David picked up a package containing three different dinosaurs, all small enough for a toddler to chew on but too large to swallow. All three were painted shades of green. Only a scientist like Sandroni could scrape off the paint and test for lead, but after a month of exhaustive research David was convinced that most of the cheapest toys were contaminated. The dinosaurs were sold by Larkette Industries, Mobile, Alabama, and made in China. He had seen the name Larkette as a defendant in several lawsuits.
As he held the dinosaurs, his mind was carried away by the absurdity of it all. A cheap toy is made five thousand miles away, for pennies, decorated with lead paint, imported into the United States, passed along the distribution system until it lands here, in a giant flea market, where it’s offered for $1.99, where it’s purchased by the poorest customers, taken home, presented to the child, who chews on it, then ends up in a hospital, brain damaged and ruined for life. Where are all of those consumer protection laws, inspectors, bureaucrats?
Not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars required to treat the child and support him for his lifetime.
“You buy?” the tiny Hispanic woman barked.
“No thanks,” David said, coming back to reality. He placed the toys back in the pile and turned away.
“Any sign of Nasty Teeth?” he asked as he stepped behind Helen.
“Not a thing.”
“I’m freezing. Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER 21
As scheduled by Judge Seawright’s clerk, the depositions of Finley & Figg’s Krayoxx clients began promptly at 9:00 a.m. in a ballroom of the Downtown Marriott. Since the defendant, Varrick Labs, was picking up the tab for the depositions, there was a generous spread of rolls and pastries, along with coffee, tea, and juice. A long table had been arranged with a video camera at one end and a witness chair at the other.
Iris Klopeck was the first witness. She had called 911 the day before and rode in an ambulance to the hospital, where they treated her for arrhythmia and hypertension. Her nerves were shot, and she told Wally several times she could not go through with the lawsuit. He mentioned, more than once, that if she could tough it out, she would soon be receiving a large check, “probably a million bucks,” and this helped somewhat. Also helping was a supply of Xanax, so when Iris took the witness chair and looked at the legion of lawyers, she was fairly glassy-eyed and drifting off to la-la land. Still, she at first froze and looked helplessly at her lawyer.
“It’s just a deposition,” Wally had repeated. “There’ll be a lot of lawyers there, but they’re nice people, for the most part.”
They didn’t look nice. To her left was a line of intense young men in dark suits and frowns. They were already scratching away on their yellow legal pads, and she hadn’t said a word. The nearest lawyer to her was an attractive woman who smiled and helped Iris settle down. To her right were Wally and his two sidekicks.
The woman said, “Ms. Klopeck, my name is Nadine Karros, and I’m the lead lawyer for Varrick Labs. We’re going to take your deposition over the next two hours, and I want you to try to relax. I promise I will not try to trick you. If you don’t understand a question, don’t answer it. I’ll just repeat it. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” Iris said, seeing double.
Next to Iris was a court reporter who said, “Raise your right hand.” Iris did so, then swore to tell the truth.
Ms. Karros said, “Now, Ms. Klopeck, I’m sure your attorneys have explained that we are making a video of your deposition, and this might be used in court if for some reason you’re unable to testify. Do you understand this?”
“I think so.”
“So if you’ll look at the camera when you talk, we’ll do just fine.”
“I’ll try, yes, I can do that.”
“Great. Ms. Klopeck, are you currently taking any medication?”
Iris stared at the camera as if waiting for it to tell her what to say. She took eleven pills a day for diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, erratic heartbeat, arthritis, kidney stones, and a few other ailments, but the one she worried about was Xanax because it could affect her mental state. Wally had suggested she skip any discussion about Xanax if asked the question, and here, right off the bat, Ms. Karros was digging.
She giggled. “Sure, I’m on a lot of meds.”
It took fifteen minutes to straighten them out, with no help from the Xanax, and just when Iris got to the bottom of the list, she remembered another one and blurted, “And I used to take Krayoxx but not anymore. That stuff’ll kill you.”
Wally roared with laughter. Oscar thought it was funny too. David suppressed a chuckle by looking directly across the table at the stone-faced boys from Rogan Rothberg, not a single one of whom would allow himself even a grin. But Nadine smiled and said, “Is that all, Ms. Klopeck?”
“I think so,” she said, still not sure.
“So, you’re taking nothing that would affect your judgment, memory, or ability to give truthful answers?”
Iris glanced at Wally, who hid behind a legal pad, and for a second it was obvious that something was going unsaid. “That’s correct,” Iris said.
“Nothing for depression, stress, panic attacks, anxiety disorders?”
It was as if Ms. Karros were reading Iris’s mind and knew she was lying. Iris was about to choke when she said, “Not normally.”
Ten minutes later they were still grappling with “not normally,” and Iris finally admitted that she popped a Xanax “every now and then.” She proved sufficiently elusive, though, when Ms. Karros tried to pin her down on her Xanax use. She stumbled when she referred to the drug as her “happy pills,” but plowed on. In spite of her thick tongue and drooping eyelids, Iris assured the wall of lawyers to her left that she was clearheaded and ready to roll.
Address, birth dates, family members, employment, education, the deposition quickly sank into tedium as Nadine and Iris fleshed out the Klopeck family, with emphasis on Percy, the departed. Iris, with increasing lucidity, managed to choke up twice when talking about her beloved husband, dead now for almost two years. Ms. Karros probed into Percy’s health and habits—drinking, smoking, exercise, diet—and as much as she tried to whip the old boy into shape, Iris did a fair job of portraying him with accuracy. Percy came across as a fat, sick man who ate bad food, drank too much beer, and rarely left the sofa. “But he quit smoking,” Iris added at least twice.
They took a break after an hour, and Oscar excused himself, saying he had to be in court, but Wally was suspicious. He had arm-twisted his senior partner to show up at the depositions, sort of a show of force in the face of the ground troops Rogan Rothberg would send in, though it was doubtful the presence of Oscar Finley would rattle the defense. When fully manned, the Finley & Figg side of the table had three lawyers, now minus one. Ten feet away, on the other side, Wally counted eight.
Seven lawyers to sit and take the same notes while one did the talking? Ridiculous. But then Wally began thinking, as Iris droned on, that perhaps the show of force was a good thing. Perhaps Varrick was so worried that they had instructed Rogan Rothberg to spare no expense. Maybe Finley & Figg had them on the ropes and didn’t realize it.
When they resumed the deposition, Nadine prompted Iris to begin talking about Percy’s medical history, and Wally zoned out. He was still irritated that Jerry Alisandros had once again skipped the proceedings. At first, Alisandros had big plans to attend the depositions with his entourage, to make his first dramatic entrance into the case, to do battle with Rogan Rothberg and stake out some turf. But another last-minute urgency, this one in Seattle, proved more important. “It’s only depositions,” Alisandros told an agitated Wally on the phone the day before. “Pretty basic stuff.”