Three To Get Deadly (44 page)

Mason's lawsuit against Philpott was based on the unsafe design. A tough case to win since Philpott's experts said the lock wasn't necessary if the hook was used properly. Philpott had sold hundreds of thousands of the hooks. When a hook failed and Philpott was sued, he did what many manufacturers tried to do: settle if he could, the cheaper the better, and win the cases that went to trial.

Philpott's lawyers claimed the accident was Tommy's fault because he did a lousy job of securing his hook. They offered to settle because they were afraid that the jury would be sympathetic to Tommy's injury—especially with his wife testifying about life with a paraplegic.

"Two million bucks is a lot of money," Mason told Tommy the day before the trial. "After attorneys' fees and case expenses, you'll net close to a million-two. Between what your wife makes and what you can earn on that money, you'll be able to take care of your family."

Tommy didn't hesitate with his bitter answer. "It's not enough, Lou. Not after what those bastards did to me."

"Those bastards aren't paying you a penny. Philpott's insurance company will write the check. This isn't about revenge, Tommy. It's about taking care of your family. You can't take the chance that the jury will send you home empty-handed."

Tommy glared at Mason from his wheelchair. "I'm willing to take that chance, Lou. If you don't have the guts, get one of your partners to try the case."

Mason stiffened at his friend's challenge. "Tommy, this isn't double dare like when we were kids. It's not about my guts. It's about your brains. Take the money."

"Screw the money. Just win my damn case!"

Tommy didn't tell Mason that his partner, Stephen Forrest, had convinced him to roll the dice for a bigger payday. LeAnn, Tommy's wife, wheeled him out of the courtroom after the trial. They hadn't spoken since.

Mason put the safety belt back in the box and sat at his computer. Although it had been only four months since the trial, he wanted to know if there had been anything new in the press about Philpott Safety Systems. The only hit was an article in the
Kansas City Star
about the verdict.

Mason searched Warren Philpott's name. Again there was only one hit, a newspaper article published a week ago about a domestic disturbance at the Philpotts' home.

Ellen Philpott had thrown her husband out the front door and his belongings out a second-story window, both during a wind-lashed thunderstorm. Warren responded by pounding on the front door and throwing a rock through a window when she refused to let him back in. A neighbor called the police.

Ellen explained to the police that she kicked her husband out for cheating on her and that she threw his clothes out because she was doing her spring cleaning. When she added that they were getting divorced and that the judge had granted her exclusive possession of the house, the police ushered her husband away, leaving his clothes to soak in the rain.

When it stopped raining, she collected Warren's clothes on the patio, where she said they would remain until they rotted. Mr. Philpott declined comment.

Mason remembered Ellen Philpott, sitting in the courtroom for five days, first row behind the rail, far side from the jury box, a flexed smile fixed on the back of her husband's neck. Her own neck, thin-skinned and thick veined, bobbing and weaving with the testimony. She nodded at Mason each morning as they assembled, as if they shared a secret. Mason wanted to ask her what the secret was but knew that Philpott's lawyer wouldn't let him talk with her. That was then. Mason decided to work a visit to Ellen into his schedule, hoping to make an angry, wronged spouse his new best friend.

Mason spent the rest of the day talking to clients. His secretary called at five fifteen to tell him that Kelly Holt was waiting to see him.

"Sorry, I'm late," she said as she sat across from him.

"No problem. I couldn't stand another sympathy call. Your timing was perfect. I apologize for acting like a jerk yesterday. It's not every day that I get to identify my senior partner's body."

Mason couldn't decide if she looked better in or out of uniform. She was wearing an indigo suit, an open-necked, lime blouse, and a ruby and jade striped scarf. A gold clip held her hair snugly in back. It was a toss-up. Better yet, she wasn't wearing a gold band to match her gold earrings and choker chain.

"Forget it. I never get used to the bodies either."

"Last night you said that Sullivan was murdered. How do you know?"

"Sorry, Counselor. It's my turn to claim confidentiality."

"Why? Am I still a suspect?"

"What do you think?"

"That everybody's a suspect until you catch the killer."

"Exactly. You can either confess or tell me who did it."

"I can't do either. But I doubt that someone would try to kill me if I was the killer." Mason told her about his drive back from the lake. "I'm parked in space number 110 in the parking garage. You can check the damage to my car and I can show you the place where I went off the road."

"I'll do that. Why would Sullivan's killer want to kill you?"

"Maybe the killer thinks I know something that would identify him or her. Or maybe the killer thinks Sullivan told me something he doesn't want anyone else to know. Or maybe it was just road rage."

Kelly answered with professional neutrality. "I can't protect you up here. Do you want me to ask the local cops to put somebody on you?"

Mason didn't know whether to be pleased or frightened that she made the offer. If she believed him, she might not suspect him. But if she thought he needed protection, he might be in real danger. He was used to fighting through a pile of muddy rugby players battling over a slippery football. But he'd never played against a killer, and the prospect now didn't seem real. And he didn't like asking someone to take care of him.

"Not yet," he hedged. "I'm defending O'Malley. I've got to deal with a difficult client and a U.S. attorney who wants to put us out of business. I won't have credibility with either if I've got a bodyguard following me around. Do you have any better suggestions?"

"Just one. This is not amateur hour. Get someone else to represent O'Malley and someone else to represent your firm. I don't want to pick up the paper and read that you've been fished out of the lake or sent up the river."

Before Mason could respond, Cara Trent knocked and opened his door, carrying O'Malley's bills in one hand and a coffee mug in the other. She was a lighter blonde than Kelly, soft where Kelly was sinewy, fragile where Kelly was tough.

"Oh, sorry, Lou, I didn't know you had someone in here. Angela said you wanted these. She had to leave and I'm right behind her."

"Thanks. Say hello to Kelly Holt. She's the sheriff from the lake who's looking into Sullivan's death."

Cara took a deep breath as she set her mug on Mason's desk and shook Kelly's hand. To her credit, it was the only part of her that was shaking.

"It's terrible. I didn't know him well, but he seemed like such a fine man," Cara managed to say.

"Yes, well, I'm certain it was terrible for all of you," Kelly answered. "I hope to visit with you about it in the next few days."

Cara looked away from Kelly's steady gaze. "Sure. I'll be around."

Kelly watched her leave, giving no clues as to her impressions of Cara. Mason assumed that Cara had known Sullivan a lot better than she would admit. He figured Kelly made the same assumption after he told her they had left the poker game together, but Kelly gave her no cause to suspect that. She picked up Cara's coffee mug by the handle, poured the contents into Mason's trash can, slipped it into the paper bag his lunch had come in, and dropped it into her purse.

"Mind if I borrow this for a few days?"

"Is that the way you take fingerprints in the Ozarks? What do you use for mug shots? Home movies?"

"Very funny. If Cara were at the lake, I'd ask her to come in and give me a set of elimination prints." Mason furrowed his brow at her explanation. Kelly continued. "I'd tell her that we found prints on the boat and at the condo and that we need to eliminate hers from those we found. Since I doubt that she's going back to the lake anytime soon, this cup will have to do."

"Be my guest."

She was gone before he could use one of his "How about a drink?" lines.

Tommy Douchant bloodied Mason's nose when he asked Tommy's girlfriend to double skate at the roller rink. Crawling unseen under the table where Tommy and the girl were sitting, Mason tied the laces of Tommy's skates together while blood dripped from his nose. They were ten. Neither of them got the girl. Friendships are born in strange ways.

Tommy was Catholic. Mason was Jewish. Tommy was hotheaded. Mason was sneaky. Tommy joined his father's union. Mason went to college. Tommy broke his back. Mason lost his case. Friendships die in strange ways.

Mason thought about the parts of their lives that intersected and the parts that ran parallel to one another as he sat in his car in front of Tommy's house, engine running, a six-pack of Bud on the seat next to him. Tommy and LeAnn and their five-year-old twins lived in a small, two-story Cape Cod in Prairie Village, a suburb just on the Kansas side of the state line that divided the metropolitan area.

Tommy's subdivision was built after World War II, funded by low-rate mortgages for veterans. The house was originally a one-story ranch. Tommy finished the attic into a second floor, added dormers, and turned the ranch into a Cape Cod. Over the years, Mason watched him paint the inside and the outside, pour a new driveway, and rewire the house.

"Got a new project," Tommy announced with a kid's enthusiasm the week before his accident. "Gonna put up a basketball goal that I can raise and lower so the kids can use it. Wanna give me a hand?"

They were eating ribs and drinking beer at Bryant's Barbecue before catching an early-season baseball game. Tommy always asked Mason if he wanted to help and Mason always turned him down.

"You remember those skills tests we took in junior high school?" Mason asked him.

"Yeah. What about 'em?"

"You remember the section titled 'Works Well with His Hands'? My results came back 'has no hands.'"

"Then bring the beer and watch. You can't screw that up."

The bit was an old one they'd done dozens of times, still laughing at the punch line.

Mason studied the outside of the house, as if it could tell what had happened to the family who lived inside. The wheelchair ramp from the front stoop to the driveway was the only clue that things were different for them.

Fresh lawn-mower tracks partitioned the small front yard into neat twenty-one-inch slices. Day lilies, their blossoms leaning over like bowed heads, struggled in the heat beneath the dining room and living room windows on either side of the front door. A pink ball the size of a large grapefruit lay against the base of the basketball goal.

Mason looked at his watch. It was eight o'clock. LeAnn was probably giving the kids a bath, getting them ready for bed.

The front door opened. Tommy sat in his wheelchair, rolling forward and back over the threshold, as if he couldn't decide whether to stay in or come out. They looked at each other, neither waving, just looking. Mason sighed, turned off the car, and got out, carrying the six-pack of Bud. Tommy rolled his wheelchair over the threshold, onto the front stoop, and down the ramp. They met in the driveway.

Mason didn't know what to say. He couldn't bring himself to tell Tommy that he looked good, though his upper body was still strong and the muscles in his arms still rippled against his T-shirt. But his legs were out of place, muscles wasted. So Mason wouldn't tell Tommy that he looked good. Instead, he scanned the outside of the house again, stopping at the basketball goal.

"The kids must like shooting hoops."

"Gives 'em something to do."

"That's good."

Mason wanted to get to the point and skip the awkward small talk. But it was easier to talk about anything other than what they had to talk about.

"I built that ramp."

"Get out! Why didn't you call me? I could have helped."

"Remember those skills tests we took in junior high school?"

"Right. I brought the beer if it's not too late."

"Never too late as long as the beer's cold."

Mason handed him a bottle, took one, and set the six-pack on the driveway. They drank in silence, the awkwardness still lingering.

"You really built that ramp?"

"Yeah. The workers' compensation people sent somebody out to put one in while I was still in the hospital. There wasn't anything wrong with it. I just don't like other people working on my house."

Mason remembered that Tommy's workshop was in the basement.

"How did you get down to your shop?"

"Didn't have to. LeAnn moved my workbench into the garage. I cut the legs down so I could reach everything from my chair. When I finished cutting the boards for the ramp to size, she got me one of those little carts mechanics lie on to slide under cars and I just sat out here scooting around and hammering nails."

"It looks great."

"It looks like shit, but I built it. It's not much, but it's a start."

"What about vocational rehab? I thought workers' comp was going to retrain you."

"They tried. Told me I should learn computers. So far, I'm better at ramp building, but I don't know that there's much demand for crippled carpenters."

Tommy spoke without a trace of the bitterness he'd shown at the trial. He sounded more realistic than resigned.

Mason finished his beer as the last shadows of the day crept over them.

"I'm sorry about the trial—about the way everything turned out."