What We Find (Sullivan's Crossing, #1)(75)

Cal thought it might be impolite to ask, but it sounded like those were conjugal visits.

They sat in a booth in the back of the diner, ordered pie and coffee and Cal waited for Tom to get to the point. Instead he talked about his on-again-off-again relationship with his wife.

“And now Becky’s in jail,” he finally said. He hung his head.

“Ho, boy,” Cal said. “For?”

“Solicitation.” He shook his head. “I said it had to be a mistake, she wouldn’t do that. She said it was all a mistake. And it had been a mistake the first two times, too. It’s the third time. She said they’re going to make her go to jail. She needs help. She called me for help. What the hell am I gonna do? And if she’s in jail, the kids are gonna know something is terrible wrong.”

Cal’s mouth didn’t even hang open in awe, though he was a little surprised. Tom and his kids seemed so homespun, such simple rural folks without the kind of problems they have in the city. But given Cal’s experience as a defense attorney, he’d seen and heard just about everything.

“I never suspected anything like this, not in a million years. I thought she lived pretty good for an office worker. But she’s so beautiful, I thought she had boyfriends. Generous boyfriends. She didn’t talk about her love life, but I figured she had one even though I didn’t have one. But she could afford things. Nice things.”

“Did you pay support?” Cal asked.

“I didn’t really pay alimony,” he said. “We didn’t have an arrangement for that since I had the kids. But sometimes she ran short and I gave her money. I paid some child support for that little while when she had the girls. I wanted to be sure they were getting what they needed, you know?”

“Your original agreement is for joint custody?” Cal asked.

“We wrote it that way, yeah. The idea was to help each other out with the kids.”

“What about property?” Cal asked.

“What property?” he asked with a laugh.

“Furniture? Cars?”

He shrugged. “I told her to take anything she wanted, I didn’t want to fight. What I wanted was for her to stay.”

“Have you gotten over that now?”

“I guess it’s about time, isn’t it? I don’t know that I’ll ever be able to let the kids visit her now. And her coming to us?” He shook his head. “I can’t think about that right now. Zach and Brenda, twelve and fourteen, at the absolute worst time for teenagers, they don’t need this. But she loves her kids and they love her. I want to believe it’s a mistake, but three mistakes? Man, I’m so screwed.”

“Does she have a lawyer?” Cal asked.

“Not yet, but she said she’ll have to find one. She has nice stuff but she doesn’t exactly have money. And she’s heard bad things about court appointed lawyers, like they get a little lazy on these free clients.”

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true. But I think you’re going to need a little help here, Tom. Legal help.”

He shook his head. “I’ll go online and study up. There’s gotta be lots of help online. I bet if I break down and tell Jackson, he’ll help me look things up. After he recovers from his nervous breakdown. That kid is smarter than anything. But I—”

“Tom, you need a lawyer.”

“Cal, I can’t hire a lawyer. I can’t even bail her out—she’s gonna have to sit there till her court date in a week or so. We get by job to job. We’re doing all right but there’s not two nickels left over, trust me.”

“You have options. There’s got to be a legal clinic around here somewhere. Might be Denver or Colorado Springs, but there’s help out there. An attorney with experience in criminal defense would be best. Or maybe I can help you. I’m an attorney. But I have no experience in Colorado statutes. I can learn, though. It’s not complicated, just a matter of looking things up.”

Tom’s mouth was hanging open. “You’re a what?”

“Lawyer,” Cal said. “A defense attorney, as a matter of fact. I practiced in Michigan and the state of Colorado has graciously extended licensing to me here.”

“You’re a lawyer? And you’re raking campsites and taking out trash?”

Cal smiled. “I am a man of many talents. I also have a checkbook in the truck. Let’s go by the bank so you can get Becky out of jail.”

*



Maggie enjoyed the drive back to Sully’s. She used the time to think about her conversation with Walter. The first thing she was going to do—she was going to find a way to show Walter how much he mattered in her life. She had two pretty awesome fathers, nothing alike, and each in his own way, sensitive and astute. She wasn’t sure what would have become of her if she hadn’t had both of them in her life.

So here we are. Four and a half months ago she’d felt she had lost everything. She’d thought she had nothing. No one. No one but Sully. And even Sully, she’d thought, hadn’t really wanted her. And no one needed her. Oh, there had been patients but she was hardly the only neurosurgeon.

Almost five months later her biggest discovery was that she wanted it all. She wanted her fathers, her dippy mother, a husband or at least a full-time partner. And a child. She wanted that child she felt had been taken from her. She wanted a full home life—and she wanted to practice again. She wanted to pull her salad out of the garden but also to go to excellent restaurants now and then. She wanted everything. There would have to be compromises, but she’d figure that out.