Death Comes For Christmas

Chapter 5 ~ December 18

Chapter 5 ~ December 18 Byron’s Lump of CoalAs Camelia made her way to Byron McCaffrey’s office, she rifled through her mind, scanning recent events to find the flaws, the horrible oversights, the incredibly stupid mistakes, proof that she was nothing more than a mediocre imposter who should never have been hired in the first place. Had that windbag Spencer Ashcroft called Byron about her panic attack in the bathroom after Anders’ heart attack? If so, she’d never make partner. And now, thanks to Auntie Freda, she’d kept Byron waiting.

As founding partner of McCaffrey Rhodes & Rodriguez, Byron was an experienced—and ruthless—criminal defense attorney with the instincts of a great white shark. Byron’s office looked like him: serious, successful, masculine, intimidating. He was on the phone when Camelia approached, so she hovered in the open doorway until he waved her in.

“Okay, thanks Rick, I’ll let the client know, and we’ll get back to you next week,” Bryon said, as he hung up the phone. “Shut the door, Cam.”

The set of his jaw was a warning. This meeting wasn’t going to be pleasant. Camelia pushed the door shut and perched on the edge of one of the leather chairs facing his ornate, antique desk.

“Cate said you wanted to see me? What’s...” Camelia began.

Byron slammed his palm on the desk.

“Stop. Talking. Everyone—everyone—has heard by now that Camelia Belmont lost it in Court and blacked out in the ladies’ room stinking of booze. Let that sink in. I’m not kidding, Cam. If you intend to keep your job, you’ve gotta lay off the alcohol,” Byron said, glaring. “And whatever else you’re adding to the mix these days,” he added.

So here it was. The talk she’d been dreading since Monday.

Fucking Ashcroft.

She cleared her throat. Her mouth tasted of last night’s wine and... well, to be honest, this morning’s vodka. She wished she were spending more time defending justice than defending herself, and now that she was facing Byron’s accusations, she regretted that little splash in her coffee mug.

Can he smell it?

Camelia let out a mirthless laugh. “I didn’t lose it, and we weren’t in the middle of a hearing. Who’s saying all this crap?” she asked, knowing full well who was responsible.

“I was at Durant’s last night for dinner. Spencer Ashcroft couldn’t wait to tell anyone who would listen. And everyone at the bar was listening.” Byron drew a ragged breath as if exhausted by the tawdriness of it all. “I saw your potential six years ago when I hired you and I still do, but your habits are getting ahead of you. Potential requires performance.”

“Isn’t this a bit of the pot calling the kettle...”

“No, Cam, it isn’t,” Byron interrupted, anger coating his words in contempt. “There’s a big difference between having a pint with lunch versus passing out in a Courthouse bathroom at 9 a.m., and I shouldn’t even have to say it. And this isn’t about me, it’s about you and your future at the firm, so don’t quibble. You’ve got a lot of clean up to do.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, clasped his long fingers, and rested his chin there for a moment, staring at the legal pad in front of him. Typical Byron. Finessing his words to jab just so. Camelia knew she couldn’t outmaneuver him, so she waited. When he looked up, his eyes revealed only resolve, no mercy.

“Seriously, Cam, I wanted to discuss this privately, in person, because it has to stop. Your ego is probably writhing in pain right about now, and frankly, it should be. Word of your bathroom scene has traveled like wildfire. On top of that, your former client is suing for malpractice and claims you smelled of alcohol at a meeting. I can’t afford to look the other way. Not this time.” He smoothed his heavy grey silk tie with his palm and twisted his neck to one side, like a boxer readying for a fight.

“I know how it sounds, but it wasn’t... Ashcroft took a lot of creative license,” Camelia said.

She’d spent all these years camouflaging her demons in order to impress Byron. She couldn’t very well confess now. There was too much on the line.

“Whatever. The actual truth doesn’t matter. What matters is how it looks, and you know it. Do you think anyone cares about your side of the story? Not that vulture, Ashcroft, that’s for sure.”

“I get it. But I didn’t pass out. I sort of fainted. I think it was low blood sugar,” she said, but her words sounded weak even to her. It was no defense against the rabid rumor mill of the Phoenix legal community.

Breathe. Focus. Act contrite.

There was nothing else to say. The humiliating scene replayed in her head like a movie.

Anders had his heart attack. The deputy wanted her statement.

A statement about what? I don’t know anything!

She was there, in the Courthouse bathroom, panting, sweating, the grip of a full blown panic attack wrapping around her like a python, squeezing the air out of her. She slid down the wall onto the floor, pulling her knees close. The terrazzo floor smelled of urine and disinfectant. Bile rose in her throat.

Ma’am. are you okay?

I think she might be sick or something, a woman said.

Camelia saw Spencer Ashcroft leering over the cop’s shoulder.

A bit too much hair of the dog, Belmont?

“Are you listening?” Byron said.

“Yes, of course,” Camelia said, gripping the seams of her trousers with sweaty hands. She tried to calm her hammering heart as it banged away, constructing its own gallows.

“I didn’t bring this to all the partners out of consideration for your privacy, but I talked to the name partners this morning. Trent and Arturo are with me on this. You’ve got ‘til the end of January—six weeks—to demonstrably clean up your side of the street, or we’re gonna have to part ways.”

Byron was the kind of person who used words like demonstrably in everyday conversation. He tapped his Montblanc pen on the legal pad in front of him, more or less keeping time to the pounding in Camelia’s head.

He wouldn’t actually fire me, would he?

But she knew he would.

“Just a reminder, I’m going out of town for Christmas. I’m supposed to leave on Sunday. This trip’s been booked for months, so I hope that’s not a problem now,” she said. She could readily imagine the fight with Leon if she had to cancel their trip.

“Not the best timing, Cam, but maybe the break will do you good. Give you some perspective on your behavior and time to think about your future with the firm.” The vein running up Byron’s left temple was like a barometer indicating the level of his fury; right now it was thumping in bas relief.

“I want to make sure I clearly understand. Can you tell me, in measurable terms, what you require from me in order to make partner?” she asked, attempting to appear professional and cooperative, even though her pulse was racing.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! Are you even listening? First off, we’re not even discussing partner right now. This is about you keeping your damn job. In measurable terms, I want you to get sober. In measurable terms, I want you to bill more than 25 or 30 hours a week. In measurable terms, I want you to bring home some bacon instead of just eating whatever the firm feeds you. In measurable terms, I want you to be partner material and not just another shitty associate who has to be micro-managed. Is that clear enough for you?”

A red-hot slap of shame rushed to her cheeks. Camelia’s eyes filled with tears, even though now was most definitely not the time to get histrionic. That was how Byron had once described a sobbing secretary. Camelia’s tongue was thick and her throat was dry. She carefully sipped her spiked coffee, blinking toward the wall of windows facing Camelback Mountain, trying to compose herself.

Byron’s pen tapping was more insistent now. The combined percussion of her headache, heart rate, and his pen was making her sweat and pushing bile up her throat.

Why couldn’t he just stop stop stop that incessant tapping?

“Okay, I get it. I just want to make sure I’m coloring inside the lines.”

There was an element of challenge in her tone and Byron’s temper crackled.

“Do not blow me off or you know how this conversation will end. Can you please for just one f*****g minute listen to me? I’m trying to help you before you crash and burn. And Cam, you will crash and burn, if you keep this up.” Byron’s eyes darkened and his prominent jaw clenched repeatedly, as if he were chewing the bones of his enemies. He looked every bit the Irish Viking, and his childhood brogue, usually kept under wraps, was flaring out at the edge of his words. “But you’re not taking the firm down with you. We have a reputation to protect, and I won’t sit by and let you drag us through the mud with your... what should I call it? Alcoholic bullshit?”

Camelia flinched. No one had called her an alcoholic before, not seriously. She recognized this tone. It was condescending and biting and there was no percentage in arguing. Byron was an intensely virulent litigator, and he could eviscerate her with her own words. Just like he did with pretty much every witness he cross-examined. He smoothed the paper in front of him and laid his pen aside.

“Go to AA or rehab or whatever you need to do, but get your s**t sorted by the end of January. Is that clear enough for you?”

“It’s clear. How do you want the results quantified?” she asked, feeling the defiance in her voice.

“Jesus,” he said, and shook his head. “I want the results quantified by showing up to work without a hangover and coming back from lunch sober. I was going to leave this at a verbal warning, but it sounds like you need it in writing, so I’ll draft a memo to the file, with measurable goals. Will that be clear enough for you?”

Camelia fought to swallow the lump in her throat. She couldn’t very well recite her entire mental health history or reveal that she was relying on a cocktail of anxiety meds just to make it through the day. Performing in a courtroom week after week was like being held under water: she couldn’t breathe, the emotional darkness engulfed her, and she was never more than a few heartbeats away from collapsing. But she couldn’t say any of that. Weakness didn’t play well in the firm—any firm, really—but particularly a high-profile criminal defense firm. She took a deep breath and blinked back the tears.

“It was just low blood sugar. It won’t happen again,” she said.

Byron huffed out a bit of scorn and flipped the pages of his desk calendar. “Whatever. This is not a three-strike situation, by the way,” he said, and circled January 31 on the page. “First and last chance. Don’t f**k this up.”

“Got it,” she said, and rose to leave.

“Sit your ass back down, we still have actual work to do, in case you’ve forgotten,” Byron snapped. And just like that, he was on to other things, as if he hadn’t just gutted her.

Byron and Camelia went through her case list in staccato form, using the shorthand common in the office, straight to the deadlines, eliminating all the unnecessary words that might take another second away from billing.

“Anything else?” she asked, as they reached the last case. Camelia stood to go.

“No. That’s it. Think about what I said, Cam. I don’t want to replace you,” Byron said.

His tone had softened, but Camelia heard the unsaid end to the sentence. Byron would replace her if she didn’t clean up her act. And soon.

Camelia trudged back to her office with the weight of Bryon’s accusations pulling her shoulders into a slump.

Alcoholic. Just like dad.

She locked her office door and collapsed into her chair, contemplating Camelback Mountain through a shimmer of tears. Not that the sandstone hills had any answers, but it was soothing to watch shadows play on the rocks. Clouds were gathering, and it looked like they might get some winter rain.

She’d heard somewhere that water symbolized emotion, so what did the bone dry desert represent? Why did she always feel like she was drowning, gasping for air, struggling to reach the surface? And what of the Canadian prairies, awaiting her return? Were the deep drifts of snow a vast community of frozen feelings just waiting to inundate everyone with all the nasty little things they’d put on ice winter after winter?

Camelia tossed back the last of her coffee and vodka. She knew she was in trouble, and not just with Byron. But was she actually an alcoholic? She could feel the current beneath her quickening, picking up speed, heading for... something out of her control.

But there was still plenty of time to change, to fix it, to start over, stop drinking, get focused, clean up her mess.

Wasn’t there?

She drained the copper flask into her coffee mug.

Might as well finish it off.

She turned back to the pile of documents on her desk. Vacation couldn’t come soon enough.