Verdicts & Vixens

by Kelly Rey

"No." Eunice stood up. "I should go."

  "Remember the Supremes," I said gently. Missy shot me a questioning look. I waved it off. "That won't end well," I added.

  "It probably shouldn't," Eunice said on a sigh. She took a few steps toward the stairs, her feet dragging. "I knew it was only a matter of time."

  It was awful. And I didn't know how to stop it. Howard would push her in front of a train if it stopped Mora Dollarz from filing a malpractice suit. And Wally would provide the train schedule.

  "Why don't you at least wait a few minutes," Missy suggested. "Until Mrs. Dollarz leaves."

  Eunice shook her head. "I should apologize to her. Maybe she won't sue if she knows I'm leaving."

  "Leaving!" I sprang to my feet. "You don't have to leave, Eunice. I'm sure Howard will smooth things over. You should have been here when Dougie—"

  "I do," Eunice said. "I really do. I should've never come here in the first place. I had no business taking this job."

  "Every lawyer has growing pains," Missy told her. "It'll get better."

  I wasn't sure about that. But I said, "Sure it will. You should have been here when Wally—"

  "It won't get better." Eunice pulled the roll of Tums from her pocket and ate two. "I'd be a lousy lawyer. I don't know what I was thinking. I don't even like it."

  "But you can't waste all that education," I said. As far as arguments went, it wasn't very strong, but it was all I could muster. The truth was, Eunice really wasn't a good lawyer. She didn't know the law, she didn't know what constituted a viable lawsuit, and she fainted at the sight of black robes.

  "I attended the Harvard Academy of Law and Mortuary Sciences," she reminded me. "Online." Another tortured sigh dragged itself out of her. "Ninety-nine dollars for a two-week course."

  I glanced at Missy. "You mean for a continuing legal education course," I said. "Right?"

  "Wrong." Eunice ate another Tums.

  Missy's eyes went wide.

  I cleared my throat. "What are you saying, Eunice?"

  Eunice tried to shrug, but her shoulders weren't in the right position for it since they were sagging down around her waist. "What I'm saying," she said, "is that I'm not a lawyer."

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  Howard placated Mora Dollarz out the door a short time later, sighed heavily, scrubbed both hands across his face, pointed Eunice to the conference room, and started all over again, this time from a position of authority. Missy and I tried our best not to listen, but it was hard when phrases like legal malpractice and reality television and wring your neck bled through the walls.

  Reality television?

  Donna crept downstairs in the thick of it, saw that the conference room was unavailable, and tiptoed back upstairs with an expression of angst, the only one within earshot not interested in knowing what was going on in there.

  My fingers were busily skimming across the keyboard while the rest of me was busy not listening, yet nothing but gibberish scrolled across my monitor. I wasn't going to be able to concentrate, not after Eunice's bombshell. Not a lawyer? That explained a lot and nothing at the same time. Missy stabbed at the keyboard with grim determination.

  After a while the voices in the conference room quieted, and a little while after that, the door opened and Eunice and Howard appeared, both fairly happy, with no Tums in sight. Howard clapped her on the shoulder and disappeared upstairs.

  Eunice dropped into a chair with an exhausted sigh, rubbing her shoulder. "Well, that's that. No more pretend lawyering for me."

  I hesitated. "Can I help you pack up your things?"

  She brightened. "Oh, I'm not going anywhere. Howard offered me a job as an investigator for the firm. He said I have a real knack for it, that no one really notices me. Isn't that something?"

  It was something, alright.

  "But you haven't investigated anything," Missy told her.

  "Sure I have," Eunice said. "I've investigated a murder. Right, Jamie?"

  I ignored Missy's jaw drop. "You told Howard about that?"

  "What's she talking about?" Missy asked me. "What are you talking about?" she asked Eunice.

  "She doesn't mean murder," I assured her.

  Eunice's eyes went wide. "Oh. Right." She laid a finger over her lips and winked at me.

  Missy wasn't buying it, but I couldn't help that now.

  I sighed. "Eunice, why did you do it?"

  "Why does anyone do crazy things?" she said. "To get a reality TV show and become famous. I thought it up while I was watching Real Housewives. And you have to admit Citizen Lawyer could have been a hit." Her head dropped. "If I could've pulled it off."

  Missy and I glanced at each other. Missy mouthed, "A reality show?" I shrugged. Not what I would have expected from someone who fainted when more than two people were in the room.

  "But now—" Eunice's head snapped up "—maybe I can be Citizen PI. Combing the mean streets and alleyways for America's darkest secrets."

  "Or going on coffee runs for Howard," I said.

  "Either way." She smiled at me, and for once it was a smile filled with genuine happiness. And I was happy for her. Turned out I liked Eunice, and I was glad she was going to be sticking around.

  Especially if she could help me find Oxnard's killer on Howard's payroll.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  It was late afternoon by the time I remembered I'd wanted to call Lizette Larue and the florist about their bills. I waited until Missy had gone upstairs to talk to Howard before I dug out the bills. I dialed Lizette's number first.

  "Executive Planning," a pleasant female voice cooed in my ear. A pleasant familiar female voice. Laced with just a hint of alcohol-induced blurriness. I stiffened. "Bitsy Dolman?"

  A moment of silence, then, "Who's calling, please?"

  I told her. "I was calling for Lizette Larue. About her invoice."

  The pleasantness evaporated into a sharp edge that was equally familiar. "Oh, yes. More of Sybil Thorpe's dirty work."

  I looked at the bill again. Lizette's contact information was different from Bitsy's, which meant nothing in the age of technology. Still, it was curious. "May I speak with her, please?"

  "Lizette isn't available at the moment," Bitsy told me with just the right hint of snit for a company called Executive Planning. "I'll tell her you called."

  "Why are you answering her phone?" I asked. "Doesn't Executive Planning have an office staff of its own?"

  Bitsy hesitated. "It's an exclusive operation." Read small. "I agreed to stand in as her answering service from time to time. Why does that surprise you? I told you I know the best people."

  That did make a strange sort of sense, since Bitsy claimed to have recommended Lizette for Sybil's wedding. And clearly she could use the extra money. And get discounted wedding planning services, if she should ever bag Herman Kantz.

  "Since I have you," I said, "I wanted to ask you about Fire and Ice. I noticed that it was in Chicago, and I can't see how—"

  I heard a click and the line went dead.

  Bitsy Dolman had hung up on me.

  I dropped the receiver into its cradle, my thoughts churning and my temper flaring. While you'd think I'd have gotten used to it, I didn't like being dismissed. If I was at Executive Planning right now, I'd bean Bitsy with her own vodka bottle. She'd lied to me outright, and now she didn't even have the guts to fess up or the smarts to tell a better lie to cover up her first one.

  Which smelled like panic to me. And panic meant guilt. And guilt meant that after a lot of clever bumbling, I may have finally had my woman. Bitsy Dolman, with all her catty judgments and best people nonsense, had killed Oxnard, covered it up with a transparent alibi, and didn't know what to do now that she'd been discovered. She was probably packing her Louis Vuitton bag right now to get on the next plane to some country with no extradition treaty.

  Not if I could help it.

  I glanced at the clock. I could be at the Executive Planning office in ten minutes. But I wasn't going
unarmed. I was going to need proof. I raced upstairs to Wally's empty office, grabbed his micro voice recorder, snatched up my handbag, and headed for my car.

  "Jamie!" Eunice hustled across the parking lot behind me, breathing hard. "What's wrong?"

  I'd forgotten about Eunice. I'd assumed she was off investigating something. "I have to go see someone about a concussion," I said.

  "You're not going to do anything foolish, are you?" She leaned on my roof. "I can't let you do anything foolish. You've been too good a friend to me."

  "I'm not doing anything foolish," I told her. "I'm doing what I agreed to do."

  "Can I do it with you?"

  I shook my head. "It won't take long. I just want to put someone in her place." Namely, jail.

  "Is it Abigail?"

  "No."

  "Alston?"

  "No."

  "That Sybil woman?"

  For Pete's sake. I squinted up at her. "Get in, Eunice."

  She hurried around the back of the car and tucked herself into the passenger seat, beaming.

  "I started to tell you earlier," she said. "I found Howard's notes on the revisions to Oxnard's will. I accidentally stuck them in another file."

  "I told you to be careful with that," I said.

  "I learned my lesson," she told me. "Don't you want to know what the notes say?"

  Of course I did. I'd dreamed about finding those notes, since there was no way I could have asked Howard about them. Howard and I didn't have that kind of relationship. Civil.

  "Oxnard was splitting everything evenly between Sybil and Abby," Eunice said.

  I frowned. "Anything about Bitsy Dolman?"

  "Only that he wanted her removed," she said.

  "You sure about that?" I asked. So that childhood friendship had reached its limit. Or Sybil—or Herman—had convinced Oxnard to disinherit Bitsy. It seemed unusual to me that she'd have been a beneficiary in the first place, but then I wasn't a gazillionaire with friends dating back to my diaper days.

  "I did a good job, right?" Eunice asked. "Finding the notes?"

  I nodded. "Make sure they get back to Oxnard's file."

  "Do you think it means anything?"

  "I sure do," I said. "It means motive." Bitsy was odd man out when it came to Oxnard's bags of money, probably after years of counting on a hefty payoff for putting up with him. To have the rug yanked out from under like that would have made her furious. Had it made her homicidal?

  "We make a good team, don't we?" Eunice said. "Except Maizy isn't here. We need Maizy."

  "Not this time," I told her and peeled out of the parking lot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  The Hermitage Building was easy to find, since it featured dark glass cladding that leant it a Darth Vaderish appearance. Executive Planning was on the fifth floor, offering stunning views of a parking lot to the north and a murky man-made lake to the west. Fat, white ducks bobbed along the surface of the lake.

  Bitsy Dolman slouched behind the front desk, dressed more smartly than usual in white slacks and a turquoise blouse. She was also wearing mud-splattered Nikes. If you couldn't see her feet, she fit the part of a successful businesswoman and was believable for the role of upscale receptionist.

  There wasn't a suitcase in sight, but Bitsy wasn't any too happy to see me, and less happy to see Eunice. "What are you doing here?"

  "You hung up on me," I said. And that was the least of her offenses.

  She shrugged. "I had nothing more to say."

  "Well, we have something to say," Eunice piped up.

  Bitsy pointed with her chin. "Who's this?"

  Eunice stepped forward, confident now that she wasn't facing Supreme Court Justices or disgruntled clients. "Eunice Kublinski, PI." She glanced over her shoulder at me with a grin.

  "That works," I told her.

  "It does, doesn't it," she agreed.

  Bitsy snorted. "Well, I'm not interested in what either one of you has to say. How about that."

  "You will be," I said, moving next to Eunice while reaching into my jacket pocket for the micro recorder. It wasn't there. "We know what you did."

  "What I did." Bitsy didn't blink. "What did I do?"

  Eunice stabbed the air with her finger. 'You killed Oxnard Thorpe and we can prove it!"

  I shoved a hand into my other pocket. Nothing. "Not yet," I whispered.

  "I most certainly did not," Bitsy said calmly. "I loved that man."

  "Ah-ha!" Eunice nearly shouted. "You loved that man too much, and we can prove it!"

  I patted the pockets of my slacks. Empty. "Slow down," I whispered. "I can't find—"

  "Loved him too much?" Bitsy repeated. "What does that even mean?"

  "You couldn't stand to see him with another woman," Eunice forged on, undaunted by my growing panic and Bitsy's scary calmness. "When he married Sybil, he told you he was cutting you out of his will, and it put you over the edge. If you couldn't have him—"

  "I suppose you have proof of this," Bitsy said to me.

  There was only one place left to look.

  "Can I smoke in here?" I asked. Without waiting for an answer, I plunged my hand inside my purse, flapping it around in there.

  "I didn't know you smoked," Eunice told me.

  "Oh, yeah." ChapStick. Wallet. Tissues. Why did I have so many tissues? "Two packs a day. Can't go five minutes without—" There! I wrapped my fingers around it and fumbled for the On button. "Oh, we have proof," I said, at the same time Wally said, "Please be advised that this office—"

  Eunice immediately began coughing spastically. I jabbed at the Off button

  "—represents Don Wilfork with regard to—"

  Why did they make those damn buttons so tiny?

  "Oh, excuse me," Eunice said, patting her chest.

  "—his claim for size discrimination in relation to—"

  Eunice's eyes widened and met mine.

  I stared back at her. "Seriously?" I said. I punched every button I could feel until Wally shut up. "You should get a raise," I told her.

  "Well, if it isn't the Two Stooges," a voice said behind us. I knew that voice. It was capable of freezing grown women in a single breath, and it did just that. We didn't move when Lizette Larue sauntered past us in ridiculously high heels and an incredibly tight skirt, holding a terrifying—

  I blinked. "Is that a cake server?"

  Lizette shrugged. "You use what you've got."

  "And what you've got," Bitsy added with a slow phony smile, "is trouble. As usual, you have it wrong."

  I was starting to see that. I could also see that Lizette was wearing the green cashmere sweater I'd seen twice before. Once on her, at Sybil's wedding, and once at Bitsy's house. On Bitsy.

  Eunice was getting the pasty face that meant she wasn't going to stay vertical much longer.

  "I like your sweater," I said, grasping to make sense of it. And I think I finally had it, or at least part of it. "Looks better without the stains," I added pointedly. "You'd think a personal shopper would be a smarter dresser. Of course, if only Herman Kantz and Sybil hadn't beaten you to Oxnard's money, you could've bought all the clothes you wanted. For you and your daughter."

  Bitsy's tipped her head to the side, assessing. "So you're not as useless as you seem."

  That didn't really call for an answer, so I slid a glance toward Eunice. She was swaying slightly, but still upright.

  "Ah-ha!" Eunice cried out, but her heart wasn't in it this time. "So you wanted the money!"

  Lizette waggled the cake server in Eunice's direction. "Is she for real?" She stopped waggling and pointed the cake server straight at Eunice. I took a step sideways so I could catch her if she went down. "Everyone wanted the money," Lizette hissed. "I'm just the one who deserved it."

  "You!" I said, at the same time Eunice said, "You?"

  I said "Her?"

  "Don't look so shocked," Bitsy said flatly. "She's right. She always deserved it. She's Oxnard's daughter. Oxnard seduced me when I wa
s only twenty-two, and then he walked away when I told him I was pregnant. He wanted nothing more to do with me. He just moved on to the next actress. Don't even get me started on them."

  "You could have taken him to court," I said, just as flatly.

  "Court." She blew out some air. "Sure, I tried that. He played golf with the judge every Wednesday. He was ordered to pay the royal sum of $75 a month in child support. After insisting on a DNA test. I mean, can't you see she's the spitting image of Oxnard?"

  Sure enough, there were Oxnard's beady little eyes. Why hadn't I seen that before?

  "He owed his daughter," Bitsy insisted. "He owed me. And I was damned well going to make sure she got every penny she deserved."

  "But you stayed friendly," I said. "He invited you to his wedding. How could he not—"

  "Friendly." She snorted. "He strung me along, said he'd take care of both of us if I just kept quiet about paternity. So I did. And he kept his agreement. For a while. Told me I'd be in his will to make up for everything. Paid my bills."

  "Including your ritzy business address," I said.

  "Including that." She smirked. "And then one day he tells me I'm out. The mother of his child isn't entitled to a dime of his estate. So where did it get me to be the good little soldier?"

  "It got you inside his house," Lizette said with an evil little cackle.

  "And you got her into the hidden hallway," I said to Bitsy. "And then you made sure the food fight escalated so that no one was paying attention when you slipped into the hidden hallway."

  She shrugged. "It was just a bonus that they left. It made Liz's job so much easier. She is his rightful heir."

  "The joke's on you," Eunice said, her voice thin but not shaky. "You killed him for nothing. His will never got changed."

  "You're lying," Bitsy said.

  "No, she isn't," I said. "Eunice here never prepared it."

  "See," Eunice added, "I'm not a lawyer."

  "So you could have inherited millions," I said. "Only now you'll go to jail for murdering the golden goose." I didn't know if that was true, but it sounded good. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to sound good to them, since Lizette charged toward me with the cake server raised like a knife. "I've heard enough out of you," she hissed.