Hugh pushed his call button again, and spoke into the Bluetooth headset microphone, “Call Roc.”
“Roc, I’ve heard from Jenny’s kidnappers, and I have an address where they are holding her. How soon can you get to Phoenix?”
“The boys are all ready. We can leave right away. About seven hours.”
That would be around three-ish. Hugh told him the address for his WestAm terminal in West Phoenix, and said he would meet them there.
Hugh spent the rest of the time driving down to Phoenix working out the bones of a plan. It was complicated, with a lot of moving parts, and some unknowns that could alter his plans, but he was comfortable with the gist of it.
Hugh pulled into the WestAm terminal around ten, parked, then went into the terminal office.
His dispatcher, Gloria, saw him standing at the counter. She gestured to him to come to her work station and buzzed him through the gate.
As he walked toward her, he glanced around the center, looking over the dozen or so other dispatchers working there. He wondered which of them was the one who had caused so much trouble for him. The fact that he knew it was a female was no help, since all the dispatchers were women.
“Hugh, I’m glad you’re here. A couple of things,” Gloria said. “Because of the circumstances, you’re being relieved of your load and won’t make your delivery. When you get a chance, drop it, and a day cab driver will ferry it over to the Costco DC.”
“That’s a relief, thanks,” Hugh said. He knew he had a lot to do between now and tomorrow late morning when he had to appear for the deposition.
“The other thing is you’re supposed to go upstairs immediately to the terminal administrator’s office. You’re meeting with an attorney who is going to go over your testimony with you.”
In the terminal administrator’s office, Hugh was introduced to Grant Elliot Johnston III, attorney for Western America Trucking, Inc. Also present was the terminal administrator, Warren Bufont.
“Sit down, Hugh,” Warren said.
Hugh sat on one side of a conference table. Johnston and Bufont sat on the other.
“This is a routine deposition,” the attorney said. “It’s common to virtually all lawsuits, and is part of the discovery process.”
Hugh nodded.
“You will be under oath, but it will take place in a casual setting. A judge will not be present, and I will be at your side the whole time.”
“Where’s it going to be?”
“At the law offices of Bill Fishburn in Scottsdale.”
“OK.”
“I’ve gone over your notes about the accident. I’ve got the report from the responding highway patrol trooper, and I’ve seen the dash cam footage you have provided. Together, all those are exculpatory of your culpability in causing the accident. So, we aren’t worried on that count.”
“But?” Hugh asked.
“But, depositions can be like walking through a mine field,” the attorney replied. “Everything you say in the deposition can and will be used against you during the trial. Make one mistake, or tell one little lie during this deposition, and opposing attorney will be all over it in the trial.”
“All I know is what I saw.”
“Just stick to the truth and the facts.”
Hugh assumed the meeting was over, and started to rise to leave.
“Wait. There’s something else,” Johnston said.
Hugh sat down again.
“I’ve been in contact with our insurance provider. They have run an ISO database search on Fishburn, and they have some deep concerns,” the attorney said.
“ISO?” Hugh asked.
“That’s Insurance Services Office. It’s an organization that maintains a database of every insurance claim filed nationwide. Billions of them by now. Red flags pop up when claims are filed too often by the same insured, or when an attorney’s name appears too regularly.”
“I see, so this attorney, Fishburn, has been on some kind of watch list,” Hugh said.
“That’s right. It could mean he’s a diligent lawyer who happens to get a lot of truck-crash cases. Or it could mean he’s got something crooked going on.”
Hugh knew a lot more about that than he was letting on … for now. He wasn’t going to reveal what he knew until he could be sure Jenny would be safe.
“The problem,” the attorney went on, “is we don’t have proof of complicity by this attorney in your particular accident; only suspicions based on the circumstances.”
Johnston told Hugh the deposition was at eleven tomorrow morning in Scottsdale, and he would pick up Hugh at the terminal at ten to drive over together.
The first thing Hugh did after the meeting was drop his trailer, and park his truck in the bobtail section of the terminal yard.
The second thing he did was return to the dispatch center to have a talk with his dispatcher, Gloria.
“Gloria, honey,” Hugh started, “you know some of what’s been going on with me lately. Right”
“Yeah, I’ve talked to James.”
“I’m looking for someone here who has a boyfriend, probably a guy who has sat down next to her here and has seen how things work.”
“Several of us are married. Some don’t have boyfriends. So, it could be only a couple of the girls here.”
“I have to sign a log every time I come through the door to the dispatch center. Is there any chance you could check the log for me for someone visiting a dispatcher here, so I can get a name?”
“For you, Hugh, sure.” Gloria was the best dispatcher ever.
She went to the front counter and turned the clipboard around so she could thumb back through the pages.
“Only one unmarried person here has had someone visit.”
She wrote the name, address and phone number of the visitor.
“Does it say who he visits?”
“Yeah, it’s Janine,” Gloria said, pointing to a
