Shelter of Lies

By Patricia Knutson

The fear in her eyes matched the desperation in her voice. "You ain't going to hardly believe what I'm going to tell you, but I swear to God it's true. Please, Miss Wilson, you got to help me save my boys . . . or she'll kill them."
This chilling plea from a mysterious, disheveled street woman seductively draws attorney Laura Wilson into a whirlwind of human and legal intrigue and sets in motion a deadly battle between a troubled, vengeful boy and his disarming stepmother, who is either his victim or a psychotic killer. Laura, almost forty, magnetic, and ambitious, has fought her way to the top of the highly-charged Family Law profession in the midsize southern city where she lives. She is a hard-driving, high-earning senior partner in her firm, having survived the failure of her own marriage, the sacrosanct "old boy system," and the ever-present raw emotional crises of her clients. On a gray and blustery North Carolina morning, Laura is confronted and relentlessly pursued by the enigmatic, homeless Elva, who imparts shocking information that threatens to topple all Laura has scrupulously set in place. Laura is tough and efficient, but certainly not without heart, as she becomes embroiled in a pro bono case representing the downcast Elva who is trying to regain custody of her three young sons. Are the boys being horribly abused by their sadistic stepmother, as the oldest son says, or are the allegations the imaginings of a mentally ill and dangerous child? Laura and her staff thoroughly investigate all angles, but still many questions remain. It is only after a hair-raising trial that the shocking truth is revealed. Laura's relationships with Archie, her mentor, Kevin, her love interest, and Kim, her assistant and friend, as well as with the distraught Elva and emotionally disturbed children, show the many facets of this strong main character.
This is a fast-paced psychological thriller that will appeal to readers who like edgy legal suspense, all who are advocates for the rights of children, and men and women who admire those who go all out for the underdog.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patricia Knutson
• Release date: May 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476476742

Patricia Knutson

Patricia Knutson is an attorney and college professor who has practiced family law and criminal law in the USA and Australia. She has taught international family law courses for Washington and Lee University School of Law, William and Mary College School of Law, and University of Adelaide Law School in South Australia. Patricia has also taught English and writing courses at the college and high school levels. She currently lives with her husband in Pennsylvania, where she is at work on her third novel.

Book preview

Shelter of Lies

Patricia Knutson

Copyright 2012 Patricia Knutson

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction.

All names, places, characters, and circumstances

are imaginary, and any resemblance to

actual events, or to persons living or dead,

is entirely coincidental.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

About the Author

Other Books by Patricia Knutson

Acknowledgments

* * * *

Chapter 1

Courage is like love. It must have hope for nourishment. Napolean I

Some woman named Anderson has been trying to get in touch with you, Laura – said someone was going to kill her kids. Archie started talking as soon as he caught up with me as I sprinted down the hall to Courtroom B. I got to the office about 7:30 this morning and the damned phone was already ringing . . . answering service said she had called three times since 7:00 a.m. I talked to her briefly, but she didn’t want to tell me anything. . . said she was afraid someone was going to kill her kids and she had to talk to you. In the middle of my telling her to call the police, she hung up. Archie dropped his voice to a loud whisper as he followed me through the wooden double doors into Wade County’s Family Court, which was already into the first ten minutes of Monday morning’s nasty business.

Judge Jergin’s calendar call had begun and I had been passed over when I didn’t answer. The Out of Order sign on one of the three old elevators in the antiquated court house, that had forced me to climb the six flights of stairs, had been an omen of the day ahead. My client’s divorce was sent to the back of the line, and I was stuck with it – an hour wait on an already jammed-up Monday morning. My stomach churned and my mood went straight south as I thought of a thirty minute lag in each appointment of my tightly scheduled day. One more Monday without a coffee or lunch break, and with too many clients, did not matter as much as the familiar predominance of these days in every week. Archie’s offhand message about the unknown Ms. Anderson was all but lost in the shroud of doom and gloom that hung over me. I had heard and seen it all before – the early morning caller - one more neurotic woman whose deadbeat ex-husband had been an hour late bringing the kids home from weekend visitation.

I slammed through the reception room door of Johnson and Wilson at 11:20 a.m. and encountered a room full of people, one of whom I recognized as a client waiting to see me. Johnny Armistead jumped to his feet and reached for my hand, his five feet five inch paunchy, balding stature exaggerated by the short plaid sports jacket he wore.

Laura, I thought you forgot me, he boomed, laughing in his peculiarly nasal way that bordered on being annoying.

Johnny, I’m sorry to keep you waiting - I’ll be with you in just a few minutes. I smiled and attempted to move past him as diplomatically as possible on my way to Kim’s desk on the far side of the blue and red Oriental rug. I knew that it was probable that my eleven-thirty client was also among the restless group that covered every seat in the reception area, early for her first appointment with a divorce lawyer, fighting panic and appraising my every move as I negotiated my way toward Kim, the hallway, and the sanctuary of my office. Before I had moved more than a few feet, another voice addressed me from the opposite end of the rectangular room.

Ms. Wilson, could I talk to you for just a few minutes? I been waitin’ for you since early this morning.

I glanced in the direction of the husky, female voice and was aware simultaneously of Kim’s signals from behind her desk. Her body language clearly conveyed that she had had no part in this intruder’s attempt to break into my already unmanageable day.

The unkempt young woman who approached me was a startling contrast to the other solemn occupants of the leather and mahogany reception room. Hollowed eyes in a sallow face, oily blonde shoulder-length hair, and soiled, faded once-blue sweatshirt and jeans presented a good case for suspecting she was mostly mobile, living on the street or wherever fate might take her. My first impression was that she hadn’t had a shower for awhile, and was malnourished, or a druggie, or both. On the floor beside the corner chair she had occupied was a half-empty styrofoam cup of coffee and a white plastic bag folded around what appeared to be a three inch stack of papers or photographs. Before I could respond to the woman’s question, Kim deftly interceded as she had done countless times over our fifteen years together.

Ms. Wilson, I told Ms. Anderson that you only see clients by appointment and that I would be happy to make an appointment for her as soon as possible. Kim’s professional manner was also warm and reassuring, a necessary quality for the emotional business in which we found ourselves.

I don’t have time to wait for an appointment, she announced in a louder voice. What had been a timid, somewhat awkward request suddenly became an urgent insistence as she pushed past Kim and moved toward me. My kids might be dead by then, if they ain’t already.

Clients who slumped in their chairs with magazines in their laps suddenly sat up and gawked at this oddity among them.

Her voice took on an edge of strained impatience. This is . . . I don’t know how to say it . . . a last chance thing . . . a matter of life or death.

By this time, Ms. Anderson stood between Kim and me in the middle of the reception room, which had become a stage for the unfolding drama.

I could see panic in her widening eyes as I said quietly, Ms. Anderson, I have two people with appointments waiting to see me and I need to keep those appointments. I stepped closer to her and lowered my voice in an effort to separate the two of us from the suspicious stares of the other clients.

It sounds as if you need some immediate assistance, and I want to make sure you get that. Kim, would you please take Ms. Anderson into the conference room and help her work this out. I was fighting for my breath while I tried to sound calm and concerned. I doubted I achieved my goal.

Kim was on her feet before I had finished my statement and positioned herself to herd the determined Ms. Anderson down the hall to the conference room. I slid past them into my office and closed the door without looking back. Collapsing into my desk chair, I sat head back, eyes closed, waiting for Kim to appear as I knew she would. In less time than it normally takes to get a cup of coffee for a client, Kim knocked once and joined me.

Talk about the devil’s Monday! I gasped. Kim, talk to the Anderson woman, get some information from her and then call Gwen Logan or George Katsikias. See if one of them can see her this morning . . . this afternoon. They both have young associates who are pretty good and can probably handle whatever it is this woman needs. I don’t think she’s going to be able to pay, which you need to tell Gwen or George. You and I both know I sure can’t see her today – or this week, for that matter. I continued to slump in my chair and struggled not to lower my head into my hands.

Kim sat pensively on the sofa across from my desk, her fingertips forming a steeple on which she rested her chin.

Laura, I think you need to see this woman yourself. Her statement was characteristically direct and unemotional.

I could feel my face harden and flush as the last three hours’ events trampled over me. I trusted Kim’s judgment as well as her intelligence and intuition, and I valued her friendship, but I now marked the fine edge between employer and assistant. I had told her what to do, and I didn’t have time to discuss it.

That’s impossible, Kim, I snapped. I don’t know what her needs are, and I doubt you do either, but this office can’t meet them. Please call Gwen or George and get her out of here. I felt the pressure of my anger as it pressed into that familiar place above my nose and between my eyes. I gathered up some papers on my desk and pushed my chair back to indicate the end of the conversation. Kim did not move, except to raise her head and look at me somewhat skeptically.

Laura, this lady told me she has three little boys who are being severely abused and can’t live much longer under the circumstances. She won’t tell anymore of her story to me, but I believe what she said. I have an uncanny feeling that this is no run-of- the-mill case about who gets the kids. Kim paused and seemed to consider what she was about to say. Ten years ago, Laura, you wouldn’t have hesitated to see and help this woman.

Damn it, Kim, don’t try to hang guilt all over me! I don’t have time to go to the bathroom, let alone take on a pro bono case that sounds like it would be better handled in the District Attorney’s office. Send your Ms. Anderson down to Phillip Edwards and let the state handle her abuse case! The forcefulness with which I spit out the angry words overwhelmed me as I realized I was attacking Kim for one of her qualities I had always encouraged.

She stood up as she spoke and did not look at me.

I’m sorry, Laura. I’ll call Gwen or George. If neither is available, I’ll call Phillip.

Kim quietly abandoned the room and her mission, and left behind her an air of uncertainty and gloom. I hurriedly ushered Johnny Armitage into my office and threw myself into the frantic afternoon.

The remainder of the day was as I had predicted. The last client was Ellen Cargill at 6:45, who whined and complained her way through a draft of the separation agreement that would allow her to live life as a wealthy woman, albeit sans current spouse. The doctor husband she had put through medical school had agreed reluctantly to pay a high price for his freedom from holy matrimony, but no amount of money or material possessions would pacify Ellen. As was always the case, I could not get what she really wanted, which was her marriage reborn.

At eight o’clock, I wearily turned off the remaining lights in the empty office, locked the outside doors, and stepped out onto the dimly lit, abandoned mall lined with darkened lawyers’ offices and bank buildings. I was recounting the troubling episode with Kim and thinking that a glass of cabernet or chardonnay would be a welcome end to this day from hell, when I heard the soft tread of rubber on concrete, coming from the shadows behind me. A rush of adrenaline caught my breath and my heart pounded as I cursed my carelessness in not dialing the mandatory police escort after eight o’clock. Hastily separating my car keys on their chain and clutching one between each of my shaking fingers, I positioned them for my defense as we both quickened our pace heading across the empty street in front of the parking garage.

Ms. Wilson, I been waitin’ outside your office hoping I could talk to you . . . could you slow up . . . I got a sore foot and can’t walk so fast. The now familiar voice was welcome under the circumstances. I whirled around and came face to face with the same shabby blonde woman I had first seen in my office eight hours earlier.

Ms. Anderson, you scared the living shit out of me! I stared at the pitifully thin figure, now wearing a dirty gray windbreaker over her sweatshirt, and shivering in the cutting November wind as she shifted her weight from foot to foot in an attempt to generate some body heat.

I didn’t mean to scare you, Ms. Wilson. I just wanted to talk to you by yourself. I promise I ain’t gonna keep you very long if you’ll just give me some time to talk to you, she said, her arms crossed protectively and tightly hugging her ribs. Please.

The urgency and panic in her voice, coupled with her dogged determination, got to me.

You must be cold out here . . . let’s go to the coffee shop around the corner and warm up - we can talk there. I nodded in the direction we were going.

My apparent change of attitude, from total rejection to deferential acceptance of her plea, seemed to instantly energize her. Before I had finished speaking, she grabbed my right hand in both of hers and squeezed it hard, causing her plastic bag to fall to the pavement in front of us. Photographs and papers slid from the bag onto the damp, dirty sidewalk and into the litter of the gutter.

As she knelt and scooped and picked at the bag’s former contents, she repeated softly, Oh, thank you . . . thank you! I promise I won’t give you no trouble. My name’s Elva . . . call me Elva . . . please. Oh, God, thank you!

Guilt and remorse welled up inside of me as Elva Anderson crawled around on her hands and knees retrieving the contents of the bag I suspected she had carried with her since our preceding unplanned meeting. My earlier confrontation with Kim once again surfaced, and I felt uncomfortably responsible for putting the pathetic Elva in such a degrading position. As we walked silently the half block toward the red neon sign of the starkly bright coffee shop, I regretted the fact that Elva Anderson had had to pursue me in such a desperate way in order to obtain a bit of my attention.

We entered the deserted restaurant and scooted into one of the Fifties booths covered in cracked red naugahyde.

Do you want something to eat? My treat. I suspected the latter was a necessity.

No, M’am – no, thank you. I ain’t very hungry right now.

When the sleepy-eyed waitress brought the coffee we ordered, my slight, shivering companion wrapped her hands around the crazed mug and warmed herself.

We sat silently for a few minutes before I said, Elva, I’m sorry it was so hard for you to get to me. Sometimes we get so busy in the mechanics of life that we overlook the real priorities. I wasn’t sure she understood what I was saying, but she seemed to relax after I broke the silence.

I guess you don’t remember me, Ms. Wilson, . . . and I wouldn’t expect someone like you to remember anyone like me. Elva’s statement sounded too much like an apology. I first met you about twelve years ago . . . I was just nineteen then. I used to go to The Women’s Center in those days when Eddy, my ex, got to beating on me where I couldn’t stand it no more. Anyway, I come in there one time and stayed a couple of days . . . I was pregnant with my first baby. Eddy had gotten real bad then and I was afraid . . . you know, afraid he would hurt the baby, most of all. You was at the center . . . the shelter . . . one evening and talkin’ to some women about their rights and being able to take care of themselves. I come in and sat down and listened. Elva hesitated for a moment and appeared to drift from her thoughts before continuing. I remember that you told us you was a lawyer who would work to help us get free from mean husbands and boyfriends who hurt us . . . or who hurt our kids . . . and we would only have to pay what we could afford. She took a sip of the hot coffee and glanced around the drab restaurant before continuing. I was too afraid then to do any of the things you talked about. I ain’t saying I was an innocent girl or nothing . . . I wasn’t that . . . I just thought I still wanted . . . to be with Eddy . . . still loved him.

Her deep-set blue eyes had an incredibly sad and lost look, the same kind of look I had seen before in the eyes of children when asked which divorcing parent they wanted to live with. Each shared the certainty that in a perfect world, everything would have been different.

She pulled herself back to her story and continued, I kept on expecting him to change. I remember thinking that if I ever got into a big problem, I would call you. After you finished talking that night, you come around where we was sitting . . . and you talked to us face to face . . . and you . . . being a lawyer and all . . . treated us so nice . . . like we was just as good as you. I remember that real well.

Elva raised her hands and brushed her straggly hair off her face and tucked it behind her ears. I noticed that her hands trembled, and she blinked her eyes excessively as she talked.

Ms. Wilson, I’m more scared now than I ever been . . . not for me but for my boys. She raised her head and looked directly at me. The fear in her eyes matched the desperation in her voice. I have three boys. Raymond’s the oldest, the one I was pregnant with when I met you. She hesitated and seemed to be considering what she was about to say, her eyes now roving around the room in an obvious survey of its other two occupants. She lowered her voice and continued, You ain’t hardly going to believe what I’m going to tell you, but, I swear to God, it’s true. Raymond ain’t lying . . . I know he ain’t. Elva leaned across the table on her folded arms and looked directly into my eyes. Please, Ms. Wilson, you got to help me save my boys.

I sat in stunned silence as Elva Anderson’s story unfolded, my emotions ping-ponging between disbelief, horror, and rage. When we left the warmth and security of the coffee shop at 9:30, I had involuntarily taken on some of my new client’s feelings of premonition and fear. I had no plan, no sense of what was to come, but I knew the period that had just begun would be unlike any I had ever experienced.

Chapter 2

When I arrived at the office on Tuesday morning, the stench of cigar smoke hung heavily in the reception room and signaled the early arrival of my eight o’clock client. Kim didn’t look up from the pile of papers she was shuffling on her desk when she acknowledged my arrival with a mechanical, Good morning. Before I could answer or offer additional conversation, she said, Matt Arlington is waiting for you in your office. I reminded him that we have a no-smoking reception room, and he chose to sit in your office so he could smoke his putrid cigar. He said you didn’t mind if he smoked in there.

All this she delivered in a manner that I could only describe as bitchy disdain. I looked at Kim’s lowered head as I crossed the neat and comfortably furnished room. Her softly tailored emerald green dress and multicolored Halston scarf accented a trim figure and natural good looks. At forty, she still looked like the all American girl, and her long russet red hair, wrapped neatly into a twist at the back of her head, elicited admiration from clients of all ages and both sexes. Over the years we had worked together, clients from time to time had commented that we looked like sisters, and I was always flattered by the comparison. From a casual distance, we probably did seem similar, since we were both closer to six feet tall than either of us had appreciated at age thirteen, and we were Nordic redheads. However, my hair had long ago been bobbed to a chin length and resembled Kim’s in color only. A preference for conservative dark suits and autumn shades reflected my law school training – the attorney in the courtroom was always the facilitator, never the show. Kim, on the other hand, showcased her graceful five feet eleven inches with elegant softness and bright-hued colors, a choice I envied but didn’t feel was available to me. Kim’s compassion and intelligence, added to her finely honed mechanical skills and her striking appearance, made her the ultimate legal assistant and professional confidant. She was also a very good friend of mine.

Kim and I had suffered through our own personal divorces at the same time six years earlier, and the sharing of our individual agony and heartbreaking loss of what was once love had served as a bond to an already strong relationship. In my case, Frank Wilson had proclaimed on a rainy Sunday afternoon in March that he didn’t want to be married to a workaholic woman lawyer who was never available to him for meals or sex or fun, and by 7:00 p.m. the same day he had moved out of our bedroom and into the waiting arms of his most recent girlfriend. One Sunday later, J.D. Baintree tearfully confessed to Kim, his wife of ten years and two kids, that he had fallen in love with someone else, and he left her for a man he had met at a gay bar. Both of us survived the endless year of legal separation and managed to continue in our pursuit in the office and the courtroom of fair settlements and child-oriented custody agreements, but the inevitable scars remained in our personal lives. Kim and her children went through intense therapy and counseling, and I withdrew into eighty-hour work weeks, which, for me, was not a dramatic change. Despite her own misery, Kim made me her project. She dragged me to the gym three times a week, when my inclination was not to renew my membership, and she insisted I join her and the kids for spaghetti on Friday night or a pork roast on Sunday, when I would have opted for a sandwich while pouring over clients’ files in an empty office. We talked for hours about trust and intimacy and faithfulness, but neither of us had any real belief in the prospects.

You can’t just let yourself die inside, Laura, she advocated gently. Law practice isn’t a person – it isn’t a life. You can’t just give everything you are to everyone else – there’s nothing in it for you. As the oldest child in a family of five, Kim nurtured me like a younger sister. It was that nurturing, that sisterhood, that I now feared losing.

Kim’s good humor and gentle spirit characteristically shone forth in her interaction with other people, me included, but today was one of the rare exceptions I had encountered only a few times in fifteen years. I guessed that she, too, was bothered by our clash yesterday and the underlying reasons for it, and I knew that she disliked Matt Arlington with a passion - as a person and a client. After his last appointment, Kim had spelled out exactly how she felt.

God, he is creepy, she said. Creepy and disgusting . . . I mean, how could anyone do what he does . . . I can’t even imagine what they do . . . or how. Can you? I mean . . . really?

Kim put my files together and typed my notes, which meant she had the same information about clients that I had.

I couldn’t help but laugh at her comments. Well . . . I haven’t asked for intimate details of the mechanics . . . but it is pretty bizarre.

Laura, he never . . . never . . . looks me in the eye. It’s like my eyes are in my boobs! He’s always staring . . . and I don’t even have big ones! And the smell . . . somebody needs to tell him about DIAL! The office stinks of body odor and cigars . . . and dogs . . . for a week after he’s been here!

By the time she finished, Kim’s ranting had become a comedy routine that sent us both into gales of laughter.

After we dried our eyes she said, Seriously, Laura, he calls three times a week to ask how his case is going . . . he must suffer from lawyer deficit disorder.

Or . . . maybe he just wants to hear your voice, I offered.

Give me a break! That is scary . . . really scary . . . he’s probably a serial killer or something! she screeched. I will never be that desperate for a man!

On this particular morning it was reasonable to conclude that Matt’s early appearance in our office, cigar firmly in hand, had pushed Kim beyond her tolerance level. I decided that the best way to proceed under uncertain circumstances was as if nothing was wrong. I resolved that when Kim and I were alone, I would make amends for yesterday’s outburst, and I would let her know that she had helped convince me that Elva Anderson was where she needed to be . . . securely on our client list.

Good morning, Kim . . . that color is great on you. I smiled and hoped I didn’t sound phony as I stopped in front of her desk and admired the bright green of her dress. I jumped routinely into the crisis of the moment. I need to talk with you as soon as Matt leaves . . . Elva Anderson will be here at 8:45 and you and I need to plot out the course of the day before she gets here. Considering the horror story she told me during the hour and a half I spent with her last night, we have to move fast . . . and we’re going to have to pack a lot into the next five or six hours. I ran the information by her in a business-as-usual way, expecting Kim to perk up and forget about yesterday, now that I was representing Elva.

She stopped sorting papers and looked up at me before speaking. I’ll come to your office when he leaves. Her flat reply, and the fact that she didn’t ask any questions about my meeting with Elva Anderson, added to the uneasiness I had felt since first waking on that Tuesday morning. I tried to shrug off Kim’s seeming indifference as I moved on to my office and the peculiar Matt Arlington.

In our law firm, my cases, along with my partner Archie’s, were often the ones that attracted the most attention from the other lawyers at our Monday morning status meetings. It was standard practice at this weekly mandatory gathering for each lawyer to give a brief overview of a new client’s case, thereby ensuring that the firm could continue with representation of the client should the lawyer in charge become unavailable. Routine reports and commentary about clients with business problems or contested estate settlements were no match for the likes of Matt Arlington. While family law has its humdrum and commonplace aspects, it is often a Technicolor soap opera, and my fellow lawyers, inadvertently, became eager voyeurs. My clients’ stories were full of raw emotion and often seductive or erotic details, sometimes with pictures; the outlandish events sometimes stretched the most vivid imaginations. Their legal evidence was frequently shocking and titillating - sensational pieces of human relationships tucked into a file folder.

Ours was a small North Carolina law firm – four partners, and three times that many associate lawyers who worked for us. The three guys who were my partners had occupied most of my life for over twenty years. When I clerked for Archie Johnson during the summers I was in law school, he introduced me to a world I only vaguely knew existed. In addition to reading cases and gluing exhibit stickers on trial documents, I had spent countless hours pouring through pornographic pictures found in a cheating husband’s hideaway, hopeful of finding one that Archie might use as evidence in an alimony trial. Occasionally I had trailed after a burly private detective in search of our own pictures, often drinking lukewarm coffee in his smoky car while we waited for an off-guard spouse to emerge from a lover’s apartment. Archie treated me like an equal during those summers, and he confirmed me as a lawyer. When I left that last clerking summer, he said, You’re a hell of a good lawyer, Laura, and he hired me when I passed the bar exam.

Kevin Greenaway was our firm’s newest partner – a hotshot criminal defense lawyer – the perfect example of the cliché tall, dark, and handsome- and a rising star in his field. He was the one who always urged us to attend all official and unofficial social functions – good marketing he called it. Our managing partner, Rick Harper, ran the office and his personal injury practice in the same no-nonsense way, while he let it be known that his goal was