Due Justice (9 page)

That evening over cocktails, I told George about my visit with O'Connell Worthington and the splendor of his offices. “It's been pretty well known for quite some time that O'Connell has had a significant reversal of fortune,” he told me as he was turned the page of today's
Investor's Business Daily
. “Five years ago, his house was in foreclosure and he'd been posted at the Club for failure to pay dues on four or five occasions. Now it's quite a different story and I'm glad to know what the explanation is. There've been some very wild stories around town about the source of his wealth. I like O'Connell. I'm glad to learn his financial reversal is due to good old American hard work and nothing else.” Nothing else that marrying money didn't cure, at any rate. That's what I thought at the time.

CHAPTER TEN

Tampa, Florida

Thursday 7:20 p.m.

January 7, 1999

LATER, I CHANGED INTO a canary-yellow sweat suit and made myself a drink. I went out to our balcony and sat with my feet propped up, lighting up my first Partaga of the day. It was after dusk, but not dark. The sky was filled with reds and oranges. Tomorrow would be another beautiful day. I was still sitting there, contemplating what to do about Carly's problem when George came out to join me. I was glad to see he'd brought a larger than usual glass of Glenfiddich.

“How do you feel about room service tonight?” he asked me as he sat down in the rocker next to mine. “I can order up some poached salmon over greens with raspberry vinaigrette and fresh sourdough rolls. What do you say?”

“Sounds good to me,” I answered him, still contemplating.

“I'll give you a silver dollar for your thoughts. They look valuable.”

“I was just thinking how really unfortunate it is that the police department never closes.” Then, I told George, my partner in all things, about Carly's visit.

“What is it about you that brings everyone with a problem to your door?” The question was rhetorical. It was far from the first time I'd been asked. Nor the first time I'd asked it of myself. For a long time I felt as if I walked into every room with a large sign around my neck that said “bring your problems to Willa.” In every crowd, at every party, in every organization I joined, it seemed I soon became the “mother” of the group. Messy divorce? Problems with your children? Out of money? Weight problems? Drugs, alcohol, gambling? Ask “Dear Willa a/k/a Mighty Mouse.”

Now that I know myself better, I know I wear my philosophy on my sleeve. You see, I believe all problems can be solved. It's that simple. And most people don't. Most people just want to wallow in it, but they don't want it fixed, especially if the fix requires the acceptance of personal responsibility and personal change. On some level, I like solving problems, other people's problems anyway.

I accepted that was why Carly had come to me in the first place. Not because she had any special affection for me. It's just that I've always been the problem solver. And she certainly had a problem. Where else would she go?

But this time, George was as distressed by Carly's situation as I had been, maybe more. If I try to mother everyone who comes along, George takes in strays, any stray, as long as they're a stray. Because Carly had been estranged from the family lately, George was particularly protective. He'd always liked Carly and he felt protective of her.

“Don't you know someone to whom you could entrust this information in confidence? It seems the sort of thing that needs to be disclosed, but I certainly wouldn't want Carly to be arrested just for having suggested the possible identity of a dead man,” he said. George still believes in all American institutions.

“I think I'd have to give some reason for my suspicions. Since I never learned why Carly was asked to leave the prosecutor's office, I'm not sure that if I disclosed her name, she wouldn't become a suspect. I can't risk that.”

George and I debated the ethics and the practicalities for another hour before concluding that perhaps the tried and true “anonymous phone call” was the best way to go. Since it was scrupulously important, at least to me, that I not be involved, George volunteered to make the call from a pay phone in the local supermarket. I was amused and surprised. Until he suggested it, I wasn't really sure George knew where the local supermarket was, and cloak and dagger is clearly not his style. I'm not sure he even knows who James Bond is. George really is a sport.

We agreed on what he would say and how he would say it. I told him it was important to keep the call to less than three minutes so that it couldn't be traced. After we got everything worked out, he went downstairs to drive himself to the phone.

I waited for what seemed like forever. By the time George got back, I'd already finished three more drinks and smoked two more cigars. One a day is my usual self imposed limit. I saw his car pull up in the driveway and I poured us both another drink. George is not a man meant for intrigue and I knew that he would be at least as shaken as I was.

“Well, what happened?” I pounced on him as soon as he walked in the door.

“It went as well as can be expected. I called the downtown branch instead of 911. I know all 911 calls are taped. I disguised my voice and I said ‘I think the body you found yesterday morning in Tampa Bay is Dr. Michael Morgan'.”

“Did they act like they believed you?”

“They asked me to repeat the information. After I repeated it twice, making a total of three statements in the very same words, I hung up. I think the whole call took about two minutes. Then I got back in my car and drove directly here.”

“Were you followed?”

“Christ, listen to you! I don't know whether I was followed. I've never been followed in my life except in a funeral procession. I'd have no idea how to find out. Did you see anyone else come up the driveway behind me?”

I told him I hadn't and we both tried to calm down. At the moment, it appeared this was the most we could do. I had called Carly twice after George left. No answer. For all I knew, she could have moved or changed her number. In any event, we'd given the authorities the information we had and, with luck, we wouldn't have to deal with it further. I made a mental note to look up whether obstruction of justice was an impeachable offense first thing tomorrow morning. I was sure I knew the answer, but pretending I didn't gave me some hope.

We had the dinner George had suggested earlier sent up to our dining room and, although neither of us said anything, I knew we were both waiting for the evening news. At 11:00, we turned on the local broadcast. Frank Bennett carried the major stories, including the unidentified body. He recapped the prior reports, the reasons the police had for the conclusion that the victim had been killed before he was dumped in the Bay. The only new information came at the very end of the segment.

“This spot,” Bennett said, “just in the middle of the Skyway Bridge, is where the body was found. But there's no evidence to suggest the victim was dumped from the bridge. In fact, it's almost certain that anyone stopping along the bridge, even in the early morning hours, would have been observed by passing motorists.

“Police Chief Ben Hathaway told NewsChannel 8 he believes the body was dumped way back here at the Port of Tampa, and unusual currents related to last week's storm washed the body toward the bridge. This is Frank Bennett, reporting live from the Sunshine Skyway.”

Neither Frank, nor any of the other channels carried any information regarding the identity of the man. In fact, by eerie coincidence, none of the journalists even speculated on whom the man might be.

George and I went to bed and had a very uneasy night. Every time I woke up, he was already awake. When the clock finally read 5:00 a.m., there was no way I could continue pretending to sleep, so I got up. George was, finally, snoring. I got Harry and Bess, our two Labradors, and went down to the beach for our morning run. For once, I was in the office well before the CJ or anyone else.

I was just thinking it might be nice to take a nap, when I realized it was past time to take the bench. Although judges kept me waiting often enough when I was in practice, I try not to keep a room full of lawyers, at a gazillion dollars an hour, waiting in my courtroom. It's just my little way of reducing the cost of litigation.

I slipped my arms into my robe, zipped it up, took a deep breath for patience and stamina, and walked straight through the back door onto the bench.

As I feared, the court reporter was seated, the bailiff at the door and the room full of charcoal pinstripes and red ties. Everyone jumped up at my abrupt and unannounced entrance: well-dressed jack-in-the boxes. I motioned them to be seated.

I looked around for any women lawyers who might be in the room and, predictably, saw none. Few women lawyers have federal court cases. Federal courts handle larger, more sophisticated disputes and crimes. Unfortunately, in Tampa as everywhere, relatively few women have a practice including the magnitude of claims typically brought in federal court. Whenever a woman appears in my courtroom, I always call her case first, just so I can give her the preferential treatment I never received as a lawyer. If they catch me at it, I'll find some believable way to deny it.

Calling the court to order is an old-fashioned custom required by the United States Code. But since I was already seated, I just nodded to the clerk to skip it and call the first case; first come, first serve, just like McDonald's.

On Fridays, I hear motions from ten until one. It's perceived to be a waste of judicial time and not worth the energy by most of my colleagues. I'm the only judge in the Middle District who schedules oral argument regularly. On any given Friday, I may hear up to twenty different motions. My colleagues are right about one thing: it takes a lot of time and energy to prepare for these oral arguments and they usually don't change my mind. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court is wrong about something else—the quality of argument is generally much higher than judges like to admit.

I saw Christian Grover sitting in the back of the courtroom carrying on not-so-quiet conversation with other lawyers waiting their turn. His motion was number four on my docket, but since I detest his style and because I didn't want to give him an audience for the morning, I put his matter at the end. I could tell he was wildly annoyed and he began to speak louder and louder, just to challenge my authority. I made him wait until 12:45, when I finally allowed my clerk to call his case.

“
Jones v. General Medics
, Case No.: 95-57-Civ-T-23E,” the clerk called out.

“Ready, Your Honor” O'Connell Worthington, himself. I hadn't seen him come in.

“Ready,” Grover said, unable to summon the courtesy to call me Judge. I tried not to smile. It was so easy to tweak him these days. I'm told there was a time when he wasn't so self important, but that was long ago in a galaxy far away. Since then, Christian Grover has been President of the State Bar, President of the American Trial Lawyers Association, President of the Florida Trial Lawyers Association, and on the adjunct faculty of most of the Florida law schools. So many titles, so little humility.

O'Connell began his argument. “Your Honor, we're before the court today on Defendant's Motion to Dismiss Plaintiff's claims for failure to state a cause of action against us. Plaintiff just doesn't have any evidence that my client has done anything wrong in this case.”

Worthington went on for twenty minutes, explaining why Grover had been unable to satisfy the pleading requirements of the Federal Courts to keep his case alive. With every word, Grover was turning redder in the face until he was sputtering. He kept popping up and down, bursting to interrupt. He didn't dare. I run a tight courtroom and I don't allow the lawyers to berate one another or talk between themselves during argument. Grover is well aware of my rules. He didn't say anything out loud during Worthington's argument, but he certainly let me know, along with the few remaining people in the courtroom, that he would sure like to.

After several minutes of long-winded argument, Worthington was finally winding up “and for those reasons, Your Honor, which have been more fully outlined in our papers, we request that the Court dismiss this claim against my client.”

Grover slowly stood up to his full six feet, three inches, buttoned his double-breasted jacket, pulled down on the French cuffs of his shirt, smoothed his hair and moved to the podium, poised to begin what I'm sure he planned to be a speech worthy of the congressional record. I held up my hand.

“Mr. Grover, just a moment. Let me talk to Mr. Worthington. Mr. Worthington, you've made an eloquent argument. I'd like to grant your motion. I happen to agree with many of the things you've said.” Grover was like a six-year-old who needed to go to the bathroom. He could hardly contain himself. I continued to hold up my hand, preventing him from talking at all. “However, we've thoroughly researched the issues and the cases you've relied upon are not sufficient to allow me to grant summary judgment to your client under Florida law. I'm denying the motion at this time, without prejudice to your right to bring it again. I'll prepare the order. Thank you gentlemen.”

I stood up and left the bench while the bailiff was still saying “all rise.” When my law clerks were back in the office, I could hear them laughing.