The Law Partners (Michael Gresham Legal Thriller Series Book 3) (11 page)

"I'm counting on that."

We finished our coffees, talking about the few times we went out together and wondering why that never did go anywhere. Michael quickly became uncomfortable with that topic--he was now married and virtuous--and he set aside his cup and saucer and stood to go.

"Hugs?" I said to him.

We hugged and I could sense him smelling my hair, my Chanel.

We had had our moments. Our times together had twice been rip-roaring successes. That I could recall.

We stepped back from the hug. Chanel can always be counted on to flood a victim with old memories of sweet times.

Exactly why I reapplied it after he first called. He had gotten away. But I'm a sore loser. I don't quit and I never give up. Which is not to say I'll be pursuing him; I won't. But if he ever came snooping back around, I certainly wouldn't turn and run away.

Who could, with Michael Gresham? Even now, with his face all burned and scarred. The Michael I knew was much more than some skin deep hunk.

He was Michael Gresham.

M
ichael called
me three days later. He had been arrested and they were taking him to jail. So I dropped everything and headed for the Cook County Jail on California Avenue. CCJ is the last place anyone with a pulse would ever want to spend the night. Full of piss, vomit, shit, and other unmentionable bodily discharges too unpleasant to even think about. I jumped in my Jag and headed out.

My offices are located on Michigan Avenue, so I headed out and hit Wacker, connected up with the 90 South, and then west on Garfield to 2600 California Avenue. It was normally about a thirty-minute drive in my Jag. Today, the traffic was fairly light, and I made it in just over twenty minutes flying low. No cops, no tickets, the Eagles blaring over my Bose, while I was thinking about Michael Gresham and trying to understand why anyone would want to implicate him in the murder of a District Attorney. It just didn't make sense. Except it made it look like Mira was complicit in having the gun removed from her condo by her lawyer. More fuel for the fire.

I parked next door to the jail and headed up the sidewalk. This was a complex that housed a small city of men and women while they awaited trial in the main courthouse, next door to the jail. While the courthouse was old and dim, the jail itself was modern but choked with humanity. Too damn many bodies crammed too closely together.

My bar card got me to the head of the line and I stepped through the scanner without a peep. Then it happened. A male deputy maybe fifteen years younger than me pulled me aside.

"You're a lawyer?" he asked. "Are you Tonya Sturgis?"

"That's what my mother calls me. I'm Harley to everyone else. How can I help you?'

"Your client Michael Gresham is in the infirmary. He started a fight with four cops and got the worst end of the bargain. Please follow me."

We passed back through security, back outside, and headed into the infirmary next door.

We hurried back up the block to 2800 California Avenue. The address belonged to the Cermak Health Services, the jail’s medical clinic, where we bypassed security and headed back to the ICU. Sure enough, the deputy brought me alongside Michael, who was lying flat on his back, his right arm elevated in traction and his face badly bruised, one eye swollen shut and the other puffy, a mere slit yet visible.

"Get me out of here, Harley," he whispered. "They attacked me."

"Who attacked you?"

"The two cops bringing me in. They stopped a block away. Worked me over. I'm pissing blood."

"All right. Can you give me their names?"

"I never got them. They came into my office. Walked right in and cuffed me. I was talking to a client. They didn't give a damn. Handcuffs, threw me up against the wall and searched me. Threatened me on the way over. Then one of them turned around. Pointed his gun at my face. Then laughed."

"We need names, Michael. I'll have a Civil Rights action filed against them before the end of the day."

"I wish you. Would."

He was wheezing, trying to catch his breath.

"Ow-ow-ow. Ribs broken in two places. Kicked in chest and face. Mean fuckers, those cops."

He then lapsed into disconnected words and phrases, crazy talk, delirious, coming and going and having great difficulty putting words together. Some of what he said made no sense.

"Has anyone called Danny?"

I told him I didn't know. So he tried to recite her number but couldn't remember it. There was memory loss because his brain had been injured. I called his main office number and got connected to Danny. With me holding my phone to his ear, he was able to mumble at her for several seconds. Then he broke down and cried, muted moaning wails that sounded like an injured animal. Tears came to my eyes as I saw how much pain my friend and client was in. And rage settled over me. I immediately was flooded with a drive for revenge against the cops and the CPD in general. Not to mention the assholes that planted a gun on him. Because I knew Michael would never remove a gun from a crime scene. That's just not something Michael Gresham would ever do.

"It's time to hit back, Michael," I told him. I gripped his free hand and gave it a small squeeze. "I'm going to let you sleep--"

But it was too late. The painkillers had taken him away and he had fallen unconscious. Morphine does that.

I sat down at his bedside and began drafting a Civil Rights lawsuit. Ten minutes, thirty minutes, and the complaint was shaping up. I was just about to text it to my office for filing with the federal court when a nurse appeared. She checked Michael's vitals. She flicked the morphine pump and watched it deliver another dose.

"Who did this?" I asked her.

"They never tell me that kind of stuff, Miss. I'm just a shift nurse. I've got nothing to do with who did what. Friend of yours?"

"Client. I'm his lawyer." I handed her my card. "Do me a favor. If any cops come in here and try to talk to him, would you show them this card? I don't want him talking to anyone."

"Sure, Miss."

Just then, Danny Gresham came rushing through security and joined us in Michael's ICU cell. An orderly led the way and stopped, pointing out Danny's husband. I introduced myself and she immediately realized that I was the lawyer who Michael had hired to retain him on the search and seizure gun case.

"Oh my God!" she cried upon getting her first look at her husband. "Who did this!"

"He was awake when I first arrived. He managed to tell me it was the cops who arrested him. Evidently they stopped about a block away and worked him over."

"Just like that? Just beat the hell out of him? Is this America or what?"

I was struck at her naiveté. Police beat-em-ups happen every hour in America. Police-citizen shootings happen every day. This was anything but unusual. Especially with Chicago cops, who are known to be Neanderthals when it comes to making arrests.

“Heads are going to roll!” she cried. “I’m suing everyone involved in this!”

"Relax," I told her. "I'm on it."

"Really? What do you have in mind?"

"The first thing I'm going to do is find a federal judge. I want him moved to a neuro hospital. He has head injuries."

She stopped and looked up at me. "Really?"

"He couldn't remember your phone number, Danny. Anytime the cops get someone down they go for the head. It's an unwritten rule. More often than not it causes memory loss and the victim can't recall what happened. Which allows the cops to make up all kinds of shit. That's what they had in mind for your husband, Danny. Unfortunately for them, they didn't give him the Full Monty. He remembers bits and pieces of what happened."

She straightened up from looking at her husband. Tears spilled out of her eyes.

"Well, I'm going with you. We're doing this together."

"Fair enough. Your car here?"

"No. I caught a cab over from court when they texted me. I continued my hearing and came over without stopping at the office."

"I've got my car in the lot. Come on if you're coming. I'm leaving right now. This cannot wait."

"I'm right behind you."

Michael was still unconscious when we left. Danny kissed him tenderly and turned away. Her shoulders squared up and she said, "Let's go get these bastards."

She took the words right out of my mouth.

Twenty minutes later we were back in my office, Danny and I. I called in Angelina. She had typed up my Civil Rights complaint against John Doe I and John Doe II and against the Chicago Police Department and against other entities and individuals to be named later. Danny and I both proofed it, her reading over my shoulder.

Thirty minutes later, Danny and I walked the complaint over to U.S. District Court. We also brought along a motion for TRO
ex parte
, which asked the court to order the Cook County Sheriff to immediately deliver Michael to University of Chicago Medicine.

The judge we found in chambers was Manfred J. Maxwell, a twenty-year jurist who had directed the Chicago ACLU before being appointed to the federal bench by President Clinton. He was a black man with a wide, sloping nose and startlingly white teeth and an inquiring manner that left no questions unaddressed before he would rule. Plaintiffs prayed for his assignment to their cases, which were done by rotation in the federal courts, but that day he was the emergency judge. We had filed our case with the clerk and been directed to his office.

His chambers secretary said he would see us immediately after reading our motion.

Ten minutes later we were shown in.

"Come right in, Ms. Sturgis, and who is this?"

Danny said, "Dania Gresham, Your Honor. I'm the plaintiff's wife and one of his lawyers as well."

"Well, I've read the complaint and read the motion for temporary restraining order. The gist of the motion seems to be that the plaintiff, Michael Gresham, was arrested and while being transported to California Avenue he was violently assault by the transporting officers and he is now in Cermak ICU. That about it?"

"That's about it, Your Honor," I spoke up. "Michael complained to me of being kicked repeatedly in the head by the cops. He was rendered unconscious and came to when they started working his body over with their saps. His wife--my co-counsel--and I wish to see him receive expert neurological care in the Neuro-ICU at UC. He has been previously injured and warned that another head injury would be extremely serious. We would like him transported there immediately."

Judge Maxwell nodded violently. "Totally agree. Here, let me sign this and get you on your way."

With that he signed his name to the TRO with a huge flourish and sent us packing for Cermak Health. Traffic was heavier this time; we burned an hour getting back. I led Danny into the Sheriff's Office and plopped the order down on the receptionist's desk.

"Here's an order requiring immediate transport of Michael Gresham to UC Neuro-ICU. Please deliver this to the sheriff."

The receptionist, a sleepy-eyed gal dressed like Betty Boop, lip-read the TRO.

"You don't need to read it," I implored her. "Just hand it to the sheriff."

"Honey," she said with a surprising drawl--Illinois is Yankee land--"I need to see if that's the appropriate thing to do, first. Please try to cool your jets."

"Jets-Schmets," I said. "This is a federal court order. Do I need to get Judge Maxwell on the phone to talk to you? If I do, it won't be pleasant. And if I do, I'll be adding your name to the lawsuit."

She immediately stood up and disappeared down a brightly-lit hallway. We could watch her only so far, but she entered the door at the far end without knocking. No more than five minutes later, she returned.

"Well?" I asked her.

She said with just the hint of a huff, "The sheriff will have your client over to UC-Neuro by five p.m. Is that soon enough, Ms. Sturgis?"

"You really want to piss me off, lady?" I shot back. "Because you're about to get that done. In fact, why don't you just give me your name? If he's not there by five, I'm amending the lawsuit and adding you in."

She swallowed hard and pushed back from her desk.

But she gave me her name. I even made her spell it twice.

"J-O-N-E-S," she said, flustered and toned way down. "My name is Jones."

* * *

B
y five o'clock
we were sitting at the University of Chicago's Neuro-ICU glassed-in room where they'd placed Michael. He wasn't even cuffed at this point.

First there was a battery of CT scans and other machines, which took a good hour. Then they brought him back. He was more awake and said he was relieved we had him moved to UC. The University of Chicago's Neurosciences Intensive Care Program is world-class and is known throughout Chicago as the place you want to be. UC is staffed 24/7 by neurointensivists and that makes it the only facility of its kind in the area. We brought my brother here when he fell from the second floor of a building under construction. He survived and is back on the job today, thanks to UC-Neuro. So I felt like I’d made a good start toward representing Michael and it was a day well-spent so far.

Michael's eyes shut when he realized he was safe, and he didn't wake up again until just after seven. Danny and I were waiting, talking quietly, laying plans for his defense and the pursuit of the Civil Rights case against the CPD. Michael was in terrible pain the moment his eyes opened and continued that way until the morphine load took him away again. That was close to seven-thirty. Danny and I then took turns going downstairs to the cafeteria and grabbing a bite. At nine o'clock I left for the day; Danny was committed to staying all night, as the hospital had provided a rollaway, a blessing given her pregnancy discomfiture. Their daughter Dania was spending the night with her nanny.

At 2:25 a.m., in the middle of that first night, Danny called me in a panic. It was time for his twelve-hour neuro exam and they couldn't get Michael to awaken. They had tried all the usual tricks with him and, while his eyes moved around, the lids wouldn't open. His doctor was called and it was decided to let him sleep through the night and try it again in the morning. Danny, however, was beside herself, crying and reaching out for support. I couldn't stand that she was alone, although she said Michael's investigator Marcel had arrived and stayed after work. But I felt like Danny and I had connected woman-to-woman and I knew deep down that she needed me. So, up I jumped, dressed, grabbed a protein shake, and left for the hospital. Despite it being three a.m., traffic was still a tear. Somewhere along the way I decided it was time to hire a driver. I called Angelina and left her a message, tasking her with locating a full-time driver. Chicago law was stressful enough and my work load had almost doubled in the last three months, so it was time.