In The Plan - 14. Chapter 14

14

"I'll be right over," Ben Carleson said, as soon as he got a hold of Doug Hodges. "You home?"

"I will be by the time you get here."

"Great." And he got there quickly. He didn't want Doug stewing about this.

Doug greeted him with a Dewer's in hand, and Carleson glanced around the living room. It had always been comfortable, but it seemed like Doug' new wife, Jenny, had made some good changes. She was waiting with him.

"Tell me what you both remember," Carleson said, quickly settling in. He turned to Jenny. "I'm guessing you were there."

"Of course, I was. I wasn't able to sit through the whole trial - I would've missed too much work. But I took off today."

And they slowly went over what they knew.

Carleson took it all in. He'd been getting day-by-day accounts from Damon Jenkins and was able to order transcripts to read all the testimony. He'd intended to watch more of the trial himself, but after Stu Lee spotted him in the courtroom on his first visit, he'd stayed away. And it seemed Lee had used that against Doug, too.

"He's a clever man," Carleson admitted.

"Were you expecting this?" Doug asked. "I mean, the way it turned out?"

"No. I really wasn't," Carleson said. "I trusted Damon Jenkins."

He didn't, completely, of course, but there was no reason to tell Doug and Jenny that - or to criticize a colleague. Carleson had also gotten very hopeful when he'd heard about Joseph Muraro's in-court identification of Brad Coghlan as the driver. Then he got less hopeful when he heard what Lee had done to trap Muraro. Still, he thought the jury might see through that.

"What's next?" Jenny finally asked.

Carleson grinned. "We do it all again. Only better."

They laughed.

"You're sure it'll work?" Doug asked. "I'd hate to go through that all over again - for no reason."

"It will be better," Carleson assured him. "I promise. There's a different standard of proof for Beyond A Reasonable Doubt. Also a different preponderance of the evidence."

Doug seemed to warily accept that, though Jenny smiled.

"Details are Doug's life," she quickly explained. It seemed like a personal joke between them. "Worrying too much goes along with that."

Doug laughed at that. "I worried my way out of my first marriage," he confessed. "This time, I'm trying to relax."

"Any way I can help to make your lives better," Carleson said, grinning. "Just ask."

The next morning, he met with two of his assistants. "I've already spoken with some of our investigators," he started. "The ones we trust most. Now that we know how the defense presented this case, we know a lot about its strengths and weaknesses. First, we'll want to review all the reports - all the statements and depositions. Possibly, we'll need some new ones. We also need to decide which witnesses will present our strongest case. And we need a more dependable expert than the one Jenkins used. I know he's a good guy, and we've used him ourselves. But we not only want to look for something he may have missed. We want to make sure that whoever we use gets his damned report right."

The assistants laughed at that.

"Do you think that cost Jenkins the trial?" one asked.

"I don't know." Carleson shrugged, then he thought for a moment. "There were a couple of other holes. And Lee really did a number on that Hells Angel."

"Does he have any credibility left? He seems important."

Carleson again thought. "I don't really know. We'll have to find out."

"If he isn't important," the second assistant asked, "can we do without him? Or work around him?"

"I don't think we should try," Carleson retorted. "As Lee discovered, so much of the evidence is circumstantial. And this guy seems to have a very good memory."

"Is there an expert who'll support that?"

Carleson laughed. "What? Give him an IQ test?"

"Maybe get him on Jeopardy," the first assistant joked.

They laughed about that, then quickly went back to work..

Not long after, Carleson got a small surprise - not either pleasant or otherwise. Normally, insurance companies used their own lawyers - either in-house ones or people they've hired before. But since Stu Lee seemed to know so much about this case, the insurance company decided to stick with him. That was somewhat unusual but not surprising because this was an odd case. The insurance accountants probably figured they could cut a few bucks off prep time, so why bring in a new lawyer?

"Bet that was a present for Stu," Carleson said, grinning. "But that's fine for us. More than already showing us the case, he's shown us his case. We know what he knows and probably how he'll present it. So we know where to poke."

"Which is?" one of his assistants asked.

Carleson laughed again. "The point is that he'll never have any more evidence than we do. And none of it's hard."

His assistant smiled. This was her favorite kind of case - one person's opinion against another's - especially when both were seemingly sound. Still, one of the first things that showed up in the new depositions - and that quickly grabbed her - were the discrepancies in Ahmed Patel's statements.

"You're sure about this?" Carleson asked, when she put the report on his desk.

"Read it."

He did - then called his investigator.

"Is this new?" he asked.

"Not really," the investigator carefully replied. "It's more something that was overlooked."

"By who?"

"Not by us," the investigator defended. "We're new on this case."

"But how do you overlook something that big?" Carleson went on.

"I don't know," the investigator allowed, after hesitating. "Maybe the cops purposely decided not to take Patel's statement. He only told me this when I asked. Maybe the cops felt his statement wasn't as strong - or as useful - as his wife's. Or maybe they wanted to keep their report simple."

"Did Jenkins know this?"

"I don't think so. If he did, why wouldn't he have used it?"

"No, I mean did Jenkins know the cops essentially lied."

The investigator again hesitated, and Carleson wished they weren't talking on the phone. Sometimes, it helped to see people's faces. But the pauses could have been as simple as the investigator double-checking what he'd written.

"After we found out..." the investigator went on, "...found out about Ahmed Patel's double story... I went back and talked with Jenkins. He said that since the police only took a statement from Jyoti Patel, that's all he had to go with."

"Why would the police do that?"

His assistant was smirking. She'd been listening to the conference call. But before Carleson let her even mouth the words "cover-up," he waved her away. She was excellent at what she did, but she also seemed to live on tales of police corruption.

"Actually, it doesn't matter why they did it," Carleson said, both answering his own question and reminding his assistant and the investigator what was really important. "It may even have been a mistake - or, as you said, an oversight. The point is it gives us new information - something Lee doesn't have - or doesn't have yet. And there's possibly more available. And any of that's stronger than what Jenkins had."

His assistant shook her head in agreement.

"Just remember," Carleson summed up, "everything we need - everything we're trying to confirm - has to put Brad Coghlan in the driver's seat of that car and keep him there from the moment he and Doug left the bar till the instant of the crash."

"I understand," the investigator agreed, and Carleson's assistant again nodded.

After discovering that information, Carleson had another matter to take care of - something as important as reexamining evidence. He had to negotiate with the insurance company for a full, all-or-nothing settlement. He knew the insurance company wouldn't pay off unless Brad Coghlan was found to be driving. And didn't want his staff working overtime to win the case, only to have the insurance company negotiate away its value.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" the insurance rep asked Carleson when they were talking.

"Absolutely."

"You're taking a very big chance," the rep said. "You're risking everything on a case you've already lost once."

"I didn't lose it," Carleson gently pointed out. "Someone else did. And my burden of proof isn't nearly as high. Also, the state prosecutor was somewhat short on resources."

"But I understand you helped."

"Helped? Helped him? Oh, really?" Carleson was laughing. "Who told you that?"

The rep played along, and Carleson would bet he was grinning. "Well, we have our sources."

"Well, tell your sources that I know when I'm overstepping. And I didn't here. So I was never directly involved."

The rep seemed to think about that. This was another conversation done by phone. Carleson seemed to spend half his day - if not half his career - talking that way.

"You're still taking a big chance," the rep went on. "Why don't we wait till the trial is over - until we see how this thing comes out."

"Why don't we decide now?" Carleson counter-offered. "I'd really like to see your agreement on my desk - as soon as possible."

"It's your neck..."

"Yes. And it firmly attaches my head to my body."

The insurance rep blathered a bit after that, and Carleson let him go on, knowing the decision was made. If the agreement didn't turn up in a week-or-so, he'd have one of his assistants follow up. Meanwhile, there was some thing else - something big - to focus on. In addition to the difference between Ahmed Patel's statements, there was the matter of Joseph Muraro.

His voice mail answered, "Dudes, this is Cowboy. If you wanna do business, leave your name and number. If you're a bud, and you're straight enough to talk... I can try 'n listen." Unfortunately, listening to that message - repeatedly - was as close as Carleson, or any of his investigators or assistants, had gotten in a month of trying to reach the man. The only good news was no one from Lee's office had gotten through to him, either - not since the first trial.

"I might've been a bit hard on him" Stu Lee admitted, when Carleson called to talk. "We know you're gonna call him, so we've been trying, too."

"It would be good to speak with him. Yes."

Lee laughed. "I don't know why. We could probably both save ourselves time and agree to declare him off limits. You know that if we ever do get him back in court, I'll just knock him down again. If he doesn't knock himself out."

"Why would he do that?"

"Well, on top of his... let's say 'questionable' affiliations... he can barely keep his temper in check. Maybe Jenkins didn't tell you about that. Or maybe it didn't get back to you. But I could've set him off any number of times... in any number of ways. I worked very hard not to. I certainly didn't need the jury turning against me."

"Nice of you to think about that."

And they both laughed. They didn't dislike each other. They worked in different ways, but each admitted the other was "passably bright." Carleson felt he had a slight advantage in this case - because Lee didn't have a lot of experience in civil trials.

"And you never know who's gonna come after you later," Lee went on. "Him and his little mob."

"Sounds like you're buying into the junk you fed the jury."

Lee laughed again. "Wait'll you meet him... if you ever do. If he ever takes that chance again."

"I can understand why he'd be cautious," Carleson told Lee, and he told his husband the same thing that night over dinner. Lee had blown that idea off, and soon after, had affably ended their discussion. He'd claimed - probably very honestly - that he was busy.

At dinner, Edward was more thoughtful. He and Carleson were in the city, at a Portugese restaurant they hadn't tired before. "I mean, when someone's attacked you that way..." Edward began.

Carleson couldn't disagree. Besides, he had his mouth full.

"Was there was any reason for Stu Lee to make it that personal?" Edward asked. He always tried to see the nicer parts of life and was glad he didn't have to take the kind of cases his husband did. Though Ben seemed to like the challenges.

"There was every reason for Lee to go low," Carleson soon admitted. "He was cornered and grabbed the first thing that was offered. And it was a pretty good grab. I might have done the same thing."

"You wouldn't have been so crude," Edward protested. He tried to see the nice things about his husband, too.

"I might've tried not to," Carleson tactfully allowed. "Or tried not to seem so. And from what I hear - and what Lee just told me - he went pretty easy. He didn't lead. He didn't push. He just asked painfully pointed questions."

"I can't believe a judge let him."

Carleson grinned. "Yeah, well... judges. Don't start me on that. 'You pay your nickel, and you take your chance.'"