Lou Mason Mystery - 01 - Motion to Kill (7 page)

Scott was the last to arrive and, without breaking stride, landed in Sullivan’s chair, dropped a sheaf of papers in front of him, and looked around the table.

“Okay, Harlan, the day’s gonna be a bitch, so let’s get started.”

Harlan described what was known of Sullivan’s death, omitting that he had been murdered. Mason attributed the omission to Harlan’s innate avoidance of unpleasant news. Harlan spoke of his shock, his sympathy for Pamela, announced that the funeral would be Wednesday at one p.m. at the Ward Parkway Episcopal Church, and turned the meeting over to Scott. The partners swiveled their heads in unison to the other end of the table.

“Harlan and I will contact Sullivan’s clients and reassure them that their matters are being taken care of. Call any of your key clients who should be personally informed. Everyone else will receive a letter that should go out by the end of the day.”

Mason was surprised that Scott also didn’t disclose that Sullivan had been murdered. He wondered if Scott and Harlan would rather the partners read about it in the newspaper.

“Has anyone spoken to O’Malley?” asked one of the partners.

“He’ll be here at eleven to meet with me, Scott, and Lou,” Harlan said.

Scott pressed ahead before Mason could remind him that he hadn’t agreed to stick around.

“That’s going to be a tough meeting,” Scott added. “I found out yesterday that Sullivan and the firm are now targets of the grand jury investigation into O’Malley. The firm’s files have been subpoenaed for this Friday.”

“How did you find out, Scott? Was that the surprise in your box of Cracker Jacks?” Sandra Connelly asked.

Sandra joined the firm as a partner a year before Mason did and was chair of the litigation department. She had been less than enthusiastic about hiring him. Scott told Mason that Sandra didn’t think an ambulance-chasing lawyer was corporate litigation material. Scott told Mason not to worry about her opposition. She had the title but none of the power and didn’t want the competition. She took her frustration out on Mason by alternating verbal jabs with a sterile indifference accentuated by calling him Louis, something no one had done since the third grade.

Sandra blended hard edges and soft touches. Her shoulder-length hair was the color of maple leaves in the fall. She had hazel eyes, high porcelain cheeks, and you-know-how-to-whistle-don’t-you lips with a body to match. She’d made more than a few opposing lawyers want to thank her for slicing open their jugular.

Mason invited her to lunch during his first week at the firm. It was like the Arab-Israeli peace talks. No one spoke the same language. Scott told him that she’d never been married, didn’t need the money she made, and was lethal in the courtroom.

Mason and Sandra hadn’t worked on any cases together. He wanted to break through her refrigerated demeanor just to make her stop calling him Louis and because he considered her hostility a challenge to his natural charm.

Scott answered Sandra without looking at her. “I found a target letter from Franklin St. John and the subpoena in Sullivan’s desk.”

“You mean Sullivan kept this secret from the rest of us but just happened to leave the subpoena and St. John’s letter lying around on his desk for the cleaning crew to read?”

“Sorry to disappoint you, Sandra,” he answered, now looking at her. “I was looking for Sullivan’s drafts of my closing documents when I ran across them. Now one of us has to deal with the U.S. attorney. Lou will be seen as the least tainted since he’s only been here a few months. I think he should handle it. Harlan, what do you think?”

“Excuse me,” Sandra interrupted. “His name is Lou Mason, not Perry Mason. Would you like to know what the head of the litigation department thinks about putting the future of this firm into the hands of a lawyer whose idea of a courtroom victory is selling a rear-end collision whiplash sob story? To say nothing of the verdict he got for his best friend in his last trial.”

Mason felt everyone’s eyes burning holes into him while waiting to see if he got up off the mat after Sandra’s body slam. His were on her. She didn’t flinch. Trouble was, angry as he was, she wasn’t wrong. Vicious, yes. Wrong, probably not. That was the nature of brutal truth. Had she known Mason was quitting, she would have thrown him out the window. Scott saved him from having to respond.

“As a matter of fact, Sandra, what you think is not the subject of this discussion. The people who built this firm will make these decisions. Lou is the right choice.”

“Sound judgment, Scott,” Harlan added. “Lou, get started today. Sandra will cover your docket and reassign anything that’s in need of immediate attention. You’ll have our complete cooperation. Just get it done.”

Bugging out now was not an option. Mason wouldn’t let Scott down and give Sandra the satisfaction of thinking she was right.

“Not a problem. I’ll take care of my other cases. That’s why I get the middle money. But I’ll need help on this.”

“Sure, Lou. I’ll back you up on the corporate side,” Scott said.

“You’ll have to stay out of it. You were too close to Sullivan. I don’t want St. John to focus on you now that Sullivan is dead. I want Sandra and two associates, one from litigation and one from corporate. Sandra, let’s talk after the meeting and make our choices.”

Mason couldn’t tell whether Scott or Sandra was more surprised, since both of them had stopped breathing.

“Look, Sandra,” Mason continued. “I know you don’t like me and you don’t think I know what I’m doing. I can’t help the first problem but you might be right about the second problem. If we work together on this, at least you can keep me from screwing it up.”

Mason worried that he was in over his head. Putting Sandra on the team gave him a chance to solve both problems. Though it may not have been a good idea to ask someone to hold his safety net who would be just as happy to see him fall off the high wire.

Scott caught his breath and tried to change Mason’s mind.

“Lou, I think we should try to keep this within as small a circle as possible …”

Mason cut him off. “Look, Scott, the stakes have gone up.” Mason looked around the table, making eye contact with each of his partners. “The sheriff at the lake called me last night. Richard Sullivan was murdered.”

He let the words sink in, watching the reaction of each partner. Most looked away as if to duck from Mason’s announcement. A couple covered their hearts with their hands as if they’d been struck. Only Sandra, Scott, and Harlan held his gaze.

Mason continued. “This isn’t about a partner who died in his sleep. It’s about a murder investigation going on in the middle of a criminal investigation of this firm. If I’m going to run this show, then I’m going to make the staffing decisions. I’ll lose my credibility if I lose my independence.”

Scott swallowed hard. “You’re right, of course. You won’t get anywhere with St. John if he thinks you’re shilling for Sullivan. Meeting adjourned.”

Sandra Connelly followed Mason into his office and closed the door.

“Nicely done, Louis. I didn’t think you had the balls.”

“Thanks for the endorsement. I need you. You cut through the crap and get to the bottom line. I don’t care if you like me. That’s not required. Now, which of the associates do you think we should use?”

She folded her arms and gave him an appraising look as if she’d never seen him before. Mason wondered if she really thought he’d been ballsy or whether he put her on the team as a prelude to surrendering to her.

“Phil Rosa is the best litigation associate we’ve got. He’s a workhorse and he never misses anything in his research. Maggie Boylan is the top corporate associate.”

“Sounds good. Assemble all of the O’Malley files, including personal files from everyone’s offices, in the thirty-first-floor conference room. Lock the door. Skip Sullivan’s office. We’ll do that together. There’ll be no more solo searches.”

“You may have some pretty big balls after all,” she said on her way out.

Mason pounded down the internal staircase to the thirty-first-floor office of Angela Molina, the firm’s executive administrator. Angela could figure more angles than Rubik’s Cube had, and she used them to squeeze every penny of profit out of the practice and into the partners’ pockets. Together with a legendary office intelligence system, she kept things on an even keel. Angela had jet-black wavy hair, olive skin, and a fiery disposition. She was attractive, divorced, and in her midforties. Office gossip linked her with Sullivan. But that story followed most women who worked for the firm.

She and Mason hadn’t gotten off on the right foot when he insisted on bringing his custom-made furniture that had to be bolted to the wall. Angela objected because it limited her options for future office assignments, one of her chief patronage plums. The initial chill between them had barely thawed over the last three months.

“Angela, I need your help. This is absolutely confidential. The firm has—”

“—been named a target of the grand jury’s investigation into O’Malley, and you’re in charge of the cleanup. What do you have left to tell me, Lou?”

Her instant intelligence bothered him, but he’d learned a long time ago that there are no secrets in a law office, especially one managed by Angela Molina.

“Change the locks on Sullivan’s office and the thirty-first-floor conference room. Sandra Connelly and I get the only keys. Don’t have the property manager do it. I don’t want any passkeys floating around.”

“O’Malley’s property managers won’t like it if they can’t get into that office to clean, and they’ll complain about security.”

“Your job is to make them like it, and I know you have the charm to do it. I want the locks changed by noon. Send out a memo that those rooms are off-limits except to authorized personnel.”

“Who are?”

“Sandra Connelly, Phil Rosa, Maggie Boylan, and me. Anyone objects, tell them to talk to me.”

Halfway out the door, he told her to send him copies of all the O’Malley bills for the last five years, including the most current, plus work in progress.

Mason’s next stop was Scott’s office. He was on the phone but waved him in with a signal that said to close the door. He hung up and unloaded.

“I thought we had a deal on how we would handle this. The last thing in the world I want is for that bitch Sandra to be involved. How could you pull a bonehead stunt like that?”

“St. John would rather have a live target than a dead one. You and Sullivan were joined at the hip, which means that you’re available. I’m your friend. Sandra wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. If she believes you’re not involved, she’ll have more credibility with St. John than I will.”

“You’re acting like you think I’m in trouble. That worries me.”

“We’re all in trouble. We’ve got to put some distance between you and our investigation. You and Harlan shouldn’t be at the meeting with O’Malley except to make the introductions.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it figured out.” His shoulders drooped as if Mason had let the air out of him.

“Not even close, my friend; not even close.”

Mason was ten minutes late to the meeting with Victor O’Malley. Scott Daniels and Harlan Christenson were huddled at the far end of the conference room with O’Malley, a dark-suited trio talking in hushed voices to add weight to their words.

O’Malley had a face like an inflated punctuation mark. A scarred, bulbous nose testified to the hard knocks he’d taken. He had crisp eyes that missed nothing.

Mason knew his story. O’Malley was awarded the Silver Star in Vietnam when he led his platoon in a successful bloody attack on a hill controlled by heavily entrenched Vietcong. He liked to say that’s when he learned the importance of location, after he built a banking and real estate empire in Kansas City. And, he would add, the importance of being willing to risk everything to survive.

Sandra Connelly was seated at the center of the conference table, her back to the door. Mason recognized O’Malley’s son, Vic Jr., leaning over Sandra, trying to make conversation while he stole a glance down the front of her dress. When she didn’t respond, he wandered back toward his father, who kept his back to him, barring Vic Jr. from his inner circle. He pretended not to notice by picking microscopic lint off his black silk shirt.

Vic Jr. had not climbed out of his father’s gene pool. He was round-shouldered, with a powdery complexion, a sharp nose, and close-set eyes. He had a nocturnal look, as though he preferred foraging at night to sitting in the conference room. He was a shadow alongside his father, for whom he’d worked since graduating from college a few years earlier. Mason had met them once before. O’Malley had done the talking. Vic Jr. had done all the whining.

Mason cleared his throat. “Sorry I’m late.”

O’Malley turned toward him, waving off any possible offense.

“Quite all right, Lou,” he said, extending his hand as he walked toward him. “I was just telling Scott and Harlan how much I’m going to miss Richard. I depended on him very much. I don’t know how to replace him.”

O’Malley’s two-handed greeting swallowed Mason’s hand, though he struggled to return the intensity of his grip. At six-five, O’Malley took up a lot of space. His oversized ego filled the rest of the room. A heavy gold ring with the Marine Corps insignia flashed off his right hand.

“It won’t be easy, but I’m sure Scott and Harlan will take good care of you.”

“Of course, of course they will. So long as you keep me out of jail.”

Harlan put his arms around Mason and O’Malley, forming a new circle. “Lou, I’ve told Victor that you and Sandra need to talk with him about the government’s case and the subpoena for our records. Take good care of him. Victor has been very good to us.”

They all laughed more than Harlan’s comment deserved. Mason closed the door as Harlan and Scott left the conference room, then sat next to Sandra. Father and son took seats opposite them.