Chapter Four
ADAM
When I got to the office that morning, I was let in by a uniformed officer posted at the door. I made his way to the large conference room where law enforcement seemed to have gathered and introduced myself to the detective in charge.
“Sorry we have to meet under these circumstances, Mr. Hanson,” the detective told me.
“It seems that has been happening to me a lot lately,” I said with a sigh. “What happened here?”
“Well, it looks as if the thieves made their way into the building through the vents that lead from the building next door to this one. That building doesn’t have an alarm, and so breaking into it was easier. Once they got in here, they had to work pretty quickly, as the motion detectors alerted the alarm company and we had police units here in less than ten minutes.”
“Which offices did they break into?”
“We’ve checked the entire building. It seems that your main office and that of a Ms. Winston,” he said, glancing at a notepad, “were the only two where things seem to be disturbed. You can probably tell us more as you look around, however. That’s why we needed you here.”
“Okay, well, let’s get this over with.” I headed out of the conference room and across the hall to my office and the detective and uniformed officers followed me. The lock on my office door was scarred from the tools the thieves had used to force entry. I looked around as I entered the room. Papers and files were strewn across the desk and floor. The locked cabinet where I kept client case files was tipped over and had obviously been forced open. It was mostly empty. I went around to the front of my desk. The drawers had all been forced open, and the files I considered most private, mainly those involving Brigham and the oil spill case, were gone, as well.
“Damn!” I said, dropping momentarily into my desk chair. I felt like my head was going to explode. How much more was I fucking supposed to take?
“Files are missing?” the detective asked.
“Yes,” I told him. “Almost all of them. Confidential files, open cases, what a mess.” I stood up and without another word, left my office and headed down the hall to Alicia’s. Her door had been forced open and the same type of mess awaited us there.
“For specifics, you’ll have to speak with Ms. Winston,” I told the detective. “But it seems that most of her files are gone, as well.”
I glanced around the office again, this time noticing that the pictures Alicia kept on the shelf above her desk were in disarray. Upon close inspection, I realized that the pictures Alicia kept here of us together at various business functions were all laying down on their face while the others were still sitting upright and facing outward. That was odd, but I didn’t mention it to the policemen. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but it felt personal and I couldn’t bear to get Alicia any more involved in this mess than she already was.
With my lead, we checked each of the other offices. They all remained locked tight, and when I used my master key to open them, it appeared as if nothing had been disturbed in any of them.
As the cops were finishing up taking my statement, people began coming in to work for the day. The police had them all wait in the lobby or the conference room until they were finished with their evidence collection. I had to explain what had happened over and over, until finally I had a massive headache and assigned the task to Marie.
When Mac arrived, he and I began the daunting task of informing clients that our confidential files had been taken and we had no way of knowing whose hands they were now in. We also had to notify the courts. I had to wonder how many of my and Alicia’s cases would just be thrown out now regardless of how well they had been going so far. When I made the call to Miles, the man was incensed.
“Do you mean to tell me that all of my personal business, including statements I have made to you behind closed doors and never meant to be public, are out there floating around somewhere with God knows who? What the hell are we going to do now?”
“I don’t know yet, Miles. I’m not even sure yet how damaging this is to any of us. I assume much of it depends on who it is that has this information now.” I was as worried about those files falling into the wrong hands as Miles was. I could feel everything I’d ever worked for slowly slipping away.
Throughout the morning as I called one pissed off client after the other, Miles kept calling back with another question and each time before I got him off the phone, he would ask, “Who the hell would do this?”
“I don’t know, Miles. I wish I did. The police are working on it, but it’s only been a few hours.”
“You know what this will do to me?”
“Of course I do,” I answered with a heavy sigh. “I’m so sorry, Miles. I don’t know what else to say.”
“I’m sorry, too – sorry I trusted you. In this day and age, why wasn’t everything kept on the computer and password protected, anyways?” he asked gruffly.
“A lot of information is.” I tried to explain to him. “Unfortunately, the nature of our business requires us to take files of data into court with us. Most of that is written information. I promise you, Miles, nothing these people took can be used against you. It has lost any credibility just by virtue of leaving the office. The law cannot touch you based on anything you said in confidence to your lawyers.”
“What about the press? Are you gonna tell me that they can’t use this information to smear me more than they already have?”
When I didn’t instantly reply Miles continued, “I didn’t think you could,” and hung up the phone.
I sat there with my head in my hands for a while, letting the phone ring and knowing Marie would be picking it up on the other line and taking messages, none of which I’d be looking forward to hearing, I was sure.
I thought about Alicia. I hadn’t told her yet about what had been taken, and what kind of fallout we would be facing. I knew she would have her hands full with her parents today and I was trying to give her a break. The police needed to talk to her in order to get an inventory of what had been taken from her office, but I had been able to get them to agree to wait until tomorrow. I looked around at the office I sat in at the business I had built from nothing and thought about what I might do when it all crashed down around me. I had no idea.
********
Mac and I had lunch behind the closed doors of my office trying to strategize about what we would do now. The phones had not stopped ringing and angry clients had even begun to show up at the office. The press was running with it and as usual were making things worse.
“Have you talked to Alicia yet?” Mac asked me.
“No, but she is my next phone call. The police aren’t going to let me stall them much longer. They say now that they need to talk to her today.”
“What about the open cases? Will we have to talk with each judge independently to know how to proceed?”
“I’m afraid so,” I told him. “I have Nico and Kyla working on compiling a list right now. Once that is done, we’ll arrange a meeting that includes the clients, not just ours but in the civil cases, the other side, our attorneys, and the individual judges and in the criminal cases, of which we thankfully don’t have many, the district attorney will have to be invited.”
Marie stuck her head in the room. “Excuse me, Mr. Hanson, I have Ms. Winston on the line.”
I exchanged a look with Mac who took the hint and said, “I’ll meet up with you when that list is ready.” He left with Marie and she closed the door behind them.
“Hi, babe,” I said when I picked up the line.
“Hi, how’s it going with the police? Was anything taken?”
“I’m afraid so, Alicia. My office and yours were the only ones breached. They took all of our files.”
“Oh my God, Adam! We have all of that information on people who hired us and trusted us to keep issues private? Oh my God!”
“Calm down, sweetheart,” I told her. “I know it sounds really bad, but we’ll fix this, I promise.”
“Are the clients aware?”
“Yes, most of them have been notified. They have been calling or showing up all day. It’s like a three-ring circus around here. Alicia, I’m sorry, but the police need to speak to you, today.”
“Great, that will make my parents’ day,” she said with a sigh. “Adam, why are all of these things happening to us?”
“I don’t know, baby. But we’ll fix it, okay?” I knew it wasn’t much, but it was all I could think of to say right now.
I had thought a lot today about how I had struggled to get through law school on scholarships and student loans. I had worked twenty hours a day sometimes as an associate at the first law firm that hired me, until I finally made partner, and then when I had finally saved enough I had opened my own firm and brought Mac on as a partner.
It had been, up until today, the most successful and respected firm in Manhattan. I knew that if I had accomplished all of that once, I could do it again. I really did plan on fixing it all somehow. I knew too, that it would all be easier with Alicia by my side.