Conclusive Evidence Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Request for Reviews

  Free Book Offer

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Al Macy

  About the Author

  Conclusive Evidence

  A Novel

  By Al Macy

  AlMacyAuthor.com

  Copyright © 2019 Al Macy

  All Rights Reserved.

  Version: RC03 2019/03/11 4:44 PM

  Chapter One

  Criminal defense lawyers see bad people at their best, while family lawyers see good people at their worst. It’s a cute saying and a good conversation starter at cocktail parties, but my family law clients aren’t so easily classified.

  On December 3, 2018, Horace Scully arrived at Goodlove and Shek with an attitude. My daughter, interning with me while on a break from law school, showed him into my office. With all her fingers extended, she touched the middle one to her chin then turned her hand toward me: American Sign Language for “good luck.” Nicole had learned ASL to communicate with her aunt but got a kick out of using it for sending me secret messages. She was twenty-four, tall, with long dark hair, a button nose, and a deservedly confident look. Chuckling, she went back to the reception area.

  I came around my desk and put out my hand. “Garrett Goodlove. Nice to meet you, Mr. Scully.”

  To give him the benefit of the doubt, I don’t think he saw my offer of a handshake. He stormed over to the window, where he stood taking deep breaths. Trying to calm himself?

  “Relaxing view, isn’t it?” I sat down behind my desk.

  I’d purchased the office suite back when I was an arrogant, overpriced criminal defense lawyer. On the second floor of a Victorian building constructed in 1889, the window overlooked Redwood Point Harbor. The start of commercial crab season had been delayed once again, so most of the crab boats sat in their slips looking like depressed dogs whose afternoon walk has been canceled.

  The office had the solidity of a London men’s club, with dark wood paneling, a fireplace, and a Persian rug courtesy of a merchant I’d successfully defended against a charge of manslaughter.

  When Mr. Scully had calmed down enough to speak, he stepped over to my desk and dropped a sheaf of papers on it. He stabbed it with his index finger so hard I worried he might break it. “I spent my hard-earned money to have a lawyer write up this contract, and now I’m told it isn’t worth squat. Unenforceable.”

  Scully was around thirty, with the kind of not-quite-a-beard whiskers that down in San Francisco might have been considered stylish. Here in Humboldt County, the look usually meant that the face’s owner hadn’t gotten around to shaving. Scully’s brown hair was neat enough but suggested he cut it himself, perhaps using one of those handheld haircutting devices—a Robocut? His permanent scowl would take a gallon of Botox to repair, and the absence of laugh lines suggested that Horace Scully was rarely a happy camper. He wore a maroon suit jacket over a black shirt. Good quality stuff, but I caught a whiff of eau de thrift store when he dropped into my visitor chair.

  “How can I help you today, Mr. Scully?”

  He leaned forward and jabbed his index finger down on the contract again. “Out of the goodness of my heart I was a sperm donor, and apparently now I’m on the hook for child support! I shouldn’t be—we all agreed. Read this contract.”

  I picked it up and flipped through it. “This will take a bit of time. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Is it free?”

  I frowned. “What?”

  “It’s not something you’re going to tack on to the fees, is it? Like when the hospital charges you twenty dollars for a Tylenol.”

  I frowned again, trying to read his expression. Was he joking, or was he from another planet?

  “You’re in luck,” I replied. “Totally free. Today only. If you want cream, however …”

  The humor was lost on him. “No. Black, thanks.”

  I pushed the button on my intercom. “Sweetheart, could we have two coffees, please?”

  One of Scully’s eyebrows jumped at the word “sweetheart.”

  “She’s my daughter,” I said.

  “Smart. Good tax benefits.”

  “Are you an accountant, Mr. Scully?”

  He nodded.

  I took a few minutes to read through the contract. The meat of it started with:

  “WHEREAS, the parties intend for Molly to be inseminated with Horace’s sperm in the hope that Molly will conceive and give birth to a child or children;

  “WHEREAS, the purpose of this Agreement is to set forth the parties’ understanding of their respective rights and obligations with regard to any such child or children born from the insemination so that no misunderstandings arise in the future …”

  I finished reading it. “This is a well-written contract.” I recognized the style of an attorney and friend who had recently retired. Family lawyers in Redwood Point, a town of only 30,000, were a close-knit group, and we often worked together to solve our clients’ problems.

  “But it won’t hold up in court, will it?” Scully asked.

  I put the contract on my desk and leaned back. “Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  He took a deep breath. “My twin brother was Keith Scully.”

  “Was?”

  “I’ll get to that. Five years ago, him and his wife, Molly, wanted to have a child. They couldn’t. He had low sperm count or something. We were all good friends back then. Not any longer.”

  I could relate to that. My twin sister and I had been estranged for years. Ever since—no, don’t think about that. I clenched my teeth.

  “Hello? Mr. Goodlove?”

  “Sorry. Please continue.”

  “So, we were all good friends back then. Keith and Molly came to me. It would be perfect, they said. Since Keith and I were identical twins, the child would be the same as if Keith was the father. Much better than if they got some anonymous donor, understand?”

  “Clever,” I said.

  He continued with the story. He had made it crystal clear that he wanted no obligations, financial or otherwise. He loved his twin but wanted any monetary support to be optional. A reasonable request.

  The insemination worked, and Molly gave birth to a healthy baby girl. Everyone doted on her, including Horace. The monkey wrench came from an inheritance dispute resulting from Keith’s will. It was written by a lawyer who knew nothing about wills. The hapless trio fought bitterly, and Molly and Keith stopped talking to Horace. The emotional storm might have blown over but for a tragic car accident. The baby, properly snugged into her car seat in the back, was unscathed, but Molly received major injuries. Keith was killed.

  “I’m very sorry for your loss, Mr. Scully.”

  He pressed his lips together and nodded. “Now Molly is in debt and is coming to me for money.”

  “May I ask about your financial situation?”

  “I’ve been a good saver all my life,” he said. “I’m incredibly frugal and careful with my money. I’ve always lived below my means. Way below. For example, I only get the very basic cable. I hate monthly expe
nses; they really add up. I was married briefly, but my wife was like Molly—couldn’t stop spending money. Luckily, I divorced her before it was too late, and I dug myself out of the financial hole she’d put us into.”

  “Would you care to tell me your net worth?”

  He puffed out his chest. “Almost two million dollars.”

  “What’s your feeling toward Molly now? And your niece?”

  “The girl is very cute, but it doesn’t matter. It’s the principle of the thing. We all decided that I wouldn’t be providing child support, but now that she needs more money, she’s coming to me.”

  “Wouldn’t it feel good to help them out?”

  He crossed his arms. “I will help, but I don’t like to be forced to. It’s not fair.”

  I chewed on my lip. Horace Scully didn’t need a lawyer, he needed a shrink. His frugality had overwhelmed his common sense and his heart like a loyal servant gone bad. It wasn’t my place to tell him that, however.

  I sighed. “Here’s the thing, Mr. Scully. The courts are reluctant to let adults contract away the rights that belong to a child. Children are not property, and the courts will always put the children’s best interests first. Could I gently suggest that you think along those lines? What’s the child’s name?”

  “Hortense.”

  I almost laughed. A terrible name, but I saw the significance. “Ah, they named her after you. You might want to reconsider pursuing this. Take some time, spend time with Molly. I’m sure—”

  “She needs the money now.”

  “It will be expensive to take this to court.” I pointed to the contract. Maybe I could appeal to his tight fist rather than to his sense of compassion.

  “It’s the principle of the thing.”

  “Right.” My first instinct was to tell him to get another lawyer, but perhaps I could come up with something that would work out for everyone.

  I paged through the contract. “Well, there’s a chance you could prevail. You did everything right. I see you used SemTech for the insemination. When was the girl born?”

  “Uh …”

  “What?”

  “SemTech, uh, didn’t …”

  “You went with a different company?”

  Horace stared at me.

  I froze. “You didn’t just—”

  “Do you know how much they charge for this kind of thing?”

  “But Keith and Molly were going to pay.”

  “I convinced them to go the natural way.”

  “You and Molly just …” I was tempted to ask whether Horace’s twin watched. Or was part of the action. “Keith was on board with that?”

  “Of course! What do you take me for?”

  I pushed the contract over toward him. “Your case just fell apart. As far as the courts are concerned, you had an affair with Molly. Your sister-in-law is going through a real tough time. I’m sure your brother wouldn’t have wanted her to be suffering like this. You could help her.”

  “It’s the—”

  “Right. It’s the principle of the thing.” Much of my income came from people fighting for the principle of the thing. “Do you love your niece? Do you spend time with her?”

  “That’s beside the point.”

  I closed my eyes, trying not to think about my niece. About …

  “Mr. Goodlove?”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. There are a few things I can pursue. I’ll send you a contract, but I hope you’ll change your mind and not follow through. Are you sure you’re the father?”

  He scoffed. “Of course I am. Keith was infertile, and we could never prove it anyway, like with DNA or something, because we’re identical twins.”

  I stood and walked Mr. Scully out to reception. “I’m going to look into a few things, and if you still want to go ahead, we’ll discuss our options.”

  We shook hands and he left.

  Nicole looked up from her MacBook. “Big case, Dad?”

  “Not terribly. Why did you wish me luck?”

  “Oh, the guy was just kind of freaked out. Like he’d worked himself up. Melodramatic.”

  I smiled. “Not like you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You have your melodramatic moments.”

  “Name one.”

  I leaned against the wall. “Uh … I seem to remember when you wanted to go to San Francisco with that guy Rudy, and your mother and I—”

  “Ha! I’m an adult now, Dad, in case you haven’t noticed. That was when I was a teenager. It was my job to be melodramatic.” She put on a Valley Girl accent. “Like, hello! I’m, like, a grownup now. Totally. Did you, like, forget or something?”

  I laughed and put my hands up. “Okay, okay. You know I’ll always see you as my little girl. But I’ll stop. I’m working on it.”

  “If anyone around here has to work on his emotions, it’s—oh, Dad, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” She stood and walked over to me. Gave me a hug.

  “No, it’s perfectly okay.”

  “You’re recovered now. I know that.”

  The door burst open. Nicole and I both jumped.

  My twin sister, Carly, stood there, shaking. We hadn’t communicated in years.

  In ASL she said, “Angelo is dead, and the police say I murdered him.”

  * * *

  Carly and I are fraternal twins, meaning that the marketing department in our mom’s ovaries decided to put on a two-for-one sale, squeezing out a pair of eggs at once. As a result, not one but two of Dad’s happy-ass sperm cells achieved their lifelong goal of fertilizing an egg. Carly and I look no more or less alike than any other two siblings, we just happened to pop into this world on the same day.

  Carly often hears the phrase: “You’re too beautiful to be deaf.” It might sound like a compliment, but it drives her up the wall. I, on the other hand, give hearing people the benefit of the doubt. I can forgive them, guys especially but women too, for saying something phenomenally stupid when they first encounter her star-quality looks. It’s a shock, especially here behind the redwood curtain. The beautiful people tend to emigrate from Humboldt to their natural habitat—Los Angeles, Paris, the Mediterranean. I give the average Joes around here credit for being able to put a few coherent words together when they run into my sister. Carly, however, doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

  I’ve been waiting for someone to tell me I’m too handsome to be a lawyer, but it hasn’t happened yet. “You’re too old to be Carly’s twin” would be more likely. I have enough laugh and frown lines for both of us. My eyes aren’t as blue as hers, but they work pretty well for staring down a witness. I’d lost a fair amount of hair, but in a good way, with a healthy peninsula of gray-brown hair that’s holding its own, making me look like a drill sergeant.

  My face has a priceless quality to which I attribute part of my success as an attorney: I look smart. You can't tell a book by its cover—take Einstein for instance—but "you look like a smart guy" is something I've heard often enough. It can be a curse, too. Sometimes you want your opponent to think you're a few files short of a full briefcase. With that in mind, I’ve actually practiced in the mirror, trying to look like Goofy from the Disney cartoons: “Garrett Goodlove for the defense, Your Honor, ga hilk.”

  Carly and I were born a few minutes apart in 1975, making us both forty-three. Through the luck of the genetic lottery, she’d been afflicted with a gene mutation causing nonsyndromic hearing loss. “Nonsyndromic” means that there aren’t any other signs or symptoms of the genetic mutation. The only thing her lottery ticket won her was profound deafness. I was spared. I’m not even a carrier.

  I’d be in big trouble if I referred to it as an affliction or even a disability in front of Carly. She doesn’t see it as such. I understand her point of view, but growing up beside her deafness made me appreciate my sense of hearing more. Don’t tell her I said that.

  Our parents were smart. After some hand-wringing following the discovery of Carly’s deafness, they researched th
e subject exhaustively and met with experts. Above all else, they wanted to choose the right path for Carly’s education.

  In 1880, a conference of educators declared that sign language should not be taught to the deaf. Instead, students should learn to lip-read and speak. Alexander Graham Bell used his wealth and fame to push this point of view, known as “oralism.” Although it seemed to make sense—how could it be wrong to teach kids to communicate with those in the hearing world?—the declaration was a disaster for generations. Students forbidden to sign were denied a rich language, and their education, and their self-esteem, suffered. In the late 1900s manualism made a well-deserved comeback.

  Armed with their newfound knowledge, our parents picked up our family and dropped it down in Redwood Point, California, 270 miles north of San Francisco. The small town was home to the country’s top school for the deaf, Bizet University. Bizet used a combined approach to deaf education.

  Our parents had taken a crash course in ASL and began teaching it to Carly and me when we were six months old. They told me Carly picked it up faster than I did, something that doesn’t surprise me. Later on, I taught it to my wife, and the two of us had passed it on to our kids.

  There she stood, in her trademark button-down office shirt with the top two buttons undone. Her gray pencil skirt showed off her figure, and black heels accentuated her dominating height. She’d taken off her leather jacket and draped it over a chair. Carly, a freelance journalist, was the strong twin, so it worried me to see her upset on that drizzly afternoon in December. After a hug, the first time we’d even touched in years, we stepped into my office.

  I wanted to find out what had happened, sure that it wasn’t as serious as Carly thought, but first, I needed to put on my lawyer hat.

  “Before you tell me what happened,” I signed, “there are a few things—no, wait, Carly, let me finish—there are a few things you need to know. Everything you say here is confidential. Neither Nicole nor I can reveal anything you tell us without your permission. Even if I don’t end up representing you, we can’t—”

  Carly slapped my desk then signed, “Of course I want you.”

  “Wait!” I said, frowning. The sign for “wait” is both hands in front of you a few inches apart, palms up, fingers wiggling.