Revenge or Justice

It sparked a ripple of interest in the reclusive American from locals. Tom had always been regarded as eccentric, when he'd bought the farms and started building his distillery many had thought him mad. Once they were up and running, the employment and the tourism traffic created meant he was tolerated. Now there was a whiff of scandal, he noticed the second glances.

Heather noticed them too and she wasn't impressed. Her children had taken some time to settle into the small local school when they'd moved and now the media circus was stirring up unwanted attention. To placate her they all went back to California a few days before the court hearing. They were amongst friends in the Napa valley so it was a good place to hide out.

Tom's arrival at the airport in New York meant the circus had come to town. As he walked through the arrival doors two television cameras swung his way their bright lights blinding him momentarily. Luckily Kate and Jeremy were there and they hustled him through the protruding microphones and shouted questions, out to a waiting car. Jeremy stopped before entering the car and told the media scrum there would be no comments until after the hearing tomorrow.

Kate wasn't happy. It had been like this all week. There were reporters outside her house and outside the office. Even her pleas that he wasn't there and that she had nothing to say fell on deaf ears.

"Well you got what you wanted," she said to Tom bitterly.

"It wasn't only me," Tom reminded her, "At least we know that it will end tomorrow and Melanie will be getting a lot more than she bargained for."

We ran the gauntlet of reporters into Kate's apartment building and didn't bother venturing out again that night. Next morning Kate went to work early and Tom hung around the apartment. The hearing wasn't until two in the afternoon. At one he walked out the front door and found it bereft of reporters. A taxi waited on the curb for him. It dropped Tom a block from the courthouse. Walking up to the courthouse, Tom saw a huddle of reporters pointing their microphones at three figures standing higher on the steps.

Melanie stood one step above and behind her two sons. She had a hand on both boys' shoulders as she continued her story of sacrifice and selflessness.

"I am only here today to try and get my sons a fair share of their birthright so cruelly taken from them by that man."

She pointed across to Tom as he tried to proceed up the stairs to the entrance of the building unnoticed. Melanie's malicious smile mocked him as he fended off reporters shouted questions with a firm.

"No comment."

Inside he found Kate and Jeremy waiting off to one side. They motioned him to follow them and they went inside on of the courtrooms. Court was in session. The judge, a woman, was giving a lawyer a verbal dressing down for being underprepared. Jeremy ushered them into a row of seats and they sat and waited for their matter to be heard.

The courtroom was virtually empty but as the time neared for their hearing it began to fill up. By the time the Judge had put the young lawyer out of his misery and dismissed his appeal there wasn't a spare seat in the room. The clerk of the court waited for the previous combatants to leave before calling for the parties in Cameron vs. Cameron to come forward.

Jeremy, Tom, and Kate went to the table as directed by the clerk and sat down, but there was no sign of Melanie. The clerk made another call and the door to the courtroom opened and Melanie made her entrance. Fashionably late, she knew every eye in the room was on her. Once Melanie, her two sons, and two lawyers had taken their seat the judge banged her gavel to silence the murmurs from the spectators.

"All right, all right, quiet down." She stared down over her glasses at the few miscreants who were slow to follow her directions. With silence established she consulted her notes then began. "Okay, so we have Mr. Wilson appearing for the plaintiffs, Charles and Edward Cameron?"

Melanie's lead lawyer stood up and acknowledged that was correct.

"And we have Mr. McDonald appearing for the defendants, Thomas and Kate Cameron."

Jeremy joined Mr. Wilson standing and confirmed the judge's statement was correct.

"Now, it says here that there has been an attempt at mediation but it wasn't successful?" The judge looked at the lawyers again and they nodded. "Okay then, Mr. Wilson you have five minutes to summarize your reasons for contesting the will."

Melanie's lawyer took about three minutes to cover his points, the judge complimented him on his brevity but then he had an unusual request.

"Your honor, I beg the court's indulgence and request that my clients mother, Mrs. Cameron, be allowed to make a short statement."

The judge rolled her eyes, "Mr. Wilson, I would have thought she would be sick of making statements." A titter of laughter broke out among the audience but they were quickly silenced by another of the judge's withering stares.

"Very well Mrs. Cameron, but please follow your lawyer's example and be brief and to the point."

Melanie stood and repeated her tale of woe while Tom had to fight hard against his instincts to jump up and yell at her to shut up. Once she had finished the judge, after saying she felt that there was enough evidence to warrant a trial, inquired of Melanie's lawyer how long he thought he would need to present his case. Half a day was deemed sufficient so the judge instructed her clerk to look for an appropriate space in her court diary to accommodate a one day trial.

Turning her attention to Jeremy the judge asked if he had any objections to trying to cover the trial in one day. Jeremy stood up slowly and delivered an opening jab.

"Your honor, if the court can give us five minutes now then this can be wrapped up today."

A general hubbub erupted and the judge again had to bang her gavel to get silence.

"I'm sorry Mr. McDonald, I should have asked you before. It's just that up until just today this was a very one sided debate." The judge said, no doubt referring to Melanie's media war. "Go ahead Mr. McDonald, you have your five minutes."

"Thank you your honor," Jeremy paused and picked up my three copies of my medical file from the desk in front of him. "I would like to put on the public record Thomas Cameron's medical file from Dr. Nelson who was the urologist he went to see to obtain a vasectomy." Jeremy handed one copy to the plaintiffs and one to the clerk of the court who passed it to the judge.

Melanie's lawyer jumped to his feet, "objection your honor! We have not had a chance to test whatever is contained in this file."

"Objection is noted and denied Mr. Wilson. You will have plenty of opportunity to rigorously test this before any trial. Go on Mr. McDonald, you have piqued my interest."

"Your honor Thomas Cameron didn't ever have a vasectomy, because Dr. Nelson discovered he was already sterile."

All hell broke loose. There were gasps from the gallery then reporters scrambled for the doors intent on getting the new twist in the story out first. Charles and Edward had turned towards their mother along with everybody else present, only this time Melanie wasn't welcoming the attention. Mr. Wilson had jumped to his feet again yelling an objection and the judge was banging her gavel trying to quell the din.

When order was restored the judge warned that any further outbursts and she would clear the court. Both lawyers were still on their feet and she turned her attention to Mr. Wilson first.

"Mr. Wilson, you can sit down. I didn't hear your objection but it can wait. Perhaps you should take the next few minutes to confer with your client's mother." Melanie's lawyer sat down heavily and opened the file Jeremy had given him. "Mr. McDonald, you are full of surprises. I assume you have more to say?" Jeremy nodded, "then go ahead."

"Thank you your honor. As I stated before, Dr. Nelson found that my client, Thomas Cameron, was sterile. Further investigation showed that he had been born with two defective vas deferens so his semen had no sperm in it at all."

More whispers could be heard in the audience but as the judge picked up the gavel silence descended so Jeremy continued.

"Mr. Cameron was obviously shocked and hurt when he received this news and its implication, but rather than bring attention to it he quietly divorced his wife and didn't tell anyone of the reason except for his father. So when Byron Cameron was drafting his will he did so in the knowledge that Charles and Edward were his grandchildren in name only and was quite within his rights to not include them."

Talking in the gallery again caused the judge to stop Jeremy and she gave several people their last warnings before she spoke to Jeremy again.

"So Mr. McDonald what do you propose I do today."

"My clients do not wish to deny anyone who has a rightful claim on their father's estate. So we would ask the court to compel the plaintiffs to give samples for a DNA test to ascertain, if by some miracle, Thomas is their father then they can continue with their suit. If Thomas is shown not to be their father then this matter should be struck out."

Jeremy sat back down and Melanie grabbed at her lawyer's sleeve, motioning for him to get up and say something but he simply shrugged his shoulders and stayed where he was. The judge flicked through the medical file then cleared her throat and gave her decision.

"Mr. McDonald you make a compelling case. I'm not sure why you didn't make it earlier... perhaps Mr. Cameron is not as noble as you say." She looked at Tom and he stared her down before she turned towards a distraught Melanie. "In this case he certainly has some company. It is the decision of this court that Charles and Edward Cameron have twenty-eight days to submit samples in order for DNA tests to determine if Thomas Cameron is their father. If the results come back affirmative then the court orders that further mediation take place in order that a settlement regarding the estate of Byron Cameron is reached. If the test results are negative then this case is dismissed with costs being awarded against the plaintiff."

The judge banged her gavel and the court erupted. Tom stood, hugged his sister, and shook hands with Jeremy. Charles and Edward hightailed it out of the court and Melanie's lawyers were trying to get a weeping Melanie out of her chair so the lawyers for the next case on the list could take their place. As Tom walked past he heard Melanie complaining to her counsel.

"... But he was old, he said he'd been fixed... I just wanted a break.."

Tom stopped in his tracks as the word's meaning sunk in. He knew who the boy's real father was.

"What's that all about?" Kate asked as she moved past me.

"I'll tell you outside."

When they got to the doors of the courtroom two ushers opened them and it seemed like a thousand flashbulbs went off. Reporters yelled questions but Tom and Kate just kept their heads down and fought their way through the melee. When they got to the steps of the courthouse Tom was worried someone was going to get injured as they tried to descend so he stopped. Holding up his hands he appealed for quiet and when they shut up he told them he would make a statement.

"The last three weeks has been very difficult for my family. Having aspects of my private life aired and debated in public has been humiliating for me and the resulting media frenzy has adversely affected all our lives. Today this issue had been put to rest and now I would like to go back to being a private citizen. I am now asking you all to respect my, my family's, and my sister's family's right to privacy and to leave us alone. Thank you."

He started to walk down the steps as the reporters continued to hurl questions at him. Tom ignored them until one got under his skin.

"Mr. Cameron? Do you intend to counter sue your ex-wife for defamation?"

He stopped, swiveled around and the microphones where thrust in his face again.

"As I stated earlier this ends here, I take no joy from what has happened today."

All right, that was a lie, but Tom thought he sounded sincere. He looked over the huddle of reporters to a lone figure, deserted by her lawyers and sons, trying to scuttle away unseen. Tom didn't have to point as Melanie had done earlier in the afternoon, the reporters followed his gaze and seeing Melanie, scurried over to get her reaction.

With the distractions gone he went to the car where Kate and Jeremy were waiting. In the back seat Kate popped a bottle of bubbly but Tom didn't feel like celebrating. He just wanted to get home. It struck him that was the first time he had ever considered Tasmania home, maybe he would become an Aussie one day. Not to the locals of course, to them he would always be a septic.

Kate, pulling on his arm, brought him back to the present. "So what was Melanie babbling about as we left."

"I think I know who the father of Charles and Edward is. Melanie got her first job in television, doing the weather in a local news bulletin when she was recruited by old man Harlan. He owned and ran that NBC affiliate station. Obviously her big break came with strings attached."

"Trevor Harlan?" Kate asked incredulous. "He was ancient, he must have been seventy or more."

"I guess that's why she thought she was safe."

"But why didn't she have more children?"

"Once she got the job at the network she didn't need him anymore."

"Maybe she'll sue him for some money." Jeremy added.

"Maybe she will have had enough of courts and lawyers. Besides, I really don't care anymore."

They dropped Jeremy at his office and went straight to Kate's apartment. A few more wines and an early takeout dinner Kate's husband had bought home and Tom was ready for bed. Before he went to shower Kate flicked on the television and the same current affairs show where Melanie had first started her blitzkrieg was on.

It was strange seeing his face and hearing his voice coming from the screen. It showed most of Tom's courthouse statement and then Melanie scurrying away hiding her face. Next a reporter did a piece to camera describing the scene inside the court and to wrap it up there was a comment attributed to an insider at the publishing house selling Melanie's book. Rumor had it they were pulping all the books they had printed and were seeking legal advice on whether they could recoup the large advance they had paid Melanie. Tom went to sleep with a smile on his face.

Authors note. I realize some readers will doubt the existence of a Tasmanian Whisky industry. Just for your information a distillery called Sullivan's Cove won the award for the worlds best single malt at the world whiskies awards in London and a double gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition in 2014.

Just a couple of terms to explain, "sticky beak" is a description of a person who "puts their nose into other people's business." Also at the end of the story the Australian slang "septic" is used. This dates back to the Second World War when American servicemen were stationed in Australia during the Pacific campaign. It owes its genesis to rhyming slang, septic tank- yank, it was also a derogatory term as a septic tank is the composting tank connected to toilets in houses not joined to a sewerage network. So many at the time thought the visitors were full of you know what.

Now I guess the next thing to explain is the Australian habit of greeting a friend or colleague with derogatory term, eg "how are you going you old bastard?" To which you might reply "I'm fine you fat prick." Between mates these exchanges are bizarre rituals of affection, hence Tom may well consider being called "a septic" as a friendly gesture. I know that's how I view the anonymous abusive comments, if they didn't like me they wouldn't do it.