I was surprised by the quality of the photocopies. They were not as clear as the originals on a light box, but I could see the healed break lines of the older injuries as well as the T12 vertebra break that had rendered Cassandra paraplegic. From my briefcase I pulled the legal pad that I had written notes on during my lunch with Cassie Snow. I flipped through the pages and found the names and numbers of the doctors who had treated her following her recent car accident. I grabbed the desk phone and called the orthopedic surgeon who had suspected she had osteogenesis imperfecta and sent her to the geneticist for the official diagnosis.
The call went to an answering service, as the office was closed for the weekend. I left a message explaining that I was an attorney representing his patient Cassandra Snow and urgently needed to speak with the doctor. While I waited for the doctor to call back, Brenda returned my call.
“Sorry,” she said. “I had my phone turned off for a therapy session.”
“Not a problem,” I said. “We have another offer from Tidalwaiv I need to go over with you.”
“Do we have to?”
“Yes, but this one you might want to consider, Brenda.”
“Okay, I’ll listen.”
But then the landline started to buzz, and I saw that Cassandra Snow’s doctor was calling.
“Brenda, I need to jump off to take a call I’ve been waiting for,” I said. “Stay by your phone and I’ll call you right back.”
I hung up my cell and grabbed the desk line before it went to voicemail.
“This is Mickey Haller.”
“This is Dr. Sheldon, how can I help you?”
“Yes, Doctor, thanks for calling me back. I represent your patient Cassandra Snow. I—”
“If this is about insurance, I don’t handle—”
“No, it’s about osteogenesis imperfecta. You diagnosed her with it.”
“Well, I suspected she had it and sent her to the geneticist. What is it you need?”
“What I would like is for you to look at copies of X-rays taken when Cassandra was two years old, when a lot of the old breaks you saw on your X-rays were recent, including the T twelve break in her spine.”
“And what would be the purpose of me looking at these X-rays?”
“Cassandra has hired me to help get her father out of prison. He’s been there for twenty years, ever since he was convicted of hurting her. I was his lawyer then and I am now. If Cassandra had OI then, we might be able to prove what her father has said all along — that she broke her back falling out of a stroller, not because he abused her.”
There was no response. I waited. Then I prompted, “Doctor, you still with me?”
“I’m here. I’m deciding whether I want to get involved in this.”
“David Snow, Cassie’s father, is dying. He’s got cancer. The prison doctors have given him nine months to live. Cassie wants to bring him home. She never believed he did the things he was accused of. He has always denied it, even when admitting it could have gotten him parole.”
This time I waited out the doctor’s silence.
“Okay, send the X-rays,” he finally said. “I’ll take a look and tell you what I think.”
“Thank you, Doctor,” I said.
I hung up and immediately called Brenda Randolph back.
“I really don’t want to take a deal” were the words she opened with.
“I understand that completely,” I said. “But I’m obligated to bring this to you. I mean, lawyers have been disbarred for not bringing settlement offers to their clients. Besides, they have jacked up the offer significantly, and, I’m just saying, you might want to think about it.”
“No, but go ahead. What is it?”
“I’m going to read you the email so you get exactly what they’re offering.”
I was two-thirds through reading and well past the money offer when Brenda interrupted with a loud “No!”
“Let me just finish reading it,” I said. “Then we can discuss it.”
“I don’t want to discuss it,” Brenda said.
“Okay, well, let me finish, all right? I need to give you the full offer and the parameters.”
“Go ahead, but I’m not doing this.”
Thirty seconds later I finished delivering the offer.
“Brenda, I know what you said, but I have an obligation to tell you to think twice about this,” I said. “It is a lot of money. You could do a lot of good things with it. You could set up a foundation in Rebecca’s name. It could be a force for advocacy. And you have to remember, anything can happen in a trial. I think we’re in good shape, but anything can happen.”
I, of course, was not telling her that we might have lost a key witness, Naomi Kitchens. I wasn’t going to reveal that until I took a run at bringing Kitchens back into the fold.
“Even if we lose, we’ll still get the story out,” Brenda replied. “In the trial. And that’s more important to me than the money.”
“You’re right about that. The media will be all over this trial.”
“Have you talked to the Coltons? I’m sure Bruce wants this.”
“I did, and you’re right, he wants to take the money. But you control this, Brenda. What you decide goes.”
There was a long silence on the line before she spoke again.
“I don’t think I could live with myself if I took it,” she said. “A foundation sounds nice but this whole thing is about holding that company accountable. Publicly accountable. And this... this is just a payoff. Fifty million dollars to shut up and just accept what happened to Becca. I can’t do it, Mickey. How could I live a rich life on blood money? Her blood.”
“I didn’t expect that you could, Brenda,” I said. “But it was my duty to bring it to you.”
“Are you mad at me? You would have made a lot of money yourself. You could start a foundation.”
“Maybe a home for wayward lawyers? No, Brenda, I’m not mad. I’m proud of you. I’m proud I represent you. And I won’t let you down next week. We’ll tell the world.”
“Thank you, Mickey.”
“Listen, I’m going to call you tomorrow. I’m not ready now, but I want to go over your testimony and how that should go.”
“I’ll be here.”
After we disconnected, I grabbed the file of X-rays and left the office. Lorna and Cisco were in the cage. When I pushed through the copper curtain, I was already talking.
“I just got off the phone with Brenda Randolph,” I said. “She turned the offer down and we’re going to trial. Cisco, I need you to go to San Francisco and set up a watch on Naomi’s daughter.”
“Copy that,” Cisco said. “All right if I bring in some backup? One-man surveillance is always a recipe for failure.”
“Do it,” I said. “The more the merrier, because I’m going to use this show of force to help convince Naomi to come back on board as a witness. Just try to keep the expenses down.”
“You mean I can’t stay at the Hopkins?” Cisco asked.
I smiled and shook my head.
“You’re not staying anywhere,” I said. “I want you on the street outside this girl’s dorm. You can get her details from Jack.”