Family Tree (17 page)

Eventually, he got every single line of every single document right, and his hearing was scheduled. Gordy's sister gave him a haircut. It wasn't a very good haircut, but she did it for free.

On his assigned court day, Fletcher dressed in his one and only suit, with a stiff-collared white shirt and a blue silk tie. He borrowed his father's good shoes, the ones Dad had bought—coincidentally—the last time he'd gone before a judge. Only that time, Dad had not been the plaintiff.

Fletcher stared down at his feet. He bent and tied the laces tight. In front of the courthouse he paced back and forth, going over and over the
facts in his head. Prove you have the right to sue. Prove you have a case. Take it before the right court.

There were guys and women in suits, hurrying up and down the stairs to the columned entrance, and they all looked as though they knew exactly where they were going. A woman in a lace dress holding some flowers came out of the courthouse with a guy in a pale blue tux—a bride and groom. Fletcher speculated that another stone-faced couple trudging slowly up the stairs were at the other end of the marriage spectrum, heading for divorce.

He thought briefly of Annie. He hadn't spent five minutes talking to her in weeks. This wasn't fair to her. The decent thing would be to let her go. She was probably ready, anyway, meeting new people at college and moving into a life of her own.

Then he reined in his thoughts and checked his paperwork for at least the tenth time. This should not be so complicated. His dad had been sold a defective piece of equipment. He'd lost his leg because of it. The case seemed simple, but after preparing and filing all the documents, he knew it wouldn't be.

He wiped his sweaty palms on his trousers and headed inside to Room 4. The bench seats reminded him of church pews, and he stood uncertainly, wondering where he was supposed to sit. He picked a spot at the end of an empty bench and sat down to wait.

The judge was a woman who looked as if she ate little kids for breakfast. Ruth Abernathy wore her hair pulled back and kept her thin-lipped mouth set in a seam of disapproval. Thick, straight eyebrows met in the middle, creating a frown that appeared to be etched permanently into her brow. Dark-rimmed reading glasses were perched on the tip of her nose.

Fletcher made sure he had his mobile phone on silent. Eyes straight ahead. One of the articles he'd read claimed that judges thrived on respect and dignity.

He had to wonder about that when the first case came up. Some guy wanted to sue his neighbor whose black Lab wouldn't stop barking. The neighbor intended to countersue the first guy for spray-painting an obscenity on his black Lab. He even brought the leashed dog with the bright pink phrase on its back, eliciting snickers from the gallery. Within a couple of minutes, the neighbors were shouting at each other, until the judge smacked her gavel on the desk and told everyone to simmer down. When it turned out the dog howled only as the shift whistle blew at the gravel quarry, she ordered the spray painter to pay for the dog's bath, and sent them on their way.

Fletcher tried not to jiggle his knee in impatience through the next couple of cases. Then a cop in uniform called his case number. Fletcher took a deep breath and stood.

As he approached the long library table in front of the judge's bench, he felt like a guy walking to an execution.

Judge Abernathy consulted the packet of papers in front of her. “Mr. . . . Wyndham.”

“Yes, ma'am.” His palms were sweating. “Your Honor.”

“And you're the plaintiff?”

“No, ma'am, er, Your Honor. That would be my father, Sanford Wyndham. He's in the hospital. Still in intensive care.”

The dragon lady's nostrils flared. “I'm aware of that. I do read everything.”

Then why ask if I'm the plaintiff? Fletcher wondered.

“And your father is unrepresented by counsel?”

“That's correct, Your Honor. I have his power of attorney.”

“Yes, I'm aware of that, also. Who prepared this petition?” She referred to the legal document in front of her.

“I did, Your Honor.”

“You're . . . a student?”

“No, Your Honor. Er, not anymore. I graduated last June.”

“From?” The unibrow lifted slightly.

“Switchback High School.”

The brow lifted even higher. “And you are bringing suit against”—she consulted the notes in front of her—“the Acme Automotive Lift Company.”

“That's correct.”

She interrogated him rapidly and thoroughly, her questions shooting at him like a barrage of machine-gun fire. He thought he did okay, because he was prepared. He had spent weeks reading and researching and studying, all the while waiting for the next round of bad news about his father.

“This is a serious claim,” said Judge Abernathy. “If you sincerely want this to go forward, you're going to need representation.”

“That's good advice,” he agreed. “But my dad and I can't afford a lawyer.”

She glared at him for so long he thought she was trying to bore a hole in him. Then she said, “Mr. Wyndham, I have good news and bad news for you. The good news is, the jurisdiction is clear and you have yourself a cause of action.”

Yes. Yes. Yes. He did an invisible fist pump of triumph. “Thank you, Your—”

“I'm not finished,” she snapped. “Don't you want to hear the bad news?”

Not really, no.

“Yes, Your Honor.”

“It's possible that there is something here, but you are completely unprepared for the work a situation like this entails. Is this a case of product liability? Defective manufacturing? Negligence? Personal injury? Is the defendant truly at fault, or is it a parts manufacturer?”

Shit
.

“This is not the domain of an untrained layman. Therefore, even
though I am going to allow the suit to go forward, I have a condition. You need to find yourself a lawyer.”

“But I—”

“Now, I can't force you to do that, but if you don't, this won't go well for you. Mr. Wyndham, you don't want to go it alone. Have you gone to the Legal Aid Society?”

“I have. There's a backlog. No one could say when they could get to me.” The Legal Aid office had been like a developing nation, crowded and chaotic. After Fletcher had waited four hours to speak to someone, an intern told him it could be months or even longer before he could get help. Priority was given to guys stuck in jail, not suits against a big company.

The judge drew her lips into a prune shape. “Keep looking, then. And don't go calling one of those late-night eight-hundred-number lawyers you see on TV. You're obviously good at research. So do your research and find yourself a lawyer who'll work on contingency.”

Shit. Shit. Shit. He'd spent nearly every waking hour just trying to get this petition in front of her.

“But—”

The gavel slammed down, and the next case was called.

Finding a lawyer was easier for the judge to say than for Fletcher to do. It seemed most attorneys had no interest in a penniless kid whose father had lost a leg. He felt like defying the judge and making his own case anyway, but he kept thinking about her tone of voice when she'd said, “You don't want to go it alone.”

But the more he read about the case, the more confusing it became. He knew he needed help, and he was sick of doors being slammed in his face. Following Abernathy's advice, he made a list of lawyers who specialized in injury cases, and scheduled appointments with the top three.
This resulted in three rejections. They either didn't believe him, or didn't think he was worth their time.

Fletcher changed his strategy. He selected four graphic photos of the accident—a shot of the collapsed lift, a close-up of the “solid steel construction” decal peeled away to show a failed weld, one of Dad's mangled leg, and another of the stump on the first day postop. He printed eleven-by-fourteen glossies of the shots in vivid color. Then he made another appointment, this time with a guy named Lance Haney, who had once won a settlement for an injured worker of a lumber company. Instead of bumbling through an explanation to the law firm's receptionist or paralegal, he walked directly into Mr. Haney's office and placed the photos on his desk.

“I'm Fletcher Wyndham,” he said. “That's what happened to my dad seven weeks ago. It happened because there are welds where the manufacturer claimed there was solid steel.” He set down a file with the other photos, the insurance report, the OSHA affidavit, and the safety inspector's report. “I need to hire a lawyer who will work on contingency.”

Lance Haney was bald on the top with a fringe of dark hair around the sides, like a monk. He wore a Mr. Rogers–style sweater over a plaid shirt, which made him look nothing like the crusading consumer advocate Fletcher was hoping for.

Haney stared down at the pictures. Unlike the woman at the copy shop who had printed them out, he didn't look as if he needed to hurl. His mild, moon-shaped face was expressionless. Then he stared up at Fletcher and said, “We're going to kick somebody's ass.”

It sounded so weird coming out of Mr. Rogers that Fletcher almost laughed. Almost. He noticed a gleam in the lawyer's eye. It was cold, like a shark's.

“That's the plan,” Fletcher said. “I filed a petition but Judge Abernathy said I have to hire a lawyer.”

“You've been to Abernathy?” He studied a document, sucking his lips together as if he tasted something sour.

“There's a copy of the petition in the file. You'll work on contingency?”

He leaned back in his chair. “I will. I don't collect unless you collect.”

“How much?”

“A case like this takes a mountain of research, investigation, discovery. Hundreds of hours, and Acme is going to have an army of lawyers at their disposal.”

“But you can win this case,” Fletcher said.

“I can get you a fair settlement.”

“On contingency.”

“That's what I said.”

“How much?” Fletcher asked again.

“I'll need fifty percent.”

“Half?” Fletcher reached for the photos. “Sorry, but no.”

Haney leaned forward and pressed his hand down on the prints. “I'm the best you'll find in this area.”

“Says who?”

He handed him a brochure. “Client testimonials. Feel free to call any one of them for a reference.”

“I will. Did they all give you half the settlement?”

“Each case is different.”

“So that's a no. Here's how mine is different. You get twenty percent, Dad gets eighty.”

Haney pushed the photos and the file across the desk. “See you around, kid.”

In a strange way, Fletcher found himself enjoying the conversation. Haney was being a dick, but he clearly wasn't stupid. Fletcher gathered up the file and put it in his messenger bag. “Have a nice day,” he said.

“Sixty-forty,” Haney offered.

“Dude, it's my
dad
. He's only forty-seven. Sank his life savings into the
garage and has a small-business loan besides. He's got to live the rest of his life with one leg. Twenty-two.”

“Thirty-five.”

Fletcher's research had suggested a range of 20 to 35 percent, so at least the guy was in the ballpark now. “What's your plan?”

“I won't have one until I do more research. But my strategy in a case like this is usually to sue everybody. For everything.”

Sue everybody. Fletcher liked the sound of that. “Twenty-five.” He fake-looked at his fake watch. “I have to get to my next appointment.”

“Twenty-eight and you've got a deal,” Haney conceded. “Leave the files and come back tomorrow at nine.”

Fletcher walked out onto the street into a flurry of snow. How had it turned into November already? Where had the time gone? He should be feeling a sense of relief now that the case was in the hands of a lawyer. Instead, he was consumed. He woke up each morning thinking about the case and went to bed each night still thinking about it. In between, he kept the garage going . . . and he thought about the lawsuit.

In a case like this, sue everyone. For everything. Haney explained that “everyone” meant not just the company, but the sales rep and all the parts manufacturers involved. All of them could be found liable. None of them able to give Dad his life back. But as Haney pointed out, a fair settlement could make it possible for his life to go on.

The case became an obsession with Fletcher, the way Annie had once been.

Annie went home for Thanksgiving that year, her stomach squeezing tighter and tighter with nerves as the train clacked along the route from Penn Station. Since Sanford Wyndham's accident, the phone calls, e-mails, and letters between her and Fletcher had tapered off. She tried not
to take it personally. She
didn't
take it personally. He was dealing with an extraordinary circumstance, and she didn't get to be at the top of his list.

Her girlfriends in the dorm told her that was a major warning sign. A guy was supposed to make his girlfriend a priority no matter what. No matter if his grandmother was on fire, or his dog was lost, or his dad's leg had been crushed.

Annie blew off the dorm mates. They weren't any smarter than she was, and they didn't know Fletcher. Still, as the train hissed and sighed to a stop at the station, she practically jumped out of her seat. She tugged her suitcase from the rack, ducking as it crashed down into the aisle. The last thing Fletcher needed was another accident to deal with.

She dragged her case to the exit of the train car and stepped out onto the platform of the old-fashioned redbrick station. The station dated back to 1875, and in the snowfall, it looked misty and detached from time.

A shock of cold air greeted her; Vermont winters were usually well under way by Thanksgiving. A trickle of passengers moved down the platform. She spotted Fletcher near the exit, recognizing his lanky form, limned in the glow of a wrought-iron gaslight. She called his name and waved, and ran the rest of the way to greet him.