Annie's Verdict (Michael Gresham Legal Thrillers Book 6)

by John Ellsworth

  "I'm not feeling well," I told Agent Leders. I felt around on my throat and shook my head. "Hurts," I rasped.

  But he wasn't moved even a millimeter.

  "No go, Mr. Gresham. Nobody's leaving until we have some answers. I'll run you down to the office if I have to; I'll even put you under arrest for conspiracy if need be. But you're giving me some answers, and you're giving me some answers right now."

  "Answers about what? If I knew anything, I'd answer you."

  "Two days after he embezzled the PAC's bank account, he came out here to see you. Did you take control of those funds? Are you ready to turn over your own bank statements so we can confirm what you tell us?"

  "Please remember there was an attorney-client relationship. I cannot talk about Gerry and his finances."

  "Attorney-client?"

  "Well, power-of-attorney."

  He sat back and smiled grandly at me. I thought It's a ploy, an attempt to frighten me. Well, think again.

  "The fact that a power-of-attorney relationship exists between two persons is itself not privileged. U.S. v. Leventhal, 961 F.2d 936, Mr. Gresham. I can put you in front of a grand jury tomorrow and throw you in jail if you refuse to answer these questions. There's no protection for you. Or, you can simply answer them here, today. Which is it, Mr. Gresham?"

  Now, he had my hackles up with that threat. I'm almost sixty years old; threats don't much work with me anymore.

  "Put me in front of your grand jury, then. I won't be coerced by your threats, Agent Leders."

  He sat back, placing his hands on the arms of the client chair. He nodded thoughtfully.

  "How about this," he said, somewhat calmed. "How about you bring up your trust account on your computer screen. Let me scroll through the last thirty days. If there's nothing there that looks like Gerry's money, I go away and leave you alone. Does a compromise like this work for you?"

  "I'm not letting you into my client trust account, Mr. Leders. That information is privileged. I could be sued--even disbarred--if I let you in on those client confidences. Sorry, but no."

  "Then I'll be gathering up the grand jury and issuing a subpoena for you, Mr. Gresham."

  He stood, making ready to go.

  "Oh, there's one more thing," he said, looking up from buttoning his topcoat.

  "Yes?"

  "Where were you the night Mr. Tybaum died?"

  The question shook me. It shook me because, for the love of God, I was actually in New York the night Gerry was murdered. It was only last Sunday so I couldn't plead memory loss. I beat myself up. Think, damn it!

  It was getting rough. I decided to meet them head-on. After all, I had done nothing wrong.

  "Come to think of it, I was in New York taking depositions in a medical malpractice case against a drug manufacturer."

  "Were you with anyone that night in your hotel room?"

  The noose had just tightened around my neck. New York was too close to where Gerry was killed.

  "I think I might have rented a PPV movie that night in my room."

  "What movie would that be?"

  "Honestly? I can't remember. I'm sure my room charge would say if you're wanting a thumbs up or thumbs down from me."

  "Funny man. So, you were in the vicinity of Gerry's death the night he died?"

  "How do you know it was at night when he died?"

  "The park police make their rounds at sundown. No bodies were seen in the pool at the Lincoln Memorial."

  "Sure, that makes sense. You know what? I think we're done here today. I'm just not going to answer any more of your questions because I don't appreciate the implications you're making, Agent Leders."

  "Implications? I'm just trying to absolve you of any wrongdoing, Mr. Gresham. We know Tybaum came to see you soon after he made off with twelve-million dollars; we know you were in the area the night he was killed; we know we don't have any leads on anyone who might have pulled the trigger. It's only natural the FBI would view you as a person of interest."

  I stood behind my desk. "This talk is concluded. Please leave, sir."

  "Mr. Gresham, please don't leave town over the next two weeks. And please let me know if you do."

  "I'm not reporting to you, Agent Leders. I'll come and go as I damn well please."

  "Then, that will require we take certain steps I didn't want to take."

  "Step away if you must," I told him. "Just don't threaten me and don't try to hogtie me. It doesn't work."

  He finally turned away from my desk. "Goodbye, Mr. Gresham," he called back over his shoulder. "See you again. Very soon."

  I didn't respond. There was no need.

  I sat down and pressed my hands together to stop the shaking. I had just implicated--or almost implicated--myself in an old acquaintance's murder despite my promises to myself I'd do no such thing.

  It never pays for a lawyer to represent himself in a criminal case.

  Especially when he doesn't know what he's doing.

  5

  On my drive home to Evanston later that afternoon, I considered my quandary. The lawyer side of me wanted to protect Gerry's children. I probably had a legal duty of some sort to protect them. But the personal side of me wanted to protect myself by telling the FBI what it wanted to know so Agent Leders could direct his attention elsewhere. But...I couldn't tell even though I wanted to tell. As in all things legal, the client's needs came before mine. Which brought me to critical mass in my professional life: I no longer enjoyed practicing law. When Danny died, my desire to practice law died with her. I had been over it dozens of times in my mind and, as near as I could tell, I think I was suffering from the fact that Danny and I had started the newest edition of the law practice together and now she was gone. Anymore, the physical office depressed me. Her office was just as it’d been when she died. I couldn’t even stand to open the door and look inside. Law practice? Maybe I was done and just coming to grips with that fact.

  I rocked along in my Mercedes tracing Lake Michigan's shoreline. Every now and then I caught a glimpse of the lake between the mammoth houses that were built along its shores. They were magnificent and I knew what I always acknowledged when I came home on this road: I would never own a house like that. Too rich for my blood. I just don't make the kind of money it takes to snatch one of those off the market. Of course, I mused, if I had twelve-million dollars I'd grab one in a second. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe instead I'd live in Florida or Southern California right on the beach. Sand between my toes. That money could buy me a lot of peace. But it wasn't my money.

  Was it? Maybe no one would ever know I had access to that money. I was sure Gerry hadn't told his kids about the money even though the two older were grown and no longer living with him. He couldn't afford to have done that. And hadn't I heard somewhere that he was a widower? There wouldn't be a spouse to tell. So maybe I was the only one who knew. Just me and the board members at Avtovazbank Bank who were lying awake at night plotting how to keep Gerry's huge deposit from leaving their vault. Just me and the Russians.

  I had just finished a trial in Russia, so that phrase, "Me and the Russians," left a very unsavory taste in my mouth. Never again, I had sworn. Never again would I set foot inside the Russian Federation. But what about twelve mil? Would that be enough to lure me back?

  You're damn right it would.

  I had to pull in for a fill-up, so I found a gas station. Ten minutes and forty dollars later, I was on my way again. It was a perverse little pleasure for me to think about the charge I'd just made on my American Express. Imagine what life would be like if it didn't ever matter to me ever again how much I charged to my card? That's what Gerry's money could mean to me. Or what if I wound up with only half of it? Maybe a fifty-fifty split with his kids? Would that be so bad?

  Twenty minutes later I hit the garage door opener at my house and pulled inside my three-car garage. Verona's Range Rover was parked inside. I pulled alongside it and threw open my door.

  What the hell? Thoughts lik
e I'd been having on the way home were random and meant nothing. No way would I ever in real life abscond with a client's money. I just didn't do stuff like that.

  But wait, I told myself. What if the FBI filed charges against me? What if they actually indicted me? Would it be okay in that case to use some of that money to defend myself in court? To hire a lawyer? After all, it was Gerry's money that might put me in that position in the first place. Shouldn't he be the one to pay for that problem if it ever arose? Now I was walking a very thin line between right and wrong. Now I was in that gray area that makes lawyers flail around in at least once in their careers. Now I was in that ambiguity that might get me sentenced to years in a federal prison for stealing a client's money. I stuffed my car keys in my pocket and climbed the stairs to the door that led into my laundry room and then into the kitchen. It was time to put these thoughts to rest. That money wasn't mine and there would never be a situation where I would touch a dime of it.

  Never.

  Not even if it got me arrested.

  Really? Maybe I would need to consult a lawyer of my own about that. Maybe I shouldn't be the one making that decision at all because I was too close to it.

  Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  I went inside my house, hating myself and hating the practice of law. It would be good to see my partner, Verona, and allow her sweet love for me to make me whole again. To make me more than I really was.

  That was something all the money in the world couldn't do.

  It was love that could.

  "Verona?" I called out. "Your missing person is home."

  It was true; this missing person spent many long nights into the wee hours at his law office chasing justice for his clients. Good results are always the result of good research; there are no shortcuts in law. Of course there's always the first-year lawyer who stumbles across a quadriplegic case when he's writing a will for some old lady and her grandson is now married to a wheelchair due to the negligence of some five-hundred-billion-dollar railroad. That lucky lawyer with his lucky catch was never me. I've had to earn it.

  No Verona. I called out again. "Michael?" she replied from a back room. I set off in the direction of her voice. This is the woman I met while in Russia on legal business. Her name is Verona Kristinova Sakharov, she's fifty-one years of age, a widow, and in Moscow she supported herself by teaching at Moscow State University. She has no children, but four brothers and four sisters, all of whom live in and around Moscow. When we met and fell in love we knew it would end when I returned to America from Moscow. But it didn't: she came with me and we've been happy and in love ever since hitting the United States.

  I located her in our bedroom, swapping bedspreads she had purchased from Amazon. I knew her modus operandi: one of the bedspreads would make the cut; the others would be returned for refunds. She turned from her chore and came around the bed, taking me in her arms and setting me down on the bed then sitting down beside me. "Tell me about your day," she said with a smile.

  "I saw some clients, appeared on a motion to suppress--which I lost--then met with the FBI. Seems I have in excess of twelve-million-dollars USD ready for my signature in Moscow."

  “Twelve-million in Moscow? I thought we were done with Moscow."

  "We are. We were. No, this doesn't mean I have to go to Moscow; this one's a power of attorney that can be done electronically. Not a big deal, except the man who gave me the power of attorney was shot and killed afterward. Which means the power of attorney is no longer good. But the Russians don’t have to know he’s dead, do they?”

  Her eyes narrowed at me. She snuggled up closer. “What the Russians don’t know won’t hurt them. But does it mean you're at risk, too?"

  "Not at all."

  Which wasn't true, not entirely, but I really couldn't say much more than what I said because, in all honestly, I didn't know whether Gerry Tybaum's death created any kind of exposure for me or not. But I did have to admit, the thought did cross my mind after the meeting with the FBI agent. Crossed my mind more than once, in fact.

  She removed her arm from across my back and crossed her ankles. She stared at her feet, shaking her head. "Damn, damn, damn. I swore once we left Russia we'd never know persecution again. Does this mean I was wrong? I'm so worried about you, Michael. And what about the kids? Are they safe?"

  "Where are they, by the way?"

  "At Tory Evanhope's birthday party."

  The Evanhopes were our next-door neighbors. The kids were safe there, I had no doubt, and I left it at that. At some point, one or both of us would hike next door and walk them home.

  "What time is it over?" I asked

  "Seven-thirty."

  "Time for a cup of coffee before all the fun starts when our sugared-up tribe hits the door?"

  "I say let's go for it."

  "Anything else?" I said, hoping against hope we might have time for quick us.

  "What, time for anything else? What is this, Jiffy-Lube?"

  "Actually I wasn't thinking of giving you a lube job. Something more along the lines of scheduled maintenance."

  "You're nuts, Michael Gresham. Maybe later you can change my fluids. For now, we've got twenty minutes until we get the kids. Let's do coffee. Come along."

  We did coffee that night. The kids made it home, speeding on sugar like meth tweakers, but after homework and story time I finally got a break from them. I love my kids--I'd go to the gallows for them in a heartbeat--but kids plus white flour and sugar are a whole other world.

  Much later that night I did make love to Verona. When it was over, all thoughts and musings about absconding with Gerry Tybaum's Russian funds were released like air out of a balloon.

  It was his money and his money it would stay.

  I fell asleep thinking about ten-million-dollar lakefront houses and walks across Russian snow at midnight. Incompatible but somehow, deep down inside where our real secrets are stored, there was a connection between megabucks and Russia.

  But as I slept I couldn’t smile. The money wasn't mine. It never had been and, in fact, I didn't even want it. Annie Tybaum needed that money. Her dad had been insistent.

  What I had was enough and so it would remain.

  6

  The next day, I called my contact in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C. Her name was Antonia Xiang and we had met in Russia. I had gone to Russia to defend her husband, the son of my law school roommate. After a long, hard court battle, I saved him from a firing squad.

  "Antonia?" I said to her over the phone. "Michael Gresham calling."

  I swept my arm across my desk, clearing a place for a clean yellow pad, something to write on because I knew Antonia would help and I didn't want to miss a thing. Like I said, anything she could ever do to help me, she would.

  "My God, Michael, how long has it been since you gave us our lives back? Six months? Nine?"

  "Somewhere around six, I think," I said.

  "So how can I help you? What's up with Michael Gresham?"

  "I'm in a bit of a bind, actually, or maybe not. Do you suppose you could find time for me in the next day or two--someplace away from the office where we could talk?'

  "Anything, Michael," she said. "Just give me the day and the time you'll be here and I'll make it happen."

  "Fine. I'm thinking tomorrow, one o'clock, on the benches surrounding the Washington Monument?"

  "Works for me," she said. "Anything I should know going in?"

  "Nothing I want to discuss on the telephone. See you tomorrow, Antonia. One p.m., Washington Monument."

  "I won't be late," I said.

  We hung up and I didn't give it anymore thought until the next day when I left my room at the Hyatt for the Capitol Mall. It would be good to see her again, a lawyer I had respected right out of the gate because she was so strong with the law and so imbued with common sense.

  Antonia is the woman who stands out in a crowd. First, she's tall and quite attractive, in a tough kind of way. Her eyes and mouth say sh
e's seen it all before and she isn't taking on any shit from anyone today, thank you very much. But there was a softer side, too, that I had seen once or twice, mostly after the Moscow case when she again could hold her husband in her arms and meet his gaze with her own. Then she was soft and accessible and, in a small way, I envied Rusty.

  I found her already sitting on the long, curving bench at the base of the Monument, staring up at the obelisk. She saw me coming and immediately broke into a grin and stood up. We hugged. There would always be an invisible bond between us from what we'd both gone through in Moscow. Always.

  "Antonia," I said, "thanks for coming. Especially on a cold, blustery day like this."

  'Really?" she asked. "Do you want to hike across to the Wee Tavern and get in out of the cold?"

  "No, I'm good. This won't take long, anyway."

  We sat down on the freezing cold bench and I shivered.

  Just as we were about to start talking, I noticed a man standing fifty feet away, pointing his camera directly at us. I've been around the block enough to know that police cameras have built-in directional microphones capable of picking up and recording conversations over great distances. I don't know why, but I got the very negative feeling that the man I noticed was doing that very thing: videoing and recording our conversation. What's more, he looked familiar, even from that distance. Antonia started to say something but I suddenly stood back up and put my back to the camera man and whispered to Antonia, "Don't say anything. I think someone is about to record us. Don't look behind me, either. Let's just move on."

  Without another word, Antonia stood and I began leading us directly away from Mr. Camera. We walked maybe fifty paces when I suddenly spun on my heel and had a look back behind us. Sure enough, there he was, following close behind, holding his camera at chest level as he moved along. So I went directly to him and confronted him, catching him off-guard and forcing him to step back.