Desperate Strangers weaves together the lives of five people. Michael Ryan, a gulf war veteran and an attorney in a small Phoenix law firm is asked to represent a former client, Wayne Fuller who is charged with molesting his daughter. In researching his defense, he enlists the aid of a well known criminal attorney, Addam Stein. His paralegal is a beautiful young woman, Jennifer Spencer. She is married to a handsome young Hispanic, Tony Enriquez who is also the client of Addam Stein. Her life changes as she discovers that Tony is a known drug dealer with a sadistic nature. Tony is pressuring Addam to come up with $5 million dollars. He needs to convince Jennifer to seduce Mike into killing Tony. While preparing and trying this case, the web of seduction and murder takes form. The police are called to investigate and the murderer could be any number of suspects. A story of love, seduction and murder come crashing in on all of them.
DESPERATE STRANGERS
By Bruce M. PhillipsAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2010 Bruce M. Phillips
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4520-7048-3 Chapter One
The day began when the intercom rang on Ryan's desk. His secretary and right arm, Cheryl Bragg, said, "There's a call from an old client, Wayne Fuller. He said you handled his divorce a few years ago."
"Put him through", Ryan said. He remembered Fuller. A decent guy, good mechanic. After the divorce, he had rebuilt the 460 engine in Ryan's F-250.
"Hey Wayne, how are you? Haven't heard from you for a couple of years. What's going on?"
"Well, it ain't good, Mike," Fuller said, his voice filled with anxiety. "I got a real problem. I'm at Madison jail and I need to see you right away."
The door opened and Cheryl peeked around the corner. "Your 10 o'clock is here," she said quietly.
"Hang on, Wayne. Cheryl, I'm going to put Wayne on the line with you. He's in jail at Madison. I need to get his DOB, social security number and full spelling of his name." That would all be in a file somewhere but it was faster to have her just take it over the phone while they had Fuller on the line. "Then call jail information, get his booking number and any information you can on bond. Check me out of the office when I leave for the 2:00 hearing. I'll go see him directly from court."
She nodded and closed the door.
"Wayne, I can be there about 3:00 this afternoon. We can talk details then. Remember not to discuss anything with anybody until we meet, including family and friends. The calls are monitored. Don't even talk to other inmates. Understood?"
"Understood," Fuller said, sounding relieved. "Thanks."
Ryan put him on hold, transferred the call to Cheryl, and then went out to bring in the clients.
One of the other attorneys, Julie Matthews, was walking a client out, smiled lightly as she passed. They had been classmates in law school.
His meeting concerned the start of a new business. The two men were going in as partners and had been wise enough to do the legal issues up front. They'd had a chance to consider what Ryan had drafted earlier and now discussed possible changes. Ryan took notes, then suggested they call their insurance agent to take out two half million dollar policies to cover a buyout in case of death. That way, they were protected from a spouse who wanted to close the business and sell off the company. They didn't like the idea of the expense but accepted the suggestion as a wise move.
This was typical of the kind of work he did. He neither liked nor disliked his clients; that wasn't his job. They had need of his services and he made a living providing them. His average client was an average person in need of assistance. Most were pleasant and appreciated what he could do, though he encountered his fair share of jerks, as anyone did who was in business for himself.
Career criminals were represented by public defenders as they rarely had the money for a private attorney. Highflying criminals, on the other hand, had the money and hired from among a cadre of well-established criminal defense attorneys. Everyone else with a legal need either went to specialist or someone like Ryan, a jack-of-all-trades able to handle a myriad of issues or experienced enough to know when to call in an expert.
After an early lunch eaten at his desk, Cheryl told Ryan that Barbara Seller had arrived. Her husband was asking for primary custody pending the final divorce and she was opposed to him having any control over the kids.
Half of Ryan's cases were divorces and such domestic issues were his bread and butter. The rest was a mix of business law, them in or legal situations people encountered in life, along with the occasional felony criminal case, usually involving a former client or family member. Like with Fuller.
In divorces, Ryan typically represented the wife so her story was one he'd heard many times before. Women married all sorts of men, had children with them, and then when it ended, wanted their former husband and children's father to vanish, ideally while mailing them a check every month. It didn't happen, at least not as often as his clients wanted.
According to Seller, her soon to be ex had no real interest in the children, but wanted to control her through them as he had done for years.
He would have his side, of course. That was the nature of divorce. However, Ryan's job was to represent his client as she saw her interests. He nodded with understanding. The least he could do was listen, especially when he had unwanted news.
When it came to divorce, he had once told Cheryl he had two priorities after seeing to his client's needs: do his best to see that no one was killed, and get paid.
When Seller finished, Ryan explained that the commissioner would want to set a temporary custody sharing order pending the home study. There was no way around it. He wasn't going to make any decision favorable to her without independent information.
Ryan sat patiently again as Seller repeated her concerns. He had no idea if they were real, manufactured or exaggerations. It didn't matter because it would take a lot more than she had to cut the father off from meaningful contact with his children, now or after the divorce.
When it was his turn, Ryan explained that to her and after a few minutes she reluctantly agreed to some sharing. Apparently, things weren't as dire as she made out. He reminded her of the court location, saying he would meet her there shortly before 2:00 p.m.
As she left, Ryan glanced at his watch. "Anything that needs doing, Cheryl?" he asked over the intercom. "I have a few minutes."
"You're good, Mike."
Cheryl had been his secretary for seven years. She was tall at 5'8", with long raven hair and a dancer's legs. She had a life and a boyfriend she rarely mentioned. Possessed of a sweet disposition she handled the clients deftly and with compassion. Best of all, she was fiercely loyal and protective.
The old adage "Don't dip your pen in the company well" had come to his mind many times since she had agreed to work for him. He had lost one fine secretary that way and did not intend to lose another, no matter how great her legs were.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, pushed aside the residual anger he felt over his own recent divorce, and gazed out the window of the second floor office towards the waterfall and Coi pool in the courtyard of the office complex. The fat fish swam slowly in measured circles from one end to the other, repeating the same journey back and forth, in their colorful red, gold and white coats.
He wondered what the fish thought about their world. Did they think they were in an enormous sea, free to go and do what they want? Or did they comprehend the limits of their existence?
The latter, he decided, if they thought at all. It was like every life, the distant horizon always beckoned while the walls of reality kept you closed in. Live long enough and you found yourself in a box.
Two Mallards had taken up residency below. The birds at least had a choice.
It was supposed to be relaxing, but Ryan always found something vaguely unnatural about it all. If the guy who tended the pool missed a week, feathers would be overflowing and the Coi would be floating upside down in the water.
Ryan sighed and then glanced around the office. There was the small oak conference table with four chairs upholstered in an Indian blanket material to match his own high back chair. Two bookcases held the Arizona Revised Statutes along, with a number of single volume books courtesy of many legal education courses, sat along the walls.
A photo wall made of cork held his photographs taken during a burst of creativity. It contained wall-mounted photos of scenic Sedona and the Oak Creek Canyon tributaries. There were as well two photos of his Comanche 250 airplane located behind his chair.
Absent were the typical photos of loved ones; only empty spaces for empty memories, which seemed appropriate to his mood.
He stretched out all of his 6-foot frame and felt the small love handles he was battling starting to creep over his belt. I must go more than 3 times a week to work out, he thought. His previously blond hair had thinned and darkened to a more dishwater brown with grey creeping in around the ears and along the sideburns.
Ryan glanced at his watch, slipped papers into his briefcase then set out for the courthouse. After the brief hearing, which set a visitation schedule in the Seller divorce, Ryan walked to the jail located on Madison Street just behind the Superior Court building. He entered the waiting room and took his place in the short line.
The room was cramped for the volume of traffic that passed through it. In the years he had been coming here, he had no recollection of it ever receiving a fresh coat of paint. The women sitting on dirty chairs against the stained wall were desultory, the small children with them cranky.
He gave the female officer the information, his bar card and drivers license. After going through security, metal detectors and two remote controlled doors, he was shown to a small meeting room next to the general population visiting tables to wait for Wayne Fuller.
The primary visiting area consisted of four rows, A-D with four tables in each row. They reminded him of ping-pong tables but with wooden nets: prisoners on one side, family on the other.
It was a grim scene and, as always, a few of the visiting women were simply gorgeous. It amazed him to see them, often with a kid in arms, sitting across from some tattooed violent criminal whose future was either in jail or in the morgue.
Life was like that. At least his was. Here he could not keep a wife and they had them hanging on to some fantasy of a life together.
What a Joke!
It was just after 3:00 p.m. when Fuller was brought in, wearing a florescent orange jumpsuit. He shuffled across the visitation room in his jail issued flip-flops. He had that familiar disheveled prisoner look caused in part by no regular access to showers or shaves.
They shook hands then went into the privacy room to talk. "Sorry to see you again under these circumstances," Ryan said. "What's going on?"
Fuller slumped back in the dirty red plastic chair, stretched his legs out as he leaned forward. "It's my daughter. She told the cops that I molested her."
Fuller looked up at Ryan with that guilty look the accused always have, innocent or not. "Hell, you know I was divorced a few years ago and she was living with her mother. I guess she told them I had been doing it for years. You remember that my wife got custody and I moved to Tempe. That is where I was when I worked on your truck. I didn't see Jacquie often after that, but I went over a couple of weekends a month exercising my visitation rights. She wouldn't come to my place, so we'd go out and get dinner and I'd give her some money. Anyhow, last summer my ex shows up, Jacquie in tow, with her stuff in boxes and said she couldn't control her and she was now my problem. She'd been ditching school all year and was now staying out all hours of the night."
Fuller was six foot-two, with a slight limp. He was heavier than Ryan had recalled from before. His hair was mostly reddish-blond and disheveled from being in jail. . His teeth were still white and straight. His blue eyes were red rimmed and looked tired.
Ryan took notes on the yellow pad where Cheryl had written what she had learned, trying hard to keep up. He signaled Fuller to slow down until he caught up with the information.
"Let me see your papers," Ryan said. He took them, and then copied Fuller's appearance date. As he handed the papers back he said, "Wayne, I don't need to tell you that this is a hell of a problem. It's going to take a lot of time and preparation. Molest cases are like that and that assumes you did not do it. I know. I have done others and two went to trial. By the time I interview all the witnesses, work on a time line to account for your whereabouts, check the reports and get ready, you're looking at $25-50,000. If you are going to plead out, it will be a whole lot less." That was as polite a way as he knew how to say it.
"I'm not copping a plea," Fuller said indignantly. "It's a pack of lies! I can't have people thinking I'd do that to my own daughter." He swallowed hard then added, "And I can't do time as a molester. You know what happens to them in here."
Very good points, Ryan thought. "Can you afford that kind of fee?" From Fuller's reaction, it was apparent that he couldn't. "In that case you might want to consider a Public Defender."
"Yeah, I've heard about them." From his look, what he had heard was not good. "What would you suggest?"
"A PD isn't always bad," Ryan said. "They're overworked, underpaid, but no one knows the prosecutors and system like they do. They are in court every single day. They know what kind of deal they can and cannot get. They could probably get you a reduced charge. Going with one will save all the time and energy needed for a case like this, if you're not going to go to trial."
Ryan wasn't telling anything Fuller didn't already know. Jailhouse talk spread the basics pretty fast. Within these block and concrete walls was a vast repository of down to earth legal advice, along with every dirty trick in the judicial system. "Maybe that's how you need to go."
It wasn't pretty, it wasn't fair, but it was life. Moreover, it did not even take into account whether Fuller was guilty or innocent.
"My folks," Fuller said after a long pause, now speaking in a low voice, "they've got a little. I'll call and see if they can help." He gave Ryan their phone number. They discussed his story for a few more minutes then Ryan told him that he needed a lot more information and it would be better if they did it later.
"Can you get me out of here?" Fuller asked.
Ryan glanced at Cheryl's notes and told him the bond was $35,000. "Your folks will need to come with ten percent plus security."
Fuller pondered that then said, "I think they'll do that. Call them." Outside, you could hear the clanking of a metal door against a metal door jam. "And soon, okay?"
Chapter Two
It was after 5:00 o'clock when Ryan left the jail and the downtown traffic was already heavy as he drove north up Central Avenue.
Phoenix had grown as he grew up here. High rises, office buildings, condominiums and shopping centers had replaced the houses that once occupied north Phoenix. They had been nestled between citrus trees and in the spring, the air had been heady with the floral scent of their flowers. That was largely gone now though patches of the old residential areas were still clustered off the major streets.
From his four-year-old Cadillac, Ryan called Fuller's parents and told them to expect a call from their son. He then set up a meeting for the next day.
As he placed the phone in its cradle, he thought how lucky he was to have come through two marriages with his career in tact, his airplane and enough to put a down payment on a house. It wasn't much to show for a life, but at least he was not in jail.
South of Camelback he pulled into the gym parking lot. After changing, Ryan climbed onto a treadmill and began his usual routine, cardiovascular work to get the heart rate increased, then weights, followed by a few pull-ups and sit-ups to round out the 40 minutes of sweat and strain.
One of the women, whose name he couldn't recall, glanced his way. He wasn't interested. He had decided for now that empty sex was not better than no sex.
After the whirlpool and shower, he dressed and drove home. September in Phoenix is still summer and Ryan felt the air conditioner kick in with relief. The road wound through the mountains to his house in Moon Valley, on the immediate north side of North Mountain. He could remember making out with a high school sweetheart in the desert not far from the development he now called home. He wondered how far the kids had to drive these days, or if they even bothered.
He pulled into the garage then entered the house, passed the kitchen, tossed his jacket over a dinette chair, then kicked off his shoes. He poured a straight Crown Royal he drank standing up, and then made a refill, this time adding ice. On the couch, he swirled the bourbon around the ice cubes before taking a long pull. He turned on the television and the voices of the news crew filled the emptiness of the house.
When the booze went straight to his head, he remembered that all he had eaten that day was a very light lunch. He padded barefoot to the refrigerator, swung the freezer door open, pulled out a frozen dinner and slipped it into the microwave. A few minutes later, he ate standing over the sink.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from DESPERATE STRANGERSby Bruce M. Phillips Copyright © 2010 by Bruce M. Phillips. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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