16
Three and a half weeks later, a week before the custody hearing was scheduled and twenty-five minutes after his secretary buzzed him to say Ned Merrick had arrived for their 1:00 p.m. meeting, Joseph pushed the intercom button on his phone and told his secretary to send him in.
“I was about to leave,” Ned, dressed in a dark suit, said after entering his office.
“You should have.” Joseph lifted his eyes from his computer screen. “I’m busy and I have a lot more important things to do than save your ass.”
“Excuse me?” Ned lowered himself into one of the chairs in front of Joseph’s desk. “How could you possibly save my ass? Lia’s the one who needs saving, considering our custody hearing is a week from today and you’ve been sleeping with her while my impressionable six year old is in the house. I think you should lose the cocky attitude. That’s right,” Ned continued when Joseph didn’t comment, “I’ve had a detective watching the apartment and taking pictures for the past month. I think Lia needs to start packing Taylor’s bags.”
Joseph tapped his pen on his desk as he stared at Ned. “Are you done?”
Ned shrugged. “For now.”
“I’ve found some discrepancies in your time records.” Joseph opened a file on his desk. “It seems your wife was mistakenly billing some of your hours on her time sheets.” He picked up one of Candice’s time sheets and tossed it towards him.
Ned scrambled to pick it up off the floor as Joseph continued. “Your Accounting Department was generous enough to share her time sheets from June of last year with us.”
“What in the fuck are you talking about?”
“You were billing approximately a third of your hours on your time sheets, and your wife was claiming the other two-thirds of your hours on her time sheets.” He tossed him another sheet of paper. “Based on the June total of five hundred and twenty-five hours, I extrapolated your actual hours out over all your time sheets to correct the errors. For that month, I added a hundred and sixty. In this month”—he picked up another sheet of paper and tossed it towards him—“I added a hundred forty, in this one a hundred fifty.” He continued to rattle off numbers and toss sheets at Ned until he’d accounted for seventeen months of records and there were sheets all over the floor surrounding him.
“I know it was a mistake because, if it was intentional, I’d have to report you.” He looked up from the folder and met Ned’s eyes. “You know, Counselor, it’s a disbarrable offense to charge a client for work that wasn’t performed.”
“What in the hell are you talking about?” Ned was out of his chair. “That work was performed.”
“Not by C. Merrick, it wasn’t. The work was performed by N. Merrick, and before you waste any more of my time or insult my intelligence further,” Joseph continued, holding up his hand, “we’ve been through the court documents. We know she wasn’t even involved with most of those clients. We figure your wife owes you about a hundred thousand dollars.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ned said, his face red. “All your conclusions are wrong.”
“Like I said earlier, we believe they are legitimate mistakes, because if you were actually letting your wife receive money for services you performed so your salary would look lower during your divorce settlement, that would be a federal crime as well. You could be disbarred and go to jail. Of course, we know you’re not stupid, so we’ll assume it was a computer glitch at your firm. A glitch that seems to have corrected itself based on the recent data, so now there is the little matter of straightening out the prior mistake.” He extracted a sheet of paper from the open file on his desk. “Based on our calculations, this is how much money you owe in back child support and rehabilitative alimony.” He handed the paper to Ned.
“You’re out of your mind,” Ned said after studying the sheet for a few moments. “Even if your theory was accurate, which it isn’t, these figures are ludicrous.”
“They’re based on a seventy-hour work week, and we added eight percent interest.”
“Eight percent!” Ned dropped the sheet on Joseph’s desk. “That’s obscene.”
“I think eight percent is generous on our part, considering the money should have been Lia’s all along and you, or rather Candice, was borrowing it.”
“I’m not paying her a dime. Go ahead and disbar me. We’ll see how much money she collects then. If I’m out of work, she won’t even be able to afford the apartment she’s living in now, and she’ll have you to thank.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Have you noticed the diamond on Lia’s hand?” Joseph slowly came to his feet. “She’s going to be my wife. And based on these figures, I make more in a couple days than you make in a year, so financially it won’t make a bit of difference whether you’re employed or not. In fact,” he paused as he walked around the desk and came to stand directly in front of Ned, “Lia’s the one who convinced me it was a mistake. I wanted to report you to the bar without this discussion. But for some reason, Lia didn’t want to believe Taylor’s father could be such a crook, so I told her I’d discuss it with you and give you the benefit of the doubt.”
He reached behind himself and picked up the settlement paper. “It’s your choice, Merrick. If it was a legitimate mistake, you can go home and, between you and your wife, scrounge together twenty-five thousand dollars and have a certified check delivered to my office within five days. If I don’t receive it, I’ll assume it wasn’t a mistake, and I’ll be forced to turn my evidence over to the bar.” He held out the sheet of paper. “It’s your decision.”
“This is extortion.”
“I don’t think so.” Joseph continued to look down at him. “One more thing before you go.” Again, he reached back and picked up a sheet of paper from his desk. “This is the invoice for my time.”
“You’ve got to be joking.”
“I don’t joke about money.” He tossed the sheet of paper at Ned before resuming his seat behind his desk. “I told you at the hospital, if I found any mistakes in your divorce settlement, you’d pay me for my time. I spent twenty hours on you.”
“Twenty hours,” Ned repeated, looking down at the invoice. “You expect me to pay you twenty thousand dollars?”
“And that doesn’t include John Bianchi’s time. He said he’d send his bill directly to your office.” Joseph picked up his reading glasses and slipped them on. “Any questions?”
Ned’s face was pale when he lifted his gaze from the invoice. “I don’t have this kind of money lying around.”
“Then I recommend you take out a loan. I have another meeting in ten minutes I need to prepare for, so…” He nodded towards the door.
Ned didn’t say a word as he came to his feet and headed towards the door to Joseph’s office.
“Oh, one more thing.” Joseph’s voice had Ned turning back towards the desk. “I’m assuming when we meet before the judge next week, we’ll be discussing an increase in child support, nothing more.”
“No.” Ned shook his head. “I still want custody.”
“If that’s your decision, I’ll have no choice but to provide the information I’ve gathered about you during the hearing. If you could make mistakes like these, you really don’t appear responsible enough to be a full-time father.”
“You son of a bitch!” Ned crossed back to the desk. “You’re blackmailing me into giving up custody of my daughter.”
“Careful, Merrick.” Joseph leaned back in his chair as he met his eyes. “I don’t appreciate your tone or your accusation. I suggest you take a few deep breaths and walk out that door. If you don’t, I’ll be forced to charge you another thousand for my time.”
“You—”
“Now!” Joseph interrupted, raising his eyebrows. “This discussion is over.” He closed the folder on his desk. “Another word and I’ll increase the invoice you’re holding by a thousand dollars.”
Ned hesitated only a moment before turning on his heels and leaving the office.