Sasha McCandless 03 - Irretrievably Broken

by Melissa F. Miller

  “Hello, five little monkeys,” Sasha said, reaching to tickle five bellies.

  Ryan and her dad stayed in the yard and gave the football a few last throws. Even at sixty-four, her dad’s arm could still send a bullet whizzing through the yard. Padric McCandless had quarterbacked the Central Catholic high school football team. He’d handed each of his three sons a pigskin as soon as they’d been able to stand without assistance and, to his wife’s dismay, had seen no reason to treat their peanut-sized daughter any differently. Sasha had a framed picture in her office of the two of them. She couldn’t have been much older than a year, dressed in a lacy pink dress and white shoes. Her father crouched beside her, correcting her form as she tried to throw a regulation-size football to one of the boys.

  Sasha watched them toss the ball and listened to the kids talk over one another in a rush to fill her in on school, sports, and the eight-and-under social scene. With their excited voices in the air, the sun on her skin, and Daniella snuggled on her lap, she took in the moment and gave no thought to dead lawyers, broken marriages, or demanding boyfriends.

  Then Sean appeared in the doorway.

  “Dad, Ry, come on! Game’s about to start,” he called.

  “Go, Steelers!” Colin yelled, and the entire mass of wriggling children slipped off the glider and swarmed into the house.

  Sean stepped down onto the deck to let them pass. He looked at Sasha and took a swig from his beer.

  “How’s Leo feel about your representing the Lady Lawyer Killers?” he asked in a deliberately neutral voice.

  Sasha glanced up at him, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand. His face was blank.

  “I wouldn’t know. I don’t consult him about my work,” she answered, matching his tone.

  Ryan and her father clomped up the steps and stood beside Sean.

  “No Leo?” Ryan asked her.

  “Not today,” Sasha said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t approve of Sasha’s choice of clients,” Sean said.

  Don’t take the bait. De-escalate.

  “He’s out of town on business,” she said, looking at Ryan and her dad.

  “Oh? Did he decide to take that job in D.C.?” her dad asked.

  Sasha stared at him. Connelly had talked to her father about his job offer before he’d mentioned it to her? She felt betrayed by two of the men she loved.

  Finally, she said, “Yes.”

  Ryan looked at her closely. “You gonna move there?”

  Sasha shook her head. “No. Maybe. I don’t know.”

  Sean said, “He’s a good man. He’ll take care of you.”

  “I don’t need to be taken care of, Sean,” she said, forcing herself to speak calmly. She reminded herself that Sean was trying to fill a role he was neither born to play nor particularly well suited for. When their oldest brother, Patrick, had been killed at age thirty, Sean, two years his junior had tried to step into his shoes. He seemed to think he had a responsibility for his youngest sister, despite the fact that Sasha was, herself, well into her thirties now.

  Ryan, ever the pacifier, stepped in. “Of course, you don’t. We all know that. It’s just, Leo seems to make you happy. You’ve kept him around longer than all the rest. And, plus, I’m sure mom and dad would like you to give them some grandchildren at some point.”

  Sasha cocked her head at him. “I think you guys have the grandkids pretty well covered, don’t you?”

  Her father laughed and said, “Boys, leave your sister alone. Go in and save me a seat in front of the TV.” He tossed the football at Sean and sat next to Sasha on the glider.

  Sean and Ryan walked into the house. Their sister’s romantic situation already forgotten, she could hear them arguing over the point spread for the game.

  Sasha and her father sat and moved the glider forward and back on its rockers, not speaking. Finally, he said, “You want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  They rocked some more. Sasha stared at the sturdy deck rails directly in front of her. The deck wrapped around the side of the house and then down into a second level. It was massive, impressive, and functional.

  “Remember when you and the boys built the deck?” she said, still looking straight ahead.

  “Sure,” he answered. “Summer of ‘98. All the boys helped. Patrick, the most.”

  “I was home from college, working the dinner shift at The Colony. I’d wake up every morning to the sound of hammering. And every day, more deck would appear. I remember thinking it was amazing that you guys could create this out of nothing but a pile of wood and nails and your effort,” she said, sweeping her arms wide.

  Her dad smiled.

  She went on. “I can’t do that. But I can take a pile of words, nothing but a jumble of good and bad facts and good and bad law, and create an argument that will convince a judge.”

  “You sure can,” he agreed.

  Sasha turned to face him now. “But, for some reason, that’s not worth anything. I should just stop what I do and follow some guy?”

  “You should do what makes you happy,” he said, putting an arm around her. “Whatever that is.”

  Sasha looked down for a moment, then she said, “Do you think I’m broken inside?”

  Padric smiled again. “No, you’re not broken, Sasha. You’re just different from them.” He nodded toward the house.

  “Connelly thinks I’m broken,” she said.

  “Leo’s probably hurting, honey,” her father said slowly. “You aren’t broken, but you sure are ... self-contained. It seems to me he opened up to you and was expecting you to do the same. But, that doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you, baby. You’ve always been that way. Serious and closed off.”

  Serious and closed off?

  “That sounds broken,” she said.

  He laughed. “No, that sounds like a small girl who decided to take on big things. You’re just careful, is all. Not as careful as I’d like, with all the flitting around and beating up bad guys, but careful about letting anyone in who might try to distract you from your goals. That’s all.”

  “You make me sound like a robot,” Sasha said. Maybe she was emotionally stunted.

  “You can’t make yourself crazy over something some boy said in the heat of the moment, Sasha. Come on, let’s go watch the game.”

  Connelly wasn’t some boy. He was a man. And she wasn’t a high school girl, either. She had no business moping around her parents’ house like a hormonal teenager while a killer ran around Pittsburgh, knocking off female lawyers and framing their husbands.

  She hopped off the glider. “I can’t. I’m sorry, Dad. I shouldn’t have come today. Can you tell Mom I’m not feeling well, and I’ll sneak out through the garden?”

  He looked at her.

  “Please?”

  He nodded. Then he kissed the top of her head. “Go on.”

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  Sasha had the windows down and the music up as she headed back into the city. The combination of cool air and loud music drove thoughts of Connelly and her brothers from her mind.

  The Vickers case was like a splinter in her foot, though. It needled her with each step. She needed to talk to someone who’d been at Prescott & Talbott when the case had been active. Someone who knew everyone. Someone who liked her and would help her. She needed to go see Lettie.

  At the last minute, just before the road fed her into the Liberty Tunnel, which carved its way through Mt. Washington and onto the Liberty Bridge, she jerked the car into the far right lane and wound up and around, climbing the steep backside of the hill that sat above the city.

  At the top, she slowed and eased the car onto a narrow, hilly side street then made a quick, sharp right onto a narrower, hillier side street. During her eight years at Prescott, she’d driven her secretary home a handful of times. Lettie took the Incline down to Station Square and then transferred to a bus to the office each morning, reversing the trip at night, unless she
worked late. Lettie’s husband or son would pick her up if she worked overtime. But, on a few occasions, when they’d gotten an early evening snow, Sasha had taken her home so that her husband wouldn’t have to put out a folding chair and fret that someone might move it and steal his parking spot. Mt. Washington had an exquisite view of the city and its rivers. What it lacked was off-street parking.

  Sasha turned onto a narrow street and squeezed her Passat into the first spot she found. She grabbed her purse and started the climb to Lettie’s townhouse near the top of the street. Shouts and cheers floated out through open windows, as families sat in their dens and living rooms rooting for the Steelers.

  Lettie wasn’t watching the game. She was working in the small garden bed in the front of her townhouse. She was, however, wearing a Steelers jersey.

  “Hi, Lettie,” Sasha said as she drew near.

  Lettie turned toward her voice, a spade in one gloved hand, and squinted to see who was calling her. A wide smile spread across her face when she realized it was her former boss.

  “Sasha, this is a nice surprise,” Lettie said. She put down her spade and peeled off her gloves, placing them in a neat pile next to the garden tool.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call first. I was on my way home from my parents’ place and just stopped, kind of on a whim,” Sasha said. Kind of on a whim, and kind of out of desperation, she thought.

  Lettie laughed. “Don’t be silly. It’s great to see you. Do you want to come inside, have a cup of coffee? Gene and Justin are watching the game.”

  As tempting as the idea of coffee was, Sasha declined. “Thank you, but no. I really can’t stay. I just wanted to say hi and, to be honest, I was hoping to pick your brain.”

  Lettie frowned and said, “I hope you aren’t planning to ask me about Ellen or Clarissa. I heard you’re representing their husbands.” Her tone left no doubt as to what she thought of that.

  Sasha considered pointing out that it was Lettie’s employer who had engaged her, at least for Greg, but there was no upside. She needed Lettie’s help. Getting her hackles up about the murders wasn’t the way to get it.

  “Of course not, Lettie. I wouldn’t do that. I just have a question about an old pro bono case from the nineties—Vickers v. Vickers. Do you remember it?” she asked, although she knew Lettie would remember. Lettie was Prescott & Talbott’s unofficial historian.

  Lettie nodded. “Sure,” she said, her voice still cautious. “It was a messy divorce that came to us through a Neighborhood Legal Services referral. Ellen and Clarissa cut their teeth on that case.”

  “And Martine Landry,” Sasha said.

  “Right,” Lettie agreed without elaborating.

  Lettie enjoyed a well-deserved reputation as a chatterbox; the very fact that she hadn’t yet launched into a detailed explanation of the matter was evidence that she didn’t trust Sasha with whatever information she had.

  Sasha tamped down her impatience and looked straight into Lettie’s gray eyes. “Listen,” she said, “we worked together for a long time. You know me, and I hope you know how I practice law. This isn’t some lawyer trick, Lettie. I think Ellen and Clarissa’s murders might be related to that case. And, if I’m right, Martine’s in danger. But, she refuses to talk to me, so I need your help. Please?”

  The older woman blinked. “Of course.”

  “Thank you,” Sasha said, relieved. She trusted Lettie, but telling her about the files Caroline had smuggled out of the office could put her in a vulnerable position, so Sasha didn’t mention them. Instead, she asked, “Do you remember who acted as the supervising partner on that matter?”

  Lettie sighed and said, “There wasn’t one.”

  “How was that possible?” Sasha asked.

  Lettie walked over to her front stoop and sat on the bottom step; she folded her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl. Sasha joined her on the cold concrete and waited.

  Lettie took her time, gathering her thoughts, then she said, “I guess you could say there was ... an oversight. The firm has done pro bono work forever, of course, but in the nineties, the bar association rolled out an initiative. There was a pro bono challenge of some sort, and Prescott signed a pledge. As part of all that, the Management Committee created the Pro Bono Program Director position, which, of course, still exists. But, now it’s a permanent administrative position. Back then, it was a rotating assignment. From what I recall, the idea was to assign a junior partner to the position for a one-year term. It would allow the partner to demonstrate his management skills and put him in line for the more coveted committee assignments.”

  Sasha nodded. It sounded like Prescott & Talbott’s typical approach: the more layers of management, the better. “So, what happened?”

  Lettie chewed her lower lip while she thought. “Okay, so, if I recall correctly, the first year, the directorship went to John Porter. He did a fine job, as far as I could tell. Some of the other junior partners resented that he had the power to assign them to cases, but that was part of his responsibility, so they had to accept it. At the end of that first year, the partners voted to give the Pro Bono Program Director the authority to assign any partner in the firm a case to supervise. The thinking was that giving the director that authority would signal to the legal community that Prescott & Talbott was truly committed to public service.”

  “And it would also signal to the junior partners that they should stop their bellyaching,” Sasha observed.

  Lettie gave a wry a smile. “That, too,” she agreed. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and then continued. “So, the second year, Marco DeAngeles was named the director. If you think he’s a firebrand now, you should have seen him back then. The very first case in the door after he took over was the Vickers divorce. The three girls volunteered to work it together, and Marco assigned none other than Mr. Prescott to supervise.”

  “Cinco?” Sasha asked.

  “Oh, no,” Lettie said, “the fourth Mr. Prescott. His father. He was still the chair of the firm back then, but he was getting up in years and was starting to make arrangements to hand things over to the fifth Mr. Prescott.”

  “That was a bold decision by Marco.”

  “It was. And, as I understand it, it did not sit well with Mr. Prescott. His secretary, Barbie Roman—she’s retired now, of course—said at the time that they had an ungodly row about it. She told me she could hear Mr. Prescott through the door just roaring at Marco that he had overstepped. But Marco wouldn’t back down. And the Management Committee had to support him, however reluctantly, because it was within his power.” Lettie shook her head at the memory.

  “So, what happened?” Sasha asked.

  “Nothing happened,” Lettie answered. “Mr. Prescott simply ignored the case. Marco refused to assign another partner. So those poor girls were just set out to sea with no paddle. They worked their tails off with no guidance. But, as I recall, they got a very good result for their client. I think we had champagne in the Mellon Conference Room after the decision came down.”

  She searched Sasha’s face. “Does any of that help? Because I really don’t know any details.”

  Sasha patted her hand. “It helps a lot, Lettie. Thank you. Now, I’d better get out of here and let you get back to your weeding.”

  They stood, and Sasha gave her former secretary a quick hug. As she walked away, Lettie called after her, “Now, you tell Leo I said hello.”

  Sasha turned and waved.

  CHAPTER 52

  Rich’s shoulder throbbed, heat radiating down his arm and up his neck. His right arm hung limp and awkward by his side while he ran down the stairs from the law office, taking them two at a time. He kept his face averted as he passed by the entrance to the coffee shop and shouldered through the front door with his good side.

  Out on the sidewalk, he raced across the street and cut through the parking lot, running on a diagonal, trying to put as much distance between himself and the building as he could. He’d cut a wide circle and bac
ktrack for his car without getting close to the Law Offices of Sasha McCandless, P.C. If that crazy old coot was conscious, Rich had no interest in a rematch with him and his damned cane.

  He shouldn’t have risked it anyway, he thought. He was so close to completing his plan. Letting Sasha McCandless distract him had been a mistake.

  He’d gone to her office, just to see if he could find some hint of what she knew. He’d come prepared to have to break in, but to his surprise the door had been ajar. Just inside, on a small round table, someone had left piles of files, spread out across the surface, with no apparent organization. He’d spotted the picture of Costopolous making out with the model on top of a stack of printouts of legal cases. Two piles over, he was surprised to see the pictures he’d delivered to Prescott & Talbott: the fact that she had copies could only mean that someone was feeding her information from inside. That thought had made his stomach cramp up with fear.

  He’d clenched his stomach with one hand and pawed through the papers with the other, searching for more documents from Prescott & Talbott. Suddenly the back of his shoulder had exploded in pain and he’d pitched forward, smacking his jaw against the table.

  He had turned his head to see an old man standing in the doorway behind him, raising a thick wooden cane to crack him again. He’d twisted out of the path of the cane just in time, and it had come down hard on the table.

  Then Rich had crouched like a running back and had run low and hard at the man blocking the door. Just before he’d reached the man, he’d deepened his crouch and rolled his shoulder forward. Then he’d plowed into the old guy’s belly and had kept going. The contact had knocked the man out of his path and to the ground. As Rich had run past him, the guy’s face had bounced off the corner of the doorframe, knocking his glasses off. They skittered into the hallway, and Rich’s shoe had crunched down on them as he sped toward the stairs.

  It had happened so fast, Rich thought now, as he prowled through the side streets, anxious to get out of the neighborhood. He cradled his aching shoulder and ran.