Read Legal Tender Page 10


  I highlighted CALENDAR and hit ENTER. A grid appeared on the screen, this month’s calendar with the appointments typed in. Mark used our old Grun code; CO stood for conference out of the office; CI for conference in the office; CD for client development; and TC for telephone call. Entries with notations filled the days, ending abruptly the day Mark was killed. I tried not to think about it and looked at the first week of the month.

  Wellroth Chemical Trial.

  I went backwards a week. Wellroth Chemical Trial.

  A month earlier, and the picture changed. I scanned the screen. Lots of COs at Wellroth, lots of CIs with Dr. Haupt and E. Eberlein. Then a flock of CD, client development, with E. Eberlein and an array of area drug companies. SmithKline, Wyeth, Rohrer, McNeil Labs, and Merck. They were all there, in meetings that usually lasted an hour. Apparently, Mark had been pitching them during the day and courting them over dinner at night. It would be worth plenty of business, but it wasn’t planned to enrich R & B’s coffers. It was planned for Mark’s new firm.

  I sat back and tried not to feel entirely betrayed. He hadn’t breathed a word, nor had he put it on his official time sheets where I would have seen it. I bit my lip and punched the page up key, scrolling backward in anger.

  I stopped at another surprise entry. CO G. Wells. Mark had a conference out of the office with Grady? It was listed on last month’s schedule. I searched the other calendar pages under Grady’s name. Another CO popped up the week before Mark was killed, but there were no explanatory notes with it. I couldn’t imagine why Mark would be meeting with Grady. They never worked together. Grady worked for me and the high-tech clients he was developing himself. He had a growing corporate practice with the new software companies out by Route 202, in the suburbs.

  My coffee sat untouched, growing cold. Why was Grady meeting with Mark? For an hour at a stretch, at the end of the day, out of the office? I squinted at Grady’s grease-pencil chart. There was no Wells listed on it. Where was he the night Mark was killed? I trusted Grady, but it nagged at me.

  I didn’t have time to puzzle it out. I got out of the CALENDAR file and printed it, then hit PRINT for each of the other hidden files. I hated to make a hard copy of something only I knew existed, but I couldn’t count on having the computers a minute longer.

  Then it occurred to me. How was Mark funding all this client development? It had to cost thousands, yet I hadn’t noticed any irregularities in the books or in any memos from Marshall, who managed them.

  I highlighted Mark’s CHECKBOOK file and a new menu materialized; R & B ACCOUNT and PERSONAL ACCOUNT. I hit R & B first. A check register appeared on the screen, its entries machine-neat. I skimmed this month’s withdrawals. Nothing unusual; DHL, FedEx, Staples, Bell Tel, Biscardi Enterprises, the holding company that owned the building. Everything was in order, strictly kosher. I remembered Mark’s will with a pang. It wasn’t my money he wanted. I pushed my emotions aside and got out of the R & B file, then hit PERSONAL ACCOUNT.

  The entries were to Acme Markets, Bell Mobile, and the like. Small amounts, frugal amounts. Mark never spent money on anything, which is why I never knew he had any. Then I saw them. Payments to American Express and Visa in three and four thousand dollar amounts, starting about the time the client development had. So it was true, and he’d funded it himself. Next to the credit card payments were bills posted to a local printer and graphic designer, undoubtedly for new business cards and a hipper logo. I spotted a payment to Philoffice Realty, in the amount of twenty thousand dollars. Earnest money for my sunny new office space.

  Then another entry caught my eye. Cash. The withdrawal was for two thousand dollars, last week. The memo line read SAM FREMINET, for legal fees.

  What? Sam? In cash?

  I scrolled backwards to last month. A list of routine entries, and another one to Sam. Cash, two thousand dollars. Three weeks before Mark was killed. Again, LEGAL FEES on the memo line.

  I sat back in the chair, a hard knot forming in my chest. Why was Mark paying Sam? What legal fees and why in cash? It made no sense. I printed the checkbook files, then hit another key.

  ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE THESE FILES? Y OR N? the computer asked.

  I hit Y. I would’ve hit DAMN STRAIGHT if I could. The files held the solution to this puzzle, and I wanted it to myself. In twenty-four hours the system would delete them automatically from backup. I’d have the only copies.

  Copies? Shit! I’d forgotten. The copies printed. They’d be spitting out of the laser printer in the secretaries’ area, in full view of any cop who happened to be standing around. I leapt from my chair, tore open the door, and scrambled out of the office.

  “My brief!” I yelped for show, but it was already too late.

  15

  A criminalist in a navy Mobile Crime jumpsuit crouched on the rug beside the laser printer, picking up the last page from the floor. She held a thick packet of already-printed pages to her chest, and I had no doubt she’d read them as she gathered them. Damn it.

  “Excuse me, that’s my brief,” I said.

  She straightened up. “I saw the pages falling out and thought I’d help.” Her face bore little makeup and she had a cropped, no-nonsense haircut.

  “Thanks. For the help.” I eyed the papers in her arms and felt myself break into a sweat. I would’ve demanded them, but if she didn’t understand their significance I didn’t want to tip my hand and trigger another search warrant.

  “You forgot you started printing, didn’t you? That happens to me all the time. You start working on something else and you forget you started printing.”

  “Very good. You must be a detective,” I said, and we shared a fake laugh.

  “Nope, but I want to be some day. I’m just a crime tech, second year, but you gotta start somewhere.” She hugged my papers to a black nameplate that said PATCHETT and nodded in the direction of the empty paper tray. “It looks like the printer ran out of paper.”

  “Naturally. Just my luck. Whenever you need something fast, you run out of paper.” I didn’t want to print with her watching, so I made no move to replenish the supply. We stood on either side of the laser printer, implausibly ignoring the flashing green lights. Playing chicken with the office supplies.

  “Don’t you hate that?” she asked. “When people see the paper is low and don’t do anything about it.”

  “It’s like running out of toilet paper. Nobody wants to be the last one. I hate that.”

  “Same. Aren’t you going to add the paper now?”

  “You know, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I have no idea how to add paper.” It was a lie, of course. I could repair the fucking machine if I had to. “The secretaries do it for me.”

  “I don’t think any secretaries are in yet, but I’ll help. I know how.” She looked around for the paper supply, but I edged to the left, hiding the ream that sat on the table.

  “I can wait to print the rest,” I said, when I heard footsteps behind me. It was Grady, who was looking at me with a mystified smile.

  “I’m surprised at you, Bennie. It’s easier than it looks, changing paper. You just watch me.”

  “No, it’s all right—”

  “Please, it’s no trouble at all.” Grady reached behind me for the paper, reloaded the tray, and slid it back into place with a metallic click. “Press RESET if it gives you a hard time.”

  I could have killed him. “It’s so nice to have a sexist around the house.”

  “I’m not a sexist, I’m a gentleman.” Grady smiled politely at the criminalist. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but she can’t make coffee either.”

  Ha ha. “That’s enough, Rhett. Ms. Patchett, I’ll take those papers now.” I yanked my papers from the criminalist’s grip as the printer spat out another month of Mark’s calendar. She eyed it as I snatched it up. “Thanks a lot for your help.”

  “No problem,” she said, pursing her lips. “So that’s what a lawyer’s brief looks like? Like a calendar?”

/>   “Yes, it’s the appendix.”

  “Brief?” Grady said, then his face changed as he wised up. “Are you finishing that Third Circuit brief, Bennie?”

  “All done. This is the appendix, with the calendars.” The printer spewed more pages, which I gathered instantly. “I hope you didn’t read any of my brief, Ms. Patchett. It contains a client’s confidential information and is also subject to attorney-client privilege.”

  “Of course not.” She smiled falsely.

  “Good.” I smiled back, just as falsely. I was gauging how long it would take her to get a warrant.

  And wondering if it could happen before Mark’s hidden files were deleted for good.

  “Just who did you clerk for anyway?” I asked Grady, when we were safely inside my office. “Tell me it wasn’t Thomas.”

  “Kennedy, and don’t you say anything bad about him. What was that all about? You’re not writing a brief. What were you printing?”

  “Notes,” I said, making a snap decision. I’d remembered the CO Wells on Mark’s calendar and decided not to confide in Grady, at least not until I understood his secret meetings with Mark. “And next time, try to think before you help a criminalist in distress.”

  “Notes about what?”

  “Just some cases.” I picked up a red accordion file and slipped the copies inside, then threw the file into my briefcase behind the desk.

  “What cases?”

  “Those animal rights guys, their case.” I was making it up as I went along, and from the expression on Grady’s face, not doing a very good job.

  “Thirty pages on an animal activist? What is it, a manifesto?” He folded his arms. “I’ll ask again. What was it you printed, Bennie?”

  “Tell me something first.”

  “Does everything have to be a negotiation?”

  “Absolutely.” I decided to cross-examine him, then watch his reaction. “Grady, where were you the night Mark was killed?”

  His mouth opened slightly, then closed into a pat smile that masked something. Hurt. “You’re serious.”

  “I’m sorry, I have to be. It wasn’t on the chart you made.”

  “I had a date,” he said evenly.

  “Who with?”

  “My old girlfriend. We see each other from time to time.”

  “What time did the date start?”

  “At ten. I picked her up at her condo. She lives in Hopkinson House.”

  “What time did you leave work?”

  “After we all met in the library. I packed and left.” His answers were smooth and sure and he seemed poised, if piqued. It looked and sounded like the truth, so maybe it was. Still.

  “When did you leave her apartment?”

  “I’m not sure that’s your business.”

  “I think it is, if you want to keep a client.”

  His mouth tensed. “About seven in the morning, then I went back to my apartment.”

  “In Old City?”

  He nodded. “I got to work early to do some cleanup on MicroMAXel, and the police were already here. When I got the distinct impression it was you they were after, I tried to reach you. Because I knew you were innocent.”

  I ignored the accusation in his tone. “Grady, what were you working on for Mark?”

  “Nothing. I haven’t worked with Mark for the past two years. Not after my first year here.”

  Hmmm. “Why not? Didn’t you like working for Mark?”

  Grady’s expression changed slightly, his forehead creasing with discomfort. “What’s the difference? The man has passed, Bennie. I like working my own cases, that’s all.”

  “That’s not all. Why?”

  “All right, all right. You’re relentless.” He eased into a chair like a benched basketball player. “I found Mark to be selfish. Unkind. He didn’t like me developing my own practice, especially with the software companies. It threatened him.”

  “How do you know? Did he tell you?”

  “No, but I got the message. Mark was more comfortable working with someone subordinate, like Eve. He wanted a permanent second chair, not a first chair. He didn’t want an equal at all.”

  I still needed an answer for the CO Wells. “Did you meet with him and discuss it? You two have it out?”

  “Fight? Lord, no. I haven’t talked to Mark, alone, for ages. So, now will you tell me what you were printing? We have a deal.”

  “Oh, a personal file,” I said, fumbling for an explanation. Grady was lying. The calendar proved otherwise. I couldn’t tell him the truth, not now. I couldn’t trust him anymore. And he was my lawyer.

  “A personal file?”

  “Love letters, to Mark. Seven years’ worth, in a hidden file. I didn’t want them on the computer anymore,” I told him, in a nervous tone it wasn’t hard to fake. Had Grady really killed Mark? Was he representing me to frame me? Outside in the hall there were voices, and bustling sounds. My house, full of my enemies. Now Grady. I felt paranoid, uneasy.

  “The criminalist said it was a calendar.”

  “She saw my diary. I printed that, too, because I make notes on it. I wanted to keep it private, since the police took my computer at home.”

  His brow relaxed, and he seemed satisfied. “Did you delete the files from the hard disk?”

  “Yes.” I remembered Grady was a computer whiz. Did he know how to find hidden files, even in backup? “Could the police retrieve deleted files, if they got to the computers in time?”

  “If they had a hacker on staff.”

  “How good a hacker? Good as you?”

  “Good as Marshall.” He frowned. “She’s gone, you know.”

  “Gone?”

  “That’s what I was coming to tell you. I went to ask her about her alibi, but she wasn’t in. I called her house and one of her housemates said she didn’t come home last night. She’s disappeared.”

  16

  By midmorning I ventured out of my office to see if Marshall had materialized. I’d been calling her and leaving messages, but no one picked up. I was conflicted about her disappearance so soon after Mark’s murder. Either she was in trouble or it was a vanishing act. A lose-lose proposition. Could she be connected to Mark’s murder? Did the cops know she was gone? It seemed inconceivable she was the killer, and I wasn’t about to put her on the hook to get myself off.

  I was hoping one of the associates knew where she was. I walked down the second floor hallway, avoiding the stare of another criminalist, and knocked on Renee Butler’s door. “Renee? You in? It’s Bennie.”

  The door opened after a moment, and Renee, in baggy jeans and a gray sweatshirt, stood there, appraising me with a cold eye. “What?”

  “Do you know where Marshall is? I’ve been calling her, but there’s no answer.”

  “No,” she said. She turned without another word, went back to her desk, and sat down. I saw with dismay that the office had been almost completely emptied. Cardboard boxes were stacked on the floor and files and books were packed in shopping bags.

  “I think we need to talk, don’t you?” I gestured at the chair across from her desk, but she shook her head.

  “No, I don’t have anything to talk to you about. Latorno is almost done, I’m double-checking the cites. It’ll be on your desk in an hour. My resignation will be with it. Today is my last day.”

  “Today?” I sat down anyway, in what was left of her office furniture. Only her altar to Denzel Washington was still standing, in the corner; a poster of the star in a muscle shirt, sloe-eyed, with fan magazine cutouts beside it. I’d initially been opposed to the display, but Renee’s domestic abuse clients were tickled by it and they needed the levity. So did I, right now. “You sure you want to go, Renee?”

  “Yes.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Go solo. I’ll work out of my house, starting in a week or two. There’s room enough, it’s right in town, and Eve doesn’t mind.” She smoothed back her hair, which was pressed into a stiff French twist and emphasized the
heart shape of her face. Renee had pretty features, her skin as rich a brown as her eyes, and I never minded her extra weight.

  “Why not stay? I’m working on keeping the firm. We could use you. I could use you.” It was true. She was one of the smartest lawyers at R & B, her raw intelligence emerging despite a childhood in the projects and an education in the city schools.

  “I don’t care if there’s a firm or not, I won’t work with you. I know you killed Mark.”

  It fell like a blow. “No I didn’t. Why do you think I’m the killer?”

  She leaned forward. “You saw Mark leaving you and taking R & B with him. You loved him and the firm, and you saw them both slipping away. You had to stop it. And you’re big enough and strong enough to do it, and you have no decent explanation for where you were at the time.”

  “That’s all circumstantial. None of it proves anything. The cops haven’t even charged me.”

  “Whether they ever do or not doesn’t matter to me. I know you did it. I know how angry you are inside.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She eased back into her chair. “What’s the point? I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about this with you, and I’m not. Our association is over. I dropped off those books you lent me. I told the cops what I knew.”

  “Told the cops what? What do you know? There’s nothing to know!”

  “I told them about that day we ran the steps at Franklin Field,” she said, the conviction in her tone infuriating.

  “What day? What did I do?”

  “It’s what you said.”

  “What I said? You trying to hang me for something I said? I hired you, brought you along, and now you’re trying to hang me? Don’t you know you’re playing with my life?” I stood up and Renee stood up, too.

  “I don’t have to lie for you, just because you gave me a job!”

  “What lie? What are you talking about?”

  “Get out of my office! I don’t need you in here, shouting at me.”