Legal Tender (15 page)

“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.”

B
y 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.”

I almost laughed, but it hurt too much. “No, Renee. I still own this place.
You
get out. Put your papers on my desk. Be gone in an hour.”

I walked out of her office, stalked down the hall, and went into my office and slammed the door. I stood there for a moment, shaken. What did Renee tell the cops? What was she talking about? All I remembered was I took her running once. She had started another diet and asked me for help. What happened at Franklin Field? I had to know.

I took a deep breath. There was one way to find out. Retrace my steps. Go for a run. I needed to manage my stress anyway. My head felt like it was going to burst, and I hadn’t exercised since the shit hit the fan. I changed quickly into the running shorts and top I kept in the office, shoved a ten-dollar bill and my keys into the little pocket in my pants, and left the townhouse by the back entrance, ignoring the reporters who’d discovered the back door.

“Any comment, Ms. Rosato?” “Did you do it?” “What about the will?” “Going for a run?” “Ms. Rosato, Ms. Rosato, please!” I sprinted off, leaving the reporters behind, and it wasn’t until I’d turned the corner of the backstreet that I saw him.

Detective Azzic. He sat, smoking, in a dark blue car parked on Twenty-Second Street. He was barely hidden, so he must have wanted me to know he was watching. He expected me to run scared. On the contrary. I sprinted down the row of parked cars until I reached the unmarked Crown Vic.

“Hey, good lookin’,” I said, popping into his open window. “What’s your sign?”

“Leo the Lion.” He stubbed his Merit out in an overflowing ashtray, his mouth a twisted line. “Once I dig in I don’t let go.”

“Sounds sexy. So, what time you get off?”

His eyes remained flinty through leftover smoke. “You think it’s funny, Rosato?”

“No, I think it’s harassment, Azzic. Don’t you have anything better to do? Suspects to beat up? Bribes to take?”

“I’m just doin’ some routine surveillance. Anytime you wanna come down to the division and talk, you can.”

“Is this an invite? Will there be a cheese-ball? And are you gonna wear that weird tie?” I waved at his paisley Countess Mara.