Countdown to
8/8/06
8 days (and counting to Into the Storm, in stores on August 15th)
Note
from Suz: First a correction! My entire readers event in Atlanta
has become such a wonderful blur of fun and laughter, I mis-remembered
yesterday's story from the "Life in the Military" panel. (I got
some emails from attendees, straightening me out! LOL!) Apparently,
it was Alesia who told the story. I've corrected yesterday's page, so go
back and read it again to get the real version.
I may be confused about the details, but here's one thing I know for sure: Both Alesia Holliday and Cathy Mann are both very strong, amazing women, who somehow handle all the fear and worry and uncertainty that comes with being married to a military man. They still manage to laugh, and care for their children -- often alone for months on end -- and write wonderful, RITA-award winning books.
Whew. And I can't even remember who said what a week ago!!!
On to our Countdown page for today, August 8th!
My husband Ed is an author, too. For the past few years, he's been writing legal thrillers for Dell Books. Premeditated Murder, Suffering Fools, and his third book, which will be out next spring, Diary of a Serial Killer, all feature the same two lawyers, Zack Wilson and Terry Tallach. Terry and Zach are not only partners in their own low budget law firm, but they have also been friends since high school. Zach is somewhat laidback and easy-going. Terry is... Well, you're about to meet Terry. He's a very, very passionate person.
Today's countdown features the first part of a story that Ed wrote -- a story that came about as a result of one of us saying to the other (I forget whose idea it was) "Wouldn't it be cool for your characters and my characters to meet?"
And Ed said something like, "Yeah, but when are your characters ever going to come to Massachusetts?" (Terry and Zach are attorneys in Massachusetts. They can't practice law out of state.)
And I said, "You know, Sam Starrett's sister lives in the Boston area. What if her husband came from Western Mass, where Terry and Zach live and work? And what if..."
Well, you're going to have to read the story to see what other what ifs we came up with!
I give you a countdown first...
When Terry Met Sam, Part One!
by Ed Gaffney
Part One of Two
Criminal defense attorney Terry Tallach hated everything about Probate Court.
Okay. Not everything. Probate Court was where Terry’s best friend and partner, Zack Wilson, had adopted a son six years ago.
But other than its role in adoptions, Probate Court pretty much sucked. Most people went there either to get divorced, or to get in a pissing contest over crazy Aunt Henrietta’s will.
Thank God Terry was there only because one of his clients -- a fellow attorney named Robert Nichols -- had been accused of grabbing a fistful of twenty dollar bills from an unattended cash register at a diner. The owner and three customers had ID’d Nichols, but he swore up and down that it was a case of mistaken identity. According to Nichols, he couldn’t have been the robber, because he was arguing a custody motion in the Probate Court when the crime had occurred. Terry had come to see if the court records supported the alibi.
It should have been easy, but come on. This was Massachusetts. The land of Nothing is Easy.
First of all, just getting a freaking parking place was like spending half an hour rubbing sandpaper on your forehead. Apparently, a few busloads of people from Southeast Monkey Butt had decided that walking around the Hamden County Probate Court, screwing up traffic, and holding signs saying things like “God Hates Fags” and "The Apocalypse Is Coming" was a great way to spend the day. Why anyone in the world would care whether Fran and Pat got married in Massachusetts, whatever their sex or sexes, was a mystery. Especially if it was really true that at the final buzzer, God was going to tally up everyone’s score and tell them what fabulous prize they had won. Or that they were going to hell.
Just as Terry was considering how these idiots would like it if he went to their place of work wearing a sandwich board that read “You Know What God Really Hates? Braying Jackasses That Try To Force Their Beliefs Down Everyone Else’s Throats,” the buses opened their doors. Suddenly, the gang all piled in, and off they went.
Probably to bring their message of love and understanding to the next lucky town.
Five minutes later, Terry managed to shoehorn his smokin’ new BMW into a way-too-tight spot thanks to the Hummer that some selfish moron had parked so badly it took up a space and a half.
Terry passed through the metal detectors, and finally entered the cavernous, high-ceilinged, marble-tiled hall with the bank of ancient computer terminals along one wall, and the endless rows of ugly gray and black metal filing cabinets winding around the desks of the legions of clinically depressed government workers who had been exiled here.
This was the perpetual festival of misery known as the Hampden County Probate Court. But not just because it was where hope came to die.
This gigantic room was Satan’s little amusement park because finding something as simple as the docket sheet to a divorce case from last year required filling out a request form and submitting it to Wanda the Terrible.
Wanda Zylanta was a sunken-cheeked, stringy-haired woman of indeterminate age that presided over the twenty foot black stone counter that separated everyone in the Probate Court building from whatever it was they wanted. She had been working there for at least ten years -- Terry had run into her several times in his early days as a lawyer, back when he did things like divorces and wills. As far as he could tell, Wanda’s job was the following: first, take the ludicrously complicated request forms that had been filled out by people desperate enough to go to Probate Court. Next, very, very de-lib-er-ate-ly, use a World War II era intercom system to shriek the requested file number to some poor schmuck who worked on one of the upper floors. And finally, wait five minutes to an hour and a half until the file came flying down a chute, through a hole in the wall, and onto a rickety metal cart stationed underneath.
After the appropriate amount of time had passed, a calculation made by Wanda on a case-by-case basis, generally governed by the number and length of personal phone calls she needed to make, she would mosey over to the cart, compare the file to the request form, and in the forty to sixty percent of the time that the file was correct, hand it, begrudgingly, to the now near-suicidal request-maker.
From his interactions with Wanda, Terry had learned two additional things about the bureaucratic juggernaut: she liked button down sweaters, and she hated him.
The sweater business was out of his control, of course. The hate thing though . . . well, some of that might have been Terry’s fault.
It wasn’t like he was trying to fry her buns. Far from it, actually. The only reason Terry had climbed over the counter that grim, grim Monday several years ago was because Wanda had left her post, and no one knew when she was coming back. Terry was due in court at one o’clock, and he’d handed his request form to Wanda at 12:15. Then he ran out to get lunch, figuring the file would be sitting on the counter for him by the time he returned.
He got back at around quarter to one, only to find no file, and no Wanda. But there were a bunch of folders and loose papers scattered all over the surface of the metal cart at the bottom of the chute. Apparently several files had arrived after Wanda had taken off, and some had disgorged their contents upon landing. It was a pretty serious mess.
It seemed to Terry that even if Wanda were to magically appear, there was no chance she’d move fast enough to sift through all of the documents, reorganize them, find his file among the several scattered there, and give it to him in time for him to make his hearing before Judge Quarrels.
So he figured he’d just climb over the counter, and lend Wanda a hand. You know. Put the right papers in the right folders, and then take the file that he needed, and get to court with minutes to spare.
Clearly, a win-win scenario.
But just as Terry began to sort through the cluttered contents of the cart, he heard Wanda’s voice, from across the vast room, screaming something.
And although the words weren’t quite intelligible, what was crystal clear was that Wanda did not see this as a win-win scenario.
Forty five minutes and several embarrassing conversations later -- the most important of which took place with four Probate Court officers and one state policeman -- Terry managed to convince all concerned, except Wanda, of course, that he had meant no harm.
But Terry never got his file, and he was late to court, for which he received a fifty dollar contempt citation.
It goes without saying that Wanda never forgave him.
It didn’t matter much, actually, because very soon after the incident, Terry and Zack began taking criminal matters exclusively. Wanda soon became just another figure in Terry’s personal pantheon of Human-Nightmares-to-be-Avoided-at-all-Costs.
Yet here he was, years later, about to approach the alter of the Bitch Goddess. And there she was. Same skinny face, same shitty haircut, same ugly sweater.
And then as she handed some sorry loser a file, Wanda noticed Terry watching her, and the look of pure hatred that washed over her face told him everything. He was well and truly fucked.
Good to know the woman didn’t carry a grudge.
Wanda turned her back to him, and picked up the phone. Probably to call in a S.W.A.T. team.
Just then, as if this day weren’t quite bad enough already, fate provided Terry with one final poke in the ass. A male voice with what had to be the most annoying Texas drawl Terry had ever heard began to speak from somewhere behind Terry’s left shoulder. It was saying, “Lys, this does not look like it’s going to be quick. I thought I was heading to the right place, but then I ended up in a room the size of a carrier deck.”
(To be continued...tomorrow!)
When Terry Met Sam
By Ed Gaffney
© 2006 by Ed Gaffney
That's all for now! Be sure to come back tomorrow for Part Two of When Terry Met Sam -- the next installment in the Countdown to INTO THE STORM!
(Note from Suz: I'm going to try to post each new day's countdown page before noon eastern time. Please be patient if I'm a little late...)
See you tomorrow!