“But you and your little fishing friends did?”
Fred held up his hands. “He gave them to us! Really! We didn’t steal them.”
“Why would he—”
“He knew he was dying. For all he’d been through, he’d never gotten any pleasure out of the millions he stole. He wanted someone to enjoy the fruits of his labors. So he told us where he’d hidden the bonds.” Fred lowered his head. “And then he died.”
“I don’t recall hearing that there were any fisherpersons hanging about the cabin when his body was discovered.”
“No. We lit out of here in a heartbeat—with the merchandise. What was wrong with that? Tony was dead. We couldn’t help him. And if we were found on the scene, the Blaylock boys would undoubtedly have a lot of questions for us. Especially if we suddenly came into a lot of money. And if they found out about the money, they’d try to take it. So we blew town.”
“What did you do with the bonds?”
“Stuck them in a safe-deposit box in Mexico City. Nothing sleazy—a reputable bank. But one that didn’t ask too many questions—like where’d it come from. And one that didn’t check ID.”
“You took the box out under an assumed name?”
“We did. It seemed safer.”
“Who got the keys to the box?”
“We all did. But we left strict instructions that the box could not be opened except in the presence of all of us. That way we could rest assured that the bonds would stay in the box until they could be cashed in.”
Mike took a seat at the thin, wobbly, linoleum-topped table that had probably served as a surface for cleaning fish more often than as a dining table. This was a lot to take in all at once, but he thought he was beginning to get a clearer picture of what had happened—and why. It was a tall tale—but it made a crazy kind of sense.
“Sounds like you thought it all out carefully. Planned well.”
“Yup. Sounds like it, doesn’t it? But the best-laid plans …” He shook his head. “About six months ago, we all got together to recover the bonds. The term wasn’t quite up yet, but Canino thought it might take a while to negotiate them, since they were foreign and all. Lots of procedural hurdles. Papers to be filed. So we all went out to get them. Last December fifteenth.”
Mike thought back. “That was just before your buddy James shot up the law school.”
“You’re quick, aren’t you?”
“I gather the timing isn’t a coincidence.”
“No. Jim was nuts—totally bonkers. But there was definitely a trigger. Something that set him off.”
“Which was?”
Fred drew in his breath. “We all got together and took a little trip down to Mexico. We all went to the bank and opened the box.”
“And?”
“And the bonds were gone. All of them. The Blaylock bonanza had disappeared—again.”
When Ben didn’t answer his apartment door after she’d been pounding on it for more than a minute, Christina had to assume he wanted to be left alone. Unfortunately for him, she had her own key.
She let herself in and marched straight back to his bedroom, where he was sitting up in his pajamas staring at the same page of a Trollope novel he’d been at when she’d dropped by two days ago.
“Excuse me?” Ben said, pulling the covers around him. “What are you doing here?”
“Well, since you haven’t been to the office, I had to come to you.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to take some time off when you’ve been in trial for months.”
“Wah, wah, wah.” She glanced down at his book. “Must be a real page-turner.” She grabbed it away from him and dropped it on the floor.
“Hey! I was reading that.”
She dropped a thin, blue folder in his lap. “Read this instead.”
Ben picked it up and fanned the pages. It was only about ten pages long. It appeared to be some kind of report. “Where did this come from?”
“I don’t know. A courier brought it to our office this morning. From an anonymous sender who paid in cash.”
Ben glanced at the first page. The author’s name wasn’t given, but the distribution list showed who got it—all the top Blaylock brass, including Myron Blaylock himself. And at the bottom of the list—Charlton Colby.
“Why haven’t we seen this before?” he asked.
“I think the last name on the list is the answer to that question. Colby withheld it under a claim of attorney-client privilege.”
“Because his name is on it? He didn’t write it, and it wasn’t written for him.”
“I didn’t say it was a good claim. I’m just trying to explain why we haven’t seen it before.”
“There’s no way they can—”
Christina covered his mouth with her hand. “Ben, just be quiet for a moment and read.”
Ben did as she bid. He wasn’t halfway through the first page before he understood the enormous significance of the report—why Blaylock had wanted it hidden, why Christina had brought it to his immediate attention.
When he hit the bottom of the second page, though, he gasped. Literally gasped. “I can’t believe it,” he said breathlessly. “I mean, I always thought they were responsible for the deaths. But I never in my wildest dreams—”
“Yeah.” Christina nodded appreciatively. “I thought the same thing.”
Ben climbed out of bed. For the first time since the jury had returned, he felt his heart beating again. “I’m going over to see Colby.”
“I already tried to get you an appointment. He refused. So I made you an appointment with Myron Blaylock. He didn’t want to see you, either, but after I read a few choice bits from the report, he changed his mind.” She smiled. “I have a hunch Colby will want to be there for this meeting, too, don’t you?”
“No doubt.” Ben pulled his least-wrinkled shirt out of the closet. “Good work, Christina. Would you excuse me?”
She looked at him blank-faced. “Why?”
He held up his clothes. “I need to get dressed.”
“And?”
“And—you’re in my bedroom!”
“Oh, that’s all right. We’re professionals.”
“Christina!”
“Fine. I’ll wait outside.”
“Thank you so very much.”
She stopped halfway out the door. “Did I tell you how cute your pj’s are? I’ve never seen the ones with candy canes and little teddy bears before.”
“Christina!”
“I’m going, I’m going.”
Chapter 46
MIKE DIDN’t KNOW HOW long he’d been sitting in this fishing cabin listening to Fred tell his story. Time seemed irrelevant now. This bizarre tale of greed and deception was positively addicting.
“Someone had stolen the bonds?”
“So it seemed. As you can imagine, our friendship deteriorated somewhat in the aftermath. Accusations were made. Names were called. Canino and James got into a fistfight. James was really over the edge. He’d never been the most stable person—mentally, I mean. And to make matters worse, he was drinking too much, he’d just lost his job, and his wife had left him. He was counting on this money to put his life back in order. And it was gone.”
“That’s why he went ballistic at the law school, isn’t it?”
Fred nodded. “By that time, he was totally psychotic. Crazed. Didn’t even realize that Canino wasn’t teaching the class, at least not at first. All he knew was that he wanted the merchandise. That was the codeword we had developed for the bonds during the years we waited for the term to run. We had all kinds of cloak-and-dagger nonsense we invented, just so we could talk about it without talking about it.”
“Why did James think The Tiger had the money?”
“I don’t know. Shortly after we found the bonds, Canino left Blaylock Legal and started teaching. Developed quite a rep for himself. I think maybe James resented that; it only reminded him of his own failures. And in his addled, booze-soaked brai
n—”
“He decided to go after The Tiger.”
“Yeah. Except The Tiger wasn’t there that day. He got some other schmuck instead.”
“That schmuck is my friend. And he almost got himself killed.”
“I don’t know why Canino wasn’t there. I haven’t seen him since that day.”
“I have,” Mike said somberly. “He’s dead.”
Fred nodded. “I figured as much. Hell, they’re all dead, now. All but me. And him.”
Mike peered at Fred with a sharp and steady eye. “You stole those bonds, didn’t you, Fred?”
He didn’t deny it. “Bribed a bank official, just as Tony had years before. Easy to bribe people when you’re about to become a multimillionaire. Cleaned me out, though. Left me with no way to run. No means of—escape.” He threw his head down. “Damn that accursed money, anyway. I wish I’d never taken it.”
“Most people would be tempted.”
“I was a fool. What the hell good is it? All that money ever did for Tony Montague was ruin his life and get him killed. And now the same thing’s going to happen to me.”
“Fred, when do the bonds come due? When can they be cashed in?”
Fred did not smile. “Tomorrow. If I live that long.”
The moment Ben and Christina hit the front door of Blaylock headquarters in Blackwood, they were met by two burly security officers who detained them and forcibly confiscated Ben’s briefcase—including the blue report inside.
Ben wasn’t especially surprised.
The security officers were gruff and threatening and went through most of the permutations of a good cop/bad cop routine. They frisked them, barked into their walkie-talkies, played with their weapons, talked about calling the police. Ben and Christina sat through it quietly. When the show was finally over, the guards escorted them up the elevator to Myron Blaylock’s private office.
Colby was waiting inside. “Kincaid, I always thought you were a lousy lawyer, but I never thought you were a criminal. Until now. Rest assured we plan to prosecute you to the full extent of the law.” Ben yawned. “I haven’t committed a crime.”
“You have stolen a confidential document from these offices.”
“No. It was delivered to me.”
“Then you are in receipt of stolen property. Also a crime.”
“It’s just paper. It has no intrinsic value.”
“It contains confidential trade secrets of incalculable value.”
“Bull. It contains dirty little secrets that you want kept under wraps.” Colby stiffened. “I warn you, Kincaid. If you try to exonerate yourself from your crime by making libelous accusations about me or this company, the law will come down on you hard.”
Ben looked Colby straight in the eye. “There’s no audience in the room, Charlton, so let’s put an end to this charade right now. You two boys have gotten caught with your pants down, and now you’re going to pay the price.” Ben marched into the office, with Colby close behind.
“That so-called report is a pack of lies,” Myron Blaylock said, behind his desk. His knobbly hands were trembling slightly. “Not a word of it is true.”
“Then why didn’t you produce it during the discovery period when you were supposed to?”
“It wasn’t relevant,” Blaylock sniffed. “Since none of it is true.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Wonderful. Colby, may I please be in the courtroom when you make that argument to the judge? Please?”
“There’s no need for sarcasm, Kincaid.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. I sat in the same room while you promised the magistrate you would produce all Blaylock’s internal studies. You didn’t do it. You lied to a federal magistrate.”
“I believed the report fell under the protection of the attorney-client privilege. I still do.”
“That’s a load of crap and we both know it. This document has nothing to do with the giving or receiving of legal advice. You just had your name stuck on it to create a feeble basis for withholding it.”
“That is not true.”
“Then why didn’t you submit the document to the magistrate in camera, like I suggested at the hearing? Let the magistrate decide if it was privileged or not.
Colby had no answer, so he changed the subject. “You don’t know whether that report has the least grain of truth in—”
“Like hell I don’t. It’s all true. I know it is, because the proof is right there in the report, which by the way I made dozens of copies of before I came here. Your man documented his work to a fault.”
“He was an unstable person,” Blaylock said.
“He was your own employee. Your own corporate lawyer. He spent more than a year researching the alleged funny taste the water in Well B had acquired. And he came to the same conclusion I did. He found that TCE and perc from this plant had contaminated the groundwater, which flowed via the ravine into the aquifer that feeds Well B. He even noted that TCE and perc were dangerous and could lead to serious illnesses.” Ben drew in his breath. “And he did it four years before I ever heard of this case!”
Blaylock folded his arms, his hands still fluttering. “He was a lunatic. Irrational. We fired him shortly after he filed the report.”
“Killed the messenger, huh? Very logical.” Ben leaned across Blaylock’s desk. “You knew! You knew all along! You knew you were responsible for those kids" deaths—and you did nothing.”
“That’s not true,” Blaylock said. His nervous twitching was increasing. “We tightened up our waste-disposal procedures. Increased the budget for removals.”
“But you didn’t tell anyone. And you didn’t remove the buried drums that were polluting the groundwater.”
“How could we? If we let this get out, shysters like you would be crawling all over us, filing a lawsuit every time some kid gets a hangnail.”
“You might’ve saved lives!” Ben’s voice reverberated across the room. “Most of my clients lost their children in the last four years.”
“The harm was already done. I knew it was just a matter of time before the EPA would become involved.”
“So you kept your mouth shut. Took no responsibility for your actions.”
“I still remain unconvinced that any contamination that might have occurred resulted in those leukemias.”
“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, Blaylock. You don’t believe it any more than I do.” Ben leaned forward. “You killed those kids. You killed them because you wanted to save money, and you kept quiet about it because you wanted to save money.” He whirled around and faced Colby. “And you helped him cover it up. Because you wanted some of his money.”
Blaylock fell silent. He steepled his fingers, as if deep in thought. “What do you want?” he asked finally.
“Myron!” Colby said. “Don’t give him—”
“Shut up, Charlton. Can’t you see that it’s over?” He turned his attention back to Ben. “What do you want?”
“You know damn well what I want.”
He pursed his lips. “How much?”
“I will accept, as part of a settlement agreement and in return for our agreement to forgo an appeal, the amount which the jury determined the plaintiffs were entitled to receive.”
Blaylock’s eyes bugged. “Twenty-five million? You must be joking.”
“I’ve never been more serious in my life. That’s what a fair and impartial jury said we deserved, before Colby’s buddy yanked the case away from them. So that’s what we’ll accept.”
“I will not pay it.”
“Fine. Then I’ll proceed with my appeal—which will be based upon the defendant’s unlawful withholding of a key piece of incriminating evidence during discovery. Of course, by the time my brief is filed, the judges will probably have read all about it in the newspaper.”
Blaylock opened his bottom desk drawer and withdrew a large ledger-sized checkbook. “Fifteen million.”
Ben shook his head. “Twenty-five.”
“Twenty.
That’s as high as I go.”
“Twenty-five. Or I file my appeal. Today.”
Blaylock’s teeth clenched. He put his pen to paper. “We’ll structure it to be paid out over ten years, one point two five each six months. This will be the first installment. I’ll postdate the check; it will have to be ratified by the board of directors. Funds will have to be transferred.”
“I’m in no hurry. I’ll give you forty-eight hours.”
Blaylock ripped the check out of the book. Colby intervened. “In exchange for this settlement payment, I will require you to return all copies of the report and to agree that you will make no mention of it or disseminate it to any third persons.”
“No.”
“Excuse me?”
“No.” Ben didn’t blink. “I won’t sit on the report.”
“You have no choice. Listen to me, Kincaid—this is a deal-breaker. We must have a confidentiality agreement.”
“I won’t do it. I won’t help you cover up your dirty secret. But I will forgo pursuing criminal charges or filing a bar complaint based upon your conspiracy to withhold subpoenaed documents, which might keep you, Charlton, from losing your bar license, and you, Myron, from going to prison.”
Colby was incensed. “What is this, blackmail?”
“No,” Ben replied. “This is justice. Now give me my check.”
Blaylock wordlessly passed the check across his desk.
“Thank you. Let’s go, Christina.” Ben paused by the door. “May I make one recommendation? Draft up some formal statement of apology and regret. When word of this report hits, you two are going to be about the least popular men in the state. A lot of people will be accusing you, calling you names, asking uncomfortable questions.” He paused. “And there are eleven families who will never forgive you.”
Chapter 47
FUNNY HOW YOU COULD go almost five years avoiding the cops, and then when the one who tracks you down finally leaves, you miss him. Life will have its little ironies, won’t it?
Fred pulled back the tattered drapes and peered out the window. It was not quite half an hour since Lieutenant Morelli had left the fishing cabin. He’d gotten a message from headquarters on his cell phone telling him there’d been another murder, so he went to the local PD to see what he could find out about it. Don’t worry, he’d said—if the killer’s in Oklahoma, then he isn’t here.
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