Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken (2 page)

A thin guy with dreadlocks ran across the street arm-in-arm with a tall, red-haired girl and ducked out of sight. She heard them laughing as the bell on the door of the coffee shop below tinkled to announce their arrival to the staff.

She checked the clock: it was time to go. Will was famously punctual. She shrugged a pale blue cardigan on over her sleeveless dress, poked head into the next room to say goodbye to Naya, and headed out to the restaurant across the street.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Sasha arrived at Casbah before Will and asked the hostess for a table in the basement. Sasha wasn’t surprised that she’d beaten him there, considering the restaurant was less than a one-minute walk from her office and a solid twenty-minute drive from his.

She’d offered to meet downtown, but Will had insisted on coming to her. Casbah’s food merited the trip, but she’d gotten the impression that Will didn’t want anyone to see them together.

The cloak and dagger business was decidedly not Will’s style. He’d begun his career as a federal prosecutor, but the prospect of putting three sons through college had driven him into Prescott & Talbott’s affluent arms.As the partner in charge of the firm’s small, but lucrative, white collar criminal practice, Will hadn’t had any trouble funding his boys’ stints at Yale, Stanford, and Duke. He did, however, seem to have trouble fitting in with his partners.

Sasha’s mentor, the late Noah Peterson, used to say that a stench of earnestness clung to Will. Every year, after the firm’s holiday party, while his colleagues were being poured into cabs, Will boxed up the leftover food in the cargo space of his ancient Subaru and delivered it to the Jubilee Soup Kitchen downtown.

Will came hurrying down the stairs behind the hostess. Tension painted his lean face.

“Sasha, I’m so sorry to keep you waiting.”

She stood and accepted his kiss on the cheek.

“Don’t be silly, Will. I haven’t been waiting long.”

He bobbed his head fast, and sat down.

“Oh, good. How’s Leo?”

“He’s well.”

“Has he taught you to boil water yet?”

Sasha smiled at the gentle jab but didn’t bother responding. Will was making small talk but his mind was elsewhere, judging by the distracted frown he wore.

She waited until the hostess had handed him a menu and gone off to get them glasses of water.

Then she said, “You look worried, Will. Everything okay?”

Will’s eyes came up from the menu and met hers. He closed the menu and folded his hands over it.

“Not really.” He blinked and cleared his throat. “I didn’t want to just launch into this without any niceties—” he trailed off.

“But?” she prompted.

“But, maybe it’s better if I just get right to it. This is weighing on me.”

His hands plucked at the menu absently.

“What is?”

“Ellen Mortenson.”

Ellen had been a partner in the trusts and estates department. She’d been at the firm for over fifteen years and was a newly-minted equity partner, having paid her dues—first as an associate and then as an income partner for several grueling years.

Over the weekend, Ellen had been killed. Her murder had been splashed all over the news. The media attention was to be expected: Ellen had been a successful lawyer at one of Pittsburgh’s largest and oldest law firms. And her death had been gruesome. As the breathless KDKA reporter had put it, Ellen’s throat had been slashed “ear to ear.”

Will swallowed and went on. “Did you hear her husband’s been charged?”

“I did.”

According to what Sasha had read in the papers and picked up through Naya’s still-active connections to the Prescott & Talbott grapevine, Greg Lang, Ellen’s husband, had found her body. At first, he hadn’t been a suspect. Then it came to light that the two were estranged. Ellen had recently filed for divorce, and rumor was that the split had been nasty. As it turned out, Greg had no alibi and Ellen’s wounds were consistent with Greg’s straight razor, which was found, smeared with Ellen’s blood, in the trash bin. It wasn’t exactly a shock when the grieving soon-to-be-ex-husband was arrested for homicide.

Will cleared his throat again. Then he said, “Well, Greg fired the attorney who represented him at his preliminary arraignment and has approached the firm to represent him.”

Sasha cocked her head and looked at him.

Will continued, “The partnership has grown very fond of Greg over the past fifteen years and considers him a friend, just as Ellen was a dear friend.”  His eyes dropped to the table.

Sasha said nothing.

He fussed with the edge of the tablecloth and said, “Of course, we had to explain that our criminal practice is limited to white-collar crime.”

White-collar crime.
It sounded so respectable. As if the fact that someone was wearing a suit while they looted their employees’ pensions or bribed government officials to let them bring to market some medication with dangerous, unreported side effects somehow made the resultant devastation better.

She fixed him with a look. “I imagine you also explained it would be a conflict, not to mention in incredibly poor taste, to represent the man who killed one of your partners?”

Will winced but leaned across the table and forged on.“Sasha, Greg maintains his innocence. And based on what we know of his case, we believe him. Which is why we want to help him secure excellent counsel. That’s where you come in.”

Sasha signaled for the waitress and thought about her response.

The waitress came over, all smiles. “Yes, ma’am.”

Not caring if Will judged her for it, Sasha said, “I need some wine. Just whatever merlot you have by the glass, okay?”

Not only did Will not judge Sasha for ordering a glass of wine, he one-upped her and suggested they get a bottle. Will Volmer. Drinking in the middle of the workday.

They sat in silence until the wine arrived.

Finally, after the waitress had taken their orders and retreated, Sasha said, “If the firm wants to help Greg Lang, as sick as I think that is, perhaps you should try to find him an attorney who has experience defending a homicide case—or, at a minimum, someone who’s appeared in criminal court at least once.”

Sasha’s practice focused on business litigation, but she took on matters in other areas, with two exceptions: divorces and criminal cases.  She didn’t do divorces because, as far as she could tell, it was a practice area filled with nothing but misery and pain; she didn’t do criminal cases because everything she knew about criminal law she’d learned from watching
Law & Order
reruns.

Will sipped his wine and considered his response.

“When I was a prosecutor, my biggest concern in the courtroom wasn’t the celebrity criminal attorney defending some splashy case. It was the nervous junior associate from the big law firm who’d never set foot in court before defending some lost cause as part of his firm’s pro bono program. You know why?”

Sasha shook her head.

“Because a seasoned criminal defense attorney is a realist—no matter the facts, he’ll likely cut a deal if the client lets him. If the client insists on going to trial, he’ll give it his best shot, but both the lawyer and the client accept that the deck is stacked against them,” Will explained.

He paused and tore a chunk of bread in half.  As he mopped it around the dish of olive oil, he continued, “But a big firm lawyer who hasn’t been ground down by criminal practice? He’ll charge ahead, maintaining the client’s innocence. And he won’t spend every day in court handling misdemeanors, entering pleas, or negotiating bonds in the weeks leading up to trial. He’ll have the luxury of focusing on the trial exclusively, working hundreds of hours, and come up with arguments a prosecutor would never anticipate.”

Sasha supposed that could be true. At Prescott & Talbott, the criminal pro bono program—through which lawyers provided free representation to indigent accused criminals or already-convicted criminals who wanted to appeal—was serious business. Associates who took those cases were told to treat them like bet-the-company civil litigation, and they did. As a Prescott associate, Sasha had pitched in on some appeal briefs for a death penalty case. Eventually, twenty-two years after the firm had taken the case, a team of Prescott attorneys had exonerated the defendant through DNA evidence and he’d been released from death row.

She said, “Maybe so, but I’m not a big firm associate anymore. I’m building a practice, Will. I can’t ignore my caseload to give a homicide trial the attention it would need, even if I could figure out what I was supposed to be doing. “

Will took a longer drink before answering this time.

“I’m here on behalf of the partnership asking you to take this case as a personal favor to us. We believe Greg is telling the truth—he didn’t kill Ellen. And, it’s in the firm’s interest that he be found not guilty. We’re still recovering from the scandal surrounding Noah’s death last year. Our partner was murdered by a former partner—an officer of a client, no less—to prevent the discovery of her plan to murder hundreds of innocent air travelers to make a profit. This situation with Ellen has been salt in that wound. Our clients don’t care to see their attorneys on the evening news quite so much. To the extent publicity in this case is unavoidable, Greg’s exoneration would at least bring some positive attention.”

Will finished his speech; Sasha thought she saw a shadow of self-disgust cross his face.

She arched a brow. “I still don’t get it, Will. Why me?”

Will flushed. “You, yourself, have attracted a fair amount of attention in the past year, both as a result of the Hemisphere Air fiasco and because of the murder of Judge Paulson up in Springport. You
were
appointed special prosecutor by the chief justice of the supreme court, Sasha. That has a certain cachet. I think the firm’s management likes the idea of a former Prescott & Talbott attorney handling this, especially one who seems to thrive in the spotlight. Speaking personally, I hope you’ll consider taking on the matter because
I
believe you can help Greg.”

He met her gaze, unblinking, and she felt sorry for him. Leave it to Prescott & Talbott to send Will to carry its water. She wondered if the gobs of money he earned really outweighed the psychic cost of selling his soul.

She sipped her wine.

“Oh,” Will said, like he’d forgotten a minor detail, “the partnership also voted to pay for Greg’s legal defense out of what would have been Ellen’s next guaranteed draw. We will, of course, pay your standard hourly rate, but given the costs involved in defending a homicide, we also have a retainer for you.”

He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a check. He placed it in the exact center of the table with the type facing her so she could read it easily. It was made out to The Law Offices of Sasha McCandless, P.C., in the amount of three hundred thousand dollars.

CHAPTER 3

Back in her office, Sasha stared down at the check, wondering what the hell she was thinking.

She had agreed to talk to Greg Lang and make her own assessment of his case. She’d told Will she’d be in touch to let him know if she was going to take Greg on as a client.

Despite what Prescott & Talbott might have thought of her ability, though, she knew she had no business even contemplating taking on a homicide case. A quick chat with Naya had only served to confirm that Sasha should stay far away from Greg Lang and his murder defense. Naya’s immediate reaction had been that no good could come of dabbling in criminal work, especially given that a Prescott partner was the victim.

Sasha shook her head and slid the check into her top desk drawer. She didn’t owe Prescott & Talbott anything. If she had wanted to be the firm’s lapdog, she would have accepted its offer of partnership a year ago. But, she did owe Will.

She stood, stretched, and looked out the window. The sun was gone now; the sky was gray and cloudy, thick with the promise of rain.

Just get it over with
.

She picked up Will’s heavy, linen business card and turned it over. He’d written Greg Lang’s telephone number on the back in tiny, precise script.

Not only was the firm paying Greg’s legal costs, it had also posted his $1.5 million bail. As a result, Ellen Mortenson’s accused murderer and estranged husband was awaiting trial from the comfort of their marital home.

Doesn’t matter. Just call him already.

Sasha jabbed the numbers into her telephone’s keypad and hit the speaker button. She adjusted her neck, cracking it first on one side and then the other, while the telephone rang.

Four rings. And then a recorded message—startling because it was in Ellen’s lilting voice:

You’ve reached the Mortenson and Lang residence. We’re out and about, but leave a message for Ellen or Greg, and we’ll be sure to call you back.

Sasha waited for the beep.

“This message is for Greg Lang. Mr. Lang, my name’s Sasha McCandless. I used to work with your wife at —”

She stopped when the screeching sound of someone picking up the phone filled her ear.

“Wait, hold on!  Let me turn this thing off!” A man’s voice, agitated.

She cringed at the metallic shriek that followed.

Then the man said, “Hello? Ms. McCandless, are you there?”

“I am.”

“Oh, good. I have to screen all the calls. Blasted reporters.”

“I understand. This is Mr. Lang, correct?”

“Yes.” His voice took on an accusing tone. “Am I on speakerphone?”

Sasha looked down at the phone on her desk.

“You are. But I’m alone in my office. I like to have my hands free in case I need to take notes.”

“Oh. Okay, then.”  He said it reluctantly, as if he’d rather stay offended.

“As I was saying, I’m a former Prescott—”

Lang cut her off. “I know who you are, you’re the tiny little girl. We’ve met at a few Prescott parties. Anyway, they told me you’d be calling.”

Sasha invested considerable energy in
not
thinking of herself as a tiny little girl, but she had to admit the description was accurate.  At just under five feet tall and around one hundred pounds, she was rarely anything other than the smallest person in the room, unless she was babysitting her nieces and nephews. And, even then, at eight years old, Liam was gaining on her.