Soul Food And Suicide

We stood by the pool...The walls had collapsed..

Our good friend, Bonnie Shay, Insurance Investigator and Attorney was at the scene...

"My Investigation is concluded...This was definitely sabotage...Man made sabotage...You are covered Mr. Cambridge...We'll do an estimate and you'll be duly compensated and after the clean up...Your guys can restart building." said  Bonnie.

"Oh My God, First my car, now this...My premium is going to go sky high....If I ever catch who is behind this...I'm going to ring his filthy neck!" said an angry ADA Rockland Cambridge..

''Calm down baby..just calm down..."said Alfreda, who was rubbing his back and holding his trembling hands, rubbing them softly, trying to calm him down...

"Gary and I are back...We've interviewed and checked all of your neighbors and members of the Tenents Board...They alibied out.." I said, sounding like the Homicide Detective I used to be.

''And we interviewed the entire construction crew and the contractor...They weren't even here...This was someone else..an outsider...Probably, whoever called you."said Gary...

''We traced the call...another Burner Phone, but my guy over at the FBI, pinpointed the exact location of that call...It was made in Center City at around 4:00 in the morning...but that's all we got." said Gary.

The next day....We were all at the Tenents Board Meeting...By we, I meant Olivia, Beverly,Nelson, Josie and Myself. Rockland was with us...We didn't think he should come, but he inisisted this time..
The Tenents Board insisted that none of them had anything to do with what had happened.

"Maybe you didn't, but this happened because there was not proper security..."said Olivia.

''We think it only fair to award Mr. Cambridge some compensation for this travesty."said Beverly.

"Our client has suffered a sufficient financial loss behind this." said Nelson..

Josie showed them the estimate of costs from the construction company and the insurance company estimate..

All the while I stood silent and just watched everybody in this room... I had a feeling that the person responsible for this mayhem was someone in this very room and that all of this had something to do with the construction of the pool.

I was wrong about one thing and right about another, I would later find out.

"You have fought me tooth and nail about this pool...I am within my rights to build it and I intend to build it!" said Rockland..

"Nobody gives a damn about your pool Mr. Cambridge....An unfortunate bit of vandalism occurred..The Tenent Board is not liable for that...The Insurance Company is compensating you enough."said Attorney Justin Berkowitz..

This led to a week long very tempestuous litigation between Olivia, Beverly, Nelson , Josie and Justin Berkowitz, with neither side willing to give an inch...

 I kept watching how everything turned out and began to unfold...

 It appeared to be a personal battle between Justin and  Rockland...More so than Justin and the others..

With Olivia ,Beverly, Nelson and Josie, it didn't seem personal...just lawyers arguing over  laws and predicates...

but with Rockland, it was very nasty and personal...with the two men nearly coming to blows several times...

At the end of the week they finally agreed to a compromise and a minor compensation for Rockland..

II-

 The next day we all gathered in our conference room for a prepared meal....

 We celebrated in our office...the end of a few cases and a little down time..

 "This is me and my nieces way of saying thank you to our staff and friends who have hung in there with us these past few weeks..I hope you enjoy.."said Olivia..

As she sat out several trays of fried chicken on the table..

 Beverly smiled..

''Look at you Donnie Ray!!!...You're staring at that chicken worse than you stare at Auntay.." she joked.

 Nelson laughed...but his eyes were as large as saucers..

 Josie cracked up laughing at both of us...

 "Here comes the rest of the food.." said her boyfriend, Paris.

 Alfreda put trays of Greens, Sweet Potatoes , Potato Salad and Ribs  on the table..

She Olivia, Beverly and Josie had been up all night preparing this food in Beverly's place...

She and Rockland had spent the night with us... We got them clean sheets and pillow cases and they slept in the sub-basement....

Though I doubt they did much sleeping.

Josie and Paris stayed with Beverly and Nelson...

"Dig In Everybody."  said Alfreda...

Didn't have to tell anybody twice...We all chowed down!






III-

Rockland was again , near tears....Olivia and Beverly had been nothing but friends to him..and had really helped him out during his time of need...He knew he would never feel badly toward them ever again...

He grabbed Olivia, surprising her and just hugged her.....

"Thank you...Thank you so much for everything.." he said..

"You're always welcome." Olivia said graciously..

 "That Justin Berkowitz...He's still the asshole he was in law school." laughed Beverly...

"Wait a minute...YOU KNOW HIM?" I asked.

''Well, Yeah we were never friends...but we were both on the debate team at Temple and we both went to PENN LAW School..He had a thing for Kayla

She didn't know he existed...Not like that! We all thought he was a nerd!

Jazzy felt sorry for him...She went out with him a few times, but never slept with him..
We graduated together...Took the Bar the same time...and then I never saw him again until these hearings with that Tenent Board..His dad is an Attorney...Vincent Berkowitz...I saw him one time in passing...It might have been graduation day." said Beverly..

 ''Vincent  Berkowitz is his father?? Oh my god, the man is brilliant..or was brilliant, he's dead now!....He gave several lectures while I was in PENN LAW....Yvette and I loved his style, his demeanor..He didn't have a mean bone in his body...His son sure isn't like him...That little Justin Berkowitz is an arrogant little twerp...I wanted to smack him..." said Olivia as we all chowed down..

 "Hahahahaha, I saw that look you get Auntay, when somebody pisses you off...That's why I was rubbing your arms..I didn't want you to lose it."laughed Beverly...

"You said his father is dead..What happened to him? " I asked.

"Yeah he's dead!, Suicide...a few years ago...He was a brilliant Defense Attorney...I loved watching Vincent Berkowitz in court, the way he disected a witness.. Beverly won't admit it, but she owes a lot of her style to him...She used to be a carbon copy of me until she found her own voice..and her style is a lot like his..."said Olivia..

 "Auntay You may be right...but I only saw Vincent Berkowitz practice just one time.."said Beverly...

''Anyway...The man won close to 300 cases.. He was a living legend...But there is always that one case that haunts you...That one you should have won, but didn't...Della Raffman...She was accused of murdering her husband...It was a big deal a few years back...Some say he fell in love with her..which an attorney should never do with his client...Well, he defended her...It was a celebrated case, got the news media fired up...and he lost...He lost the case and she was sentenced to die by lethal injection...

He was inconsolable they say and he was found in his car outside the courtroom, early in the morning, three days after her sentencing, dead of a  self inflicted gunshot wound to the head...

Funny thing...A year to the day of that verdict... The Judge in that case, Judge Rafer Samuelson's car exploded into flames and he was burned to a crisp...Body was almost unrecognizable..That case was tragic all around..Police said it was a car bomb..His murder was never solved." said Olivia.

 ''I remember him and that case..We were all still working in the Public Defender's Office." said Nelson, who was still chowing down on the good ,hot food.

''Stop eating so fast before you choke."said Beverly to Nelson....laughing at him...

 "What happened to Della Raffman?" asked Josie..

"Her death sentence was commuted to Life...She's still in prison..."said Olivia.

"Interesting" I said.







IV-

 Nightfall came, everybody had gone home....I had gone out...

when I came home, Olivia was lying across the bed in a pink lace thong and a black t-shirt..

"Heyyyyyy I'm glad your home...I was just here enjoying the quiet...Talking to Yvette and Karen Page on the phone... I'm glad to see you." said Olivia.

 "I'm always glad to see you."I said..

"Especially in my panties right?" she joked..

''Yes especially...Look, I uh went out, did a little research....That Judge, Rafer Samuelson...The Judge in that case that Vincent Berkowitz lost....Well in December of that year, he got drunk at a Christmas Party I guess and was photographed in the bed with three naked women....It was in all of the papers, He apparently was the laughing stock of the city.." I said.

"That story was bogus...Judge Samuelson didn't drink or smoke and he certainly wasn't at some wild party with naked ladies...He sued that newspaper and won...and they gave a retraction...I remember that much and then some months later..poof...His car went up in flames, killing him!! Such a shame.."said Olivia..

 "Rockland was humiliated in the same way, A bogus newspaper story with photoshopped photos of him in his boxer shorts, dancing in a strip club with scantily clad women...and then his car goes up in flames, almost killing him and Alfreda...Do you see the pattern here?" I said.

"Judge Samuelson was the judge who sentenced that woman to death...Where is the connection?"asked Olivia..

"Guess who the Assistant District Attorney was who prosecuted that case and got the conviction?" I asked.. "Wait for it!!...It was Rockland Cambridge..

 "WHAT?  That case was years ago!" said Olivia..

"That case caused someone's father to commit suicide..It must have been devestating.....The Judge had to pay and now it's time for the Assistant District Attorney , who won the case to pay.....It's the only thing that makes sense...when he saw Rockland during this tenent board case,

 all those old memories came rushing back....I thought it was about this pool but it's not...It's about humiliating and discrediting Rockland first and now the end game..Killing him..I kept watching the body language when you guys were arguing that case...With you and Beverly and Nelson and Josie..

It never got nasty....It got a little testy at times...but it never got nasty, personal.

 But Rockland and him went at each other's throats...I watched them, I watched the body language...It was highly personal to that guy...Very personal... I could sense a bubbling rage just beneath his surface." I said.

 "You know you sound like Lt. Tragg, "I could feel his cold soul less eyes staring me down.."said Olivia imitating Lt. Tragg and laughing..."But, for what it's worth, I believe you...You've never steered me wrong in all these years." she said.

I needed more information...but I knew in my heart...That kid, Attorney Justin Berkowitz was the key to this whole mystery...

(CONCLUSION NEXT)