Chapter 8

Coming back to his condo building Mark was in a good mood. He had sold one energy unit and thought he had strong interest from another prospect who wanted to think more before purchasing an energy unit. In going up to his unit he stopped on the eighth floor and went to unit eleven to return the purse.

There was no response to his pressing the doorbell button which he could hear chiming inside. He wrote a note on the back of one of the junk mail envelopes that he found in his mailbox stating that he had the purse along with his name and unit number. He wedged this letter in between the door handle and the door frame.

Back in his unit, he was getting ready for dinner. He had taken from his refrigerator a frozen pizza and embellished it as he had seen Gloria do by adding onions, mushrooms, pepperoni slices, and cheese. He had placed this pizza in the preheated oven several minutes ago when he heard his doorbell chime.

In opening the door, he recognized from her driver’s license picture Kate Ingram standing there holding the note he had placed on her door.

“You have my purse?”

“Come on in, it’s on the table,” he said pointing to the table.

She opened the purse and took out her wallet. He could see she was checking to make sure everything was there.

“Where did you find it?”

“It was on the garage floor.”

“Going to work my hands were full so I must have placed the purse on the roof of my car and forgot I put it there before I drove away. Thank you for finding it.”

He noticed she was wearing some very loose tan scrubs which had him say, “What kind of work do you do?”

“I am a physical therapist over at the clinic on Second Street.”

Hearing the timer beep indicating the pizza was done caused Mark to say, “That beeper says the pizza is done. You are welcome to join me for dinner if you want.”

Kate said she would as it would be better than her plan of having a TV dinner.

Mark poured both of them a glass of diet soda and they sat down to eat after he let the pizza cool for a little bit so he could slice it easier.

They had a nice conversation while they were eating the pizza. She complimented him on how he had added to the pizza and he responded by saying that he saw a friend of his do this. The remainder of the conversation was about the recent shooting at a school. Kate was concerned about shootings at schools as her sister was a teacher and Kate had read stories on these shootings along with some commentaries discussing them.

She said, “Do you know that there are certain Senators from one political party that introduced bills that would prohibit federal money from being used to fund police in schools. That legislation had the backing of two major teacher unions and some so-called celebrities. There are school districts nationwide that have eliminated police in schools. We send billions to countries to defend themselves but no money to protect our children. Why do they want to leave young children defenseless? That makes absolutely no sense to me but now, thank God that thinking seems to be changing.”

Mark could only nod his head in agreement but he doubted these Senators and unions would be called out for supporting that legislation. The majority of the media would avoid reporting and commenting on it since they favor that political party.

After they were done eating Kate who Mark was thinking was an interesting person asked him if he plays trivia. He told her he is not that good at it but enjoys watching Jeopardy. She said that on the second Thursday of the month, she along with five other people form a team and play trivia at the Lakeside East lounge. One of the players can’t make it this Thursday and she asked if Mark would like to fill in. He said he would but don’t expect him to make any great contribution to the team’s success.

It turned out that Mark had a good time playing trivia on Thursday night. It was a fun time and he even contributed with some correct answers on sports and science. He didn’t know beans about music or arts and literature. The two other couples that were team members were knowledgeable and fun people.

Back at the condo building, he wasn’t expecting anything more to happen between him and Kate and he was right. She exited the elevator on her floor telling him she would give him a call if they were short a team member the next time they played trivia. Once a sub always a sub was the thought he had.

On Friday of the following week, it turned out to be an interesting day because of the two things that happened. The first one had to do with the mail he received. He was home early that afternoon and one of the letters turned out to be a birth announcement along with a picture of the baby. The announcement was for the birth of Scott to Tom and Claudia Conway. Scott was seven pounds two ounces and was doing fine.

This announcement caused Mark to wonder since Claudia had said she was protected from becoming pregnant. Wondering more about it he remembered how she delayed his coming over for her to sign the energy unit contract and later when she would visit him at his condo it was every four weeks. The four weeks spread in her visits amounted to twenty-eight days which was the cycle of the time when a woman is most fertile. After they had intercourse she didn’t cuddle but lay on her back with her knees raised. He was somewhat concerned about what that could mean, but the announcement said the parents were happy and proud. Mark told himself he wasn’t going to think anything more about it. Fat chance of that happening he thought.

Late that afternoon he received a phone call and the caller ID indicated it was a Dallas area code.

Answering the call he heard, “Mr. Freeman, please hold for Mr. Williams.”

“Mark this is Larry, how are you doing?”

“I am doing fine and you?”

“Fine as well. The reason that I am calling is that we need to hire you.”

“You have another young attorney for me to train?”

“No, not this time, we need your skill in reading a jury. I missed the episode of that TV program where people in a building away from the courthouse can get live videos of the members of a jury and see their reactions to the goings-on at a trial. How this is done especially where cameras are forbidden in most trials and expressly forbidden when they are allowed from showing who the members of the jury are is beyond me.”

“We have a case going to trial Monday that could be, I take that back, that will result in a big verdict. Collecting the amount of the verdict could be another story. The facts are that when Interstate 35E was built the telephone lines that ran alongside it were taken off the poles and put underground but not all of the telephone poles were removed. A farmer was plowing his fields and he inadvertently cut the lone support wire to one of these poles which caused it to fall right in front of a semi-truck pulling a trailer on the road who is our client. The truck driver slammed on his brakes which caused his trailer to jack-knife hitting the car that was on the side next to it causing the car to go off the road and rolled over. Inside the car were a young mother and her six-year-old daughter. The daughter was slightly injured but she was pinned in the car and watched her mother die.”

“This plaintiff’s attorney has filed suit against the farmer, the trucking company, and the telephone company. The insurer of the farmer has offered their policy limits which the plaintiff said he will accept and release the farmer but he needs to keep the farmer in the lawsuit for the trial. He wants more in the way of settlement. He wants it from the telephone company, who like us, has taken the position that there was no negligence on their part. There has not been made a demand on us to pay anything and we haven’t made any offer since we see no negligence on our part but you never know what a jury will do. We need you to tell us if you think the jury will find us negligent in giving a verdict. If you think we will be held liable then we will reassess our position and consider recommending that an offer be made.”

“Who is trying the case, Marci?”

With a little laugh in his voice, he said, “No, she is not ready to try this type of case. It’s my partner, Cliff Cooper who is one of the best defense attorneys in the Dallas area. Marci by the way is leaving with some friends for a fourteen-day tour of the European capitals tomorrow. I know it’s short notice but I would like you to attend the trial which is starting Monday and should last for four or five days. Tells us by coming to our office after court adjourns how you think the jury is leaning. For certain reasons we don’t want you to put anything in writing. Of course, you know how to dress and your usual fees will apply.”

“See you late Monday.”

Ending the call Mark thought this fee was going to be another large deposit he could make to his investment accounts. He had an IRA which he would max out his yearly deposit. The overage of his funds to invest he would put into a regular brokerage account. Both accounts were invested in an S and P 500 index fund. Since the S and P 500 was the gold standard of how investment results were measured and since very few managers could beat the 500 results over ten years, Mark thought it was a no-brainer to invest this way.