Sunset Beach(29)

Drue looked at the other cube rats, all of them busily typing away.

“I guess I don’t understand how that constitutes abuse. Or neglect,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “Maybe you could just have a talk with your mom? Explain that her spending has gotten out of hand? Take away her credit card? Or, I don’t know, remove the television?”

“I took Mother’s credit card away and she called her attorney and directed him to have me written out of her will,” the caller said. “And did you just say take her television away? You have no idea what you’re suggesting,” the woman said. “That television is her best friend. Her only friend. I just want them to block the damned HSN.”

Drue took a deep breath. “All right. Well, I’ve got your information, and I’ll, uh, forward that to the appropriate associates.”

She disconnected, switched her phone to Off and headed for the break room.



* * *



Jonah was standing with his back to the counter, sipping from his mug of coffee. He spotted her before she could slink silently away. They were the only ones in the room.

“How’s it going?” he asked. “Sign up any cases yet?”

“Not really. You?”

“I’ve got one really solid prospect. The caller claims his grandfather’s nursing home was negligent because they allowed the old guy to have unsupervised visits with his wife,” Jonah said.

“I know I’m going to regret asking this, but how is that negligent?”

Jonah sniggered. “It turns out the granddad is quite wealthy, eighty-two and frail, and the wife, it turns out, isn’t legally his wife at all, but a twenty-eight-year-old ‘masseuse’ whose brother is a maintenance worker at the home. Seems the maintenance worker struck up a friendship with the patient, who expressed his, ah, longing for female companionship. Apparently some money changed hands and a date was arranged.”

“I’m guessing the date did not include scripture readings?” Drue asked.

“You are correct,” Jonah said. “And to make sure the patient and his bogus wife were afforded privacy, the maintenance worker stood guard outside the room. Eventually things got a little rowdy, and the patient actually fell out of bed and fractured his hip.”

“You’re making that up,” Drue said, struggling to maintain a straight face.

“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” he pledged. “Got to love an octogenarian horndog, right?”

Drue went to the refrigerator, got a bottle of water, uncapped it and took a swig.

“That’s a good case, right?” she asked.

“It’s a no-brainer. The maintenance worker has a criminal record, which the nursing home should have known about, the masseuse works for an escort service, and, get this, now Granddaddy has an STD. Brice is absolutely gonna love it.”

“All I’ve got is a woman who wants us to sue the nursing home because they won’t cut off her mom’s access to Home Shopping Network,” Drue said glumly.

“Weak sauce,” he said, sounding sympathetic.

Drue was trying hard to cling to her childish and unreasonable loathing for Jonah, but the fact that he was so annoyingly funny made it hard for her to maintain her grudge.

Over coffee earlier in the week, Ben had confided that Jonah had interned summers during law school at Campbell, Coxe and Kramner and was still at the firm because he’d failed his first try at the Florida bar exam. Jonah, she realized, had institutional memory.

“Hey,” she said, trying to sound casual. “You know anything about the Jazmin Mayes case?”

He ripped open two sugar packets and dumped the contents into his mug. “That’s the girl whose body was found stuffed into a dryer at the hotel on Sunset Beach? Like, two years ago?”

“It was actually a laundry cart, but yeah.”

“I know Brice thought it was a slam dunk for criminal negligence and/or wrongful death. Why do you ask?”

“Her mom, Yvonne Howington, came into the office this week. She was raising hell, because we settled it as a worker’s comp case. She as much as accused my dad of taking a payoff from the hotel’s insurance company.”

Jonah snorted. “That’s how it is with some of these clients. They don’t want to hear the bad news, so they blame it on the messenger. Assume the worst, accuse the firm of bribery, bad faith, the works.”

“But this girl was murdered. Strangled to death. It’s so horrible. I can’t believe the best we could do was get a worker’s comp settlement,” Drue said.

“Why do you care?” He sipped his coffee.

“Because,” she said, sputtering. “It’s not right. Jazmin Mayes left behind a six-year-old daughter with serious medical issues. So now the grandmother’s a single mom, dealing with that stuff. And we settle it for chump change?”

“You’re right, it sucks, but it’s the law.”

“I don’t care what you say. Something’s seriously wrong if that’s the best Brice could do. The grandmother swears her daughter was being harassed at work, and that she was not on the clock that night. She never worked past eleven.”

“Don’t know what to tell you,” Jonah said. “I’m sure Jimmy Zee looked at it from every angle. The guy’s slick.”