"So you traded prestige for convenience"
Neely seemed to stall a moment, like an airplane engine that hit a patch of turbulence it wasn't expecting. "Prestige isn't all it's cracked up to be, John. And besides, my client base now is trusts and estates. They're buying my capacity to do contingency planning for generations of beneficiaries."
“Contingency planning?"
"Yes. If X dies before Y, should everything go to Y? If Y dies, should the remainder go to Z? And so on." The rumbling from his chest. "An old trial lawyer's pension, John, is doing the probate of people who predecease him."
I thought of Steve Rothenberg, "diversifying" into divorce work from criminal, which reminded me of why I'd come to Epstein & Neely in the first place. "Couple of questions?"
"About probating estates?"
"About Woodrow Gant."
Another, bigger bite of the scotch. "Ask."
"Do you know of anybody other than Alan Spaeth who could have a reason for wanting Mr. Gant dead?"
"No. Emphatically, no."
"Any ideas on the woman he was having dinner with that night?"
"As in who she could have been?"
"Yes."
"Afraid not, but I had the impression that Woodrow was what my generation would have called a 'ladies' man.' That woman you're asking about could have been any one of a number, none of them known to me."
"He never mentioned their names to you?"
"Never. In fact, it got so I'd listen for one, because he'd talk about taking a driving weekend to the Cape or the mountains. But Woodrow never used a name, just 'Hey, man, I was with a lady.' "
Neely put a lot of street-black into that last, but then he'd known Gant, and I hadn't. "How about what you remember from the day Alan Spaeth made the scene in your reception area?"
Neely's account was no different from the others, and he also conceded that he hadn't seen Spaeth move toward anyone. "But I'll tell you what I did see." Neely lifted the glass an inch. "I saw your client's eyes."
"His eyes."
"Yes, from less than ten feet away. The look in them, a willingness to . . . kill." Neely's drink rose another inch. "Something I hadn't seen up close for a long, long time."
I took a chance. "Not since climbing Pointe-du-Hoc?"
Neely stopped the scotch halfway to his mouth. "That is one hell of a guess."
"I saw the Ranger photos on your wall downstairs. And I had an uncle who landed with the Eighth Infantry on D-Day."
"The Eighth. They hit Utah Beach, correct?"
"Yes, the little he ever talked about it."
"It wasn't something we did talk about." Neely set his glass down. "I'm old enough to remember the Cocoanut Grove fire in 'forty-two, and I'll never forget the lines of people outside the old Southern Mortuary, praying and crying while they waited to identify their loved ones lost in the smoke and flames. But nothing else I ever saw compares to Omaha Beach that morning in June of 'forty-four. Nothing."
He seemed to address the harbor. "Our unit's mission was to knock out the one-five-five millimeter guns the Germans had mounted in concrete casemates at the top of the Pointe, six of them aimed at the Allied ships coming toward both Utah and Omaha. We were trained by British commandos, John, and they trained us well. Assaulting dress-rehearsal beaches and scaling cliffs in Scotland, double-timing everywhere we went, push-ups as a 'rest break.' But nothing prepared us for the Channel sea being choppy enough to swamp our landing craft if we didn't go slow, our coxswains having to fight the tidal current. All of which meant we hit Omaha more than half an hour late, way after the naval and air bombardment on the cliff was over, giving the Germans plenty of time to climb back out of their holes and open up on us. Devastating cannon and machine-gun fire, our boats exploding, corpses floating in the water, body parts . . . pinwheeling through the air. The noise, the . . . carnage. Unbelievable. And when we fired our rocket-guns to carry grappling hooks up to the cliff, the rope attached to our hooks was so wet it was too heavy. Which meant most of the hooks fell short while we were being cut to pieces crossing from the touchdown point through the shallow water and up to the base of the cliff. But a couple of the hooks made it, and we started climbing hand-over-hand, up the face of that rock, the Germans sawing away on our ropes and raining death down upon us. And finally, when we reached the top."
I'd read about it. "The guns weren't there."
Neely looked to me once before going back to the harbor.
"That's right, John. Some telephone poles were sticking out of the bunkers, to fool the aerial reconnaissance. But our intelligence people had fouled up. They didn't know the Germans had moved the guns away from the shoreline, and they should have." Neely drummed his index finger against the arm of his chair by the scotch. "They should have known that, John."
"Maybe they knew it, but couldn't get word to you."
"They had radios. And even carrier pigeons that could cross the Channel with little rolled messages in metal quivers on their legs."
"The weather was pretty rough during the week before D-Day, wasn't it?"
"Awful."
"So, maybe they tried to send a message by radio or pigeon, but it didn't get through to England."
"No, John, no. They just didn't follow up on that casemate before we embarked. Oh, we found the guns eventually—inland a ways—and blew them to kingdom come with thermite grenades. But we wouldn't have had to climb that goddamn cliff and take more than fifty percent casualties doing it. We were . . . let down by our own people, John. And that's a pill too bitter to swallow."
I thought of Saigon during the Tet Offensive. "I know."
Neely suddenly leaned back. "Sorry. You've probably got your own memories like that."
My face may have shown him something. He said, "After we first spoke this afternoon, I made a few phone calls. You were Military Police in Vietnam."
"For a while."
Neely sipped some more of his scotch. "I learned one thing that day at Pointe-du-Hoc, John. You lose your innocence when somebody your own age dies in front of you."
That was the first thing Neely had said that sounded practiced, a line rolling a little too smoothly off the tongue.
He set his drink down again. "And I've learned maybe one thing since. Old age has no purpose, except to remind you of being young and to punish you for having pissed it away."
I gestured with my own glass. "I wouldn't exactly say all this came from 'pissing it away'."
"No." Neely grinned sheepishly. "No, 'all this' is the product of a lot of hard work. When I first got started in practice, clients came to you because they trusted you, like the family doctor. And they took your advice, so you and the other lawyers could run the system, keep everything going for everybody. You decided to form a partnership, it was just a handshake among honorable men. And documents were typed up by secretaries you worked with forever. Now, nobody trusts lawyers, and the clients have taken over the system. Getting a big case is like a beauty contest, where you have to show up in a corporation's conference room and actually 'bid' on representing the company in a lawsuit. Attorneys spend more time in front of a computer 'on-line' than they do in a courtroom 'on-trial,' and with so many younger ones out there, the competition for even the smaller cases is fierce. Clericals of both genders are suing their firms for sexual harassment, and nobody's civil to anybody anymore. It's all cutthroat, John, just another business instead of an honored profession. Things have gotten to the point that lawyers are even hiring themselves out as temps."
"Is that what you'll do?"
Neely seemed thrown by the question. "What?"
"Is that how you'll deal with the loss of Woodrow Gant, bring in some temporary attorneys to replace him?"
"No. No, for a couple of reasons. First, I don't believe in hiring attorneys except for the long haul."
"As opposed to clerical staff?"
Neely picked up his glass, tilting it toward me. "Touché, if that doesn't date me even more than the war stories.
You're right, we hire temps for support purposes because it's cost effective. But the kind of practice Woodrow had, the clients are hiring the lawyer, not the firm. I couldn't just bring in a 'substitute teacher' to cover his divorce cases, even if I wanted to. And it'll take a while to find someone who's good enough to join us. You see, Woodrow had a way about him that inspired confidence, and we'll just have to let his clients find other counsel. With our help, if needed."
"Which means you'll lose the fees from those cases."
"The unearned portions. But Imogene is going through the files and billing records, and we'll resolve that." Neely looked over at me. "I will have to replace Woodrow with someone soon, though, and so I'm going to ask you one question that I'd like a straight answer to."
I set down my drink. "Go ahead."
"A little while ago, I said there was no real purpose to getting old. But it does help with reading people. I'm reading you now, and I don't think you're just going through the motions."
"Regarding Alan Spaeth, you mean?"
"That's what I mean."
"You said as much in your office earlier."
Neely fixed me with the same look he used down there. "I know I did, John, but I have a firm to run here."
"I don't think I've heard your 'one question' yet."
Neely eased off the look. "It's because I need the answer but don't really want to hear it." His eyes moved to the scotch, then back to me. "Did you find out anything from us that suggests your client didn't kill Woodrow?"
The man had been straight with me, allowing me access he didn't have to, and I wanted to be straight with him. "Just what you told me about the insurance."
“The insurance?"
"Yes. You said Mr. Gant's 'family members' were the beneficiaries on his life policies."
Neely raised his drink. "Mother Helen and brother Grover—'Grover Cleveland Gant.' I checked the paperwork after we spoke down in my office, but I'd written the company myself on their behalf, so I was pretty sure of the proceeds."
"Which were?"
"One hundred thousand each."
"How about the balance of Mr. Gant's estate?"
Neely took some more scotch, nearly finishing it. "His will became public record once it was filed, so I guess there's no harm in telling you what it says. Everything to the mother, with Grover as contingent beneficiary."
I nodded.
Neely said, "You're thinking the brother?"
"I've been wondering why Ms. Burbage would keep him waiting in the reception area rather than let him go to Mr. Gant's office."
Neely considered something. "That was Woodrow's instruction, actually."
"His instruction?"
"Yes." Neely rolled the cubes in his glass. "It seems that once—when Imogene did have Grover wait in Woodrow's office—there was something . . . missing afterward."
"What was it?"
"Cash, a couple hundred that Woodrow kept as an emergency fund in his desk."
I had the same habit, though my stash was tucked halfway through an old photo album in one of my desk's lower drawers.
Neely drained the last of the scotch. "Woodrow told me his brother has a problem with gambling."
"Thanks for the information."
"One other thing, John?"
"Yes?"
"It wasn't part of the firm coverage, but something Woodrow took out on his own."
"What was?"
"You knew he'd gotten divorced himself?"
"Just that, no details."
"Around the time he came with us. His ex-wife lives out in Brookline." The town just west of Boston's Brighton neighborhood. "Pol1ard's the last name. Jenifer—with only one 'n'. "
Taking that in, I said, "And he had a policy on himself payable to her, too?"
"Part of the divorce settlement, Woodrow once told me."
"Face amount?"
"The same as the others, a straight hundred thousand."
I watched Neely for a moment. "Not that I don't appreciate the information, but why so helpful?"
He rolled the cubes some more, almost like dice in a cup. "I want to get to the bottom of this as much as anyone, John, and more than most. I recruited Woodrow for the firm, and now I need to replace him. The sooner we have closure on his death, the better for everyone."
Neely fixed me again. "Don't get me wrong. I believe your client did this terrible thing. I watched him downstairs that day, and I know what I saw in his eyes. But I also know what I see in yours, and that's a man who won't let go until he's convinced. So the sooner you check out these other possibilities, the sooner my job gets easier."
Frank Neely looked away then, giving me one more chance to appreciate the view from his terrace before he led me downstairs and out of the building.
Chapter 9
AFTER LEAVING THE law firm building, I stopped at a pay phone to check my answering service. A nice woman with a silky voice gave me several messages, but nothing from Nancy. Then I dialed my home phone, using the remote code to trigger the telephone tape machine. No messages, period. It had been less than twenty-four hours since Nancy had walked out on me at Thai Basil, but I tried her apartment in South Boston anyway. When her own answering machine engaged, I waited for the beep, then left a very neutral "I'll be out myself tonight, so I'll try you tomorrow at work."
No sense in pushing it, whatever "it" was for Nancy.
Then I walked uphill to Tremont Street to get my car.
Dorchester is a section of Boston most people think of as infrequently as possible. In much of it, the storefronts tend to plywood windowpanes and gang insignia, the housing to rundown triple-deckers with blistered paint and rotting porches. But there are pocket neighborhoods that could be models for a magazine, and Helen Gant lived in one of these. Her home was a single-family, gingerbread-and-yellow Tudor, centered on a quarter-acre lot with a small lawn and tended shrubbery. A Mitsubishi compact stood in the narrow driveway, its grille snubbed up close to the house, as though making parking room behind it for a second car expected to arrive later.
I left the Prelude at the curb and used the cement path to approach the front door. Light shone through curtains, and when I pressed the doorbell, a hand was opening locks before the chimes had died away.
"Why you can't keep your house keys with—uh-uh?"
The African-American woman in front of me ended her sentence with a hiccuping sound as she saw who I was. Or wasn't. In her early fifties, with hair fashioned into silver-and-black kinks half an inch long, she wore a robin's-egg blue blouse over a plaid skirt and opaque hosiery, a commuter's tennis sneakers on her feet. The woman was only about five-two, but the set of both her eyes and her lips suggested she'd recovered enough to take charge of the situation.
"Who are you?"
"John Cuddy. Helen Gant?"
A cautious, “Yes?"
"Mrs. Gant, I'm a private investigator." I took out my ID and held it to her.
She read the printing quickly. "What's this about?"
"I'm looking into your son's death, and I was hoping you could spare a little time."
Hiccup. "Your company called me today, said they'd send somebody by my office tomorrow morning"
"I'm not here about the insurance, Mrs. Gant. I was hired by Alan Spaeth's attorney."
Her eyes went cold. "Then why should I talk to you?"
"Because from some things I've found out so far, I think the police might have arrested the wrong man."
Gant blinked twice, then put a hand to her eyes, more to cover them than to block tears, I thought. Then she took the hand away. "Those same police said I don't have to talk with anybody from that . . . man's side of the case."
"No, ma'am, you don't. But you should."
Gant moved her tongue against the inside of her cheek, then opened the door wider. "Fifteen minutes."
"Thank you."
I passed her, and she locked the door behind us. In front of me was a staircase with natural—oak balustrades just different
enough that they had to have been hand-carved. Similar spokes rose vertically between the sills and tops of false windows on either side of the double-wide, interior doorway to the right. Beyond the doorway was a living room furnished with leather sofa, oak coffee table, and two barrel chairs arranged on an oriental rug.
The fireplace—also oak—dominated one wall, some family portrait photos on the mantel. I tried not to look at them, but Helen Gant must have caught me.
"I have a friend at the office who told me in her religion, when somebody dies, they lie the photos of that person face-down for a year. I couldn't bear to do that." The hiccuping noise again. "Please, take one of the chairs."
I did, and Gant sat at the end of the couch closest to me, leaving about five feet between us.
I said, "Where do you work?"
She composed herself with knees together, hands clasped on top of them. "Social welfare, Mr. Cuddy. I do mostly outreach and tracking programs."
"Meaning visiting recipients in their homes?"
"Some days. I'm a 'mandated reporter' under the state statute, so if I see evidence of abuse during my visit, I have to file a 51A with the DSS—the Department of Social Services? Then the department investigates, either to screen the incident out or . . ."
The hiccup again, but now a different look. "You're doing what I do."
"I'm sorry?"
"You're using the same technique I use for interviewing a family. Get them talking about themselves to see how they're functioning as a unit."
"Mrs. Gant—"
"By the way, it's Ms. Gant."
"Sorry again."
A level stare. "No need to be. I dropped out of high school to have Woodrow when I was fifteen, and stayed out for Grover two years later. Thought giving them the names of presidents might help them get past their fathers, neither of which being what you'd call a prizewinner." Another hiccup, and Helen Gant lifted her chin. "I lived with my mother, went to work as a housekeeper in a hotel downtown. Started at six A.M. in the laundry, washing and folding, then on to the rooms, scrubbing on my hands and knees in bathrooms, keep the mildew from getting a foothold. I'd be finished by four in the afternoon, five pounds lighter than I was getting there in the morning." Hiccup. "But I went right from work to school for my G.E.D., and then on to UMass/Boston for college. Got the degree, got the job at Welfare, got this house. And never looked back until your client killed my Woodrow. Now, what more do you want from me?"
The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy Page 11
