company would try to reach another quick settlement. Barnett was delighted, if not shocked, as was their client. Better yet, the lead attorney for Capital Insurance Life had called Teddy last night, trying to get a feel for what a second settlement might cost. Teddy’s response had been simple. The insurance company had taken advantage of his client and now it was time to pay up. Teddy wanted everything. Not just a couple of Mercedes, but their suits, their homes, a truckload of cash and fifteen years’ worth of interest.

His cell phone rang. As Teddy dug his hand into his pocket and pulled the phone out, he noticed the man staring at him in the next seat and stepped away from the counter to take the call. It was Brooke Jones, an attorney from his office. Jones had joined the firm one year ahead of Teddy and done everything she could to make his first three months difficult.

“Barnett wants you to come back to the office,” she said. “Where are you?”

He checked his watch. His meeting with Judge Brey was in fifteen minutes. Jones’s voice seemed particularly strained.

“I’m on my way to City Hall,” he said. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Jones hesitated a moment, then cleared her throat. “I’ll be taking your place in court with Judge Brey,” she said. “Barnett wants to see you right away. He didn’t get into details. He doesn’t have to because he owns the firm. All he did is ask me to fill in for you and make this call. That’s what I’m doing.”

She hung up. Teddy couldn’t believe it but she did.

He closed the phone, returning to his place at the counter and wondering what had happened. He waved at the waitress for his check. While she wrote it up, he worked on his sandwich, finishing it in three quick bites. Someone had turned on the TV mounted on the wall, probably a result of his cell phone conversation. Teddy didn’t blame them. He hated people who used cell phones in public places, too.

He glanced at the TV. The local stations had interrupted their program schedule with a special report, confirming the rumors Teddy had been hearing all morning long. William S. Nash and his legal workshop at Penn Law had substantiated that someone District Attorney Alan Andrews prosecuted for murder and later died by lethal injection was actually innocent. Nash had the DNA results, the evidence of Andrews’s blunder as indisputable as science. But just in case anyone still had doubts, Nash also presented DNA results and a confession from the man who really did commit the murder, a career criminal facing rape charges and a second murder rap now awaiting trial in a city jail. In spite of this, the district attorney’s first response was to attack Nash and the students participating in the workshop. DA Andrews wasn’t known for his mistakes, but for his high percentage of prosecutions. Teddy knew Andrews had career plans and watched the man sweating it out before the cameras. Alan Andrews was in line to become the city’s next mayor. The election wouldn’t be held for another year, but everyone knew Andrews was the frontrunner. Even if he’d just skidded on the ice and slammed headfirst into a brick wall.

The waitress walked over with the check and handed it to him with a smile. Teddy left a tip nicer than he could afford, grabbed his briefcase and stepped over to the cash register. Andrews could scream at the cameras all he wanted, but it would never work. William S. Nash had a national reputation for being one of the finest attorneys to ever step into a courtroom. He’d retired a half decade ago and begun teaching at Penn Law. The law school couldn’t believe their good fortune, and Teddy knew that they would do everything they could to back him up.

Teddy glanced at the clock on the wall, buttoning his overcoat and bolting out of the diner. As he approached the doors to the market, a blast of ice-cold air hit him in the face and he stepped outside. Bracing himself in the wind, he started up Filbert Street at a pace just short of a run. The district attorney’s problems seemed less important than his own right now and he was angry. Barnett had given him a throwaway case, yet Teddy had come through. The judge was about to make his decision. This was the moment. Teddy’s first decision in his first solo case. What could Barnett be thinking?

It occurred to Teddy that Barnett didn’t really want to see him at all. Brooke Jones had made the whole thing up out of spite. By the time he reached the office, found out it was a joke and made it back to court, he would be ten minutes late. He knew Jones was capable of this sort of thing. That for some reason he didn’t understand, she resented him. But as he passed the Criminal Justice Center, he caught a glimpse of Jones on the sidewalk outside City Hall. She was rushing toward the building entrance with her briefcase and lugging research files in a canvas tote bag that Teddy recognized as his own. Teddy had the motion papers in his briefcase. But the judge had already made his decision, so there was no real reason to bring any files at all. Unless you were Brooke Jones.

He crossed the street, zigzagging his way past City Hall to Market Street and picking up his pace again. Barnett & Stokes occupied the sixteenth and seventeenth floors at One Liberty Place, the tallest building in the city. Construction for One Liberty Place had been controversial because of the building’s height and what it might do to Philadelphia’s historic skyline. But when the developer had completed the job, no one said a word. One Liberty Place was a work of modern art that seemed to draw out the historic buildings so you could see them again. The skyline never looked better.

Teddy rushed through the building lobby, nodding at the guards and ignoring the Christmas carols over the PA system as he found his way to the elevators and made the quick ride up to the seventeenth floor. Racing past the receptionist, he pushed open the glass doors and legged it down the long hallway to Barnett’s corner office at the very end. Barnett’s legal assistant, Jackie, was on the phone and looked worried. As Teddy approached her desk, she lowered her eyes and waved him through.

“Where the hell have you been?” Barnett said as he entered.

Barnett was standing before his desk, loading his briefcase with files, various prescriptions from his doctor, even a backup battery for his cell phone. He appeared upset, more worried than his assistant, maybe even sick.

“I was due in court,” Teddy said. “What’s happened?”

“Where’s my fucking address book?”

Teddy moved closer and looked at the man’s desk. He noticed a copy of the newspaper opened to the society page. Barnett and his wife, Sally, had hosted a charity scavenger hunt benefitting Children’s Hospital last weekend, and the story, along with their photographs, had made the paper. Beneath the newspaper, Teddy could see a copy of
Philadelphia Magazine’s
Power 100
issue. Barnett had risen from thirteenth to eleventh this year and no doubt would eventually make the top ten. He was in his mid-fifties and still grinding. The man had plenty of time to reach his goal.

“I’m supposed to be in court,” Teddy said. “Brooke called. Now tell me why.”

“It couldn’t be helped. I should’ve called you myself, Teddy. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.” Before Teddy could respond, Barnett gave him a nervous look and added, “I need a big favor.”

Barnett found his address book underneath the magazine and threw it into his briefcase. As he yanked open a desk drawer and fished out a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol, Teddy noticed that Barnett’s hands were trembling.

“Someone’s been murdered,” he said. “I need your help.”

Teddy lowered his briefcase to the floor and leaned against the arm of the couch. It was a big office, luxuriously furnished, with a million-dollar view. For some reason, it appeared unusually small and insignificant just now.

“A girl,” Barnett went on. “Darlene Lewis. She was only eighteen-years-old. Shit, Teddy, she was still in high school. I’m in a jam, and I need your help.”

“Do they know who did it?” Teddy asked.

“Her mailman. A guy named Oscar Holmes. They’ve got the murder weapon. It sounds like they caught him in the act.”

Barnett shuddered. Teddy had never seen him act this way before and looked him over carefully. At six-feet-one Barnett was the same height as Teddy but bulkier by about fifty pounds. In spite of the extra weight, Barnett appeared in good shape and carried himself well. The man’s grooming was meticulous, his clothing handmade by a tailor Barnett visited once a year in Milan. His hair was a wiry mix of brown and gray, his eyes sky-blue and sparkling, even in the grim light of a conference room. But what struck Teddy most about the man was his face, usually overflowing with confidence and a measure of charm he could turn on and off at will. Jim Barnett was a master at litigation, his skills as a negotiator well known. Until now, Teddy thought. It looked as if the man had lost his self-control.

“What’s the favor?” Teddy asked.

Barnett forced the bottle of Tylenol open and gave him a look. “We’re representing Holmes,” he said.

A moment passed. Then Barnett shook two caplets out and swallowed them with whatever was in his coffee mug.

“We don’t do criminal law,” Teddy said, trying to suppress his concern. “No one here has experience.”