Defense for the Devil (17 page)

Sitting alone on the porch later, Frank was wishing that Barbara had accepted his invitation for dinner. He would be in there now cooking happily, knowing he had an appreciative guest, but he had no inclination to start anything for himself just yet. He was troubled more than he had realized at the time by the talk he had had with Sam Bixby. Again and again he had found himself going over Sam’s words: things change. They do, he conceded.

He suspected that a good part of the problem Barbara and John were having arose from her working habits, maybe the work itself. Many people despised criminal lawyers even more than other lawyers.

Because he was methodical, Frank separated the Barbara problem into parts now. That was one. Not his business, he reminded himself. The other part was his business. Sam wanted her out.

Frank had no illusions about what would happen the day he retired, or fell over dead, whichever came first. If she was kicked out, would she leave the law again? She had left once and he had dragged her back in, but if he couldn’t play that role, then what? She would still have Martin’s restaurant, but that was child’s play, something she would never give up, but not what she was meant to do full-time.

Then he thought, Sam was right after all: she should have her own office, her own people, her own stable of lawyers. Sam would have a fit if she brought in another murder case, especially a Cain and Abel case, which Frank knew she would do, if she could get out from under the Maggie Folsum business in time. And if she wasn’t clear of that, she would do something very foolish, he felt certain. What she wouldn’t do was let a lazy son of a bitch like Stover allow Ray Arno to be found guilty either by a plea or by a jury.

So there was a double-barreled shotgun getting primed for her, he thought with deepening gloom. Sam would not hesitate to fire. And the other barrel was one she might prime herself, and end up being kicked off the Folsum matter as well as out of Arno’s case. And possibly face charges before the bar. She was withholding information, obstructing justice in a murder case, a serious charge. She had made it all but necessary for another attorney to commit perjury, and there was the question of how that money got into her hands. If she was asked directly, would she lie? He thought not, but, he admitted, he didn’t know. If she had deliberately set out to cause herself serious trouble, maybe serious enough for disbarment, she couldn’t have done a better job of it.

Or, he thought bleakly, had she done it not altogether consciously to achieve exactly that? The idea filled him with such disquiet that abruptly he stood up, too abruptly; for a moment the porch floor tilted. He didn’t move until it was stable again, then shakily he reentered his house.

At that moment Barbara was scrubbing out a skillet for the third time. “Goddamn it,” she muttered. “You can make a goddamn pancake, for Christ’s sake!” But she couldn’t. No matter what she did, they stuck to the skillet. She went back to the recipe:
If the batter is too thin, thicken it with a little flour.
She had done that and ended up with what looked like German pancakes, thick ugly things that she couldn’t roll, no matter how carefully she tried. If she followed the recipe to the letter, the batter looked like cream and stuck to the skillet. The illustration was of crepes filled with a spinach-ricotta mixture. She washed out the bowl and started over. The batter looked like cream. “Butter the fucking skillet.” She buttered it, then added just a little more, then poured in some batter. “Don’t stick, damn you!” It stuck to the skillet.

She flooded the bowl with water to dilute the rest of the batter in order to pour it down the drain, scrubbed the skillet one more time, and opened a can of soup.

16

Over the next
two days Barbara looked at rental properties, then in desperation at houses and townhouses and condos for sale. Wrong place, wrong room arrangement, especially wrong price.

On Thursday she and Frank prepared to go to the Federal Building for the meeting with the IRS representative. Barbara tore off the top hundred or so pages of printouts, and the last fifty, which she returned to the safe.

At the Federal Building they were kept waiting in a desolate room with wooden chairs occupied by dejected-looking people awaiting their turn with auditors, no doubt. Mr. Chenowith would be with them in a minute, the woman behind the information counter said, but he would be with them only when the entire party had gathered, they understood. Trassi was late. Lou Sunderman looked quite happy.

At ten minutes past two, Trassi hurried in, carrying a suitcase, and he looked as if someone had been tramping on his corns. He nodded curtly to Barbara and did not offer to shake hands with Sunderman or Frank when she introduced them. A door opened and a tall thin man appeared.

“Good afternoon, Lou,” he said. “Thomas Chenowith.” He shook hands all around as they introduced themselves.

“Please come in.” The room he showed them to was marginally less desolate than the anteroom. In here was a round, much-scarred wooden table and too many chairs and nothing else.

After they were seated under a harsh white light, Chenowith said genially, “Now, what can I do for you?”

“Well, Thomas,” Lou Sunderman said, “we have a pretty little tax situation that needs clarification.” He outlined the situation as he drew papers from his briefcase. “So the money is in the escrow company’s keeping, under court order. But all we really need is a closing agreement, and we’ll be out of your hair.” He smiled, but Chenowith’s geniality had vanished; he appeared to be battling with a pain. “Here I have Ms. Folsum’s agreement with Ms. Holloway….” He described the documents as he pushed them across the table to Chenowith, who did not touch them. “I believe Mr. Trassi has a statement to add to my account,” Lou said.

“My statement, as you insist on calling it, is quite simple,” Trassi said coldly. He took a paper from his coat pocket and read from it. “On July nineteenth I happened to meet Mitch Arno in the outer office of the Palmer Company in New York City. I was there on business, as he was. He overheard Mr. Palmer bidding me a safe trip to Oregon, and approached me and drew me aside. He asked if he could retain me for a private matter he was concerned about. I found that I could accommodate him, and I did. I asked one of the girls in Mr. Palmer’s office to type out a simple agreement between Mitch Arno and myself to the effect that he would deliver into my hands on July twenty-fifth a suitcase containing valuables, which was the property of his ex-wife, Margaret Folsum.

“I met him as planned in Portland, and he gave me the suitcase and told me again that it belonged to his ex-wife and that I should give it to her and inform her that he would be there in time for his daughter’s birthday. As soon as I delivered the suitcase, my duties to him would be concluded, and he would open the suitcase himself at the proper time.”

“Why didn’t he just deliver it himself?”

“He said he had to deliver an automobile to an out-of-the-way place and would then take a bus back to Portland, where he would rent a car. Evidently he was uncomfortable carrying anything of value on a public bus.”

“Did he at any time say what the valuables were?”

“Yes. He said it was a large sum of money, long overdue.”

“No more than that, it was overdue?”

Trassi said impatiently, “He said a great deal, but what pertains is that he had not paid his ex-wife for child support over the years, his children were now of college age, and the money was theirs. Also he wanted to regain the favor of his father.”

Chenowith remained impassive, but now and again his face twitched in a way that suggested an ulcer was paining him and he was being brave about it. “When did you deliver the money?”

“Not as quickly as I desired,” Trassi said. “My other business in Portland took longer than I had anticipated, and I was still in the city on Friday, August second. I called Ms. Folsum to make an appointment for Saturday or Sunday, but the person who answered the phone said she would not be available until Monday or Tuesday. So I postponed going to Ms. Folsum’s inn. On Monday, August fifth, I finally drove to the coast, but no one answered my phone calls all evening. On Tuesday, I was horrified to learn that hoodlums had vandalized her inn severely, and when I finally saw her and tried to deliver the suitcase, she was too harried and distraught to talk to me. The following day she referred me to her legal counsel, Ms. Holloway. A day or so later I contacted Ms. Holloway and concluded my legal obligation to Mitch Arno.” He hesitated a moment, then passed the statement over to Chenowith.

If she had an Oscar, Barbara thought, she’d hand it over on the spot. Instead, she said, “I put it in a safe-deposit box immediately and left it there until I could talk to my client and decide what the legality of the situation was. We decided to do nothing until Mitch turned up to explain it all. After we learned of his death, I consulted with our tax attorney, Mr. Sunderman, and subsequently turned the matter over to him.”

His ulcer was hitting him again, Barbara thought sympathetically, when Chenowith looked at Lou Sunderman.

“I, of course,” Sunderman said, “realized that Ms. Holloway couldn’t simply release the money to her client, not without a closing agreement from the Internal Revenue Service, even though the money was legally hers from the time Mitch Arno handed it to Mr. Trassi, who was acting as his agent. Mr. Trassi kindly agreed to cooperate, to furnish Mitch Arno’s address and other information that would be pertinent to settling this matter. Hence this meeting.”

“You have that information regarding Mitch Arno?” Chenowith asked Trassi.

“It’s all in here,” Trassi said, sliding a file folder across the table.

“Gentlemen,” Barbara said then, “since Mr. Sunderman is Ms.

Folsum’s counsel of record in this matter, if you have no further need for my presence, I do have other business to attend to.”

“We’ll be in touch with you,” Chenowith said.

“Before you leave,” Lou Sunderman said. “One more little item. I request that this meeting be held in confidence, by court order, if necessary, until the matter is settled conclusively.”

Trassi nodded, and after a moment Chenowith did also. “I’ll get an order,” Chenowith said, then looked at Barbara and Frank in turn. “You both agree to hold this meeting in confidence pending such an order?”

They said they did. “With one exception,” Barbara said. “As an officer of the court, it’s my duty to report this matter to the district attorney, since it could be of material interest as that office investigates the death of Mitch Arno. The district attorney will, of course, be under the same court order regarding confidentiality as the rest of us.”

For a moment it appeared that Trassi might turn into a leaper before their eyes. His body tensed and his expression was disbelieving and furious. She met his gaze coolly. “If I don’t, Mr. Chenowith will. Not to disclose a matter of this significance could be construed as obstruction of justice.”

“The district attorney’s name will be added to the restraining order,” Chenowith said.

Barbara and Frank stood up and walked out.

She had to fight an impulse to hop, skip, and jump her way through the anteroom toward the outside door.

At the door, they stopped when Trassi called out her name. “Outside,” he snapped. He was carrying the suitcase.

They stepped out, away from the door, and she handed him the briefcase, which he put inside his suitcase, and without a word turned and reentered the building.

“Round one,” she said in a low voice.

Back at the office they found Bailey waiting for them. “Sylvia opened the account at ten,” he said. “They went out for a cup of coffee. At twelve Gilmore cleaned out the account. The vice president was in on it, and he called bunco. They nabbed him at the airport, and he’s in the county jail. He called his lawyer. Another funny coincidence, happens his lawyer is named Trassi, who gave him holy hell and hung up on him.”

Frank nodded. “They won’t let him stay in jail long, too risky. Someone will show up and bail him out.”

“Trassi is scurrying,” Bailey said. “Canceled a flight out of town, making a lot of phone calls. Mad as hell.”

“Guess Gilmore knows how Adam felt,” Frank said. “Just couldn’t resist that one little bite, and here comes the sky down on his head.”

He would jump bail, Barbara thought, and there would be an arrest warrant issued. He was of no further use to Palmer, Trassi, any of them. He would go to jailor be a fugitive. “I wonder how long it will be before he realizes his life isn’t worth very much,” she said.

Frank shrugged. “You want some dinner tonight?”

“Love it, but I might be a little late, after John calls at seven or seven-thirty. And I have to set up a meeting with the D.A. Maybe for Monday.”

“You going out to Maggie’s place tomorrow?” Frank asked.

She nodded. “I might stay over a night or two, walk out some kinks.”

She and Maggie talked in Maggie’s bed-sitting room. Maggie gazed out the windows at the ocean as Barbara recounted the meeting with the IRS. “Do you think they’ll accept that story?” she asked when Barbara finished.

“Hope so. No real reason for them not to.”

Maggie turned to Barbara then. “Is it extortion or blackmail? You’re selling them the printouts, aren’t you?” She looked pinched and cold, and years older than she had before. “I’ve been thinking a lot about this and I’ve decided I can’t go along. I can’t start my kids out in life with dirty money. I’ve been tempted before; there are opportunities for a single woman, as you probably know, but never quite so much money.” She laughed, a bitter, harsh sound. “I dreamed about what all we could do with so much money, what it would mean, then I’d wake up and wonder how I could explain it if they ever ask hard questions. Give the printouts to their owner, get rid of the money. I don’t care what you do with it.” She stood up and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Just don’t keep tempting me with it.”

Startled, Barbara shook her head. “I want you to believe me when I say this. I’m not doing anything I’m ashamed of or that would shame you.” Maggie was like a statue, remote and unreachable. “Sit down, Maggie. It’s an ugly story, and you have to promise me that you won’t reveal it to anyone now, possibly never.”