Courting Trouble Read online

  “Let’s see.” A few more keystrokes. “Not much, Jenny. Her account shows she’s a two-year member, but she never took any of the spinning, yoga, or cardio classes. She didn’t fill out the member profile. She checked ‘single’ on her application, but she didn’t sign up for any of the singles nights. She doesn’t sound very friendly.”

  “Not at all.” Anne couldn’t avoid the irony. It could easily have been her own member profile. “Anything else? Anything at all?”

  “Let’s see, she rents her house and is self-employed. She didn’t fill in the blank for her yearly income, but that was optional. She’s a slow pay on the dues. I’m looking at her picture, we have it on file, but I don’t remember her at all, and I’ve been here three years.”

  “Great. Gotta go.”

  “Listen, Jenny, I’m having a party on Monday night for the fireworks. If you—”

  “Thanks but no.” Anne hung up, thinking. 2689 Keeley Street. She had to get over there. Somewhere in the house would be something that would tell her about Willa’s family and how she could get in touch with them. She would tell Bennie as soon as she got free. It would make Bennie feel better, but it was having the exact opposite effect on Anne. She was the reason Willa was dead.

  “Meow,” Mel said loudly. He was walking back and forth across the Chipster depositions, distracting Anne. She would need to memorize the deps for trial. It might do her good to work on the case and not think about Willa for now, or Kevin.

  She edged Mel off the deposition of the plaintiff, Beth Dietz. Anne recalled Beth as reserved, with an engineer’s superior air despite her mellow smile, hippie clothes, and ratty Birkenstocks. Beth was smart enough to fabricate her case and so was her husband. The courts had become the real-life version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? And the final answer was, everyone. Anne started reading:

  Q: (By Ms. Murphy) Now, Ms. Dietz, you allege in your Complaint that Gil Martin forced you to have sex, during a meeting on September 15th of last year. Please tell me everything that happened in that meeting.

  A: (Plaintiff) Well, I came into his office at about 8:15 that night. It was a Friday, and he asked me to sit down on this couch he keeps along the wall. I thought it was kind of weird, since his laptop was on the desk, and you can’t work on a web application without a computer.

  Q: I see. What happened?

  A: I sat down and right away he put his hand on my waist. Near my breast.

  Q: How close to your breast?

  A: About three inches. On my waist. Then he slid his hand up my shirt and put it on my breast. I pulled away and got his hand out, like pushed it away.

  Anne knew not a word of it was true. No way in the world would Gil Martin tussle on his couch with a programmer, with his board in the next room and his funding for a $55 million IPO at stake. Anne had known Gil from law school, and he was always headed for great things; good-looking, witty, with a sharp legal intellect, but a technical mind as well. It didn’t come as a surprise when he quit after first year, started Chipster, and grew it into one of the frontrunners in web applications. Along the way, he’d married his college sweetheart, Jamie. In the credibility contest that was Dietz v. Chipster, Anne knew Gil Martin was telling the truth. This Tuesday, she’d have to prove it. She read on:

  Q: Is there anything else that he said, or have you told me everything?

  A: He said he thought about me all the time. He said he wanted me to let him make love to me, I had to let him. That I had to let him because he was the boss.

  Q: That’s exactly what he said?

  A: Exactly. I am the boss.

  Boss? Anne kept thinking about the word. She couldn’t imagine Gil using that word. It was so old-fashioned, she didn’t know anyone who used it. Then she remembered. Back in the Mustang, on the stakeout, Bennie had said, “I am the boss.” It was a fortysomething thing, not a twentysomething thing. What did it mean? Anything? Would it help? She returned to the dep.

  Q: And what happened next?

  A: He forced me to have sex.

  Q: Right there, on the couch, in his office?

  (Mr. Dietz stands up.) That’s just about enough! She just answered the question, lady! Why do you have to make her say it over and over?

  (By Ms. Murphy): Matt, please have Mr. Dietz take his seat and remain silent during the deposition.

  (By Mr. Booker): Mr. Dietz, please sit down. Please.

  Mr. Dietz: This is absurd! He raped her! He made her fuck him to keep her job! Could it be any clearer? You have to make her spell it out?

  (By Mr. Booker): Bill, please!

  Mr. Dietz: She loves getting this dirt! She wants to hear every gory detail so she can have a good laugh. Her and that asshole, Martin!

  Plaintiff: Bill, please, it’s okay. I’m fine.

  Anne read it over again, flashing on the way Bill Dietz had morphed from hippie to psycho at the deposition, yelling in the quiet conference room. The businesslike Courier font of the deposition page, almost embossed on thin onion-skin paper, could never convey that he’d jumped enraged to his feet, stretched his full-six-two frame over the conference table and begun pointing, his finger almost poking Anne in the face. She had found it almost laughable when she took the deposition. Why was it bothering her so much now?

  Of course. Kevin.

  Anne was seeing the ponytailed Bill Dietz with new eyes. Finding abusive men everywhere. Still, she set the deposition aside and went to the accordion file for the Dietz deposition. She had deposed him for a day in connection with his loss-of-consortium claim, which meant that he was suing Chipster.com in tort, for loss of his wife’s companionship and sex during the marriage. He had kept his temper the whole time, answering even the most personal questions with a cool demeanor. She opened his dep, just to double-check:

  Q: (By Ms. Murphy) Where are you employed at the current time?

  A: I work at Chipster.com, a web applications company.

  Q: In what capacity?

  A: I write code for various web applications. I specialize in Cold Fusion, a computer language.

  Q: How long have you been employed at Chipster?

  A: Five years, since its inception. I was one of the handful of programmers who were there when Gil Martin started the company. It was just six of us, in his garage.

  Q: And as such—I’m jumping ahead here—did you receive certain stock options, as part of salary?

  A: No, I did not.

  Q: Did any of the other programmers receive such stock options?

  A: Three did. Basically, ones that Gil knew from his college days. He tends to go with people he knows. I didn’t know him then, and neither did another guy, so we were on the outside.

  Anne didn’t like the sound of it. It read as if Dietz were resentful, which he hadn’t seemed at the time, when he had merely stated it as a matter of fact. But there had to be resentment there; those stock options would make its founders millionaires when Chipster went public. Did it matter? Did it have anything to do with the bogus case for sexual harassment? Did it motivate it? Anne hadn’t focused on Dietz before because his claim was derivative, frankly, bullshit. She’d had it dismissed under Third Circuit law, but she had taken his deposition before the dismissal, for free discovery. She thumbed through Dietz’s deposition, to the core of the claim:

  Q: (By Ms. Murphy) Now, Mr. Dietz, you allege that as a result of the sexual harassment of your wife, Beth, you and she experienced certain difficulties with respect to intimacy in your marriage, is that right?

  A: Yes.

  Q: When did they begin?

  A: When the harassment began. On September 15th.

  Q: And how long did it last?

  A: We are just now healing. The effects of sexual harassment are like those of rape. It takes the victim time to recover, and to trust men again. And Beth feels guilty, even though she shouldn’t, for what happened.

  Q: And what exactly were the difficulties in your marriage, caused by the alleged sexual harassment?

&nb
sp; A: Beth withdrew from me. She kept more to herself and became depressed. She slept poorly, she lost weight. She spent more time on-line, four or six hours at nights and on the weekends. She would be in the chat rooms, role-playing or playing Internet games, silly games. Popcap.com and the like.

  Q: Specifically, how did the alleged sexual harassment affect your sex life?

  A: She became uninterested in sex, and the frequency of intercourse went from once a week to less than that a month. It became unsatisfying. For both of us.

  Anne read the rest of the dep, but it didn’t tell her anything more about Bill Dietz. But that wasn’t all she had on him. She had served him with interrogatories and a document subpoena, routine in employment cases. She reached for that folder, opened it, and skimmed his answers to interrogatories. The opening questions were background, and her gaze fell on the third interrogatory:

  HAVE YOU EVER BEEN CONVICTED OF A CRIME?

  NO.

  The veracity of the answers was attested to by Dietz’s signature on the next page, but he wouldn’t be the first person who’d lied in his interrogatory answers. He’d obviously lost control at the dep, almost violently. Had it happened before? Anne’s gut told her it had, and she set the interrogatories aside, turned to her computer, and logged onto the Internet, clicking onto one of the myriad snooper websites. Onto the screen popped a banner:

  Check court records for liens, finances, and criminal convictions!

  She typed in the name “William Dietz.” It didn’t take two seconds to get an answer:

  Your search has revealed 3680 persons named William Dietz with criminal convictions.

  Anne wasn’t surprised. It was a common name. She couldn’t begin to read each one, it would take until Tuesday. She narrowed the search geographically, to Pennsylvania. As far as she knew, Bill Dietz had been living here at least in the recent past. He had worked at Chipster for less than five years.

  Your search has revealed 427 persons named William Dietz with criminal convictions.

  Hoo boy. Anne checked her watch. 5:10. It was getting late. Still, what was the point? She had so much to do, and this was undoubtedly a detour. She didn’t even know why she was following up. So what if Dietz was violent? So what if he had a criminal record? So what if he only pretended to be a sensitive ponytail? Still. Anne flashed on the scene in the dep, on the rage in Dietz’s eyes. She moved the computer mouse over the first live listings in blue, and clicked.

  Eighty-two listings later, Bill Dietz still hadn’t been convicted. Anne rubbed her eyes. This was stupid. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She checked her watch. 6:05. Was Bennie still in with the cops? What was taking so long? Anne stretched, tense and frustrated. She was about to take a break when the door to her office opened a crack.

  Bennie stuck her face inside the open door, her forehead creased with anxiety. “You’re wanted in conference room D. Now.”

  “The cops? Is there a problem?”

  “No, the cops are in C.” Bennie snuck inside and shut the door behind her like a co-conspirator. “What’s worse than the cops?”

  “Brown hair.”

  “Think money.”

  “My Visa bill.”

  “Think like a lawyer, not a woman,” Bennie said, but Anne was already on her mules.

  12

  What’s going on?”

  “Gil Martin’s here,” Bennie answered. “Carrier’s in with him.”

  “What? Gil? Here? Why?”

  “Turns out that since you got killed, he’s been having doubts about me trying Chipster. He came here to fire us. He seems to think I’m not up to it.”

  Anne almost laughed. She had tried ten cases to Bennie’s thousand, and they had been in L.A., where even O.J. got off. “So, what did you tell him?”

  “That he shouldn’t worry, that I was up to speed. That we function as a team, a family.”

  “The family stuff never works,” Anne said without thinking, and Bennie blinked, hurt.

  “It doesn’t?”

  “All companies say it. It’s never true.”

  “It’s true for me. I mean it.”

  “Well, I believe it, but they don’t. Other people don’t.”

  Bennie still looked hurt.

  “Okay, it depends on who says it.”

  “Well, anyway, young Gil ain’t buying. We’re toast. He’s already contacted Crawford, Wilson, & Ryan. He knows people there, and he’s also looking at Ballard, Spahr. First-rate firms. They’re running conflicts check as we speak, and we both know what they’ll say.”

  “What do you think I should do?”

  “He’s your client, make your decision,” Bennie answered without rancor. “What do you wanna do?”

  “I didn’t even want you to try this case. You think I’ll lose it to someone who’s not even family?” Anne smiled, and so did Bennie. “No question. I’ll tell him I’m alive. Swear him to secrecy. I want to keep this representation.”

  “I understand, but I’m not interested in killing you to save a client. Even if it wasn’t Kevin who killed Willa, we know now that he’s in the vicinity. Can you trust Gil to keep it quiet, that you’re alive?”

  “He’ll keep it quiet.”

  “Okay. But I go first, to keep the cops in C.” Bennie opened the door narrowly and checked the hallway. “Your client’s in D.”

  “Thanks. By the way, I got Willa’s address.”

  “Good job.” Bennie slipped out of the door, and Anne waited a minute, then left and hurried down the hall. She whizzed past the Deer Park cooler, watercolors of City Hall’s Victorian facade, and endless rowing sequences, all of which looked like a skinny guy in a rowboat wearing a bad tank top. She reached conference room D, opened the door, and slipped inside quickly, closing it behind her.

  Gil was standing with Judy and he was well dressed in a navy-blue blazer, pressed khakis, and Gucci loafers. His boyish face was lightly tanned, albeit showing signs of IPO strain.

  “Hello, Gil. It’s me, Anne,” she said and looked at him directly. She didn’t want to play with his emotions, and he seemed not to recognize her for a moment. His forehead knit and his sharp, blue-green eyes looked confused. He ran a quick hand through shiny brown hair, which fell expensively back into place. Anne managed an encouraging smile. “It’s really me, Gil. I’m not dead. I’m alive. It’s a mistake.”

  Gil looked like he wanted to laugh, but it turned to something like a hiccup. “Is this a joke?”

  “Maybe you should sit down.” Anne gestured to the modern, tall-backed chair on the other side of the table, but Gil was already sinking into it, all six feet of him, slowly collapsing from the knees, like a house imploded from its foundation. He couldn’t take his eyes from Anne’s face, and she had to set him straight. “Gil, I’m sorry, it’s all a misunderstanding. I mean, I wasn’t killed last night, another woman was. Not me.”

  Gil looked uncertain, his smile cautious. “You’re really Anne Murphy? Then tell me something only you would know, from first year.”

  “Okay, we met the first day of Contracts class, sitting next to each other alphabetically. Martin and Murphy. I memorized offer and acceptance, and you improved Game Boy.”

  “Ha!” Gil laughed softly, almost coming around. “It’s you? I can’t believe it. But . . . in the news, on TV, they said—”

  “They were wrong. It’s all wrong. The woman who was killed was taking care of my cat. The cops don’t know I’m really alive. Only we do. Now you. And it has to stay that way.” Anne reached for the pitcher of water they always kept on the table, but it was off for the holiday weekend. Only the glasses remained, turned upside down on a pebbled paper towel. “You want something to drink?”

  “Got scotch?” He smiled, and Anne did, too. Next to him, Judy rose without being asked and headed for the conference room door, but Gil was scrutinizing Anne so intently, she wasn’t sure he noticed. She had to bring him down to earth, fast. She wasn’t about to lose this representation. “Gil, the cops know who
killed my cat-sitter and they’re in the conference room right now, planning how to get him. They’re going to arrest him any day, but all of this is beside the point.” She leaned across the table, trying to engage him, and once they locked eyes, she held him. “I know this is a lot to digest, all at once. But what matters to me and to you is Chipster, and I intend to defend you and your company on Tuesday. I know the facts, I know the case inside out. You can’t switch counsel now. You don’t need to.”

  “You’re really alive?” Gil kept raking his sandy hair with his fingers. “This is so . . . odd.”

  “On Tuesday, we’ll tell the cops and pick a jury. But you have to swear to keep this secret for the weekend. Even from Jamie, okay? From everybody.”

  “I just can’t get used to it. It’s so fucking odd.”

  “Tell me about it.” Anne had to defuse the situation. There was business to conduct. “I know who we want on the jury, I’ve prepared Beth’s cross, because she’ll be their first witness. In fact, I was just rereading the deps.”

  “But where were you, last night?”

  “I went away to prepare for the case, in quiet. You know better than I do how the city gets on the Fourth. I wanted to think.”

  “And you didn’t tell anybody? You didn’t tell me?” Gil frowned. “What if I had to talk to you?”

  “I didn’t think you would, and you didn’t.” Anne flushed defensively. She didn’t understand why the questions. Maybe it was the initial shock. “Besides, I remembered you told me you’d be at a dinner party last night, in the suburbs.”

  “I did. I was. I remember. You know what’s really weird?” Gil laughed suddenly. “We sent you flowers! Jamie picked them out! Lilies, a dozen. She felt so bad, when she heard about you. We saw it on TV. Did I say that already?” He laughed again, his discomfort plain, and Anne reached out impulsively to pat his hand.