“Hello,” a woman’s voice answered.
“Hello, is this Sylvia Greenfield?”
“Yes it is.”
“Hello Mrs. Greenfield, this is Benjamin Lohmeier. Thank you for calling me back.”
“I understand that you want to speak to me. Would this be better in person, or can we do it over the telephone?”
“I would prefer if we did it in person, if you don’t mind.”
“I suppose that would be okay.”
“Are you free this afternoon?
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“What time is good for you?”
“How long do you think this will take?”
“Oh, probably less than an hour.”
“Okay then, can you meet me here at one-thirty?”
“That will be fine.”
“Do you know where I live?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Do you need directions?”
“No, I think I can find it okay.”
“Okay, then, I’ll see you later. Goodbye.” She hung up.
That was a strange conversation, Ben thought. It had all the impersonal charm of scheduling a dental appointment. Ben decided to skip lunch and prepare a brief outline of subjects he needed to cover. With the help of directions he got off the internet, Ben found her house without difficulty. As Ben pulled onto her street, he thought that her neighborhood reminded him somewhat of his own; gracious older homes situated on mature, tree-lined streets. Evanston was decidedly more urban than Clarendon Hills to be sure, and Ben knew that Evanston was a much larger and more racially and ethnically diverse community. Ben parked across the street and walked up to the front door.
Ben didn’t know what to expect as Sylvia Greenfield answered the door wearing a white blouse and tan twill pants. Ben found her surprisingly attractive, in a princess sort of way, much more attractive than he figured Greenfield deserved.
“Mr. Lohmeier?” she said in a business-like voice. Ben nodded and she said, “Please come in,” stepping aside to allow him to pass. She didn’t extend her hand and Ben didn’t offer his own. She led him through a center hallway to the back of the house and into a family room. “Can I get you anything to drink, Mr. Lohmeier?”
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“Okay then, why don’t we sit down.” She took a seat on the couch and Ben sat in a leather club chair.
“First of all,” he began, “I want to thank you for agreeing to meet with me. I can imagine that this has been a very difficult experience for you and particularly for your daughters. Although I don’t want to intrude on your privacy, there’s certain information that I do need in order to provide an adequate defense for my client.”
Sylvia Greenfield sat very upright and still, her hands folded across her lap. “I understand, Mr. Lohmeier,” she said. “Obviously, Daniel was involved in criminal law from the time I met him in school, so I believe I have naturally become more sensitive to the needs and protections afforded criminal defendants in our system.”
“I hadn’t thought of that, but I’m sure that’s true,” he said.
“The police obviously think your client killed Daniel.”
“Yes, I suppose they do, but I don’t know what causes them to think that way.”
“Do you consider me a suspect, Mr. Lohmeier?”
The question took Ben completely off-guard. And he was sure that he looked quite startled hearing it. He looked closely into her eyes before answering, trying to get behind the question to ascertain what her true motives were. He figured she had planned that broadside in advance. “I don’t really know, to tell you the truth,” he said finally. “I don’t know enough about you or your relationship with your ex-husband to know whether that theory is reasonable or possible. I certainly wouldn’t rule it in or out at this point.”
“Fair enough. I wouldn’t expect that you would. In case you were wondering though, I didn’t kill my husband.” Her features remained impassive as though she were telling him where she took her dry cleaning.
“Could you tell me a little bit about your marriage?”
“For a long time, we had a good marriage. Everything was good in the beginning. Daniel was, at least as far as I know, a good husband and a good father. He loved his girls very much. I can never take that away from him. But as he grew older, I think spending so much time in the presence of attractive young women became too tempting. I don’t know when he began having relationships with students, but I suspect it was some time ago. I got suspicious, but tried not to think about it.”
“What made you suspicious?”
“Little things mostly. He wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He would disappear and I wouldn’t know where he was or when he would be back. And I would begin to notice that he smelled of perfume. As I said, I tried not to think about it and when I confronted him with it, his denials were quite plausible. I mostly tried to put it out of my mind. He still treated me and girls very well and I just hoped it was something that he would get over and stop doing.”
“What brought about the end of the marriage?”
“More of the same.” She looked down at her hands and appeared to consider her words carefully. Ben waited patiently trying not to put words into her mouth. It would be better to just let her talk. Although dredging up these memories couldn’t be pleasant, she still maintained a certain detached civility that Ben found interesting. “I think what hurt the most was when he seemed to lose interest. Before, his little conquests didn’t seem to affect our relationship that much except for the fact that it was obviously quite demeaning.” Ben sensed that she didn’t want to make eye contact with him. Perhaps she didn’t want to see pity in his eyes. “Eventually though,” she continued, “he seemed to be just going through the motions.”
“Did the accusations by students at the law school affect it in any way?”
“Of course. That was very embarrassing, both for Daniel and for me, but that didn’t tell me anything that I hadn’t already known for a long time. He denied it at first, but that was no good.”
“So, are you familiar with the students involved?”
“Familiar? No, not terribly. One of them was named Hinkle, I think. I remember the name Hinkle. I don’t remember her first name, nor do I remember the name of the other student. I don’t think the school wanted to pursue the matter, to be honest, so Daniel wasn’t seriously disciplined, at least not as seriously as you might expect.”
“So, you’re saying that really wasn’t the cause of the end of the marriage?”
“No, not totally.” She looked up at him now. “What really hurt the most was when I found out that he had been having a long-term relationship with one of his students even after she graduated. Apparently they had been together for almost three years.”
“Do you know the name of the student?”
“Nora. I believe her name was Nora. I don’t remember her last name.”
“When did this take place?”
“I found out about four years ago. I found a strange note in Daniel’s pants in the laundry and I confronted him with it and he more or less admitted it. That was pretty much the beginning of the end. It was one thing when he had these little conquests. It was quite another when he was carrying on a long-term relationship with another woman probably half his age.”
Ben had not heard of any of this. He couldn’t quite understand the difference between a one-night stand and a long-term affair and didn’t think Libby would either. “What happened then?” he asked when it became clear she wasn’t going to continue.
“I basically threw him out.”
“How did he react to that?”
“He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want to lose the image of his family and especially his girls. They took it rather hard.”
“Of course,” Ben said not knowing what else to say. He searched for the right question before asking, “What happened with your husband and this Nora?”
“I have no idea,” she sa
id. “I got the impression that it was over sooner rather than later. Perhaps she threw him out too.”
Sounds like wishful thinking, Ben thought. “Was he living with her?”
She shook her head. “No, not that I know of.”
“Do you know where she lives now?”
“I have no idea.”
“How would you describe the divorce?”
“It was pretty bad. We didn’t fight over things like the house or money or anything like that. It was just that I couldn’t bear to be in his presence any longer and he didn’t want the divorce, so our personal interactions were not always very civil.”
Ben looked at her closely and didn’t feel like he could get a good read on her yet. While he understood the idea of her being something of a cold fish, he couldn’t tell whether this reflected her true personality or was simply an affectation to deal with his questioning. “When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“It had been quite a while, before Thanksgiving, I think. We spoke on the phone once or twice after that regarding the holidays, but we didn’t see each other very often lately because it just seemed to work better that way. He talked to the girls quite a bit, but we didn’t speak that often.”
“Did he ever tell you of any threats or anything like that?”
“No, never. I know over the years that he would have occasional disagreements with students over grades and that sort of thing, but I think any person in his position has that given the pressures of law school and the importance of grades and the like.”
Ben nodded. “Do you know of any problems with other professors?”
“Nothing unusual that I can remember.”
“What about Angela Harper?”
A small cold smile crossed her features. “Angela Harper never seemed to me to be a particularly friendly woman, Mr. Lohmeier. Although I met her only a few times, my encounters with her at school functions were fairly consistent with Daniel’s opinion of her, which wasn’t very good. I don’t recall Daniel ever saying anything about having any personal problems with her, however. Are you suggesting that maybe Professor Harper killed my husband?”
“No, no nothing like that,” he said shading the truth. “I’m just trying to get to the bottom of what may or may not have been going on at the law school, that’s all. I have just heard that perhaps Professor Harper and your husband didn’t get along very well. My attempts to talk to her about it have proven unsuccessful.”
“That doesn’t particularly surprise me,” she said.
Ben rubbed his chin and considered his next question. “If you don’t mind my asking, when were you last at the law school?”
She looked away and appeared to think carefully about her answer. “I’m not sure I’ve been there in more than three years, maybe even since Daniel and I separated,” she said.
“Where were you on December 28th? That was a Friday.”
She looked directly into Ben’s eyes. “Is that when they think he was killed?” Ben didn’t respond. “Yes, that must be why you asked. I believe I was shopping. I had dinner that evening here with my daughters.” She looked almost defiantly at Ben.
“Were you ever aware of your husband being involved with drugs of any kind?”
The question startled her. It was the only time during their conversation when Ben thought he had caught her unaware. “Drugs? I can’t imagine such a thing. I don’t believe my husband ever used drugs in his life, not even in college. Where did you hear that?”
“Just something that came up in a conversation I had with someone. They suggested that perhaps your husband used some recreational drugs.”
“I wouldn’t believe that and I would appreciate it if you didn’t spread that rumor. It would be very hurtful to my daughters.”
“I’m sure that it would. It’s not my intention to spread any rumors. As far as your daughters are concerned, I would prefer not to speak to them unless I had to.”
“I don’t see any reason why you would ever have to.”
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Ben said. “But I won’t contact them without telling you first. I’ll only do it if I think I really need to.” She appeared unconvinced. “If I needed to speak to someone who knew what was going on with your husband, who should I talk to?”
“That’s easy,” she said, “Samuel Dorlund.”
24
Ben didn’t know quite what to make of his conversation with Sylvia Greenfield. He didn’t know whether he should take her at face value, or view her as someone relentlessly trying to protect herself and her children. He found it a little far-fetched that she would be willing to put up with a series of meaningless sexual encounters between her husband and his students, while objecting to a more serious relationship between them. He didn’t know of any wife who would put up with either - certainly Libby wouldn’t. He also had trouble buying the fact that she didn’t believe he was capable of drug use. If Makra was correct, there was no doubt about it, yet she seemed convinced that it wasn’t possible. He agreed with Seagram’s assessment that she was a cold, seemingly impersonal woman, but was far from ready to conclude that she wasn’t capable of killing her ex-husband. Revenge is, they say after all, the dish best served cold.
When he got back to the office, he called Martin Beileck to track down the student named Nora, whom Sylvia Greenfield suggested ultimately caused her divorce. On Tuesday morning, Beileck called and left Ben a message telling him that Greenfield’s girlfriend was likely a woman named Nora Fleming, who had graduated three years earlier. He could locate no other Noras or even Eleanors that would fit the profile and the right time frame. After proving unable to locate her in the Chicago area, Ben gave the information to Stan Disko and asked him to start looking. Early Friday afternoon, Disko called with the news that he had found her.
“She’s now Nora Scott,” Disko said on the telephone.
“So she got married then?”
“Yeah, it appears so, about a year ago according to one of her friends. She married a guy, Andrew Scott, who graduated from the law school the year before she did. They live in Florida.”
“Florida? Whereabouts in Florida?”
“A place called Ocala.”
“Where the hell is Ocala?”
“It’s a small town in horse country about forty or fifty miles north of Orlando.”
“Do you have an address?”
“Yes, but no phone number.”
“Okay, give it to me.”
Ben decided he would make the trip to Ocala himself to talk to Nora Fleming. He would go unannounced and try to surprise her. He got on the internet and discovered that there were no direct flights between Chicago and Ocala, Ocala only had a small municipal airport, so he booked a flight to Orlando and then rented a car for the hour or so drive north to Ocala. He made reservations for Monday and called Libby, who didn’t hide her displeasure over the trip. Ben figured it wouldn’t be too bad if he could go down Monday morning and come back Tuesday night.
The limo arrived on time at seven in the morning. Libby took a sobbing Natalie out of her father’s arms, while Matthew, on the other hand, thought the whole limo thing was quite cool indeed. The car dropped Ben at the Departures terminal at twenty minutes before eight and the check-in and extra security measures resulting from September 11th took about twenty minutes or so.
Ben sat in the lounge outside the gate and waited for the plane to board. He passed the time by watching his fellow passengers gather for the flight. There were a handful of businessmen and women dressed in suits, a few families leaving on vacation and even a couple of trashy-looking teenage girls who apparently hadn’t looked in the mirror before leaving the house that morning. Ben watched the human traffic pass by hoping all the while for a little bit better atmosphere. At ten minutes to nine, the Delta airlines staff started boarding the airplane and by nine o’clock sharp, Ben was in his seat between the wings. He pulled the airline guide from the pouch on the seat in front of him and paged through
it looking for the diagram of the airplane. This particular plane had three seats across on either side of the center aisle. Ben took the seat on the aisle and there was no one else in his entire row. The plane was barely one-third full.
Ben didn’t consider himself a bad flyer or afraid of flying. Nevertheless, he knew that most crashes occurred right around take-off or right around landing causing him to pay special attention at those points in his infrequent flights. The take-off was uneventful and the plane settled into a nice cruising altitude and Ben took a deep breath and pulled out a book for a good read. Ben lost himself in the exploits of Lucas Davenport as the plane cruised southward. He looked up and put the book away as the plane started to descend. He paid close attention to the landing and considered it an unqualified success when the tires of the airplane touched down on the runway without incident. The connecting flight from Atlanta to Orlando sat on the runway for half an hour before returning to the gate to repair a burned out bulb, or at least that’s what they said it was. The resulting delay caused them to land about an hour late in Orlando, another successful take-off and landing, and Ben was now firmly behind schedule.
He took the tram from the arrival gate to the main terminal and tried to find the rental car place. Lugging his carry-on bag and briefcase with him, he went downstairs and located the main rental car vendors in a row along the wall - Avis, Hertz, Budget, everyone but Thrifty. He cursed himself for picking the wrong rental car company. He dragged his things outside and set them on the sidewalk. Tall palm trees and flowering plants graced the parkway and the leafy branches of overhanging trees shaded the service drive separating the terminal building from the parking area. Even though he began to perspire under the dark blue wind shirt he used as a jacket, Ben liked the way the warm air felt when contrasted with the bitter cold he had left in Chicago.
After a few moments, he got the lay of the land in the rental car area and concluded that he merely had to find the right shuttle bus to take him to the place where he could pick up his car. He wandered down the row of parking spaces until he found the light blue Thrifty sign. As if on cue, a blue and white shuttle bus pulled into the space in front of him and a young Hispanic man got out. Ben climbed the steps and took a seat in the air conditioned shuttle, stowing his bags in the bin next to him.
Final Exam: A Legal Thriller Page 16
