Page 7 of The Lawyer’s Quandary

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“Okay. Don’t worry. When is a good time for me to come down? Or do they want to come up here to be away from prying eyes.”

“Can we meet on Thursday evening?” Mark could hear Steven pretty clearly.

Greg swallowed hard, and Mark could see that he was trying to see how open his calendar was. He flipped though his phone. “Yes, I’m free. We can meet on campus and work out where to go for some privacy. Tell the guys not to worry—this isn’t the Spanish Inquisition.”

“Right, because no one expects the Spanish Inquisition,” Steven said in a comic voice.

Mark smiled, but Greg laughed. “Another Monte Python fan,” Greg said with surprise. “I’ll see you and the guys on Thursday.”

“Can Mark come if he’s free? I think having someone there the guys know might make this easier.”

Mark heard and nodded.

“Yes, of course. Just ask him when you see him.” Greg ended the call and shoved his phone in his pocket. “It looks like things might be starting to come together.” He sat back with a smile and inhaled the aroma of their pizzas.

Mark grew quiet as he thought about what he’d just heard. “Do you not want people to know about us dating?”

Greg’s eyes popped wide. “No. I guess I’m just a private person at heart and didn’t want to speak for you.

My dating life has nothing to do with my work life, and I have to keep them separate.

It’s not up to me to decide if you come along—it’s up to the guys.

And they need to be the ones to ask you and decide for themselves.

What if Steven wants you there, but Wilson doesn’t? ”

Mark got it and began nodding slowly. “This is case caution.”

“Exactly. A good part of my job is to protect my clients’ confidentiality, and that means not assuming things. So if they decide to ask you, I’d be more than happy to have you there.” His smile was wicked and filled with delight at the same time.

“Cool. I can live with caution. I have guys coming to me all the time with personal problems. Last year, I had a freshman come into my office and ask me how he should tell his mom and dad that he was gay and that he had a boyfriend. Last semester, I had a kid crying on my shoulder because he got his girlfriend pregnant, and he didn’t know what to do.

These kids have adult problems sometimes, and they’re not ready to handle them. They think they are, but….”

“What do you do?”

Mark shrugged. “What do you do when someone comes to you with a problem? You listen and then you try to help them work it out. You suggest a legal remedy most of the time. Mine usually involve getting them to talk to parents or girlfriends. I suppose for both of us, there can be a lot of yelling, but hopefully in the end, we arrive at a solution.”

“Yes. That’s my job in a nutshell. How did things work out?”

“Well, the boy who got his girlfriend pregnant, they broke up after she lost the baby. He’s still on the team and seems to have learned his lesson.

The other boy, he spoke to his grandparents, who helped ease the way with his mom and dad.

They’re still a couple, and the boyfriend comes to every swim match and cheers his boyfriend on at the very top of his lungs.

Sometimes, we get a really good ending, and sometimes… .”

Greg nodded. “Yeah. Sometimes, things just turn to crap. But we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen this time. What was done to these kids should not have happened, and come hell or high water, I’m going to put a stop to it.”

“How?”

“Well, we go to the board first, and if we don’t get satisfaction, then we’ll file suit and take it to the court of public opinion.

Let the news media rip the college apart.

I think we could probably get a story like this on CNN if we had to.

But that has to be a last resort. I don’t want to put the players on display, and the media will demand that sort of thing.

But Steven has said over and over that his goal is for Bates to be removed and to protect other players.

We may have to go the full-blown media option in order to make that a reality. But I hope not.”

Mark leaned forward. “So how do we make this an airtight case? How do we make it so that the board had no choice but to act? It’s going to be hard for these players to stand up and tell their tales in front of a bunch of people.” Mark couldn’t imagine doing that at their age.

“In an ideal world, we’d catch him in the act.

Get him on tape or record him talking about it, though the last thing he is going to do is tell anyone what he’s doing.

But catching him in the act is going to involve putting one of the guys at risk, and so is trying to get him on tape.

But that puts someone in harm’s way, and I hate the idea. ”

“I get that. But let’s not rule it out. This is a predator and someone who has likely gotten away with this behavior for some time.

He probably thinks he’s safe. After all, no one has come forward before, and he has no reason to believe that someone has now.

So maybe we can force an error on his part.

I don’t know how we do that, but there has to be a way. ”

Greg finished his pizza and sat back in the seat, drinking his soda.

“There are ways of recording someone, but I cannot be part of it. See, it’s legal to take video of someone, but it is not legal to take video with sound, not without a warrant.

That’s why surveillance cameras don’t have sound.

It would be easy to get it, but you can’t.

So whatever you do, it has to be something that I don’t know about.

I’m an agent of the court, and I have to abide by all the rules of evidence.

You’re a coworker and a private citizen, so it’s possible that you could install a camera in his office as long as it doesn’t show anything outside that room.

Now, that shouldn’t cause any issues with the law.

The college might not like it, but there aren’t any legal issues. ”

Mark understood exactly what Greg was talking about.

“You know, that’s a very interesting thought experiment. I mean, since his office is just within the locker room, but still separate from the changing areas, is it part of that or is it just an office?” Greg posed.

“Sometimes, an office is just an office. I mean, he may use it to change in, but it is his office and it’s where he’s supposed to be doing his work.

So I’d say it’s an office. I don’t change clothes in mine.

I use a changing room. I work with men and women, so I want my office to be welcoming to both.

So mine is not inside the locker areas.” He was already thinking.

“I guess as part of our thought experiment, where would you get these sorts of recording devices?”

“Well…,” Greg started. “Not that I have firsthand knowledge, but there are websites where you can purchase small internet cameras. I understand that they have batteries in them that need to be changed periodically. You could find it pretty easily, I expect. And if you knew when someone was returning to work, you could hypothetically place the camera in there before they get back. You would need to verify the appropriate location beforehand.”

Mark was developing a pretty good picture of what he wanted to do. He ate the last slice of his amazing pizza and finished his beer. He then took care of the check, and the two of them headed for the door.

The walk back to Greg’s was nice, though as the sun began to set, the evening air chilled slightly, but it was still pleasant enough. Greg took his hand as they walked down the sidewalk of the quiet street, past homes that had been there a century or more.

“It’s been a long time since I held someone’s hand like this,” Mark said. It made him feel like a teenager again.

“I know. There something strangely intimate about it, and yet….” Greg’s words drifted off, and that was fine. There was no need to talk over everything. Sometimes, it was best to just let things go. “I guess you should figure out where you’re going to be staying.”

“Yeah. I’ll make some calls when we get back to the house. It’s not a problem.” They continued walking.

“I don’t want you to think that I don’t want you to stay, because I do. It’s just that I always made the mistake of rushing into things in the past. And I don’t want to do that again. If you keep doing the same things over and over and expect different results… and all that.”

Mark stopped walking. “I get it, and don’t worry about it.

I wasn’t angling for an invitation, though I wouldn’t turn one down.

And you’re right. Rushing into things isn’t going to be a good thing.

There’s a lot that’s happening right now, and it could get sticky in a legal and ethical sort of way. ”

“I just don’t know what’s going to happen. But maybe if you want, we can have lunch or something tomorrow before you go home.” There was that lip-biting again.

“Hey, I’d like that.” They walked on as the air continued to cool.

Mark was pleased when they reached Greg’s, and he could get inside.

The first thing he did was pull a sweatshirt out of his bag and put it on.

Then he called his friend Ashley to see if he’d come get him.

Ashley said that he’d be here in ten and that he had some things to tell him. “I’ll call you about lunch.”

“Okay,” Greg agreed. “I have the day off tomorrow too. I don’t think I can remember having a day off like this. It’s been a really long time since I had an entire weekend to myself. I think Angie is starting to actually manage my life, and she’s better at it than I am.”