Chapter
Seventeen

The next morning Ty sat in his office, typing away at his keyboard. His caseload was high right now, and he had promised himself that no matter what, if he took on a case, he would give it all the attention it needed.

Unfortunately for him, that meant a lot of late nights. And right now he didn’t have the luxury of sleeping in. He was burning the candle at both ends.

“Ty, I’m sorry to interrupt.”

He turned to face the front of his office. Angie, his secretary, stood with the mail in her hands. The forty-something single mom kept him in line and ran a tight ship. He couldn’t imagine running his firm without her.

“What is it?”

“I was going through today’s mail.” Her voice started to shake.

Instinctively, he got out of his seat and walked over to her. “Talk to me.”

“You need to see this.” She held up an envelope.

Angie opened his mail daily. He got so much junk that she sorted it into different categories for his review. Nowadays, so much was done via email that the snail mail was mostly stuff he didn’t need to spend his time on.

He took the envelope from Angie.

“I didn’t even finish reading the whole thing because I knew something was really wrong,” she said.

“You did the right thing, Ang.” He opened the envelope and pulled out a piece of quality, high-end paper. His eyes skimmed down the page. He’d seen a lot over his years of being a defense attorney, but this was a new one. “Thanks for bringing this to me. I need to make some calls.”

“Of course. Let me know if I can help you.” Angie left, shutting the door behind her.

Ty knew what his first phone call needed to be. He dialed Noah’s number from his desk phone and waited.

A couple of rings later, Noah picked up. “Ty, what’s up?”

“I just got a special delivery in the mail.”

“What kind of special delivery?”

“A note offering me five hundred thousand dollars to drop David’s case.”

“What?” Noah said loudly.

“Yeah. My thoughts exactly.”

“Did it give any further details?”

“It says I have forty-eight hours to drop the case. If I do, then I get further instructions on how to get paid.”

“What about the return address?”

“He put my home address as the return.”

“That’s smart,” Noah said.

“What are we dealing with here?” Ty asked.

“You know I can’t reveal all of that to you.”

Ty was getting frustrated very quickly with this. “I get that, but this just came to my doorstep. I’ve still got a trial to get through. How am I supposed to handle that?”

“If you withdraw as David’s attorney, what would happen?”

“He’d get assigned a public defender just like before. Unless he could find another lawyer to take his case pro bono.”

Noah cleared his throat. “They’re worried about you being on this case. That means we’re getting close.”

“Close to uncovering this conspiracy you referenced?”

“Yeah. We’re playing in the big leagues here.” Noah paused. “I guess I should’ve asked first. Are you considering this offer?”

Noah’s question offended Ty. “Are you kidding me?”

“Sorry, I had to ask. That’s half a million dollars.”

“If money was my driver, I wouldn’t be taking cases pro bono on a regular basis.” Ty tried to keep his temper in check. They both had jobs to do.

“I hear you. The key question is what happens after you don’t withdraw. Will they contact you again, upping the offer?”

“Or something else?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t think I want to know.”

“You need to watch your back,” Noah said.

For the first time, it occurred to Ty that he might be in danger too. But he couldn’t let that stop him. Not when the stakes were this high. “While I have you on the line, I’ve got another piece of bad news.”

“Really?” Noah sounded exasperated.

“Yeah. Remember the evidence bag that went missing?”

“Of course.”

“It was found. It was misfiled with the evidence for another case. I’ll still argue that it should be excluded, as the chain of custody is highly questionable, given that it went completely missing. But if it does get let in, it is physical evidence that specifically ties David to the crime scene. On the flip side, if the judge lets it in, that would be a solid basis for me to appeal. But we have to be ready for anything.”

Noah sighed. “We really need to catch a break here. Everything is mounting against us.”

True to her word, Bonnie hadn’t wasted any time filing scathing emergency motions with the court, and now Mia had to face the music. Judge Andrews wasn’t going to be happy, and Mia couldn’t blame him. The motion read like a textbook spoliation motion, but with all of Bonnie’s added flair and pizzazz. Mia had to give it to her, Bonnie was a very effective writer. Her advocacy skills came through loud and clear. Mia had no idea how she was going to get out of this one, because Bonnie had some very solid points both from a factual and legal perspective. While Mia didn’t back down from challenges, the importance of the whole picture was weighing heavily on her. This was so much bigger than Bonnie realized, but Mia couldn’t dare say that. Not now, with so much hanging in the balance.

When Judge Andrews walked into the courtroom, Mia knew she was toast. His eyes zoomed in on her, and his face reddened. He was ticked. And that was the last thing you ever wanted the judge to be.

“Ms. Olson, your motion speaks for itself. I’d really like to hear what Ms. Shaw has to say for her client—and for herself.”

Mia stood, but before she could answer, the judge kept talking.

“And, Ms. Shaw, I think you should cover the fact that I believe you knew about this precise issue the last time you were in front of me, and yet you didn’t say a word. Not a single word about it.”

She waited a moment to see if he was going to say anything else before she launched into her explanation. She feared nothing she could say would shield her from the judge’s ire.

Here goes nothing.

She stood as tall as her five foot five inches could get her. “Your Honor, it is a complicated situation.”

“Well, you better start trying to un-complicate it, Ms. Shaw, before I run out of the scant amount of patience I still have.”

“Your Honor, I was alerted to the fact that we had two issues. First, a lack of metadata for about eighty percent of our data, and second, that we are only certain that we have about ninety percent of the data that existed. I was informed that these issues were due to some type of malware or virus that attacked the LCI system during our collection process.” She let a beat pass to see if Judge Andrews was going to pounce, but he remained silent, so she kept going.

“I was told by firm IT personnel that Chase Jackson had been notified about the issue. The IT employee thought that Chase was going to inform our managing partner about the findings.” She took a breath. “But a couple of days later, as you know, Chase was murdered.” She wasn’t trying to play the sympathy card, but explain to the judge why this mattered.

“When I found out about this, I immediately started an investigation to better understand the facts, since I couldn’t talk to Chase to figure out what he knew. The client didn’t know about this either until I told them.”

“And, Ms. Shaw, were you conducting that investigation when you were in my courtroom last time?” the judge asked.

“I was, but I had only just begun, Your Honor. I was still trying to figure out what in the world I was dealing with.”

“And you didn’t think it was important to raise the issue, considering we were discussing a motion to compel the production of documents?” His voice got louder with each word. “I would think that you would have realized that it wasn’t just relevant but highly relevant to the issues at hand.”

“In hindsight, I realize that it might have been a good idea to air out the issue then, but at the time, Your Honor, I was still trying to get my hands around what was going on and thought it best not to speak with incomplete information or out of ignorance.”

“And standing here today, do you have your hands around it, Ms. Shaw?”

The last thing she wanted to do was mislead the court, especially since she was already on thin ice that could break at any second. “Not completely, Your Honor, but I can definitely tell you there was a malicious virus involved.”

“And who do you think planted that?” he asked.

“I don’t know. That’s one of the things we’re working on.”

“And did your managing partner know about this?”

She shook her head. “He had no idea. I don’t know why Chase didn’t tell him, but my best guess is that he was doing what I am doing now—trying to determine what happened—and before he could get answers to tell the client and others at the firm, he was killed.” She took another breath and made the decision to put one more thing out there. “Brutally murdered, Your Honor, and I realize I may be throwing myself on the mercy of this court right now, but these are highly unusual circumstances, and I am asking for some extension of leniency here.”

The judge muttered something under his breath that she couldn’t understand, then said, “Ms. Shaw, I am trying my best to be sympathetic to the plight you’re in right now. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But I also have a duty to uphold the law and ensure that justice is done in this courtroom. I don’t think you did anything particularly nefarious, but I do think you used bad judgment by not raising this issue earlier.”

“And I’m sorry about that, Your Honor.” Better to just fall on her sword. “This is obviously the first time I’ve dealt with a situation quite like this.”

“Your Honor, if I may?” Bonnie gracefully rose from her seat like a swan rising out of a lake.

Mia wanted to groan because now Bonnie was going to go for blood.

“As I argued last time on the motion to compel, everyone is sympathetic with what Ms. Shaw and her colleagues are going through.” Bonnie’s face hardened. “But that doesn’t excuse this behavior. Very bad behavior, at that. At best this shows that the firm was grossly incompetent, and at worst they were trying to cover up the misdeeds of their client.”

“Is it your position, Ms. Olson, that LCI purposely destroyed data?” Judge Andrews asked.

Bonnie nodded. “It is. There had to be something damaging in the documents, so they installed that virus and hoped it would give them cover. They, of course, would have no idea about all of the intervening events. But someone at LCI has wrongfully destroyed evidence, and while I don’t know who, it doesn’t matter. The result is still the same, and any employee’s action at LCI should be imputed to the company, and the company must be held responsible. If you let this slide, then it incentivizes companies to destroy evidence that could be harmful to their case. In my humble opinion, that is absolutely unacceptable.”

“What are you seeking?” he asked.

“Sanctions in the amount of half a million against LCI, one hundred thousand against Finley & Hughes, and an adverse inference instruction for the jury.”

“Your Honor, that’s excessive,” Mia pleaded. She wasn’t above begging right now. That penalty was extreme.

“I’m not finished,” Bonnie said. “I’d also like to depose CEO Lew Winston within the next week. I’d like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. If he really is innocent, then I should be able to put him under oath and ask him directly. I deserve that chance. And what’s more, my client deserves that chance.”

“Your Honor, I say again that the sanctions Ms. Olson is asking for are excessive, as is the jury instruction for an adverse inference,” Mia said. “You’d basically be handing the case to them. I ask that you give me more time to fully investigate what happened. It would be highly prejudicial to allow that instruction. Ms. Olson can’t even say for certain that LCI is at fault here. I’m asking the court for more time.”

“What about the deposition of the CEO and accelerating the timing of that?” Judge Andrews asked.

The last thing Mia needed right now was for Lew to get deposed, but she didn’t have much choice. She had to pick her battles. If she pushed back on this, the judge might just give Bonnie everything and more. “We would consent to that.”

The judge rubbed his eyes. “I’m highly troubled by the facts here, and I’m even more troubled by wondering what we don’t know. And for that very reason, Ms. Shaw, you have two weeks to get to the bottom of this. File your findings with this court, and then I will rule on the pending motion for sanctions.” He took a breath. “And don’t even think about filing for an extension. Two weeks is me being generous, given everything that has happened, but do not push me on this point. I will not be as generous next time around, and I think you will not be happy with the outcome.”

Mia blew out a breath. Two weeks wasn’t long enough, but it was something. She’d have to make it work. “Thank you, Your Honor. I appreciate it.”

“In the meantime, work with Ms. Olson to get this deposition scheduled. I do not want to see the two of you back in this courtroom over that deposition. That will make for an unpleasant hearing for everyone involved. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Your Honor,” they responded.

“That’s it. I’ve heard far too much for today already.” The judge stood and exited the courtroom. He was ticked off with Mia, but this was completely out of her control.

She dreaded the impending conversation with Bonnie that was bound to happen in three, two, one . . .

“I’ll email you some dates for next week for the deposition,” Bonnie said.

“I look forward to it.”

Bonnie arched her brow. “I can’t quite figure you out, Mia. I don’t know whether you’re a brilliant mastermind or a complete and utter disaster.”

Mia couldn’t help but laugh. “Somewhere in the middle.”

“You won’t be laughing when I win the sanctions motion. I told you to bring in a partner, and you ignored my advice.”

“Bonnie, some problems aren’t solved by bringing in a partner. Sometimes you just have to deal with what’s in front of you.”

“Your naïveté is both sad and refreshing at the same time. Once you’ve been around the block a few times, you’ll see things differently.”

“Or I could see it exactly the same.” She turned away from Bonnie and finished packing up. This was a battle she couldn’t afford to lose.