Ever After (22 page)

Besides, the conference is to be held in Portland at a time when Rosemary cannot leave her kindergarteners and when I'm in the middle of writing a new book. I tell Mona that we aren't coming. She says she'll check with Judge Joseph Murphy, who will be running the conference.

The next day she calls. It seems Judge Murphy has insisted that one of us come. If we don't appear, he will cite us for contempt of court. I hang up.

I go see a French lawyer friend who has some experience with American law. I explain the situation. I want to know what they can do if I don't go.

“He'll cite you and perhaps ask to have you extradited from France.”

“And how would the French react if I'm extradited?”

“They'd be very wary about allowing you back. After all, you'd probably be a convicted criminal, depending on how harsh the judge might be.”

“I don't believe it!”

“You'd better believe it.”

He likes to use American phrases.

I return and tell Rosemary. She says I should probably go. She's concerned that I might hurt Wills's case, his chance to be compensated for the loss of his mother, stepfather, and two half-sisters.

I pack the only dark suit I have, the one I wore for the funeral, as well as my usual beat-up jeans, T-shirts, and underwear. I also pack three more-or-less dress shirts and a necktie. My life doesn't usually include this kind of dressing up. At the last moment, I throw in my old briefcase.

The flight's not bad, only boring, with a long layover in Minneapolis. Mona Flores is at the airport in Portland to meet me. This is a surprise. I'd told her my flight number, but didn't expect her to pick me up. I wave. She's wearing a dark pants suit with the shoulder-pads again.

“Are you surprised?”

“It's a wonderful surprise. What brings you all the way out here?”

“I could say I wanted to surprise you, but there's a reason.”

“If you're going to tell me they've postponed the settlement conference, I'm jumping onto the next flight back and you'll never see me again until the trial.”

“Not quite as bad as that, but bad enough.”

She does the usual lawyer's trick of hanging fire, waiting for the other person to ask. I'm learning, slowly.

“OK, what's happened now?”

“Judge Murphy's moved the settlement conference down to Eugene.”

“Why'd he do that?”

“I think it's his way of getting us all into the same courtroom: state cases and federal cases. Judge Murphy prides himself on the percentage of settlements he has presided over without having to go to court. He claims a ninety-five percent success rate, and that's probably about right. I suspect we're going to see him at his worst.”

“Are you sure about that? Well, it doesn't mean anything to me, because I'm not settling, you know that. Doesn't this make a lot of trouble for everybody, the lawyers, the plaintiffs, the defendants, all for nothing?”

“A federal judge can do no wrong. There's no sense in trying to make him change his mind. He can't be removed from office, he has the job for life, and he can't even be sued.”

Mona drives a new-looking, metallic brown Honda. I throw my bags in back.

“What else?”

“Ted Mitchell thinks Murphy's going to try for a mass execution, get everyone to settle at once. This is the biggest settlement conference in Oregon history. He's going to put tremendous pressure on everybody. If he settles all this mess in one conference, he'll have made a killing. His batting average will go up at least three points.”

She looks over at me as she pays to get the car out of the garage.

“He has a reputation as a defendant's judge in these settlements.”

“Well, that's nice, but, as I say, it doesn't matter to me. He can't make me settle, can he?”

“He'll try.”

“Well, lots of luck, Judge Murphy. Even God has his limits.”

“Well, where will you be staying?”

“The same as last time, with my friends Karen and Robert Wilson. I've phoned them I was coming but I didn't give them the flight number because I didn't want them coming all the way out here to pick me up. By the way, thank you again.”

When we get to Karen and Robert's, it looks as if no one's home; both cars are gone. But I know where the key is. Mona leans out her car.

“You can always stay at my house if you want. Tom and I have just bought a big monster of an ugly old house built in the twenties. We have plenty of room.”

I thank her but say I know where the key is.

“Don't get nabbed for breaking and entering.”

“Would you turn me in?”

“Of course not.”

“Never know with you lawyer folks. You're training me just fine. Soon, I'll be the perfect client.”

“You'll never make a good client.”

“Why not?”

“You always want to know too much for one thing, and you think you know too much for the other.”

I leave my bags by the curb and go around to the back porch where I find the key just where Karen said it would be. Mona stays in the car with the motor running. I go to pick up my bags and say goodbye.

“I'll come by tomorrow and drive you down to Eugene. It's about a two-hour drive from here. The judge wants us all in the court-house by one o'clock. On the way down, I can explain what a settlement conference is.”

The next morning Mona and I don't talk much until we're out of the Portland traffic and on that I-5 south. We'll go past the place where the accident occurred, but in the opposite direction. I stare out the windows. Several times, I catch Mona looking at me, as if she has something on her mind.

“Mona, you said we were going to talk about this settlement conference. Will you tell me or am I, lawyer style, going to have to pull it out of you with 10,000 bitty questions like a deposition?”

“You are definitely
not
a good client. You don't respect the law at all, do you?”

“I'm law-abiding, if that's what you mean. But from what I've seen so far of the way law is practiced in Oregon, no, I don't think much of it.”

“Well, you're going to think even less of it before the next few days are finished. I have only hints as to what may happen and I'm not sure I should tell you. I know you're not going to like it.”

“I don't get this, Mona. This is my suit. I'm paying you, Ted Mitchell, Clint Williams, and the whole company to represent me in this mess. How and why are you keeping secrets from me? I'll bet this ‘settlement conference' is as stupid as those depositions.”

“Worse.”

“Oh, God! Don't make me drag it out of you, Mona.”

“Well, I guess the first question you might ask is why we're going all the way to Eugene when the conference was scheduled in Portland.”

“Right. Most of the people, defendants, lawyers, and all, must be closer to Portland.”

“I don't know about that, but it's probably true.”

“OK, I bite, then why?”

“You remember how hard we fought to have our cases separated from the cases that would be tried in the state courts?”

I nod.

“And according to what you wrote me, we won.”

“Well, Judge Murphy's found a way to get around that. Judge Murphy is bringing all the cases to Eugene, to the courthouse there, for the settlement. It doesn't matter where the trials are scheduled to be, everybody, all cases, will be in Eugene today, like it or not.”

“But this isn't the trial, is it?”

“As I've already told you, Judge Murphy is trying to settle all the cases at once. If that happens, there will be no trials anywhere. It won't make any difference whether it's a federal or a state trial. If Murphy has his way, he'll force everybody into settlements. He's surprised everyone, especially us. We're the only case scheduled for a federal court trial. Do you understand?”

“Sure, he outfoxed you. How'd you let him get away with it? Is it legal?”

“It's legal but it is unusual.”

“Can't you do anything about it?”

“You are one damned curious client. This isn't easy on any of us, remember. I worked my ass off trying to move the venue of this case to a more neutral ground and it's all out the window like that.”

“You didn't answer. Can we do anything about it?”

“No, I don't think so. Even if we could, we wouldn't.”

I'm interested now.

“Tell me more.”

“I've told you about federal judges. They're political appointees. Once they're appointed, it's for life, unless they do something incredibly stupid, or, are declared incapable of carrying out their duties. Even then, it's almost impossible to move them out, except to kick them upstairs. Not only that, as I said, one can't sue a federal judge. Now, you just think about that.”

She gives me a hard look. I sit for a while staring out the window.

“Does a settlement judge like Murphy also sit on the bench and try civil or criminal cases, like an ordinary judge?”

“He's never an ordinary judge, he's a federal judge, don't you understand?”

“Yeah, I get it. And this judge might very well be sitting on the bench in the future for cases you or Mitchell or anybody else at Steele, Cutler and Walsh could be prosecuting or defending. Therefore, you all get down on your knees and do a ‘yes, massah' scene to almost anything he wants.”

She's quiet. She gives me a look that's supposed to drive me through the window.

She pulls over to the side of the road. The cars whizz past.

“So what do you want to do? Shall we just skip this settlement conference? The way you're acting, there's no sense going down there. Danny Billings can probably handle things for us. You wouldn't have a chance. Be reasonable.”

“I don't want to settle, so why am I going to a settlement conference? That's reasonable, except, as far as I can see, if I don't go, it's jail for me and maybe being driven from the country where I want to live with my family. Imagine, me, the personal representative for my daughter, son-in-law, granddaughters, winding up in jail, exiled, because they were killed. Honestly, does that make sense to you, Mona? That's victimizing the victim.”

“You're exaggerating and you know it. I'm only trying to explain the law to you as your lawyer. I didn't make up the law. I'm only your counselor. I'm trying my best to counsel you and you keep making it difficult.”

“So, we're basically only trying to ferret out something reasonable from a system which is deeply flawed. Is that it?”

“Maybe. I'm not trying to defend the entire American judicial system.”

“OK, I give up. As little Wills said at the deposition, we've come this far, it doesn't make sense going back now. Drive on, counselor.”

“You're sure that's what you want?”

“No, it's not what I want, but I'm caught up in a skein of sticky threads and I don't see any way out. I only want a trial where we can present the case once more against field burning, and perhaps receive an award from the jury which will discourage field burners in the future. That's my whole point.”

She puts the car in gear and looks for a break in the traffic. We're quiet for a while.

We drive along. I'm looking out the windows for the place where the family met death. As we approach it I recognize the little factory building on the other side of the road and see the mile marker. It's all so sad and it's led to this ridiculous business, driving down this road to Eugene.

“Could you tell me what to expect at this settlement conference? Tell me as much as you think I can understand, and I promise not to interrupt until you're finished.”

She pauses, then begins.

“To start off with, there aren't enough courtrooms and judges for all the civil and criminal cases which need to be heard. The drug cases alone would keep most of the courts filled. A large portion of criminal cases are kept out of court by plea bargaining; that is, the accused agrees to a lesser sentence if he admits to being guilty, or volunteers testimony for the state.”

She looks over at me; I nod, try to smile.

“With civil cases, most are ‘settled'—that is, the defendant moves to settle the case by paying a certain amount of money to the plaintiff, and they negotiate. This saves the state and whichever side loses the case an enormous amount of money, because the court costs at a trial can be considerable. That's what this settlement conference is, basically, except that it's on a grand scale. In addition, we have the state claiming it will only pay $300,000 for the entire catastrophe—injuries, deaths, property loss, everything. This was the firm's first objective in this case, to have this ‘cap' eliminated, because of the huge losses involved.”

“Well, we won that one, didn't we? At least, that's what you wrote us. Don't tell me this ‘win' is going to be like the ‘win' concerning our right to a federal court trial.”

She takes another deep breath, looks at me quickly. We're doing almost seventy. I hold onto the roof brace, tighter.

“We thought this had been decided, but apparently it hasn't. This makes a serious problem for all the plaintiffs. This override of the federal ruling is very recent, but Judge Murphy has accepted it, and there was scarcely time to inform those involved. Are you following me?”

“Can a federal judge's decision be put aside just like that?”

“We're not sure. Now it's a question of time, and we don't have enough of it to contest the ruling before Judge Murphy applies it to all the cases to be settled in this conference. I personally think we should apply for time to contest the ruling. Judge Murphy's acceptance of this definitely works against the plaintiffs.”

“Why can't all the plaintiffs' lawyers just refuse to participate in the conference?”