Possession of Justice

Possession of Justice, Chapter Three

Chapter Three

         Alex Kramer’s young wife Tess entered the hospital room to see Alex for the first time after learning he was shot in the head and may never recover.  The baby was in her arms, the son Alex will never get to hold again, let alone teach how to play baseball or ride a bike. They told her Alex was shot while attempting to flee an armed robbery in which he was an accomplice. She could not process this.  Alex was watching football the last time she saw him. Before the sirens and the phone call. Before her world ended. She walked slowly to the bed, taking in all the machines and tubes; Alex’s heavily bandaged head and face. He was in a coma, she was told, and may never wake up. She felt tears on her cheeks, but was strangely disconnected from the associated sadness. She stroked the side of his cheek, the part that was not covered. How could they tell such a lie about her Alex? He was not a murderer; he was her husband, the father of her baby. Alex’s skin under her hand felt different, strange somehow. Tessa in the dream wondered if it is because she was Emma, not Tessa, or if it was because the man in the hospital bed was Ethan McLane.

Emma woke from a strange dream to find herself slumped over her desk, the pages of the Kramer IIU report beneath her arm, and partially on the floor. 

         Emma looked at the clock and saw that it was after 3:00 in the morning. Ethan was still gone. The dream unnerved her, leaving her vulnerable in the dead of night. Standing up, she retrieved her cell phone from the night stand. No messages or missed calls.  She dialed Ethan’s cell number out of desperation. He did not answer. She did not leave a message. Still feeling an eerie unease, she walked softly down the hall to check on Ryan, who was sleeping soundly, his covers kicked to the floor. She picked them up and gently tucked them around him again.  He stirred and sighed contentedly.

         Emma climbed into bed, but was resigned to insomnia for what remained of the night. She imagined Ethan beside her, when he was beside her, which often he was not. She imagined the sound of his breathing. She imagined how she felt next to him fifteen years ago, when she was newly in love. How she would mold her body to his and breathe in the scent of him. How she did not want to be physically separate from him. She was sad for the younger version of herself; maybe that was why she was Tessa in the dream. But why was it Ethan in the hospital bed in the dream, and not Alex Kramer?

         Emma managed to sleep fitfully after 4:30 a.m. until her alarm went off at 6:00 a.m. As she woke, she realized that she had no childcare because Ethan was not home. The arrangement of Ethan working from home, while not lucrative lately, usually provided the perk of not having to arrange for a sitter to take Ryan to preschool and pick him up. She called Amy.

         “Mmm…hello?” Amy answered in a sleepy voice.

         “Hi, Amy. I’m sorry to bug you so early, but I need someone to watch Ryan until it’s time to take him to preschool.”

         “Where’s Ethan?” Amy seemed to wake up.

         “I don’t know.”

         Amy was quiet for a moment. “And you have your brief due.”

         “Yes.  Shit.” She sighed into the phone heavily. “I honestly don’t know where he is Amy. And I had a really freaky dream last night.”

         “I’ll be over there by seven. Will that give you enough time?”

         “Yes, God…yes, of course. Thank you so much, you have saved the day.” Relief washed over Emma.

         “Emma?” Amy paused, but Emma can only be silent, the weight of the situation hanging between them. “Where do you think he might be?”

         “God only knows, Amy.”

         The Law Offices of Thompson Barnes Wright were humming with productive energy when Emma arrived two minutes before 8:00 a.m. On a typical day, she was there by 7:00 a.m., at the latest 7:30, but with Ethan missing, and having to arrange last minute childcare, Emma was behind schedule. She greeted bubbly Sarah, the receptionist, with a smile and headed straight to her office.  After she deposited the contents of her briefcase onto her desk, the reports, the deposition transcripts, the pleadings in the Kramer case, she checked her voicemail. The first message was a settlement offer regarding a minor MVA; the next was a call about a deposition scheduling matter in a medical malpractice case, and a finally, there was a call from opposing counsel in the Kramer case. His request was veiled. Please call me back at your convenience.  Stephen Darnell, Assistant City Attorney, was an enigma. He was polite, but displayed a propensity for passive aggressive tactics. Still, she could not find much fault with his work. He was paid a city attorney’s salary after all, and he worked as if he stood to gain a profit, an unlikely trait in a civil servant.

         She had gone no further than to log on to the server and enter her password when Dwayne Barnes appeared in the doorway. Emma forced a smile, wishing inwardly for more time to settle in before a rendezvous with the boss.

         “Dwayne” she smiled brightly, “Good morning, how are you?”
         
         The woman in her recognized that Dwayne Barnes was attracted to her, but she respected his power too much to use this knowledge to her advantage. He was a handsome man in his mid-fifties, not quite her type, but she was not completely immune to his magnetism.

         “Fantastic. And you, Ms. McLane?” It was an indulgent formality. Dwayne referred to her as “Emma” on a regular basis.

         “Great.  I fell asleep working on the brief. Woke up at my desk after a dream about Alex Kramer in the hospital.  I guess I’m obsessing a bit.” She gave him a lopsided smile. They both knew damn well that obsessing about a case was not considered a character flaw in the legal profession.

         “That’s my girl.” He winked at her, and then caught himself. “Actually, you really are my star player. I have faith in you, Emma McLane.” The look he gave her then was sincere; his eyes focused on hers with affectionate intensity. Emma was touched and fearful at the same time. She wondered if she could pull this off with Ethan missing.

         Dwayne answered her inward question “You can do this, Emma. You have prepared for years now. That’s why I gave you this case. It’s time for you to shine.” He took a step into her office, and paused as he looked around the room at her paintings, her law degree and her bookshelf filled with tomes on civil litigation, then back at Emma.  “Emma, this is why we do what we do. A terrible wrong has been committed. Yes, we make money. Yes, we are lawyers. But we do this so that justice is served. I have watched you since you were a green faced intern. You have grown, you have matured, and I know you do your work from the heart. That is why I assigned the case to you. You have the essential quality needed…compassion.” And then he quietly left her office, and Emma was left caught between the urge to cry and the desire to tear into opposing counsel’s position with the ferocity of a rabid dog. Dwayne Barnes had always been her mentor, and she desperately wanted to make him proud of her.

         Damn, Ethan, where are you?

         She returned Stephen Darnell’s call. “Good morning, Emma, how are you?” His voice was kind, collegial.

         “Hello, Steve.” Emma winced at the informality, considering the gravity of the case. She thought about how it grated on her nerves at times to act casually professional when interacting with opposing counsel, with all the inane small talk, as if the injured plaintiffs had the luxury of such exchanges. Imagine Alex Kramer chatting with the City Attorney about the weather. The absurdity of it all made her suddenly want to laugh hysterically.

         “So why did you call, Mr. Darnell?” She shifted the informal back to the formal, the tigress within her alert.
         Stephen Darnell chuckled, and then continued in a more serious tone. “Well, now that we are getting straight to the point, we would like…to depose Tessa Kramer.” He exhaled into the phone.

         Emma sighed, “Well, we are obviously at the eve of summary judgment. Of course, you still have the option to depose her since the deadline for discovery has not passed yet. But you didn’t make a request to depose her before. Why now?” Impatience simmered beneath her usually calm demeanor.

         “We believe her testimony is crucial to the City’s case.”

         “Are you really doing this?” Emma scowled at the phone, her voice taught with anger. “Are you trying to circumvent the plaintiff’s summary judgment motion?”

         A sigh at the other end confirmed her suspicion. “Listen, Steve, let’s make our arguments on the merits of the case. Tessa Kramer is fragile, and you know it. She has lost everything. We both know that Alex Kramer was not an accomplice, you have admitted this yourself. What good can come from making her provide deposition testimony, except to add to her misery?”

         Darnell paused on the other end of the line. “We believe that Tessa may shed some light on Alex’s state of mind at the time of the shooting, as well as offer testimony about his condition now. Listen Emma, Officer Rhodes has twenty years on the force. This case is killing him every bit as much as it is Alex. He is deeply depressed. He thought he was defending himself. You can’t weed out every bit of evidence that doesn’t support your case. That is the purpose of discovery.” Darnell’s voice was firm, but Emma would not let him dominate.

         “Mr. Darnell.” Emma said with an authoritative tone, though she was quivering inside. “Just respond to our motion for summary judgment. On the merits. If your argument holds weight, then Ms. Kramer will be testifying for the jury at trial.”

         Stephen Darnell cleared his throat. “Well, then, I will take that as a no.”

         “You would be correct, Mr. Darnell.” Emma slammed the phone down, then instantly regretted it; it was the first commandment of what not to do as an attorney, in her book. Never let opposing counsel see that they have gotten to you. Especially since she knew that Darnell had every right under the rules of civil procedure to depose Tessa Kramer. However, she also knew that filing a motion to compel the deposition of the grieving young widow would not win the City any points with the judge.

         “Shit.” She muttered to herself. Then she looked at her cell phone to see if Ethan had called, which he had not. A cold sliver of worry ran through her. She realized that she did not want it to end like this; she wanted her husband to come home.