Good Riddance

GOOD RIDDANCE

By Lindsey Taylor

Copyright © 2012 Lindsey Taylor

All rights reserved.

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. It is not based upon a true story or inspired by a true story. All names and characters are either invented or used fictitiously. The events described are imaginary. Any resemblance to any persons living or dead, or anyone the reader thinks might deserve to be dead, is purely coincidental.

DEDICATION

To Lisa, for her inspiration, encouragement and support.

Chapter 1

Christopher Sullivan accelerated his Range Rover up the entrance ramp onto Route 287, pulling into the fast moving traffic on the highway. Even though it was drizzling in the February gray, most people were racing along at nearly 70 miles per hour, ignoring the slick conditions. Along with the numerous commuters making their way to the multiple office parks in the New Jersey countryside, there were also many trucks taking the long bypass around New York City.

As much as Sullivan needed to pay attention to the road, he also needed to mentally prepare for his firm’s partners’ meeting that morning. He was dreading the meeting. The fact that it was a cold, dark Monday didn’t help. At the normal monthly meetings there was the usual firm business, discussing problem clients, associate performance, complaints from the support staff. This morning, though, the only item on the agenda was what to do about their partner, Leo Templeton.

Sullivan was the managing partner of Sullivan Milano & Rosenblum. The firm was founded by his father, William Sullivan, 53 years ago in Morristown. For most of its history, it was a relatively small firm, ranging from 15 to 20 attorneys, catering to large and small businesses in the area, as well as taking care of the personal affairs of wealthy clients who moved into New Jersey’s horse country over the years. When he joined the firm after law school, he encouraged his father to use the firm’s reputation to obtain business from the many corporations that were moving to the New Jersey suburbs. The plan worked, as the firm was able to offer high quality service with lower fees than could be offered by the big firms in New York. By the time the elder Sullivan retired five years ago, the firm had grown to over 75 attorneys, and counted many of the area’s high technology and pharmaceutical companies among its clients.

Templeton had joined Sullivan Milano & Rosenblum over 20 years ago. He had been one of the best litigators in the state, specializing in product liability defense. When he came to the firm, he brought with him nearly $1 million in business from some of the largest pharmaceutical companies in New Jersey. That grew over time to over $7.5 million as the firm, and Templeton’s reputation, grew. Templeton’s ego grew along with his business and reputation. Recently, though, he had been living more off his reputation than performance.

Templeton had made waves from the beginning. At first, he was merely obnoxious. He wasn’t overtly nasty, but he rubbed some people the wrong way. The rest of the firm put up with it because he was producing a very good revenue stream. His office was decorated with souvenirs, some tasteful, some not, but all expensive, which he picked up on vacations all over the world.

There had been rumors of affairs, both in and out of the office, over the years, but nothing was confirmed. People did notice, though, that he seemed to be very friendly with the office manager, Valerie San Giacomo. As the firm hired more women, several asked not to work with Templeton, but would not give any specific reason. It also seemed rather curious that afterwards Templeton gave the same women bad performance reviews and voted against them when they were nominated for partnership.

Things started going downhill with Templeton, as far as everyone else was concerned, around five years ago, just after Sullivan took over running the firm when his father, the firm’s founder retired. There was no issue among the partners that he should assume leadership of the firm, but Templeton immediately began testing Sullivan. Templeton demanded that his partnership percentage be doubled, and guaranteed, so that, in effect, he would double his salary, regardless of the fortunes of the rest of the firm, while the remainder of the partners’ pay being dependent, in part, upon the profitability of the firm.

The ploy didn’t work, although Templeton was able to squeeze an extra $250,000 a year from his other partners, and the entire experience left a bad taste in everyone else’s mouth.

Templeton’s personal and professional life took a nose dive three years ago. Immediately after his son entered college, he demanded a divorce from his wife, saying he had Done his duty. As soon as he was free, his past discretion, such as it was, escaped him. When a young female secretary went to San Giacomo to complain about Templeton soliciting a blow job, the ensuing shouting match between San Giacomo and Templeton passed into firm legend. Sullivan could still hear San Giacomo yelling You rotten fucking bastard. You promised you were going to marry me when you got rid of your wife. The first thing you do is to start cheating on me with some girl that’s younger than your daughter. Templeton’s response was I wasn’t cheating, it was only a blow job.

Within a year, he had lost his biggest client, Amerita Pharmaceuticals, which had provided half of his business. Again, it was thinking with the wrong head that had led to his problems. He had been carrying on an affair with Amerita’s general counsel, Sheila Phillips, for nearly six years. One of his contacts in the general counsel’s office was a recent red-headed law school graduate, Cyndi Tolliver. Before long, they were involved in an affair.

One afternoon during a meeting with Tolliver and several Amerita business people, Tolliver and Templeton went back to Templeton’s office during a five-minute break. When they didn’t return after half an hour, one of the business people went to Templeton’s office to find them and discovered them having sex on Templeton’s desk. This was immediately reported to Phillips. Phillips fired Tolliver and called Templeton in a rage. This fight was carried out over the speaker phone, again attracting an audience. Phillips accused Templeton of cheating on her, but he explained I wasn’t cheating. It’s not like I loved her or anything. I was just fucking her. However, rather than leading to the frosty looks that he got from San Giacomo, Phillips pulled all of Amerita’s business and audited Templeton’s bills. The audit revealed that Amerita had been overbilled nearly $2 million on past cases, money which she demanded be refunded to the company. Templeton, and the firm, had tried to keep the situation quiet until an anonymous source leaked the story, including the Templeton/Phillips/Tolliver love triangle, to the New Jersey Law Journal. The story was then picked up by the local press and the national legal press.

Needless to say, this was not the type of publicity the firm had in mind. The partners were appalled on several different levels. It was bad enough that Templeton could not keep his libido under control. It was worse that Templeton didn’t even try to be discrete, as he had in the past. They were not happy about having to repay the $2 million. They were even less pleased with Templeton’s reaction to the situation. If the firm had to pay back the money, he should pay back the firm, since he was responsible for the whole mess. He saw things differently. As far as he was concerned, the partners should share this expense equally. As far as he was concerned, it did not matter that the bulk of the fees Amerita had paid to the firm went to him.

Immediately, Templeton sought to build back up his practice. The way he did it did nothing to bring himself back into his partners’ good graces. Since he was the head of Sullivan Milano & Rosenblum’s litigation department, other attorneys’ clients would frequently call him directly when they had a new lawsuit that needed to be handled. The firm procedure in such a case was that the partner that was contacted, such as Templeton, would open the new matter in the other attorney’s name and notify the other attorney that the new case had come in. That procedure had worked since the beginning of the firm. He began to ignore the procedure. Bit by bit, he opened these new files under his own name, rather than in the other attorneys’ name, so that it appeared that his portfolio of business was building back up.

Templeton began cutting corners in other ways. He got involved in a partnership with several clients for a real estate deal to develop an office building, where he drew up all of the legal documents, provided that he would be the attorney for the partnership at double his regular rates, and inserted a clause which, in effect, gave him total control over the partnership, even though he was contributing only 10% of the money for the deal. At the same time, he managed to represent the seller of the property, without telling his business partners, and negotiated a 10% finder’s fee to be paid by the seller for himself on the sale of the property, the same money he used for his partnership contribution.

Then there was the Newton Ford class action suit. Newton Ford was a consumer fraud suit brought by a fiery consumer advocate attorney, Susan Sonderberg. She accused the dealership of charging its customers for repairs that they had not approved and that the dealership hadn’t performed. Newton Ford hired Templeton to represent it, and told him to get the case settled quickly and quietly, regardless of the cost. He ignored those instructions. At the initial court conference, he vowed to Sonderberg to fight the case to the end, and bombarded Sonderberg with paper. He reported back to the client that Sonderberg was tough and refused to settle. After six months of fighting, which involved huge bills to the client, Templeton invited Sonderberg to dinner to discuss the case. After six courses and two bottles of wine, the two headed back to Templeton’s house, in Templeton’s Mercedes, to continue their discussion horizontally. Unfortunately for him, Templeton was pulled over for drunk driving. Normally, such an arrest would go unnoticed by the public. However, Templeton was something of a local celebrity because of the Amerita affair. That, combined with the fact that the arresting officer told the reporter for the local paper that when he was arrested, Templeton wasn’t wearing any pants and that Sonderberg’s bra was wrapped around the steering wheel, the story was too good to pass up.

Last week was hell, Sullivan reflected. On Monday, he received a letter from the local ethics committee notifying him that an ethics complaint had been filed against the firm and Templeton because of the real estate deal Templeton had been involved in. On Tuesday, Anthony Milano, one of the firm’s name partners, led a delegation of other partners to Sullivan’s office. They had discovered Templeton’s shenanigans with opening files under his own name. In going through the firm’s records, they found $1.5 million in accounts that Templeton had allocated to himself, rather than to the proper attorneys. They demanded action. On Wednesday, the story about Templeton’s arrest appeared in the Morristown Daily Record. On Thursday, the story appeared in the Star-Ledger and he received a call from Newton Ford’s owner, Harold Newton, informing Sullivan that he was taking the class action suit away from the firm and that he intended to sue for everything that the firm was worth. On Friday, he sent around an email to all of the firm partners to set up the partner’s meeting. Within five minutes, Templeton was in his office demanding to know what was going on. Templeton angrily told Sullivan You and the rest of those assholes better not fuck with me. I made this firm. You do anything to me, and the whole firm goes down.

Sullivan’s cell phone rang. He answered the call and put it on speaker.

Yeah.

Hi, Chris It was Valerie DiGiacomo.

What’s up?

Don’t bother rushing in for the partner’s meeting. Leo’s not going to be there. He’s dead.

What? He called in tired?"

No. Dead, dead. As in dead as doornail dead. You know that curvy marble statue thing that he picked up on some vacation somewhere. The one that everybody plays with when they’re waiting for him to get off the phone.

Yeah.

Well, he was in over the weekend and somebody bashed him in the head with it. The caterer bringing breakfast for the partner’s meeting found him. The cops just got here and they’re starting to ask a bunch of questions.

Oh, fuck. I’ll be there in about 20 minutes. Don’t say anything until I get there, and do what you can to keep everybody away from his office and away from talking to the cops.

Chapter 2

As Sullivan pulled into the parking deck at Headquarters Plaza, he noticed that there were several police cars and an ambulance, all with their emergency lights flashing, parked on Speedwell Avenue into front of the tall office tower located just off of the Green in downtown Morristown. He parked in his reserved space and rode the elevator up to Sullivan Milano & Rosenblum’s offices. It was only 8:20, so only a few of the staff were in the office: the receptionist, San Giacomo, and one person on the mailroom staff. A few of the partners were already in the office for the partners’ meeting, but most would arrive just in time for the 8:30 meeting. There were also a few associates who came in early.

When Sullivan walked through the glass doors to the reception area, he was greeted by the receptionist, Sarah Anderson. She was visibly upset. Anderson, more precisely, Lady Sarah Anderson, third daughter of Lord Nigel Anderson, was considered the black sheep of her family as she came to the U.S. as a groupie with a band of the British Invasion in the ‘60s and stayed on as a commoner in the U.S. Most people loved her accent, but very few in the office knew of her background. Her formal etiquette training drilled into her as a youth made her very good with the phones and greeting visitors, but Sullivan suspected that she might have taken a few too many drugs in her youth because she occasionally made completely daffy observations.

Good morning, Sarah. Are you OK? Sullivan asked.

I’ll be OK. What should I do with everybody? There’s about 20 constables back in Mr. Templeton’s office. People are going to start coming in and wondering what is going on.

Have the staff go to the kitchen for now. I’ll find out who the police want to talk to, and as soon as they’re done with people, we’ll send them home, unless an attorney has something that really needs to get done today. Nobody is going to get any work done today, and they’ll just be in the way. Oh, and if anybody from the press calls, just take a message. After what went on last week, they’ll be calling.

What about the attorneys?

Try to get them to go to the Conference Room A. Not that they’ll listen. I’ll try to talk to them later.

OK, Mr. Sullivan.

Where’s Valerie?

She’s back at Mr. Templeton’s office with the police.

Thanks.

Sullivan walked around the external hallways, past the attorneys’ offices on the facing the windows and the secretarial stations on the inside, to Templeton’s office in the back corner of the office. San Giacomo was talking to a detective outside the office. Yellow crime scene tape was stretched across the door. Inside, Templeton’s chair was turned away from the door, facing the window. Police photographers were taking pictures of the scene. Paramedics with a stretcher waited outside the office, while around ten uniformed officers milled around in the hall. A few had helped themselves to the coffee and pastry set up for the partners’ meeting.

Hi Valerie, what’s going on?

Chris, this is Det. Arnold from the prosecutor’s office. He’s in charge of the investigation. Det. Arnold, this is Christopher Sullivan, the firm’s managing partner.

Hello. Elias Arnold. I’m sorry about your partner. The two men shook hands.

Detective. What happened?

"Well, the delivery man from the caterer apparently found the body, went to the mailroom and the mailroom clerk called 911 at 7:54 a.m. The Morristown police and an ambulance responded to the scene and determined that the victim was dead. Since this appeared to be a homicide, they contacted me. I just got here and was speaking with Ms. San Giacomo about the victim. We only got as far as the victim’s name.

Sir, I’ll be wanting to speak with you. I will also be wanting to speak with some of the employees, but I’m not sure who at this point in time. In the meantime, could you please do what you can to keep people away from this area of the office until we’re able to complete our preliminary investigation?

I’ve already done that. Detective, do you think that you’ll be wanting speak with any of the support staff today? I’d like to send as many people home as possible.

I’d like to speak with anyone that worked directly with the victim, like his secretary, any subordinates, people like that. Other than that, I don’t see an immediate need to speak with anyone. I assume that you have contact information for everyone, just in case.

Of course.

Thank you. I’d like to speak with you as soon as I’m done with Ms. San Giacomo, if I could, sir.

Sure. Detective, would you mind if I spoke with Valerie for a moment?

Not at all.

Sullivan and San Giacomo stepped down the hall, out of earshot for Arnold.

Are you OK?, Sullivan asked.

Oh. I’m fine.

Sure?

Oh, yeah. You know, it’s not like I would wish this on him, but I can’t say I’m surprised, or that I’m that sorry.

We can talk about that later. What does he want to know about?

Office procedure, security, that kind of thing.

Fine. Be helpful, but not too helpful, if you know what I mean. Answer his questions, but don’t volunteer anything. There’s not telling what Leo’s really been up to. We probably know only the tip of the iceberg. I wouldn’t want his mind clouded by our theories.

I’ll do what I can. Her tone indicated that she might have a few theories of her own to share with Arnold.

See if you can try harder than that. You don’t want him sniffing around your past with Leo. Anyway, when you get done, talk to the staff and send everyone home that the detective doesn’t want to speak to today. It’s not going to do anybody any good to have the staff just sitting around all day gossiping. By the end of the day, there’ll be 1500 theories on who did it and how. I’ll go talk to the attorneys while you’re taking care of the good detective.

As they were speaking, the paramedics wheeled Templeton’s body past them, covered with a sheet.

Ma’am, is there somewhere more comfortable where we can talk? Det. Arnold asked as San Giacomo returned.

Sure. We can go back to my office, or we can grab an empty conference room, if you like.

Your office will be fine.

The turned and walked down the hall to San Giacomo’s office. On the way, they passed back through the lobby. As they walked by the reception desk, San Giacomo asked Would you like some coffee, detective?

That would be good. Thank you.

San Giacomo turned to the receptionist. Sarah, could you please ask someone to bring two coffees to my office?

Down another hall, they turned into San Giacomo’s office. It overlooked the Morristown Green, with its now-bare trees. Her desk had several piles of papers, neatly arranged in stacks. Det. Arnold took a seat at the front of San Giacomo’s desk.

I need to ask you a few questions, ma’am.

Of course, detective. Fire away.

You were one of the first people on the victim’s office this morning?

Yes.

What happened with that?

Well, I was in my office preparing for the partner’s meeting this morning. I got a call from the mail room that the delivery man from the bakery had found Leo and that he looked like he was dead. I told them to call 911 and I went to Leo’s office to see what was going on. When I got there, he was in his chair facing the window. There was blood on his head. I checked to see whether he was alive. He was cold and I couldn’t find a pulse, so I figured he was dead. Then I noticed the marble statue on the floor and that had blood on it, so I left his office and was walking toward the mail room and met Arlene from the mail room and two officers coming the other way. I told the officers that I thought Leo was dead and took them to his office. They went in and did whatever they do. I went over to the closest secretary’s desk to call Chris about Leo and when I got done, there were a bunch of police officers and a crew from the rescue squad in Leo’s office.

Chris would be . . .?

Christopher Sullivan, the managing partner of the firm.

Ah. Ma’am, did you touch anything when you were in the office?

Other than Leo to see if he was alive?

Yes, of course.

I’m not sure. I might have touched the door, maybe Leo’s chair when I was checking him out. I really wasn’t paying attention.

Yes, ma’am.

There was a knock on the door. A clerk from the mail room brought a tray with an insulated pot of coffee and two cups, with various sweeteners and a small pitcher of milk. San Giacomo poured coffee for both of them and they prepared their own cups.

Are you normally in at 8 in the morning, ma’am? Det. Arnold asked, after taking a sip of coffee.

No. Usually, I’m in around 9, but I came in early to prepare for the partners’ meeting. There were a few loose ends I needed to take care of before the meeting started.

Loose ends?

Printing out the agenda, making copies, making sure that the food we got was what we ordered, that sort of thing.

What was the meeting about? Was it a regular meeting, a special meeting, what?

Leo.

Ma’am?

The meeting was about Leo. There had been some . . . some issues with Leo that the partners needed to discuss.

Could you tell me what those issues were?

I’m not sure I’m really in a position to do that, detective. I wouldn’t have all the details anyway.

Who would?

I know Chris would. Probably some of the other partners.

What about getting a copy of the agenda for the meeting?

I never got to do it.

Det. Arnold took another drink of coffee. "Let me ask you some more general questions.

Was it normal for the victim to be in the office over the weekend?"

I really wouldn’t know specifically whether you’d say its normal. I’m usually not in the office on weekends. On the other hand, with most of the attorneys, its not unusual for them to be in the office on a Saturday or Sunday.

How do people get into the office outside normal business hours? Do they have a key or what?

A key, no. Outside of normal business hours, the front door is closed and locked. But there’s a back door which can be opened with a card key that all of the employees have. Even during business hours, people will use the back door if they’re going to the restroom or taking a shortcut from one side of the office or the other, rather than walking all the way around the office. We also have some space downstairs, there’s two back doors, but the only way to get in downstairs is to use a card key or through the internal stairs.

Is there any record of who goes in and out through the back doors?

Actually, there is. When someone opens the door with their card key, it records the time and the person’s employee number. It was something that the system came with, but we normally don’t use it for anything. It’s set up to automatically delete anything over 30 days old.

Could I get the records for this weekend, please?

I think so. It might take me a while because I’ve never had to do it before. We’ve never had a need to retrieve them before. I’ll need to get out the instruction book to see how to do it.

Is there any record of when people leave?

No. You just open the door and go out. Plus, you can go out the front door, even though you can’t come in.

Can someone get in without the system recording it?

Sure. There’s an intercom phone by the back door with an employee directory. If someone has a meeting or something after hours, the person can call over the intercom and then be let in. There would be no record then. The other way is that someone could just go in behind someone else before the door closed. We discourage people from doing that, but it doesn’t do any good. You never know who might be coming in with you, but I get the impression that unless someone looks really out of place, people will hold the door for whoever is coming in behind them.

Is there any record of calls made on the phone by the back door?

No. Only on phones with an outside line.

What records are there on phones with an outside line?

"Well, our phone system is computerized, so the system automatically records the number dialed from each phone and the time of the call, whether it’s a toll