by Reason of Sanity (23 page)

e must have died some time during the trial, but because everyone was so wrapped up in my brilliant defense presentation, nobody noticed. I wait for the ambulance to come and take him away. The paramedics don’t even try to revive him. They can spot a cadaver when they see one.

I sure would like to know what caused his death, but I shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out because there’s no way the county will avoid doing an autopsy on Harold, especially when he died in one of their courtrooms.

When the paramedics arrive, the press smell another story and they once again fill up the courtroom. When the judge isn’t on the bench, the court isn’t officially in session, so lights, flashbulbs, and video cameras all join in with the reporters.

They’re so busy following the gurney out to the ambulance that they don’t see Myra and I sneak out.

While we’re walking out the rear courthouse exit completely unnoticed by the press, Myra asks me why I’m missing this opportunity to do one of my ‘courthouse steps’ performances. I let her know that in my mind there is no news here. The only purpose the local press serves is to make us aware of crime on the streets and to relay the hype that the advertisers and politicians want us to see. The only time I stage one of those outdoor performances is when I want to do the same thing that everyone else does – manipulate the news to my own advantage. This time I won and true justice lost. There’s no need for a statement. It’s over.

Now I’m really up the creek. Asid e from the fact that I’ve just had an incredible victory in a criminal case, by proving that the slip-and-fall claimant died as a result of his accident in my client’s bank, I also destroyed my insurance defense career at the same time,

There’s no sense in trying to stall off telling Indovine – if he’s watching television, he’ll see how I elevated the bank’s liability from a nuisance slip-andfall situation into a loser of a wrongful death case. Thanks to my brilliance in the courtroom, instead of having a chance to settle for a thousand dollars, it will now cost the insurance company over a million. I’m also sure that Drago’s attorney will be watching my demise on television tonight. This might mean a payday of several hundred thousand dollars for him. He owes me big time.

What a fine mess I’ve gotten myself into this time. Myra is destroyed, the kid is not happy, and my insurance defense career is over. There’s a message on my answering machine telling me that email has come in for me. I’m so far down in the popularity department that the dog won’t even deliver a message to me.

I check the email. Indovine’s office would like me to submit my final timesheet. I’ve been fired. This is wonderful. Not only is my civil practice in the dumper, but ever since I busted the bank robbery gang, the criminals don’t like me either.

Another message is wait ing on my machine. It’s the administrator at County Jail. They want me to come down there and pick up Harold’s personal belongings. I pawn this chore off onto Jack Bibberman.

Amazing as it sounds, the County has decided not to perform an autopsy on Harold. The news broadcast says that he obviously died from the stress of the trial, and they’re ruling it ‘natural causes.’ They don’t believe that anything else could have been instrumental because he was sitting in open court.

This sucks. I really want to know what happened to him, so I call Victor the autopsy man and leave a message on his machine that I’ve got another assignment for him. I don’t care if the office won’t pay for this – it has to be done.

No more than five minutes pass by when my phone rings and I see it’s 1-800-autopsy calling. “Hello, Victor?”

“I’ve got another assignment. As you’ve probably seen on the news, my client died in the courtroom and the county has decided not to perform an autopsy.”

“You think there was foul play?”
“No Victor, I don’t think there was any foul play, but I really would like to know what he died from. I may be talking to his wife and kids soon, and I want to be able to have some answers for them.”
“Well Mister Sharp, I’d like to help you out, but our van is really busy this week. There was a bad freeway crash down in San Diego and our mobile lab was called down there to help out. Can this wait another week or two?”
“I don’t think so. The county isn’t in the body warehousing business and if I don’t get Harold’s body out of their morgue they may dispose of it, because nobody else has claimed it.”
“Well maybe if you call a funeral home, you can get them to pick up the remains and bring it over here. They’ll probably charge a couple of hundred but at least the body will be picked up for us.”
“Okay Victor, I’ll make some arrangements to get it over to your place tomorrow, so please clear some room for it.”
After hanging up I make some calls to various funeral homes, only to learn that the only way they’ll do a pick-up is if they get the funeral too. It’s bad enough that I’ll have to pay a couple of grand for the autopsy – I don’t want to have to spring for another five thousand for a funeral too. If I’m lucky, the court’s payment to me for handling Harold’s case will probably give me just enough for the autopsy and some Myra jumping in Maui. I don’t want to go into debt just to be a nice guy. There must be another way to get Harold to Victor’s place.
Every once in a while, a brilliant thought comes along. Harold’s body will easily fit in the back of Stuart’s air-conditioned armored van. It’s perfect for transporting a body. Now all I have to do is talk Stuart into having Vinnie do the heavy lifting. I dial Stuart’s number and after a minute of small talk, I try to lead into the real reason for my call.
“Listen Stu, I was wondering if you and Vinnie could do me a small favor. I need a box picked up downtown and delivered out near Pasadena. Would that be possible? I’ll be glad to pay fifty bucks for the driver’s time.”
“Sure Pete, I think that can be arranged. What’s in the box? Nothing illegal, I hope.”
I was afraid he’d ask about that. I don’t want to lie to him but at the same time, I’d rather not let him know that I’m turning his beautiful armored van into a hearse. “Stu, I’d like to tell you but it might be a violation of the lawyer-client privilege, so if you don’t mind, I’d rather not say anything until the case is over. Then, I’ll tell you all about it.”
He bit. “Okay my friend, I understand. I’ll call Vinnie and tell him he’s making a non-funeral run tomorrow morning. Email me the pick-up and delivery info and I’ll get it done for you.”
Great. And I didn’t really have to lie to him, because I still am working on a case with Harold involved.
Next afternoon the phone rings and my display shows that it’s Stuart calling. “Hello Stu, what’s up?”
“Pete, you really should have told me what Vinnie was picking up for you.”
“Why? What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that if I would have known what it was, maybe Vinnie wouldn’t be in jail now.”
If I live to be a hundred, I’ll never understand how a guy like Vinnie can manage to get thrown in jail so often. I haven’t heard the story yet but I have a feeling that it’ll be unbelievable. Per Stuart’s request, I drive to the Valley Services Division of the Los Angeles Police Department in Van Nuys. When I get there, both Stuart and the station’s watch commander, Lieutenant Evans, are waiting for me.
After explaining to Evans the whole story about how Vinnie was doing me a favor by delivering Harold’s body from one morgue to another, he surprises me with a question. “Hey, aren’t you the guys who broke up that bank robbery gang?” Fame is wonderful. The cop recognizes us.
“That’s right Lieutenant and if I can get our crime-fighting partner out of your lockup, we can finish up working on this case.”
“Will it be something going down here in the Valley?” He must smell a big bust in the offing.
“You never know, but I’ll tell you what: if I have to call for back-up, you’re the one I’ll ask for. So start wearing your best uniform to work each day for the next week, because you’ll want to look good for the television cameras.”
He must have believed I was going to make a hero out of him, because less than five minutes later Vinnie was out in the lobby waiting for us – with his girlfriend Olive – and she was definitely not a happy camper. He tried desperately to explain to her what happened, but she wasn’t having any of it. As soon as she was out of jail, she was out of there. I heard her calling for a cab on her cell phone as she walked right on past us and out of the building. Vinnie couldn’t wait to tell his story, but first he wanted an apology from me. Stuart interceded and explained that it was some attorney-client privilege ‘stuff,’ so Vinnie backed off, deciding to tell me his story instead.
Olive always liked guys in uniform, so when Vinnie finally became one, she fell hard. And driving a big armored truck helped accentuate the attraction she felt for him. She kept pressing him to take her for a ride in the truck, but there never seemed to be a day off without a funeral until today – so he invited her to join him on his pickup and delivery. As Vinnie explains it, I struggle to keep a straight face. From what he tells me, it sounds like a foreign, Jacques Tati film.
Neither one of them knew what the cargo was, so they had a grand time chatting about their future and didn’t pay any attention to the sheetcovered gurney that was being loaded into the back of the truck.
Along the way, they decide to stop off at a Burger Queen drive-thru place to get some cheeseburgers. Before getting to the fast food place, Olive asks Vinnie if he would please stop off at a gas station so she can take a leak. Not being anything like her boyfriend, she prefers toilets to trees. Vinnie, being so proud of the grand vehicle he’s driving, tells her not to worry… the truck is equipped with it’s own private toilet. All she has to do is go through the door behind the seats and make herself comfortable. Olive does as told, sees the port-a-potty and sits down to take her leak.
While she’s sitting there minding her own business, she sees that directly in front of her is some sheet-covered thing on wheels and notices that there’s a strange odor coming from it. At the same time, Vinnie spots a drive-thru fast-food place, so he pulls in, orders some food, and then pulls up to the cashier’s window to pay for and pick up the food.
Unfortunately, he misjudges the narrowness of the drive-thru lane, which wasn’t designed for vehicles as wide as his truck. The result of this slight error in his judgment results in one of the truck’s front wheels hitting and then going up onto the driveway’s curb.
Ordinarily this wouldn’t be a very damaging incident, but in this case, it tosses poor Harold’s body off of the gurney and onto Olive’s lap.
I don’t know how the average person would react, taking a leak in the back of a truck and having a corpse jump on you, but Olive is slightly upset. Well, maybe slightly upset is in understatement. She comes unglued, jumps up in a panic and rushes for the back doors of the truck, to escape from the stinking corpse that has just attacked her and is still in her lap.
Unbeknownst to Vinnie, Olive and Harold, the fast-food drive-thru place also sells coffee and donuts, so directly behind Vinnie’s truck is a blackand-white L.A.P.D. police car with two uniformed officers.
I can only imagine their surprise when they see the back doors of the truck in front of them fly open and Olive diving out onto the hood of their police car, complete with Harold on her lap and her panties still down beneath her knees. I’ve heard that the Los Angeles Police Department has a very thorough training program, but I doubt if a situation like this one is in their books… although from now on, it probably might be.
This must have really been a Kodak moment, but there’s never a camera around when you need one
– unless the fast-food place had some electronic surveillance mounted on the outside of the building. I’ll have to send Jack B. out there to scope the place out.
Making the situation stranger was the fact that Vinnie had no idea what had taken place until one of the police officers walked over to him with gun drawn and asked him to ‘please exit the vehicle.’
If I ever have grandchildren, someday when they’re old enough, I’ll tell them this story. Right now, it’s tough enough not to break up.
After the story is told, Vinnie lets me know that the only way he wants to be around a dead body is if it’s in a hearse and at least three car lengths in front of his truck. I apologize to both he and Stuart. It’s a good thing that the police did the public a service by delivering Harold to Victor’s place, because there’s no way Vinnie was letting it back into the truck. I’m sure Victor will take care of further transportation when the autopsy has been done.
Vinnie and Stuart finally calm down and I’ve come back to the boat, where I find Jack Bibberman is waiting for me. I can’t resist telling him about Olive’s adventure and we both spend several minutes having a good laugh about it. I also think there’s a giggle coming from the forward stateroom.
The reason Jack came to the boat is to finish up the errand I sent him on – to pick up Harold’s personal belongings from County Jail. Harold probably knew he’d be arrested because there was nothing there but some articles of clothing and an envelope – addressed to me.
His writing style is as brusque as his conversational skills. The letter is short and to the point, and answers some questions that were bothering me. It’s scribbled in pencil.