She’d been through a lot, but that wouldn’t prevent the police from considering her a suspect. “Did it occur to you that whoever killed him could have still been here?”
“Oh my God,” she gasped. “No. It didn’t. I really wasn’t thinking straight.”
“You’ll have to tell the police what you’ve told me. It’ll look better if you contact them and tell them everything.”
“Even about the affair and the fight we had?”
“It’s better if you get everything out. If they dig far enough, they’ll find people who saw you together and they’ll figure it out for themselves. After all, I did, and I was just listening to gossip.”
“I should have called 911 then and there. I should have,” she groaned. “But I just knew he was gone and there was nothing anyone could do. I guess I was feeling awful about the fight we had, and … I know this’ll sound crazy … but my first instinct was they’d blame me for what happened.”
“Do you want to talk to David? He could be a kind of buffer and let the police know you have some information? I’m sure they’ll be talking to you soon anyway.”
Suzanne nodded mutely. Her eyes were large in her face.
“When did you start working here?” I asked.
“Three years ago. I was at the Browning firm before.”
“Did you work on any special case with Jack at the old firm?”
“Well, just one big case with Jack and Ira. That trial was the reason I was hired, and then they asked me to come with them when they moved to this firm. It was the Bank of San Francisco fire.”
“I remember that, although I didn’t follow the court case.”
Suzanne heaved a sigh and tried to collect her thoughts. “The Bank building on Market Street was gutted by an electrical fire and one of the janitors died. He was the only fatality, and the wife brought suit.” She rubbed her temples. “Look, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do have to deal with some of this stuff.” She waved her hand vaguely over her desk.
Our intimate chat was over. Maybe it was just a reaction to having just been so open with me. Regretfully, I nodded and left her there, closing the door behind me. I hadn’t had a chance to ask her about the death threat she’d received, but maybe it was better not to bring it up right now. Perhaps that topic would be better coming from David or from the police.
As I stepped out of Suzanne’s office, I heard the deep voice of Sergeant Sullivan in the hallway. He appeared in the doorway with the same detective from Monday morning in tow. Adam stood behind them in the hallway.
Sullivan addressed Dani. “We’re here to see Suzanne Simms.”
Karen spoke first. “What’s going on now?” Her voice had risen, and I hoped it wasn’t a precursor to hysteria. Both she and Dani were staring at me. Sergeant Sullivan and Officer Ray entered the central room and walked directly to Suzanne’s door. I stepped aside as they passed me and entered the office without knocking. I looked at Adam, who was standing in the doorway. His face remained impassive but he gave a slight raise of his eyebrows, as if to let me know he couldn’t speak at that moment.
Suzanne’s door opened again and the men led her, pale-faced and frightened, out of her office. Sullivan turned to us. “We’re bringing Ms. Simms downtown. There’s no need to be alarmed. We’ll contact Mr. Meyers later.” Dani was silent and stunned. Karen, a tissue to her nose and her face red and blotchy, ran to the doorway and watched as the elevator doors closed on Suzanne.
twenty-one
I left the litigation section and headed for David’s office. Adam had reached it before me and was starting to fill David in on the latest development. They looked up as I entered.
“What next, huh?” David leaned back in his chair. He looked exhausted and his face was ashen. I worried about the toll this was taking on him.
“I just wish they hadn’t picked her up like this,” I replied.
“Well, not putting in an appearance for a couple of days is bound to arouse suspicion,” Adam remarked.
David shook his head. “Hopefully they’ll just question her and send her home. I’m certain she had nothing to do with this.” He looked at me. “Did you have a chance to talk to her?”
“I did. She’s an emotional mess. She was seeing Jack, they had a huge fight and she came into the office Sunday to talk to him.”
“And?” Adam asked.
“She found him dead. She freaked out and disappeared for a few days.”
“Why?” David asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows? I can sort of understand it. It must have been horrible for her. She was just hiding out and didn’t want to have to talk to anyone.”
“Julia, what do you say we head over to Jack’s apartment and see what we can find?” Adam asked.
“We might as well.” I grabbed my coat and purse as Adam held the door open for me. I hesitated and turned back to David. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I don’t think ‘okay’ describes what I’m feeling, Julia.” He sighed and looked up at me. “But you two go ahead. Don’t worry about me. I’ll get through this.”
I left David staring out the window. Adam and I took the elevator down to the lobby and switched over to the bank of elevators to the parking levels. Adam pressed the button for B-level. We could just as easily have walked to Jack’s apartment, but Adam suggested a car in case we had to lug files or boxes back to the firm.
Jack’s apartment was on Filbert, only a few blocks from my grandmother’s house in Castle Alley. His condo occupied the second floor of a four-story modern building wedged between two older structures. I looked up at the glass-fronted façade and sleek windows. Adam stood by my side on the windy sidewalk and reached inside his jacket pocket.
“These are private apartments with a common entrance. I doubt there’s a manager to let us in,” he said.
“How do we get in?”
Adam pulled a flat leather case from his pocket and opened it up. Inside were several thin metal tools. “Stand behind me, as if you’re waiting for me to open the door, and let’s hope no one comes along and gets suspicious.”
“What are you doing?”
“Won’t take a minute.”
“Is this legal?” I whispered. “What if we get caught?” The weather had turned and a storm front from the Pacific was bringing heavy cloud cover. I shivered and danced back and forth on my toes while Adam fiddled with the lock.
After a minute, it released. Adam smiled rakishly. “We won’t. After you, mademoiselle.”
We climbed the stairs to the second floor, avoiding the elevator, and once again I watched nervously as Adam worked his magic on the door to Jack’s apartment. At least it was warm inside the building and I’d stopped shivering.
No personal touches were in evidence. No family photos. In fact, it looked as if it had been arranged by a professional decorator. The apartment was furnished with heavy masculine pieces, expensive but lacking in warmth. I walked over to a wall of built in bookshelves and thumbed through the CD’s. Jack had favored classical and jazz, with the classical leaning toward Rachmaninoff. On the other wall I recognized two large lithographs by a San Francisco artist whose name escaped me. I was sure Gale would know. The lithos illustrated small random shapes scattered over a dark field, very abstract. Very boring.
“These are nice …” Adam volunteered.
I shuddered. “They leave me cold.”
Large windows illuminated the space with custom shades that were probably controlled by a remote. The entire three-bedroom apartment was immaculate except for a coffee cup in the sink and a robe thrown across the bed. Each room was furnished in much the same style. Extremely upscale Motel 6. Other than the lithos and books and CDs, there was nothing to indicate what Jack Harding was all about.
“The police have taken his laptop and calendar. But if we dig, maybe we
’ll find something interesting.” Adam opened the closet in the hallway. “I’ll start here.”
I stepped into one of the bedrooms. Jack had set this room up as a home office. There was a large four-drawer filing cabinet containing personal files, household receipts, litigation form files, and working files on cases that were current and some that were obviously older. I found two empty boxes in the closet and filled them with the legal files that needed to be returned to David’s firm. Sliding doors opened to another closet, with six more boxes. I started by hauling out one after another and rifling through them. These contained more working files on, all told, four different cases, but two of the boxes held research and relevant copies of court pleadings, as well as deposition transcripts from the Bank of San Francisco fire. What is it about lawyers? They can never seem to dispose of paper.
“Take a look at this,” I called out. Adam came around the corner and looked over the folder I’d pulled out of one box. “This was the case that Jack and Ira and Suzanne all worked on at their former firm.”
“You’re thinking of the threatening letters?”
“Yes. It does link them all together. David isn’t overwhelmed by my theory, but their old firm, the Browning firm, represented the main insurer.” I stood up and dusted off my skirt. “Suzanne told me there was a fatality in that fire. A janitor was killed.”
“I seem to recall reading about that at the time. It was all over the news.”
“I wonder who he was. Even more, I wonder about the family he might have left behind.”
“I don’t recall the details at all.”
I thought of David’s difficult transits and the involvement of his Moon. Was I right? Was a woman somehow involved? “Adam, what if the janitor had a family? I think Suzanne mentioned it was his wife who brought suit. Since it was these three people from Browning who received threats, could the janitor’s widow have decided to take a belated revenge?”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. And anyway, why would she blame the attorneys for the insurance company for her husband’s death? Jack and Ira didn’t represent the owners of the building.”
“Who did own that building?”
“No idea, but probably a general partnership, maybe several different companies.”
“What if she became obsessed and decided to go after anyone involved in the case? For all we know, there could be more unexplained deaths in the city.”
Adam had a dubious look on his face. “Well then, why not kill whoever was to blame for the fire? Why the attorneys for the insurers?”
“Who was to blame? I didn’t really follow the case. It’s a reach, but it might be worth finding out what happened to the people involved and the woman who brought suit. Besides, if the connection between the death threats and Jack’s murder is in fact this old case, then that means Suzanne and Ira are in danger too.”
“Okay, it’s worth a shot. Let’s try to locate the widow. You may have a good idea, Julia, but just don’t get your hopes up. You can spend a lot of time and spin your wheels on this stuff and ninety-nine percent of the time it turns out to be nothing.”
“Maybe the settlement money wasn’t enough. Maybe this woman’s still around, consumed with revenge.”
“You have a very active imagination.” Adam chuckled. “Can you find out her name from the documents? I’ll run it through our programs and see what I can come up with. Maybe you’re right. Maybe the janitor’s widow is on a killing spree. Stranger things have happened.” He picked up two of the boxes and carried them to the front door. “In the meantime, I’ll load all of these in my car and get them up to David’s office.”
“Adam, one more thing? I don’t know if it’s really ethical, but can you do some kind of search or credit check on Hilary Greene?”
“Hilary Greene? Oh, you mean Jack’s ex-wife?”
“Yes. David told me about her art gallery. If she’s in financial trouble, that life insurance policy could be a motive.”
“Assuming she knew about it,” Adam replied.
“I just want to know if she’s been having money problems. And besides all that, I’m really curious what her connection to Henry Gooding is. I ran into him outside her art gallery on Fillmore yesterday.” Adam looked at me questioningly. “Apparently he’s a wealthy import-export guy who buys a lot of art. It’s just that he seems to be popping up everywhere I turn.”
“I’ve heard of the guy. Maybe he’s just buying art.”
“Possibly. My friend Gale has connections to the art world. She says he’s quite the collector, but I think it’s just too much of a coincidence. Oh, and something else, okay? Could you look up someone named Len Ragno? It’s a reach, but there’s something funny there too. I saw a piece of artwork in Hilary’s gallery by an artist of that name and she seemed very tight-lipped about it. Told me it was sold, but somehow, something in her voice didn’t ring true.”
Adam sighed. “All right.” He was jotting down the names in his book. “Anyone else?”
“No. That should do it, I think. You want some help loading these boxes?”
“Not so fast.” Adam took my arm and pulled me closer. “You want to tell me about last night?”
twenty-two
For a split second I thought he was going to kiss me. I hoped he wouldn’t notice the flush that spread across my cheeks. “They told you?”
“Yes. I got an earful from the building’s guards.”
“You didn’t tell David?”
Adam shook his head. “No. I’d really rather not. He’s got enough on his plate. What the hell were you thinking, Julia?”
I straightened up, doing my best to defend myself. “I wanted to prove to myself it was possible to get into the building undetected. And I was right.”
“And?”
“And what?” I knew what was coming.
“Julia, please. Don’t play games with me. You told the guards that someone else was on that floor.”
“Yes, there was someone there. And they attacked me in the dark. The lights went out and next thing I knew I was down on the floor. I managed to get into the elevator and get away.”
“Cripes.” Adam ran a hand through his hair. “That entry is supposed to be locked at eight o’clock at night and all weekend. My guy was making rounds of both floors all night. He never saw or heard a thing.”
“There are plenty of hiding places. More than you can imagine.”
“Promise me you won’t do that again. There’s a murderer on the loose and you could be the next target. Any idea who attacked you?”
I shivered. “No. All I heard was rustling and heavy breathing and I bolted for the elevator. I was afraid I’d be chased, but I wasn’t.”
“It could be any one of those people at the firm. It could be anybody. It doesn’t mean whoever it was is guilty of Jack’s murder, but they certainly had no business being there. Neither did you.” Adam’s hand still held my arm. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” Was this concern, or was I detecting an attraction? It had been so long since I’d found any man attractive, I couldn’t be sure. I didn’t want to let my imagination run away with me.
“So … ” He straightened up. “I’ll carry two down at a time, if you can take this one.”
I helped Adam move the boxes from the closet and the office and stack them outside the door of Jack’s apartment. We made sure the door was locked behind us and after three trips up and down the stairs had managed to load all of the boxes into the trunk and back seat of Adam’s car. Returning to the Montgomery Street building, Adam drove down to B-level and parked near the entrance to the freight elevator. The same freight elevator that I’d been so unceremoniously expelled from the night before.
“You should go ahead up, Julia. I’ll take care of these and stack them by your desk.” He leaned toward me in the car, brushing away a stray wisp of hair from my fo
rehead and looked into my eyes. “Julia … ” He hesitated. I wasn’t wrong. He was attracted to me and I couldn’t ignore what I felt. “When this is over …”
“Bad timing, huh?” My brain was short circuiting. How could I be having these feelings when I was still haunted by the image of Michael lying on the street?
“Maybe not bad timing, but it’s not quite the right time yet. Soon, though.” He smiled.
My face felt hot. I climbed out of the car. An agreement of sorts had been struck, but I wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep up my end of the bargain. Opening that door brought thoughts of Michael, and that old hard stone that was still inside my chest. The prospect of an emotional involvement felt like driving a car a hundred miles an hour into a brick wall without a seat belt. I tried not to think about it. If only the rest of me would follow my head.
When I reached the 41st floor, Ira and Karen were still working in the litigation section. Karen was lining up large brown folders and inserting documents bound with rubber bands into each one. She looked up as I entered the room. “I thought you’d gone for the day.”
“No. I had an errand to do for David. What are you up to? That looks like a big project.”
“Oh, I’m just trying to organize all these files now that Jack’s …” Karen hesitated. “I don’t know what else to do. I mean, I thought it would be a good idea, since one of the other attorneys will have to take over.”
I couldn’t think how to respond. Karen obviously needed something to keep her busy. “This morning …” I hesitated. “When Nora was shouting in Suzanne’s office. Before the police came. What was that all about?”
“I heard that too, and I’m not really sure, myself. Whatever’s going on with Suzanne, it’s none of Nora’s business anyway,” Karen grumbled. “She can be such a bitch!”
Tail of the Dragon Page 13
