Tapped Out: Maple Syrup Mysteries

by Emily James

  His hands tightened on the steering wheel, his knuckles bulging out.

  All at once, I was thankful that Mark was overprotective Mark and had insisted on following us rather than going on ahead. Even though Elise insisted Dean wasn’t the violent type, I couldn’t help noticing the strength in his hands and how easy it’d be for those hands to hurt me. How easy it would have been for those hands to strangle Sandra.

  He kept his gaze on the road. “I haven’t done anything illegal since you took my case.”

  That was very specific wording. Specific enough that I believed him because it basically told me that he had done things that could get him arrested prior to me becoming his lawyer.

  “And yet someone still went into my house, took my dogs, and threatened me. I need to know that won’t happen again. Especially since your business partner followed me the other day. Elise wouldn’t want me on this case if it puts me in danger. And if these people took my dogs, are you sure they didn’t kill Sandra?”

  He tapped a finger along the top of the steering wheel. “How far does lawyer–client privilege extend?”

  Ugg. In all my time as a lawyer, on all the cases I’d worked with my parents, nothing good ever followed those words. In fact, some of the most disturbing revelations came once clients were sure they were safe telling you absolutely everything related to their case.

  Privilege didn’t cover everything, though, which some people didn’t realize. My parents had occasionally had to stop clients before they learned something they’d have to disclose. “You can’t tell me anything about future crimes you plan to commit. You can’t ask me for advice on avoiding prosecution for crimes not yet committed. You also can’t tell me about anything you might be thinking of doing that would harm someone else. And, obviously, if you waive privilege, then everything is fair game.”

  I’d always hated having to tell clients about the limits of privilege. For some lawyers, it might not bother them. But a large part of me wanted to know if my client was planning anything more. I would have rather been able to tell the police so they could stop them.

  Yet another sign that Stacey was right. I wasn’t cut out to defend guilty clients. Because of his other criminal activities, Dean flirted with the line even if he was innocent of Sandra’s murder.

  “My construction business isn’t a construction business,” Dean said.

  I barely kept myself from snapping out a sarcastic no kidding. Once again, it was unfair that I didn’t have the Cavanaugh ability to control my eyebrows. It would have at least let off some steam if I could have arched an eyebrow at him. “And what type of business is it exactly?”

  “You might call it identity theft. I prefer to think of it as a consulting business that helps people start a new life.”

  Given how much cash Dean seemed to have access to, I doubted he sold his wares only to people looking to start a new life. Dean likely dealt with clients here in Michigan, but I suspected Griffin took a lot of their business online to the Darknet.

  A hot shower and a lot of soap weren’t going to be enough to erase the slimy feeling this case gave me. It’s not your job to parent your clients or comment on their life choices, my dad’s voice chimed in the back of my head. Your only job is to win their case.

  I mentally scowled at my dad all the way back in Virginia. “And you didn’t think that was pertinent information when I wanted to know who might have killed Sandra?”

  The car sped up slightly, and I instinctively clenched the armrest. Speeding up was a jerk move if it was intended to scare me, but it might be a subconscious reaction to being questioned on topics that made him uncomfortable.

  He shook his head. “My clients were perfectly happy with my work until you came around asking questions and making them think the police were going to come around asking even more. They wouldn’t have hurt your dogs. They’re good people.”

  “Stealing my dogs wasn’t the way to stay hidden. The police are still on their way to your clients’ house.”

  “They won’t be there.”

  “The police will wait or come back.”

  He took a curve in the road much faster than the posted limit. “They won’t be back. I told them to grab what they needed and go. They were only renting the place anyway.”

  Maybe it was best he hadn’t told me all this before. “I’m afraid to ask, but I need to know to be sure your business didn’t get Sandra killed. What type of people are the clients you’ve dealt with? You’re not helping criminals hide from the police, are you? If people feel like their secrets are in danger, they’ll kill to protect them. They might have thought Sandra knew their true identities and that she might turn them in.”

  His shoulders bunched. “Not real criminals. Illegal immigrants. Draft dodgers. That sort of thing. It’s mostly people who want to start over. I’m telling you, they were all fine. No complaints. We’re careful about who we work with.”

  “What about the people whose identities you stole?”

  Dean’s foot came off the gas slightly. “I don’t think so.”

  “You don’t think so.”

  “Griffin handles that end of it. But he’s only supposed to take the identities of dead people or people who aren’t using them anymore, like old folks and people locked up for mental health stuff. He’s careful.”

  My whole body wanted to cringe away from him. “So basically he preys on the most vulnerable segments of society.”

  Dean opened his mouth, then closed it again.

  Smartest move he’d made in weeks not to argue with me on that one.

  I gave it a couple of beats to let that sink in. Maybe at least part of it would reach whatever conscience he had left. “If Griffin isn’t following those rules, you could have someone who wanted to get even with you for stealing their identity. It’s not a victimless crime. It can make it difficult for the person whose life you’ve hacked to get a mortgage, to get credit cards, to pass background checks.”

  “He set the rules for who we’d target, so I don’t think he’d break them. Like I said, he’s careful. But I’ll talk to him. You have to leave him alone.”

  He might as well have said I can’t control what my business partner will do if you make him feel threatened. “Would he have hurt Sandra?”

  “Sandra didn’t know that my business wasn’t legit.”

  Something hard and hot formed in the pit of my stomach. His current wife didn’t know that his business was actually a cover for his illegal activities. His ex-wife wouldn’t, either, which meant she also wouldn’t know that he’d suddenly started paying child support thanks to money Elise would never take if she knew where it came from.

  “Is your construction business your only source of income?” I tried to keep my voice professional, without a note that would tip him off that I was going anywhere else with it than trying to sort through sources for Sandra’s killer.

  His silence said everything. Even with his relaxed interpretation of right and wrong, he had to be able to guess what I’d think about him lying to his wife about how they were paying their bills.

  I speared him with a firm look. “I know that Elise can’t know, either.”

  His took his gaze off the road and fastened it on me. “Elise doesn’t need to know. I’m taking care of my kids. Isn’t that all that matters?”

  His voice wasn’t angry. It was more…resigned. Like what I’d have expected from someone who really wanted to be a good parent, but felt they didn’t have the capacity to do it—at least not through traditional means—and felt the criticism of those around them deeply.

  It was the opposite of what I’d have expected, especially from Dean.

  Part of me wanted to leave it be. Dean providing financial support meant Elise had to struggle less to take care of Arielle and Cameron. My dad would say meddling in Dean’s personal life wasn’t any of my business if it didn’t affect his case, which, technically, it didn’t.

  I caught a glimpse of Mark in the rearview mirror.
I knew what he would say. I knew what my pastor would say. I knew what my Uncle Stan would say, too, if he were still alive. And I’d long ago decided I didn’t want to be like my dad. Accepting money, or allowing a friend to accept money, that came from an illegal source wasn’t right.

  What Elise didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her only as long as she didn’t know. Someday, she might figure it out, and when that happened, she’d not only feel like she had to find some way to “give back” that money, but she’d feel betrayed by me, and our relationship would never be the same. If that wasn’t enough, I didn’t know what it would do to Elise’s career if someone found out she’d been accepting money obtained from criminal activity. She could claim she didn’t know how Dean got the money, but the stain of that would follow her around anyway.

  “Elise needs to know. She won’t want the money, knowing where it came from.”

  The sidelong glance he gave me made me think of a shark—cold and calculating. “If I refuse to tell her, you can’t. Lawyer–client privilege.”

  I felt the cold of his gaze all the way down into my core. I hadn’t taken Mark’s warning seriously enough when he said Dean was a master manipulator and user. He’d made me think he asked about lawyer–client privilege so that he could answer my questions without it being used against him in court. Maybe that had been part of his reasoning, but clearly he’d also been making sure that he maintained control. He only let me think I was in charge. Even if I dropped him as a client, I couldn’t reveal what he’d told me while I was his lawyer.

  I narrowed my eyes slightly. With most people, he’d have won. But I was a Fitzhenry-Dawes. I might not be the lawyer my parents were, but I hadn’t been raised by them for nothing.

  Every building had a backdoor if the front one seems locked, my dad loved to say.

  “You’re right. I can’t tell her. I can refuse to represent you, though, and you won’t find another lawyer who’ll be able to get you acquitted. There’s enough evidence against you that the prosecutor who has your case probably cracked open a beer and put his feet up the day it landed on his desk.”

  Dean’s gaze flickered slightly.

  I leaned toward him. “And once I’m not your lawyer, I can have a friendly chat with my soon-to-be cousin-in-law Elise and recommend, as a friend, that she shouldn’t accept any more money from you and that her kids would be safer if they weren’t allowed to spend time alone with you. Elise is intelligent. If you think she won’t read between the lines regardless of how vague I am, you’re wrong. And you’ll still need to find a way to pay my already-accrued fees that doesn’t involve dirty money.”

  We hit the outskirts of Fair Haven and Dean dropped his speed. It seemed like the fight came out of him with the speed drop as well.

  His broad shoulders hunched. “How do you expect me to pay you or help out my kids then? I don’t have any other money.”

  It felt like something clicked into place in my head. Mark had said Dean was manipulative, and he was. But I suspected that under all that bravado hid someone who was much more scared and wounded little boy than evil supervillain. What had he experienced in his own childhood?

  I settled back in my seat. The shift in the air was almost palpable. I could turn this around now so that we were working together. I wouldn’t go so far as to call us allies since I still didn’t trust him, but I had a chance to win him over so he trusted me a little more.

  To do that, I had to figure out a legitimate way he could support his children and pay me.

  I ran my fingers along the car’s leather armrests, then looked down at my hand. He might not have cash, but he had assets. Some of what he owned had probably been paid for with his ill-gotten gains, but the rest of it would have come from Sandra or from money he’d gotten prior to opening his new “business” a year or so ago.

  “You could sell your car and your house and downsize. And then it’ll be time to dissolve your partnership with Griffin and find a real job.”

  The veins on the back of his hands bulged, but he nodded his head. “Griffin won’t like it, but I’ll do it.”

  We passed through Fair Haven and onto the gravel road that led to Sugarwood. We were running out of time to talk privately.

  I’d never been a parent, but I did understand the pressure of wanting to make the people in your life proud. I understood how motivating that could be. Dean had shown he wanted to support his children like a good dad would. His attempt to do it had been misguided, but his motives were pure. At least, I hoped so. The man was as slippery as a wet bar of soap.

  “I’m going to do what I can to make sure you don’t go to prison for something you didn’t do, but I don’t want to put in all that work if you’re only going to throw it away getting arrested for something you did do. That won’t help your kids. You’re getting a chance to turn things around now. If you really love them, then they don’t need fancy stuff. They need you to be a man they can look up to.”

  “I’m not sure I know how to do that.”

  His words were so soft I almost missed them under the sound of the tires on the gravel road.

  Almost like he wasn’t sure he wanted me to hear them.

  He didn’t strike me as the kind of man who was good at being vulnerable. Which meant that if I waited too long or said the wrong thing, I’d lose all the ground it seemed like we’d gained. He’d feel like he’d been too exposed and like he had to regain superiority.

  I shrugged. “I think it’s about trying to become the kind of person you’d want your kids to grow up into.” I made sure to keep any pity from my voice, and I tried to wipe my expression into something professional. “We’re almost there, and we can’t talk about anything confidential once others are around. I need you to tell me honestly. Would any of your clients have had a reason to hurt Sandra?”

  “No. I meant it when I said that.”

  “What about Griffin?”

  His Adam’s apple moved like he’d swallowed instinctively. It was a tell he couldn’t hide. “Griffin couldn’t have done it.”

  Was it a tell that he was lying or that something else about the answer made him uncomfortable? “How can you be sure? You weren’t with him at the time.”

  He pulled his car to a stop in front of my house. “That’s the thing. I was with him at the time. I was with him until nearly sunrise, working on our business. I’d told Sandra I’d be home before midnight. I didn’t really pass out on the couch when I came home. I slept there when I came in ’cause I thought she’d be pissed at me for not showing up when I said and not calling.”

  I felt like throwing my hands up in the air. “Why didn’t you tell the police that? You have an alibi. We wouldn’t even have to take this to court.”

  “We weren’t…” Dean squirmed in his seat like the seatbelt was choking him. “What we were doing wasn’t legal, and Griffin said if I told the police I was with him, he’d lie and say I wasn’t.”

  My mind ground around in a circle over the idea that both Dean and Griffin were innocent. Deep down, I think I’d sincerely believed one of them had done it, and I’d been leaning toward Griffin. Now I knew I was defending an innocent man—at least innocent of murdering his wife—and all the people I’d thought could have done it were off the list.

  I undid my seatbelt but didn’t leave the car. “My dad would say we should push Griffin in court, build our case around making him look guilty for Sandra’s murder. Worst case, it’d create reasonable doubt. Best case, he’d admit he was with you. My dad rarely loses.”

  Purple smudges appeared under his eyes, and a white thread outlined his lips. “Griffin’s not the kind of man I want to cross. I’m the junior partner. He’s the pro. And if we go after him, he won’t just come after me. He’ll come after you, and Mark, and Elise, and my kids. When he does, he won’t be stealing your dogs. I’d rather go to prison for something I didn’t do. At least then my kids would be safe.”

  17

  Monday morning, I showed up at Dean’s house a
t 8:00 am. I’d warned him I was coming, that I’d even bring coffee and donuts, but he still wasn’t wearing a shirt when he opened the door, and his hair sticking up on one side suggested he’d been asleep on the couch until I knocked. Based on the crumpled shirt lying next to his couch, I was beginning to suspect that he stripped them off as soon as he got home and didn’t bother to cover up until he had to.

  I pointed at his naked chest. He sighed and grabbed the shirt from the floor, but didn’t argue. The rest of the morning went more smoothly from there. I helped him put together his résumé and figure out where to look for jobs. Those seemed like they should be skills every adult had, and yet he didn’t. My argument for learning them wasn’t only that he needed to be a better example for his kids, but also that we needed to be able to honestly prove he was a respectable member of society and gainfully employed. Even though juries were only supposed to judge based on the facts of a case, that’s not how it worked in real life. They also looked at how a defendant was dressed and what type of a person they seemed to be.

  After we finished with his résumé, I also helped him pick a real estate agent and call the office. She promised to come by that afternoon to assess the house and get it listed. Since we still had a lot of work to do on Dean’s case, I offered to wait.

  First, I had to grab my files from my car. We had to figure out who else might have had a motive to kill Sandra.

  As I unlocked my car, a movement from across the street caught my attention. The neighbor I’d talked to before stood on her front lawn, a giant green watering can in her hands. She clearly meant it to appear like she was watering her plants, but the water from the can hit her shoes and driveway instead.

  The neighbor I really wanted to talk to was the one who never seemed to be home, mainly because I wanted to know if he’d found a roll of duct tape in his yard. Last week, I’d checked with the neighbors at the house behind Dean’s. They’d been on vacation that week, but they hadn’t found a roll of tape when they came home. That left only the one neighbor I hadn’t spoken to. With how little he seemed to be home, I doubted he’d noticed anything.