Mystery Writers of America Presents the Prosecution Rests

by Inc. Mystery Writers of America

  “Warren? Shut the door, will you?”

  ____

  THE POLICE WORK in three teams on the main floor. Lunch is ordered in, and only those with previous appointments are permitted to leave. They get to the clerks in the afternoon, and they call for me at 3:55 p.m.

  A detective introduces himself as Sergeant Dennis Ryan and gives me his card, which has a gold shield on it. They ask the usual questions. I answer them. Name, address. “I live with my mother. Actually, it’s her apartment. She’s ill and I came down from Ohio to take care of her. I was in law school at the time. Mr. Penniman hired me to work here.”

  “And you knew Ms. Mulloy?”

  “Of course. Everyone did.”

  “You were doing some work for her?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “We understand that Ms. Mulloy wasn’t happy with your work, and she got on your case about it.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Is it true?”

  “No. Not at all. She was demanding with everyone. I wasn’t special.”

  “Are you nervous, Mr. Kemble? You’re sweating.”

  “It’s warm in here.”

  They ask me where I was last night.

  “Home. I was home.”

  “Security guard says you were here until two a.m.”

  “Yes, working, then I went home. My mother can vouch for me.”

  “We might need to talk to her.”

  “Sure. No problem.”

  Ryan gestures toward my hands, which are loosely clasped on the table. “How’d you get the injury there, Mr. Kemble?”

  I stare at my right hand. There is a red scrape across the knuckles. I hadn’t noticed until now, but I remember. Last night at Erika Mulloy’s house, moving back when I saw Porter come out, bumping into the tree—

  The detectives are waiting. There is no choice. I have to tell them everything.

  When I finish, they look at each other. Ryan’s partner picks up a list, scans it. “Porter. I don’t see that name.”

  “He’s new. Jack Porter.”

  “Not here.”

  “Yes, he is. He’s on Fourteen. He was just hired. He worked for Erika Mulloy.”

  “You want to show us?”

  “He’s going to deny everything. He’s very convincing. If you don’t arrest him, he’ll come after me.”

  “Don’t worry about that. Just show us where he is.”

  They follow me downstairs, past the library, around a turn past the Pits, then into another corridor, a row of closed doors. My legs are weak, and my lungs feel cold. “I saw his car. I’m sorry, I didn’t write down the license tag. But it was him. What if he comes after me? Can you offer protection?”

  “Which office is his, Mr. Kemble?”

  I stop and point at Jack Porter’s door. They knock. Porter doesn’t say to come in. Ryan turns the knob. No one is inside. There’s no computer on the desk, no phone, nothing.

  I stare. “No, this isn’t right. Where did he go?”

  “Doesn’t look like anybody was ever here.”

  “He’s here. He has to be here.” I push past them into the hall and open one door after another, a long row of offices. They are all empty. I am screaming, “Porter! Jack Porter! Where are you?”

  ____

  THE TWO DETECTIVES and a uniformed officer escort me home, and Mrs. Perlstein stares as our parade passes by. I tell her everything is fine. Detective Ryan orders me to open the door. Technically he needs a warrant to enter, but I unlock it. I ask them to wait in the living room until I speak to my mother about this, but Ryan goes to her bedroom door and knocks. “Mrs. Kemble? It’s the police. We need to talk to you, ma’am.”

  He rudely goes inside. A couple of seconds later I hear him cursing. He comes out with a handkerchief over his nose and mouth. He looks at me strangely as he speaks to his partner. “She’s dead. She’s been dead. Nothing left but a husk. Call it in. Get forensics over here.”

  “Ma!” I rush toward her door. “Let me in! I want to see her!”

  “Sit down and shut up.” They shove me onto the sofa. The uniformed cop speaks into the radio on his shoulder.

  Ryan pulls a chair over. “What happened here, Warren?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand this. She was fine this morning.” I fold my arms across my body and rock back and forth, trying to figure it out, but I’m stuck in a nightmare. “I would like to call my sister.”

  “In a minute, soon as you tell me what you did last night.”

  I remember what Frank Delgado said: Don’t open your mouth to the police. Tears burn their way down my cheeks, drip off my chin.

  “Talk to me, Warren.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t. My mother just passed away. I can’t talk to you now. I can’t talk to you at all. I’m sorry, I would like to, I would, but on advice of counsel, I can’t. I’m sorry.”

  TIME WILL TELL

  BY TWIST PHELAN

  Lauren Winslow swept into my office a half hour after my secretary left, twenty minutes before Security came on duty downstairs. As slim as a fading hope, she wore a long sapphire sheath that was sexy but modest at the same time. She hung her wet umbrella on the coat tree next to the door and collapsed into her favorite chair, the one closest to my desk.

  I turned over the spreadsheet I’d been reviewing and put on a welcoming smile. “You’re looking lovely this evening, Madame Prosecutor. What’s the occasion?”

  “Annual judges’ dinner at the Downtown Club. If I’d known the weather was going to be this bad, I would have rented a tux.” She brushed off the raindrops that spangled her hem, revealing a pair of satin slingbacks with vicious heels. “They’re roasting Galletti, so I have to be there. Would you please just kill me now?”

  Lauren going to an event for Glamour Boy Galletti? “An evening of lawyers in white ties telling white lies—you’ll be in your element, Counselor.”

  She chuckled, a low sound of genuine mirth. She had deep-set brown eyes, wavy chestnut hair, and a dusting of freckles so fine I often wondered if I’d imagined them. “I think you’d hold your own, Tommy.”

  Lauren headed up the Complex Crimes Unit for the regional office of the Department of Justice. A dozen attorneys under Galletti were on a crusade against “sophisticated” criminals—corporate fraudsters, identity thieves, computer hackers, pay-for-play politicos, big-time polluters. “We’re not interested in ordinary crooks,” Lauren had told me when we first met. “We go after the smart people who’ve gone bad, the ones who screw over widows and orphans.”

  I held up an almost-empty tumbler of whiskey. “Care to get a head start on the festivities?”

  She declined, as she always did during her impromptu visits. Instead, she stood up and walked to the window, all fine-boned elegance and height. What began as an afternoon shower had turned into leaden rain. It was an ugly day, exactly as forecast.

  I wondered why Lauren was here. Usually she dropped by to regale me with some courtroom triumph—the defeat of a defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, a unanimous guilty verdict, a plea that sent somebody away for twenty-five years. Her stories hinted at rules she had to bend, witnesses she had to bully into fatal admissions.

  Tonight, though, she was different. There was something about her I hadn’t seen before; she was wired, so electric she nearly set the air vibrating. I swallowed a mouthful of scotch, felt the warmth spread through my belly, and waited.

  “Have I ever told you what brought me to Seattle?” she asked, gazing out at the city. Her skin was pale against the darkness on the other side of the glass.

  “No.” Although Lauren was familiar with my background, she had always been closemouthed about hers. I took another sip of my drink. In less than a week, I’d be downing mojitos instead of single malt.

  She turned, and her dress pulled tight against her thigh. I glimpsed the outline of lace through the thin fabric and sucked in my breath. Lauren was the only woman I knew who wore a garter belt. Her
legs were great, and outside the courtroom she preferred short skirts to pants. During our first meeting she had leaned across a table to hand a document to Nick, exposing a thin strip of smooth flesh at the top of her stocking. Nearly a minute had passed before I’d been able to focus on her questions again.

  “It was four years ago,” she said, turning away from the window to reclaim her chair. I could smell her perfume. She always wore the same scent—subtle but crisp, not too flowery. I imagined her touching the glass stopper to the hollow of her neck, dabbing it between her breasts…

  I felt the heft of my new watch as I lifted the whiskey bottle from the desk drawer and replenished my tumbler. Audemars Piguet—the only brand Arnold Schwarzenegger wore. With its gold face and thirty-two diamonds rimming the bezel, the thing weighed almost a pound. The black rubber wristband made it popular among the yachties in Boca.

  Lauren noticed my new hardware. “Check out the bling. I could hire another paralegal for what that cost.”

  More like two, I didn’t say. Eighty thousand dollars, no discount for cash.

  “What happened to the Rolex?” she asked. “Or was that a Patek Philippe in your briefcase?”

  I put the bottle back into the drawer, next to the mini digital recorder. I touched the square red button and left the drawer open. “I still can’t believe you snooped.”

  “Your driver shouldn’t have left the backseat door open. And briefcases come with locks for a reason.”

  I was tempted to ask what part of no unreasonable searches and seizures she didn’t understand. “Next you’ll be telling me, if I carry cash, I deserve to have my pocket picked. You’re lucky I didn’t think you were a carjacker.”

  Lauren looked at me through her eyelashes. “What if you had, Tommy? Would you have shot me?”

  “Jesus, how can you—”

  “I never figured you for one of those big-watch guys,” she interrupted. “Bonus from a grateful client?”

  “If you’re gonna keep asking questions, Madame Prosecutor, I want my lawyer.” I said it automatically. Not a big-watch guy. I turned my wrist so the diamonds wouldn’t show so much.

  Lauren made a face. “Very funny, Tommy.”

  As hilarious as the Fourth Amendment, Lauren. Bad guys aren’t the only ones who think the end justifies the means.I pulled at my drink. Galletti knows it, too.

  Outside, headlights were yellow smears in the downpour, and a foghorn mooed. I knew I shouldn’t spill the beans, but I couldn’t resist.

  “As a matter of fact, the watch is a going-away present to myself. Good-bye, perpetual rain; hello, eternal sunshine.”

  Lauren tilted her head. “You’re moving? Where?”

  I picked up the Prada sunglasses from my desk—another recent purchase—and put them on.

  “Next week I’ll be sitting on the private beach of one of the ritziest golf communities in Florida.” Harbour View or Vista or something like that. Harbour with a u of course, and a gated entrance even more pretentious than the name.

  Gated, alarmed, rent-a-copped. Drop-ins at the office were one thing, but I’ve never been keen on clients—or anyone else—showing up at my house. “And I won’t be back,” I added in my best Ahnuld imitation.

  A small crease appeared between Lauren’s brows. A big reaction, if you knew her. I took off the glasses, prepared to launch into my sun, beach, and golf riff. None of these things actually mattered to me, but the explanation had satisfied everyone else.

  Few people ever surprised me like Lauren.

  “So you’re walking away before things are finished,” she said.

  “What do you mean? The practice is all wrapped up. Not that there was much to do. After what happened to Nick, things went into the crapper pretty fast.”

  When my partner got shot in our parking garage, the local news feasted on it for a week. There was a lot of speculation—fueled by an anonymous source—that it was a mob hit. That was enough to scare off old clients and keep away new ones. I regarded Lauren. And with my other reason to stay in Seattle leaving too…

  “I’m not talking about your accounting firm,” she said.

  I looked at my watch, no longer giving a damn what she thought of it. “Aren’t you supposed to be at Galletti’s roast?”

  Lauren tossed back her prodigal curls. Usually she wore her hair in a ponytail. I decided I preferred it loose around her face.

  “I want to arrive late.” Her tone turned coy. “Besides, don’t you want to hear why I came to Seattle?”

  It was impossible to stay annoyed with her. Besides, this could be our last evening together before I left. “Go ahead.”

  “Ever play Monopoly when you were a kid?”

  You could get whiplash trying to follow her train of thought. “Sure.”

  “Did you know it’s the only game where going to jail is an accepted risk?”

  I put on an Uncle Sam scowl and pointed at her. “Do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars.”

  Her eyes sparkled. “I used to really rub it in when my brother pulled that card. Sometimes I made him so mad, he’d kick me out of the game.”

  You’re still pissing off the other players, Lauren. “All I cared about was collecting rent,” I said.

  “Spoken like a true accountant. So, Tommy, did Monopoly make us what we are today?”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what she was getting at, so I sipped my whiskey and stayed quiet. The rain increased its patter on the windows. It sounded impatient, like a dealer’s fingers drumming on the felt.

  Lauren broke the silence. “Private placement offerings put together by Merrill Bache—coal-mining deals. That’s what brought me here.”

  She was talking about PPOs. If the investment banks won’t touch you, they’re a way to raise capital without jumping through too many government hoops. Lawyers and accountants vet you and your numbers, then brokers sell the deal to “accredited” investors, rich people who’ve been around the financial block a few times.

  I always thought private placements were small-time. Give me a REIT any day. You pool investor funds to buy commercial rental properties or mortgages—that’s serious money.

  “I don’t remember hearing anything about coal.”

  Since meeting Lauren, I’d made a point of keeping up with local financial and legal news. The deals must have gone down before I moved to Seattle.

  “It was a pretty standard fraud. The geology was faked—there wasn’t any coal. The investors got stuck with worthless holes in the ground.”

  I shrugged. “So a few of the privileged class spent the summer at their lawyers’ offices instead of the beach.”

  “Not so privileged,” Lauren said, her voice like ice. “The brokers sold units to anyone who walked in the door, even if they weren’t accredited. Retirement savings, college funds, cushions against medical emergencies—they took in millions, tens of millions.”

  Although we’d never talked about it, I sensed that Lauren took investors’ losses personally. I wondered if there was private history.

  “The money was gone, of course.” I tried to sound sympathetic.

  “I followed the funds through three banks before the trail went cold. As usual, nothing was left stateside. Rich crooks don’t need walking-around money.”

  “Promoter disappear, too?”

  “As soon as the deal went south, he followed it.”

  I swirled the scotch in my glass. “So you were left with the professionals. I assume you picked the obvious target.”

  She nodded. “The brokers who peddled the deal. You know how I hate white-collar types who think the rules don’t apply to them. When these guys tried to play games during discovery, it really ticked me off. I wasn’t going to settle for a fine after that. I wanted them in prison.”

  “Any defense?”

  “The usual.” Her voice became singsong. “Each investor received documents describing the risks, the brokers had no way to know the attorneys hadn’t done the due diligence or that the
accountants had inflated the numbers, it wasn’t their fault unqualified investors bought into the deal, blah blah blah blah.”

  “Did the jury buy any of it?”

  “Not after it took the head broker a full five minutes to locate where the lawyers had buried the risk disclosures in the offering memorandum. The print was so small, he couldn’t read it without borrowing the judge’s glasses. Meanwhile, the projected returns were smack-dab in the middle of the first page, in typeface as big as the top line on an eye chart.”

  “I take it you won.”

  “Don’t I always?”

  That had been true for as long as I’d known her. Lauren was a real buccaneer. She tried cases other prosecutors would have passed on, and she was willing to do whatever it took to win, even if it meant sailing to the edge of legal boundaries, or beyond. I get the message, Lauren.

  I took a long pull from my tumbler. “A criminal conviction makes a civil suit practically a slam-dunk. I bet some class-action attorney had a complaint on file the same day your jury came back.” I could feel my neck getting red.

  She plucked at a thread on her dress and looked bored. “Probably.”

  “What did the investors finally end up with? Ninety, ninety-five cents on the dollar?” I heard the edge in my voice, so I gulped some of my drink. I had to choke back a cough as the whiskey scorched my throat.

  Lauren hitched up her dress so she could cross her legs. “A little more than a hundred, actually. The jury was generous with punitive damages.”

  I forced myself to look away from her slender ankles. “I bet you went after the attorneys and accountants, too.” I set the tumbler down hard on my desk. Amber liquid sloshed over my hand.

  “The law allows—”

  “To hell with the law! The investors got back more than they put up. And they’re no less greedy than the professionals you’re so hot to put in prison. Most people wouldn’t go near these deals if they didn’t think they’d get a big tax write-off, plus beat the market. Why not be reasonable? Dial it back after things are more or less even again, go after real bad guys.”