Out Of Order

by Barbara Dunlop

“I have to go to the courthouse now, and it’ll take a few days to get the accounting team reassembled.” He lifted box number one and put it on his conference table. “What we know is that McQueen siphoned off money about a half penny at a time.”

  Shelby moved toward the open box. “Half a penny?”

  “He rounded up on transaction commissions. Millions and millions of transaction commissions. Never enough that any individual client would notice. And if anyone did come across an individual transaction, they’d call it a rounding error and wouldn’t care. But, systemically, over two years, he amassed a whole lot of money.”

  “And they fired him.”

  “They fired him, and are suing for damages.” He paused. “Now that you mention it, if you’ve got time, I could use somebody to go through these and recheck McQueen’s commissions. Maybe there’s something we missed.” He pulled out a stack of papers. “The ones highlighted in yellow are his.” He gazed down at Shelby. “You game?”

  Shelby couldn’t help a surge of excitement at the thought of doing real investigative work, and a quieter surge of pride that he trusted her. “Sure.”

  OVER THE COURSE of twenty-four hours, Dallas watched his orderly law office turn to pandemonium. Shelby had discovered there were additional evidence boxes in the storage locker that the accountants had deemed irrelevant, and a delivery service was bringing in every scrap of information for five city blocks. They’d hired a temporary receptionist to free up Shelby’s time, and she was right in the thick of things, directing operations between the reception area, the photocopy room and Dallas’s office.

  Adding to the turmoil, Greg had called in saying he’d be a couple of days late getting back to the office—Dallas didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out what that was about. Not that he blamed Greg. Quite frankly, he’d like nothing better than to spirit Shelby away for a few days at a hidden hotel.

  While he watched her from the shadow of his office door, Allan appeared in the hall beside him.

  “I told you so,” said Allan.

  “You told me what?” asked Dallas, fighting a shot of guilt for watching Shelby when he should have been working. It wasn’t like he hadn’t been here at six o’clock this morning.

  “I told you to give her a chance.” Allan nodded to where Shelby was talking to a deliveryman. There was a definite trace of laughter in his voice. “Once you get over her legs, she’s pretty good.”

  Uh-uh. Dallas wasn’t getting drawn into that conversation. He definitely wasn’t over her legs, or any other part of her anatomy, yet. “Greg leave you a phone number where we can reach him?”

  Allan smirked at Dallas’s obvious change of topic. Just then another man came through the office door. This one glanced around and headed straight for Shelby. He didn’t exactly look like a deliveryman, and he was too purposeful to be a new client…

  “I tried Greg’s cell, but it must be turned off,” said Dallas, watching the man with growing suspicion. What was he all about?

  “Greg’s on vacation,” said Allan. “He deserves a rest from this place.”

  “We all do.”

  “Shelby Jacobs?” The strange man’s voice carried across the reception area.

  “Yes,” Shelby answered with a nod.

  The man reached into his inside breast pocket.

  “Summons,” muttered Allan at the same time the realization hit Dallas.

  Dallas bolted across the room.

  The man handed her an envelope. “You’ve been served.” He turned to walk away, leaving Shelby blinking in surprise.

  “Let me see it,” Dallas demanded, wondering what he’d missed about Shelby’s relevance to McQueen’s case.

  Shelby pulled the envelope protectively toward her chest. “It’s for me.”

  “I’m your lawyer.”

  She slipped her fingertip under the flap and worked open the envelope. “For about fifteen minutes.” She pulled out the folded paper. “A week and a half ago.” She opened up the summons. “And I never paid you, so I don’t think it counts.”

  Dallas tried to read over her shoulder, but she turned so he couldn’t see.

  “You’d better tell me everything you know about Calloway and McQueen,” he demanded. “No holding back this time, we need to know what we’re up against.” No matter what, Dallas didn’t want her incriminating herself on the stand.

  She shot him a look of disbelief. “It’s not your trial I’ve been summoned to.”

  “It’s not?”

  “Jeez, Dallas. You have such a suspicious mind.”

  No, he didn’t. Well, not particularly.

  He was just experienced. Experienced enough to be…well…suspicious.

  Okay. He’d give her that one. “Who else would send you a summons?”

  “It’s for Gerry’s trial tomorrow.”

  “Gerry?”

  “You remember. Gerry Bonnaducci. My old boss. They don’t give you much notice, do they?”

  “Gerry’s the gunrunner from the Game-O-Rama?”

  “Right.”

  Now Dallas was even more worried. Talk about the potential to incriminate herself.

  He reached for the summons again. “I’ll represent you.”

  She pulled it away, arching her eyebrows. “At your prices, forget it.”

  “I’m not going to charge you.” What kind of a man did she think he was?

  She refolded the summons, stuffing it back into the envelope. “I’m a witness, Dallas, not a suspect. And you have too much work already.” She waved him away. “I’ll just take a coffee break and pop down there—”

  “But if they get you up on the stand—”

  “What?” Now she looked annoyed. “I’ll break down and confess to buying Uzi’s from the Russian mafia?”

  “They might get you to say something—”

  “I didn’t do anything, Dallas. They’re not going to get me to say that I did.” Her tone turned wry. “But thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  “You need professional—”

  “I believe she said no.” It was Allan’s deep, disapproving voice from behind him.

  “Thank you, Allan,” said Shelby. Then, with a triumphant glare at Dallas, she tipped her nose slightly upward and headed for the photocopy room where they were stacking dusty boxes of Perth-Abercrombie evidence files. She dropped the summons into her desk drawer on the way past.

  “She can’t go in there cold,” Dallas protested, itching to get his hands on that summons. He didn’t even have the most rudimentary details of the case. He should have looked into it further when he’d sprung her from the Haines Street lockup last week.

  “You actually think she’s guilty?” asked Allan.

  “Of course not.” Not really. Well, not of buying Uzi’s from the Russian mafia.

  “They have a name for lawyers who force their services on people,” Allan pointed out.

  “That Gerry Bonnaducci struck me as a scumbag. I wouldn’t put it past him to set her up to take his fall. Who knows how the guy’s connected, or who they’ve hired, or what they’ll try to do to her?”

  Allan grinned. “Not that you’re feeling overprotective or anything.”

  “I’m looking at this as a lawyer.”

  “You’re looking at this as a lover.”

  Dallas stilled. “A what?”

  Allan grinned smugly.

  “What did Greg tell you?”

  “I haven’t talked to Greg since he left for New York. But Margaret’s got her theories.”

  “That’s exactly what Margaret’s got,” Dallas scoffed, relaxing a little. “Theories, and nothing else.”

  He and Shelby weren’t lovers. They weren’t even having a fling. And he wasn’t getting overprotective, he was merely trying to give the woman the benefit of his professional advice. She was his employee, for God’s sake. And, innocent or guilty, everyone needed a lawyer if they were going to court.

  He couldn’t in good conscience let her end up in jail
because she was stubborn and pigheaded. He glanced into the photocopy room. Seeing she was busy, and working with her back to the door, he headed for her desk.

  “Dallas?” Allan’s voice was a warning. “What are you—”

  “You should probably leave the room,” said Dallas, sliding open her desk drawer.

  “That’s illegal,” said Allan.

  “I’m looking for a paperclip.”

  “Don’t make me fire you.”

  “You can’t fire me, I’m your partner.”

  “I can report you to the law society.”

  “Report me for getting a paperclip and, oops, picking a letter up off the floor?”

  Allan’s footsteps sounded on the carpet. “Don’t you open—”

  “It fell out.”

  “What are you doing?” Shelby’s voice this time.

  “He’s snooping into your private mail,” said Allan. “You want to press charges?”

  Dallas straightened, unfolding the summons. “Of course she doesn’t want to press charges. We have an understanding, don’t we, Shelby? You get free rein of my briefcase, and I get free rein of your drawers.”

  There was a moment’s silence after his last word. Shelby might have been annoyed with him, but she was still forced to bite down on a smirk.

  A split second later Allan’s face broke out in a grin. “If he’s been messing around in your drawers, you’ve got an even bigger lawsuit than I thought.”

  “I’ll take the fifth on what Dallas has been doing in my drawers,” said Shelby.

  “I could represent you,” Allan offered.

  “How much do you think I’d get?”

  Dallas ignored them both, noting the time and place on the summons. “I’m just going to make a few discrete inquiries, so that you’ll know what you’re up against.”

  Allan turned a laugh into a cough. “Whether she was up against the wall, up against the desk, or up against the bookcase, it all translates into thousands of dollars in damages.” He shifted his gaze to Shelby. “Dallas pays. You get a settlement. I get the fees. It’s all good.”

  Shelby eyed Dallas with suspicion. “Did you tell him about us?”

  “No, I didn’t tell him. But you just did.” The woman was never going to survive on the witness stand.

  Allan leaned toward Shelby, dropping his voice to a faux conspiratorial tone. “I could tell he had the hots for you the minute he started talking about your legs.”

  “He likes my legs?”

  “Oh, he’s—”

  “Will you two stop?” Dallas demanded. “This is no time for jokes.”

  Shelby whisked the summons from his hand. “You’re the one who needs to stop. I’m an intelligent woman who didn’t break any laws. I’ll drop down to the courthouse tomorrow, tell the truth, and come on back to work. I wish you’d have a little faith in me.”

  10

  LOOKED LIKE SHELBY’S wish was destined to go unfulfilled. As she took her seat in the witness stand, and swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, she spotted Dallas lurking in the back of the courtroom. He slid into an aisle seat next to the door guard.

  He was obviously afraid she’d screw up and end up in handcuffs. How flattering.

  She caught his gaze and glared her displeasure at him.

  He stared right back, looking determined and implacable, kind of like a pet pit bull ready to growl at the ice-cream man. For a split second, she found it endearing. Then she found it annoying. But then she found it endearing again.

  “Miss Jacobs,” began Eugene Shuster, the defense attorney for Gerry Bonnaducci.

  Shelby shifted her attention to the short, balding, slicked-over haired, tight-suited Mr. Shuster. Dallas and the rest of the sparse audience became fuzzy shapes in her soft vision.

  “Please tell the court how long you’ve lived in Chicago.”

  How long she’d lived in Chicago?

  Oh, yeah. She could see now that these were very dangerous questions. Good thing her pit bull had showed up. Maybe she could make a leash and leather collar joke later…

  She couldn’t help sliding him a knowing glance.

  His eyes narrowed in annoyance.

  “Miss Jacobs?” prompted the lawyer.

  Shelby quickly returned her attention to Shuster. “Four weeks,” she answered.

  “And where did you live before moving to Chicago?”

  Another one that ought to get her ten years in the slammer. “Minneapolis.”

  “And what did you do in Minneapolis?”

  “I was a cocktail waitress.”

  “Where?”

  Shelby sat back, cocking head to one side, trying to figure out why they were wasting time on mundane details. “The Terra Suma Cocktail Lounge.”

  “What was the name of the owner of the Terra Suma Cocktail Lounge?”

  “Neil Hessel.”

  “And how would you characterize your relationship with Mr. Hessel?”

  Okay, now that she hadn’t expected. This guy had obviously asked around about her. “He was my boss and my boyfriend.”

  Shuster got a sly, almost voyeuristic gleam in his eyes. “So, you were having sex with your boss?”

  Shelby felt her shoulders tense. Talk about irrelevant. But there was no way in the world she was letting Mr. Oily Comb-Over embarrass her. “Yes. Generally once a week. He preferred the missionary position, but sometimes—”

  The judge’s gavel came down on the bench. “Just answer the question,” he said.

  Shelby snapped her mouth shut. She caught Dallas’s look of stupefaction and presumed it was because of her irreverence rather than the fact her ex-boyfriend preferred the missionary position.

  Well, hell, what kind of a question was that? Shuster deserved the answer he got.

  Shuster cleared his throat. “Miss Jacobs. Were you aware that your boss and lover gambled?”

  “Yes.”

  Dallas suddenly dropped his chin to his chest in a posture of defeat.

  What? What was wrong with that answer?

  He was throwing her off here. She forced herself to pull her attention away from Dallas, absently taking in the other members of the audience—a casually dressed man in his mid-thirties taking notes on a small pad, a woman knitting something pink, her needles clicking away, two spruced-up but worn-looking men who were probably next on the docket—

  “What did he bet on?” Shuster took a step toward her, shrugging his shoulders, assuming an air of nonchalance. “Horses, baseball, poker?”

  Shelby nodded. “Yes.”

  “Did you know the name of his bookie?”

  Bookie? That question confused Shelby. “What do you mean?”

  “Yes or no. Did you know the name of your boss’s bookie?”

  Shelby gave in to temptation and glanced at Dallas again. He made a frantic hand motion in front of his chest. He looked like an umpire calling a player safe, which really didn’t give her clue one about how to answer.

  “No,” she answered slowly, trying to figure out what the heck Dallas was signaling back there.

  “Did it bother you that he gambled?” asked Shuster.

  “I thought it was a waste of money,” said Shelby. “But it was his money.”

  “Did you ever help him?”

  She could see Dallas’s jaw getting tighter and his eyes narrowing as the muscles in his face tensed up.

  “Help him how?” she asked.

  “Drive him to the track, go to the bank for him, take a phone call…”

  Of course she’d done those things. What girlfriend didn’t?

  “Yes or no?” prompted Shuster.

  “Yes,” said Shelby.

  Dallas stood up and moved down the aisle, past the knitting woman, past the man taking notes. As he sat down in the front row behind the prosecuting attorney, he made a slashing motion across his neck.

  What? She was supposed to stop answering? She’d sworn to tell the whole truth.

  “So, you didn’t mind that your bos
s was breaking the law,” said Shuster.

  “Breaking the—”

  “Yes or no? You said you went to the bank for him, took phone calls in connection with his gambling habit—presumably from his bookie—drove him to the track, who knows what all else. Did you encourage him to break the law?”

  Shelby glanced at Dallas.

  He shook his head.

  “No,” said Shelby firmly.

  “Did you report his crimes to the police?”

  “I never knew—”

  “Yes or no, Miss Jacobs. Your employer was breaking the law. You’ve admitted you knew he was breaking the law, yet you never reported it to the police. You were encouraging him, at the very least, enabling him. Did you profit from his crimes?”

  Shelby looked to Dallas.

  He shook his head, but she couldn’t tell if that was the answer or if he was frustrated with her.

  “No,” said Shelby.

  “Come on, Miss Jacobs. You expect us to believe you didn’t profit from his crimes?”

  Shelby looked at the judge. “Do I have to keep answering these questions?”

  The judge looked surprised. “Yes. You are under oath.”

  “But he’s making it sound—”

  “Let’s explore a scenario,” said Shuster, strolling across in front of the judge’s bench, then turning to stroll back. “You knew your boss was engaged in illegal gambling. But since you profited from it—clothes, expensive jewelry, trips…”

  “I never—”

  “You not only turned a blind eye, you actually helped him commit those crimes for personal gain.”

  “I thought he only bet on racehorses.” She saw Dallas lean forward and hand a note to the prosecuting attorney.

  Shuster chuckled dryly. “Come on, Miss Jacobs, you expect us to believe—”

  The prosecuting attorney jumped to his feet. “Your Honor, Miss Jacobs is not on trial here.”

  Shuster spun to stare at the man. Then he turned his attention to the judge. “I’m establishing a pattern of behavior.”

  “Your Honor,” said the prosecuting attorney. “If this line of questioning is to continue, I think Miss Jacobs has the right to speak to her attorney.”

  “Are you her attorney?” asked the judge.

  “No. But her attorney is in the court.”

  The judge turned to Shelby. “Do you wish to speak to your attorney?”