The Professor (McMurtrie and Drake Legal Thrillers #1)(28)
Tom felt a flash of anger. “I’m not quitting, Bo. It’s a zoo in Tuscaloosa right now. Reporters wanting interviews, newspaper articles, crazy allegations that are total bullshit. I didn’t want to stick around and endure it in the face of cancer. I... I just needed a break from all of it.”
“I get that, I do. But didn’t you always teach us to hit first and hit hard? And if you couldn’t hit first, strike back twice as hard as your opponent. Jameson and the Board hit first, but we can strike back by suing them. You had tenure. You were forced out for bullshit reasons. It’s straight-up breach of contract and maybe fraud.”
Tom smiled, shaking his head. “Bo, I appreciate the pep talk. But that would just make things worse. The press would never let it go. Besides, I’m not even sure if I want to teach again. At this point in my life, I’m not sure what I want.”
“So you’re just gonna wait?”
Tom shrugged, but didn’t answer.
“For what?” Bo pressed.
“I don’t know. If the treatments don’t work...” Tom stopped, not wanting to say the obvious. “Bo, I’m sixty-eight years old. My wife is dead. I’ve lost my job and I’m too sick to start a new one,” Tom continued. “I guess maybe I came here to...”
“Whoa, now, dog. You’re startin’ to sound like a country music song.” Bo paused, taking a sip of beer. “But I feel you now. I get it.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Then, tell me. Because I haven’t the faintest of clues.”
“It’s like that break between the third and fourth quarters in a football game. When the teams switch sides of the field and TV goes to commercial, and everyone on both sides of the field makes a four with their hands.” Bo pulled his thumb back and held his hand over his head. “You know what I’m talking about?”
“I know the part of the game you’re talking about. But what’s your point?”
“That’s where you are. This farm. This place. This is the sideline. You’re about to start the fourth quarter, but you’re not there yet.” Bo paused. “They’re still at commercial.”
Tom laughed. “You’re so full of shit, Bocephus.”
“No, sir,” Bo said, smiling back at him. “I’m speaking the truth. You’ve got one quarter to play, and you have to decide what to do.”
Tom looked away, to the fields of corn past the freshly mown yard. “What if I’m at the end of the fourth quarter, Bo? What if I’m at the end, and the other side’s snapping the ball and taking a knee? There’s time left on the clock, but there ain’t a damn thing I can do. They’re goin’ run the clock out on me, and I can’t win.” Tom paused and looked into Bo’s dark eyes. “What if that’s where I’m at?”
Bo looked back at him, his eyes sharp, piercing Tom with their intensity. “Is that where you think you’re at?”
Tom didn’t answer. As the crickets chirped and the lightning bugs flashed around them, the question hung in the air like a bubble.
I don’t know, Tom thought. I just don’t know.
An hour later, the food and beers were gone, and Bo had to go home. “Jazz will have my ass if I’m not home by 10,” Bo said, rubbing Musso behind the ears and opening the door to his SUV.
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot.” Bo reached into the car and pulled out two large manila envelopes. “The mail has started to come to my house like you asked, and you got these two packages.” Bo handed the packages to Tom, whose stomach tightened when he saw Rick Drake’s return address on one of them.
“Thanks,” Tom said.
“No problem. Your first treatment is next Friday at 9am, right?”
“Right. You sure you don’t–”
“Don’t ask me that again, Professor. You know I don’t mind. If it wasn’t for you, I’d probably be a PE teacher somewhere. You saved my life by introducing me to the law, and now it’s time for Bocephus to pay his debts.” Bo winked at Tom, then started the ignition. A minute later, the Lexus was pulling out of the driveway.
Tom brought the packages into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. The other envelope didn’t have a return address, so Tom opened Rick’s first. Inside, the heading read “Ruth Ann Wilcox, as Personal Representative of the Estates of Bob Bradshaw, Jeannie Bradshaw and Nicole Bradshaw v. Willistone Trucking Company, Inc.” The date of filing was Monday, January 31, 2010. Rick had filed suit less than forty-eight hours after getting the referral. On the top of the first page, there was a yellow sticky note with five words scribbled in blue ink – “I won’t f*ck it up.”
Tom couldn’t help but laugh. Piss and vinegar, he thought. That boy is piss and vinegar and the rest balls.
Tom opened the other package, still thinking about Drake. The boy was probably about to be hit with a firestorm of discovery by whoever was hired to defend Willistone. Tom cringed, remembering Rick’s converted loft of an office and his lack of office staff. He can’t do it by himself. He has no partner, no associate and no clerk, and he may have lied about having a secretary. How the hell is he going to handle everything?
Sighing, Tom pulled a bound notebook from the second package. What the hell is this? he wondered. Flipping the notebook over to the front, Tom read the cover page out loud: “McMurtrie’s Evidence, Fifth Edition (Daubert Excerpt)”. Flipping through the pages that followed, Tom saw a nice summary of all the cases dealing with the Daubert expert witness standard since the publishing of his last supplement. Well, I’ll be damned… The actual cases were also attached with a notation on the front of each case that said, “Still Good Law”. Tom closed the notebook and ran his hand through the package to see if there was anything else. He pulled out a small piece of pink notebook paper. It was short and written in cursive handwriting: