Lawyered to Death

by Michael Biehl

  “The mirrored cylinder on the glass étagère rotates, so you can show your Chinese vase on one side and hide your liquor bottles on the other!” Arthur chortled.

  “You sure have a lot of plaques and certificates on your walls,” said Shari. “So many awards and accomplishments!”

  “Aw, shucks,” said Arthur, smiling broadly, “’tain’t nothin’. You hang around corporate boardrooms long enough, they give you a wailful of plaques. All of ’em put together don’t mean as much to me as the ‘Official Pinball Wizard’ certificate I won in college.”

  Arthur was trying his best to be breezy and funny, not wanting any of the support staff and least of all Shari Billick to think he was a snob. Sleep deprivation and exhaustion were starting to make him punchy. Shari apparently had not heard any rumors about Lorraine’s situation, and Arthur had no intention of bringing up the subject. He certainly did not want to be seen as looking to the support staff for “support.”

  Shari was smiling and laughing politely, but she appeared tense. Her knees, which were exposed by a short skirt with a three-inch slit up the side, were pressed together so tightly the skin beneath her pantyhose blanched. She held a reddish-brown cardboard file folder in front of her chest with both hands, her arms crossed over the front of it protectively. Her lower lip quivered slightly.

  “Are you cold?” asked Arthur. “I don’t know why they put the air conditioning on so high. It’s over 80 degrees outside and it’s freezing in here.” He considered offering her his suit jacket, but decided it would make him feel silly to make such a bromidically gallant gesture.

  “I’m all right,” she said. “I’m not cold. In fact, if anything I feel warm.” She made a fanning motion with her hand and glanced to the side.

  With her eyes averted, Arthur took the opportunity to study her face. He did not want to be caught staring, but it was hard not to. If a pretty girl was like a melody, Shari Billick was the theme from the Symphonie Fantastique. Her cheeks, which were as smooth and elegantly contoured as the interior of a seashell, were flushed a bright coral. A trace of dew appeared at her temples. Now that she mentioned it, she did appear to be a bit overheated, rather than chilled, even though she also seemed to be trembling slightly. All Arthur could make of it was that she was scared or upset.

  “Is something the matter?” he said.

  “No, nothing,” she said. She smiled at him, a twitch at the corner of her mouth spoiling her apparent bid to look non-chalant. “Just not used to being in the CEO’s office, I guess. With all your impressive awards and everything.” She bobbed her head back and forth, her coppery curls bouncing on her shoulders.

  Even though he was weak with fatigue and grief, Arthur felt himself getting aroused. More aroused than his libido, however, was his curiosity. What was Shari Billick, the knockout receptionist who made regular appearances in his fantasies and, he assumed, those of every other hetero male in the hospital, doing in his office, looking like she was in some sort of emotional state? He leaned toward her and tried to assume a comforting facial expression.

  “You shouldn’t feel intimidated here, Shari. I’m just an employee of the hospital who happens to have a big, stupid office. Are you sure there isn’t something I can help you with?”

  “No, really, there isn’t,” she said.

  “Well, obviously you didn’t stop by to talk about my wall plaques,” he said. “What did you want to talk about?”

  Shari remained silent. She gripped the cardboard file folder tighter against her chest, squeezing it so hard the corners bit into her arms. She looked down at her lap. Her eyelids fluttered.

  Arthur leaned farther forward. “What is it?” he said. “This morning at the reception desk, you said you had a lot on your mind. Come on, tell me. What’s on your mind?”

  Shari looked up at him. Tears were pooled in her eyes. “You,” she whispered.

  Arthur sat back in his chair, slowly. Shari’s one-word explanation had jolted him with its directness and simplicity, even though he had a vague sense that at some level he had seen it coming.

  The word was fraught with implication. Arthur had never strayed in over thirty years of marriage and did not consider himself sophisticated in such matters, but he was pretty sure he had instantly grasped the full meaning of the statement. With her one word, this dream girl was both declaring her feelings for him and unambiguously offering herself to him. It was a kick in the head, and he had no idea at the moment what he was going to do about it. If his interpretation was correct, she was making him an offer he could not imagine himself accepting, but he was not sure he could refuse it, either.

  He needed more information. Maybe he had misinterpreted her.

  “What about me?” he said, feeling that was a feeble response to Shari’s pithy utterance.

  She averted her eyes. “I think about you a lot,” she said. “I think I might be a little attracted to you.”

  She thinks she might be a little attracted. That was certainly bland. Good. If this was not what he thought it was, it was more of a relief than a disappointment. He didn’t need any more complications in his life.

  “Well, thank you, Shari,” he said, with deliberate offhandedness. “I think you’re attractive, too.”

  She shook her head. “Oh, Art, I said that all wrong. What I meant was, I think you’re just about the most attractive man I’ve ever met. I can’t keep my mind off you.” She covered her eyes with her hand and took a deep breath. “Sometimes, it feels like I have some kind of illness; I get feverish imagining what it would be like to be with you. I try to stop, because I know it’s impossible, but I can’t. I even went to a therapist a couple of times, but it didn’t do any good. I thought if I could just talk about it with you, even if there could never be anything between us, it would make me feel better. Is that too much to ask?”

  Perfect, thought Arthur. There was no need to accept or refuse anything right now. He could control this situation, keep the incredible temptation in a zone where it was neither yielded to nor resisted, until he got his feet under him. He had never been so off-kilter before. Surely the most pragmatic course of action was to stall for time. Besides, Shari said she just wanted to talk. He couldn’t hurt the poor girl’s feelings.

  “Of course not,” Arthur said. “We should talk. There’s no harm in people talking about their feelings.” As soon as the words left his mouth, he realized the danger in that idea. There could be a lot of harm in Shari talking about her feelings, especially around the hospital. “I mean,” he added, “talking privately, just between the two of us. Entre nous, as the French say.”

  Shari brightened, her eyes narrowing into the charming little quarter moons, her posture loosening. “I love French expressions,” she said. “I love anything French. Sometimes I think I must have French ancestry, even though my maiden name is McNee.”

  At the mention of a maiden name, it occurred to Arthur for the first time that she might be married. He looked at her hands. Big diamond on ring finger, left hand. That he had not noticed it before was further evidence to Arthur that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. He was sailing into unfamiliar waters. He needed to gather some information about the husband, such as whether Shari had said anything to him about her little obsession. And whether he owned any guns.

  “Have you talked about any of this with anyone other than your therapist?” asked Arthur.

  “No, absolutely not,” said Shari emphatically. “And I never, ever would. I swear, anything you and I talk about or do will stay, like you said, entre nous.”

  Man, oh man, thought Arthur. What a time for something like this to come along. He was dazed and weary, and for the first time in years, uncertain about the future. The timing was terrible. On the other hand, in certain respects the timing was ideal. With Lorraine in the hospital, heavily med-icated, he would be on his own for a few days, enjoying an autonomy that had been extremely rare over the past thirty years. The idea gave him a tingle, along with his first pang of
guilt.

  THE CELL PHONE in Matthew Stoker’s Madeira red Jaguar XJ8 chirped just loudly enough to be heard over the techno rock blaring from the Blaupunkt stereo speakers. Matt lowered the volume with the push of a button and then jabbed the “Hook” button on his car phone, which was hands-free and could be voice-dialed so Matt could keep his eyes on the road and his hands on the leather-covered steering wheel.

  “Stoker.”

  “Matt, it’s Emerson. I heard from Karen Hayes, the in-house at Shoreview Memorial today. Do you know Arthur Winslow?”

  “Not personally, but I’ve been trying to figure out how to get close to him for months. Is this Hayes a conduit?”

  “Could be. She called looking for a referral to a criminal lawyer for Winslow. He’s supposed to give a statement to the police this afternoon at 4:00 P.M.”

  The two-lane highway stretched out in front of Matthew, slicing through green fields of callow corn and alfalfa, open and straight all the way to the horizon. He adjusted his sun-glasses and eased the XJ8 up to eighty-five, relishing its surge of effortless acceleration and the luxurious glint of the sun on its hood ornament. The sky was as clear and open as the highway. Heat waves shimmered over the black asphalt surface of the road.

  “Beautiful day out here, Emerson,” he said. “Nice day to knock off early and get the runabout out on the lake. But I think I should help this guy out. Have my secretary check my calendar for the afternoon and cancel anything on it. Tell your lawyer friend that I’ll meet her and Winslow at the station house at quarter to four. I can get up to speed in fifteen minutes. Oh, and call a meeting of the marketing committee for as soon as you can get it together.”

  “Yessir. You should call Karen Hayes at Shoreview Memorial at 1:00 P.M.”

  “Ciao.”

  Emerson hung up. Did Matthew detect a note of sarcasm in Emerson’s “yessir”? Was he copping an attitude about being told to set up a few appointments?

  “Ah, screw ’im,” said Matthew, flicking on his radar detector and opening the Jag up to ninety.

  STARING UP AT Karen Hayes from the document on her lap was an outline drawing of an unsmiling, generic female, her arm and forehead marked with a black ballpoint pen to indicate the locations of Lorraine Winslow’s injuries. Karen had asked Margaret to retrieve Lorraine’s chart from the nurses’ station and make a copy of it. Karen wanted to look it over before meeting with the police. Perhaps the records would provide an explanation for the broken arm and the bump on the head that did not taint Arthur.

  Karen was not sure but thought she might have just such an explanation when she read the radiologist’s report on Lorraine’s CAT scan. “Question Huntington’s” was the typically cryptic conclusion. She pulled a medical dictionary off her crowded bookshelf and looked up “Huntington’s.” It said “see under chorea.” Karen recognized the word as coming from the same root as choreography, and wondered what Lorraine’s condition had to do with dancing. She learned that the term “chorea” applies to a variety of medical conditions characterized by involuntary, ceaseless, jerky movements. Then she read the entry for the type of chorea known as Huntington’s: “mental deterioration . . . terminating in dementia . . . chronic progressive chorea . . . death . . . within 15 years.”

  “Poor Lorraine,” she said aloud.

  “DO YOU KNOW where the Caledonia Club is?” said Shari Billick, her eyebrows raised hopefully over her almond-shaped eyes.

  “Haven’t been there in years,” said Arthur. He calculated the odds of anybody in his social circle frequenting such a place on a weekday afternoon at zero. “Out by the mall, right?”

  “They have live music there sometimes. I love music.”

  “Especially French music, I bet,” said Arthur.

  Shari laughed, and cocked her shoulder at him. “Mais oui,” she said. “I can be there by half past five.”

  “You can be there by five if the CEO says it’s okay for you to knock off a little early today.”

  Arthur reached for the button to open his office door, reconsidered, then rose and escorted Shari to the door, opening it manually.

  When Shari got back to the reception desk, she called Duane.

  “I’m meeting him at the Caledonia Club at 5:00 P.M.,” she said.

  “Boy, he don’t waste no time,” said Duane.

  “He’s just going to have a drink with me, Duane.”

  “Yeah,” said Duane. “Sure he is.”

  CHAPTER

  6

  As Karen walked back to her office, she reflected on her meeting with Arthur. She had expected the boss to be a bit be-wildered, and he was. But there was something about him that she had not expected. He seemed distracted, hardly able to pay attention to what he must have known were weighty matters—Lorraine’s power of attorney and his 4:00 P.M. interview with Detective Lopopolo. When she stood in Arthur’s doorway and asked if she should retain a criminal attorney from the Van Dyke firm to represent him, Arthur mumbled, “Sure, whatever,” and waved good-bye from his desk chair.

  Turning the corner to her office, Karen observed a very tall, dark-haired man with a square jaw and a cleft chin, sitting on the corner of Margaret’s desk. He wore a gray chalk-stripe suit and fashionably small glasses with tinted lenses. He and Margaret were chatting and laughing gaily. This fellow looked way too slick and affluent to be Margaret’s unemployed boyfriend.

  “I’m Karen Hayes,” she said, extending her hand.

  “Matthew Stoker,” he said, taking her hand with both of his, a trace of New England in his voice. Karen had told Emerson to have Stoker call her at 1:00 P.M. Not only had he decided instead to show up in person, he was early.

  “Margaret here has been telling me about her friend Ed Luebsdorf. He’s looking for work, and he sounds like a great guy. I noticed a bulletin board at the entrance to Administration that had a couple of positions posted. What about Ed for the security guard job?”

  Karen’s eyes moved to Margaret. Margaret’s eyes had an expression that seemed to accuse Karen of holding out on her. Karen tried to return it with an expression of dumb innocence.

  “Sure, I’d be glad to pass Ed’s résumé on to Max Schumacher, the head of Security.”

  Karen invited Matthew into her office and moved a pile of law journals and newsletters from a guest chair to accommodate him.

  “Speaking of résumés,” said Matthew, settling into the guest chair and crossing his legs casually at the ankles, “I just checked out your Martindale-Hubbell. What’s a magna cum laude like you doing in a place like this?”

  Karen had no answer ready. Stoker had researched her credentials in advance. Emerson was right, Matthew was a go-getter.

  “You ever consider law firm practice?” continued Matthew. “Van Dyke ~ Eddington is always looking for good laterals.”

  “Not really. I have an eight-month-old baby and the hospital has been very good about letting me work part-time.”

  Matthew pulled a handkerchief from his breast jacket and polished the tinted lenses of his glasses. “Van Dyke is a great place for women attorneys. We even have a woman on the executive committee.”

  Every female lawyer in Jefferson knew about Shirley Roach—the one woman on the Van Dyke ~ Eddington executive committee. Her much gossiped-about affair with name partner Trevor Van Dyke had started when she was a first-year associate and continued for seventeen years before she was appointed to the committee. She had been an attractive woman when young, but a mediocre attorney. The cause-and-effect relationship between her intimacy with the portly Mr. Van Dyke and her promotion to the executive committee was never doubted. Hardly evidence that the firm was a feminist paradise.

  “Arthur isn’t at all prepared for his police interview,” said Karen, changing the subject. “He’s rattled and distracted, which is understandable. He could easily get tripped up on the facts.”

  “What are the facts?” said Matthew.

  Karen described the injuries Lorraine had sustained the previous eveni
ng, and the reports the police had received from fishermen of screaming coming from the Winslow residence. She observed that Matthew took no notes. Usually, it was old lawyers—the ones with the worst short-term memories—who did not bother taking notes, while young lawyers ball-penned their yellow legal pads like scrivening monks. Apparently Matthew had a rare level of confidence in his own mental abilities.

  “And here’s an odd thing,” said Karen. “The detective on the case told me the police received a report of a similar disturbance at Arthur’s place last Thursday. Arthur says he doesn’t know what they’re talking about and that Lorraine and their daughter were both asleep when he got home Thursday.”

  “Who’s the detective?” said Matthew.

  “Lopopolo.”

  Matthew nodded. “Pugnacious little guy. Competent but temperamental. Takes things personally.”

  “I’m already on his bad side because I have to deny the police access to patient records,” said Karen.

  “He’ll have a court order for Lorraine Winslow’s records in no time. Have you seen them?”

  “Yes. They might explain both the screaming coming from the Winslow house and Lorraine’s injuries. Lorraine . . .”

  Karen paused. Her reflex to protect patient confidentiality made her realize she had neglected a few formalities.

  “Lorraine isn’t your client. I’ll have to get a release to discuss her records with you. And we should have an engagement letter for your representation of Arthur.”

  Matthew rose. “I’ll bring one to the station house. You bring a copy of the medical records. Oh, in the meantime, give some thought to Van Dyke ~ Eddington. You could double your income, Karen.” He made an imaginary gun with his index finger and thumb, and fired it at her by flicking the thumb.