“How do you know what’s on his bills? I thought this guy was working for the relatives. Who’s representing you?” She paused as an elevator opened before them. “You said you had a Denver attorney who was meeting us here.”
“No, I said he was already here. Gil Doucette is the attorney for the estate. I’m the P/R for the estate. I thought that meant he was my attorney, but apparently not.”
When the elevator doors began to close, Danny pried them open and punched the nine button as they got in. After a short, silent ride, they debarked on the ninth floor and entered posh offices with dark blue carpet and oak paneling. Heidi, the receptionist, eyed them suspiciously, despite the fact that Danny had been a regular in the office for at least six weeks.
“I’ll tell Gil you’re here.” Heidi disappeared into the inner sanctum.
As they stood waiting for Gil, Danny was relieved to see that Rae’s face was calm now. If she felt out of place in her boots and jeans, her expression didn’t show it. He looked down the hall for Gil, wondering if he was going to punish their tardiness by making them wait.
“Oops,” said Rae softly. As Danny looked back in her direction, he saw that a small hunk of horse shit had left her boot for the plush of the carpet.
Shortly afterward, Heidi transferred Rae and Danny to a conference room, where they sat and admired the rows of legal tomes in their floor-to-ceiling oak shelves. They declined to talk about the matter at hand in this setting as if in unspoken agreement. Danny wondered if Rae had begun to absorb his paranoia.
Finally his lawyer appeared. Gil Doucette was short, round and shiny on the top of his head, where he had started balding at an early age. Danny knew this because he and Gil went back a ways. Not as friends. Gil had dated his sister Wendy. She dumped him. Unfortunately, that memory hadn’t surfaced until after Danny had retained Gil.
Gil’s pear-shaped paralegal, Hannah Davidson, followed him into the room, and Danny introduced them to Rae.
Danny watched a pissed expression play across Rae’s face as both Gil and Hannah barely acknowledged her before taking their seats. He was sure that Gil had instructed Hannah to check out the CPA he was bringing on board. Hannah, paragon of efficiency that she was, would have briefed him on Rachel Esposito’s credentials, which were impeccable. Danny would have bet his life on that. Did the cold shoulder mean his timing was right on?
“Well,” said Gil, “I think what I have to say to you might best be said in private.” He gave Danny one of his superior glances.
“You knew Rae was coming to this meeting.” Rae’s presence was giving Danny some needed confidence. “And I want her copied in on everything from now on.”
“Everything?” Hannah was taking notes like mad and nobody had really said anything yet.
“Everything. Starting with Dee’s tax returns. Has the IRS gotten back to you?” Danny asked.
“No records of any returns for the past three years.”
“Oh, great,” muttered Rae. “Now you’ve alerted them that they may have a non-filer. Let the liens begin.”
Gil and Hannah exchanged annoyed glances.
“Fine,” said Gil. “Let Ms. Esposito tackle the returns and good luck.” He didn’t bother to hide his sarcasm. “The heirs are not happy with you, Danny.”
“That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“You have not liquidated a single property.”
“They’re not ready for sale. They were all trashed.”
“They're still trashed. When are you going to do something about that? The other heirs feel that you’re dragging your feet.”
“What am I supposed to do for money?”
Gil nearly came out of his chair. “Come on, Danny. “We know--”
“Just a minute, here...Gil.” Rae interrupted. “Why are you speaking for the other heirs? Danny’s stepchildren--who represents them? Do you have any written demands Danny should be looking at?”
Gil’s complexion was fast approaching purple, while Hannah’s thin lips drew to a fine line.
“I don’t think this is an accounting matter, Ms. Esposito. Not your concern.”
“Oh, yes it is,” Danny interjected.
Gil glared at him and then at Rae, before replying, “Stan hasn’t put anything in writing. Our discussions have been...informal. But the heirs want you out. You haven't kept your promise.”
A sound escaped Rae’s lips. Like she’d choked on a rat. “And who is Stan?” she asked when she’d swallowed.
“Stan Eisley,” Danny offered. “He’s been Dee’s family’s attorney since before she was born.”
“Eisley, as in Rosencraft, Stern and Eisley?” Rae’s eyes grew large and olive green, bulging ominously. “And you’re billing for your consultations with Stan, no doubt?”
Gil looked beyond pissed as he turned to ever-helpful Hannah. “Perhaps Ms. Esposito would care for a soft drink in the employees’ lounge.”
Before Hannah could act on this, Rae was at him again. “Anybody at this table ever hear the term >conflict of interest’?”
“Ms. Esposito,” Gil spit her name out as if he was getting rid of a bad taste. “I happen to know you are not licensed to practice law. Is that what you’re attempting to do here? Give Mr. Lassiter legal advice?”
“Not in the least. I’m just expressing some words of good, old-fashioned common sense.”
Gil rose from his seat. As if on strings, Hannah followed. “Danny, I can’t work with this woman. If you don’t want to use Sam Garvin for the tax work, I can recommend someone else. But she goes or I do.”
Rae looked at Danny, not angrily, but like she was expecting more of him than he might have. Get some balls, Danny. She didn’t have to say it.
As he stood up, they were there when he needed them along with the rush that goes along with seeing a plan come together. “See you around, Gil. And I’d like to have your resignation in writing, if you don’t mind.”
In the doorway, Rae turned back. “Copies of everything in the estate files. Within ten days. Or your replacement will be all over you.”
When they hit the street, Rae asked, “Why didn’t you call Sandy Robinson in the first place?”
“I owe him money.” Danny avoided her glance. “I was too embarrassed.”
“You owe me money, too. That didn’t stop you.”
“But, you’re easy.”
“Don’t count on it,” snapped Rae. She nearly pushed him off the curb
Rae let Danny talk her into lunch at Rafferty’s, a light, airy spot on Sixteenth Street. They sat on bar stools at a round glass table by a floor-to-ceiling window that looked out on the mall.
Danny fiddled with the straw in his herbal iced tea as Rae nursed iced coffee, eyed the hanging plants, and appraised the ambience.
What was he thinking when he hired Gil? Rae’s stomach was still knotted from her exchange with the estate’s attorney. Former attorney, she corrected herself. She took a deep breath, sipped coffee and asked, “Didn’t you know at the time you hired him that Gil’s firm represented your wife’s family?”
“Sure I knew, but so what? They weren’t after my hide then.” He grabbed a menu and began to study it--another avoidance technique Rae had come to know over the years.
Rae tapped her own menu with an index finger as she sought a tactful way to bring Danny back to the table, so to speak, without hauling him by the scruff of the neck. “When did it start? The hostility crap,” she asked, keeping her tone in check. Put the damn menu down and talk to me, you little shit. But Danny wasn’t little and he wasn’t a shit--not really. Her mood was just out of whack due to no sleep because of her colicky horse. Get it together, Rae.
“Things went downhill after Dee’s funeral,” Danny mumbled without looking her in the eye.
“And?” It was like trying to load a green colt into a trailer, getting him to take that first step when his feet are planted and his neck stiff as a two-by-four.
Before Rae could prod Danny again their wa
iter approached. “Hey, Danny, long time. Where you been?”
Rae watched Danny paint on a grin and answer brightly, if non-responsively, that he was glad to be back in Denver.
As she eyed the menu for the first time, Rae felt her blood pressure rise a notch. Was Danny prepared for the price of ambience?
“I’ll give you folks a couple of minutes more,” said the waiter as he tactfully retreated.
“The food’s great, Rae,” said Danny, coming out of his funk.
“It’d better be. Question is, can you afford it?”
“Not really. But Dee’s estate can. Admin costs get paid off the top. Even before Uncle.”
“You’re sure a quick study,” said Rae, lightening her tone.
“Gil gave me the crash course, along with his first billing. There wasn’t any cash to be found. No bank accounts. No brokerage accounts. As illiquid as it gets.”
“You’ll have to pull cash out of the real estate,” offered Rae.
“It’s in the works. Or will be now that we’ve gotten rid of Gil.”
Gotten rid of Gil? Rae had the uncomfortable feeling that she’d just discovered her true purpose at the meeting. “I’m not hungry,” she said, eyeing her iced coffee with distaste. It, too, had been overpriced in her opinion.
“Don’t worry,” said Danny. “I’ve still got some plastic left.” He slapped a VISA card down on the table to prove it.
Finally she relented and let Danny talk her into ordering an appetizer--calamari, while he chose a Reuben sandwich.
After their waiter had left for the second time, Rae asked, “What happened after the funeral to set your in-laws off?”
Danny’s brow furrowed as he appeared to dredge the depths of his memory.
Come on. It hasn’t been that long.
“It was at the reception after the service. Josh and I were talking to Beth, my stepdaughter. She’d been staying with her Aunt Morgan since we got back in town. Josh and I just wanted her back with us, like before.”
“When your wife died, her daughter was living with you and Josh?”
He nodded. “Dee was in no shape to take care of herself, let alone a kid.”
“Uh-huh. So you left Dee...alone.”
Rae watched anger shoot into Danny’s eyes. And guilt? “What was I supposed to do? That was my leverage. Get into rehab and we’ll come back.” He gave Rae a pleading look. “What would you have done?”
Rae shook her head. “God’s truth, I have no idea. I can’t imagine...” She paused as another idea hit her. “When you say you wanted Beth back with you and Josh--that would be where?”
“In our home, of course.”
“That...place where I picked you up this morning?”
“Well, yeah. I know it’s ugly, but that doesn’t explain why Morgan just went ballistic, grabbed Beth and took off. People stared at me like I was some kind of perve. Beth had been my daughter for three years. Her mother’s death didn’t change that.”
As the words tumbled out in increasing volume, Rae saw Danny’s eyes well up. She put a hand on his arm, “Danny, that was the house her mother died in. How do you think that would make Beth feel?”
He shrugged as if it had never crossed his mind. “But it had been her home. And it would probably be temporary, until I can liquidate it.”
“Your sister-in-law may have considered this insensitive on your part. I can’t say I wouldn’t have reacted the same.”
“Morgan threw hot coffee at me, made a horrific scene. People looked at me like I was a pariah. Wouldn’t you say that was a bit of an overreaction...on Morgan’s part?”
“Depends.” Rae shrugged, then cocked her head. “Didn’t your wife have a son, too?” she asked as the waiter returned with their order.
“Kevin’s nineteen. A legal adult who does as he fucking pleases,” replied Danny after the waiter had left. “We hardly ever saw him.”
“Sounds like a real winner.” Rae paused, fork in midair. “My God, Danny, where was your brain? Marrying into a mess like that. What was the attraction?”
Under Danny’s gaze, Rae picked at the sautéed squid, instantly regretting her outburst.
Finally Danny replied in a small voice, “We made each other laugh.”
She’d always thought herself possessed of a healthy sense of humor, but...”Laugh?”
“I know. Doesn’t exactly fit the picture. Granted, the humor was usually on the dark side.”
“I can imagine.”
“It kept us going. Let us forget sometimes. About the load of baggage we were both carrying.” Then he smiled wistfully as he added, “And the sex was--”
Rae cut him off with a raised hand. “Danny, that’s more information than I want, if you don’t mind.”
Rae guessed that embarrassment overcame him as Danny began to wolf down his Reuben. As the moment passed, he looked up at her and asked, “How’s your calamari?”
Like rubber. “God’s truth? Not like Grandma’s.”
She caught the hurt feelings as Danny’s eyes burrowed back into the remains of his sandwich. “I’m sorry, Danny. It’s not the food. This’s a great place. I’m still so ticked at those attorneys. Anything I eat right now is going to taste like...rubber bands.”
As she chewed...and chewed, Rae found herself agreeing with Danny. The sister-in-law had overreacted. What wasn’t Danny telling her? Was it maybe because he didn’t know all the answers either?
“What’s with the hurry to get rid of all the properties?” asked Rae after swallowing the last of her misnamed appetizer and biting into a new angle. “If everybody but you is so well-heeled, why rush?”
“Beats me. Maybe that’s where they’ve buried the family skeletons.”
“Let’s get the digging started.”
Rae fished around in her handbag and came up with her cell phone, which she handed across the table to Danny. “Call Sandy.”
The civilian clerk at the information window of the Wheat Ridge Police Department was adamant. “I can’t give you that, Mr. Farris. You’re not a party in interest.”
“Why would I be a suspect? According to you people, there’s been no crime.”
“Suspect?” The clerk hesitated. “Oh, you’ve got it confused with person of interest. Party in interest is someone entitled to the information by law.”
From her cubicle a few feet away, Sergeant Emily Wehr could hear the argument escalating. The clerk could handle the situation, Wehr was sure of that.
“That should apply to me,” snapped the man.
“Not according to CRS 24-72-304.” The clerk definitely knew her job.
“I’m Mrs. Lassiter’s brother-in-law.”
That name got Wehr’s full attention. She moved outside the cubicle and looked beyond the clerk, at the man on the other side of the window.
His face was livid. “She was my wife’s sister, for God’s sake.”
Wehr heard the impatience in the clerk’s voice. “Have your wife come in and fill out a form. Then I’ll see what I can do.”
Bad idea, but the clerk had no way of knowing. Wehr stepped forward. “What’s the problem?”
He was a peacock of a man. Fiftyish, fitting a tad snugly into a fifteen hundred dollar suit. That he showed up at Wheat Ridge P.D. dressed as if for a board meeting pissed Wehr off to start, never mind the rest of it. His hair, a mix of gray and blond, was cut fashionably. Some Cherry Creek barber, no doubt.
“Sergeant Wehr,” said the man, looking at the name tag on her blouse, “I’m Nathan Farris. I’ve requested copies of reports concerning my sister-in-law, Deidre Lassiter. She died recently.”
“I know.” Wheat Ridge wasn’t that big.
“Your department checked on her safety last January. I think you call it a welfare check. You see, there was a man--”
“I know about the incident.” Wehr had done the interview. The adjoining municipalities of Wheat Ridge and Lakewood had played hot potato with this one, neither wanting jurisdiction. Wehr referre
d to the incident, an informed choice of words, since the report no longer existed.
“My wife’s under a doctor’s care. She can’t fill out any paperwork in the near future. Can’t you make an exception and let me have a copy of your report?” The man smiled
ingratiatingly, showing a lot of freshly whitened teeth.
His hands on the counter top, clear polish on manicured nails, turned Wehr’s stomach. “No exceptions. All the information you need can be obtained from the Coroner’s Office.”
It was nearly noon. The sign, visible through the window, read “Closed from Noon to Two P.M.” Wehr slid the window shut, turned her back and walked away.
“What was that all about?” the clerk said when the man had gone.
“Don’t ask.” Wehr returned to her desk. Weeks ago, when the other man had come looking for the Lassiter reports--the geeky old guy with glasses--it had already been too late. The hand-written reports had been scooped up and carried off by a detective she knew who was on loan to the DEA. All because of the references those reports contained to a certain James Joseph Camacho, known on the street as JJ. But Wehr had already transferred the contents to her computer.
“Delete the file.” Her boss’s terse instructions had brought her up short.
Wehr had ten years in with the Department. She intended to retire from this job. “Yes, sir.” Sometimes it was best not to ask why. But her boss must have seen the question in her eyes.
“Sergeant, are you familiar with CRS 24-72-305-5?”
“Something to do with disclosure being contrary to public interest?”
“Don’t sweat it, Wehr. Crack whore got what she deserved.”
Cold, Wehr thought. This had been a human being--a woman with kids, but Wehr had looked the other way, then deleted. Now the Lassiter report didn’t even exist on the computer.
She couldn’t help but wonder about Lakewood. Could Wheat Ridge’s neighboring city be so easily persuaded to make Deidre Lassiter’s tormenter disappear? What might happen if there was an inquiry? Who’d be left holding the bag of blame?
As soon as she’d pressed the delete key, Wehr realized that her eagerness to obey orders and not make waves might cost her. With that thought in mind, Wehr had decided to keep something as an insurance policy for herself--her taped interview of Deidre Lassiter.
Pool of Lies Page 3
