“Does everyone understand what we want?” Ms. Dixon asked.
Cal nodded, so she got up, and we followed her out. As she walked out of the building, she was on her phone; I don’t know with whom. She had evidently made preparations for the Children and Family Services threat. CFS was prepared to start their investigation as soon as she called them. Pam would be interviewed this afternoon if the call were made, but I couldn’t say where that was on Ms. Dixon’s list of things to do.
Mom wanted a phone number for Lacy, Pam’s mom. I gave her Sandy Range’s contact info, and she soon had Lacy on the line. Mom walked away for several minutes while talking on the phone. She came back and told us Lacy planned to be on the next flight back. It seemed Cal had left a few facts out of his conversations with Lacy concerning what was going on at home.
While Mom explained the situation with Lacy, I again examined the copy we’d made of the financial sheet. I called Ms. Dixon over.
“Look at this coding at the bottom. You see here?” I said as I pointed. “It shows the date the printout was made, and this is the code for the person requesting the printout. The date shown is the day before Detective Kitchens hauled me down to the police station for questioning. That would have been a Sunday. See this code: ‘CRB’? I’m betting that’s Cal’s user ID at Rigby, Thompson and Associates. The problem is, he’s never had anything to do with representing me or with my account, and from my understanding, Cal shouldn’t have been able to even see this document, much less print it out.”
She gave me a look over the top of her reading glasses.
“That’s good information to have. I’m going to do some thinking on how best to use it.”
“There’s something else,” I said. “You notice the coding has a pagination feature that shows how many pages are being printed out? This page says ‘374 of 4,268.’ It would appear he printed out everything of mine they had stored electronically on their system.”
Ms. Dixon rolled her eyes at that one, then closed them for a second and shuddered.
“We’re lucky. Their own document management system is showing us how monstrous this breach of ethics is.”
She thought a few more seconds, and then looked at me.
“Will you trust me to use this when I think it’s most advantageous? I’d like to see if their investigation tries once again to sweep things under the rug. If they downplay the extent of the breach in writing, we can nail their coffins shut with this,” Ms. Dixon said.
◊◊◊
We went to our house to talk. I felt worn out from the emotional strain of the meeting. Ms. Dixon just smiled at me when we sat down at the kitchen table.
“Where did you come up with making the agreement transparent?” she asked me.
“I’ve been reading about a lot of similar cases, and it seems like someone always wants to make it sealed. Then the press has a field day as they try to guess what’s in the settlement. I just want there to not be any questions as to what’s agreed upon,” I said.
“I about fell out of my chair when you said you wanted custody,” Dad said.
“Why not? You heard him. He was out to destroy me and would do anything to make sure I didn’t ever see my baby. When I saw the expression on Cal’s face when they let it slip they had our confidential financials, I realized we had the opening to push for it, so I did,” I said.
“We need to stop this love-fest because this isn’t over yet. Cal might not be done with his tricks,” Mom warned us.
“Can you hold off on the disbarment?” Dad asked.
“Actually, I disagree, Dad,” I said. “I’m all for them having to pay the price for what they’ve done. I’d also like to push anything else we can come up with. I think the state’s attorney mentioned a false police report. Cal, Mr. Fox, and Rigby, Thompson and Associates need to be held accountable,” I said.
“David, for once I would advise you not to get your hands dirty in this. Up to this point, you’ve come across as the good guy. I think we hold this as the hammer to force an agreement on our terms,” Ms. Dixon said.
I looked at my mom because if anyone would want payback, it was her. She just shook her head at me, and I realized I needed to tone it down. It was like a football game when you had a team down and out. You didn’t have to keep pouring it on, or they might decide they have nothing to lose and do something stupid and hurt someone. I didn’t need to put Cal in a corner and then poke him. He had shown he would strike back without regard to the consequences. I had to let him walk away with some small amount of dignity.
“Alright, but if this goes south, I want to be ready to back up our threats,” I said. “I’ll let Cal walk away with some dignity, but only if we can be sure he’s really walking away, and that he won’t come back.”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” Ms. Dixon said with a smile.
“One more item,” I said. “Can we get them to pay all your fees for this fiasco?”
My mom and dad had no idea how expensive this all had been for me. I clued them in, and they both were suddenly very interested in my request.
“I’ll put it into our proposal. Since they caused this, they should pay for it. The good news is my firm hired your PR firm so you won’t have to pay for that, either,” Ms. Dixon said.
“And one last thing,” Mom said. “Let’s hold off on getting Children and Family Services involved. I don’t think Pam or her mom needs that hassle right now.”
Ms. Dixon nodded and then stood up to leave.
“Even if I’m not filing anything today, I still have a bunch of documents to prepare for contingencies for tomorrow. David, we’re not out of the woods yet, but our position is much stronger than before.”
◊◊◊
Greg and the kids came over to go trick-or-treating. Our neighborhood was much better for young children than around campus at State. Duke and I were put in charge of handing out candy. He at first wasn’t sure of the scary masks, but once my hound figured out that they were little kids, he thought it was great that people would come to his front door. Duke was in charge of making sure their candy was safe. I think he personally smelled every bag.
Kyle was dressed up as a tiger and Mac was a princess. Nate made a great pumpkin. I had to laugh when I saw Greg had on a pirate outfit. When they made it back, they were all exhausted. I was jealous when I saw all the candy the four of them had. I was surprised when Greg put the little ones down in beds here. It looked like he wasn’t going home tonight.
The good news was Greg brought all their candy down and dumped it on the kitchen table.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
Mom just laughed.
“You don’t think we’d ever let them eat all this candy, do you?” she said as she picked through it and got what she wanted.
“You guys used to steal our candy?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” Dad said, as he picked out what he wanted.
Duke nudged my arm. I saw that one of them had gotten a toy football. I tossed it to him and watched as he took his new toy and put it in his basket. I would have to check his basket and see if he had stolen any more of the kids’ toys. Duke was protective of his stuff. He knew exactly where it all was. Mom had started to play a game with him where she would steal one of his toys and hide it somewhere. Duke had a great time hunting all over the house until he found it.
I broke down and snagged a Heath Bar and a Butterfinger, and then the doorbell rang again, so I was put back to work.
◊◊◊
I arrived at Mona’s and found all the cheerleaders helping the drama students from State finish decorating the house. They had gone all out, with a fog machine and creepy noises that were triggered when you set off a motion sensor. Tracy was in the kitchen making punch in a big witches’ cauldron. They had dry ice, so it would bubble and look like smoke was rolling out of it.