“No, I’m a real prig about it. When I was a freshman at Downer dad caught me smoking. He didn’t smack me or ground me or even holler at me. He just said, ‘That’s either stupid or weak, and you’re not stupid. I’m very disappointed in you.’ Then he walked away. I’ve never had another cigarette.”
“Did you take up meerschaums instead? Because someone has been smoking a pipe in here, and not all that long ago.”
Hoeckstra took a quick pull at her shot glass and grinned. Opening the top desk drawer, she took out a briar pipe and a pouch of Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco. She began fingering tobacco parsimoniously into the pipe’s bowl.
“This pipe was dad’s. Once a month or so I fill it about half-full, light the pipe, and blow about six puffs around this office.”
“To preserve a smell that reminds you of him.”
“Right. I can just barely stand the smoking part, but the odor and the memory are worth it. Is that neurotic enough for you?”
“Proust spun eight volumes out of a mouthful of French pastry. I teach literature, so I can’t begrudge you the pleasures of sensual memory.”
“Fair enough. So. Why did you want to see me?”
“Because I think I might have a line on the document that was taken from Professor Angstrom’s office.”
“And you’d like to know if the reward offer is still good?”
“No. If I get my hands on it I’m going to try to set up a meeting where all interested parties can examine it at the same time. I wanted to know if I should include you.”
“Absolutely.” Hoeckstra struck a long kitchen match against the seat of her jeans and, with a frown of distaste, lit the pipe, took an unenthusiastic puff, and whiffed dark gray smoke toward the back wall of the office. “Where do you think you can dig the thing up?”
“I can’t say yet. May I ask you one more thing?”
“Yep—especially if it involves slipping into something more comfortable.”
“Am I kidding myself, or are you actually trying to seduce me?”
“The latter. Is it working?”
“Nope,” Melissa said.
“Hmm. Maybe I’ve lost a step without realizing it.”
“Perhaps I should just thank you for your hospitality and get going.”
“Oh don’t get all senior common room on me. I meant it as a compliment.”
“What’s your idea of an insult?”
“Are academics allowed to feel insulted by come-ons from bisexuals these days? Isn’t that a badge of intolerance? Well, never mind. You could have left a voice-mail asking me about the meeting, so the next question is probably your real reason for being here. Go ahead and ask it.”
“Do you blame Valerie Clevenger for your father’s death?”
“Whoa. Where did that come from?”
“I’ve seen you in action twice. You’re at least as big and strong as Jimmy Clevenger, and you’ve got enough attitude for him and six more like him. No way he scared you into jumping off your own boat. He couldn’t do that the best day he ever had. If you’d thought he was about to attack you wouldn’t have swum for it. You would have mopped the deck up with him.”
“You weren’t there. You can’t know what it was like.”
“Maybe. But that’s where my question came from. I can’t figure out why you’re wasting your time on that pathetic punk, so I’m wondering whether your real target is his mother.”
“You’re totally full of it, but I’ll answer your question anyway,” Hoeckstra said. “To make up for insulting you by proposing a little girl-on-girl. Dad had a heart condition. Atrial fibrillation complicated by severe arrhythmia. He was taking a cocktail of drugs to control it. You with me so far?”
“Yep.”
“One of the drugs was Diltiazem. Four-hundred-eighty milligrams a day. The EMTs found a partially full bottle in his pocket at the scene. But the autopsy after he died didn’t find a trace of Diltiazem in his body.”
“So he was forgetting to take a critical medication?”
“He wasn’t forgetting anything. The number of pills missing from the bottle matched the number he should have taken since he’d last gotten the prescription filled. Besides, dad didn’t forget things like that. He had ticklers and reminders and back-ups for everything important. He was flushing two pills a day down the toilet.”
“Why?”
“Catholic suicide. You can’t kill yourself, but heroic measures to prolong life aren’t required. He stopped taking the medication and let nature take its course.”
“Yet you told me he was working on an ambitious plan to revitalize his company,” Melissa said. “That doesn’t sound like someone giving up on life.”
“Exactly. Something emotionally shattering must have happened to him. Something that took everything out of him.”
“The end of a love affair, for example?”
“Don’t know for sure, but I really doubt it. Dad didn’t make the kind of emotional investments in people that produce tragic gestures over a lost love. My guess is that whatever it was involved the company and was very bad.”
“Criminal misconduct?” Melissa guessed. “White collar crime is Valerie Clevenger’s specialty. Wasn’t he consulting her about legal issues?”
“‘Consulting’ is an interesting word for what dad was doing with her.”
“They were lovers?”
“They were sleeping together. I don’t think love had much to do with it.”
“They were conducting an affair while the company was sending her legal business? That’s quite a coincidence.”
“I don’t think it was any coincidence. It wouldn’t surprise me if she billed their sack-time to ‘Business Development’ on her daily reports.”
“How far back did their tryst go?” Melissa asked.
“A while. It started just after she came up from Houston—and just before she got Goettinger Corporation as a client.”
“Did it bother you while you were growing up?”
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. But seeing Jimmy Clevenger at the funeral with Valerie ratcheted things way up. I didn’t know then how long they’d been hooking up, and the thought crossed my mind that I might have a sniveling half-brother I didn’t know about. That’s why I looked into it further.”
“Looked into it how?”
Hoeckstra dug in her desk and pulled out a spiral-bound report about two inches thick with CONFIDENTIAL stamped in royal blue on its buff cover.
“Kroll and Associates. One of the biggest private investigation firms in the country. Cost a mint, but it was worth it. I could tell you how many fillings she has if you wanted to know.”
“What was Kroll’s verdict on the half-brother issue?”
“Negative. No way they’d been doing it that long. Plus, during the entire conceptive period, as these stiffs called it, Clevenger was in Houston and dad was in China trying to sell machine tools to the commies. Turns out that Jimmy Clevenger’s father is…someone else.”
“Who?”
“I’m not ready to go there with you.”
Melissa barely heard the words. With the precision of a CNC lathe cutting virgin bar stock, her mind picked up oddities and anomalies from the last five months and clicked them into place.
“Taylor Gates?” she asked. “Is he James Taylor Clevenger’s father?”
“I said I’m not getting into it.”
“It would explain a lot of things. Like Gates being here for the trial, and Jimmy getting a Ferrari defense even though Valerie has a Buick income.”
“You can insinuate all you want. I’m not going to answer you.”
“You have answered me. Were you hoping Kroll would find something to pin your father’s death on Valerie?”
“I may be a neurotic, but I’m not a fantasist,” Hoeckstra said, although Melissa noticed that for the first time in the conversation Hoeckstra didn’t meet her eyes. “What killed dad was whatev
er criminal disgrace he was having Clevenger handle. When the lion hunts the jackal feeds—but that doesn’t make the jackal the killer.”
“And you’re afraid that the material stolen from Angstrom’s office would disclose whatever that criminal disgrace was,” Melissa guessed.
“Bingo. The case your husband handled for Angstrom settled because Angstrom had something on the company.”
“I wouldn’t know about that.”
“There’s no other explanation. My own shyster said that without big-time dirt that case had nothing but nuisance value. The only reason to break into Angstrom’s office would be to get that material, and the only reason to get it would be to use it.”
Melissa thought that over for half-a-minute as Hoeckstra took another half-hearted pull on the pipe-stem and the acrid smell of burning pipe tobacco tickled her nose.
“I think you’re wrong,” she told Hoeckstra then. “But I’ll promise you this. If I get my hands on that material, it won’t be to use it—or to help anybody else use it.”
“Best offer I’ve had all day.”
“Well,” Melissa shrugged as she glanced at her watch, “it’s barely one o’clock in the afternoon. The day isn’t over yet.”
Chapter 24
“I think that the traditional lawyerly response to a suggestion like yours is something along the lines of, ‘This is highly irregular,’” Li said to Melissa forty-five minutes later after she had seated herself in his office.
“Very old school. I approve. I believe your next comment is supposed to start with ‘nevertheless.’”
“Nevertheless, this is a rather delicate situation.”
“The murder of a tenured professor with members of the university community potentially implicated? I should say so.”
“Professors come and professors go.” Li shrugged. “And if I had my choice, I’d rather have people here implicated in murder than in, say, fraudulent procurement of federal grant money or fiddling the results of scientific studies.”
“I guess you have to have priorities.”
“The problem here is the backstory—the things Angstrom was doing that might have gotten him killed. They could compromise the university’s reputation, and even worse get us screamed about gleefully by the wing-nuts on rant radio. If the Angstrom investigation is going to blow up in our face, I’d like the chancellor to hear about it from me before he reads it under Boone Fletcher’s by-line. That makes your idea worth a try.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Melissa said. “The expression on your face is enough.”
“I’ll see if I can get something out between now and the end of the day.”
“You won’t need three hours to write an email inviting a handful of people to a meeting, will you?”
“I’ll need scarcely three minutes to write the email. I’ll need three hours to cover my rear end before I send it.”
“I’ll leave that part in your more than capable hands.” Melissa rose, shook hands briefly with Li, and turned toward the door.
“Deeds and wills,” Li muttered as she left his office. “I should have put out my shingle in Tomah, Wisconsin and spent my career drawing up deeds and wills for prosperous dairy farmers.”
***
About the time the door closed behind Melissa at UWM, Rep was taking a seat in Kuchinski’s office as a male voice on the speaker-phone approached the wind-up clauses in what sounded like a long sentence.
“…trial-prep stuff for the first trial is buried deep in the archives, and I certainly can’t sort out one stimulus from another in my memory. Have you checked with Jurimetrics?”
“I have.” Kuchinski’s tone suggested just a hint of the irritation that Rep could read on his face. “They referred me to you. ‘All case-related communications go through liaison counsel’ were their exact words.”
“Well, Walt, you know, we kind of have our hands full preparing for the second trial right now.”
“I think that final mock-jury stimulus might be a real important part of our preparation.”
“You may well be right about that, Walt. That’s an excellent thought. I’ll put that on my to-do list.”
“I’d put it up there fairly high on that list, if I were you,” Kuchinski said. “If you blow me off on this, the next item on your to-do list might be finding new local counsel.”
“Now, Walt, don’t get bent out of shape,” the voice said soothingly. “I’ll do everything I can, but it’s the client’s call. You know that.”
“You may well be right about that, Henry. That’s an excellent thought. And I don’t know about you, but Valerie Clevenger ain’t my client in this case.”
He punched a button to break the connection.
“Do you think you’d get anywhere going directly to Jimmy?” Rep asked.
“No way. He’ll do whatever mom says.”
“That’s when you ask for written instructions.”
“Right. And asking for written instructions from your client is generally the last thing you do before you get fired.”
***
Li clicked Confidential from the drop-down box for Status on his email window, and High from the box for Importance. He reviewed the addressees: Assistant Dean René Cyntrip Mignon; Assistant Professor Melissa Seton Pennyworth; Tereska Bleifert; Taylor Gates; and Carolyn Hoeckstra. He checked the list of those receiving copies: Dean/Non-Academic Administration; University Vice-president/Risk Management; Director/University Public Affairs; Director/ University Security. Then, one last time, he reviewed the text:
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I am happy to report the possible recovery of a document purloined from Professor Angstrom’s office last fall. I stress that at this time such recovery is a highly tentative possibility, not an accomplished fact, and must be treated with a great deal of discretion and finesse. I propose to discuss the matter with interested parties in my office on Wednesday at noon.
It should go without saying, but in an abundance of caution I will nevertheless say, that both the fact and the subject of the proposed meeting are highly confidential and should not be disclosed to anyone other than the addressees of this notice (and, of course, their counsel if they wish).
Regrets only.
Li
Li took a moment to congratulate himself on the parenthetical reference to counsel in the last line. He hit PRINT so that he’d have a hard copy for his own files. Then he hit SEND.
Rising from his desk, he left his office and walked approximately sixty feet to a small lounge. He filled a glass with ice-cubes from the freezer compartment of the refrigerator, bought a caffeine-free Diet Coke from one of the vending machines and, as he poured the cola over the ice, reflected with poignant nostalgia on past years when he was allowed to drink caffeinated beverages and eat red meat. Drink poured and sipped, he picked up a copy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the counter, discarded the Metro, Sports, and Business sections, and briskly read the comics.
Then he returned to his office. As he put the can and glass on separate leather and brass coasters, he glanced at his watch: 4:47. Twelve minutes since he’d hit SEND.
His phone rang. He answered.
“Boone Fletcher, Journal Sentinel,” the voice said. “So what’s the deal with this meeting next week?”
“No comment,” Li said, and hung up.
He took another sip of caffeine-free Diet Coke and smiled. He had bet himself that it would take less than twenty minutes for his email to be leaked to Fletcher, and he enjoyed winning.
Chapter 25
“Smoking or non-smoking?”
“Your call,” Melissa told Bleifert.
“Non-smoking,” the young woman said firmly.
The hostess led them to a booth on the far side of Ma Fischer’s, a diner-style restaurant about half-way between UWM and downtown Milwaukee. Bleifert began speaking even as she slid in on her side of the booth.
“I don’t
understand why Father Huebner suggested that you talk to me. I’m no good on the usual hang-ups non-believers have about Catholicism.”
“I don’t think he was really focusing on—”
“I mean, like, about two weeks ago McHunk says, ‘Okay, what about Opus Dei?’ And I’m, like, forget it, you know? I mean, I know The Da Vinci Code was just making stuff up, and I understand intellectually where Opus Dei is coming from, but I just don’t connect with it.”
“The details were never what hung me up,” Melissa said.
“Then what did?”
“The big picture.”
A waitress came with bread and ice-water. She took out her pad and looked at them hopefully.
“What’s good?” Melissa asked.
“Brat mitt,” the waitress said.
“That’s Milwaukeean for bratwurst with sauerkraut,” Bleifert explained in response to Melissa’s quizzical look. “I’ll have that.”
“For two,” Melissa said.
“Nice call on the non-smoking section, by the way,” Melissa said as the waitress padded off. “A guy who walked in right behind us asked for smoking and he’s still waiting for a table.”
“So, big picture. I’m not sure where to start.”
“Start with yourself. You’re passionate about the Church. Why?”
She didn’t have to ask twice. The seemingly innocent question triggered a monologue as intense in its way as Hoeckstra’s lathe demonstration that afternoon. It began a nanosecond after the Big Bang and before it ended on the Fields of Armageddon the guy Melissa had pointed out sat serenely in the smoking section and bread, salad, and entreés had found their way to Melissa and Bleifert. As she noticed Melissa slice delicately into her bratwurst, Bleifert seemed to sense that she should wrap things up.
“What it comes down to, I guess, is what if it’s true? I mean, maybe it isn’t, but what if it is? If it’s true, the incarnation is the most consequential thing that ever happened. If it’s true, everything means something. When I have doubts—and I have a lot of them, often—I think, how can I turn my back on the most exciting thing there could ever be, just because maybe it’s not there? How could I risk not being part of it?”
Shoot the Lawyer Twice Page 13
