A Case of Greed - Part Seven

The ensuing hysterics and finger pointing alone made for a better soundtrack than any drama Job could’ve hoped to hear on whatever that show was called...the one about age and restlessness that his mother watched. 

            Job would remember for years to come how Alec had proven to be an invaluable and mutual ally in their quest for justice for Philomena. It was Alec’s charade that had Holly placing the call a short while ago that brought Judge Wright, Kenneth Platz and Dr Price running like trained dogs to Alec’s office in record time; Alec’s insistence that they tap into the building security system that had the cast of characters unknowingly put on the audio-and-visually-recorded show that would be their downfall.

 “Smile for the cameras boys,” Job whispered. “Alec, are you sure you want to continue on with this? It’s not too late to back out; they don’t know they’ve been set up.” Alec’s response was what Job could only believe was a difficult choice since said bastards were some of Alec’s closest friends and colleagues.

 “Oh no, I want these bastards to pay almost as much as you do.”  It almost made Alec feel guilty that Holly believed she had poison streaking like lightning through her veins...until he remembered who gave those chocolates to Philomena.

“What kind of game are you playing now?” Ahh, the smarmy voice of Senator Platz was easy enough for Job to recognize even if they weren’t watching the ferret-faced man on screen. “Your need for attention is quickly growing stale, Holly,” Kenneth replied using his could-care-less tone that he reserved for idiots who opposed him and street urchins.

 “I need the antidote,” Holly said, “and don’t dare pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about Kenneth or so help me, I’ll ruin you!”

 “You’re losing it Holly, pull yourself together,” Kenneth said. Fondling the small vial he kept on him at all times, his mind started working overtime. He’d been looking for a way to dump Holly - she knew too much - without having her turn on him. “I don’t have the antidote; it’s not likely to be something I’d carry around, now is it?” He was elated. Things couldn’t have worked out more perfectly if he’d planned it this way.

 “You...you have to have it...you always carry it!”

 “If you think you can call me away from my nice warm brandy just to -- wait, what did you just say?” Judge Wright turned and pointed at Holly. “Why would you need the antidote?”

“The question should be why would she expect us to believe that she’d be dumb enough to have eaten chocolates we’d laced with belladonna?”

 “That’s right Kenneth, keep talking,” Job and Alec whispered in unison. “Little does he know how much I want to see him hang himself,” Alec said to Job. 

Job felt more than heard the sighs of relief coming from the first floor security station where John and Jerry, who’d had serious doubts about where Alec’s loyalties lie, sat bearing witness to the scene unfolding in Alec’s office.

“Hold it,” Judge Wright held up a hand to stop Kenneth. “Let’s get something straight. There was no we who laced those chocolates, the two of you acted alone there.”

 “I didn’t know Philomena gave the rest of her chocolates to Alec until after I’d eaten a few!”

 “For God’s sake, Kenneth, first Philomena, now Holly?” exclaimed Judge Wright. “Where do you draw the line?” If there was an end in sight he certainly couldn’t see it.

 “There’s no one outside this room who knows your secret. Once it gets out there won’t be a soul around who’d believe you weren’t in on the plan...Judge,” Kenneth said. “That’s right; no one else has been smart enough to figure out why you really let the drug dealers off with a slap on the wrist. By the way, how is your son? Is he keeping himself out of trouble these days?”

Judge Wright had never regretted more than he did at this moment that he hadn’t been there to watch his son grow up, to teach him right from wrong. His wife tended to look the other way on his liaisons as long as he was discreet, but it didn’t bear thinking if she ever found out that a mistress from his past had bore him the son she couldn’t give him.  

“Give her the antidote so we can all go home! I’ll not stand by again and witness what Ms Townsend went through. I won’t do it,” said a very agitated Dr Price, who had been the only silent one in the room until now.

“I wouldn’t be so brave if I were you, Doctor,” Senator Platz responded. “You wouldn’t want the Judge here to have an accident before your case has its final hearing, would you?” Kenneth knew his threat hit its mark when the white pallor of Dr Price’s complexion went even paler.

Dr Price regretted more every minute this went on that he hadn’t trusted his lawyer when she’d told him he stood a good chance of winning the malpractice suit...the one Kenneth had convinced him would be his ruin. He was a doctor, a damn good one at one time, but he could see his life falling apart in front of him. It was long past time to find a way to bring this to an end.

Stay tuned for Part Eight (Final) of A Case of Greed

A Case of Greed - Part Six

“Well, aren’t you beautiful tonight,” Alec exclaimed, as Holly strutted through his office door. “I have a few things to wrap up before I have my car brought around so I took the liberty of chilling one of my finest Sauternes. Shall I pour you a glass to enjoy while you wait?”

“That’s one of the things I love about you, Alec, you think of everything. That would be wonderful,” Holly purred, eyeing the back of Alec like the cat that had the canary in its sights. “Take your time,” she said as he turned back to see her settling herself in his plush leather chair so not much about what she wasn’t wearing would be left to his imagination.

“I’ll try to hurry.” He fought hard to hide his glee a few minutes later when he looked up from his desk to see she’d not only noticed the plate of chocolates on the table beside her, but had devoured half the plate from the look of things. Time to set the stage for the finale, he thought. 

“It’s wonderful to see a woman feel comfortable enough to eat in my presence. It gets so tiring to take a woman to dinner only to have her order salad like it was the most expensive item on the menu and then just pick away at it. And I’m positive Philomena will be thrilled to know the remainder of her chocolates didn’t go to waste.”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, Phil, being the giving person that she is, wanted to share her gift with the other Associates and our clients. Why, whatever is the matter, Holly?” Alec responded calmly as he watched her control start to waver. “Are you alright? I know they were a gift from you to her, but surely you don’t mind her sharing.”

“Oh my God, no,” Holly cried as she reached in her purse for her cell phone call and frantically dialled. “Kenneth?” When all she reached was his answering service she hung up in a panic. “I need to get to Kenneth,” she mumbled to herself, “He’s the only one with the antidote.”

“Kenneth? Antidote? What are you talking about?” Alec knew she was referring to Senator Platz, but he wasn’t through playing with her just yet. Not only was he thoroughly enjoying her discomfiture, but there was still the little matter of learning how and why Judge Wright fit into their game. He wanted to draw this out long enough for her to hang herself and her cohorts along with her.

            “Kenneth...rrr...Senator Platz. He’s a friend of mine.” At least she had the decency to blush a little when she said the last part.

            “Hmmm. Okay, but what do you need him for? And what’s this about an antidote? Antidote for what?” he inquired.

            “Umm, I mean medication. He has my medication,” she lied.

“Why on earth would my golfing buddy have your medication?” he asked. Completely enjoying this, Alec prepared to reel them both in. “Oh, you’re not looking so great, Holly. Let me try to reach him on his private line. If I can’t, we’re heading straight to the emergency room,” he said as he pulled out his cell.

“Kenneth, Alec here. Listen, I have an Associate here who is in urgent need of your help,” he said as he wandered down the hall to carry on his conversation in private.

Holly knew with the amount of chocolate she’d eaten, she had less than an hour before the belladonna would take over. Standing as close to the doorway as possible without being seen, she tried to make out what she could of Alec’s end of the conversation. Holly. Holly Ryan? You don’t know a Holly Ryan? Surely Kenneth wouldn’t play games at a time like this, Kenneth wouldn’t let her die.

            “Strange. I’m sorry Holly, you must be mistaken,” Alec said as he walked toward where she'd quickly re-seated herself. “Kenneth says he doesn’t know you.” He used the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy, knowing these two would sell each other out in a heartbeat. And like playing dominoes, all it takes is to tip one for the others to fall. “Maybe if you tell me...”

            “Doesn’t know me? Doesn’t know me? We’ll see about that!” Playing into his hands, Holly made the call that would bring the others out of hiding.

A Case of Greed Part Five

Success...she was so close she could almost taste it.

Stepping into Philomena’s position was the biggest hurdle she needed to fulfill her dream of becoming one of the richest women in the country, of living the life she believed she’d been born to lead. Holly played her part so convincingly for the last year, the part of the very efficient, now very sorrowful, assistant to Philomena Townsend that it was easy to see why Alec Longstreet believed her to be the woman for the job.

“Holly-girl, you may only get one chance in this life to get what you want, with your looks you’d do best to pull out all the stops...you have to dress for success,” Holly repeated her mother’s advice to the woman in the black dress and stiletto heels staring back at her. “There’s no fool like an old fool,” repeating the old adage to herself, as pumped up with confidence at the image she presented, she mentally prepared to cross the next hurdle in her plan for success.

Alec Longstreet hadn’t looked twice at her, but tonight that would all change. Alec Longstreet didn’t stand a chance.

A Case of Greed Part Four

John scanned the area ahead with a mixture of relief and dread when Jerry was nowhere in sight. “Perhaps it’s time to call your brother out of the bushes? He can join us in my office. Save the puzzled look, you Townsend boys all look alike,” Alec said as he watched Jerry slip out of the shadows to join them.

The pointed look, the almost imperceptible shake of the head as they walked into Alec’s office told John that the bug slated for here had yet to be installed. Whatever happened here tonight would not be recorded on their home unit.

“Are we alone here?” Alec asked Jerry. “Good,” he responded at Jerry’s nod, “let’s get this over with. Install the bug.” John’s head swivelled side to side trying to sort out what he was hearing.

“Which Townsend boy are you?” Alec asked.

“John,” he answered, none too happily.

“Well, John, don’t look so confused. Jerry and I had a long conversation earlier this evening. I want whoever did this to Philomena caught as much as you boys do. Philomena’s the closest I’ll ever come to having a daughter. Now, shall we talk about how, working together, we can achieve that?”

John knew Jerry would make a better thief than a Private Investigator, with his stealth-like ways, making him question how Alec knew about the bugs in the first place. “I’m sorry John, I was listening on the other side of the door, waiting for my chance, when I heard Holly laughing...at what they’d done to Phil,” Jerry said as his remembrance of that moment, how hard it had been not to step out and blow his cover, crossed the features of his face. “A few minutes later I heard Holly saying her goodbyes. I followed to be sure she was leaving the building before coming back to wait Alec out. When I got back, Alec’s light was out. In my haste, I entered his office only to find him sitting at his desk in the dark, a gun pointed at me.”

“It’s not real,” said Alec as he pulled the toy gun he’d had trained on them out of his pocket. “I’m not a violent man. In fact, I abhor violence. My young nephew saved his hard-earned allowance to buy that for me after my house was broken into last fall. Trust me, after a long day of having to sort the bullshit from the truth, it’s good to have a reminder of what’s really important in this world...to me.”

Despite himself, John found he could actually come to like this man in another time and place but he wasn’t convinced that this wasn’t all an act. A lawyer who won as many cases as Alec Longstreet did was certainly capable of keeping up pretences to gain ground, or in this case to give his girlfriend everything she so desired.

A Case of Greed – Part Three

“What have you got for me, bro?” asked Job.

“First, how’s Philomena?”

“She’s doing great...and not the least bit schizophrenic,” Job said with an edge in his voice.

“That comes as no surprise,” his brother, John, responded. John felt very sorry for all involved in this mess...more like very sorry for the world of hurt there was going to be by the time they were finished with the ones involved in hurting one of theirs.

“Here’s a rundown of what we have so far. We’re taking turns keeping watch over the offices of LLP; it’s been pretty quiet so far,” John said as he took his turn in the dark alcove across the street staring up at the lonely office with its light still on."Holly Ryan’s been in very good spirits for someone whose friend has been through such an ordeal and in an unsurprising turn of events, has been hanging so much onto Alec Longstreet, they’re practically attached at the hip.” Seeing how high up this deception went, as Alec Longstreet was the big L in LLP, did nothing to deter the Townsend brothers.

“You guys be careful.”

“We’re okay, don’t worry about us,” John said. The, us, he was referring to included himself and Cousin Jerry. Jerry may not have been born to their parents but make no mistake, he was their brother in every real sense of the word and had been from the moment John and Job’s aunt and uncle died in a car accident and their parents had taken Jerry in and raised him as their own. “Besides, it’s all quiet around here. For now, they think they’re safe.”

“Perhaps we should take a walk,” said the voice from behind him.

“Uh, Job? I’ll give you a call back,” he said as he slowly turned and stared into the face of Alec Longstreet.

Stay tuned for Part Four.

A Case of Greed - Part Two

10 Word Exercise #7

Diaper, syringe, documentation, coffee, staples, manifestation, night, cold, wages, politics

She had virtually no interest in hospital politics. Put a diaper in one hand, a syringe in the other and Claire was a happy woman. With the manifestation of the new breed of nurses, more concerned about wages than they were about patients, Claire Hanson stood out.

“How are we doing today, Mrs. Townsend?” Claire asked as she walked into the private room of Mrs. Philomena Townsend, carrying Kona coffee – one of the staples to a nightshift worker's evening -- for two. Philomena had been admitted to Hawaii General Hospital night before last and what with the background information Claire had been given on Mrs. Townsend’s case, she couldn’t say she blamed her for having that wild-eyed, distrustful look about her.

How on earth anyone could’ve diagnosed Philomena Townsend as a schizophrenic was beyond Claire’s grasp but she knew if anyone could help the Townsend’s it was Dr Walter Gaines, Claire’s boss, and long time friend of Philomena’s husband, Mr. Job Townsend. Dr Gaines was the leading expert in the U.S in the field of Psychiatry and would be, Claire hoped, Philomena’s saving grace.

Had it been a different time, different place Claire believed that she and Philomena would have been fast friends. They were both driven by hard work, strong ethics and the love of a good man.

“The chocolates tasted funny.”

“What was that?” Claire asked as she handed the packets of sugar and cream over to Philomena.

“I remember now. I told Job the chocolates tasted funny,” Philomena said. “My friend Holly is going to be so upset when I tell her that I got food poisoning from her gift; that they’re what caused this mess I’m in.”

Clearly, though Job Townsend was a husband on a mission discreetly gathering documentation to disprove his wife’s recent diagnosis by Dr John Price, he’d failed to tell Philomena the cold hard truth; that it was Holly Ryan he most strongly suspected of trying to do more than discredit his wife or that he hated to think on what would’ve happened had his chocoholic wife not stopped after only one bite of the belladonna-laced confection.

A Case of Greed

10 Word exercise #6

Chocolate, candles, hurricane, beach, lei, disestablishment, fissure, schizophrenic, lava, tectonics

He wasn’t exactly ecstatic to leave discussions of tectonic plates, lava rock and fissures behind for the next two weeks but Job Townsend was taking his wife, Philomena, on vacation to Hawaii. It wouldn’t be easy to spend time in the state built on old lava rock and not be doing research, but the last thing his wife needed was to hear him talk shop.

She’d recently been given a diagnosis, a diagnosis that could end her career, of being schizophrenic, something he found hard to believe and had told the court-appointed Dr Price as much before walking out of his office holding a crushed Philomena by the arm.

Philomena Townsend had been on the cutting edge of some pretty dicey work at her law firm. The very rich defendant was attempting to claim disestablishment in the paternity suit the L.L.P Law firm had taken on on behalf of his ex-wife - a long-time client; a case Phil (as her colleagues called her) was on the verge of winning before her first and only, but very embarrassing, episode.

Standing before the judge and jury, primed for her closing argument, she went from Hurricane Phil to a puddle of tears leaving a path of destruction in her wake. When her world finally righted itself, it was to find Judge Wright banging his gavel, ordering her to be removed from his court room, and she was not to be allowed back in without an assessment by Dr Price.

Job had that ‘there’s something rotten in the State of Denmark’ feeling about the whole situation. He’d had to promise Dr Price that he would watch over her carefully and see that she got her medication for everyone’s safety to get him to agree to Job taking her out of State on vacation. With Job by her side, and the letter of permission from Dr Price, she’d walked through the doors of L.L.P Law and taken a two-week vacation...which they were only too happy to grant. All but one of her Associates treated her as they always had, with dignity and respect.

A lei hanging around her neck and the smell of the beach hanging in the air would go a lot farther than the medication Job left sitting at home on the nightstand. He placed the candles one by one about their room as his wife lay sleeping on the balcony facing the ocean, and as he lit the candles each in turn he pictured the fire he was about to light under the bottoms of the key characters that had put in motion the plot to discredit his wife.

One for Judge Wright, one for Dr Price, one for Senator Platz – the defendant, and saving the biggest and best for last, was for Ms. Holly Ryan. Ms. Holly Ryan, the Junior Associate and false friend secretly yearning to be in Philomena’s shoes, also the slime keeping Senator Platz’s bed warm and the one responsible for sending the box full of 'good luck' chocolate to his wife that when analyzed contained the hallucinogenic that set their whole plan in motion in front of witnesses.

Ms. Holly Ryan didn’t know it yet, but by the time he was done, it would take her and her cohorts a lifetime to be rid of that one bite of chocolate...