Escape (27 page)

Still looking at me, she hung up the phone. With a shaky hand, she pushed that swath of hair back from the eye it hid, revealing double the fear. “I can’t go then,” she cried meekly. “I’d miss all of breakfast, because I’d have to leave at
seven
to get there at ten, traffic will suck, and I don’t even know where to
park.
”

I held her arms. “You’ll get everything ready the night before, so that Vicki can just pop it all in the oven. This is important, Lee. If someone has gone to the extent of thwarting cameras by using a gun on your car, he’s enjoying himself, which means it won’t stop. And
you’re not signing your life away. If you don’t like Sean, you’ll walk out and it ends there. I don’t know where to park either, but we’ll find out. I’ll drive. And if traffic slows us down, we’ll call Sean, and he’ll wait.”

I was arguing for more than Lee or Amelia or Sean. I was arguing for James and me. Helping Lee was common ground for us, which meant that the stakes were high.

James must have sensed it, too, because we had barely settled in the lawyer’s office in Boston Monday morning when he called Sean, who looked increasingly pleased—smiling, jotting notes—as the minutes passed. I was starting to wonder what James was saying when Sean put the call on hold and gestured me toward the conference table at the end of the room.

“Want to talk with him while I get background information from Lee?”

I did. Pulling out a chair there, I picked up. “How are you?” I asked softly enough not to disturb the others.

“
Great
, babe,” he said, sounding more energized with those two words than I’d heard him in months. “Wait’ll you hear this. One of our associates is from a prominent family in Boston. I don’t usually work with him, but just for the hell of it, I dropped the name of the executor of Lee’s trust, Albert Meeme. Instant reaction. His family had used Meeme until weird stuff started showing up on their trust reports—dozens of charges, little things that added up. Meeme cried innocent, but when they started asking around, they learned he had a history of fraud.”

“Proven?” I asked excitedly. This would make Lee’s case.

“No, just bar infractions that stopped short of prosecution. Dubious record-keeping, funds mysteriously moving around, evasive maneuvers.”

“Tax evasion.”

“Right. But—and this is right down Lee’s alley—there have also
been claims that estates were fiddled with to favor one or another of the beneficiaries, with Meeme getting a kickback. No one has been able to prove it, and the firm covers it up, so only insiders know. Sean has heard rumors, but disgruntled clients start rumors all the time. Lee is something else. She isn’t disgruntled. She’s an innocent victim, and Meeme’s history gives juice to her claim. Plus, it adds incentive for Sean. If he can finally pin something on the guy, it’ll be a feather in his cap. But that’s not all, Em. I got an amazing case this morning.”

“Did you?” I asked, still delighted for Lee.

“It’s pro bono, but it could be an interesting case. The client is a woman—Denise Bryant—who is serving time for vehicular homicide for hitting a kid on a bike. She had no record, but forensics showed she was over the speed limit when she tried to pass another car. It was a passing zone, but the weather was bad. The boy was fifteen. He and his friends were riding their bikes off a ramp into the street. She’s suing the boy’s family for letting him ride without wearing a helmet. Do you love it?”

“Interesting,” I said, because the philosophical issue certainly was. But while I was pleased for James, I was not so pleased for me. If I was holding our work to be the enemy, a good case wouldn’t help.

He heard my hesitance. “I know, Em. It’s a gesture. Mark knows I’ve been frustrated with the cases I’m on. Derek Moore is the partner of record, but he’s so busy that it’s basically my case. I’ll be at Bedford Hills interviewing the client. I’ll be in court. I’ll be working with the corrections department, the judge, and the ADA—all personal interaction. I’ll be able to build my name doing something meaningful. A case like this can go a long way in tiding me over until things get better.”

That worried me, in part because I didn’t trust Mark’s motivation. I feared that James was being patronized, or that piling on work was a test of his stamina. Mark knew that a pro bono case would be hard for James to refuse. Heck, it would be hard for me to refuse. Helping someone who was being punished, when the victim shared at least a bit of responsibility? I could happily build a practice of cases like that.
Unfortunately, they wouldn’t pay the bills, a fact of which Mark had to be acutely aware.

“Do you have time for it?” was all I asked.

“I’ll make time. How’s it going with Sean?”

“Okay, I think. He’s talking with Lee now.”

“How was the drive?”

“Fine.”

“No claustrophobia?” he asked with just enough dryness to make his point. I had run from one city. Was this one any different?

“Honestly, I was so focused on making the right turns and getting into the parking garage that I didn’t see much else,” I said. “I’ll let you know on the way back. Thanks for that information, James. You did good.”

I hung up the phone telling myself that he had a right to wonder about my frame of mind, but that his interest in Lee’s case was positive, that his pro bono case might not pan out, and that, in any event, I was glad he had asked to talk to me. We used to call each other often about new cases, old cases, cases where a coworker wasn’t doing his share. It was a reminder that we had
us
above and beyond the rest.

“Just finishing up on history,” Sean explained when I rejoined them. A pleasant-looking guy with short red hair and wire-rimmed glasses, he asked a steady stream of questions, pausing to reword only when Lee looked blank. I figured that his usual client was more savvy, certainly more wealthy.

Listening to the last of it, I asked Lee a question or two myself when I felt she had left something out. She gave him the police file documenting the harassment, as well as trust statements showing the dramatic decline in value from before her husband had died to after. Reading those, Sean’s cheeks grew more ruddy. “One bad lawyer makes the rest of us stink,” he said, clearly irritated. “Pinning something concrete on Albert Meeme would be a community service.” To Lee, he said, “We have a big probate department here. I handle the trial end, so I’ve done this before. First thing, we petition the court for an accounting of the trust.”

“What does that entail?” I asked.

“Submitting a brief, these files, maybe an affidavit containing Lee’s statement. We could take that now. I’d submit the petition as an emergency, vis-à-vis the harassment.”

“Will this stop it?” Lee asked timidly.

“It should,” he said, though tentatively. “If someone knows they’re being watched, it’d certainly up the ante to continue with it.”

“I wouldn’t have to be there, would I? In court?”

“Yes. You’re a compelling witness.”

“I’m
not
. I don’t know what to
say.
”

“That’s what makes you a compelling witness,” he said, and included me again. “I’ve had petitions granted with less cause, so I’m not worried, and I know the clerk at the Probate Court, which means a quick hearing. Once it’s granted, the court has the right to appoint an accountant, but if I suggest a name they know, they’ll use it. I know the best person. She’s quick and she’s smart.”

“What happens then?” Lee asked.

“She examines the books.”

“Where?” I asked.

“The easiest thing would be doing it at Meeme’s firm.”

“But then Jack’s brothers will know,” Lee said.

“They’ll know anyway. They’ll be notified by the court about the petition hearing. They’ll send someone to try to get it denied. Whoever it is won’t have much luck. Like I say, there’s precedence with less cause than this. And Lee will be a good witness.” He eyed Lee. “Now’s the time to decide. Do you want to move ahead with this?”

She wasn’t happy, and for a split second, I felt as bad as I had talking with Layla in New York. Going forward would be frightening, but doing nothing was worse.

I didn’t have to say it. Slowly, her reluctance became resignation. To Sean, she said a quiet “Yes.”

I paid attention as we left Boston. Yes, there was traffic. And yes, I hated it. Yes, there was construction. And yes, I hated it.

Was it claustrophobic to me? By the time I went back and forth making comparisons to New York, we were crossing over the Charles River. There was still traffic on the other side, still construction, still noise. But I knew it would end and that once we moved farther along I-93, the cityscape would flatten.

What did that mean?

It meant that Boston was less offensive as cities went, but that I wasn’t any wilder to rush back to it than Lee. I’d do it, as would she, because the Probate Court was there. And it would be bearable as long as I knew I could leave.

What did
that
mean?

It meant James and I still had a long way to go if we were hoping for a meeting of minds.

Chapter 17
 

Lee had done well in Boston, but what I felt best about was James’s involvement. So I called on the way home to give him an update. He picked up right away, both then and when I called again that night at ten, though in the latter instance he sounded groggy. I had woken him up.

“Oh, hey, I’m sorry. Go back to sleep.”

He made a stretching sound. “Nah. Gotta work.”

“Are you at the office?”

“Home. Kitchen. I must have dozed off.”

“With your head on the counter.” And his laptop pushed aside, his arms on the granite, and his neck crimped. He’d done that before. “Oh, James. You need a bed.”

“I need you,” he said, and yawned. “I need—need a longer day.” He swore. “Yeah, I’m goin’ to bed. I’ll call you in the morning.”

But I was the one who called Tuesday, right after I heard from Sean. “We have a hearing Friday afternoon.”

“Will Lee testify?” James asked.

“Yes. We’ll prepare her by phone, but he doesn’t want to overdo
it. He wants her lack of guile—his words—to come through. She’s terrified, but she did agree.”

“Have there been any new incidents?”

“No. They’re making her wait. Suspense is part of the terror. How’s it going there?”

“Unh. Okay.” He didn’t sound as enthused as yesterday. “Something’s up. I was at Bedford Hills this morning interviewing Denise Bryant, and got back to have Mark all over me about getting three different briefs done. He—he keeps telling me I’m behind because I’ve been skippin’ out, and—and I keep telling him I’m behind because I don’t have the help I need, and he keeps insisting I’d be able to do it myself if I—if I kept my focus on work, which means he’s not talking about Denise Bryant but about
us
. What do I say to that?”

I had an answer, but it was crude.

“I think someone’s all over him, too,” James mused. “I’m guessing the figures coming in for the month aren’t good, but—but worse than the first quarter? If firm management is freaking out, things are bad.”

“How bad?” If James was laid off, we were in trouble. Or not, according to the silver-lining theory.

“Good question. The associates are the last to know. It’s about suspense here, too. Keep us on edge. Like Lee.”

“I’m sorry, James,” I said quietly.

“Well. That’s the game. It’s why I need this partnership. The vote’s in October. I can hang on until then.”

I texted him an hour after that to let him know I was thinking of him, and I did it again in the middle of the afternoon. We went back and forth each time. It was nice, though I imagined him texting under the edge of his desk, where Mark couldn’t see.

Vicki saw. I was helping set up for tea, after insisting that she sit. She looked tired. Like James, she needed more help, but the economics
of the Red Fox didn’t allow for it, so I was glad to fill in. I kept my BlackBerry in my pocket, texting between runs from kitchen to parlor.

“What happened to the woman who swore off electronics?” she asked as I typed another reply.

“This is palatable,” I said, returning the BlackBerry to my pocket, “because I’m mixing it with arranging tea bags, washing pans, and eating cookies. James would be jealous.”