That La Jolla Lawyer

by Robert Rogers

  “If he does, he hasn’t said. I have to warn him I’m approaching or he gets ready to pounce. Food is the only thing he understands.”

  She shakes her head and smiles in that knowing way women have, Matt thought.

  She more or less indicated that she was back working in the congressman’s campaign, part-time. Nevertheless, she still hadn’t

  moved back into her condo. He didn’t ask why and she didn’t say, so he let it go.

  He still played the Second Waltz though not continuously and still walked home from his nightly stopover at the Irish Pub. And, he had still not gotten a road map to show where his life may be going. But, that was about to change. He was about to get a road map, whether he wanted one or not.

  Chapter 6

  More than a week had passed since Cynthia had moved in. He was beginning to feel better and as he walked home that night he thought he’d shave and put on some decent clothes. He liked her company and had already made one change. He was showering regularly, a change she endorsed.

  “Don’t know why,” he said as he trudged along. He still had no life and didn’t want one, but having someone in the house besides his surly cat had caused his depression to lift, practically vanish.

  As he approached the front door of his house, he saw that it was slightly ajar and the light was on in Cynthia’s room. That was not unusual, but when he went inside, he saw that her door was

  open. That was unusual! It sent a shock through him. He rushed into her room. She was in the bed, but a pillow covered her face. On the floor beside the bed was a heavy ceramic bookend, broken in two.

  “Shit!” he said. He threw the pillow on the floor and put his face close to her mouth. She was not breathing. He felt for a pulse. There was none. He tried mouth to mouth resuscitation with no results. She’s dead!

  “Son of a bitch!” he said and used her cell phone to call the police.

  They took one look at him, wrapped the house in police tape

  and drove him to a satellite station for questioning. He gave a statement and waited. An hour later, a detective walked in. His name was Terry Triplett.

  “Mr. Dawson, late of the corps of arrogant assholes, aka attorneys.” Matt didn’t reply.

  “The way I figure it, you haven’t had any for a couple of years and when you saw the girl, you had — what would you call it?

  — a lapse of sanity,” he grinned, “and jumped her. She objected and you knocked her loopy with the bookend, then

  smothered her. Took her purse and threw it away to make it look like a druggie did it for a few bucks. Tore up the room to make it look like he was searching for more. Is that about right?”

  “Glad to see you guys haven’t evolved much since the last time our paths crossed. Makes being a lawyer, at least in criminal cases, a lot easier.”

  “Kiss my ass, Dawson. Is that a yes?”

  “When you ask a sensible question, I’ll give you a sensible answer. I gave a statement. Read it.”

  “I did. I also called the bartender. He backs your story to a degree. But, nothing says you didn’t kill the girl before you walked to the joint for your evening beer.”

  “Nothing says you don’t know shit from Shinola either. Get a forensic report!” He came out of his chair.

  “I have to warn you not to attack me, Dawson. You know, have another lapse of sanity. I think I’d have to restrain you with unreasonable force. You’d likely end up with a headache.”

  “I doubt you’d know the difference between reasonable and unreasonable. Okay, from my statement, I had known Cynthia Chisolm for a little more than a week. The bartender at the Irish Pub asked if she could stay with me for a couple of weeks. She told me she wanted to lie low while some argument at Congressman Reid’s headquarters died down. Maybe a boyfriend problem. She didn’t say exactly. He’s running for the US Senate in case you can’t read.”

  “I can. And, her name isn’t Cynthia Chisolm in case you didn’t already know. It’s Sarah Bush. She covered the Schofield trial for the Union. I’ll check out the argument thing. Something useful from a lawyer! Has to be a first. Well, in your case, only half a

  lawyer, if that, so maybe it doesn’t count. You can go. You’re still a suspect.”

  Matt eyed him for a second or two while he digested what he’d heard. “You said covered. Is she a reporter? I don’t remember her

  from the trial.”

  “She was a blond for the trial. She works for the local ANN station now.” ANN stood for All News Network.

  Matt recalled something about the station. It was funded by a wealthy group of Chinese investors to compete with CNN. They presented news stories like the ones on CBS’s 60 Minutes – well, like the ones during the Mike Wallace era, the difference being that they ran theirs all the time instead of weekly. Their headquarters was in D.C..

  Triplett continued, “You probably found out she was lying to you. You went berserk and killed her.” He said it with a smirk.

  “You’re like a broken record, Triplett. Why don’t you go out and do something productive like washing your car instead of wasting my time? A change might be good for you.”

  “Don’t leave town, Dawson. I’m not dismissing you as a suspect.”

  “Good. It’ll keep your mind active. What little you have,” Matt said as the policeman left the room.

  “Don’t piss me off, Dawson,” Triplett barked over his shoulder.

  “I doubt you need help for that, Triplett.”

  Triplett cursed.

  Damn, what the hell happened? Who in the hell would kill her? Was it somebody desperate enough to kill for a few bucks, like Triplett said? I haven’t seen anybody hanging around.

  She hung her purse on the coat rack by the kitchen door. A burglar could snatch it and run. No need to go into her room. And, no need to kill her. But, hell, people strung out on drugs don’t always think about what they’re doing. However, most of ’em know when they get the money, they haul ass.

  Maybe he was looking for something valuable, like her laptop. Hell, I don’t think she had one. I never saw one. And, why not search mine? Maybe they did. My room always looks like a

  disaster zone. And, nobody would want my old computer. Damn, I’m chasing shadows.

  Why didn’t she use her real name from the start? Was she afraid I’d remember Sarah Bush? And, why the hell would she want to interview me? I was yesterday’s news.

  He didn’t sleep much that night.

  He didn’t go to her funeral, but might have gone if he had known where and when. The thought that she was gone left him with a sadness he hadn’t felt in a long time. Until she showed up, he had just been hanging, depressed and waiting to die.

  He sat down on his back porch and stared at people running along the beach, panicking the birds. He felt a depression threatening but shoved it away, something he hadn’t been able to do before. I have Sarah to thank for that.

  The ancient doorbell at his front door rang. He shrugged, and got up to see who it was. He rarely had visitors.

  “Likely that damn police detective. Looking to give me another third degree about Sarah’s death,” he said, half mumbling.

  With a sigh, he went to the front door. Instead of Triplett, a middle-aged woman, wearing glasses, stood on his front stoop, in the shadow of the afternoon. Her brown hair, with hints of gray, stuck out here and there like she had been standing outside in the wind.

  Her red eyes said she’d been crying. She wore a black suit with a white blouse and matching shoes that looked expensive. He almost knew who she was, almost knew where she’d been. He invited her in.

  “I’m Sarah’s mother, Ellen, Mr. Dawson,” she said. “We just buried her. She loved it here. It was her home.” With no scowl on her face, Matt assumed she wasn’t there to accuse him of killing her daughter. He remembered that Sarah was her real name. He’d gotten used to Cynthia.

  “I’m sorry,” Matt said. “If I had known about it, I would have

  been th
ere.” He invited her in and walked her into what passed as his living room in the back.

  “She said you were a nice man. You’ve had some hard times, she told me. That’s why we didn’t let you know. It was mostly

  family and a few close friends that came over with us.” They lived in Scottsdale, a wealthy community outside of Phoenix.

  “I liked her. We talked every morning over coffee.

  Sometimes we had a glass of wine in the afternoons.”

  “She said. She enjoyed your company. The police warned me to be careful. You’re still a suspect. I don’t believe that for a

  minute.”

  He shrugged. “The police sometimes jump at the closest thing. And, sometimes they’re right. But not this time.”

  Mrs. Bush shook her head to show her agreement.

  He motioned for her to take the better of the two soft chairs in the room. He sat down on the sofa and hoped the dust and cat hair didn’t fly up. Glad Cat’s not in here.

  The cat didn’t take to being disturbed when napping, even him, and didn’t mind letting any intruder know with bared teeth and a warning snarl.

  “She said she needed a place to stay and I had a spare room.”

  “She told me that too. She has a condo in a high-rise building

  downtown in Little Italy, but said she wanted to get a story out of you.”

  “She told me she had some kind of problem at work,” Matt said.

  “Maybe so, but mostly, she told me, she wanted to talk to you about that trial, the woman doctor killing her big shot doctor husband. Sleeping with every woman in town.” She scoffed.

  She would have made a good juror.

  Matt nodded. “We did. Talk about it. Every day, practically. She wanted to know everything that had happened and who had done what. She had a way about her, an innocence that made me

  want to talk to her.”

  “She always did. I wanted to come by and thank you. She was

  afraid that you’d wonder if she was on the up and up.”

  “It did occur to me, but I didn’t mind talking about the case.

  It’s been over a long time. I enjoyed her company. I haven’t had much to enjoy in in the past few years.”

  It just dawned on him. He’d been hearing the songbirds singing in the mornings. Their songs always brought joy to his days. He’d forgotten they were out there until Sarah brought life back to him.

  And now, damn it, she’s gone!

  Lost in his reverie, he’d forgotten Mrs. Bush. He looked up to see her staring at him.

  “If you don’t mind me saying, you should shave and get a haircut, Mr. Dawson. You’re not a bad-looking man.”

  He rubbed the beard on his face. “Yeah. I think you’re right. I was about to do just that when Cynthia … uh, Sarah …” He let the thought drop.

  “Cynthia is her older sister’s name. She’s a doctor, like your client.”

  Ex-client.

  He shook his head. “I wish I had something to offer you. Well, I could brew you a cup of coffee. The machine is one of the few things I have left over from my old days.”

  “I wouldn’t mind if you did. Sarah said your machine made good coffee.”

  The machine cost a few bucks, but he never doubted that the good coffee it made might have saved him from becoming an alcoholic during the dark days of his life.

  “I always wanted to have one more cup with her just to keep my morning talks with her alive.”

  “That’s sweet, Mr. Dawson. She enjoyed them too.”

  “I wish I could thank her. I thank you for telling me.”

  So, they ended up in the kitchen like he and Sarah did the few days he had known her, sipping black coffee from stained mugs.

  Cars drove noisily along the street. Voices from someplace along the street filtered through the window and from the beach, the owners oblivious to the fact that a grieving mother and burned-out lawyer sat at a kitchen table ready for the junk heap, staring at chipped coffee cups half full of coffee from a machine that ground the coffee fresh for each cup.

  “I also wanted to ask if you’d probate her estate. I don’t know what all she had, the condo and car, a bank account, and I’d really appreciate some help. I know a lawyer but Sarah said you were one of the best and you helped her out so I know she’d want you to handle things.” She took a tissue from her purse and dabbed away the tears that had formed in her eyes.

  "Excuse me. I still can’t come to grips with it.”

  “I feel that way myself.” He started to turn her down about the probate. He hadn’t come close to a probate since the early days of opening an office.

  She opened her handbag, handed him a sheet of paper and a set of keys. “That’s all I know about her finances. Where she worked, her boss, her close friend, the condo and car, where she had a bank account. She may have a will. I don’t know. Will you do it? I can pay you for your time.”

  “I’d be honored to help you, Mrs. Bush. You don’t have to pay me a fee. Maybe take care of the charges. I have to tell you that I haven’t handled a probate case in years. You may want to get somebody who specializes in probates.”

  She had begun shaking her head no before he’d finished. “No. Sarah would have wanted you.” She paused and took a deep breath to let the urge to cry pass. “We insist that you take a fee. And, we insist that you take a retainer for your expenses. If you need more, let me know.”

  Matt refused but Mrs. Bush insisted so he agreed.

  He gestured with an arm sweep about the room. “It’s not like I couldn’t use a little extra, I suppose. Getting back to work might

  not be bad either. Sarah made me feel better about myself. Better

  about life.”

  “Good! That’s settled then.” She smiled and wrote him a check for $4,000. “I assume you’ll visit the condo. My husband and I did. It’s nice. She won a Pulitzer for a story while she was with the Union. I don’t know if you know that.”

  “Pulitzer! No, she didn’t tell me. Very few people ever get one of those.”

  “We were so proud. We still are. She is…was very good. The best, we thought. ANN gave her a good bonus to come work for them. We chipped in some down payment money when she bought the condo to keep her monthly payments low. We met her roommate, Denise something — Anderson, now I remember — for a few minutes. She was on her way to work. I’m sure she won’t mind if you visit.”

  “Right. I will go by and see what she has that might be relevant.”

  She then pointed at Matt’s CD player. “There it is. Sarah said you played music all the time, the same thing, a waltz. I thought that was so sweet. She did too.”

  “Yeah. I didn’t turn it on today. My depression had lifted while Sarah was here.”

  “Can you play it for me? I’d like to hear it. Sarah talked about it.”

  Matt turned it on. Shostakovich’s Second Waltz filled the

  room.

  “It is sweet, just like she said. I thank you for playing it,” she said. “She told me the story.”

  “It touches my soul,” he said.

  “Sarah said it touched hers too, the song and what it meant to you. She wished things had ended better for you.”

  “Thanks for telling me.” Another thought crossed his mind. “Did you get her phone back from the police? I’d like to see who she called.”

  She nodded and handed her cellphone to him. “You can use it. Sarah said you didn’t have one.”

  He dropped it into his shirt pocket. “Thank you. It’ll come in handy until I can get one. Did she say anything about anybody being mad at her at work or was she just saying that to get a story out of me?”

  “No, that was true. Something happened at the congressman’s headquarters that bothered her a little, she said, but she never told me what. She never said anybody was mad at her, but I guess they might have been if she was digging around for a story.”

  Somebody was mad enough to kill her. Unless she was killed for the
few bucks she had in her purse. Still hard for me to believe.

  As if to answer the question Matt may have had, she said, “ANN gave her stories to cover but she could go where there was a story that interested her. That’s why she was working for the congressman. She thought there was a story there.”

  “I guess that’s the benefit of having a Pulitzer to your credit.” “I think so. She had a nose for interesting stories.” The lady touched her nose with her finger. “She thought there was more to your story.”

  “I don’t know what else there could be to my story.”

  “She told me what you said, Matt, but seemed to think there was still more that hadn’t been told. She was going to interview all the people involved in the case.”

  He shrugged. “I told her everything I could remember. Did she have a boyfriend?”

  She frowned. “Not that she ever said. Sarah may have liked the congressman. She hinted as much, but he’s married. I don’t think she had a regular boyfriend. She dated. Nothing serious.”

  Sarah’s friends, names and telephone numbers were on the list she gave him, the ones Mrs. Bush knew. And, her number and mailing address in Scottsdale were also listed.

  They finished their coffee and the conversation lulled into silence. It was time for her to go. He’d be in touch as soon as he had anything for her to sign.

  As soon as I know what the hell I’m doing.

  He walked her to the front door. She went outside, got into a car and drove off. An elderly man, Matt took to be her husband, had been waiting.

  Matt stopped and looked at his old car, half-concealed by weeds. I’d say the yard needs work … not to mention the car.

  Three tires were flat, the other almost. He doubted the battery had any juice left. Can’t tell the color for the dirt. At one time, it was white. He hadn’t driven the thing since the trial.

  “I’ll have to …, ah.” He saw Sarah’s Prius along the curb.

  The cops had searched it but had left it there and Mrs. Bush had just given him the keys. He called Mrs. Bush on Sarah’s cell phone and was assured that indeed, she expected him to use the car. “Sarah said your car was being consumed by weeds.” She laughed. “I think she was right.”