“Jessica,” I said carefully, “I’m your friend. You know that, don’t you? I wouldn’t steer you wrong. If there was a story here that you could use, I wouldn’t stand in your way. Please believe me when I say that Kelly was not fully informed when she telephoned you, and that if I had been her lawyer, I would have advised her not to—”
“Ah-ha!” Jessica chortled. “There is a story here, and there is some sort of lawyerly reason why I’m not supposed to have it. That’s it, right? And don’t try to tell me that you’re her lawyer, because I know you don’t take clients. So there’s no issue of client privilege.”
I sighed. “If you won’t listen to reason, there is no point in talking to you.”
“I am listening, China,” Jessica said, now very sober. “And what I’m hearing is that there is a story here.” She repeated the word with emphasis. “A story. And Kelly wanted to let me in on it. But you don’t want her to, for reasons you’re not willing or able to give me. So since you won’t help, I’ll just have to track down this story on my own. Is that what you want?”
No, it was not what I wanted, most definitely. I hesitated, thinking that maybe I’d call Hark and tell him to call off his newshound. But the minute that thought crossed my mind, I pushed it away. Hark Hibler is compelled by the same journalistic impulses that drive Jessica. Ask him to rein her in, and he’d only spur her on.
But there might be another way to go about this. No whistle-blower suit had yet been filed, so there was no case—yet—and no seal. Maybe I could enlist Jessica’s cooperation on a part of the story and get her promise of silence with the assurance of a much bigger story later, when it was ready for public consumption. Also, now that I thought about it, Jessica probably had fairly easy access to information I might need, depending on how deeply I dug into Kelly’s story. Maybe I could use her.
“Caitie’s having supper with a friend and McQuaid’s out of town, so I’m heading to Beans’ tonight to treat myself to Bob’s fajitas,” I said. “How about meeting me there.”
“Changed your tune, have you?” She chortled. “Why? You going to let me in on the story?”
“I may be able to tell you one or two things you might like to know,” I said judiciously.
She didn’t hesitate. “What time?”
“Six thirty suit you? I’m afraid I can’t stay out late.” I’d left Winchester in his outdoor dog run, so he was fine. But he would certainly be ready for his dinner. And Caitie would be home at nine.
She laughed at that. “Curfew, huh? Sure, six thirty is fine. I’ll see you there.”
Shaking my head, I clicked off the call. On the one hand, there was Lara, eager to help me track down the person who (she thought) landed Kelly in the hospital on life support. On the other hand, there was Jessica, going for Kelly’s story, full steam ahead.
I sat for a moment, trying to sort through the maze of speculative detail and determine what might happen if Lara and Jessica got deep enough into the story to find out what it was all about. Maybe Kelly didn’t have a whistle-blower’s claim, and maybe she wouldn’t live to pursue it. But if she did, either or both of these young women could jeopardize it by making the story public. Or—and this was another possibility, given the qui tam first-to-file rule—either of them could get in line ahead of Kelly for the reward if they managed to uncover the evidence that she had been putting together.
And there was someone else involved in this matter. The cops were operating on the theory that the van had been struck from behind. Yes, it might have been an accident—a random hit-and-run on a winding road on a dark night. But I couldn’t stop there. If it had been deliberate, who stood to benefit? The husband, probably. I was sure that Sheila and her crew were putting him through the wringer. But there was another candidate: the person who was committing the fraud that Kelly had been about to blow the whistle on.
But maybe this was a bridge too far. I glanced over my shoulder at the shop clock. It was nearly five o’clock. If I was going to catch Charlie Lipman in the office today, now was the time. I went back to my phone, and a moment later, his secretary was telling me that he was out but would be back around five thirty and she’d pencil me in for a quickie. But it would have to be short, she said frostily. He was leaving for Austin at six.
I raised my eyebrows, but Charlie’s current secretary (they don’t seem to stay long) is a prim, straitlaced lady of fifty-something, who is married to the principal of Pecan Springs High School. Her name is Rosie Caulfield. It was probably fair to assume that by “quickie,” Rosie meant something like a short consultation.
“Five thirty is fine,” I said.
“But do be punctual,” she warned. “I lock up at when I leave, which is promptly at five thirty. And he must leave by six.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised, feeling like a third-grader who has been told to report to the principal’s office for after-school detention.
It was a squeeze. But I managed to check out the shop and the tearoom cash registers (cash in one stack, checks and credit card slips in another) and make up the daily bank deposit, tidy up the shop, feed Khat, and say good night to Ruby. Then I zipped my laptop into its leather case, grabbed the deposit bag, locked the door, and headed for the bank, feeling reasonably satisfied. For a rainy Tuesday, it hadn’t been a bad day, sales-wise.
Otherwise . . . With a shiver, I thought of Kelly, for whom it had been a very bad day.
Chapter Ten
Long before the Spanish arrived in Mexico in 1521, the Aztecs had produced a fermented beverage from the heart of the blue agave (Agave tequilana). When the Spanish conquistadors ran out of the brandy they had brought with them, they began to drink tequila—and liked it even better. Tequila is traditionally produced in and around the Mexican state of Jalisco, where agave, a succulent, thrives in the area’s volcanic soil and dry, high-altitude climate. The plant, which has fleshy, spiky leaves, is harvested at maturity (eight to twelve years). The large heart (piña) of the plant is peeled, roasted, and crushed, and its sap is fermented and distilled twice to produce tequila.
China Bayles
“Botanical Drinkables”
Pecan Springs Enterprise
Charlie’s office is in an older section of Pecan Springs, where the houses have been turned into professional office space and the lawns have been replaced by an attractive xeriscape of Southwestern native shrubs, grasses, yuccas, agaves, and wildflowers that tolerate heat and don’t need much water—a big issue in Central Texas, where we are learning to live with drought and climate change. His office is in a small gray house with blue shutters, set well back from the street under a couple of large live oak trees, with a cobbled parking area off to one side. By the time I arrived, Charlie’s old truck was the only one in the small lot. I pulled up next to it and went inside.
Soberly dressed in a black polyester suit and a tailored white blouse, Rosie was sitting at her desk with her purse on her lap, ready to leave for the night. She stood, pointed me in the direction of Charlie’s backroom office, and announced that she was locking up.
She was stern. “He has only thirty minutes. I hope he won’t be late for his Austin appointment.”
“I understand,” I said meekly. “We’ll make it a quickie.”
Charlie was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer monitor, a cigarette dangling from one corner of his mouth and an empty shot glass at his elbow.
Most lawyers I know are neatniks, not eager for clients to see stacks of files and mounds of loose paper. Or they hire neatnik secretaries, who are instructed to step in and tidy up the desk the minute the boss leaves for court or lunch or handball. Not so Charlie. His secretaries are forbidden to touch his desk under pain of excommunication, and the top surface is always buried beneath mounds of papers, briefs, folders, books, and the relics of various takeout meals and snacks. A bottle of his favorite tequila lives in his bottom drawe
r.
“Ah, China.” He stubbed out his cigarette in an overflowing ashtray. “Punctual as always.”
“I was warned,” I said.
“No doubt,” he replied drily. “Bar’s open.” He opened the drawer, took out a bottle of Siete Leguas and tipped it into his shot glass, then pulled out another glass for me. “Join me in a drink?”
“No thanks.” I’m partial to a good tequila sunrise but it’s easy for me to say no to straight tequila. I moved a stack of briefs from one of the client chairs to the other. “Have you heard about Kelly Kaufman?”
His face darkened. “Yes. On life support, I understand. Fine young woman. Terrible, terrible accident.”
Terrible, yes. Accident, probably not. But I didn’t want to go into that with him. I sat down on the empty chair “There are a couple of things—”
“Hey,” he said. He put the bottle and glass back in the drawer. “I’ve figured out what McQuaid’s doing out there in El Paso. Who he might be working for, that is.”
“Oh, yeah?” He had my full attention. “Who?”
“Last year, I had a client down in Jim Wells County—Zumwalt Oil Drilling—who was losing a lot of equipment. Oilfield theft. It’s a booming business these days, really crazy. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of trucks, equipment, tools, materials stolen from drilling sites and storage yards. The stuff ends up all over the map—Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, down in South America, up in North Dakota.” Charlie tipped back his head and tossed back his tequila.
I wasn’t quite seeing the point. “So?” I prompted.
“Anywhere there’s oil action—and there’s a helluva lot of fracking going on these days—there’s theft. Big stuff, little stuff, stuff you wouldn’t think of.” Charlie waved a hand. “Solar panels and batteries are the current hot items. The bad guys cruise the back roads looking for solar panels on isolated well sites, then swoop in and rip off the panels, the batteries, and all the copper wire they can grab. These wells are isolated, maybe two, three wells to a site, and they’re easy pickings. The equipment loss can amount to nine or ten thousand a well—and there’s the downtime, too. No batteries, no power, no pumping. The pump sits there idle until somebody comes along and spots the theft.” He chuckled drily. “Some of the operators have installed surveillance cameras, but these crooks know what they’re doing. They steal the cameras, too.”
I was getting impatient. I only had a half hour to find out what Charlie knew about Kelly, and the clock was running. “Sounds like a pretty efficient operation. But what’s this got to do with McQuaid?”
“Hold your horses, China. I’m coming to that.” He opened the bottom drawer, considered a moment, and shut it again. “Like I said, a lot of the stuff is ending up in Mexico. Turns out that some of the thieves here in Texas are working for the drug cartels. Instead of selling the stolen stuff—big rigs, equipment, pipes—the cartels take it back home and put it to work. They’re using it to tap into Pemex oil pipelines. They’ve gotten smart about it, too. They used to kidnap Pemex employees and force them to handle the technical stuff. Now, they just co-opt the Pemex workers and pay for the inside information and expertise they need.”
“Pemex. That’s the state-owned Mexican oil company, isn’t it?”
“Yep.” He pulled a package of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket, lit one, and leaned back. “We ain’t talkin’ loose change here, China. Pemex says it’s losing some five billion dollars a year in illegal taps. The cartels have morphed into oil field pirates. And they’re pretty damned good at it.”
I frowned. “You’re not saying that McQuaid—” I paused. Blackie was out there, too, according to Sheila. “You’re not telling me that McQuaid and Blackie are doing an oil field theft investigation for Zumwalt Drilling?”
“Oh, hell, no.” Charlie dismissed my question with a wave of his hand. “Zumwalt is small-fry. A couple of months ago, I got a call from an outfit calling itself the Oil Field Theft Task Force. It’s a coalition of local and federal law enforcement, along with a handful of private investigators working for the drillers and oil operators who want their own men on the job. The Mexican Federales are involved too—they’re trying to crack down on the cartels on their side of the border.” He picked up his glass. “Anyway, somebody at the task force was looking for a reference for McQuaid, Blackwell, and Associates, checking them out for their investigation. I was glad to give your boy two big thumbs up. So I reckon that’s why he’s out there.”
I was beginning to put this jigsaw puzzle together, and the picture that emerged had nothing to do with the beautiful Margaret Graham or the possibility of McQuaid’s continuing friendship with her. It was more frightening than that. Much more.
“So he decided not to tell me who he was working for or where,” I said painfully, “because he’s working for the task force and he figured he might have to go down into Mexico to track down some of that missing equipment. He was breaking his promise, and he didn’t want me to know.” I swallowed hard. Going into Mexico meant trespassing on the cartels’ territory. And in this case, he might be intending to interrupt their piracy. People who did stuff like that didn’t always come back.
Charlie’s eyebrows went up and he cocked his head. “Breaking his promise?”
I straightened my shoulders. That part of it was between McQuaid and me, and I wasn’t going to cry on Charlie’s shoulder.
“No big deal,” I said past the hurt in my throat and the cold fear in my belly. McQuaid tells me I’m phobic about Mexico and the cartels, and he’s right. I am phobic. But he had promised. Shouldn’t I trust him? If I didn’t, what did that say about me?
“Really, no big deal,” I repeated as casually as I could. “That’s not what I’m here for, anyway.”
“That’s what Rosie told me.” Charlie winked at me, and I saw a little of his old self. “She said you wanted a quickie.”
“Rosie told me that a quickie was all you had time for,” I countered, and we both chuckled. I glanced at the clock and saw, with some chagrin, that it was quarter to six. If Charlie had been trying to stall me—to keep me from asking him about Kelly Kaufman—he had certainly pushed the right buttons.
“So?” Charlie asked, eyeing me. “What’s on your mind, if it’s not your old man?”
“Can’t you guess?” I replied. “Kelly Kaufman.”
“Forget it, China.” Charlie leaned forward to tap his cigarette into the ashtray. “You know I can’t talk about her. Whatever happens over there at the hospital, she’s a client. Privileged.”
He was right in one regard. Attorney-client privilege persists even after the client’s death. But that wasn’t the issue I wanted to pursue.
“Not so fast,” I said. “You were acting for her in the matter of her divorce, right?”
He considered that, pushed his mouth in and out, and finally nodded. “That’s right.”
“And you turned her down on the other matter she asked you about. You told her you had a conflict, and you gave her the names of two lawyers in Austin. Stevens, Worth, and Bullock was one of them. Prince and Rosato was the other.” I watched him, waiting.
“Ah, yes,” he said. He narrowed his eyes. “Did Kelly tell you that?”
“No.”
“Then how did you—”
“She made the calls from a friend’s house. The friend found the numbers in her telephone and gave them to me.” I paused. “Kelly told you she thought she had a whistle-blower claim, didn’t she?”
Charlie frowned. “Well, now, China, you know I can’t—”
“Oh, yes, you can, Charlie,” I said flatly. “This isn’t tiddlywinks. We’ve got a situation here. The police think somebody forced that young woman off the road last night. Could have been somebody who was afraid that she had information that could be used in a government fraud case. What I want to know from you is why you referred her to another
firm. What’s your conflict?”
Charlie reflected for a moment, then tried out an answer. “Maybe I don’t feel confident in taking on a whistle-blower case. False Claims is a pretty specialized field. Plenty of ways to get crosswise of the feds and lose the whole shebang.” He blew out a stream of gray smoke. “Maybe I didn’t think her case had sufficient merit to make it worth my time. Or maybe—”
“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “Those dogs won’t hunt, Charlie. Kelly told her friend that you said you had a conflict of interest.” I grinned mirthlessly. “I’ve known you for a long time, and I’ve never known you to let a potential client slip out of your net. If you had been able to take Kelly’s case, you would have. Then you would have brought a False Claims firm into the case and shared a part of the reward. You couldn’t take the case because you have a conflict. Who’s the client that’s creating the conflict?”
There was a long silence, then a long sigh, and I could see the regret written across his face. “I can’t tell you that, China. And I think you know why.”
“Could be several reasons,” I said. “The one that comes to mind first is that you represent the client who is the potential target of Kelly’s suit, if there is one.” I paused, and a thought I didn’t like elbowed unpleasantly into my mind. “She told you enough about it to cause you to send her to another law firm. I hope you didn’t pass that information along to your client—the one who’s creating the conflict of interest.” I took a breath. “You didn’t, did you?”
Charlie’s expression darkened. “If you’re suggesting that my client is responsible for Kelly Kaufman’s accident—” He stopped.
“You said it, Charlie. I didn’t.” I watched him. Was he thinking of what Kelly had told him before he stopped her with his conflict-of-interest statement? Was he remembering that, after she left, he had picked up the phone and made a call to his client? Was he wondering whether his client had acted on the information he had passed along, and as a result, Kelly lay, gravely injured, on life support in the hospital? But if those thoughts were going through his mind, they weren’t written on his face.
Blood Orange: A China Bayles Mystery Page 15
