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."And they'll have to answer it all under oath.""Will it come to that?" the young assistant continued.As much as she liked Keenan, Paige wanted complete control of this meeting (the truth was, she wanted complete control of all meetings), and so she quickly jumped in: "Their lawyers will object to the financial questions.And, I have to admit, some of the information is irrelevant and some will only become important if we request punitive damages.But, yes, depending upon the judge, we'll be able to get most of it.""You plan on deposing Morton Knapp?" Keenan asked, referring to the Adirondack CEO, carefully uncapping a fountain pen as he spoke.She hadn't decided yet, but she guessed it couldn't hurt.The CEO probably wouldn't know much about the mechanics of the extractor on any one rifle, much less about obscure design specifications, but all those "I don't knows" and "I wasn't involveds" would make him look arrogant and removed, and that could only help.Besides, these days most people loathed any executive who had the letters CEO or CFO attached to his name."Yes, definitely," Paige heard herself saying now, as if she'd planned on deposing Knapp all along."I've also decided that Spencer must see a psychiatrist," she went on, "and I've picked out two we can consider, both of whom would be very.sympathetic.We already have plenty of experts who can talk to the physical disability, but I want it clear that there is profound psychological trauma as well.""How about for the little girl?" This was Keenan again, and she nodded--nodded sincerely, this time."You may know this already, but the girl's aunt is a therapist.Seton's wife.And so she was all over that.The kid is going to see a doctor in Manhattan named Warwick.A woman.She sounded very nice.""You've spoken to her?" Randy asked.She sounded incredulous."Yes.I wanted to make sure we could work with her."Keenan smiled."And?""If we can't, we'll simply have the girl see someone else.My sense is we don't have a lot to worry about: The child sounds pretty disturbed by this little disaster.""Does all this have to happen before the press conference?" Randy wondered, flipping abstractedly through the papers Paige had handed her.It was clear she thought the task was impossible--which, if they needed it all when they filed the lawsuit and held the press conference, it was.Fortunately, they didn't need most of it anytime soon.So far there had been very little media coverage of the accident outside of some brief stories in small newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont.Nothing had been picked up by the majors on the wires, however, because none of the short articles from northern New England had mentioned what Spencer did for a living.Keenan's initial fears that Leno and Letterman would make FERAL out to be either a group of morons or a group of hypocrites (or both) before the organization could put its spin on the story had so far proven unfounded.As a result, Paige was confident they still had the upper hand and were in control of how they disseminated the information.Now she patted Randy's wrist (Paige wasn't precisely sure why she liked this gesture so much, but she told herself it was compassionate and theatric at once) and reassured her, "No, it doesn't have to happen in the next two weeks.We can embarrass Adirondack quite badly with what we have already.The basic facts of this story.""What about the deer?" Dominique asked, and the woman ran the fingers of one hand gently over the lobe of her ear, skirting the tiny silver dolphin that dangled nearby.Her nails were long, and today they were painted a deep cardinal red."I want to be sure we get to the deer at the press conference.Let us not forget that Spencer's lawsuit is merely our means to the animals."Randy reached for a manila folder of her own."We'll have all sorts of surprises.""Such as?" Dominique said.It was obvious to Paige that this was the part that really interested the director."Well, for starters, hunting actually may cause wildlife overpopulation, because those buck-only laws leave six to ten does per male.If hunters were honestly concerned about keeping the herd the right size for the environment, they'd be shooting does instead of bucks.But that just doesn't seem very macho--or sporting--does it? Human predators are also less likely than natural predators to kill the weakest deer--hunters want that really big rack--which over time diminishes the strength of the species [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]