destroying the ship in the process.”
I noticed her looking at a spreadsheet attached to a file on my desk. I slid it toward her. “Take a look. Make sure my numbers are correct.”
She flipped through the demand letter—a brochure created for insurance companies, outlining the damages to my client and the amount we were seeking. Her eyes scanned the document so fast I wasn’t sure she was actually reading. Taking a pen off the desk, she clicked it and then marked up the document.
“The estimate for long-term care is wrong. It says for eleven years and five months but it’s only calculated for eleven and three months. That should be an extra four thousand.”
“Four grand in thirty seconds of work. I should have you come in here more often.”
She blushed a little and set the file back on my desk. “I feel bad for Joel. He lost his dad last year, and now he has to live in a hospital. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Whether or not something’s fair isn’t the right question for us. The question is, how much is the case worth? You might not like that, but this family didn’t come to our firm so we could hold their hands. They came to get money for their suffering.”
“Mrs. Whiting doesn’t seem like she cares about the money.”
“Yeah, everyone says that until I hand them a check with a lot of zeros.”
My intercom beeped, and Jessica said, “Sir, KGB is here.”
“Send him back.”
“KGB?” Olivia asked with a raise of her eyebrows.
“His name’s Anto. He’s Serbian and was in the special forces. Marty’s an idiot and didn’t realize Serbia and Russia are two different countries. He called him KGB a few times, and it stuck.”
KGB walked in. He was a slim man with a paunch and fat cheeks. The weight didn’t suit him, and it was obviously only recently gained. He had fought in the Bosnian war and gone AWOL when he saw the atrocities the Serbs were committing against the Muslims. Once, while drunk at a bar after he’d helped find evidence in a case I settled for half a million, he told me he’d killed his commander with a knife to the back of the neck. The commander had raped a young Muslim girl and her mother in front of their entire family.
“Anto, thanks for coming.”
He sat down next to Olivia without acknowledging her. “What can I do for you?”
Sometimes, I wanted chitchat about the weather, what new cars looked cool, or whom he was dating, but he never provided it. He was to the point and didn’t feign any interest in what I was doing. Sometimes, sincere people threw me off guard.
“You know the Pharma Killer case? Someone allegedly poisoning the kids’ medicine?”
He nodded.
“A mother of one of the victims thinks this was company negligence and a cover-up, not some psycho lacing the medicine. I’ve agreed to look into it for them.”
He pulled out his phone, along with a stylus for taking notes. “Name?”
“Joel Whiting is the child, twelve years old. The mother bought the cough syrup, Herba-Cough Max, from a grocery store called Greens in their neighborhood. I wanna know how Greens monitors their medicine, whether there’re cameras, how sealed and protected the medicine is, stuff like that. I also want you to interview people at Pharma-K. None of the executives. No one from management. Catch some of the secretaries and janitors after work and see if they’ll talk to you. There’s a secretary named Debbie Ochoa that I really want to talk to. Also, I want the police reports for all three kids that got sick. All the cases were in Salt Lake County.”
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“See if you can turn up anything about this company from its past. Any settled lawsuits, claims of negligence, anything like that.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and this is Olivia. She’ll be working with us on this.”
He nodded. “I have to you in a week,” he said.
“Sounds good.”
As KGB rose, I said to Olivia, “We need to run up to the hospital and see Joel’s
I noticed her looking at a spreadsheet attached to a file on my desk. I slid it toward her. “Take a look. Make sure my numbers are correct.”
She flipped through the demand letter—a brochure created for insurance companies, outlining the damages to my client and the amount we were seeking. Her eyes scanned the document so fast I wasn’t sure she was actually reading. Taking a pen off the desk, she clicked it and then marked up the document.
“The estimate for long-term care is wrong. It says for eleven years and five months but it’s only calculated for eleven and three months. That should be an extra four thousand.”
“Four grand in thirty seconds of work. I should have you come in here more often.”
She blushed a little and set the file back on my desk. “I feel bad for Joel. He lost his dad last year, and now he has to live in a hospital. Doesn’t seem fair.”
“Whether or not something’s fair isn’t the right question for us. The question is, how much is the case worth? You might not like that, but this family didn’t come to our firm so we could hold their hands. They came to get money for their suffering.”
“Mrs. Whiting doesn’t seem like she cares about the money.”
“Yeah, everyone says that until I hand them a check with a lot of zeros.”
My intercom beeped, and Jessica said, “Sir, KGB is here.”
“Send him back.”
“KGB?” Olivia asked with a raise of her eyebrows.
“His name’s Anto. He’s Serbian and was in the special forces. Marty’s an idiot and didn’t realize Serbia and Russia are two different countries. He called him KGB a few times, and it stuck.”
KGB walked in. He was a slim man with a paunch and fat cheeks. The weight didn’t suit him, and it was obviously only recently gained. He had fought in the Bosnian war and gone AWOL when he saw the atrocities the Serbs were committing against the Muslims. Once, while drunk at a bar after he’d helped find evidence in a case I settled for half a million, he told me he’d killed his commander with a knife to the back of the neck. The commander had raped a young Muslim girl and her mother in front of their entire family.
“Anto, thanks for coming.”
He sat down next to Olivia without acknowledging her. “What can I do for you?”
Sometimes, I wanted chitchat about the weather, what new cars looked cool, or whom he was dating, but he never provided it. He was to the point and didn’t feign any interest in what I was doing. Sometimes, sincere people threw me off guard.
“You know the Pharma Killer case? Someone allegedly poisoning the kids’ medicine?”
He nodded.
“A mother of one of the victims thinks this was company negligence and a cover-up, not some psycho lacing the medicine. I’ve agreed to look into it for them.”
He pulled out his phone, along with a stylus for taking notes. “Name?”
“Joel Whiting is the child, twelve years old. The mother bought the cough syrup, Herba-Cough Max, from a grocery store called Greens in their neighborhood. I wanna know how Greens monitors their medicine, whether there’re cameras, how sealed and protected the medicine is, stuff like that. I also want you to interview people at Pharma-K. None of the executives. No one from management. Catch some of the secretaries and janitors after work and see if they’ll talk to you. There’s a secretary named Debbie Ochoa that I really want to talk to. Also, I want the police reports for all three kids that got sick. All the cases were in Salt Lake County.”
He nodded. “Anything else?”
“See if you can turn up anything about this company from its past. Any settled lawsuits, claims of negligence, anything like that.”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and this is Olivia. She’ll be working with us on this.”
He nodded. “I have to you in a week,” he said.
“Sounds good.”
As KGB rose, I said to Olivia, “We need to run up to the hospital and see Joel’s
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