Licensed to Thrill: Volume 3

by Diane Capri

  I laughed. “George isn’t competition for you, Jake. He has no intention of opening a franchise in the frozen tundra.”

  After we chatted about the state of the restaurant business, the economy, how cold it was in Detroit and how warm here in Tampa, I could finally get to the point. “Jake, I was hoping you could tell me something about Armstrong Otter,” I started.

  “Willa, I hope you’re not involved with that man in any way. He’s a liar and a thief. He stole over $90 million from me.” Jake was truly alarmed.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. How did that happen?”

  “Pride. And stupidity. I thought I was making a good investment. I thought I’d be able to resell the merchandise for much more than I paid for it,” he said. “When I started to try to resell it all, these Paulding Farnham creations he sold me were trash—nothing at all. People laughed at me. I paid ninety million for a few hundred thousand dollars worth of nothing.” He almost spat.

  “But how did that happen? Why did you believe what he told you about these jewels?”

  “A man hears what he wants to hear, Willa, and disregards the rest. Sometimes to his great loss and embarrassment. Otter was introduced to me by a man whose name you would recognize. He was duped, too, but neither one of us knew that. We thought we could trust Otter. So we didn’t do what, as good business men, we should have done—gotten the jewelry appraised before we bought it.” The chagrin in his voice traveled easily over thirteen hundred miles of telephone wire.

  “Did you ask Otter for your money back?”

  He snorted. “Of course, we did. The man has nothing. He owns nothing. The police say he covered up with money laundering, but who knows where it really went? If I could kill him myself, I would. It’s too bad you don’t use your ‘Old Sparky’ anymore,” he said, referring to the State of Florida’s infamous electric chair, or what the criminal defense attorneys snidely referred to as “our favorite barbecue grill,” which had been retired. Now, Florida executes criminals by lethal injection. “I hope they send him straight to hell.”

  Miller was so bitter, so vindictive, because he truly had lost much more than money. A man has nothing but his good name. The Japanese call it “saving face.” It’s the same here. Either he didn’t know Otter was already dead, or he’d been putting on a hell of an act. Jake Miller didn’t kill Armstrong Otter. But someone else on the long list of people Otter had cheated did kill him. Who?

  As I hung up the phone, my law clerk came in to remind me that I had been subpoenaed to testify in the CJ’s ethics complaint matter in an hour. With everything else going on, I’d forgotten about it. I pulled out the subpoena and realized the hearing would be in the office of the lawyer for the Judicial Counsel, downtown in the new Sam M. Gibbons Federal Court House. I could easily walk, but I didn’t have much time for lunch.

  As I pulled on my jacket, I regretted my choice of attire today. When I got dressed this morning, I had forgotten about the subpoena or that I’d be going over to the other courthouse, where there are many more people and more of my colleagues. I usually dress casually in my courtroom. Under my robe, no one can tell what I’m wearing. I think most judges do this. I’ve seen my colleagues in jeans and no socks many times. Of course, I don’t for a second believe the rumor that one of my brethren on the bench goes nude under his robe so that he can masturbate at the bench during particularly boring testimony. Having heard a lot of boring testimony over the years, I can see how he’d be tempted, though.

  I thought about going home to change, but then decided to hell with it. I looked okay. I had on olive Dockers, a long-sleeved pink shirt that had been pressed, and a pair of Topsiders. I did have on socks and I wore a tan suede blazer. I was sure the CJ wouldn’t approve of my attire, but he was the one being investigated, not me. With any luck, maybe he wouldn’t even be there. I’m a dreamer, so sue me.

  Precisely at one-thirty, after a quick sandwich on the run, I knocked on the door at the small hearing room on the eleventh floor of the Sam

  M. Gibbons Federal Courthouse. I avoided going into the courtrooms of my colleagues, which I lusted after in my heart as many a middle-aged man has lusted after Playboy Playmates.

  Even the magistrate judges here had better courtrooms than mine. I thought it was particularly unfair that the CJ could keep me over in the dungeon, as I had taken to calling it, long after everyone else had moved. It was a tactical mistake for him to let me be subpoenaed to testify in his case, in this building, rubbing my nose in what he wouldn’t let me have. Oh, he claimed it wasn’t his fault. Congress wouldn’t approve his budget; he didn’t have the money to relocate me; as soon as he got the money, he’d be sure I got moved. Right. And the check’s in the mail.

  These were the excuses he offered whenever the subject came up. Yeah, sure, I thought sourly. And in that mood, I went into the room to see a three-member panel, a court reporter, two counsel tables, and the CJ sitting there next to one of the most obnoxious criminal defense lawyers in Tampa. This just kept getting better and better.

  They were respectful to me, anyway, I’ll give them that. They didn’t ask me any unnecessary questions or keep me on the stand too long. They didn’t ask me about my alleged sexual harassment, so the newspaper article that came with my subpoena was wrong, just as I had suspected. The panel didn’t go into my personal and well-known mini-feud with the CJ, both sides apparently understanding it would help neither to do so. Nevertheless, what the panel did ask me after the preliminaries was shocking.

  “Judge Carson,” the lawyer for the Judicial Counsel asked, “have you heard that Chief Judge Richardson has attempted to influence the clerk’s office to tamper with the random assignment of judges?”

  “No,” I answered, truthfully. The second question followed quickly and was more outrageous than the first.

  “Have you heard that Chief Richardson has improperly handled the court’s funds, misplacing funds allocated for the court’s business or funds paid into the court by litigants?”

  “No,” I said, a little more forcefully than I’d intended. What an outrageous suggestion! I thought, just before the zinger—the third question.

  “Have you heard that Judge Richardson has improperly tried to influence other judges by contacting them about the handling of their cases?”

  They asked me these questions in rapid succession, trying to get me to answer without thinking. Okay. I was under oath here. I had to tell the truth. But the question was whether I’d heard about CJ’s efforts to influence judges, not whether he’d actually done it. To me. In the Fitzgerald House v. Armstrong Otter case. Just last week. But did I have any obligation to help the CJ by ducking this question? Lord knows, CJ had gone out of his way to be as unhelpful to me as he could possibly be without attracting overt criticism from all corners. He hadn’t actually ordered me to dismiss the Fitzgerald House case against Otter, but he’d strongly suggested it. Was that improper influence? Or just a reminder of my heavy workload and an effort to make the courthouse run more smoothly? My reaction at the time was that CJ’s conduct was absolutely improper. Was I right?

  Had I heard about CJ making similar calls to other judges? Yes. I’d heard about it. According to my colleagues, it was not unusual for the CJ to offer his unsolicited opinion on a variety of issues. But that’s how we all took it; as a statement of his opinion. Was he trying to influence us? Probably. In the way that anyone is trying to influence someone else when they offer an opinion. CJ’s “suggestions” never influenced any of us to do anything one way or the other. I really believed that. At least, he never influenced me. I usually went out of my way to do the opposite of whatever it was that CJ wanted. Childish, I know. But true.

  So what was this investigation about? And why was I here? Were all the judges being asked to testify? If they were, everyone already knew about the CJ’s opinions and how and when he expressed them. Or—and this may have been just the tiniest bit paranoid, I’ll admit—were they really investigating
me? The CJ had been out to get me for years. Maybe this question was an effort to catch me lying under oath. Maybe they wanted to try to impeach me. Maybe…Oh, what the hell.

  I did the lawyerly thing and answered the specific question they asked me. I told the examiner that I had heard of instances where the CJ had tried to influence judges.

  Which had the result of keeping me on the stand for the next four hours explaining every incidence when I had heard that the CJ had called one of my colleagues to give them unsolicited advice on what to do with their cases. And a promise that I’d be called back sometime before this was all over.

  They never asked me about the CJ trying to get me to dismiss the Otter case.

  But they would next time.

  I left the hearing as bewildered as before I arrived, unclear as to what this investigation was about. It was the first time I’d ever been deposed, and it wasn’t a pleasant experience. I vowed to have a lot more compassion for witnesses from now on, as I walked back to my car in the early twilight cold. The hour was long after the bank had closed so I couldn’t go to open Ron Wheaton’s safe deposit box. With more unanswered questions and a heavy heart, I bundled up and headed home.

  George and I had been in the Sunset Bar sharing today’s experiences for about twenty minutes when the CJ walked through the door and came over to our table. He looked as wrung out as I felt. Naturally, George asked him to sit down. Sometimes, being married to a socially correct gentleman isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  CJ ordered a scotch and water, pulling off his tie with a hard yank. He tossed his suit coat onto the bench beside himself, without regard for the wrinkles. He made small talk until his drink was served. I hadn’t had time to tell George that I’d been subpoenaed to testify in the CJ’s hearing, so George was in the dark as to the reason for CJ’s presence. I wasn’t so blissfully ignorant.

  “What can we do for you, Ozgood?” I asked CJ, wanting him to get it over with and leave. I spend as little time with CJ as possible at work; I certainly wasn’t interested in sharing my free time with him.

  “I came to talk to you about Armstrong Otter,” he surprised me by saying. CJ is, like me, a fan of the direct approach. Still, I expected him to dissemble awhile before he tried to influence me again.

  George looked even more puzzled than I felt. “Whatever for?”

  CJ looked at him. “Willa knows.” Turning to me, he said, “I wanted to explain why I called you last week about the Otter case. Otter asked me to do it. He’s been a friend for years. I bought several anniversary gifts for my wife from him. He’s well known around town. And he knew the case would damage his reputation. So he asked me to call you and see if you could get the case settled.”

  George was annoyed now. “You mean, you tried to influence how Willa handled the case?”

  “No, George. Not really. I just wanted to share with her that this was a case that would be better settled. As all our cases are.” CJ took a big gulp of his scotch as he tried to make us swallow this revised version of his conversation with me. Talking to me while I was still under oath, about the subject of my testimony, might be construed as witness tampering. I said nothing. I was technically not through testifying. He was taking a big chance coming here, trying to explain himself, knowing I would eventually be asked, under oath, about this conversation, too. He was pleading with me, though, to hear him out. It didn’t take a clairvoyant to see that.

  “The Fitzgerald House case isn’t something that should even be in federal court, we all know that. It’s a minor dispute. There’s insurance. The whole thing should never have gotten to this point.” He looked at me then, directly. “And it’s not like you don’t have enough work to do. All judges try to settle cases, anyway. I wasn’t suggesting how you should settle it.”

  But he had. He’d specifically said to dismiss the case. That isn’t the same thing as settling it. Not the same thing at all.

  “What did Otter have on you to make you suggest that I should dismiss Fitzgerald House’s claim?” I asked CJ, all too directly.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Tampa, Florida

  Tuesday 5:25 p.m.

  February 20, 2001

  CJ’S FACE SUFFUSED RED with embarrassment and anger. But he knew he had to tell me before the entire situation got completely out of hand and he found himself on the front page of the paper. Not to mention out of a job and maybe in jail.

  Perhaps my nightmare last week was a premonition. CJ really could end up behind bars in orange prison garb.

  “I did buy quite a few pieces of jewelry from Armstrong Otter over the years, just like I told you. One year, I bought my wife a necklace that he said had belonged to Carole Lombard. He said it had been designed by Paulding Farnham. He showed me a book about Farnham and his creations, including a picture of Carole Lombard wearing the necklace at the Academy Awards. It was a beautiful thing. A large sapphire center surrounded by diamond baguettes. Mariam loved it. Just loved it. She wore it everywhere for a couple of years and told everyone she knew that I’d bought it and what its history was.”

  The pride in his tone was unmistakable. It must be hard to be married to an heiress of Mariam McCarthy Richardson’s stature. Her family fortune was immense, her local celebrity unrivaled.

  How did a husband impress such a woman on a civil servant’s salary?

  I imagined CJ had been a “good catch” when Mariam McCarthy married him. Although his pedigree was good, it was nowhere near as good as hers.

  But, if the stories of Mariam’s youthful indiscretions with Gil Kelley were true, when she married CJ, Mariam was already a woman with a past. If Mariam McCarthy Richardson “married down,” I doubted she ever let CJ forget it.

  What it must have meant to him to have given her such a special gift as a piece of Paulding Farnham jewelry.

  And what a colossal slap in the face it was when the gift was exposed as a fraud. People had killed for less.

  “So what happened to enlighten you about the jewelry’s pedigree?” George asked him.

  “We took the necklace with us to New York one year. Mariam wanted to take it in to Tiffany’s, to show it to them because it was a Paulding Farnham design,” he choked up. Really. I never thought I’d see the CJ show any honest emotion of any kind. I could almost hear the sharp-tongued Mariam, lashing CJ over her humiliation, making it his.

  “And it was a fake,” I supplied, to help him out. He was a little pathetic, really. I wasn’t used to him being so vulnerable. I thought of the CJ as a twit, but a powerful and controlling twit. At this point, he was just a pathetic victim of another con. The role fit him uncomfortably. What would he have done to restore his pride? Murder?

  “Right,” he said, morosely. “It was a fake. I was outraged, Mariam was mortified and Tiffany’s wanted to report Otter to the authorities right then. I probably should have let them but I thought I could handle it myself.” He took another large swallow of the scotch. “Dutch courage” they call it.

  “What did you do?” George was interested in keeping this story moving along.

  “I swore Mariam to silence, which she was only too willing to do. We came back to Tampa and confronted Otter. He acted surprised,” CJ almost spat. “Said he thought I knew the necklace wasn’t real. But he claimed it had still belonged to Carole Lombard and she’d worn it to the Academy Awards. That made it worth what I’d paid for it, he said. He offered to take it back and return my money. And he said if I took any action against him or told anyone, he’d sue me for defamation.”

  I felt the small hairs rise on the back of my neck.

  I’d heard this story before.

  Had Otter believed he could run this scam indefinitely?

  “So why not let him take it back and wash your hands of the whole matter? Except for looking foolish, which isn’t a crime and has never killed anyone that I know of, you wouldn’t have been any worse off for the experience.” I’d been right. CJ was a twit after all. Pride before the fall and all
. Such an old story.

  “I should have. Of course, I know that now. At the time, all Mariam and I could think of was what other people would think. Everybody we knew was aware of that necklace. We just couldn’t act like we’d never owned it. We certainly didn’t want to be named in a defamation suit.” CJ said Mariam wore the necklace less frequently until, in the last few years, she hadn’t even had it on. People seemed to have forgotten. And CJ got a good deal from Otter on anything else he ever bought. All of which CJ had appraised before paying, by the way.

  “I think, over the years, he’d made it up to me in discounts on other pieces. And we just let it be our little secret.” He finished his drink and set the glass down between us on the table.

  “Why do I get the feeling we haven’t heard the whole story?” I said, even though George kicked me under the table.

  CJ grimaced as if he’d swallowed a sour lime. “It was the whole story. Until last week. Otter called me at home and told me about the Fitzgerald House case. He said it was just like my situation.”

  CJ sounded parched again, and I shook my head at the waitress to keep her from offering him another round.

  “And he suggested he’d let people know about it unless you could make the Fitzgerald House case go away, is that it?” I suggested, as CJ nodded miserably.

  “You didn’t kill Otter over this, did you?” George asked CJ, straight out.

  “No!” he blurted, then added more quietly, “But we argued about it. More than once. People might have heard us.”

  My heart sank, because I knew what was coming next. “When did you see him last, CJ?” I asked him.

  “Saturday night. Late. In Ybor City after the Knight Parade.”

  “What happened?”

  “We argued. I pushed him. And I left him there. Alive. I swear.” CJ was trembling now, wanting another drink.

  Now, I had the upper hand with the CJ and I didn’t want it. It was one thing to play my little power games with him when I knew they weren’t hurting anyone. But in this case, his wife’s pride and his own ego got him way more than he bargained for.