Trick Question

by Tony Dunbar

  “I’d say you’re plenty big,” Tubby said, and reddened. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with you. What’s the motivation? Money?”

  “Partly, sure. But I like to be good at things, and this is something I’m good at. I like winning, too.”

  “Then you got a perfect spectator attraction here. It’s fascinating to watch because you’re certainly not brutes. Everybody’s gotta be curious, however, why a pretty and intelligent woman would slug it out with another woman.”

  “People think it’s strange, that’s for sure. But you know, that’s not really my goal.”

  “What is?”

  “Slugging it out with a man would be more like it.”

  “In the ring, you mean?”

  “Sure. There’s no reason why women and men can’t compete in boxing so long as they’re in the same weight class.”

  “Okay. That sounds more natural to me in a way than two women fighting. I suppose a man and a woman in the ring is like making some sort of statement for equality. Two women, to me, is more like something you can see on Bourbon Street.”

  “You’re thinking about mud wrestling.” She was offended by the comparison.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, backpedaling quickly. “I know this is really quite different. Anyhow, I’m over the shock now. I’d like to watch you box for real.”

  “Come to Coconut Casino in Bay St. Louis next Saturday night.”

  “I may have to pass on that. I’ve got a trial starting Thursday that may last over the weekend.”

  “You mentioned that to me. Have you learned anything about my problem?”

  “I’ll be honest. I haven’t done anything on it yet. I’ll try to make a call on Monday. But I’m really in a hole for about one more week.”

  “So… you didn’t have anything special to tell me?”

  “No.” Tubby smiled. “I was just taking a walk and my feet led me here.”

  “I’m glad. I’ve got to work out a few more kinks before I cool off. You can watch if you like.”

  “Thanks, I will,” Tubby said.

  He sat down on a metal folding chair and watched Denise slip her mouthpiece in and climb back into the ring with a new and chunkier partner. And just then his mind took a little trip.

  It was like listening to an Enya tape. Irish angels sang sweetly and seductively in his mind, and the grunts from the ring faded away. The strong young women dancing in a slow circle jarred memories of the days that had mattered to him. Muscular brown girls, his own, splashing in the surf, getting each other’s hair wet, playfully struggling over the plastic raft, calling for him to join them. And at that moment he wanted so much to step back just seven or eight years, to when the family was whole and the girls were like little fairies. He envisioned Mattie beside him, lying stomach-down on a beach towel, looking at him around the corner of her sunglasses, and for a moment the pain was too much to bear. The divorce came back, and the loneliness. Then he found his shields again, and his vision cleared. The fighters jumped back and forth in the ring, tagging each other smartly, and he sat there trying not to feel like he was the punching bag.

  CHAPTER 19

  The call from Dr. Trina Tessier, associate of the late Dr. Valentine, came in around eight o’clock. After leaving the gymnasium Tubby had gone straight home and opened a bottle of bourbon. He had poured himself two on the rocks while staring at some stupid farce on the nerdwork starring adolescents who told jokes about having sex with their teachers. Easy to tune out. It was harder to go numb while waiting for the wound that had mysteriously opened in his head to heal, but he was getting there.

  Funny how he would not drink much in Mike’s Bar. Funny that he would be sitting home alone, drinking. Mental excursions like the one at ringside were rare now, a rabbit punch that blindsided him maybe two or three times a year, but they hurt something fierce. And now Debbie was pregnant. No two ways about it, this was his fault too. Getting a divorce had deprived her of the father figure she needed in her life. He should have stuck it out. Even if they would have committed him to a padded cell by now.

  The whirring telephone interrupted his melancholy, and he pushed himself off the couch to silence it. He said hello with the phone jammed between shoulder and chin and got some more cubes from the refrigerator.

  “Mr. Dubonnet?” a woman’s voice inquired.

  “Yes?” Tubby put away the ice tray and reached for the J.W. Dant.

  “This is Trina Tessier. I met you briefly at Moskowitz lab when you came to talk to Dr. Swincter.”

  “Oh, yes, I remember.” Tubby sat down on his kitchen stool.

  “I hope I’m not calling at a bad time, but I just got off work.”

  “No, no, I’m just relaxing.” He poured his whiskey.

  “I thought I should talk to you. I know you’re representing Cletus Busters. It’s hard for me to believe he killed Dr. Valentine.” She paused.

  “I’m sure that he didn’t,” Tubby said.

  “Do you know who did?”

  “Not yet. But tell me, Dr. Tessier, why are you calling?” Tubby set his drink aside and grabbed for a pen.

  “I’m just suspicious of the whole thing, really. You see, some of the research Dr. Valentine was working on was very serious. I mean, it involved the safety of a whole class of over-the-counter drugs.”

  “Go on.”

  “He had prepared a report of his preliminary findings. He showed it to me – not the findings themselves, but the report. He had printed it from his computer. It was quite thick.”

  “What had he found?”

  “I don’t know. He said he hadn’t reached the end of his research, and I was too busy at the time to really talk to him.”

  “Do you remember anything he said?”

  “Yes, that’s why I remembered the conversation. He said it was the biggest discovery of his career, and it could even blow a major company off the stock exchange.”

  “Where is the report?”

  “That’s why I called. I don’t know. It isn’t in the lab. It’s not on any part of the main computer that I can access. I thought maybe it might be locked in his office.”

  “At the lab? Who has the key?”

  “I’m sure Dean Auchinschloss has, and maybe the police, too.”

  “You think this might be related to his death?”

  “Hell’s bells!” she shouted into the telephone, in a tone of voice she might use on an imbecile student. “It makes me pretty damn suspicious that something extremely sneaky is going on. Cletus Busters, my ass.”

  “Yes, indeed, Doctor, I get your point. How can we get into that office?”

  Dean Auchinschloss was only too happy to let them in. He was glad that Trina Tessier had suggested it, and he was always pleased to help out in the cause of justice. He hoped they could just get to the bottom of things.

  He led the way from the administrative offices of the medical school, a middle-aged curly-haired doctor in a floppy white coat, parting the sea of physicians in the corridor. Tubby had to step lively to keep up with him, and Dr. Tessier was practically trotting.

  In the elevator, sharing space with a comatose patient on a gurney who appeared to have been permanently stored there, the dean talked about what a wonderful service Dr. Valentine had rendered to the hospital, how prominent had been his name, how great his contributions to the team.

  “I understand that he was also on the search committee that selected you as dean,” Tubby interrupted.

  “That’s right, so we know he wasn’t perfect, ha, ha,” the robust dean guffawed.

  “How well did you know him, Dean?” Tubby asked as the big elevator’s doors opened wide.

  “Quite well, I hope.” Auchinschloss ushered them into the hall and set off again. “He was one of the people who interviewed me when I came down from the Mayo Clinic. We got along immediately. He took me to lunch after I accepted the job here. We worked as colleagues for three, no, four months before his death.”

  �
��Ever know him to make any enemies?” Tubby asked, sidestepping a man with a bandage over his eyes.

  “Of course not. Microorganisms and viruses were his only enemies.”

  And a couple thousand mice, Tubby thought. How would you like to meet that in the afterlife?

  “How come his office is still here?” he asked. “After all, he’s been dead for months.

  They had apparently reached the right door because Dean Auchinschloss had stopped and was getting twisted up with his keys.

  “First the police had it sealed. Then we had a budget review that slowed down the process of approving a replacement. I guess I really should have had it cleared out before now, but none of the other staff has been clamoring to move in.”

  “That’s because it’s an airless, windowless cubbyhole and identical to the offices the rest of us already have,” Dr. Tessier explained.

  She was right, Tubby saw when the dean finally got the door open. The compact space, painted white, was almost entirely filled by the institutional steel desk, the personal computer, and the printer. There was also a chair, a small bookshelf, and a dead plant.

  “I think the widow took his diplomas,” the dean said simply.

  “Show us where you think he may have kept his report,” Tubby suggested to Dr. Tessier.

  Because all of them could not stand comfortably in the room together, they shuffled around awkwardly until the dean was in the hall, Tessier was seated in front of the computer, and Tubby was looking over her shoulder.

  She fiddled with the keyboard until she had a menu on the screen. She worked soundlessly as Tubby watched, not understanding what he was seeing. The dean drummed his fingers on the door and hummed, the tune to “When I fall in love, it will be forever,” until he noticed the pair of glares coming from within the room.

  “No, not here,” Dr. Tessier said finally, in exasperation.

  “Let’s look in the drawer,” Tubby suggested.

  “I didn’t think of that,” she said, looking embarrassed.

  But no luck. There were plenty of papers stashed in there, but nothing that resembled a report on important on-going research.

  “This is very strange,” Tessier said. “There should be a hard copy analysis and plenty of data on the computer, too. I find it very odd that none of it is here.”

  “Do you know exactly what the project involved?” the dean asked.

  “The only thing I know he was working on alone involved the AIDS research,” Tessier said. “Your files could tell us more about that, Dean. You’d have all the grant outlines and guidelines.”

  “I suppose I really should go over all that,” the dean said to himself. He patted his forehead to store a personal note. Tubby looked at him suspiciously, finding it hard to believe that none of this had occurred to Auchinschloss before.

  As if reading his mind, the dean shrugged and put on a silly smile. The lawyer turned away.

  “Was he working with you or with another doctor, like Dr. Swincter, on anything else?” Tubby asked the woman, who was still clicking away on the keyboard.

  “Sure,” she said. “Mrs. Smash and Mrs. Spot, two of our check-ins. Dr. Swincter was collaborating on both of those. But if there was anything unusual about those cases, Randolph would have told us so.”

  “That’s the woman who drove into the lake and the Texas tourist who developed those odd sores in New Orleans?”

  “Yes.” She grinned, sending out some creases around her eyes. “How did you know?”

  “I’m picking up a few things,” Tubby said. “Are those two bodies still here?”

  “Mrs. Spot is, I believe. The other poor woman, the one killed on the bridge, has been turned over to her family. I don’t know if they buried or cremated her. I’m sure tissue samples were kept. Dr. Swincter could tell you more.”

  “Well, looks like this was a wild-goose chase,” the dean said, looking at his watch.

  “Yes, too bad, isn’t it,” Tubby said. “But thanks for your help, Doctor.”

  “It’s just very strange,” Tessier said, as they filed back out into the hall and Auchinschloss waved farewell. “Reports don’t just disappear. I’m going to search around. And by the way, Whitney Valentine always told me he voted against bringing Auchinschloss here as dean.”

  “That’s funny,” Tubby said. “Maybe Auchinschloss never knew how Valentine voted.”

  “Maybe, but the dean is smarter than he looks.” Tessier winked for emphasis.

  “He must be,” Tubby agreed.

  He asked her to let him know if she found anything out, and he watched Dr. Tessier hurry down the hall. She quickly blended into the hospital landscape. He felt as out of place in his suit and tie here as he had at the gym, and he was suddenly in a rush to get outside where he wasn’t afraid to catch something fatal just from breathing the air.

  What had first made Tubby Dubonnet feel at home with the law was the books. Vaguely formed ideas of justice, a strong urge to make a living had caused him to enroll in law school. But it was not until his first night in the depths of the law library that he had begun to think he might actually have made a good choice. Books of legal decisions crammed the shelves, books of human stories placed before judges in hopes that they could sort out life’s unfairness and find the truth.

  The theory and principle behind it all occasionally escaped him, he had to admit, but he had always loved those moments in the practice of law when he had time to study those stories, stretching back to Napoleon, Justinian, and Hammurabi. They spilled out of the covers.

  He was indulging himself now, taking a tour through the back pages of the Louisiana Civil Code and the annotations in the Revised Statutes in search of what dead justices might have said about a scrap involving who owned stock in a family oil business – like Denise DiMaggio’s Pot O’ Gold.

  He thumbed through one case involving heirs to a local tobacco company. Uh-oh. This one seemed to come out the wrong way. He quickly shut that book and reached for another one.

  One day, glancing through the bar journal, Tubby had seen an article that suggested that attorneys were supposed to bring contrary authority to the attention of the judge. Surely, that could not be right. What was the other lawyer supposed to be doing?

  Ah, here we go. This case was much better.

  “To what do I owe the honor of this call, Mr. Dubonnet?” George Guyoz sounded sarcastic, even when he was being polite.

  “I’m representing Denise DiMaggio, and I understand that you’re representing her uncle, Roger DiMaggio.”

  “Pot O’ Gold Oil Company?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Isn’t she the one who says she owns more stock than the company records show?”

  “Correct. And she has a stock certificate for one thousand shares that your client says does not exist. But the fact is that it does exist. The company issued it to her father back in 1974, he kept it in his safe deposit box for years, and he passed it on to her in his will when he died.”

  “I know that’s what she claims, but in the corporate books and records there is no evidence of that certificate ever being issued, and I have checked them carefully.”

  “Your client keeps the stock register, so I don’t think that disposes of the matter by any means.”

  “Then we might just have to dispose of it in court.”

  “We might,” Tubby agreed, “but there’s a case you ought to know about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “De St. Romes versus Levee Steam Cotton Press Company. It’s from 1879, back when the world was young. It stands for the proposition that if you possess a stock certificate for ten years, believing in good faith that you own the shares, they are yours by acquisitive prescription.”

  “You mean squatter’s rights for shares of stock?”

  “Right on. Possess the stock certificate long enough and it’s yours. And Denise and her father have possessed this one for a long, long time.”

  “That doesn’t make a gre
at deal of sense to me.”

  “Sure it does. It means that a properly issued stock certificate, signed by the right corporate officers, is good even if somebody changes the books.”

  “Well, I’ll look at your case, but I can’t believe it applies.”

  “It’s right on point, George. It’s been cited a bunch of times. Check it out, then let’s settle this thing.”

  “Of course I’ll check it out,” Guyoz harrumphed, “if I can pull up a case that musty on my computer. But I can’t believe that it will settle anything.”

  I bet you’re wrong, Tubby said silently after he hung up the phone. Computer?

  CHAPTER 20

  Tubby enticed Detective Fox Lane to meet with him to discuss the case by offering her dinner at the Upperline. It was a very sophisticated bistro, tucked away on a back street uptown. Just the spot to lure cooperation from the most sophisticated policeman he knew. He parked in front, beneath murals of angels trumpeting up caldrons of z’herbes, and went inside.

  He received a hug and an excited description of a garlic based appetizer from the owner, shook a few hands, and got a table in the back.

  He was contemplating a cocktail when Detective Lane arrived.

  The waiter walked her back, and she got an interested stare from one or two of the suit-and-tie guys having an after-work restorative at the bar. At five foot ten and about 105 pounds, Fox made an impression. She was built to run. Tubby stood up to greet her.

  “Hi, counselor.” She beamed, showing a great talent for white teeth. “You knew just what would bring me uptown after my shift.”

  “I’m pretty smart, aren’t I?” Tubby agreed, and held her chair to get her seated. Lane was what New Orleans called a Creole of color, meaning some European and some African ancestry, café au lait skin, and a socially secure attitude. The message was, “We were here before you.” She was dressed nicely for having just come from work – a smart red suit with gold buttons, only a little wrinkled from what homicide lieutenants do all day.