Final Exam: A Legal Thriller (22 page)

“No, nothing like that.”
 

“Has anybody ever done that, stopped and looked at the monitors?”
 

“Oh sure, every once in a while a student will stop by and ask me if I’m seeing anything.
 
You know, joking around stuff.
 
Every once in a while, someone will ask me if I’ve ever spotted anything on these cameras.”
 

“Has anyone ever seemed more curious about the security system than they ought to be?” Ben asked.
 

“No, I don’t think so.
 
Mostly, people are just wondering why there’s a guy sitting down here looking at these cameras all day long.
 
You know how it is, after a while you get to know some of the students a little bit, and you get to talking to them, and they ask you questions sometimes.
 
But do I think anyone was casing the joint?
 
No, I can’t say that.
 
Mostly just routine curiosity.
 
I never thought
nothing of it ‘til now.”
 

“No,” Ben said, “I could see why you wouldn’t.
 
Has anybody asked you about the security around here who wasn’t a student?”
 

“No, I don’t think so, except maybe for some professors or staff.
 
Some of them ask occasionally about how we make sure their offices and stuff are protected.”
 

“Really,” Ben said, “like
who
?”
 

“Mostly women.
 
Some of the lady professors are a little concerned about security and stuff.”
 

“Do you remember any of the women professors in particular?”
 

“Oh, I don’t know,” Powell said rubbing his chin, “let me think about it.
 
I seem to remember Professor Harper asking me about stuff once or twice and I think maybe Professor Berman did too.
 
Other than that, I’m not sure I can remember, but I’ll think about it for you if you’d like.”
 

“Thanks, Charles.
 
I’d appreciate that.”
 

The following day, Ben met with three of his former professors at the law school - Richard Seagram, Gordon Hyatt and Thomas
Makra
, and found all three very cooperative.
 
Ben and Seagram talked over lunch down the street from the law school and Seagram gave Ben a better idea of the politics at the law school, including the reputations Greenfield and
Dorlund
had as skirt chasers, a trait not completely lost on Seagram himself.
 

After lunch, Ben found Professor Hyatt in his office and they discussed the circumstances surrounding Hyatt’s discovery of the body.
  
Other than that, he didn’t have much to offer.
 
Makra
, on the other hand, was a wealth of information.
 
As Ben suspected, he knew where all of the bodies were buried at the law school.
 
He gave Ben the names of two of the students who had made accusations of impropriety against Greenfield, both had also taken
Makra’s
classes in the Uniform Commercial Code, and even described a loud argument between a first-year student and a professor on Greenfield’s floor shortly before Christmas.
 
Whether the argument involved Greenfield himself,
Makra
couldn’t say.
 
Makra
also told Ben that there had been strong rumors circulating in the law school for years that Greenfield may have enjoyed some recreational chemicals from time to time.
 
None of the three professors, however, could envision a scenario where Sylvia Greenfield had killed her ex-husband.
 
They agreed that she was much too cold a fish for something like that, particularly now, several years after her divorce.
 
Given the unanimity of their analysis, Ben reluctantly moved her name off of his top list of possible suspects.
 
He wouldn’t eliminate her altogether until he had the opportunity to meet her and assess her personality himself.
 
When that would be, only time would tell.

20

Ben looked up to find Mark staring at him.
 
“What?” Ben said.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Mark replied. “Do you have to use the red pen when you review that?
 
It makes me feel like I’m back in grade school.”
 

Ben was reviewing some discovery requests that Mark had drafted.
 
There were edits and additions all over every page, written in precise red ink.
  
“It’s easier for them to read,” Ben said.
 
“I don’t want them to miss any changes.
 
You’re lucky I’m not grading it.
 
Next time you write something, you should try using a crayon.
 
It would be more fitting.”

Mark’s eyes narrowed.
 
He knew Ben was kidding.
 
At least he thought so.
   

Ben finished the last page and handed it to Mark with a sly grin.
 
“Don’t worry, it wasn’t too bad.
 
I just had some things I thought of that you didn’t include.
 
No big deal.
 
Make sure Nancy gets the corrections made so we can take it to Court tomorrow.”

“You know,” Mark said, “I used the form I got from Ken and made a few additions …”

“Hey,” Ben interrupted, “don’t worry about it.
 
It was fine.
 
No big deal.”
 

“Ben, Mr.
Portalski
is here,” a voice said over the intercom.

“I’ll be right out,” Ben said.
 
“Take this up to Nancy and I’ll go get
Portalski
.”
 
Ben pulled on the door that led back to the main part of the building from the garage.
 
He found Ed
Portalski
in the kitchen looking at a copy of the
Chicago Sun-Times
.
 

“Ed,” he said and slapped him on the back.

“Counselor, how’s it going?”
Portalski
said in a gruff voice.
  
Ed
Portalski
was a stocky man in his early-fifties with greasy hair that looked like it hadn’t been washed in two weeks.
 
He combed it in a modified pompadour.
 

“Hey, I like the new do,” Ben said.
 
“What is that, chestnut?”

Portalski
rubbed his hand self-consciously through his hair and said, “Yeah, I had to cover up the gray.
 
I was tired of looking at it.”

“Follow me,” Ben said and he led
Portalski
out toward the garage.
 
A former sergeant with the Chicago Police Department, Edward
Portalski
left the force under mysterious circumstances about ten years before to become a private investigator.
 
Ben first met him when he was a prosecutor and he knew Eddie
Portalski
to be thorough and well-equipped to dig up information often found in the seedier parts of town.
 
He was also very well-connected with his former colleagues in the Chicago Police Department and Ben had taken advantage of this fact several times over the past few years.
 

Noticing his fingernails, Ben said, “Are you still fixing cars?”

“Na, not too often, only when a friend needs something.
 
A buddy of mine needed to have a new starter put in on his Buick, so I was working on it last night.”

“Take off your coat,” Ben said as they pushed into the garage, “make yourself comfortable.”
 

Eddie took off his green parka to reveal a stained blue denim work shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal severe eczema on both forearms.
 
He never felt fully confident in Eddie
Portalski’s
hygiene.
 
Portalski
looked around at the stuffed heads looking down on him.

“I always get a fucking kick out of this place,” he said.
 
“So what’s the deal this time?”

“Hold on, I’ll tell you when everybody gets here.
 
You’re not the only guy that’s going to work on this one.
 
Do you know Stan
Disko
?”

“Sure, Stan and I go way back.
 
I haven’t seen him in years though.”
 

At that moment, the door to the garage opened and Mark entered, a large bald man trailing in his wake.

“I met Mr.
Disko
out front,” Mark said.

“Eddie,”
Disko
said, “I didn’t know you’d be here too.”
 

“Stan, Ben
Lohmeier
,” Ben said sticking out his hand.
 
“We met a while back when you were in here doing something for Ken Williams.”

“I remember, counselor, good to see you again.”
 
Disko
said.
 

“Now that we’re all here,” Ben said, “why don’t we sit down and get started?”

Stanley
Disko
was also a private investigator and specialized in more upscale matters and insurance cases.
 
He didn’t do much surveillance work anymore, but could be persuaded under the right circumstances and for a handsome fee.
 
Ken Williams had used him for years and Ben had met him a couple of years earlier when he was helping Ken out on a case involving one of the firm’s contractor clients.
 

Ben sat down in one of the barber chairs, while the others grabbed spots around the large conference table.
 
Then Ben gave them a brief summary of the events that brought them together.

“It doesn’t sound much like a woman’s crime,”
Disko
said when Ben finished.
 

Ben shook his head. “No, I don’t think so either.
 
On the other hand, there must be some evidence connecting Megan with this crime or she wouldn’t have been arrested.
 
We don’t know what that evidence is since they haven’t turned any of it over to us yet.
 
The client insists there is no real connection other than she was one of his students many years ago, but that doesn’t seem to add up either.
 
We have to get to the bottom of what happened with her and the Professor, both together and separately, if we want to get a better handle on this.
 

“Eddie, I want you to focus on the victim, Daniel Greenfield.
 
Find out what he was into and who he hung around with.
 
I can give you a couple of tips, and write this down.”
 
Portalski
slid a note pad from the center of the table and pulled a pen out of his pocket.
 
Ben relayed what he knew about Greenfield’s divorce, before moving on to the situation with the students.
 
“One of the students was a woman named Hinkle, while the other’s name was Wexler.
  
I don’t know much more about them than that.
 
See what you can dig up.
 
There is also another student that the professor apparently had a fairly significant relationship with.
 
I don’t know her name.
 
We’re trying to find that out.
 
Try and dig into this without making too much of a scene at the school.
 
I will concentrate on talking to most of the professors and staff myself.
 
I know some of them and should be able to get some answers.
 
Approach it from the outside in.
 

“Finally, I hear tell that the professor had a little problem with tooting the white powder.
 
So look into that angle as well.
 
His closest friend at the law school and anywhere else for all I know is a fellow professor named Samuel
Dorlund
.
 
I have already talked to him once and I’ll be talking to him again.
 
Look into that a little bit too, but don’t talk to
Dorlund
directly.
 
That’s pretty good for a start.”

“I’ll say,”
Portalski
said.
 

“Now,” Ben continued, “as for you, Stan, I want you to focus on a couple of other avenues.
 
First, I want you to look into the husband, Joseph
Cavallaro
.”

“The husband?”
 
Disko
said.
 
“Why are we looking into him?”

“We’re looking into him because I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him.
 
Yeah, he’s footing the bill because he has to.
 
He and the client have had some marital problems over the past few years, he’s quite a bit older than she is, and he’s doing whatever he can to try and keep the marriage together when she would just as soon get out.
 
Look into him pretty carefully, you know, see if there is any connection between him and the Professor.
 
Look into his law practice, see if he has any financial problems, that sort of stuff.
 
He has already been a problem and I want to see if there is anything floating around out there about him that I don’t know about.