No Accident (2 page)

Walking into a law office often made Luke Hubbard wonder why he had never practiced law. The lobby at the offices of Powers, Torres & Schwartz LLP, the fashionable Century City address, the commanding views of Los Angeles and the Pacific Ocean, the plush furniture that had outlasted multiple recessions—on visits to lawyers, perks like these made Luke wonder why he hadn’t chosen a more stable life, a life swaddled in the comfort of regularly tallied fees and steady progress, instead of one driven by risk and consequences.

Then he remembered why: the people in a law office. Exhibit A was the secretary in the conservative suit who escorted him to the office of Leon Schwartz. She looked like somebody’s least favorite aunt
—stout and middle aged with joyless eyes.

Watching the woman’s slouched walk, Luke straightened his own posture in reaction, as if he could will her to do the same.
Projecting success leads to success
, Luke thought. He was a tall, trim man in a fashionable, well tailored suit. His thick dark hair was sprinkled with gray at the temples. The image of success. And the reality.

Leon Schwartz’s corner office was large, cool and dark. The blinds were raised, but even with windows along two sides of the room, there was no direct sunlight at this time of day. Schwartz was a small man with a lined face and gray hair that had once been dark.

Luke found his host curled over papers strewn across his desk, scratching at them with a dull pencil. Half of Schwartz’s face was illuminated by an incandescent desk lamp that shone down on him and his work.
Just shoot me if I’m still working at his age
, Luke thought. The lawyer might have continued that way all morning had his secretary not quietly cleared her throat and reminded him that it was time for Mr. Hubbard’s initial consultation.

Schwartz smiled ami
ably. “Mr. Hubbard . . . of course.” The diminutive lawyer hopped off his chair and stepped around to the side of his large desk, where Luke met him to shake hands. Schwartz’s charcoal pinstripe suit with matching vest fit the sober reputation of the firm he helped found, a firm whose lobby Luke had found nearly bare of holiday decorations even though it was late in December.

Luke accepted his host’s invitation to sit, but then Schwartz proceeded to deliver hushed instructions to his secretary about a pending deadline and an unnamed client. That annoyed Luke, so he stood up again and inspected the diplomas on the wall.

“Hey, a fellow lion,” Luke said once they were alone. “I see you got your J.D. from Columbia.”

“My LL.B.,” Schwartz said. “You went to college there?”

“Law school,” Luke said. “Never practiced. You a Columbia boy all the way through?”

The lawyer looked at Luke with warm brown eyes that didn’t match his formidable reputation. “City College in those days.”

They sat down in matching black leather chairs across a coffee table made of dark wood.

“So, a lion in winter,” Schwartz said. He smiled at his own pun. “What brings you to my den?”

“I’m getting a divorce,” Luke said. His announcement came without the customary level of distress.

“Go on.” The lawyer’s patient enunciation and even tone gave Luke the impression that his utterances, even when simple, were the product of judicious consideration.
Either that, or supreme boredom
, Luke thought.
Well, I’ll get your attention, Schwartzie
.

Luke leaned deeply into the cushioned back of the chair and steepled his fingertips together. His blue eyes drifted toward the ceiling as he began his tale.

“Well, let’s see . . . I’m the CEO of a Fortune 500 company—but you knew that,” Luke said with a sideward glance. “And, after spending the past ten years pursuing discreet affairs, I’ve finally lost patience with the charade of marriage and started taking vacations with my mistress.”

Luke paused, but the lawyer didn’t offer any comment.

“And . . . I have vulnerabilities,” Luke said. “I’ve built my career on what might appear to be—
appear
to be, Leon—questionable business practices. Oh, and I’ve cheated on my taxes more than those wacko separatists in Texas who print their own passports, but nobody knows about that.”

Schwartz still offered no reaction.

“Not even my wife,” Luke said. Schwartz remained stone-faced.

“Except now for you, of course,” Luke said quietly.

Finally the lawyer spoke. “That’s a memorable litany of horrors.”

Luke nodded. His shoulders drooped. “It’s been a burden for a while.”

“It sounds like you’ve recited it before,” Schwartz said, and Luke shrugged his shoulders half-heartedly.

Schwartz wheezed quietly and then chortled into his vest as if snickering at a private joke. Luke leaned forward with earnest anticipation.

“Consultation, my ass,” Schwartz said finally. “Stop wasting my time.”

Luke sat up straight. “I’m not here to be insulted.”

“Neither am I, and I see exactly what you’re doing,” Schwartz said. He spoke now in a tone of indifferent observation. He rose and returned unhurriedly to his desk.

“Don’t tell me you actually plan to hire me,” Schwartz said. “It’s clear that you’ve come here only to unload your secrets on me and disqualify me from representing your wife, so that she’ll be forced to hire a less able lawyer. Yes?”

Luke stuttered a little but couldn’t spit out any intelligible words.

“Fortunately for me,” Schwartz continued, “I’m too old and too rich to care about sucking up to you, or about chasing this shitty piece of business, so let’s just stop wasting each other’s time. You can show yourself out.”

With that, Schwartz calmly sat down and returned his attention to his papers.

After a moment, Luke stood up sharply and clapped his palms together. “All right, you got me,” he said. Then he sat down sideways on the lawyer’s sturdy desk, interrupting his work.

“You’re smart, all right,” Luke said, languidly wagging a finger at his host. Luke picked up a desktop family portrait and looked at it. “You know, you’re the first lawyer I’ve seen today who didn’t decorate his office with pictures of celebrities—golfing with Dan Aykroyd, that kind of crap.”

Schwartz angled his head up and gazed patiently at Luke, perturbed but not distressed by his visitor’s continued musky closeness.

“What you’re doing here is despicable and childish,” Schwartz said, “but unless you plan to go through this routine with every good divorce lawyer in Los Angeles, this game of yours won’t do you any good.”

Luke spread his lips across his teeth in a gesture that wasn’t quite a smile. “It’s funny,” he said, “everyone said you were the best, but I didn’t believe it because I never see you on TV.”

“The two facts are intimately connected,” Schwartz said.

“How’s that?”

Schwartz led his guest to the door with a light touch on his jacket sleeve. “When you finally choose a lawyer,” he said, “choose one who understands his role.”

“Good advice. How much will it cost me?”

“It’s common sense. And I don’t charge people who aren’t my clients.”

A moment later, Luke found a long hallway ahead of him and Schwartz’s office door shut behind him. This was not how people treated Luke Hubbard. Luke pivoted and jutted a grinning face back inside Schwartz’s office. “Almost forgot,” he said with perky glee, “Merry Christmas.”

Luke reached the elevator as the doors were closing on a descending car. Another man who was leaving at the same time held the doors open, assuming that Luke meant to go down, but Luke dismissed him with a smile and a wave. Once the doors closed again, Luke pressed the button to go up.

He got a warmer reception than Schwartz had given him three floors up at Hanson Stackhouse & Hanson. The receptionist, a babe in a Santa hat, immediately greeted him as Mr. Hubbard, and Luke gamely accepted the miniature candy cane she offered. He soon learned that she was separated from her husband and that Joe Hanson could see him right away, even though Luke was a few minutes early for his initial consultation.

Some marketing manager years ago, undoubtedly one whose spouse was still living, had convinced the president of Rampart Insurance that his investigators should bring flowers to widows to improve customer relations. If the company ever studied the effect of this practice on policy renewals by widows, Alex wasn’t aware of it.

Today, Alex would be bestowing Rampart’s hospitality on Roberta Cummings, widow of Howard, the middle-aged drag racer.

Alex disliked interviewing widows. They never were happy to see him, they never had any useful information, and there was nothing for him to say to cheer them up. Plus, visiting a policyholder meant Alex had to put on a jacket and slacks, rather than the blue jeans he typically wore when he was on investigations away from the office. But Alex didn’t write the corporate policies, and the people who did write them didn’t like being told that they were wrong. Alex would think about that every time he felt the urge to sound off about pointless procedures in the employee handbook. Then he would think about how he might manage unemployment. Those thoughts always managed to propel him to the next widow’s front door.

In any event, the drive west from Rampart’s downtown offices to the Cummings home gave Alex an opportunity to check in on a couple of his properties and mow the lawns. Alex liked that about his job, the freedom away from the office. Some days he carried a surfboard in his truck, just in case.

Alex mowed the lawns weekly to keep his renters happy and to keep his one vacant house attractive to potential renters, but five lawns were too many to mow. And five houses were too many to own, at least for Alex. His idea had been to sell the houses quickly, double his investment and find something more fun to do with his life. Why not? Everyone was doing it at the time, and the prospect of easy money had been tantalizing enough for Alex to follow the crowd.

Alex now admitted to himself that “everyone” didn’t take house-flipping to the extreme that he had. Now, four years later, Alex’s key chains still had five times as many keys as they should have, and his inheritance from his father was almost gone. The banks didn’t care; they wouldn’t even let a live person talk to Alex on the phone. As far as Alex could tell, the banks reserved all their human beings
—if that was the right term—for trips around town trying to track down disfavored clients like Alex and collect money that the clients didn’t have. That was a reason Alex welcomed assignments like this that took him away from the office—he liked being hard to find.

The Cummings residence was a small stucco house on L.A.’s west side. The grass in the little front yard was shabby and overgrown, and a strand of Christmas lights still framed the doorway. The property had been let go
—probably since before Howard’s death, from the look of the lawn. The widow herself was an overweight woman in her late thirties. She looked like she hadn’t brushed her hair, and her face was red and swollen.

She took without comment the flowers Alex offered and distractedly invited him in. A young boy about two or three years old peeked tentatively at the stranger from behind his mother’s legs.

The cramped living room housed a plush sofa that Alex was afraid he might sink into. Alex sat on the front edge of it, while Mrs. Cummings sat across from him on a tattered couch. The loquacious Cummings toddler was indifferent to the grown-ups’ concerns and sat on the floor, running a toy car in figure eights around Alex’s feet.

“I received this.” Mrs. Cummings handed a paper to Alex. It was a summons for a lawsuit filed by the widows of the gardeners who died in the crash.

“We’re aware of this lawsuit,” Alex said. “Don’t worry about this. As your insurance company, Rampart will defend the suit on your behalf and pay any judgment, up to the coverage limit.”

She looked skeptical, and Alex added, “Usually the insurance money is all the plaintiffs want.” Alex then explained that he had to ask her some questions, and she nodded her assent.

The interview started off as a monologue, with Alex reciting from memory an introduction that came from Rampart’s handbook for investigators. The introduction was designed by industrial psychologists specifically to convey empathy, so the handbook forbid any deviations from it. Alex moved smoothly onto a set of scripted preliminary questions for the file, to which Mrs. Cummings simply nodded. Howard Cummings was indeed a forty-year-old engineer, he did have a five-year-old Dodge Viper. Alex didn’t ask how she felt about him drag racing the car like a thrill-seeking teenager.

The air in the room was warm and close, and Alex sped up the pace. His mind drifted to the coming freeway rush hour. A sharp reply from Mrs. Cummings brought his attention back to room.

“No, I didn’t know Howard to drive erratically. What are you getting at? You have his driving record, don’t you?”

“I have to ask these questions for the file, I know they seem ridiculous. The police report said your husband was responsible for the accident. The report said he was weaving in and out of traffic.”

“Yeah, he did drive fast,” she said with a weary sigh. “He got in little drag races all the time. Drove me crazy. But drive erratically? No. He was always in control. No accidents. Why did he finally get in an accident after all these years?”

“Maybe he ran out of luck,” Alex said. He thought it was a lame response, but the conversation was way off Rampart’s script now anyway.

Mrs. Cummings shook her head emphatically. “But Howard was as careful as a surgeon with his car—I know that sounds like a contradiction. What I mean is, he checked the fluids and tire pressure before he drove to work each morning. He rotated and balanced his own tires.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “He was an engineer. He loved that stuff. I think he loved that damn car more than us.” She laughed through a cough. “Isn’t it typical? Turn forty . . . dump your wife . . . buy a sports car?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

Mrs. Cummings stared at her toddler playing on the floor. “He hadn’t paid child support in three months, and here he is pouring money into that stupid car of his. So typical.”

Alex couldn’t tell whether she was waiting for him to respond, but the silence was awkward. Alex knew there were two sides to every story, but he had heard enough to decide that he didn’t like the late Howard Cummings very much.

“My dad left when I was young, too,” he said quietly. That wasn’t in Rampart’s script either.

“Howard didn’t leave
—I kicked his cheating ass out last spring,” Mrs. Cummings said with a flash of anger, and Alex decided that he really didn’t like Howard Cummings. He couldn’t say that, though, and he saw that Mrs. Cummings had grown self-conscious after her outburst. At that point there was little more to say.

Back in his truck, Alex caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. His brown eyes were rimmed with red. He looked away from the mirror, and thought about Mrs. Cummings, left high and dry. He thought about Mrs. Cummings’ son, who would never get to know his deadbeat dad.

He trotted back to house and knocked on the door. Mrs. Cummings was surprised to see him again and even more surprised by his offer, but assented to his request. Alex pulled the lawnmower down from his truck, wheeled it over to her lawn and pulled the cord to start the motor.

*
* *

Alex thought about her on the drive downtown
—about Roberta Cummings. Alex knew what it felt like to have your lover rip your heart out. Pamela had seen to that, after accepting an engagement ring from Alex, after sending out friggin’ wedding invitations to every second cousin and anyone they ever rode the school bus with.

Alex also knew what it was like to have your father leave you, to have your father die too soon. Alex hoped Mrs. Cummings’ little boy was too young to remember as an adult all that he’d lost in the past year. The boy seemed well adjusted
—little kids were amazing—but Mrs. Cummings looked like she was at her wits’ end. She had to bear the burden of a painful past as well as an uncertain future.

Alex wondered if he could help Mrs. Cummings somehow. He thought about what she said about her ex-husband,
as careful as a surgeon with his car
. Maybe he could help her, Alex decided. If he could prove that Howard in fact wasn’t responsible for the accident, then Mrs. Cummings might be able to get some money in legal damages from the insurance company of one of the other drivers. That would also save Rampart Insurance some money—a bonus for Alex’s career. Most important, the blame for the accident would fall wherever it really belonged, and Alex could help make life for Mrs. Cummings and her boy a little less unfair. A win-win-win, in Alex’s view.

Back at Rampart’s offices that evening, Alex searched his cubicle for his file on the Cummings case. His “filing system” consisted of setting papers on his desk when he was temporarily finished with them. That made finding papers again difficult
—especially difficult when he was really excited about a case. A bobblehead doll with a photo of his boss’s face taped to it nodded mockingly at him.
Yes, Chip, I see you
, Alex thought.

When he finally found the Cummings file, he pushed the Chip bobblehead into a drawer and read through the file’s scant contents
—the police report, his own handwritten notes and some police photos.

The file was not encouraging. Alex didn’t have the original photos of the accident scene. He had low-resolution color printouts of digital photographs taken by the detective who wrote the police report. Up close, the images dissolved into small, grainy squares of color
—up close, they didn’t look like anything. All Alex could make out was his imagined happy ending drifting away.

Alex had older cases still open that Chip Odom really wanted him to finish. Chip would not react positively to Alex making a priority of the Cummings case. Alex stood and rubbed his eyes. He imagined his supervisor chiding him in his slightly nasal voice.
Alex, I’d
really
like to clear your backlog. You think we could do that?

“No, Chip, we can’t.”

“Excuse me?” The words came from the man in the next cubicle, a visitor from another office, who stood up to peer over the low wall. Alex realized with chagrin that he must have spoken aloud.

“I was
 . . . talking to someone else,” Alex said. Alex’s neighbor scanned the otherwise empty office, nodded suspiciously and sat back down.

Alex was prepared to give up on the Cummings case if the facts ultimately showed Howard was responsible, but he wouldn’t give up on the case just to make Chip Odom’s cushy life a little bit easier. He took the blurry photo printouts from his desk and taped them to the wall of his cubicle. If Howard Cummings was a “surgeon” with his ninety-thousand dollar sports car, then the car needed a better E.R. nurse, because the photos showed the hood of the car flattened nearly to two dimensions.

Still staring at the photos, Alex took three long steps backward into the hallway. He forced himself to relax and just look at them. Then he remembered something from the police report and raced back to his desk. He flipped through the report, scanning for a passage he had read minutes before. He found it, read it again, then looked again at one of the photos.

“Stupid bastard,” he exclaimed.

“I
beg
your pardon.” It was the man from the next cubicle again. He was standing again. Alex just gave him a sheepish shrug. Then Alex collected the contents of his file and picked up his car keys and jacket.

*
* *

The police substation was a low, wide structure in the southwestern part of the city, in a mixed industrial and residential neighborhood close to the airport. Overhead electrical wires loped from tower to tower like wet yarn strung between assemblies from an erector set. It was a neighborhood that Alex, like most residents of the city, usually drove through on the way to someplace else.

Alex had driven all the way out here only because he wasn’t a former cop. Without that connection, no policeman had a reason to do Alex any favors, and it was no surprise to Alex that his calls to Detective Albert Lutz had gone unreturned. An in-person appeal to Lutz was Alex’s only choice.

From reading Lutz’s report, Alex didn’t start out with a favorable impression of the man. The report was scrupulously detailed in the maddening way with which Alex was well familiar. Time, place, the names of victims and witnesses, license plate numbers
—who, what and when were all carefully recorded. But Lutz’s answer to the one question that really mattered—
how
the crash happened—appeared anticlimactically, draped over a frame of classic bureaucratic weasel words: “Evidence is consistent with rear-end chain collision of three cars initiated by Dodge Viper.”

In other words, Lutz had no idea. And because Rampart had insured Howard Cummings, Lutz’s lazy conclusion was going to cost Rampart money. It might cost Roberta Cummings money too. Hadn’t Lutz looked at his own photographs?

Inside the police station, Alex approached a raised counter and spoke to the station desk officer with a carefully cultivated attitude of undemanding neediness.

“I’m an investigator with Rampart Insurance reviewing a re
cent collision in this precinct . . . I’m hoping you can direct me to the right person to talk to,” Alex said. The desk officer, a large, balding man in his early forties, watched Alex impassively, his chin resting in his meaty palm. Sucking up to guys like this always left Alex feeling like he’d gone swimming in sewage.