Knock Off (4 page)
Little good, in my experience, ever comes of a visit to the boss’s office. But since I didn’t have any other option, I greeted the executive receptionist, whose name I totally blanked on, and took a seat to wait.
And wait and wait. My stomach was growling, and I was jonesing for coffee. Lunch was secondary to my coffee need. It had been forty-minutes since my last caffeine hit, and I was starting to feel the effects. I considered asking if I could reschedule, but I was afraid to.
As time ticked on, my nerves frayed to the point that I was tapping my foot. That earned me a disapproving glance from the executive sentry.
“Do you have any idea when Mr. Dane will see me?” I asked, the words spilling out of me in one rush of breath.
“He’s still on a conference call.”
That will last the rest of my lifetime? C’mon,
I thought,
where’s the sisterhood? We’re all underlings here—toss me
a crumb. Something I can hang my hope on.
Nothing. She continued typing as if I was invisible.
I straightened my blouse, wishing now I had grabbed my jacket to cover the start of perspiration stains I was sure would morph into big, ugly wet blotches at any second.
Nearly an hour later, I was ushered inside the spacious masculine office of Victor Dane. The walls were covered with professionally framed diplomas, certificates, news clippings, and various other accolades and statements of apprecia-tion. Dane was seated at the far end of the room.
He didn’t look up as I entered and took the long walk toward him. An ornate pen was in his left hand, poised above an inch-high stack of papers.
Do I say something? Clear my throat? Remain silent?
Throw myself out the window?
It’s hard not to be intimidated by him. Mutely, I remained in the room with God, watching Him autograph copies of the Bible.
“Sit.”
I did as instructed, quelling my urge to ask for a liver treat for my obedience. He continued his task, drawing out the painful silence.
My eyes darted around the room as I pretended to be interested in photographs of Dane with various celebrities and the elite of Palm Beach. One of the few things I liked about the man was his cologne, it was Burberry and reminded me of my dad.
Dane, I grudgingly admitted, had a great sense of style.
His suit was subdued, hand-tailored brown silk, paired with a camel-colored shirt that had his monogram on one cuff. For an older guy, he was pretty dapper. If only there wasn’t that glare coming off of his buffed nails. I hate buffed nails on a man. They cross the invisible line between pampered and prissy.
I cataloged the things on his desk: an antique Tiffany desk set, a bottle of water, three file folders, and several pink messages scrawled in Margaret’s precise handwriting.
There was a matching mahogany computer station form-ing a wide semicircle around to his right. His laptop was open to a geometric screen saver making liquid shapes that changed at preset intervals.
The wall behind him went up three feet, then a to-the-ceiling window opened on a stunning, panoramic view of the ocean. I had to look beyond his artificially darkened hair to see the ships dotting the horizon. I would have given anything to be out at the beach, lying in the sun, instead of waiting for whatever unpleasantness was coming my way.
It had to be something bad, I decided as I clutched my pathetic-looking pad. Dane didn’t issue invitations unless you did something really, really good or really, really bad.
It had been a while since I had done anything spectacular, so it had to be the latter.
Hello? Growing old here!
I thought, feeling my heart pounding in my chest.
He looked up then, tethered to a telephone by a ear bud.
He smiled, something I hadn’t expected. “Sorry I kept you waiting, Finley.”
“Not a problem,” I said.
“I wanted to thank you.”
I leaned forward, thinking I had misheard him. “For?”
“Taking on the Evans matter. I know Stacy can be . . .
difficult.”
“We’re fine,” I told him. “She’s just convinced her husband was murdered.”
He sat back, stroking his chin. “You do know that’s lu-dicrous?”
44
Rhonda Pollero
Got that on the first try.
“Yes, sir.”
“Where are you on the estate?”
I was really impressed by the professional way I ticked off all the things I had done thus far, finishing up with, “A mechanic is going over the car as we speak.” Only he probably got a lunch break.
“Don’t spend too much time on this,” Dane cautioned, returning to his task. “Copy me on any relevant information.”
It was a dismissal, so I stood, then lingered at the edge of his desk.
Eventually, Dane lifted his brown eyes to meet mine.
“Yes?”
“You were the lead attorney on the Hall case, right?”
“Uh huh,” he answered, clearly bored by me. “And
you’re wondering how Marcus sat on a jury if we had a personal relationship?”
“Yes.”
“We didn’t. Marcus and Stacy retained me a year after the trial. Is there anything else?”
“No, thank you.” I backed out of the room.
I strolled back to my office, feeling pretty good about my meeting. That was as close as Dane ever came to praise, so I’m already thinking of ways to spend my holiday bonus even if it is only April.
I’d earned a nice lunch, but for once, I had no desire to leave the building. I was on an employee high, so I thought I should make good use of it.
I detoured down to the vending machines on the first floor and, armed with four packs of M&Ms, I went back up to my office. I noticed that I had three messages from Stacy Evans. Grabbing the receiver, I started to call her, when I noted the list of names on my computer screen.
Why not do a quick search on the remaining jurors’
names? Then I would start on the witnesses. It would give me one more thing to report to Mrs. Evans.
Cutting and pasting the relevant information between the Internet and my list of names, I was on my way to preparing a pretty decent memo for the client. Then I could get back to reading the transcript and continue feeling really impressed with myself.
I was moving along at a pretty good clip when I entered the fifth juror’s name from my list. The first hit was a three-month-old obituary. Another member of the jury had died. According to a corresponding, brief mention in the
Post,
José Vasquez, a landscaper, had been killed in a freak work-related accident. Okay, I shouldn’t laugh, but, honestly, it was hard to keep a straight face when I was reading about a guy being crushed while planting a palm tree. Talk about your freak accident.
Only two names remained on my list. One was a drama student at FAU who, according to the critic who wrote the article, was so talentless that she made Paris Hilton look like Meryl Streep. The other was Graham Keller, the jury foreman.
Keller was a fifty-eight-year-old man who—I swallowed—was also dead. Also an accident. Also within the last three months.
The hairs at the back of my neck prickled. I let out a breath and whispered, “Something is very wrong.”
Never blow your girlfriends off for a guy.
Four
It was Wednesday, and in just three short days I was beginning to change my opinion about Stacy Evans. As in, maybe she wasn’t a delusional widow with nothing better to do than bug me. Maybe there was something to her theory that her husband had been murdered after all. Hell, I hadn’t even started checking out the trial witnesses and already the bodies were piling up.
My fingernails clicked against my keyboard as I cyber-hunted for more information on Graham Keller, the third dead juror. There was a tingle of excitement in my stomach. A normal person would equate it to that sensation you feel when you know you’re about to get great sex.
Me? It’s more like the thrill I get when an eBay auction for one of my coveted Rolex parts is about to end and I’m still the high bidder.
Unlike the poor landscaper crushed by the palm tree, the details of Graham Keller’s demise were pretty standard fare. According to the newspaper, he simply keeled over during a performance at the Kravis Center. I grimaced when I discovered the death occurred during intermission on the opening night for a touring company’s production of
The Marriage of Figaro.
My reaction was a sad commentary on my character because the response wasn’t empathy for the dead guy. Oh no. It was pretty much a function of my own personal experience.
Mom dragged Lisa and me to various operas on a regular basis when we were growing up. Fully expecting her daughters to share her love of opera. Lisa does. I so do not. Particularly not
Figaro.
For me, it’s three and a half hours of sappy romance set to music. Don’t get me wrong, I like romance as much as the next girl. I just prefer the
Sleepless in Seattle
kind. About an hour into the opera, my hand starts to itch, and I’ve got to battle the urge to rush the stage and bitch-slap the Susanna and/or Figaro character, just for being so stupid.
So the notion of a quick and painless death at intermission held some sort of perverse appeal for me. Lucky bastard didn’t have to sit through the second half.
“Stop it,” I chided myself softly. A therapist could probably have a field day analyzing the correlation between my loathing of opera and my relationship—or lack thereof— with my mother and sister.
Shaking my head to clear my errant thoughts, I returned my focus to Keller’s sudden death. His age was listed as fifty-eight—pretty young to just drop dead. Again I thought there was a possibility that Stacy Evans wasn’t a complete loon.
Three dead jurors in three months is pretty damned suspicious. Even to an underachieving estates and trusts paralegal.
My shoulders slumped when I reached the last line of the article just above a grainy photograph of the deceased.
There’d been a autopsy. The M.E.’s office determined that Keller had suffered a massive coronary. Natural causes, damn it.
In the bizarre and wonderful world of the medical examiner, once homicide and suicide are ruled out, a heart attack is technically considered an accident. Which I suppose makes some sort of sense. It’s not like anyone would intentionally have a coronary.
That knowledge didn’t do much to support my growing belief in the jury conspiracy. As some of the enthusiasm drained out of my system, I leaned back against my chair, tapping my index finger against the edge of the desk. Graham Keller’s face was smiling at me from the computer screen, giving me the creeps. Even the dead guy was taunting me over my as yet unsubstantiated suspicions. I could almost hear him clucking his tongue. Common sense and reasons I’d seen thus far dictated that Keller, Vasquez, and Marcus Evans had all died from explainable causes or accidents.
But I still couldn’t get past the tingle in my gut.
Something
wasn’t right. Me, probably. There was a distinct possibility that I was making a mountain out of a mole hill. I knew the M.E. had reviewed the Evans and the Keller deaths and hadn’t found anything suspicious.
Reaching for the phone, I figured it was worth a shot to check on the Vasquez accident. Just one last shot, and then I’d leave it alone. I flipped through my Rolodex, absently aware of the fact that I was about due for a manicure. My polish wasn’t chipped or anything, I’m just a firm believer in preventive personal beautification.
My call was answered on the third ring.
“Hi Trena,” I greeted, relieved that she was the one I’d reached.
Trena Halpern, one of the clerks over at the morgue, and I have chatted dozens of times. She’s my go-to girl when I need a rush on duplicate death certificates or a heads-up that the M.E.’s findings might cause me some grief. A lot of insurance companies won’t pay out benefits if the deceased committed suicide, so Trena has become a valuable contact over the years. She’s nice, and generally comfortable telling tales out of school, mainly because I did simple wills for her parents gratis.
“Hi, Finley. How are you?”
I could almost see her twisting strands of auburn hair around her forefinger. Then again, I’d develop a lot of nervous ticks if I spent eight hours a day surrounded by dead bodies.
“I’m good. You?”
“My nineteen-year-old daughter just had her nipple pierced. My son wrote a pro–gay marriage paper for his English class. Wasn’t real popular with the nuns at St. Ig-natius Boys Latin.”
Whoa. Wrong question.
“Uh, sorry.”
“Not as sorry as he is. I grounded him until he gets his first gray hair because I lost a half day’s work so the principal and the priest could lecture me on family values.
They worked in a dig about me being the problem. They seem to forget that my husband divorced
me.
” Trena let out a long sigh. “So, what can I do for you?”
“I’m working on an estate.”
Technically true.
“I’m hoping you’ll share anything you’ve got. Totally off the record, of course.”
“I’ve already, er, shared with one person today, so sure.
Got a name?”
“José Vasquez,” I said, then read off the date of death I’d gotten from the obituary.
“Hang on.”
I cradled the phone between my cheek and shoulder as I rolled my chair over to the tower of boxes. Remembering the juror questionnaires were in the top box, I quickly found the file and took it back to my desk.
José’s was the second one in the pile. While I waited for Trena, I scanned the three-page document. The most no-50
Rhonda Pollero
table thing about José’s answers was poor penmanship. I deciphered enough of it to know that he was a naturalized citizen who’d come to the United States from Guatemala.
He was married to Rosita, had four young children, and had started his landscaping business just a year before the Hall trial.
According to his answers, he’d never been arrested, never served on a jury. His closest and only connection to the justice system was a cousin who’d been convicted of spousal abuse in the late 1990s. José had taken the time to scribble in that he’d been a witness against his cousin.
“Got it,” Trena said, slightly out of breath. I heard the sound of papers being shuffled before she continued. “Died as a result of closed trauma to the chest and head.” More shuffling of papers. “The only two witnesses said he was guiding a royal palm into position when it fell and crushed him. Injuries consistent with witness statements. Ruled an accident.”
“Were there tox screens done?”
“Blood alcohol level was nil,” Trena said. “Why? Did your guy have a history of drug abuse?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, if you’re going after his insurance company, we’ve got a vial of his blood in the freezer. Don’t wait too long. Oh, I can fax you a copy of the police report if you want. Save you a trip to the Riviera P.D.”
“That would be great. Thanks.”
I made some notes after I hung up the phone. If José’s accident wasn’t really an accident, I needed to talk to the witnesses.
At that thought, I rolled my eyes and swallowed a groan.
What did I know about interviewing witnesses? Forget interviewing them, I wasn’t even sure how to find them. I was pretty sure I couldn’t pick up the phone and dial 1-800-WITNESS.
But I did have Mary Beth’s e-mail attachment, better known as The Complete Guide to Litigation Management.
Pulling up the long document, I did a quick search and found a bulleted list of questions. They were divided into categories—law enforcement, eyewitnesses, forensic witnesses, character witnesses, alibi witnesses, blah, blah, blah.
After some cutting, pasting, and sorting, I created a more manageable document that I could use, assuming I could track down whoever was with José when he died. I could probably find his wife fairly easily, but I didn’t really relish the idea of popping in on the Widow Vasquez. At least not yet.
Hearing a tap on my open door, I looked up to find one of the interns standing there with a small stack of papers in her hand. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I knew her name. I don’t usually have time to learn their names. Interns only stay at the firm for about three months at a stretch.
I’d dubbed this one—only in my thoughts—Bad Hair
Girl because she had the worst cut I’d ever seen. The color was great, pale brown with natural blond highlights. The kind of highlights I pay a small fortune for every six weeks or so. But the functional bob pretty much negated the gift of perfect color. And she had bangs. Bad ones. They were far too short, making her face look too round. She had a nice shape and a propensity for wearing plain skirts and tailored shirts. She was tall, five-ten, maybe. Something she compensated for by always wearing flat shoes.
Or, I thought, feeling a little guilty at my unflattering mental inventory, maybe she just wore them because her feet hurt. Lord knew the partners treated the interns like servants. They spent a big part of their stints at Dane-Lieberman filing motions and running errands. Bad Hair Girl spent a lot of time ferrying exhibits to and from the printer. I’d seen her often, dragging heavy mounted charts, graphs, and photo blowups up and down Clematis Street.
None of that explained why she was in my doorway, since she was assigned to Vain Dane.
“Hi. Connie, right?”
“Cami,” she corrected. “Short for Camille.”
“Sorry. Cami.”
“No problem. Everybody gets it wrong.” She thrust the pages in my direction, still not crossing the threshold into my office. “This fax just came for you.”
Getting up, I walked around my desk and took the
pages from her. “Thanks. How’d you get stuck with fax delivery duty?”
“I do what I’m told,” she said, her tone tinged with a small amount of frustration. “Fax delivery today, pencil sharpening tomorrow.”
I smiled up at her, surprised by the sharp humor. “Not loving your duties?”
“I’ve got a four-point-oh GPA, an almost photographic memory, and next year I’m going to be the editor of the
Law Review.
I’d imagined my first internship would be a little more, um, challenging.”
It’s a learning experience, not an appointment to the
Supreme Court.
“It’ll look good on your résumé,” I assured her.
“Mind if I ask what you’re working on?”
“Wheel-spinning,” I said, returning to my desk and offering her a seat at the same time. Procrastination is, after all, one thing I excel at.
“A lot of that going around,” Cami agreed as she folded her long, lean body into the seat.
After giving the faxed pages a cursory glance, I returned my attention to the intern. Her hazel eyes were darting around my office, finally settling on the framed photograph of Patrick and me.
“Your husband?” she asked.
I shook my head. “No, boyfriend.”
“I’ve had exactly one date since I started working here.
It’s hard to meet men when you’re stuck here until the wee hours of the morning and the weekends are devoted to indexing transcripts.”
Feeling a kinship to the overworked woman, I offered her some coffee. She declined. I refilled my mug and gripped it with both hands as I brought it to my lips.
“Your case?” she prompted.
“Well,
case
is a bit of a stretch,” I admitted. “It’s more like appeasing a grieving widow who is convinced her husband’s death wasn’t an accident. Said grieving widow should be calling any time now for her hourly update.”
“Mrs. Evans?”
The hairs on the back of my neck prickled and stood on end. “Yes. How’d you know that?”
She shrugged. “I’m a trial junkie. I saw the name on the fax and remembered that José Vasquez was on the Hall jury. I was the one who put together the Evans notes to pass along to you for Mr. Dane last Monday. I remembered Marcus Evans was on that jury, too. So I just figure there is some sort of connection.”
I decided right that second that Bad Hair Girl was a little scary, and definitely not anyone I’d want to piss off.
“Good guess.”
“Too bad they’re both dead. Mr. Vasquez seemed like a nice man.”
I was more than a little stunned. “You met him?”
“All of them,” Cami admitted. “I sat in on the trial. It was the summer between my sophomore and junior year at college. I was tending bar at night, so my days were free.
I was considering applying to law school, so I attended a few trials just to see if that was really what I wanted.”
“How’d you meet the jurors?”
“They weren’t sequestered or anything. I’d run into them at lunch or outside the courthouse during breaks.
One of them, Daniel Summers, even hit on me once.”
Glancing over at the boxed transcripts, I thought Cami might be my way around reading the hundred or so volumes. Hmm. Maybe she could be my personal Cliffs Notes. It was worth a shot.
“Was there anything hinky about the trial?”
Cami shook her head with conviction. “Everyone from the orderlies to the anesthesiologist present at the transplant surgery testified that Dr. Hall did everything right.
Then there was a parade of witnesses from the post-op ward who insisted Brad Whitley’s infection came on fast and furious. Nothing short of a miracle could have saved him.”
“So why did the wife sue?”
“Grief. Sara Whitley sobbed through her whole testimony. I got the impression that she just wanted her husband’s death to be someone’s fault.”