by Martin Clark
“To some extent, I suppose, yeah. But let me tell you what we have, and you tell me why you shouldn’t be concerned. I know for sure Lettie invented a medicine or, well, a formula that is valuable. So valuable that the head of Benecorp, Seth Garrison, is hiring private, ex-military security and yanking strings to guarantee he has the rights to it.”
Toliver widened his eyes. “Seth Garrison? There’s a serious actor for you. Rich motherfucker too. The History Channel did a show on him. Have you met him? How do you know all this?”
Joe cocked his heel on the baseboard and detailed what he’d learned so far and how Toliver’s earlier information about the rental car plugged into the bigger picture. He included Lisa’s visit from a leprechaun claiming to be Lettie. “So you’re right in a certain sense,” Joe admitted after he’d finished. “We are stuck. We can go to Virginia Beach and meet Garrison, but I seriously doubt he’s planning a confession, or that he’ll do much more than a two-bit soft shoe and then maybe try to buy us off. We’d hoped we could count on your expertise. Hoped you might open a case and investigate it, or give us an idea how we can find an undeniable, direct, incriminating link. Or figure out who was in the backseat of Lisa’s car and why.”
The detective had been scribbling notes on his small, spiral-bound pad, listening and writing, but he didn’t comment or ask questions. “Bunch of dead ends,” he finally said. “Lot of smoke, no fire. Your idea of checkin’ the hospital records in Charlotte is reasonable, but it still isn’t a home run kinda solution. As for Lisa’s plan, even if we could tie the location of the money orders to a city where Benecorp is located, so what? Plus, there’s virtually no chance some rinky-dink convenience store kept their surveillance tapes this long supposin’ we could trace the money orders somehow.”
“Do you have any ideas?” Joe asked.
“Of course I do.” Toliver made no effort to hide his satisfaction. “You want me to clue you in?”
“Absolutely,” Joe said sincerely. “Please.”
“You should’ve come in earlier. This is what happens when rookies and amateurs attempt to do police work. You end up frustrated and chasin’ your own tail. Everybody watches Barnaby Jones reruns and 48 Hours and figures, shazam, hey, ain’t nothin’ to this. By the way, you ever notice how almost every detective on 48 Hours is a fat white guy with a mullet? Horrible dressers, most of ’em.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Joe said flatly, paying his dues.
“So here’s what we do. We go to circuit court and get a warrant. We serve it on the phone service providers for our area. We narrow the focus to the few hours this Jane Rousch was supposedly in our area and review the calls that went through the cell towers. We see if any of the dialed numbers lead us to Garrison or Benecorp. I figure, especially after a strong dose of Lettie, that whoever was here called to report back. Routine warrant, easy to obtain. If it hits, we’ve linked Lettie, Garrison and the sheisty rental.”
“Damn, Toliver. Sweet. Nice. Never would’ve crossed my mind.”
“No shit, Joe. How perfect you just roll in here from the electronics wasteland too. I’m surprised you don’t still have a bag phone. We do a call search once or twice a month. The lawyers usually don’t hear of it ’cause it’s so far removed in the chain of things. It rarely matters how we locate your guilty clients; it’s what they say when we find them or the stolen property in their trunk or the DNA they give us that you spend your energy tryin’ to keep from the judge.”
“I’m assuming there’ll be a ton of calls going through, even if we limit the time frame.”
“Yeah. It’ll take a while to search the records. You better hope this doesn’t bog me down and ruin my stats.”
“We could help,” Joe volunteered.
“What did I just say?” Toliver asked.
“Right, yeah. You’re the pro, we’re the donkeys.”
“Exactly.”
“You think we should follow through and meet with Garrison?”
“Oh, hell yeah.” Toliver almost squeaked the words and simultaneously made a nobody-can-be-that-ignorant face. “Absolutely. You never, ever pass up the opportunity to talk to a suspect. Never. Sometimes they slip. Sometimes you just catch a vibe, a feeling. Sometimes you can prove a little detail wrong later on. You should know this by now—all you shysters ever tell your clients is ‘don’t talk to the cops.’ Why’s that? Here, the fact this big-shot guy even wants to meet with you raises my antennae.”
“How long before you’ll have the records and an answer?”
“When I have them, okay? You can give me this Pichler’s number, Briggs’s number and the number at Dr. Downs’s sister’s. I suppose you could also locate the main numbers for Benecorp. Try not to fuck up that simple task. There’ll be ten digits. We call the first three an area code. And let me have any new beyond-the-grave messages from Lettie. I’ll send the cardboard she supposedly gave Lisa to the lab for a print check.”
“Downs’s sister?” Joe asked. “Why?”
“Because, unlike you, I plan to cover all the possibilities.” Toliver licked his index finger and flipped through several pad pages. “Here we go. A little example of that principle for you. A freebie. Back in December, bunch of dumb-ass kids was pilferin’ laptops from Walmart, so I’m there at the store watchin’ the security video, and I see Lettie on the recordin’. This particular video is smack dab from around the time she officially went missing—had to be the night before the fire—and she’s got a mound of crap at the register. Late, nearly midnight. Can’t tell what it is, but with her just being found dead, I check the register tape and, no surprise, there’s the camp fuel and matches and iodine for the meth, but why the hell is she buyin’ a sleeping bag and toiletries? A plastic poncho?”
“So she can spend the night with her dope?” Joe speculated. “Monitor the brew? Maybe the poncho’s like an apron or lab coat to protect her from the chemicals.”
“Possible, I suppose, but she was so damn tight; she lived off metal scavenging and a little check from her dead brother’s pension, right? She’s springin’ for a quality sleepin’ bag?”
“She got around twelve hundred bucks a month from her brother’s railroad pension. She was his beneficiary.”
“Just something to keep in mind,” Toliver noted. “May be nothing. Not easy to get a read on a crazy woman with a meth habit.” Toliver shut his pad. “I’ll be in touch when I’m done. Meanwhile, you might want to start ponderin’ about some chaps in case you have to lay that high-octane moped beast down on the blacktop. Me, I’d suggest a pair with some major fringe.”
—
That same afternoon, Lisa spoke with Burke Loggins, who was threatening to file suit against M.J. on behalf of his client, Teddy Bear Brian. Loggins’s secretary had phoned, then placed Lisa on hold, resurfacing several minutes later to apologize because “Mr. Loggins has went to take an emergency call in the library.”
“No problem,” Lisa assured her. “I’m sure an important lawyer like Mr. Loggins is extremely busy. I’m grateful he’s clearing space to speak with me.” Lisa had checked, and Loggins had a poor Martindale-Hubbell rating, the lowest grade the company used. “I just hate to run up his long-distance bill.”
“Oh, heck, we’re on his cell phone. We use it as the main line here at the office. He has unlimited minutes.” The secretary paused. Lisa imagined her unwrapping a stick of gum to smack, or maybe readying her nail file. “Oh, okay, here you go. Mr. Loggins can talk with you now. Please stay on the line for Attorney Loggins.”
“Mrs. Stone, Burke Loggins here. Look forward to doing business. Sorry about the delay on hold. Megacase in federal court starting to boil, and I had to take a conference call from the judge.” The voice belonged to a sweaty, desperate, conniving and sketchy man, the words too gassed and falsely convivial, the rhythm a huckster’s oily southern cadence, hawking tickets to a hoochie-coochie tent or peddling genuine Armani suits straight from the Italian factory at a 50 percent discount.
&nbs
p; “No problem. Federal cases can be the worst.”
“Tell me about it,” Loggins said.
“So as I understand matters, you’re planning to sue my client, M. J. Gold, based on various workplace claims.”
“Hate to have to do it, but what choice has she left us?”
“I understand your position. Let me communicate ours.” Her timbre changed. Lisa spoke precisely, sternly. “You and I both know you have absolutely no claim. Your guy never worked for Miss Gold, never—”
“Hey, now,” Loggins interrupted, “we aren’t conceding that. That hound won’t hunt for you. She wrote him checks and hired him onto her payroll. Nosirreebob, we believe he was an employee.”
“She also wrote checks to plumbers, the dry cleaners and her nieces and nephews for their birthdays. Be that as it may, we realize this is a shakedown.”
“Mrs. Stone, are you accusing me of something dishonest? Unethical?” Loggins pumped his voice with indignation. “ ’Cause if you are, we may have other avenues to pursue. Are you saying I’m filing a bogus suit? We’ll end this call right now and let a jury decide the merits of our claim.”
“Hear me out,” Lisa said calmly. “You have no case. No legal case. It’ll never reach a jury.”
“You’ll damn sure learn different, I can promise you. My draft complaint has seven separate counts. They’re all legit. Winners.”
“Excellent. Add three more and make it an even ten. I have a saying: An aboveground pool will always be an aboveground pool, no matter how elaborate the deck and how expensive the chaise lounges.”
“Yeah, well, this pool is dug deep in the ground with concrete around the edges.”
“But, Mr. Loggins—if you’d just let me finish—please understand we want you to file your claim. We hope to make this a mutual and beneficial effort.”
“You do? Well, you’ll get your wish.”
“All we ask is that we have some input into the press release, and that we know when you plan to hold the news conference.”
“Why?”
“I don’t mind telling you that Miss Gold sees mostly upside to this suit, especially since she has no financial exposure in the courtroom. As matters stand today, she’s rich and famous, but famous only at a certain level. She wants her profile raised, and this suit, if it’s drafted properly and colorful enough and handled correctly, will accomplish her goal. Right now, she’s Montel Williams. Maybe Ricki Lake. She wants to be Oprah, if you catch my drift.”
“Uh-uh. Not really.”
Lisa spoke faster and enthusiastically. “Simply stated, she becomes one of the guys, rich and powerful enough to warrant her own handsome younger boyfriend. She’s broken through the last barrier. You see movie stars and entertainment industry women who can call these kinds of shots, but not in the business world. She’d be the first female captain of industry with a bimboy, if we can control the press and spin the story in that light. And we think we can. We have press contacts who’ve been alerted. We just want them there for your announcement.”
“Seems crazy to me.”
“Really? Crazy like Donald Trump and Marla Maples? Richard Branson was absolutely ruined by his sexual harassment suit, huh? Quite the opposite, it makes these guys look like rich-ass swashbucklers who can do as they please. They’re invincible. They can buy, manage and control beautiful people. And that, Mr. Loggins, translates into a perception of power, especially with other men.”
“How would this be helpful to my client?” Loggins asked. “How would he be compensated for his damages?”
“He doesn’t have any damages, okay? But at the end of the day, we’d be willing to pay you guys to be our Washington Generals. We of course will be the Harlem Globetrotters. But only if you take it all the way to trial. Part of the process, part of the illusion, is thrashing you in court. Not only does Miss Gold have sex with your attractive young client in exchange for a TAG Heuer and a trip to Barbados, but she also crushes him legally, which you and I both realize is inevitable. Settling would make her seem weak and undermine our long-term program. I’m definitely not asking you to intentionally tank the case. That would be unethical. Just make sure we get it before a judge, so it winds up dismissed. Don’t white-flag it or withdraw it once it’s filed.”
“What kind of number were you thinking of for us to become involved?”
“Maybe five grand at the end of the trial. We’d pay it under the pretext of preventing an appeal.”
“Have you lost your mind? We won’t take less than a hundred thousand.”
“You mean pesos?” Lisa asked. “Or maybe baht? Certainly not dollars?”
“We’ll just file suit,” Loggins barked. “Nothing to lose. We’re playing with your money.”
“True, but you’re playing with your own as well,” Lisa told him. “We’ll absolutely wear your ass out in discovery. And in the end, two years from now and at the conclusion of all kinds of tedious work, you’ll get nothing. We truly want this to go on forever. Miss Gold sees it as part of her advertising budget. Cheap publicity. You have to understand, she doesn’t fear the publicity. She wants it. She didn’t become rich by making orthodox choices.”
“Bullshit,” Loggins challenged her. “You think I’m that gullible?”
“What do you have after you file a suit that’s a loser? You think your money’s in the bluff. Normally, you’d be correct. But after you file, you’re on the fast track to the sewer. Nothing but our beating you down and then humiliating you before a court on summary judgment. You’ll never see a dime and you’ll be tied up for years. Listen, maybe Miss Gold would kick in another grand or two to compensate your client for the pussy factor.”
“Pardon me? That’s real professional, Mrs. Stone. Nice mouth.”
Lisa chuckled. “I just mean the embarrassment factor. He’ll be a laughingstock and seen in many quarters as a pussy. Come on: A man gets a weekly allowance and travels around the world for free, and now he’s suing the very attractive woman who made it possible? Have you seen Miss Gold? She’s a pretty lady, and it’s not as if there’s some thirty-year age gap. And his job is to have sex? How do you think that’ll play with the public? Or the men in Miss Gold’s various heavy-equipment businesses? I can’t wait to ask your boy Brian how he was able to produce erections under such awful duress. You’ll come off as truly impressive too, for taking and promoting such a pathetic suit. The two of you will never sit on a barstool again without being ridiculed.”
“How about twenty-five now? We sign a confidentiality agreement.”
“How about you actually understand what I’m telling you? You have no value to us unless you go through with this, and we shape the media and the press runs with it and the whole production enhances Miss Gold’s image. Why would we pay you to settle?”
“Fifteen?” Loggins wheedled.
“Six at the end, after the case is dismissed. Only then and not a dime more. Oh, and tell Brian to take his damn picture down from the plushie website. Miss Gold wants be seen as powerful, not as a character in ‘Goldilocks.’ I’ll fax you some details for the press conference. We hope you’ll mention my client’s net worth. We’ve exaggerated it a bit, but I think it’ll fly.”
“The what site?” Loggins sounded confused. Lisa imagined him slumped against a desk in a two-room, strip-mall office, crestfallen and stymied, his cell phone at his ear, his name and occupation posted outside on the giant parking lot directory, sandwiched between the listings for a chain hair salon and a Dollar Tree store.
“FurNation,” Lisa told him. “He’s sexually aroused by dressing in a teddy bear costume. Truth be told, that’s why my client dumped him. He needs to delete his account and stay off the site.”
Loggins made a sound that was mostly a grunt.
“Mr. Loggins? Are you there?”
“Yep.”
“Do we have an understanding?” Lisa asked.
“I’ll have to, uh, run it past my client. Seems like a long investment for a small payof
f. And hey, Burke Loggins doesn’t have a big interest in being somebody’s stooge. Not how I operate.”
“Sure. And to make this happen, we won’t try to humiliate you personally or anything, or chump you any more than is absolutely necessary—I probably stated the ridicule angle too strongly. We could negotiate those terms if need be.”
“I’ll be in touch,” Loggins said, though he didn’t even attempt to sound sincere, spit the words plain and rushed and dry.
Lisa hung up, dialed M.J. and informed her that she was fairly sure Bear Brian’s whore lawyer had been buffaloed into abandoning the suit. “Once I convinced him you weren’t afraid of the publicity, he lost his extortion leverage and we were in the clear. There’s no chance he’s going to hang around for two years while we go upside his head day after day and make him our courtroom bitch and media prop.”
“Brilliant. What a relief. Wonderful. You realize I’d be mortified if this really hits the papers. Lord above, it would be awful. I was thinking of the opposite strategy, loading up and threatening him with blood in the streets if he did file the stupid paperwork and started yakking to the media. Thank our lucky stars Brian picked this clown to represent him. Of course, my sources tell me he was turned down by just about every reputable lawyer in Raleigh, so this parasite had to be at the bottom of the barrel. Bless you. Send me a bill.”
“No charge, M.J. I’ll put it in the favor book and then hold it over you for decades. That’s what friends do.” Lisa laughed. “Or you can treat me to the VIP experience at the Ice Follies or whatever they call it now. I’ll follow up with Loggins in a day or two, keep pushing like we genuinely want him to file the suit. I’ll have Betty fax him some bogus info and our fake press release.”
“You, Lisa Stone, are the best.”
Seth Garrison’s helicopter was impressive, much larger than Lisa had anticipated. A Benecorp employee named Arch Harvey met them at the Virginia Beach airport and accompanied them across the tarmac and introduced them to the pilot, who was dressed in a crisp white shirt and dark blue captain’s uniform and had very little to say, though he did shake hands with her and Joe. His name was Alden—she was never certain if this was his given name or his last name—and he had the demeanor of a man who positively lived for the bottom to fall out, was eager for a stall or turbulent weather or a mechanical hiccup so he could dose up on adrenaline and show off his talent. “Would you prefer the quick route or the tourist trip to the ship?” he demanded, the inquiry blasé and impersonal.
