Chương 11
Ruth noticed.
“You do.”
“I want you to understand the risk.”
“You didn’t answer.”
Elena looked at the photograph of Mateo on the conference table. Ruth brought it to every meeting now. Sometimes she placed it faceup. Sometimes she left it in her purse.
“I think the offer is financially serious,” Elena said. “I think a trial could expose more. I also think Riverpoint will use every mistake Mateo ever made to argue he contributed to his own death, even if those mistakes had nothing to do with the alarm system. They will make you listen.”
“I’ve already listened.”
“Not in front of a jury.”
Ruth’s mouth tightened.
Elena continued. “They may call Adrian a liar. They may persuade jurors the report was altered. They may argue the fire spread too quickly for working alarms to matter. We have strong evidence, but strong is not certain.”
“Do you believe they knew?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe Mateo would have gotten out if the alarms worked?”
“The fire experts believe he would have had more time.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No one can promise exactly what he would have done.”
Ruth looked away.
A bus hissed at the curb below the office window. Someone in the hallway dropped a stack of folders and cursed.
Ruth said, “When he called me that night, he wasn’t scared yet. He said there was smoke in the stairwell and the hallway alarm wasn’t making sound. Then the call ended. For eleven months I have been hearing the part before he got scared.”
Elena did not speak.
“I don’t need a scholarship,” Ruth said. “I need to know whether they get to buy silence again.”
“They might win at trial.”
“And then what?”
“Then we appeal if there are grounds.”
“And if there aren’t?”
“Then the public record still contains the evidence disclosed in court.”
Ruth studied her. “You’ve changed.”
“How?”
“You used to answer like winning was the only honest outcome.”
Elena almost defended the younger version of herself from six weeks earlier.
Instead she said, “I was afraid uncertainty would make you leave.”
“It almost did.”
“I know.”
Ruth put Mateo’s photograph back in her purse. “Reject it.”
The other families were not unanimous.
Two wanted to accept. One man had been badly burned and needed another surgery his insurance might not cover. A widow with three children said she could not survive two more years of litigation. Another family believed confidentiality was a second burial.
Meetings became arguments.
Ruth was accused of making everyone’s decision about her grief. She accused others of letting Riverpoint purchase their fear. Elena interrupted too sharply, then apologized. Miriam forced the families to meet separately with independent settlement counsel so no one could later claim the firm pressured them.
Riverpoint increased the offer and removed the confidentiality provision but still refused an admission.
The families voted.
Seven accepted. Four, including Ruth, chose trial.
The settlement split the case. Riverpoint’s insurer paid the accepting plaintiffs and prepared to defend the remaining claims.
Ruth cried in the elevator after the vote.
Not dramatically. She covered her mouth and faced the mirrored wall.
“I’m happy for them,” she said. “That’s the ugly part.”
“It isn’t ugly.”
“I’m happy they can stop.”
The elevator doors opened on the second floor. A dentist and a child holding a balloon waited to enter. Ruth wiped her face. The child stared at her, then offered the balloon string.
His mother pulled his hand back. “Sorry.”
Ruth laughed once. “It’s okay.”
The child kept watching as the doors closed.
Elena’s disciplinary hearing occurred three days before jury selection.
The committee met in a plain room at the state bar offices. There was no elevated bench, no official seal, no audience. Three lawyers and one retired judge sat at a long table with pitchers of water and nameplates.
Victor did not attend. His complaint was presented through written submissions and testimony from a Hale Benton partner who claimed Elena’s message triggered Adrian’s removal of the file.
Adrian testified by video.
He said Elena had not asked him to steal anything.
He also said her words mattered.
“When she wrote bring me anything,” one committee member asked, “what did you believe she wanted?”
“The truth.”
“That is not a physical item.”
Adrian rubbed his jaw. “I believed she wanted the report.”
“Did her message cause you to remove it?”
“No. I had already removed it.”
“Did it affect your decision to deliver it?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I thought she would use it.”
“Did you believe she would protect you?”
“I hoped.”
“Did she promise?”
“No.”
“Did she imply?”
Adrian looked down.
“Not intentionally,” he said.
Simone did not object. There was nothing to object to.
When Elena testified, she could have emphasized every caution in her messages. She could have framed her final sentence as an emotional expression rather than a request. She could have blamed the ambiguity on urgency.
Simone had prepared each defense.
Elena gave none of them first.
“I should not have written that sentence,” she said.
One committee member looked over his glasses. “Because it appeared improper?”
“Because it was careless with another person’s risk.”
“Did you intend for Mr. Cole to steal privileged material?”
“No.”
“Did you know he was an employee of opposing counsel?”
“I suspected he was connected to the firm.”
“Yet you continued communicating.”
“I believed evidence was being concealed.”
“Does that belief permit direct contact with a represented organization’s employee?”
“Not automatically.”
“Did you research the rule before replying?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I concluded I could receive information from a nonmanagerial employee about ongoing unlawful conduct, but I should not request privileged communications or direct him to access materials outside his ordinary responsibilities.”
“Did you know his role?”
“No.”
“Then how could you assess whether the documents were within his responsibilities?”
“I couldn’t.”
May you like
The retired judge leaned forward. “Ms. Marlowe, why did you not end the communication until independent counsel could be present?”
Elena thought of Victor’s voice from years earlier. People like you memorize rules because you don’t trust yourselves in rooms where rules stop working.
