The telephone's insistent ringing at three in the morning snatched Sam Workman from dreamless sleep. "Hello," he mumbled. "This is a warning," said a digitally altered voice. "Leave Betterton now! If you don't, you won't live long enough to regret it." "Who is this?" Sam angrily demanded to a dead line. "Unknown name, unknown number," blinked the call identifier. "Coward!" Workman growled and slammed down the receiver. The call was the first episode in a conspiracy to force Sam and his business, B&W Concrete, out of Betterton or destroy them. Followed were attempts to oust B&W from two construction projects, a hospital addition and an engine plant, totaling $400 million in construction costs to yield B&W $10 million profits. Sam retains attorney Penn Roman to stem the tide of disastrous actions drowning B&W in a flood of claims of incompetency and fraud and more threats and violence against Sam, Penn, and Penn's family. When a testing lab employee working on the projects disappears, and the newspaper prints libelous articles condemning B&W, Penn and Sam find themselves entangled in a web of greed, deceit, violence, and murder. Courageously, they face the schemers in an explosive and telling trial to the finish.
Thumbs Down
a novelBy David CauthenAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 David Cauthen
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4490-7142-4 Contents
TABLE OF CHARACTERS AND NAMES...............................................XCHAPTER 1 – THREATS...................................................1CHAPTER 2 – ROMAN & NORTH.............................................5CHAPTER 3 – THE ODD COUPLE............................................13CHAPTER 4 – DISTRACTIONS..............................................18CHAPTER 5 – POLITICS..................................................23CHAPTER 6 – FESTERING NEMESES.........................................26CHAPTER 7 – JOCKEYING FOR POSITION....................................44CHAPTER 8 – A PLAN OF ACTION..........................................51CHAPTER 9 – THROWING DOWN THE GAUNTLET................................57CHAPTER 10 – ALLIANCES AND CONSPIRACIES...............................72CHAPTER 11 – STACKING THE DECK........................................84CHAPTER 12 – SMOKE SCREENS............................................99CHAPTER 13 – MORE TROUBLE.............................................108CHAPTER 14 – BAD BREAKS...............................................120CHAPTER 15 – BAITING THE TRAP AND HAPPY INTERLUDE.....................136CHAPTER 16 – AN UNEXPECTED ALLY.......................................141CHAPTER 17 – FATAL DISCOVERY..........................................150CHAPTER 18 – MONEY AND MONKEY BUSINESS................................164CHAPTER 19 – LUST, STUPIDITY, AND DEATH...............................177CHAPTER 20 – PIECES OF THE PUZZLE.....................................190CHAPTER 21 – INVESTIGATION AND COINCIDENCE............................199CHAPTER 22 – CONNECTING THE DOTS......................................211CHAPTER 23 – TYING RATS' TALES TOGETHER...............................219CHAPTER 24 – BLOOD, WATER, AND BANK ACCOUNTS..........................224CHAPTER 25 – TOE IN THE DOOR..........................................239CHAPTER 26 – EXPLORING THE PAST.......................................252CHAPTER 27 – THE DIKE SPRINGS A LEAK..................................272CHAPTER 28 – A BIG BREAK..............................................286CHAPTER 29 – DESPERATION..............................................300CHAPTER 30 – UNRAVELING TAPESTRY......................................322CHAPTER 31 – HORROR AND TEST OF WILLS.................................342CHAPTER 32 – TROUBLE IN THE RANKS.....................................355CHAPTER 33 – THE PAST REVISITED.......................................366CHAPTER 34 – MORE LEAKS IN THE DIKE...................................377CHAPTER 35 – UNEXPECTED BOOSTS........................................389CHAPTER 36 – ROCKY BEGINNING..........................................398CHAPTER 37 – FACING HARD FACTS........................................411CHAPTER 38 – CALL YOUR FIRST WITNESS..................................425CHAPTER 39 – MORE TERROR..............................................433CHAPTER 40 – UNORTHODOX STRATEGY......................................451CHAPTER 41 – DOUBLE REVERSE...........................................481CHAPTER 42 – FREE-FOR-ALL.............................................495CHAPTER 43 – BACKUPS AND CROSS-TAGS...................................505CHAPTER 44 – LISTENERS AND BOOBY TRAPS................................515CHAPTER 45 – ALLIES AND FORMER ENEMIES................................534CHAPTER 46 – WORDS FROM THE GRAVE.....................................544CHAPTER 47 – THE MEDIA SPEAKS.........................................553CHAPTER 48 – SELF-DEFENSE.............................................564CHAPTER 49 – FACTUAL QUICKSAND........................................585CHAPTER 50 – PROVING THE TRUTH........................................596CHAPTER 51 – INDISPUTABLE EVIDENCE....................................613CHAPTER 52 – FATAL VISIT..............................................621CHAPTER 53 – THE WEB TIGHTENS.........................................636CHAPTER 54 – BLIND FOLLOWERS..........................................644CHAPTER 55 – ANOTHER DEFECTION........................................646CHAPTER 56 – THE DEAF HEAR, THE DUMB SPEAK............................650CHAPTER 57 – ANOTHER REVELATION.......................................663CHAPTER 58 – LADY JUSTICE SPEAKS......................................668EPILOGUE....................................................................685ACKNOWLEDGMENT..............................................................691
Chapter One
THREATS
The bedroom telephone's insistent ringing at two o'clock Monday morning catapulted Sam Workman from a deep, dreamless sleep.
Hello," he mumbled as he almost dropped the receiver, unsure he was speaking into the mouthpiece end.
"This is a warning," the digitally altered voice announced. "Get out of Betterton now. If you don't, you'll wish you had."
The words belted Sam from confusion to red-hot anger. With his free hand, he threw back the bedcovers, jerked his long, muscular frame out of bed, and switched on the bedside lamp.
"Who is this?" his normally slow, calm Southern voice growled. His handsome face was flushed, thick, brown hair disheveled. His ice-blue eyes reflected the harsh light.
The line went dead before he could say more.
"Unknown name, unknown number," the illuminated call-identifier blinked.
"Coward!" Workman muttered with disgust into the receiver before slamming it down on its carriage.
He lay down again but couldn't sleep as the sinister, robot-like voice repeatedly played in his mind.
* * *
"First, the malicious rumors my concrete's bad and I'm going out of business," Sam grumbled to Von, B&W Concrete Company's able and faithful secretary and dispatcher, later that morning as he irritably entered the office in Betterton, Alabama.
"You look beat," Von said as she removed her reading glasses and took a closer look at her boss. "What's the matter?"
"Had a bad night. Before daylight I got a threatening phone call telling me to leave town."
"We got one here, too!" Von interrupted excitedly. "It was on the answering machine when I came in."
"What did it say?"
"A man's voice. Sounded weird. Said you better take the warning seriously and leave Betterton," Von exclaimed and frowned. "Said if you didn't, you could get yourself killed. Why would anyone threaten you?"
"You got me!"
"The voice was disguised, sounded automated," Von added in a nervous, high-pitched voice. "Call-identifier was no help.
"Whoever it was, you need to find out and fast. The caller sounded serious. We've never had a call like that before."
"Play it back."
Von punched the message replay button on the telephone. The voice and the substance of the message were similar to those in the call to Sam's apartment earlier that morning except for the threat on Sam's life. The caller ended, saying, "Workman, you better take this warning seriously."
"Must be getting to the competition," Sam quipped with light-heartedness he didn't feel. "It's probably just a prank."
"Well, Mr. Sam Workman," a pale Von retorted, "you'd better take it seriously. I do."
* * *
The unsigned, handwritten note in B&W's mailbox the next morning read:
If you don't leave Betterton now, your days are numbered. If you want to stay healthy, take your company and get out.
"We need to talk," Sam told Benny Boothe, his business partner, in a phone call to Huntsville soon after reading the note.
"I'm getting threats. Somebody's trying to run us out of town. You'd better come over and let's talk about it."
"Be there as quick as I can," Benny promised and hung up.
Two hours later, he sat in Sam's office.
"I shrugged it off at first," Sam explained after repeating the threats he received the day before.
Then he handed Benny the note.
"I wasn't going to mention it, but lately there are all sorts of rumors being spread that our concrete's defective," Sam added.
"That's not good. Any idea who's behind it?" Benny responded, his words fast-paced.
"Nothing I can prove. Could be a guy named Junkins, a dissatisfied former customer. May be our competition, but I don't think so. They're not stupid. They should know they would be the first ones we suspect. We've gotten several jobs they bid on, but, from what I see, they have plenty of work.
"Don't know much about Ollie Monroe. I heard he has some sort of criminal record. First time I met him I thought he looked like a mafia thug. Last year I sat at a table next to him at a chamber of commerce dinner and couldn't believe the crude and profane things he said. One couple left the table and sat somewhere else. If I'd had a date with me, I would have told Monroe to clean up his act.
"The few times we've poured on the same jobs he has avoided talking to me. I can't prove he's involved in this situation."
"What about KingCo? Any problems with Dan King?" Benny asked.
"I hear things here and there, that he's grumbling about not getting the jobs we outbid him on. Rumors, really.
"Several of our customers said they've heard our concrete's no good, that we're not dependable, or we're in financial trouble. That may have come from King, but I don't think he's dumb enough to call and threaten us or write notes."
Sam slowly pushed back his chair, stood and walked behind his partner to the window, his large hands resting on narrow hips as he looked out on the ready-mix plant yard. He was neatly dressed in fresh blue jeans and a lighter blue, starched, long sleeve shirt, its cuffs turned up to the elbow.
"We're not leaving Betterton. Whoever's trying to scare me best be ready to use more than telephone calls and notes. We've gone through too much and worked too hard to be flushed out.
"This is the best location in North Alabama. Betterton's growing like crazy, now up to about a hundred thousand. Caine County's population is twice that. Manufacturing plants have sprung up all along the river. We're an hour's drive to Birmingham, Nashville, and the Mississippi line. A bit quicker to Huntsville.
"Betterton, Caine County, and the Chickasaw River are in the center of a blossoming economic area which has just begun to really develop," Sam said decisively.
"We're not about to leave. We're just getting started here."
"Maybe we ought to go to the police," Benny suggested, a tense edge in his voice.
Sam turned, looked at Benny and shook his head.
"All I've got is the note and the answering machine message," he said. "I didn't record the telephone threat at home."
"Maybe the police can tap your phones."
"I doubt the guy will call again," Sam said with more hope than certainty in his voice.
There was a nervous silence.
Sam returned to his desk and stood behind his chair and nervously ran a hand over his youthful face, then through his hair.
"I think I'll go see the lawyer who got us out of that lawsuit about the stuck gravel truck. If he thinks I ought to go to the police, I will."
"What stuck gravel truck?" Benny asked.
"Junkins, the irate customer I just mentioned, ordered five loads of gravel for a parking area behind his garage and wanted us to spread it. He lives way out in the county. He demanded delivery the day he phoned in the order and insisted on personally directing our driver the route to where the gravel was to be spread.
"It was raining. I should have known better but sent a driver out with a load. Junkins wasn't there when my driver arrived, and he had to wait nearly an hour. When Junkins finally showed up, he directed our driver to a soft area, and one side of our truck sank in the ground up to the axles. The driver dumped the load on the spot to keep the truck from turning over.
"Junkins got mad, stopped payment on the check for the gravel, and sued us for tearing up his yard. Claimed we caused him and his wife mental anguish.
"I took the lawsuit papers to our corporate lawyer in Huntsville. He recommended I contact Penn Roman, a lawyer here. Said he knew Roman's firm well and had referred a number of cases to them.
"'Penn Roman's a bulldog. He never gives up,' our lawyer said.
"With a recommendation like that, I wanted to see for myself and made an appointment.
"I wasn't sure he would take the case because it was small.
"Roman took the case and did one heck of a job. Our lawyer was right."
Sam sat back down in his desk chair before continuing and smiled, showing even, white teeth which attractively contrasted with his tanned face.
"Went right after Junkins, filed a counter-suit for the price of the gravel, wrecker bill, lost truck time, fraud for stopping payment on the check, court costs, and for our attorney fee.
"Junkins backed-off, dismissed his lawsuit, paid everything we claimed and apologized to Von for cursing her on the phone. Roman did it all in just two weeks.
"And he's not an officious stuff-shirt like a lot of the lawyers I've met. Has a lot of common sense. A down-to-earth, nice guy."
"How big is his firm?" Benny asked.
"Two lawyers. The firm's name is Roman & North. I haven't met his partner."
Sam stretched out his long frame and nodded.
"The Junkins fiasco was a lesson well-learned. We don't deliver to individuals anymore - only to contractors on the job."
"Well, that case wasn't a big deal," Benny noted. "Think this Roman guy is up to taking on whoever's threatening us?"
"Yep. No doubt about it."
"Okay. Do what you think best," Benny said. "I'll go with whatever you decide."
"I'll call his office today and make an appointment," Sam said as he stood. "And I'll talk to our customers and reassure them there's nothing to the rumors."
"Good. Let me know how things go," Benny said, shook Sam's hand and left, saying goodbye to Von on the way out.
* * *
"Somebody's playing games," Sam reassured each customer he reached on the telephone that afternoon. "There's nothing to the rumors.
"B&W Concrete and I are in Betterton to stay. Everything's fine with us.
"We've treated you right haven't we? Delivered quality concrete at a fair price?"
"Yeah, but where's all this badmouthing coming from?" a customer replied. "Has somebody got it in for you?"
"I don't know, but I'll get to the bottom of it. You can count on it. If you hear any more rumors, I would appreciate your calling me."
"What about the threats," Von asked between Sam's calls to customers.
"Don't worry about it. I'll handle it.
"I don't like anybody messing with my business," he muttered as he dialed another customer. "I'm going to find out who's behind this foolishness.
"Nobody can or will say who told them about the rumors," he told Von after several calls. "I'd better call Mr. Roman's office," he said and punched in the telephone number.
"Law offices of Roman and North," the familiar and pleasant voice greeted. "This is Anna."
"Anna, this is Sam Workman. May I speak to Mr. Roman?"
"Hello, Mr. Workman," Anna Holcomb, the firm's secretary, responded. "He's in trial and won't be in the office until tomorrow morning. Would you like to leave a message?"
"I need to make an appointment as soon as possible."
"He can see you tomorrow morning. Is ten o'clock convenient?"
"That's fine. I'll be there. Thank you."
* * *
The rest of the day, Sam gathered his thoughts and what information he could give Roman that might help the him figure out who made the threatening calls, who wrote the note, and who was spreading the malicious rumors.
Von made a tape recording of the office telephone message. Sam wrote down the substance of the rumors his customers told him they received over the telephone and by word-of-mouth and when.
"It's not much, but it's all we've got," he told Von.
"I hope it's enough," she said and nervously twisted her short dark hair.
"I didn't tell Mr. Roman much about B&W when he represented us in the Junkins matter," Sam continued. "He'll probably want to know more about us this time so we need to get that information together and organized."
Sam was primed to tell the lawyer everything he knew.
Chapter Two
ROMAN & NORTH
"Good morning," Anna cordially greeted Sam Wednesday morning. "Please have a seat. Mr. Roman will see you shortly.
"Would you like some coffee?"
"That'll be great. I'll get it if you'll show me where it is," Sam answered and stood, but Anna was already on her way to the coffee room.
"Just black," he called after her and sat down in one of the upholstered leather chairs in the reception area and renewed his admiration for the attractive office.
"Here you are," Anna said as she handed Sam a steaming cup and a napkin.
"Hope you'll excuse my muddy boots and jeans," Sam offered. "Had to go out on a job and didn't have time to change clothes."
"You're fine. Don't give it another thought."
Sam liked Anna and remembered how helpful and accommodating she was during the Junkins case. Besides, she was very attractive with dark hair neatly fixed to accentuate her almond-shaped brown eyes, even teeth, and full lips.
She's about thirty-five, he silently guessed as she sat at her desk and resumed work on a computer. Wonder how she can type all the work put out by two lawyers, answer the telephone, make appointments, and keep everything running?
Just then, the outer office door opened. Sam was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the svelte, professional-looking young woman who entered the reception area. Neatly and tastefully dressed, the tall blonde carried a briefcase of a hue which nearly matched her tan.
Wow! Sam's inner voice exclaimed.
"Any messages?" she asked at Anna's desk.
She must be Roman's partner, he reasoned.
The woman turned her face and clear blue eyes toward Sam and smiled then walked down the hall and entered another room, her office Sam assumed.
"Is she Mr. Roman's partner?" Sam asked in a near-whisper.
"Yes. Debbie North. I should have introduced you," Anna replied and smiled. "I forgot you haven't met her."
Penn's private office door opened, and Roman stepped out and toward Sam.
"Morning, Sam," the dapper, salt-and-pepper haired attorney greeted him like an old friend. "How've you been?"
With a boyish grin Sam stood to shake hands.
Penn and he were of about the same height, an inch or two over six feet. Their lean, athletic builds were similar.
"Been delivering any more gravel out in the boondocks?" Roman asked and smiled, his face a pleasant countenance.
"Nope. Learned my lesson," Sam replied and laughed.
"Come in and bring me up to date," Penn urged and motioned toward his private office.
"Appreciate your seeing me on such short notice," Sam said as he sat in one of the dark blue leather chairs in front of Roman's large mahogany desk covered with files and papers.
"I just saw your law partner. Haven't met her. She came in while I was waiting. She's an attractive addition, not that you needed that with Anna here."
"You're right on both counts. I'll introduce you two later," Penn said as he sat in the chair next to Sam and placed a legal pad on his lap.
"Debbie joined the firm awhile back. A heck of a trial lawyer - smart, diligent, and jurors love her. If you play tennis, don't challenge her. She's very good. Beats me every time we play.
"By the way, we haven't had that dinner we talked about after the Junkins case. You were going to get a date and call me so Ashley could meet you."
"I apologize," Sam replied. "Things have been kinda hectic since then."
"No problem. Maybe we can do that soon.
"Tell me what's going on," Penn suggested.
"I've got troubles," Sam began and nervously twisted in his seat. "I'm getting threatening phone calls and notes telling me my company and I better leave town. The caller said if we didn't get out of Betterton, I would wish I had. The caller to the office said I could be killed if I didn't."
He again shifted in his chair and crossed one long leg over the other.
"Didn't pay much attention to it until somebody left this in the company mail box yesterday," Sam said as he handed the note to Penn.
"You think this is from your competition?" Roman asked after reading it.
"That's what I thought at first, but I don't know. Ollie Monroe and Dan King, the owners of the other two ready-mix plants here, should know they would be the first people I suspect. They've poured on a couple of jobs I've worked on but in different areas of the projects. Otherwise, I've rarely seen either of them except at social functions.
"Lately we've outbid both of them fairly consistently and landed some big jobs.
"One or maybe both of them might have started the false rumors about our concrete and financial problems, but neither name has been mentioned when I talk to some of our customers who've heard the gossip.
"I know who Dan King and Ollie Monroe are, but I'm not acquainted with either," Penn commented as he jotted down their names.
"You had a run-in with anybody lately?"
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Thumbs Downby David Cauthen Copyright © 2011 by David Cauthen. Excerpted by permission of AuthorHouse. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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