Final Exam: A Legal Thriller (8 page)

Megan called again on Friday afternoon at four-thirty just as Ben was getting ready to go
home.If
anything, she was even more upset than before.
 
The police had come again, this time with a search warrant.
 
The hope that Greenfield had died from natural causes had pretty much vanished now.
 
They searched both the condo and the brownstone, concentrating mainly on winter clothing.
 
They took a wool coat, a couple of wool scarves, some gloves and a hat.
 
They were looking for trace evidence of some kind, Ben figured, blood or fibers that could tie Megan to a crime scene or Greenfield to Megan.
 
He tried to make light of it to her even as he became increasingly convinced that she was indeed a prime suspect.
 
Finally, Meg asked him to represent her and he quickly agreed.
 
She needed a lawyer now, that much was certain.
 
Everything else couldn’t be more unclear.

8

After Ben hung up the phone, he turned the case over and over again in his mind.
 
From a couple of cases back when he was a prosecutor, Ben knew that Detective Scott Nelson was both thorough and very good.
 
There was no question now that Meg was a suspect and that the police were trying to build an evidentiary case against her.
 
Yet he couldn’t understand the connection between Meg and Greenfield.
 
She insisted there was none, and he didn’t know of any reason to disbelieve her, yet her denials notwithstanding, Nelson had to have something connecting the two.
 
He wished he knew how Greenfield died.
 
That would make it a little easier at least.
 
The uncertainty gnawed at him.
 
Perhaps he could check with some sources he still had in the department; poke around a little bit, see if he could find out anything.
 
Or maybe he could just call Nelson directly.
 
Tell him that he was on the case now and that any communications with Meg had to go through him.
 
He would do that, he decided.
  
He would call Nelson in the morning.

The following day, as he pulled his car around the back of the office after returning from Court, he saw Phil
Luckenbill’s
black Lexus parked in the first spot next to the garage.
 
When he got inside, he headed upstairs.
 
He walked through the open area where Dianne Reynolds sat and entered his office.
 
It was a long alley-shaped room that formed the northwest corner of the old Victorian house.
 
The door was located at about the mid-point of the interior wall.
 
A large wooden desk sat in the far point of the room in front of a spacious double-hung window cut into the north wall.
 
Along the western wall stood four more double-hung windows with lace curtains consistent with the style of the building.
 

Ben dropped his coat and briefcase on the bench opposite his desk and sat down in his brown leather chair.
 
To his right and under the first of the four double-hung windows on the western wall sat a computer table with Ben’s computer on it.
 
To his left and filling the interior wall from the corner of his office to the doorway were built-in bookshelves filled with law books, assorted knickknacks and files.
 
Beyond the doorway were some more built-in shelves.
 
Opposite the bookshelves, and up against the windows, stood a small round conference table flanked by four chairs.
 

As Ben sat at his desk, he looked directly into Phil
Luckenbill’s
office, the two rooms separated by a set of narrow French doors, currently closed.
 
Phil’s office took up the remainder of the western wall of the house and ran largely perpendicular to Ben’s office along the southern side of the house.
 
A large bay window faced out of Phil’s office to the west.
 
Without shades or window treatments of any kind, this window supplied continuous daylight and brutal afternoon heat, particularly in the summertime.
 
Phil
either didn’t
notice, didn’t care or was too cheap to do anything about the problem.
 
After a moment, Ben decided to go in and tell Phil about Meg.
 

Phil
Luckenbill
was
a tall man, about six-foot-five, with an athletic build
growing slightly paunchy as he neared forty.
 
He had dark olive skin, dark hair and dark eyes inherited from his mother.
 
He was not a particularly outgoing man, and he suffered through terrible mood swings, frequently ranging from dark to darker.
 
On his darker days, he tried to avoid inflicting his mood on other people in the office, unless it simply couldn’t be helped.
 
Being a natural introvert, a perfect day for Phil probably meant that he didn’t have to deal with any of the other attorneys or staff members at all.
 
Sometimes, though, dealing with Phil was unavoidable, and Ben all too frequently found himself in the line of fire because of his close proximity to Phil’s office.
 
Since Phil rarely ventured to the upstairs at the other end of the building, those stationed there were rarely the victims of a spontaneous combustion.
 

Ben stuck his head through the French doors and said, “You got a minute?”
 

“Yeah, sure,” he replied without looking up, “come on in.”
 

“My friend, Megan, appears to be getting unwanted attention in my old law professor’s death.”
 
Phil looked up and arched an eyebrow.
 
Ben continued.
 
“They showed up at her brownstone over the weekend with a search warrant and took some clothing, coats,
things
like that.
 
She wants to hire us.”
 

Phil leaned back and stuck the end of his pen in his mouth contemplating the news.
 
“Do we even know he was murdered?”

Ben shrugged.
 
“Not for sure, but is sure seems like it.
 
I know the detective.
 
I was going to call him later today.”

Phil stared at him for a long moment.
 
“You sure you really want to do this?” he finally asked.
 
Ben nodded.
 
“Okay then,” he said with a sigh, “how do you think we should set this up?”
 

They agreed on an arrangement that sounded workable, assuming Megan actually got charged with something.
 
Two fellow associates, Dan Conlon and Brad Funk, would help out as needed.
 
Another former associate, Ken Williams, currently the Public Defender in one of the collar counties, would provide behind-the-scenes assistance.
 
Finally, if a trial was to take place, Ben would recruit Mark Schaefer, an old friend of Ben’s with significant criminal defense experience to serve as co-counsel on the case since the firm couldn’t afford to devote half the lawyers in the office to just one case.

Just then Nancy’s voice came over the intercom.
 
“Is Ben in there?”
 

“Yeah, go ahead.”
 

“Joseph
Cavallaro
is on the phone for you.”
 

Ben and Phil made eye contact and Phil arched his eyebrows again.
 
“Here it comes,” he said.
 
“Probably doesn’t like his wife’s choice of lawyers.”

“Voicemail,” Ben called into the speakerphone and Phil gave him a questioning glance.
 
Ben responded, “This guy’s an asshole.
 
He’s got to be handled or he may be a pain in the ass the entire time we’re in this case.”
 

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
 

Ben returned to his office and left messages for Mark and Ken and got Nancy working on the preparation of the retainer agreement.
 
He spent the next hour at his desk brainstorming about the case with a notepad and pen.
 
At three, he hunted down Scott Nelson’s number and left him a message saying that he would now be representing Megan Rand and any further communications with her now had to go through his office.
 
He also told Nelson that he would like to get the lay of the land in light of all the contacts between Meg and the police.
 
Nelson called him back a short while later and confirmed for the first time that Professor Greenfield had been the victim of a homicide and that Megan Rand was being investigated in connection with the murder.
 
In light of their previous relationship, Nelson agreed to meet Ben the following afternoon in the main lobby of the law school.
 

Mark Schaefer called late in the day and Ben briefly laid out the facts and invited him to come aboard and join the defense team.
 
Mark quickly agreed and they decided to meet the following day for a quick bite to discuss the case before heading downtown.
 
Ken Williams called a little while later and told Ben that he would help out any way he could.
 
At six-thirty, Ben looked at his watch and thought about calling and leaving a message for Joseph
Cavallaro
at his office.
 
He decided not to.
 

9

 
“This is quite a place,” Mark Schaefer said as he shook hands with Ben in the lobby of the office.
 
“There are no signs or anything.
 
I thought I was lost.”
 

“A common reaction,” Ben replied putting on his coat.
 
“Let’s go out and grab something and bring it back, then we can talk in the conference room.”
 

Twenty minutes later, after a quick stop at a greasy spoon down on Irving Park Road, Ben led Mark down a couple of steps, through a hallway jammed with old typewriters and even a pinball machine and out to the garage.
 
Mark laughed as he entered the room.
 
“And I thought the lobby was something.”
 

About the size of a normal two-car garage, the garage had tall ceilings that reached a peak in the center.
 
A beam ran across the room parallel to the peak on which stood various military helmets and headgear of the last century.
 
On the far wall, underneath a set of smallish windows, sat two barber chairs and an old shoeshine stand.
 
The wall on the left contained an entrance from the parking lot masquerading as an entrance to a barber shop, complete with a barber pole on the outside wall.
 
The near wall heading to the right contained built-in bookshelves where the firm housed much of its law library.
 
In the corner stood a five-foot high cast iron antique bank safe, which didn’t house much these days.
 
The wall opposite the outside entrance held a stained glass window highlighting the scales of justice.
 

A large wooden library table, approximately ten feet long and stained in light oak, dominated the middle of the room, surrounded by wooden library chairs.
 
As if this weren’t enough, the truly distinguishing feature of this room was the series of stuffed animal heads mounted and hung on the walls - deer, elk and even a razorback.
 
All of these were actual trophies from Jim Schulte’s hunting days.
 
In the corner above the old-fashioned safe hung a stuffed horse’s ass.
 
Schulte commissioned this trophy and presented it to a friend of his, who also happened to be a local judge, complete with the caption
“Res
Ipsa
Loquitur
”
, Latin for “The Thing Speaks for Itself”.
 

Mark’s reaction was fairly typical - wide-eyed amazement.
 
He let out a long belly laugh.
 
“I like this.”
 

“Yeah, I do too,” Ben said.
 
“I think it’s my favorite room in the building.
 
It’s a great place to work when you’re by yourself.
 
And it’s really a great place to take depositions.
 
I think it intimidates witnesses.”
 

They sat down to a quick lunch.
 
Mark had gyros, fries and a Diet Coke, while Ben ate a burger, fries and a chocolate milkshake.
 
Grabbing a handful of fries, Mark said, “I think I can feel my arteries hardening as we speak.”
 

Ben nodded.
 
“Mine too, but the fries are good and the chocolate shake is extremely good.
 
I think all the grease helps you clean out your system.”
 

“That’s one theory, I suppose,” Mark replied.
 
He looked over at a potbelly stove that sat against the far wall between the barber chairs and the shoeshine stand.
 
His eyes traced the metal grating as it vented through the roof.
 
“Does that thing really work?”