Fatal Convictions by Randy Singer Read Free Book Online Page A

than two miles from the oceanfront. The firm occupied half of a gray vinyl-sided building in a small office park on Laskin Road. The building had a seventies look, as did the office furniture. The view from Alex’s office, the one previously used by his grandfather, overlooked the parking lot. John Patrick Madison had not been a big fan of expensive office space in the Town Center area of Virginia Beach. As a result, he could offer lower hourly rates than most of his contemporaries.
    He posted those rates for all to see in the firm’s waiting area. In the seven years that Alex worked there, he could never remember the rate changing. And Alex still had the same sign up, two years after his grandfather’s death.
We charge $200 per hour.
$250 if you call more than once a week.
$300 if you want to advise us on how to do our job.
    By the time Alex pulled into the small office lot on Monday morning, the firm’s other two employees’ cars were already there. Inside, Sylvia Brunswick, the firm’s receptionist/legal assistant/den mother, sat hunched over her computer and didn’t bother looking up. She was only forty-five or so, but her spine had permanently curved, and she had periodic attacks of various ailments that routinely kept her out of the office, mostly on Fridays and Mondays. She was rail thin, with a grating voice that reminded Alex of Olive Oyl’s.
    Alex’s grandfather had hired Sylvia about five years before he died and never had the heart to fire her. So far, Alex hadn’t mustered the nerve to do so either, though he had promised himself more than once that she wouldn’t make it to the end of the week. Every payday, Alex swallowed hard while signing Sylvia’s check and thinking about her health insurance, payroll taxes, and sick leave benefits.
    “What’s up?” Alex asked, walking quickly past Sylvia and heading down the hall toward his office. Sylvia immediately started reciting a list of things Alex needed to get done. Fingernails on a chalkboard, but he managed to block it out.
    If Sylvia was excess baggage, Alex’s partner was the little engine that could. Not surprisingly, she was already in her office, talking on the phone. She had probably billed at least two solid hours already.
    Alex first met the legal dynamo that was Shannon Reese nearly seven years before, during their first semester of law school when they ended up in the same study group for Torts. The group was an unwieldy alliance of hard-charging 1Ls, each trying to outsmart the others while harboring secret fears about failing.
    The self-appointed leaders of the group didn’t take Alex seriously because he dressed like a surfer and failed to complete his outlines on time. Shannon couldn’t get a word in edgewise because she looked even less like a lawyer than Alex. She was short, athletic, and cute, a former gymnast who pulled her hair back into a tight ponytail, spoke with a voice that seemed like it was stuck in puberty, and radiated a high-energy enthusiasm for the law that was decidedly uncool. She had that fresh gymnast’s look—complete with a perky and innocent face—that masked an iron will and an ultracompetitive drive. Her success in gymnastics had been built on athleticism and power, not graceful elegance, and she brought that same intensity to her legal studies.
    Three weeks before finals, Alex and Shannon peeled off and formed their own two-person study group. Shannon ultimately received the book award for the best grade in Torts and a smattering of other As and B-pluses. Alex was entirely happy to have earned straight Bs. The next semester, the pair declined a number of invitations to join other groups.
    Even after Alex dropped out of school that summer, he and Shannon stayed in touch. Alex talked his grandfather into hiring Shannon as a clerk for the summer following her second year, and she eventually signed on to work full-time after graduation. Alex and Shannon studied for the bar together, and when the results were