Junior Year Box Set

“I think we all know this needs to end in a situation that is best for the child. That means that David and his family will be part of his or her life. So you can forget about there being no visitation rights,” she said, and then paused to look at Cal and Mr. Fox so there was no misunderstanding. “I will see everyone at Rigby, Thompson and Associates at one o’clock tomorrow.”

“Hang on,” I said. “I have two conditions. I’ve had enough of you threatening to not give me access to my child. To be honest, I no longer trust you, so I want to have the main custody when the baby’s born,” I said.

“There’s no way in hell a judge would ever grant you custody,” Thomas Fox said.

Ms. Dixon smiled at that and turned to him.

“Given that we have stated this conference will not be confidential, and given that Mr. Bell has just threatened that the child will be put up for adoption where neither parent can find him or her, without the consent of either the natural father or mother, I think our getting awarded custody has just turned into a slam dunk!

“Now, you heard my client, and you’ve heard me. If this is what he wants, this is what he’ll get,” Ms. Dixon said.

“Hang on, I think something can be worked out,” Don Rigby said.

“You’d better hope so. I will delay filing the Grievance until Monday, but no later,” Ms. Dixon said as she smiled.

“Don’t you want to know if the child is yours or not?” Tom asked.

“Pam, is the baby mine?” I asked.

She just nodded.

“There’s your answer. I trust Pam to tell the truth,” I said.

“What’s the second condition?” Mr. Fox asked.

“That any agreement we sign not be confidential. I’m sick of the games and secrets. I don’t want there to be any misunderstanding about what we agreed to, or any possible spin after it’s done,” I said.

“Does everyone understand what we want?” Ms. Dixon asked.

Cal nodded, so she got up, and we followed her out. As she walked out of the building, she was on her phone; I don’t know with whom. She had evidently made preparations for the Children and Family Services threat. CFS was prepared to start their investigation as soon as she called them. Pam would be interviewed this afternoon if the call were made, but I couldn’t say where that was on Ms. Dixon’s list of things to do.

Mom wanted a phone number for Lacy, Pam’s mom. I gave her Sandy Range’s contact info, and she soon had Lacy on the line. Mom walked away for several minutes while talking on the phone. She came back and told us Lacy planned to be on the next flight back. It seemed Cal had left a few facts out of his conversations with Lacy concerning what was going on at home.

While Mom explained the situation with Lacy, I again examined the copy we’d made of the financial sheet. I called Ms. Dixon over.

“Look at this coding at the bottom. You see here?” I said as I pointed. “It shows the date the printout was made, and this is the code for the person requesting the printout. The date shown is the day before Detective Kitchens hauled me down to the police station for questioning. That would have been a Sunday. See this code: ‘CRB’? I’m betting that’s Cal’s user ID at Rigby, Thompson and Associates. The problem is, he’s never had anything to do with representing me or with my account, and from my understanding, Cal shouldn’t have been able to even see this document, much less print it out.”

She gave me a look over the top of her reading glasses.

“That’s good information to have. I’m going to do some thinking on how best to use it.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “You notice the coding has a pagination feature that shows how many pages are being printed out? This page says ‘374 of 4,268.’ It would appear he printed out everything of mine they had stored electronically on their system.”

Ms. Dixon rolled her eyes at that one, then closed them for a second and shuddered.

“We’re lucky. Their own document management system is showing us how monstrous this breach of ethics is.”

She thought a few more seconds, and then looked at me.

“Will you trust me to use this when I think it’s most advantageous? I’d like to see if their investigation tries once again to sweep things under the rug. If they downplay the extent of the breach in writing, we can nail their coffins shut with this,” Ms. Dixon said.

◊◊◊

We went to our house to talk. I felt worn out from the emotional strain of the meeting. Ms. Dixon just smiled at me when we sat down at the kitchen table.

“Where did you come up with making the agreement transparent?” she asked me.

“I’ve been reading about a lot of similar cases, and it seems like someone always wants to make it sealed. Then the press has a field day as they try to guess what’s in the settlement. I just want there to not be any questions as to what’s agreed upon,” I said.

“I about fell out of my chair when you said you wanted custody,” Dad said.