In Firm Pursuit (7 page)

I
returned from my hair appointment just after four and found my secretary, Shelia, packing up to leave.

Shelia followed me into my office with a worried look on her face. “I have to tell you something that I'm not supposed to be telling you,” Shelia said after she had closed the door.

Loyalty was Shelia's middle name. She had worked for O'Reilly & Finney for more than fifteen years and had seen hoards of attorneys come and go. She was only ten years my senior, but still treated me like a daughter. “Just before you got here, I got a call from Joseph Porter's secretary,” Shelia began. “She asked me to bring over your cell phone records for the last six months.”

I was putting away my purse, but Shelia's words stopped me in my tracks. “My cell phone records? Did she say why?”

Shelia glanced behind her at the closed door. “No, but she did say Mr. Porter was calling from his car, and that he left specific instructions directing us not to tell you about his request.”

I had never seen Shelia look so troubled. I sat down behind my desk. “Why would Porter want my cell phone records? And why not ask
me
for them?”

“I think it may have something to do with the Randle case,” Shelia said.

“What makes you think that?”

“Right before his secretary called, Haley went into your office and took some of the Randle files. And when I delivered your cell phone records to Mr. Porter's office, Haley was sitting in there with the files.”

She waited for me to speak, but I was too stunned.

“I don't know what's going on, but thanks for having my back, Shelia.” I gave her a hug.

She walked out, then popped her head in again. “That haircut is the bomb.”

“Thanks.” I absently ran my fingers through my hair.

What in the world was Porter up to? Had Haley run to Porter with something else to try to screw me? I thought about giving O'Reilly a call to see if he knew anything, but doing that would reveal that Shelia had tipped me off.

I pulled out the drawer behind my desk to see if I could determine exactly which files Haley had taken. All of the deposition transcripts, the pleadings files and my interview notes were gone. Maybe Porter had decided that he would get the case settled himself. But there was no reason for him to do that without telling me first. And that still didn't explain why he wanted my cell phone records.

I tried to finish revising a discovery motion in another case, but I couldn't think straight. Haley and Porter were up to something and I needed to know exactly what it was.

I got up and took off toward Haley's office.

I
knocked lightly on Haley's open door, but she was staring at her computer screen and apparently didn't hear me.

I was practically standing over her desk when she finally noticed me. The girl jumped a good ten inches in her seat, then hurriedly clicked out of her computer screen before I could see what she had been reading so intensely.

What in the hell was going on?

Haley swung around to face me. A different bouquet of flowers sat on the corner of her desk. Shelia had told me that Haley had fresh flowers delivered every Tuesday and Friday morning and got her nails done twice a week. She even had a professional masseuse come to the office three times a month to give her a fifteen-minute neck massage.

“I just dropped by to say hello,” I said, unable to come up with something more creative. “Since we're going to be working together, we might as well get to know each other.”

The look in the girl's bold blue eyes told me she saw right through me.

“Great,” Haley said, her voice just as insincere as mine.

“Have a seat.”

“I finally had a chance to read that trial strategy memo you prepared.” I was hoping that a compliment would
loosen her up. “You did a really good job. You must've seen a lot of trials when you clerked.”

“Yes, quite a few.”

Haley evidently didn't believe that my friendly overture was legit and was not about to make this easy for me.

“Too bad we won't be able to take the Randle case to trial,” I said. “It would have been a good experience for you.”

“Really? I heard it was definitely going to trial,” Haley said.

“And where did you hear that?”

“One of my law school classmates works at Hamilton Ellis's firm. Ellis is apparently pretty psyched about trying the case.”

I felt my stomach lurch. “Really? What else did your friend tell you?”

“That was about it,” Haley said.

I tried to keep my smile from turning into a smirk.

“Anything else going on in the Randle case that I should know about?”

“Nope. You're the senior associate on the case. You would certainly know more than me.” Haley paused and a contemplative look glazed her face. “How well do you know Mr. Ellis?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I hear he's pretty active with the local African-American Bar association. You ever have an opportunity to interact with him?”

What was she getting at?
“That's a rather strange question,” I said.

“Oh…well…I just think it's good to learn as much as you can about your opposing counsel. His habits, his weaknesses, his likes, his dislikes. You never know what little tidbit can help you at trial.”

“I tried a case against him a few years ago,” I said.

“None of that ever came into play. I tend to focus on the facts of the case. Not the idiosyncrasies of the attorney who's trying it.”

Haley shrugged and twirled one of her blond ringlets around her finger. “I'm just curious. What's he like?”

“If I didn't know better, Haley, I'd think you had a crush on the man.”

She giggled like we were best girlfriends. “He is pretty darn hot, don't you think?”

Haley was trying to lead me someplace that I did not want to go. “The only man I'm interested in is my husband,” I said.

“Oh, I forgot that you were married,” she said. “What does your husband do?”

“He's an electrician.”

“Oh, that's nice. It says a lot about you that you could marry a guy who's not on your level.”

Did the girl just insult me, my husband or both of us?
“Exactly what makes you think my husband isn't on my level?”

“Oh, don't misunderstand me,” Haley said. The attitude in my voice must have told her she needed to backtrack. “What I mean is, a lot of women with as much education as we have wouldn't even look sideways at a guy who didn't have a college degree. I think you have to
be very secure with yourself to be with a man who's not a professional. The disparity in income alone can create lots of problems in a marriage.”

“That's never been a problem for us,” I said, with ice in my voice. “As a matter of fact, the company he
owns
is doing all of the electrical work for a big strip mall in San Diego right now. And on top of that, my husband happens to be one of the brightest men I know.” I felt stupid for trying to defend Jefferson's worth to this girl.

“Oh, so he owns his own company. Then he
must
be a pretty smart guy. How does he oversee a project way down in San Diego?”

“He stays down there during the week and comes home on weekends.”

She gave me a look of sympathy. “That must be hard. You must miss him a lot.”

“Work's been keeping me pretty busy,” I said.

Coming to Haley's office had been a mistake. A major mistake. I did not like the way she was trying to get all up in my personal business. I got up to leave.

“If you hear anything else about the Randle case, be sure to let me know,” I said.

Haley treated me to her trademark bogus smile. “Will do.”

W
hen I got back to my office, I was dying to hear my husband's voice. I dialed his cell phone and was thrown when a female answered instead of Jefferson.

“Who's this?” I asked.

“Who's
this?
” the voice fired back.

“This is Ms. Henderson. I'd like to speak to Jefferson.”

“I'm sorry. He isn't available to take your call right now. Would you like to leave a message?”

“Yeah. Tell him he needs to call his
wife
as soon as he
is
available.”

I heard a quiet gasp, then muffled voices. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you were his wife.” She sounded rather young and her tone was much more courteous now. “Jefferson's right here.”

My husband's words spilled out quickly, before I could get mine out. “Don't trip, babe,” Jefferson chuckled. “That was just LaKeesha, she's the college sophomore we hired to help us out around the office.” I heard a loud squeak, then what sounded like a door being shut.

“Why are you walking outside the trailer? You can't talk in front of LaKeesha?”

“C'mon, babe, don't trip. See, you wouldn't have this
problem if you used my last name. When she heard you say Henderson, she didn't know you were my wife.”

“Why is she answering your cell phone in the first place?”

“She's screening my calls for me. The phone rings so much I can't get anything done.”

The explanation sounded plausible, but I was still concerned.

“C'mon, babe, don't trip. How're you doing?”

“Don't change the subject, Jefferson. You didn't even tell me you guys had hired an assistant. How old is she and what does she look like?”

He laughed again. “What you wanna know that for? Don't you trust me?”

“I trust you. So answer my question.”

“Uh, I think she's twenty-one,” Jefferson said, stalling.

“Twenty-one? Shouldn't she be almost out of college by now?”

“She got a late start,” Jefferson said.

“And what does she look like?”

“I don't know.”

“Yes you do.”

“If you really wanna know, most of the guys around here say she looks like Beyoncé, but has a body more like Serena Williams. But I don't really see it.”

When I went mute, Jefferson started cracking up. “C'mon, babe. I'm just messing with you. It don't matter what she looks like. She's jailbait as far as I'm concerned and that's not my style. You are.”

My lips remained locked in an angry knot.

“I think I like this,” Jefferson teased. “I can't
remember you ever acting jealous before. This is really good for my ego.”

“You still haven't answered my question, Jefferson,” I said. “What does the girl look like?”

“And I'm not going to answer it because it's crazy.” Jefferson's voice lost its playfulness. “That youngster don't want nothing to do with a tired ass dude like me. She's helping us around the office. That's all. So let's change the subject.”

I rarely felt insecure about my marriage. Jefferson had never given me a reason to distrust him and I knew it was silly for me to have such doubts now.

“C'mon, babe,” Jefferson said. “You know where my heart is.”

“Your heart ain't what I'm worried about,” I said.

He laughed again.

“So when do you think you'll be able to make it home?” I asked.

“Not sure yet. We've run into some more problems, so you probably shouldn't count on me coming home this weekend either. But I'm hoping we'll have everything under control soon.”

“I really miss you.”

“And I miss you, too,” he said. “I promise I'll be home as soon as I can. What you got planned tonight?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I sighed. “But tomorrow night I have a banquet to go to.”

“Aw, sorry I'll miss it,” Jefferson said, feigning disappointment. “I can taste that delicious rubber chicken right now.”

This time I laughed.

“Anyway, babe,” Jefferson said, “I gotta get out to the worksite.”

As I hung up, Special's words came back to me. Perhaps I would have to make some time to drive down to San Diego as she suggested. Just to make sure Ms. LaKeesha was on the up-and-up.

“H
omegirl, you definitely need a push-up bra. And bad.”

It was close to six o'clock on Saturday night and Special lay stretched out across my bed, browsing through old issues of
Interior Design,
searching for home-decorating tips. She had picked up a side job decorating the homes of a couple of friends and from what I had seen, was actually pretty good at it.

“I'm filling out this dress just fine, thank you very much.” I took an admiring look at myself in the full-length mirror on the back of my bedroom door. The short black dress that I had purchased on sale at Nordstrom was definitely me.

“Hey, look at this.” Special held up the magazine and pointed to a picture of a purple-and-white striped couch.

“This is the same fabric I used to reupholster my couch. You have to come by and see it.”

“I can't wait.” Merely looking at the gaudy thing made me dizzy. “Here're the earrings you wanted.” I tossed them to her, then went back to rummaging through my jewelry box trying to find another pair to match my dress.

“What snooty law firm function are you going to tonight?” Special continued flipping magazine pages.

“The Langston Bar Association's annual banquet. They're honoring one of our partners, Jim O'Reilly.”

“Ain't that the black Bar association? What they giving him an award for?”

“He was the lead partner on a
pro bono
case the firm handled for some homeowners in South Central last year. He's getting the award for
Pro Bono
Lawyer of the Year.”

“I thought you worked on that case, too?”

“I did. But he's the partner and it's the partner who gets all the glory. Shouldn't you be home getting dressed for your big date with Hamilton?” I asked.

“I've got plenty of time. You know I like to keep my men waiting.”

“I'm thinking about making a trip down to San Diego to visit Jefferson,” I said. “You still wanna go with me?”

Special sprang up from her prone position and crossed her legs into a pretzel. “What happened?”

“Nothing happened. I was just thinking that it would be easier on Jefferson if I went down there for the weekend, rather than having him come here.”

Special eyed me suspiciously. “Remember who you're talking to, okay? What's up?”

After a few seconds of stalling, I decided to come clean. “I called Jefferson's cell phone yesterday and a woman answered.”

Special dropped her magazine. “Go on,” she said.

I told her about LaKeesha screening Jefferson's calls. “I believe him,” I said, “but I just want to check her out.”

“Good move,” Special said, picking her magazine back
up. “I'll be able to call her number the minute I see her. When are we going?”

“Not sure yet. It depends on what's happening with the Randle case next week.” I held up a pair of silver-and-black earrings next to my earlobes. “How do these look?”

“They don't do a thing for that dress. They're not big enough.”

“I don't know why I even asked you.”

After putting on the earrings and checking myself in the mirror one last time, I scanned the room for my purse. I spotted it on the bed next to Special, but when I looked inside, I didn't see my banquet ticket. I walked into the living room and unzipped my leather satchel, which was sitting on the coffee table. The Micronics fax was the first thing I saw. Just looking at the thing irked me. In fact, everything about the case irked me. I threw the fax down on the coffee table and continued searching for my ticket.

I still had not heard anything about why Porter had asked for my cell phone records yesterday. I ran into Haley an hour or so after leaving her office and she barely looked at me. Those two were definitely up to no good. I was just thankful that I had not gotten a call from Hamilton or Reggie about Karen Carruthers's death.

I finally spotted the ticket in a small side compartment.

“I'm running late,” I yelled to Special as I opened the front door. “Lock up for me. And don't take all year to return my earrings.”