Wearing the Spider (A Suspense Novel) (Legal Thriller) (Thriller)

by Schaab, Susan

  Dear Adinaldo—Your email was received by Evelyn Sullivan of Howard, Rolland & Stewart instead of your intended party. You may want to try re-sending it to its rightful recipient.

  She had a thought. She right-clicked on the sender’s email address. ARafael@gchqt.br. A Brazilian extension to the domain. I wonder … she retrieved the Dallas expense report from Helen’s desk and looked at the international country code listed by the international telephone numbers on the telephone call list—55. They were all from the same country, but with several different city codes. She dialed 00 for the international operator and asked for Brazil’s country code.

  “Dial 011 55, the city code and the number you are trying to reach.”

  “What city would be associated with the city code 21?”

  “That’s Rio de Janeiro.”

  “Thank you.” Evie again looked down at the expense report’s attachment. The country code matched. These calls were communications with someone in Brazil. According to this hotel document, she had made and received telephone calls to several Brazilian telephone numbers. And now someone named Adinaldo was sending her email from a location in Brazil. And she had just overheard Alan saying something about her in a Latin-ish language. It could easily have been Portuguese. Her blood ran cold.

  On impulse, Evie rose from her chair and walked out into the hallway. She walked around the east end of the building past Alan’s office. It was dark. Only a couple of offices appeared to be occupied at this hour, but with doors closed, the hallway was vacant and quiet.

  She arrived at Conference Room C. When she got to the door, she looked around and confirmed to herself that no one was around. She walked into the small conference room. I’m just going to check. She opened the door to the kitchen and confirmed that it was empty. Then she approached the conference room telephone. She knew that it had a memory feature and retained telephone numbers that had been dialed from its base. It was a last-in-last-out technology that stored only the five most recently dialed numbers. She pressed the buttons to cycle through the five currently stored. There were two New York numbers, a number that she thought might be a Philadelphia area code and then an international number.

  A Brazilian number! She had no proof that the telephone call Alan had conducted earlier from this room was that specific call, but what were the odds that the call was unrelated to the email she had just received?

  The firm’s practice was international, but before now she had not heard of any South American clients. Alan had never mentioned a Brazilian matter to her. He was certainly capable of extreme disorganization and even calculated mischief. It was very possible that he could have planned to involve her in a matter and then neglected to tell her. If that was the case and he had made that call, why would he not mention anything about it to her after having just completed a discussion about it? She struggled with that thought as she walked to the subway with the Sangerson file in her briefcase. She was so distracted, she almost missed her stop.

  Once home, Evie settled into her favorite upholstered chair with a glass of wine and closed her eyes. Rosemary Clooney sang More Than You Know from a docked iPod.

  All her protective instincts were now on full alert, but she couldn’t organize her thoughts. Could this have anything to do with her rejection of Alan’s overtures toward her last November in Chicago? Was this some sort of retaliation even after she made it clear she would not pursue any redress within the firm? They had agreed to forget it. Why would he set her up now when she had in effect given him a break? Am I handling this all wrong? Am I handling this at all? A knock on her door interrupted her deliberation.

  Ralph entered the room in a steel-colored Armani windowpane suit with a crisp white shirt and his signature tie that looked like a Picasso painting. His wavy hair was brushed back and forced into obedience by a shiny gel. His blue-green eyes sparkled and he seemed to be smiling with his entire body.

  “You’re looking at a courtroom conqueror,” he said carrying something behind his back. Evie returned the smile and pretended not to notice, playing into his unfolding melodrama.

  “Not to dull your sword, but you look like you just walked off a runway during fashion week.” Evie kissed his cheek. “Want a drink?”

  “Love one. You’re looking a little dodgy, but I intend to cheer you up.”

  “I’m afraid you’ve caught me at a moment of self reproach.” She walked to the kitchen to mix the drink for him.

  Ralph stood just outside its swinging door and as she came through, he presented her with a four-color bouquet of tulips. She stopped and gasped, holding his gin and tonic.

  “I don’t know what I did to have a neighbor like you.” She traded the drink for the flowers and managed a half-baked smile. Evie turned and again pushed open the door, bouquet in hand.

  “The second bouquet of flowers from you in a week,” Evie spoke over her shoulder as she walked, her words riding the arcs of the rocking door. “Do you know something I don’t know?”

  “What do you mean, second?” he said in a distracted voice. In surveying the state of her apartment, Ralph failed to notice that his question was unheard, falling against the door, now at rest in a closed position. Evie’s briefcase lay open with papers spilling onto the floor, an assortment of unopened mail littered a table and a wrinkled suit jacket seemed to have been tossed in a dispirited heap on a chair.

  Evie selected a thin fluted vase from a kitchen cabinet, filled it with water, and returned to the living room. She began detaching each stem for submersion. Ralph took a sip of the gin and tonic and scowled. “You never could mix a proper drink.” He put down the glass and grinned at her.

  “You look knackered. Law firm fatigue?” he asked.

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “Hey, didn’t you tell me your firm does work for Senator Arbeson?

  “Yeah, some.”

  “I heard a rumor about him today. I think the feds are going to investigate that blighter on a backhander charge.”

  “A what?”

  “Bribery. Word is he was caught bang to rights.”

  “Oh wow, really? Are you sure?”

  “A bloke in the U.S. Attorney’s office told me. Usually a fairly straight-up source.”

  “Hmmm. The good Senator has been dominating the news lately, hasn’t he?”

  “I also heard that his wife is planning to chat up the talk show circuit. Now that will be interesting. Whoever’s representing him should pay close attention.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t be handling that. We don’t do white collar defense.”

  “But you’ve done some work for him, haven’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “I’d stay clear of him, if you can. Never know what bloody mess they’ll be creating out of his life. And that fiery South American wife will look to cause him any sort of trouble she can. Could drag in any part of his dealings. And shag a few of his attorneys to generate some investigative pressure.”

  “Yes, well, I’m sure he’d scream attorney-client privilege in every language he knows.” As she answered, Evie simultaneously remembered reading about Senator Arbeson’s dramatic delivery of campaign speeches in Portuguese to encourage joint business development between certain New York industry leaders and those of South American countries. Is there a Brazil connection? Is this Adinaldo who emailed me somehow associated with the Senator or his wife? Could Senator Arbeson have something to do with Alan’s paper trail? Her mind flashed on the cordial ambience when she’d entered the conference room on Tuesday morning. She struggled to remember that last bit of their conversation she’d overheard, but it was lost to her memory. Her imagination began to conjure up a scary scenario.

  “Evie, sweetheart. Are you listening to me?”

  “Sorry, yes. I’m listening.” She shook off the thought and studied Ralph’s expression for more information. “Do you know any more about what the investigation might consist of?” she asked.

  “No, but I’ll chat up my
source for you. C’mon. Let’s go get a real drink. I’m spittin’ feathers.”

  “Oh Ralph. I’d love to, but I’m tired and I wouldn’t be able to keep up with your celebratory mood tonight. My turn to buy dinner tomorrow night. I promise to be a more lively companion then.”

  After Ralph left, Evie fluffed a few pillows on her bed, nestled in and flipped through New York Magazine in an effort to induce sleep. Reading the Intelligencer, her eye fell on a photograph of Senator Arbeson taken at a recent fundraising dinner. He was seated with his arm around a woman whose face caused her to take a bewildered second look. The woman looked almost like a mirror image of her. She studied the photo more closely, but the caption failed to identify the Senator’s companion by name.

  On impulse, she decided to cut out the photo and she opened her bedside drawer in search of a pair of scissors she kept there. Sorting through the drawer, she stumbled on a man’s gold cufflink. It had been years since a man had spent the night in her bedroom and she had no memory of this particular item, but she decided it must be leftover from her days with Julien, her last relationship of any depth. Still preoccupied with her look-alike, she returned the cufflink and located the scissors. She cut out the quarter page, slipped it under the base of her bedside lamp and hit the off switch. Sleep came, but it was not restful. When she woke the next morning with a jolt, her sheets were wet with perspiration and her lungs felt heavy, as if she’d been struggling to breathe through an asthmatic slumber.

  6

  Evie arrived at the office at seven o’clock a.m. and logged onto the shared network where the firm’s active files for current clients were stored. She had decided that it wouldn’t hurt to check around in the generally available portion of the firm’s server, avoiding any electronic avenue that would capture her user name and draw attention to her inquiry. She would limit herself to viewing the system-stored documents, searching for any files created within the prior six months under the client name “Gerais Chevas.”

  That was the company name in the signature line of the email from Adinaldo—Adinaldo from Brazil. She had to find out if it was a firm client. Her office door swung open abruptly, startling her. It was a relief to see Jenna enter, carrying white bakery bags and balancing a cup of amaretto coffee on a cardboard file. She carefully cleared off a space on Evie’s desk and arranged the breakfast in the opening.

  “Hey,” replied Evie, “please go close the door.” Evie looked at the paper bags. “Cinnamon muffin?”

  Jenna nodded and obediently closed the door to Evie’s office. She brushed some imaginary street dust off her jacket and walked over to a side table where she noisily emptied the contents of her purse, apparently looking for something. “You would not believe what I just went through,” she began. “I just spent an agonizing twenty minutes waiting in line at the pharmacy while this woman had a meltdown over a refusal to re-fill her Wellvex prescription. Obvious addict. Then, this guy next to me painstakingly read every label on every brand of condoms at the checkout. He kept bumping into me to reach for each one and looked to see if I noticed him. Who in the hell needs condoms at eight o’clock in the morning?”

  “Maybe he was trying to send you some sort of message,” Evie laughed.

  “Well, I hope he got mine. I finally tripped him.”

  “I would think that a woman who had paid her way through law school selling her eggs would be a bit less disturbed by such things.”

  “Hey, that was free enterprise at work, babe. A woman should be entitled to exploit the few advantages she has over men in this disgustingly male-dominated marketplace. And hey, I’m still selling’em. I get this sort of male-inspired thrill spreading my seed around. I think I’m addicted to the fertility drugs they give you to increase egg production. And anyway, it has supplemented my income quite nicely, thank-you-very-much,” said Jenna as she dumped sugar from a packet into her coffee.

  “Speaking of addiction. I read about Wellvex. There’ve been calls for the FDA to pull it off the market. It’s been blamed for some nasty side effects.”

  “That’s not one of Finley Regent’s is it?”

  “No. Thank God.”

  Evie and Jenna’s friendship had preceded their present co-employment by at least ten years. The two women had met in a coffeehouse in Boston while pursuing law degrees at separate universities. Jenna, who attended Boston University, had been perfectly comfortable living in a dangerous part of town in a boarding house known to harbor drug dealers. It was all part of embracing life, she had explained. Jenna became adept at dressing to blend in with the neighborhood, wearing torn jeans and army-issue jackets. Evie attended Harvard in Cambridge and had chosen to live on-campus to save money, but often felt the need to escape to surrounding environs. She admired Jenna’s passion, and had once described her as capable of donning a tattered tenth-generation vinyl raincoat acquired at a Brooklyn garage sale while acting as if she was wearing a black mink from Saks Fifth Avenue.

  As she stirred her coffee, Jenna glanced around Evie’s office.

  “Whatever happened to that picture of Julien?”

  “I took it home and put it in a shoebox under my bed.”

  “Well, that’ll teach him.”

  “It’s over.”

  “Yeah, but you keep that picture of Mireille on your desk,” said Jenna as she picked up the small framed photo on Evie’s desk, took a glance and returned it to its resting place.

  “Well, I guess I formed a relationship with Mireille that survived the breakup with her dad.” She paused. “You know, I found a gold cufflink in my drawer last night that I think must’ve been his. Should I return it?”

  “Forget it. Have it melted down and sell it.”

  Jenna ignored Evie’s scowl and walked to the window. She opened the blind and the sun lit up her face.

  “Isn’t there anything else you’d like to talk about this morning?” asked Evie. “Any more news on Gooseneck?”

  “No, they’re still posturing. I told Hanover about what I found in the final contract and he’s looking into it.”

  “Did you find out which associate worked on it?”

  “No, but you said that Alan corrected his records, right?”

  “He told me he did.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe him.”

  “Well, I’m not so sure I do.”

  “Okay, different subject,” Jenna finished the last sip of coffee and crushed the cup. “I finally convinced Stephan to go back to Louisiana and settle things with his old girlfriend.”

  “That’s great. I know you’ll be in a much better place with him when he comes back.”

  “If he comes back.”

  “You know he will.”

  In Evie’s view, Jenna was and would always be one of those naturally persuasive people who manages to coax everything and everybody into doing her bidding. Even her own reproductive system.

  “Speaking of ambiguous male behavior.” Evie turned from her computer and faced Jenna directly. “Can you keep a secret?”

  Her eyes locked on Jenna’s.

  “Well, now that’s a suspense-builder,” said Jenna. “What’s up?”

  “I think I uncovered something yesterday, but I’m not sure.”

  “Is this a confession or what?”

  “No seriously, I think Alan is … I think he may be setting me up.”

  “Tell me.” Jenna’s expression registered concern. “What happened?”

  “Accounting sent back an expense report for a hotel bill. It attributed to me some number of international telephone calls to and from Brazil that I never made.” Jenna wore a puzzled ambivalent look as if she was thinking “what does this have to do with Alan?”

  Evie continued. “After that, I was at the coffee machine around eight last night. Someone was in the conference room next door. I know it was Alan. I think he was speaking with someone from Brazil. He was talking about something involving a paper trail and the deal taking shape. And something about somebody
acting alone. He mentioned my name and then he said ‘won’t be a problem.’”

  Evie looked directly at Jenna, but ignored the premature verdict apparent on her face, continuing her story. “And then, I noticed this email in my inbox. It was from somebody with a Brazilian domain name extension. The author of that email told me to proceed with some deal. I have no idea who he is or what he was talking about.”

  “Wait! Assuming it was Alan you overheard, how do you know he was talking to someone in Brazil?” Jenna sat on the desk and leaned forward. “Are you sure you’re not imagining things because he’s such a prick?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I checked the telephone memory. He was calling from the conference room phone. Next to the kitchen.”

  “EVIE! My God! Are you sneaking around keeping notes on him? I thought things were resolved between the two of you. I really think that Gooseneck thing was just a record-keeping mistake. What’s gotten into you? Have you become completely paranoid?”

  “I heard him. He said something about … that something or somebody wouldn’t be a problem and then … he said something in Spanish or some Spanish-like language. He was keeping his voice down. And, I had this odd feeling. You know. When you get an uneasy feeling that something just isn’t right.”

  “Oh. Okay, so maybe Alan selected you as the preferred associate to work on a new deal. Maybe you were being singled out as an associate who has the talent to salvage a deal gone bad. Maybe he thinks you can handle it alone. That it wouldn’t be a problem for you. That’s a compliment. Maybe he was talking about the paper trail you would need to get up to speed on the deal. Maybe he just hasn’t gotten around to briefing you on it yet.”

  “Well, but then why was he calling from the conference room telephone?” She shook her head and squinted. “Okay, Jen, maybe you’re right, but isn’t it coincidental? I mean … the firm … it’s not like the firm has a roster of Brazilian clients. It’s just … Oh God, maybe I’ve really lost my mind.” Evie rubbed her eyes. “Maybe it’s just like Julien said. Maybe I am imagining things that aren’t there. I just have this feeling. Maybe I’m working too hard.”