by Joel Goldman
“I don’t like it, but we don’t have a choice.”
“Well, well, the prodigal partner returns. I hope you can find some new assignment to keep us challenged today,” Diane Farrell said as she sauntered in.
“Diane, I’m glad you’re here. Phil—take the day off. Diane will finish up.”
“And the horse you rode in on, boss,” she said.
“I didn’t know you were an animal lover, Diane,” Mason said on his way out.
Sandra stood him up for their seven o’clock meeting. He hoped that meant they were even. At nine, Mason’s secretary delivered a memo announcing that the partners’ meeting had been moved to one thirty. Scott’s secretary answered Mason’s call to his office and told him that Scott wouldn’t be in until noon.
“Do you know where he is?”
“No, sir.”
“Can you check with the other partners?”
“Sorry, Mr. Mason. You’re the only partner here.”
He should have seen it coming then, but he was too busy to pay attention to the firm’s radio traffic and troop movements.
Kelly was a welcome sight when she walked into his office. He knew when he had a crush on someone. In high school, he called it being in deep like. In his twenties, he called it magic. Now in his midthirties, he called it dumb luck and hoped it would last long enough to fill the crater Kate left.
“Wait here,” Mason told her, motioning to a small, round conference table. “Pamela and B.J. gave me permission to show you Sullivan’s will. I’ll be right back.”
“Your office is too masculine,” she told him when he returned. “You need some flowers.”
“Since when is masculine a bad thing?”
“It’s almost my favorite thing,” she answered. “But you need more hormonal balance.”
“I’ll rent you space,” he said, pulling his chair next to hers.
“The will was signed on August 31, 1997,” Kelly noted as she began reading.
“There’s a trust agreement that runs twenty-five pages. Fortunately, Scott included a summary.”
“What’s the bottom line?”
“Sullivan’s estate is worth about twenty million dollars. Pamela gets half, and half goes to charity.”
“Unfortunately for Pamela, ten million dollars is a hell of a motive for murder.”
Mason started to put the will and trust back into the file when a sealed envelope he hadn’t noticed before slipped out. Kelly grabbed it and tore it open before he could claim another privilege.
“I don’t get it,” she said as she handed it to him.
Mason studied it for a few minutes. “I don’t get it either. This is a codicil, an amendment revoking his will.”
“So he died without a will?”
“Which makes no sense. He might change his will. But he’d never revoke it. That would cost his estate a fortune in taxes. He’d spent his entire career making sure his clients avoided taxes. I wonder if Scott knew about this.”
“What happens to the estate now?”
“In Kansas, if you die without a will, the entire estate, after taxes, goes to your heirs. Your spouse gets one-half and your kids share the rest equally. Pamela and Sullivan didn’t have any children, so she gets it all.”
“And the charities get screwed. Just in case ten million bucks wasn’t enough to see her through her golden years, now she gets twenty million. I think the DA’s case just got a little better.”
“Not if Pamela didn’t know that Sullivan revoked his will. In Kansas, a spouse has to give written consent to the terms of the other spouse’s will, which Pamela did. She didn’t have to consent to the codicil, and she didn’t.”
“Who witnessed the will?”
Mason flipped to the last page and read the names. “Maggie Boylan and Sullivan’s secretary.”
“And the codicil?”
“Diane Farrell and Angela Molina.”
“I’ll talk to them later,” Kelly said. “The hearing on Pamela’s bail is this afternoon. Let’s have dinner at J.J.’s. Blues told me he’s playing there tonight. Meet me at seven thirty?”
“Are you serving dessert?”
Third kisses are answers, and Mason didn’t have any more questions.
After Kelly left, Mason’s secretary told him that Sandra was waiting for him in her office.
“Sorry about this morning, Lou. I had a late night,” she said.
Sandra’s desk was an oval-shaped slab of blood-veined marble supported by shiny silver pedestals at each end. The effect was simultaneously cold and passionate. We are our furniture, Mason thought as he sat across from her.
A bookcase held a collection of reference books. He noticed a copy of the PDR, the Physicians’ Desk Reference, which explained how drugs acted, how they should be used, and the risks of misuse. The library at his old firm had a copy, but no one at Sullivan & Christenson had ever chased an ambulance.
“Do you have any personal injury cases?”
“No, why?”
“I just wondered about your PDR. I didn’t know anyone around here had one.”
“I sold pharmaceuticals and medical equipment before I went to law school. It’s a leftover from those days.”
Her long legs, crossed at the ankles, reached under the marble slab. She dropped a dangling shoe and brushed her toes against his pant leg, the effect swimming upstream against the lingering sensation of Kelly’s kiss. Mason decided to ignore her toes.
“O’Malley fired us. I hope you had better luck with the son.”
“Vic Jr. isn’t so bad if you keep his hands busy. I’ll know all his secrets by the end of the week.”
“That’s not a fair fight.”
“And I don’t like fair fights. He’s picking me up for lunch. I’ll be back in time for the partners’ meeting.”
The receptionist called, announcing that Vic Jr. had arrived. Mason walked with Sandra to the front desk, where Angela was pretending to be entertained by him. He left her hanging in midsentence when Sandra flashed her melting-point smile before taking him by the arm and heading for the elevator. He was grinning as if he’d just gotten a date with the homecoming queen.
“Don’t tell me?” Angela said.
“Yep. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“How can she stand the creep?”
“She put a leash on his dick and told him to heel.”
Turning around, Mason saw Scott watching Sandra and Vic Jr.’s dating game from inside the conference room behind him. Scott shifted his gaze to Mason for a moment before turning away, his eyes as cold as Sandra’s marble slab.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
DIANE FARRELL WAS WAITING for Mason in his office. “You want to talk about the fixtures deals or try and figure them out on your own?” She was sitting in the chair Kelly had occupied an hour earlier, holding a sandwich in one hand and a bottle of root beer in the other. “I brought you a sandwich. Consider it a peace offering,” she said as she shoved a brown paper bag toward him.
“Do I need a food taster?”
“Don’t be such a tight-ass. Try living on the edge. It’s turkey and horseradish on rye. Same as me.” She took a bite of her sandwich and washed it down with root beer.
Mason examined the sandwich and resisted the temptation to sniff it before he bit into it. “Thanks,” he managed to force out before the horseradish lit a fire in the back of his throat.
Diane laughed, reached beneath the table, and produced another bottle of root beer. She twisted the top off and handed it to Mason.
“You don’t like me, do you?” she asked him.
Mason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nope.”
Diane laughed again. “Good. I don’t like you either. Makes us even.”
“Then why did you buy my lunch and offer to help me with the fixtures deals?”
“Sullivan was my boss. I still work here. It’s my job. Take your pick.”
“Works for me. Tell me what I need to know.”
“How many deals?”
“Twenty. In each transaction, Quintex purchased fifty thousand to seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of fixtures.”
“What kind of fixtures?”
“Retail store and entertainment fixtures. They could be used to display merchandise, serve food, or house televisions and stereos in bars and restaurants.”
“What were the economics?”
“Quintex leased the fixtures to other companies for thirty-five hundred to six thousand dollars a month on a ten-year lease with two ten-year options. Quintex usually got its money back in eighteen months. Ten of the deals have paid back the initial investment and just over half a million dollars in profit in the last year.”
Mason finished his sandwich and his root beer and jotted some figures on a legal pad.
“At an average of sixty thousand dollars per year per lease, Quintex will make twelve million dollars over ten years on an initial investment of around a million and a quarter. Who did Quintex buy the fixtures from?”
“I can tell you the names of the companies, but they won’t mean anything. They’re just shells. A parent corporation owns each one. Each parent owned five of the seller corporations. Two holding companies owned these four and a final holding company owned these two. All the companies were set up in Nevada.”
“So what?”
“I forgot you don’t do corporate work. Nevada doesn’t require shareholders and directors to be identified in state records. It lets the companies keep their ownership secret. Kind of like a Swiss bank account.”
“Somebody must have signed the papers?”
“Lawyers in Chicago had power of attorney. The firm is Caravello and Landusky. They represented the companies that sold the fixtures and the companies that leased them.”
Mason tore off the page of figures, wadded it into a ball, and fired it at his wastebasket.
“Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to hide the ownership. If the Chicago lawyers are representing the sellers and the lessees, they could be one and the same. Otherwise, the lawyers would have a conflict of interest.” Mason glanced at his watch and realized he was late for the partners’ meeting. “Gotta go, but thanks for the information and the sandwich.”
CHAPTER FORTY
MASON WALKED INTO THE CONFERENCE ROOM in time to see Scott fidgeting with a stack of papers, stopping long enough to glare at Sandra from Sullivan’s old chair while she smirked back from Harlan’s former seat. None of the partners would look at him. Scott cleared his throat and began the meeting.
“I received a very disturbing call from Victor O’Malley last night. He’s fired us because of the way Lou handled the grand jury subpoena.” He spoke with real regret, underscoring with understatement the gravity of their situation.
“Bullshit!” Mason said, slamming his palm on the table. “He fired us because he didn’t want to tell me how he hung us out to dry for St. John. We’re better off without him anyway. Now we can concentrate on our own defense.”
“Lou, you’re dead wrong,” Scott said. “I trusted you with this job out of friendship. I tried to warn you—told you to leave O’Malley to me. But you wouldn’t listen. You had to do it your way. Now the firm’s existence is in jeopardy.”
“Come on, it’s not that bad.”
“You haven’t been here long enough to understand the relationship with O’Malley. Everyone here except you and Sandra grew up with this firm. We’ve never had a problem like this.”
“The two senior partners have never been killed in the same week either. O’Malley isn’t blaming me for that too, is he?”
“That’s part of your problem, Lou. You think that a few wisecracks will solve everything. The rest of us don’t find any humor in losing our practice because the new kid on the block turned out to be a loose cannon.”
“Look, we were going to have to dump O’Malley anyway. We’ve got a conflict of interest with him that even a Republican could recognize. Let’s move on and figure out what we’re going to do next.”
“We’ve done that already. This wouldn’t have happened if we were as close-knit as we used to be. We have to make changes if this firm is going to survive.”
The picture Scott was painting was finally coming into focus. Sandra and Mason were the only outsiders—the only partners who weren’t born into the firm after law school. They would be the sacrifices to O’Malley.
“Let me guess. You and the other partners had a meeting with O’Malley and he promised to keep the lights on for you if you canned Sandra and me. Don’t you remember our discussion Sunday night when I told you that I had decided to quit before Sullivan was murdered and you begged me to stay and save your sorry ass? Or did you forget that when you were convincing our loyal partners here that Sandra and I were the real problem?”
“I met with Victor last night. He didn’t promise anything. As for Sunday night—I should have let you quit then. Once you told me you’d lost your nerve in the courtroom, I should have known that there was no way you could handle something like this. I guess I thought I was doing you a favor—giving you another chance. But you blew it. I should have known you would.”
Scott had told the worst kind of lie—one that had a kernel of truth in Mason’s own admission that he had been ready to walk out on his partners; one that they were eager to believe; and one that he couldn’t disprove. It was cruel and effective. Mason knew that his close relationship with Scott sealed it for the rest of the partners, ensuring their sympathy for Scott as the friend Mason had let down. It was over. Sandra rose with Mason as he stood to leave.
“Leave your parking garage access cards on your desks,” Scott continued. “We’ll forward your final paychecks and refunded capital contributions as provided in the partnership agreement. Your personal belongings will be sent to your homes. I want you out of these offices now!”
Scott tried to pull it off as Sullivan would have; the secret meeting to line up the votes. Appeal to old loyalties. All topped off with a ruthless finish. But he had one problem that Sullivan never had. Scott was scared. There was more desperation than anger in his voice and more fear than threat in his eyes. Sandra had been silent throughout the coup, but her closing shot clearly hit the mark.
“It’s too bad really, Scott,” she began. “It was such a nice speech, and I’m certain you worked on it very hard. But you’re too late. You can’t stop what you’ve already started.”
Mason didn’t understand what she meant, but Scott did, clenching the edge of the conference table in a white-knuckled vise. Before he could answer, Angela Molina opened the conference room door, letting in a deputy sheriff.
“Which one of you is Scott Daniels?”
“I’m Daniels. What do you want?”
“These papers are for you, Mr. Daniels.”
He handed Scott an envelope with the seal of the Jackson County Circuit Court on it and left. Scott scanned the pages, losing color with each page before dropping them on the conference table. He walked out without another word.
Sandra picked up the papers and Mason read them with her. It was O’Malley’s lawsuit against the firm seeking half a million dollars for work the firm charged him for but didn’t do, plus fifty million dollars in punitive damages. The kicker was a court order appointing a temporary receiver to manage the firm’s affairs until a hearing could be held on July 28 to consider the appointment of a permanent receiver.
Mason stopped in his office and filled his briefcase with the reports Diane Farrell had prepared and his copies of the O’Malley billing records. He tossed in Sullivan’s X-rated DVDs and his Johnny Mathis CD as a reminder of happier times. Sandra met him at the elevator and they rode down together.
“Was Scott telling the truth?” she asked.
“About me wanting to quit?”
“All of it.”
“The truth is, I did tell Scott that I had decided to quit. I didn’t give him a rea
son, and I’m not certain I could explain it. That jury of our partners and peers wouldn’t have believed any reason except the one Scott gave them. So the rest doesn’t matter. What did you mean by your crack about Scott being too late?”
“Vic Jr. told me about the lawsuit at lunch today. And a few other tidbits.”
“All that over lunch? What did you order?”
“Room service.”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
She laughed. “Give me some credit. It was enough that Junior thought it possible.”
“And the tidbits?”
“He bragged about all the money he was making that his old man didn’t know about until he told him last week.”
“Did he tell you where the money was coming from?”
“That was on the menu tonight. But it looks like I’ve been dumped.”
Franklin St. John and Gene McNamara were waiting when the elevator opened.
“Well, Mr. Mason,” St. John said. “You’ll save me the trip upstairs. I’m sorry to hear about Harlan Christenson. He seemed one of the few decent people in your group.”
“I’m touched that you came all the way over to express your condolences.”
“Actually, I’ve got more important business. The federal court has frozen your firm’s assets to protect the taxpayers’ interests.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
ST. JOHN HANDED MASON an order issued an hour ago freezing all of Sullivan & Christenson’s assets pending a hearing on July 27. Mason gave it back to him with his most gracious smile.
“You are ever diligent, but you’ll still have to take a ride upstairs.”
“Are you refusing to accept service of the court’s order?”
“Sorry. It’s not my firm anymore. But I’ll sleep better knowing that you’re watching over my interests as a taxpayer.”
Mason smiled, and he and Sandra left them standing at the elevator. Out on the sidewalk, he tilted his face to the sun, soaking in the warmth.
“You know something, Sandra? I may actually enjoy unemployment.”
“I know. There’s something liberating about it, at least until we don’t get our next paycheck. You know what? Screw it! Let’s celebrate! How about dinner?”
