The office door was open, so Ian peeked in. Shoes were crossed on top of the desk once more, and this time a file folder covered Brook’s face. He knocked on the doorframe.
She dropped the file. “What are you doing here?”
“Had a hearing in front of Judge Miller.”
Brook’s eyes narrowed. “Okay. That gets you to the county courthouse. So what are you doing here?”
Ian had come planning to ask Brook a favor. Now that he was in front of her, he hesitated. “Actually, uh, I was wondering if you could get me some information for my new case.”
Brook sat fully upright, noticing his pause. “This the one with that guy I heard Katie telling you about? Some kind of trust?”
“You’ve got good ears.”
“I’m also snoopy. But I’m a criminal prosecutor. You’re mixing up your two specialties again. I told you this would happen.”
Ian ignored the jab. “No. The case combines the two. Sort of. I’ve been asked to do a background investigation on three beneficiaries to find out if they were into any criminal activity since the late 1990s.”
Brook processed his words, eyeing him. “Okay. That’s easy. Go back to the county courthouse. Go down the escalator. Minnesota public criminal histories are on the computers on B level.”
Stretching out the request, even if she was teasing, was only making it harder. “Yeah, Brook. Believe it or not, I knew that. That’s already in the works. I was hoping you could use your contacts to get me a more . . . complete picture.”
Brook’s voice grew cooler. “Meaning you want me to use my contacts at the county prosecutor’s office to help you get arrest records and non-conviction prosecutions. Records you shouldn’t normally have access to.”
No point denying it now. “Yes. Something to impress my client.”
“Introduce me to your client if that’s your goal,” Brook said.
“I said impress.”
“Bold words from a man seeking a favor.” She appraised him another moment. “Let’s stop beating around the bush. You want Incident Case Reports.”
“Yeah.” Regret began to blossom in his chest.
“ICRs that are supposed to be internal, for prosecutors only. In fact, defense lawyers aren’t even supposed to know they exist.”
“Everybody knows ICRs exist,” Ian said solemnly. “You might as well post them on Facebook.”
He watched Brook’s silence uncomfortably.
“Well, it’s true,” she sighed at last, “that those reports would let you know if someone had affiliated with gangbangers, drug sellers, scam rings—anywhere there might have been surveillance. Even if they weren’t prosecuted or convicted.”
Ian nodded, waiting for pushback. “Exactly what I’m looking for.”
“But you’ve also got to know this could put me on the spot. I told you about our ladder-climbing chief prosecutor here. I doubt he’d cut me much slack if he found out.”
“Then don’t do it,” Ian said quickly. “In fact, forget I asked.”
“No, no, I’ll think about it,” she muttered. “Write down the names.” Brook pushed a legal pad across her desk.
Ian hesitated before picking up the pen. “You sure?”
“I’ll let you know if I won’t do it.”
He wrote down the names of the three beneficiaries. “We’re still on for dinner tomorrow night, right?” he asked self-consciously.
She nodded. “Except maybe now we’re going Dutch.”
Ian bowed ceremonially as he left the office. He’d never asked Brook for a favor like this before, he reflected anxiously as he walked back to the elevator. Why’d he do it now?
He stopped. Pondered returning to withdraw the request, then decided against it and kept walking.
He needed this to work. He needed to earn this fee. Now that he was in, he realized how stupid his hesitation had been. And Brook was exaggerating about getting into trouble. He wasn’t the first defense lawyer to see an Incident Case Report from a friend in the county prosecutor’s office. Besides, there was nothing wrong with doing the trust work, so nothing wrong with pulling in favors to get the job done.
He reached the elevator and pushed the button.
Except if he was so comfortable about the trust, why was he still failing to mention, even to Brook, his dad’s connection to it or the fee involved?
11
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6
3:00 P.M.
WELLS & HOY LAW OFFICE
DOWNTOWN MINNEAPOLIS
Sitting in the quiet office with Katie gone, Ian had gotten through the tax returns covering the past twenty years, which Callahan provided for himself and Ed McMartin. Both had lived in Florida most of that time—McMartin was still there. Both had enjoyed livable but unimpressive incomes.
Nothing exciting there.
The trust had also come with a typed history of acquaintances and friends to vouch for McMartin’s and Callahan’s good behavior, as well as their business activities the past two decades. McMartin had been married until his wife’s death six years earlier, with no children. Callahan had never married or had children. Callahan had been running a construction business the last ten years. Before that, he’d listed his occupation as assistant to the trust’s creator, the late James Doyle. McMartin ran a hobby store in Port St. Lucie.
Ian spent another hour calling the men’s contacts. It was awkward at first—asking people if they knew whether McMartin or Callahan had engaged in criminal activity. Since none of the contacts so far seemed surprised, he’d finally concluded they’d all been primed for the calls. All answered with an immediate no.
Regardless, he needed to get through them so he could move to another avenue of investigation and keep this rolling. Even if it was boring him to tears. With a sigh, he picked up the list on Callahan to dial the next reference.
3:17 P.M.
MARTHA WELLS RESIDENCE
LYNNHURST NEIGHBORHOOD, MINNEAPOLIS
From under the brim of her sun hat, Martha took in the even rows of bachelor’s buttons and marigolds, begonias and spiky blue salvia in her annuals garden bordering the cul-de-sac. Crouched in their midst, she luxuriated in the dissonant colors and shapes buffering the space between her yard and the street.
This afternoon she was planting the flowers she’d failed to plant the week before. She’d only finished half the job the last time she was in the garden bed, leaving some of the bulbs to die in the backyard unplanted. She couldn’t recall why. It wasn’t like her. Any more than it was like her to have felt so reluctant to return to the garden at all today.
She chafed at such a waste. Abandoning the garden with the planting only partly done? She hoped Connor hadn’t noticed.
A red Jeep turned into the cul-de-sac, then into her driveway. Katie Grainger got out with a wide grin on her face. “Martha, doin’ your magic again today, I see.”
Martha couldn’t help but smile back. “Doing my best, anyway. It’s so good to see you again, Katie. It’s been forever.”
“I know. Trying to keep your son on task is a challenge these days. Anyway, I got ‘work release’ to check on you. And it just so happens I’ve got my workout stuff in the car—complete with sensible shoes. Make room for an assistant and good conversation.”
She didn’t fully understand Katie’s explanation, but her smile widened. “I’ve got a spot for you by the marigolds,” she said. “Go change.”
4:47 P.M.
Katie groaned and lifted herself from all fours to a sitting position. “Martha,” she called across the garden, “I’ve had enough outdoors.” She lifted the sun hat Martha had lent her, rubbing sweat from her forehead with a sleeve. “I don’t see how you can do it. I’ve gotta work up to this much sunlight after a Minnesota winter.”
Martha sat back and checked her watch. “You know, Katie, it’s getting near five o’clock. I can do the rest. You go on home to Richard and Nicole.”
“I think you’re right. I’ll just go inside and wash up.�
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Martha thanked her—wondering, as Katie walked stiffly toward the house, how anyone could get their fill of gardening. Gardens were the only places she never felt lost.
She turned back to the soil.
Minutes later, focused on a patch of stubborn weeds, Martha heard the sound of approaching tires. She looked up.
A dark Subaru drew slowly toward her, its tinted windows drawn fully up. Her nerves began to heighten as it passed. It rolled around the circle to stop with the driver’s side just a few feet away. The window began to slide down.
Clutching her hand hoe tightly, Martha straightened her back and pulled up the brim of her hat. A man’s face appeared.
“It truly is a stunning garden,” the man said, smiling.
Martha struggled to return the smile “Why, thank you.”
“I especially like the begonias. My mother used to grow them.”
She nodded, anxiously waiting for more.
“Martha,” he said, “do you remember us talking a few days ago?”
Did she? Had they spoken?
Yes, the memory came suddenly back. In this garden. The last time she’d been here planting the annuals. But why did the memory make her afraid?
“I . . . I’m not sure,” she answered.
“Well, we did. Saturday morning. I told you I needed the last painting. You told me you didn’t have it. I spoke to you just like we’re speaking today, right here in your garden.”
A ripple of fear began in Martha’s stomach and rose like a tide. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. What painting?”
“You said the same thing last time, Martha. And I still don’t believe you. Now I need you to go get the painting for me. Or tell me where it is.”
Slightly dizzy, Martha struggled for breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes you do, Martha.”
Movement caught the corner of Martha’s eye. It was Katie, emerging from the house.
Katie’s approach tempered Martha’s fear a little, and she looked directly back at the man. “You look familiar. Like someone I used to know.”
The man’s face flashed surprise.
Katie was drawing closer. The Subaru’s window began to rise. “I’ll be back soon,” he said before it shut.
The Subaru pulled gently ahead, rounding the cul-de-sac as Katie reached Martha’s side.
“Who was that?” Katie asked. Her eyes widened. “Are you okay, Martha?”
Martha didn’t answer as she waited for her heart to slow. “I’m fine,” she said at last. “Just a bit too much sun.” She waved a hand toward the Subaru as it disappeared. “That was someone admiring the garden. And talking about old times.”
12
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6
8:00 P.M.
LARRY’S BAR
NORTHEAST MINNEAPOLIS
Looking around the place, Ian concluded that Larry’s Bar, if a bit cleaner, could have once been a stop for the U of M law-review crowd—the top students who published the Minnesota Law Review journal every year. It was local enough, with no college kids in sight. A little faded. Yep. If Larry bothered to serve craft beers, the upperclassmen might’ve found it interesting.
Midway through his first year of law school, he’d been invited to join the law reviewers for a Saturday beer tasting. Apparently they invited out top 1Ls every year to vet for recruitment the following year. Ian accepted, and they all met at a microbrewery in East St. Paul.
Counting Ian, there were three 1Ls with the second- and third-year veterans that night. At first, Ian felt flattered by the attention from seniors nearing graduation. But around his third beer, he grew conscious of another layer to the conversation, grounded on knowing nods and insider laughs; a common understanding that law review was a stepping-stone to entitlement to the best jobs and salaries in the downtown offices of Minneapolis, Chicago, or New York—giving law reviewers a leg up on their colleagues for future careers. The beer had turned flat in his mouth as he’d thought of how many of his classmates prayed for any decent job coming out of the Great Recession.
Ian woke up the next day with a slight hangover, feeling stupid for judging people he hardly knew, based on simple ambition. Still, the morning-after sourness stayed with him, and that spring he didn’t bother applying for law review.
The other two 1Ls with him that evening both joined the journal. Zach Harmon fit in especially well and eventually landed a position with the big-ticket Minneapolis firm of Paisley, Bowman, Battle & Rhodes. Brook Daniels, the second 1L and a new friend at the beer tasting, fulfilled her dream of a job with the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s Office after graduation.
Neither one’s trajectory surprised Ian. What blindsided him was Brook dating Zach right after graduation. Then staying at it, with a few breaks, for five years now.
Ian sipped the dregs of his second beer. What had he expected? They became inseparable friends in law school, but he’d never asked Brook out. Did he think she’d slip into a nunnery to await his exalted invitation? And what had he been waiting for? In fact, what grand, climactic event in his life did he always feel like he was waiting for?
He glanced at his watch. Rory Doyle was late. And apparently one beer was his limit, if two set those kinds of memories in motion.
A man slipped through the bar’s entrance. Ian doubted it could be Rory, until the guy caught sight of him in the corner and approached. Sliding into his booth, he looked Ian up and down and began playing with the ring on the index finger of his right hand.
For some reason, Ian had expected Rory to be a younger, gentler version of Sean Callahan. He was neither. Sean Callahan and Rory Doyle looked around the same age—early to mid-fifties, around Ian’s father’s generation. But where Callahan was tall and past-his-prime muscular, Rory was short and all bones and tendons. Where Callahan appeared tightly wired, Rory was drawn and strained. Callahan seemed the predator, Rory the scavenger. The only thing they shared was a stare that made Ian instantly uncomfortable.
“You’re the lawyer,” Rory said curtly.
“Ian Wells.” Ian extended a hand. “Rory, right?”
Rory nodded, still playing with the ring and leaving Ian’s hand untouched.
It was better than the Callahan iron-grip alternative, Ian told himself as the bartender approached their booth, a dish towel in his hand. “What do you want, Rory?” he asked.
“Nothing, Larry,” Rory said impatiently. “We’re fine.” The bartender nodded, then moved to an empty table nearby and began clearing glasses.
Ian reached for the trust document in the briefcase at his side. “I’m sure you know that your father’s trust—”
“I know all about the trust,” Rory interrupted. “You don’t need to professor me.”
Ian paused. “Then you know what I’ve been hired to do.”
Rory began twisting the ring faster, as if he could unscrew his finger. “Yeah, I know. But first, I’m curious what you think about all this. Is it just about the fee to you? Or do you tell yourself you’re helping my dad do a fatherly duty? Capping Jimmy Doyle’s plan to keep his wayward son Rory out of a life of crime.”
Ian leaned back, jolted by the unexpected turn of the meeting. “I don’t know about your father’s motives,” he answered carefully. “I wasn’t hired to judge. Just to do a job.”
Rory laughed before sliding into a rasping cough. “Not hired to judge?” he managed to get out. “That’s very good.” His coughing slowed. “Very good. Because I thought that’s exactly what you were hired to do. Judge if I deserve the money.”
“Not exactly,” Ian said, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m supposed to confirm a fact about all of the beneficiaries of the trust.”
“There’s the lawyer I expected.” Rory’s smile stiffened. “The thing is, Dad wasn’t worried about Uncle Ed or Sean. They’re just in there as a twisted way to look fair. Nope, this is about keeping me out of the money. Except I deserve the money and I’m gonna get it.”
Ian opened his mouth to respond, but Rory wasn’t finished.
“Tell me something—what kind of thing is a trust that it can let a man hide money even after he’s dead? Even money that didn’t belong to him in the first place?”
“What do you mean?”
Rory shook his head. “Forget it. Ask me your questions.”
Ian slowly reached for the pen resting on the pad. The questions he’d written out suddenly seemed shallow and off point. “Do you have a criminal record?” Ian began.
“No. So we done here?”
Ian looked up at a hollow grin. Frustrated, he set down the pen. “Rory, I don’t know what we’re talking about tonight. I also don’t care who gets the money. I get paid either way. But I do care about doing my job right. And if you don’t cooperate, there’s no way I can conclude you deserve a share of the money—which means it all goes to Mr. Callahan, your uncle, and the Church. You want that to happen?”
Rory stopped spinning the ring.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Ian went on, his mouth tasting of stale beer. “Look, I’m late for another appointment. You’ll need to get me whatever can confirm the jobs you’ve held since the trust was created in 1998, with wage or salary information, your tax returns for those years, plus the names and addresses of your closest relatives. After that, we’ll talk again.”
He thought he was speaking calmly, but when he looked up, Ian saw more than one person looking over their shoulders or their drinks in his direction.
Rory’s grin was gone when he looked back. The man reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a thick handful of folded papers. “Here’s a job list. The only tax returns I filed are there—or my ex has ’em. Lisa Ramsdale. She lives in Mankato. She won’t do you much good beyond the tax returns, though. We divorced a few years after my mother died.”
Ian glanced at the papers. “I’m told you have children.”
Rory nodded. “My daughter, Maureen, lives with her mother in Mankato. My boy, Liam, I lost touch with. Haven’t seen him in ten years. But the kids aren’t going to know anything more than Lisa.”
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