Kiss the Girls and Make Them Cry(45)

She is delinquent on homeowners association payments, car loans, credit cards, etc. In our conversations she cited the higher sums paid to Me-Too victims by other media companies. Although she would not share names, she claims other Matthews victims would validate her story if she came forward.

If she goes public, her accusations might be dismissed as the ranting of an alcoholic. But if in addition to her settlement document, the $2 million she received is traced to Carter & Associates and further traced to REL News, her story will be very credible.

Stephenson has agreed to remain silent until she meets with me on Monday in Durham. I suggest an interim solution. A one-year deal where each month she will receive a wire of $50 thousand. This will see us well-past the IPO and buy time to think. It will also prevent a repeat of the cycle where she squanders away a large sum of money all at once.

Your silence will be regarded as approval of this plan.



After sending the email, Carter leaned back in his chair. He had an uneasy feeling about the upcoming meeting. The sit-downs with the other victims were battles of wits, chess matches where each side had strengths and vulnerabilities. But in Stephenson he sensed a quiet defiance. He thought of the line in the Bob Dylan song. “When you ain’t got nothing, you got nothing to lose.” Despite being broke and a drunk, Stephenson was holding all the cards.





49





Carter had his laptop open on the desk in the temporary office space he had rented in Durham. He gave one final read to the settlement document he would discuss with Paula Stephenson. He pressed a key and heard a whirring noise behind him. The synching of his computer and the printer had been achieved.

The receptionist had buzzed a few minutes earlier to inform him that the notary public had arrived. Why did I even bother? he thought to himself. The very fact that he was here today reminded him how unenforceable these settlement agreements were. He had used the standard legal language, “now, and for all of time,” to describe the signer’s commitment to adhere to the terms of the contract. In Paula Stephenson’s case, “for all of time” had lasted less than fifteen months.

Neither Sherman nor Matthews had responded to his email. That was both a surprise and a relief. He had anticipated incoming fire from Sherman about the prospect of paying more to someone who had already settled. He also thought at least one of them would ask why he was waiting five days to meet with Stephenson.

The answer would not have pleased either of them. After he agreed to represent his army buddy in his wrongful termination suit, he had negotiated a quick and lucrative settlement. It had led to more business. If his work for REL came to a halt, maybe he could segue into doing that full-time.

Stephenson had wanted to meet right away. He had put her off because he had two days of depositions scheduled on one of his employment cases.

“Where are you, Paula?” he said aloud as he glanced at his watch. She was now thirty-five minutes late for their eleven o’clock appointment. She had not responded to a text, and his call had gone straight to her voice mail. He checked his phone again. She had made no attempt to contact him.

When he’d told her where and when they would meet, he’d given that information over the phone. Could he possibly have misspoken? He doubted it. She had asked him to repeat it several times and she sounded reasonably sober. Even if she got the date and time wrong, why wouldn’t she respond to his messages?

At noon the receptionist buzzed. Did he still want the notary to wait? “No, send her in,” he said. He paid her for her time. The receptionist gave him the name of a Chinese food place that delivered.

At two o’clock he had a decision to make. Sitting here was accomplishing nothing, and he didn’t want to miss his 6:30 direct flight to Newark. He clicked on his laptop and pulled up the address of Paula Stephenson’s condominium. According to Waze, he could be there in twenty minutes. If she’s changed her mind about meeting me, what’s the point? he asked himself. But there was one viable scenario. After a night of heavy boozing, she could be in bed in a dead sleep. It’s worth a shot, he thought, as he opened the Uber app.



* * *



“Don’t pull in. I’ll get out here,” Carter ordered as the Uber driver eased to the side of the road opposite Stephenson’s condominium. Across the lawn on both sides of the front entrance he could see a parked police cruiser with its overhead lights flashing. Between the two vehicles a medical technician in a white jacket was opening the rear doors of an ambulance. Two other white-coated individuals were wheeling a stretcher to a halt in back of the ambulance. A human figure with a sheet covering the entire body was motionless atop the stretcher.

Trying to look inconspicuous, Carter walked slowly down the driveway and settled in behind a group of voyeurs. He was hoping to find out what had happened without asking any questions.

“Sometimes the pressure just gets to be too much,” one woman sighed. “I hear the condo association was pressing her hard to get caught up on her payments.”

“Did she really kill herself?” another asked.

“I was doing work on that floor. I heard the police say she hung herself. That’s got to be an awful way to go,” a man with paint splattered on his shirt and blue jeans shared. His truck, with the logo of a painting business on its side, was parked about one hundred feet away.