The Letter - Chapter 54

I thought back to the previous evening.  It was nice of Ellie to call.  It’s really too bad we weren’t able to connect during her visit to Pittsburgh.  She seems really caring, and smart.  I liked her ideas about my speech.  I’ll focus on expansion of background checks and a few other areas where we might be able to convince the Senator to take our side.  Leave out the statistics.  Be an advocate.  I had a career as a lawyer.  Advocacy is what lawyers do.  

The mail came early today. I received Ellie’s letter which contained the one she had gotten from someone pretending to be me.  It had to be Melissa.  Who else would have sent something like that?  But why?  Hadn’t she hurt me enough already?  The likelihood of Ellie and me getting together romantically with three thousand miles between us is almost nil.  So why sabotage something that probably will never happen?  It’s like the knife she plunged into my heart wasn’t enough.  She noticed I was still alive and decided to give it a good twist.  Well, she might have just given me the means to get Jennifer back home and to keep her here. 

I felt like getting out of the house to clear my head so I could better concentrate on this speech.  I decided to drive downtown and camp out in one of the coffee shops to sketch out some ideas.  And while in town, why not see if I could show my lawyer this letter?  I decided I’d just drop by his office rather than call for an appointment. If Joe McKay wasn’t available, I’d just ask Sheila to make a copy of the letter.  He could call me to discuss it at his convenience.  As luck would have it, Joe had a few minutes between appointments.  Sheila ushered me into his office.

“Joe, I’m sorry to just barge in without an appointment, but I wanted to show you something.”  I

handed him the letter.

He read it silently, and then looked up.  “George, what is this?  Why did you write something like this?  Who is Ellie, and why are you showing this to me?”

“I’m sorry, Joe.  I’d better explain.”  I gave him a brief history of my correspondence with Ellie Kosko and explained why I suspected Melissa was the author of the letter he had just read.  “So do you think this might help us in our custody case?”

“Well, George.  If this actually was written by Melissa, it does show her intent to hurt you.  That might be considered by the judge as some evidence that her motives in the custody case are less than pure – that she’s more interested in hurting you than in helping Jennifer.  But you’re a lawyer.  You have to know that proving this is from Melissa will be next to impossible.  And without that proof, there’s no way we get this before the judge.  I mean, this isn’t a murder case.  We’re not going to be able to dust this document for fingerprints or compare the typing to what comes out of her printer, if that’s even possible.”

“Okay, Joe.  I guess I knew that in my heart, but I wanted to hear you confirm it.”

“Yeah, well I’m glad you brought it to my attention.  I’ll give it some thought and if I come up with any bright ideas about how we might prove this came from Melissa, I’ll give you a call.”

“And I’ll do the same.  So have you heard anything from Lutz?”

“As a matter of fact, I was going to call you.  I called Sidney to see what they planned to do.  Until the court takes action on Melissa’s petition, she doesn’t have a legal right to keep Jennifer at her place.  Sidney almost admitted it, but he put me off.  Apparently, he’s talked to Richard and Richard is flying back early.  The sense I got was that Melissa did this without discussing it with Richard.  Richard knows they’ve got no legal basis, and I think he recognizes this could torpedo his campaign for Congress.  I’m hopeful that Jennifer will be back at home by the weekend.  As far as the custody hearing goes, they’ve assigned it to Judge Marcia Collins.  We got lucky there.  She’ll focus on the facts and is good at separating the wheat from the chaff.”

“Are they still pushing the abuse angle?”

“Sidney was really reticent when I pressed on that.  I think they’re likely to drop it.  So maybe we’re back to looking at some kind of shared arrangement.  That’s progress.”

“So maybe we won’t need that letter?”

“Maybe not.  But if you find any proof of its authorship, you better let me know.  Okay?”

Sheila knocked and then stuck her head in the door. “Mr. McKay, your eleven o’clock is here.”

“I’ve already taken too much of your time, Joe.  Thanks.”  I followed Sheila out the door.  As I walked back to the coffee shop, I thought about my phone call with Ellie and the encouraging news from my lawyer.  This could be a very good week.