A Clean Kill Read Free

from her mug as her eyes darted around our Thanksgiving hosts’ front yard. “I guess it’s obvious I don’t think Dad needs to sue anyone. Just putting the whole thing behind us is what I’d like to do. But if one of the doctors or the hospital did something god-awful, then, you know, I guess we need to know that.”
    Across the lawn, what had been a series of neatly raked and rounded piles were now jagged circles of brown and red and yellow leaves. I turned back to examine my new client’s face. “Okay, Sheri. As long as you know what you’re getting and what you’re not getting. At this point, all I feel comfortable agreeing to do is analyze what’s there and give you a report, but the way we’re talking about doing this won’t be cheap. A regular plaintiff’s lawyer would take it on contingency, which means he or she would only charge if you win. I don’t work that way, especially since I wouldn’t be investigating with the goal of collecting a big verdict at trial. What I do is charge two hundred an hour, which is not unreasonable around Mobile. My investigator gets seventy-five. And this could take a while.”
    Sheri turned to look out at the yard and slowly, almost imperceptibly, nodded her head.
    “And,” I said, “as I already explained, if this thing goes to trial at some point, I would not want to handle it. You and I would both be happier if I handed it off to someone who tries cases like this every week.”
    Sheri Baneberry smiled her pretty smile again. “Lawyers usually get a retainer or something, don’t they?”
    I nodded.
    “Is five thousand okay? That’s what B.J. suggested.”
    Now I smiled. “Five thousand’s fine. But let me talk to your father first. It may be the kind of thing that only takes a few phone calls. If it looks more complicated than that, you can give me the check. I’ll put it in a trust account and bill time and expenses against it.”
    I looked down at my plate of cold turkey and dressing smeared with congealed gravy. “Sheri, do you happen to know where Bill and B.J. keep the scotch?”
    “Follow me.”
    The Monday morning after Thanksgiving, I sat watching silver raindrops explode and collect into rivulets on the panes of my window. My office was in the Oswyn Israel Building in Mobile—an old place where plaster is plaster and not Sheetrock and the windows actually have panes. Down the short hallway, I could hear the soft patter of a computer keyboard as my secretary, Kelly, typed something.
    I was watching the late-November rain and thinking a little about reasons the INS should allow one of my clients to stay in the country, when the phone rang. I picked up the receiver and said hello.
    “Is this Tom McInnes?”
    I said it was.
    “This is Jim Baneberry. You talked to my little girl, Sheri, on Thanksgiving about handling a lawsuit for us.”
    “No. Not exactly. I agreed to look into things for the family. To more or less analyze the case and report back to you and your daughter.”
    “Well, we don’t need you.”
    “That’s fine. You mind if I ask why?”
    “I got a
real
law firm to take it. Not some guy out on his own. And they didn’t try to hold me up for a five-thousand-dollar retainer.”
    I took a breath and reminded myself that the man had just lost his wife. I’d always heard that there are stages of grieving. Apparently, I’d caught Sheri’s father dead center in the anger stage. “That’s not what happened, Mr. Baneberry.”
    “I know what happened. I wasn’t born yesterday. Somebody’s mother dies and you come swooping around like a … I won’t say it. But you aren’t gonna pull that on my family. Like I said, I’ve got a
major
law firm on this now. And if you bother me or my daughter again, I’ll tell them to come after you, too.”
    I took a couple of breaths and turned back to gaze at raindrops puddling like lines of mercury along the bottom of each windowpane. In the distance, the rippled lead of Mobile Bay stretched