His office phone sent me directly to his voice mail, so I left a quick message: “Colt, this is Griff Germaine calling about the Nestor Vega case. I haven’t gotten a response to my RFP and I want to touch base on the driver’s policy. Are you going to send that over? Rather not bother Judge Stancil with a motion to compel. Let me know, please.” Hopefully my message would spur the asshole into doing the right thing and sending the policy over.
A few minutes after ten, I heard a knock on my door. I opened it and Louise stepped inside. Her hair was different, and the cool coat and eyeglasses were gone. She looked exhausted, and I could tell that the last few years had taken a toll on her. We hugged, awkwardly, and I motioned for her to sit down.
She looked around the office. “This is... nice.”
“Yeah, well,” I said. “Don’t know about nice, but it’s a good location for me. Most of my clients live in Aurora; it’s easy for them to get here.”
“Of course. That makes sense. Hey, thanks for meeting with me.” She set a tan folder on my desk. “Appreciate it.”
“It’s great to see you. Sorry it’s under these circumstances. I’ve been meaning to drop by the bar, it’s just that—”
“No need to explain. All good. Life goes on, right?”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m still waiting for my life to start,” I said, then paused for a second. Our eyes locked, and I looked away. I picked up her folder and took out a stack of papers. “So, tell me what’s going on with the child support.”
“That’s my bank statement on top. The last check I got from him was almost nine months ago. See the deposit for six hundred dollars? That was the last one he sent.”
I took a look at the other papers in the folder. I glanced at the financial statements and noticed that they’d used the state’s separation agreement template, rather than draft their own.
“You guys didn’t have counsel for the divorce?” I asked.
“You mean lawyers? No, Roger said we didn’t need them because we didn’t own any property back then.”
“Probably wasn’t a good idea.” I looked at the child support worksheet they’d completed. “What does he do? He work for someone?”
She shook her head. “No, he runs his own business. Handyman, some remodeling. I think he mostly gets paid in cash. You know, no receipts. I asked for his tax return, but he won’t give it to me.”
“What does he say about the child support? He explain why he’s not paying?”
She set her cell phone down on the edge of my desk. “That’s the problem. He’s kind of dropped off the face of the earth. I can’t reach him on his phone, and he moved from his old apartment, but never gave me his new address. I’ve checked on Facebook and all that, but can’t find him.”
“What about your daughter? Does she know where he is?”
Louise closed her eyes like she was concentrating, then started talking: “The shithead doesn’t care about her. After we split, she’d go to his place and spend a weekend with him. But I guess he lost interest. She hasn’t seen or talked to him for a long time.”
“You know anybody who might know where he is? Mutual friends or—”
“He doesn’t have any friends! Because he’s an asshole.”
I held up my hand. “All right, I get it. Is there anyone you can contact who might know his address?”
She shook her head. “No, I’ve done all that. I emailed his sister, his cousin, a couple other people. They just ignored me. I checked all the social media stuff, even bought one of those PeopleFinders searches. Cost me thirty dollars. The last address that came up was his old place. I already had that.”
“Do you know if he’s still in the state?”
“No clue. Although I doubt he’d leave. Where would he go? Maybe he’s dead. A girl can dream, right? But I think someone would have told me.”
I looked at the ex-husband’s financial statement for a moment, then put it back in the folder. “Okay, here’s my advice. First thing you do is contact the Colorado child support division at the Department of Human Services. They’re trained to find parents who won’t pay up. They can check his credit report, utilities, everything. If he’s in state, they’ll find him. If he left Colorado, there’s the federal parent locator service. They do the same thing, nationwide.”
She frowned. “Uh, how long does that take? I mean, it took me six months just to get my license plates from the DMV.”
I wondered how much to tell her. The reality was that the child support division was usually overwhelmed and underfunded. “I’ll be straight with you,” I said. “I hear there’s a pretty long lead time. It can take a year or more, but you can file for back child support when—”
“A year! I can’t wait that long. I’m about to get tossed out on my ass. What am I supposed to do?”
I raised my hands up in surrender. “Look, I hear you. These things take time. But maybe they’ll get lucky, find him right away.”
“I can’t count on luck! I’m about two shakes away from living in the motel across the street.”
She meant the Dust and Wind Motel, which rented rooms by the week, day, or hour. It wasn’t a place where you wanted to raise a kid.
“Louise, you know I wish there was some magic wand to wave, but if you don’t know where your ex is, you’re—”
She reached across the desk and grabbed my hand. “Please, Griff, isn’t there some other way? To get this thing going? For old times’ sake?”
I looked at Louise and remembered one night years ago when I’d been at my lowest point. I’d been on a two-day bender, convinced that my life was over because I didn’t have any clients, any prospects, or enough cash to support myself. I’d felt like a true failure — the only one of my Native law school classmates who couldn’t get a job at one of the good law firms. I’d stopped in at the Zephyr, and Louise saw I was in a bad way. She sat me down in one of the back booths, gave me coffee, and took me home with her when the bar closed. I spent the next day at her place, badly hungover but glad to be with another person. That time had meant a lot to me. And now she was asking for my help.
“Okay,” I said, “I’ll do it.” I took her pile of divorce papers and put a binder clip on them. “It might be a long shot, but I can try and find him on my own instead of waiting for the state.”
“Oh, thank you, Griff!” She leaned across the desk and kissed me, which I wasn’t expecting.
“You’re welcome,” I said, and leaned back in my chair. I felt a little dizzy.
“Look, I want to pay you,” she said. “I don’t have anything now, but I promise—”
“This one’s on the house. Really. But remember, even if we find him, that’s just the start. We’ll have to file with the state, then try to get his wages garnished or his income tax return seized. No guarantees, okay?”
“I have faith in you,” she responded.
I wasn’t sure what to say. Any faith I had — in the government, the legal system, even myself — was long gone. If Louise believed in me, she was the last one.
For the next few days, I had to put Louise’s case on the back burner so I could get ahead on Nestor’s lawsuit. I’d received the results of Nestor’s medical examination, and the doctor had confirmed that he’d be confined to a wheelchair for the indefinite future. This was terrible for Nestor but good for our case, as it dramatically improved our position with the defense. There was no way the driver’s insurance company would take the case to trial now. Juries were immensely sympathetic to any plaintiff who entered the courtroom in a wheelchair. Nestor would never have to worry about money again. And, of course, this would mean that I could move to a decent office, buy a better car, and maybe show my face at the Colorado Indian Bar Association meetings again. I felt better than I had in a long time.