Sasha McCandless 02 - Inadvertent Disclosure Page 8

  Behind him, he heard the PORE members whispering in excitement. It had been a bit of a surprise to everyone that they’d spent the money to file an amicus curiae, or friend of the court, brief on the issue.

  He continued, “Now, Judge Paulson has set a hearing for early May on the moratorium issue. Because the council didn’t vote to actually ban drilling but just voted to consider the issue, he ruled there was no need for expedited review.”

  A smattering of boos and hisses erupted from the PORE contingent.

  Cort put a hand up. “Please control yourselves.”

  The noise died down, and Drew picked up where he’d left off. “On the other issue, Judge Paulson said he didn’t need to have a hearing. He’s going to decide it on the papers.”

  “What’s the timing on that then?” Heather pressed him.

  “Harry Paulson’s a creature of habit, you know. He hasn’t had a law clerk in years, so he writes all his own opinions, and he does them in order. First in, first out. Every afternoon, after a slice of pie, he stands at that window of his and dictates his opinions. Fridays, he reviews the drafts. That week’s batch goes out the following Monday, and the whole process starts over. Based on when the briefing was completed, he won’t get to our case this week, but he’ll decide it one day next week. So, we should have the opinion two weeks from today.”

  Drew looked at the three commissioners, trying to gauge a reaction. Cort was nodding; he couldn’t tell whether it was in approval or just understanding. Troy had adopted the peaceful martyred expression he wore whenever council business held no interest for him. And Heather was staring right back at him, giving him a heavy-lidded look that sent a thrill of imagination up his spine.

  He reached into his jacket pocket as inconspicuously as he could and unwrapped another antacid.

  CHAPTER 11

  Thursday morning

  Pittsburgh, PA

  “Nice work today,” Daniel said, pounding Sasha on her shoulder with a fist.

  She smiled at her instructor, lapping up his rare praise. She could tell she’d done well during the exercises. Her encounter with Jay earlier in the week had reminded her she couldn’t afford to get lazy.

  One of Krav Maga’s tenets was that repeated, progressive drills under stressful conditions would develop muscle memory in the student, enabling her to react automatically instead of freezing. Because human instinct when under attack isn’t fight or flight: it’s fight or flight or freeze. And while fighting and fleeing were both acceptable responses, freezing was a good way to get a girl killed.

  The way to avoid the freeze response was consistent, faithful training. But, lately, Sasha had been slacking off from her early morning training sessions in favor of spending extra time in bed curled against Connelly’s broad, warm back, listening to his even breathing, too comfortable to get up.

  No more.

  She said her goodbyes to the other students and grabbed her backpack from her locker. Before slipping it on for the three-mile run home, she took her Blackberry out of the side pocket and checked for messages. She hadn’t really expected to have a message at seven in the morning on a Thursday, but she had two. She could tell they’d both been forwarded from her work line, because no caller identification information was available.

  The first call was from Dr. Kayser:

  Sasha, hi, it’s Al Kayser. Sorry to call so early, but I wanted to let you know I had a meeting on my calendar for most of the day that’s been canceled suddenly. I’m going to take advantage of the block of free time to take a drive and visit with Mr. Craybill. I should have a written report of my observations to you before the weekend’s out. Take good care.”

  Great news. When Dr. Kayser had agreed to examine Jed and perhaps testify, his one caveat had been that his schedule was jam packed. She had been worried she might have to ask Braeburn to agree to an extension of the briefing schedule. Now, that worry was behind her.

  Her next message made clear that someone else’s worries were eating away at him:

  Hi, Sasha. This is Drew Showalter, calling on the VitaMight matter. I, uh, just wanted to see if you’d gotten the discovery I overnighted? I was hoping you’d had a chance to review it by now. Maybe you could give me a call, so we could talk about any questions it raised? Or if you’re planning to be in Springport on your Orphans’ Court matter, let me know. We could get lunch. Thanks. Bye.

  Call him to discuss any questions his discovery responses had raised? No one did that. What was going on with Showalter?

  She shrugged. The man was a mystery to her, but it didn’t matter. She’d resolved not to work on her Springport cases for the rest of the week. She was going to dig out from under the work that had piled up while she was out on Monday.

  Then, she was going to spend whatever was left of the weekend with Connelly. Her brothers had invited them to the hockey game on Saturday night, but Sasha didn’t know how to break it to them: Not only was Connelly not a Pens fan, he was a Rangers fan.

  She laughed at the image of the family drama that confession would create and snapped her backpack straps across her chest. Then she pushed through the door out to the street and started her run.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Thursday afternoon

  Springport, Pennsylvania

  Drew was trying to focus on his objections to the interrogatories the insurance company had served on his client. His attention kept wandering to the desk phone.

  Was she going to call him back? It had been several hours since he’d left his message.

  You should have waited until nine o’clock, like a normal person, he chided himself. Who’s in the office at six forty-five in the morning? Besides him, of course.

  But, Sasha had struck him, for no good reason, as a morning person. He liked to think he could sense his fellow early risers. Maybe she did get up early, he theorized, but she had to get her kids to school or walk her dog.

  It doesn’t matter, he told himself. Who cares if she wakes up at six a.m. or noon? She just needs to call me back.

  She was going to be his way out of this . . . morass. Mess didn’t do the situation justice. Predicament sounded too permanent. No, this was a morass.

  He tapped his highlighter on the desk and tried to ignore the gnawing pain.

  It was no use. He pulled open his top desk drawer and took out the jumbo-sized container of antacids Betty bought for him in three packs. He jammed a red one into his mouth and waited for its chalky magic to ease his stomach ulcer.

  She’d call. She had to call.

  CHAPTER 12

  Friday afternoon

  Cold Brook County Courthouse

  Harry stood at his window. Usually he liked to watch the shoppers and errand runners traipsing across the square. When school let out, he watched the children skip and squeal and laugh their way home. But, today, he looked out toward the rolling hills in the distance, covered with trees still bare from the winter.

  In a few months, they’d be verdant and full of life. And in several months more, they’d be a fiery display of gold and red. Those mountains, massive and far off, were in his county. Just as the streams, creeks, and lakes cutting through the mountains were. They were his responsibility as much as the men and women, the business owners, and the careless drivers. As much as the children, and the uninsured, the abused, and the abusers.

  This was his county and he was its judge.

  What was he going to do? How could he fairly decide this growing mountain of cases brought by and against the oil and gas companies? All the ancillary cases that somehow, some way, managed to relate to hydrofracking?

  Forget legal precedent, he thought. What kind of moral precedent would he be setting?

  Come off it, Harry. Your job, your duty, is to follow legal precedent. Do your job and the rest will sort itself out. It had to.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could ignore the phone calls. The visits. The looking up from his newspaper in his booth at Bob’s to see an uninvited gue
st in the booth across from him, smiling too wide.

  His imagination was working overtime. He’d begun to think he was being followed. As if there was any need to follow him. He went to work, Bob’s, work, home. On Saturdays, he hiked around Patterson’s Lake. Sundays, he went to church. A person could set his watch by it.

  He turned from the window and walked to his desk. His hand hovered over his phone. He should call his son. He hadn’t spoken to Shane in over a month. He was somewhere in the Middle East, deployed for yet another six months. He’d want to hear from his father; after all, that was why Harry had given him that fancy GPS satellite phone.

  No. He should do what he was supposed to be doing. Methodically work through the printouts of the draft opinions he’d dictated and make the corrections so Gloria could finalize them on Monday. After all, that was what he did on Fridays.

  CHAPTER 13

  Springport, Pennsylvania

  The following Monday

  Exactly one week after she’d left the Springport municipal parking lot, Sasha eased her Passat in to a spot in the lot. This time, however, out of prudence, she parked right next to the attendant’s shack. Despite the unusually sunny April day, Danny Trees and his friends were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a tired-eyed mother rested on the bench in the adjacent park and watched her toddler chase a yellow rubber ball around the grass at what appeared to be warp speed.

  Sasha smiled at them as she lifted her briefcase from the front seat. Inside, a copy of Dr. Kayser’s report from his visit with Jed last week rested in a manila folder. As far as she was concerned it should have been wrapped in Christmas paper. The gerontologist had evidently caught her client on a good day. Jed had scored 29 out of 30 on his MMSE, had shown the doctor around his place, and had taught him how to de-bone a trout. The doctor had agreed to testify on Jed’s behalf.

  Now, all she had to do was work with Jed on his own testimony. He still had a tendency to curse a blue streak and she was determined to get him to tone it down before the hearing. She figured she might be able to bribe some good behavior out of him with a pie from Bob’s Diner. She’d seen him looking at them longingly as they’d passed the glass case on their way out.

  As she walked from the lot to the square, she found herself daydreaming about Deputy Russell’s coffee with equal longing. So, when she ducked into Bob’s, she had Marie wrap up a gob for Russell along with the pecan pie—authoritatively identified as Jed’s favorite by the waitress.

  “You enjoy that gob now, honey. Diner’s closing Saturday. When it reopens, who knows what kind of frou frou desserts we’ll be serving,” she called to Sasha’s back.

  As she cut across the square in the middle of the block, the late afternoon sun was in her eyes. She almost ran into a tall, thin man. She sidestepped at the last minute to avoid him, shielding her face from the glare with one hand and holding the pastries with the other.

  “Excuse me,” she muttered.

  “Good afternoon, Ms. McCandless,” he said. “I see you’ve discovered the desserts at Bob’s. Lydia makes them from scratch.”

  She squinted. It was Judge Paulson.

  “Hi, your honor. I didn’t know that. Is Lydia his wife?”

  “She is indeed,” the judge said, taking Sasha’s elbow lightly in his hand and moving her backward and onto the sidewalk as an oversized Ford pickup roared past. “It’s not advisable to jaywalk around here, Counselor. Pedestrians may have the right of way in downtown Pittsburgh, but you’re a long way from Pittsburgh.”

  “I’ve noticed, your honor. Thanks for the hand.”

  The judge released her elbow and came around to stand beside her. “Yes,” he said, “Springport is a different place entirely.”

  He pointed across the square to the clock tower on the courthouse. “Do you see the statue atop the clock tower?”

  Sasha looked hard at the statue of a woman in flowing robes. She could make out the scales of justice held aloft in her left hand and a double-edged sword in her right.

  “It’s Lady Justice, isn’t it?”

  “Very good, Ms. McCandless. But, did you know that sculpture of Lady Justice is one of only five in the entire country that doesn’t depict her as blindfolded?”

  “No, I can’t say I did.”

  “Yes. The blindfold, of course, represents blind justice and impartiality. But, the elder statesmen who commissioned our statue seemed to think that justice in Clear Brook County has its eyes wide open.”

  He waited for her to say something.

  “Maybe that’s a good thing?”

  “Perhaps,” he said. “But, I doubt it.” He touched the tip of his hat and continued on his way, headed toward Bob’s and his own slice of Lydia’s home-baked goodness.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Deputy Russell had been happy to fill Sasha’s stainless steel travel mug with some of his robust coffee in exchange for a gooey gob. He’d been somewhat less happy to report that he’d made no progress on identifying Jay and that Danny Trees had neither seen nor heard from the man.

  Sasha savored the hot coffee as she drove out of town toward Jed Craybill’s home. Tall trees, just starting to bud, dotted the ribbon of highway between Springport and Firetown. Behind the trees loomed even taller oil derricks. Through the closed car windows, she heard the constant hum of the compressor stations bringing up the pressure of the gas released from the shale into the gathering lines, so it could feed into the large pipelines.

  Twenty minutes outside town, she pulled off the highway, turned right, and bounced along a partially paved unmarked road. The car rose and fell, following the natural peaks and valleys of the field.

  Sasha held her mug out from her body as coffee sloshed over the lip of the purportedly leak-proof lid. Steering one-handed, she swerved to miss a large bird walking along the path.

  She turned her head to get a better look. It was some kind of waterfowl. A duck, maybe, or a goose. She craned her neck but saw no water. Nothing but rows of long, wavy grass, still bleached tan from the winter. Lonely green shoots peeked out here and there.

  A weathered ranch-style house came into view at the end of the lane. No other houses were in sight. Sasha slowed the car as she neared the house and parked in front of the attached carport, which listed slightly to the right, leaning into the house.

  Jed stood near his front door. He was holding a bag of bread. He sneezed loudly and pulled a handkerchief from his pants pocket.

  “Damn allergies.”

  He nodded a greeting as she got out of the car, pecan pie in hand.

  “Hi, Jed. How are you this afternoon?”

  “Can’t complain,” he said, the fact that he just had apparently lost on him. “Just got back from feeding the ducks. That a pie from Bob’s?”

  “Yes it is. Pecan. Marie tells me it’s your favorite.”

  “That’s right. Well, come on in,” he said, turning toward the door.

  He braced himself against the door frame, jammed a key into the lock, and turned it fiercely. The door flew open.

  “It sticks,” he explained unnecessarily.

  Sasha followed him into a small entryway. She wiped her feet on a colorful rag rug that sat just inside the door and pulled the warped door shut behind her.

  He shuffled through the living room without stopping and went straight to the kitchen in the back of the house. It was painted yellow. Red and white checked curtains framed the window over the sink. The appliances were old and scratched but clean. A clock shaped like an apple missing a bite hung over a square table shoehorned into the far corner.

  Dr. Kayser had described Jed’s home as spare and worn, but tidy and clean. Looking around, Sasha concurred with his assessment.

  Jed stopped beside the refrigerator and opened a rectangular metal box that sat on the counter. He placed the loaf of bread inside and pulled the cover back down.

  Sasha tried to recall the last time she’d seen a breadbox and came up empty.

  “Do you always feed the d
ucks?” she asked.

  Jed answered her without turning around. “Lately. The creek runs through the yard out back.” He paused and nodded toward the window. “But they won’t eat from that anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  He pulled two white dessert plates, rimmed with blue, from the cabinet and took two forks from the silverware drawer beneath it.

  Then he turned around and said, “I suspect they know it’s poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?”

  “Poisoned, polluted, what the hell’s the difference? God knows what chemicals are running through that water from all the fracking.”

  He gestured with a pie cutter at the window, making a jabbing motion in the air.

  “You leased your mineral rights? A gas and oil company is fracking on your land?” Sasha asked him.

  Jed wheeled around. “Are you out of your mind? I won’t let those bastards rape my land. Chased them off the front lawn with my hatchet when they came sniffing around. That contaminated water’s coming from upstream.”

  The pie cutter clattered to the counter. The old man’s face was red and his arms shook.

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Sasha walked over to him and touched his arm. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll dish us up some pie?”

  He let her lead him to the table and sat muttering while she cut two slices of pie.

  They ate in silence for several minutes. Sasha stared at the apple clock and tried to think of a topic that wouldn’t set off the old man.

  “You know they sued the county commissioners?” he demanded out of the blue.

  “Who sued the county commissioners?”

  He threw her a look of disgust. “The oil and gas dirtbags. Who else?”