Karen trotted to McKinley’s room and snatched the baby carrier from its hook. McKinley expressed umbrage at having his slumber disturbed. “There, there, my little snookum-wookums. Mommy has to go to work now. You get to see Mommy’s nice new office!”
Karen attacked the drive into the city, being careful to slow down for the speed trap on Route 23. The overcast sky made the early evening prematurely dark. Because it was Saturday, the downtown buildings were unlit. The darkness of the city and Karen’s unquiet mood made the concrete lions on the bridge over the Weyawega look hungry and dangerous. The spill from the dam was murky. “You can’t see six inches into that water without x-ray vision,” Jake had said.
Using her security card to gain access to the Van Dyke ~ Eddington law offices, Karen had to remind herself that she worked here; she was not trespassing and there was no reason to feel furtive. Yet.
McKinley was being surprisingly cooperative, riding along in the baby carrier without fussing or crying. Karen shrugged off the carrier and held McKinley in her lap while she used her office phone to call the number for Shoreview Memorial Hospital. She asked for Security.
“Billy here.” Karen recognized the voice of Billy Walker, one of the security guards. When she identified herself, Billy greeted her as always, even though Karen was no longer employed by the hospital.
“Billy, do you have access to the parking garage records?”
“Sure. They’re in a room next to Max’s office.”
“When I applied for a space in the parking garage, I remember filling out a form that asked for my license plate number and a description of my car. Would that form still be on file for somebody who gave up his parking space within the last two weeks?”
“Sure.”
“How long would it take you to see if you have one on file for Ed Luebsdorf and pull it?”
“That jerk,” said Billy. “I’ve never seen Max so pissed. If Ed parked in the building, I could get it in a couple of minutes.”
“I’ll hold.”
While Karen waited, McKinley played with the buttons on her cardigan sweater. He got hold of one in his little fist and twisted and pulled until it popped off. His muscular development seemed to be just fine. He put the button in his mouth and Karen quickly fished it out. She offered him a pacifier. He threw it on the floor and grabbed another button.
“Got it right here, Mrs. Hayes. Son of a gun’s deposit check bounced.”
“Do you have the make and model of the vehicle?”
“Jeep Cherokee.”
“Color?”
“Black.”
“Thanks, Billy. Say, do you remember when Max caught Ed stealing the $150, were there any other thefts in the hospital?”
“Yeah, we had some complaints of stuff missing from patient rooms. Max was sure it was Ed, but he couldn’t prove it.”
“I hate to take more of your time, Billy, but could you also check the make and color of Shari Billick’s vehicle?”
“Red Durango.”
Of course he didn’t need to look that info up. He had probably watched her getting in and out of her car every chance he got.
Karen’s theory had passed its first test. It had not been Duane Billick following her on Monday night, nor was it Duane’s SUV next to the outbuilding Tuesday morning. It was Ed Luebsdorf’s. Arthur Winslow had not taken Lorraine’s Medic Alert bracelet, nor had Amy, nor Shari Billick. Could a uniformed security guard with an official ID badge have pulled it off? Absolutely. Just tell the patient some lie that persuades her to take it off, supposedly only for a short time. How about, “We’ve had some thefts from patient rooms lately, we need to log in all valuables, we’ll return it later.” Hospital patients get used to doing what they’re told.
Karen never ceased to be amazed at the nasty services some people were willing to perform, if the price was right. In this case, a pair of Rolex watches, at least. Her next stop was the Van Dyke ~ Eddington file room, one floor down.
The shelves in the file room were flush against each other, with no space between them for a person to access the case files. Even with McKinley over one shoulder, it took Karen only a minute to figure out that the shelves were on metal tracks, and there was a lever mounted on the end of each shelf. The entire file room had only one aisle, but when she pushed on a lever an electric motor moved the shelves, so that the aisle could be created between any two shelves. Once she got the aisle in the right position and walked down it, she had an attack of claustrophobia. If the wrong person who knew what she was up to caught her there, one finger on a lever could crush her and McKinley like bugs between bricks.
Her hands were sweating by the time she located the files for Swenson Foods, Inc. At least six feet of Swenson Foods file folders on the shelf confirmed that Swenson Foods was a major client of Van Dyke ~ Eddington. But the specific files she was looking for were not there. A large blue card marking a place on the shelf revealed that two volumes of the Swenson files ordinarily stored there were signed out to Matt Stoker.
As she entered Matt’s office, Karen realized she was violating her partner’s privacy, but she felt no compunction. He had lied to her. He had probably lied to Arthur, too. Karen finally understood why Arthur had been so frantic to protect Amy, how he could have doubted his own daughter’s innocence. His lawyer had misled him.
Matt had not seen Lorraine’s bracelet on the bottom of Lake Weyawega. He had not seen a fishing lure, or anything else. You can’t see six inches into that water without x-ray vision. Matthew Stoker may think he is Superman, but he doesn’t have x-ray vision.
Matt’s office was furnished traditionally, with wing-backed chairs, a sturdy Kittinger desk and dark wood wall paneling. A burgundy oriental rug hushed her footsteps. The recessed lights were on a dimmer switch, so Karen illuminated the room as little as possible to avoid drawing attention from outside.
She found the two-volume file she was looking for in a mahogany wall unit. The fat accordion folders bore yellow labels in the upper left-hand corners: SWENSON FOODS, INC.; DUANE BILLICK VS. SAME. There were initials on the label to identify the principal attorneys for the matter: THV and SPR—Trevor H. Van Dyke and Shirley P. Roach.
Karen lifted a book as thick as the Chicago telephone directory from one of the folders. It was bound in clear plastic and had the words “COURT TRANSCRIPT—CERTIFIED COPY” stamped in red on the cover page. She opened it to the page headed “APPEARANCES.”
Appearing for the plaintiff was Lou Chambers, an ambulance chaser Karen knew well. For the defendant was the firm of Van Dyke & Eddington (back when it still used an ampersand) by Matthew J. Stoker.
Matt could not have been more than a few months out of law school at the time, yet he had already won the confidence of Trevor and Shirley. The transcript revealed that they trusted the young associate to try a case for a major client, solo.
And what a job he had done. No wonder there were so many Swenson Foods files on the shelf. When you hit a home run as Matt had, the client comes back for more.
“Mr. Billick, how many times have you been a plaintiff in a personal injury case in the last five years?” Karen had heard her partner ask Duane virtually the same question at his deposition. The first time Matt had asked it, at the Swenson Foods trial, Duane had lied, and Matt had used the lie effectively to expose Duane’s guilt. Last Wednesday, Duane knew he had to answer the question truthfully, and Matt had used the truth, just as effectively, to create the illusion of guilt.
“Your honor, I ask that the records from the Weyawega County Library be marked as defense Exhibit 17.” The copies of the library records that Matt Stoker had sprung on Duane at the deposition had not been made on Wednesday; they had been made ten years earlier and had been stored in the file room until Matt found another use for them.
“Mr. Billick, are you an expert on how to cause food poisoning?”
When Duane sat down in Van Dyke ~ Eddington’s corner conference room, he had appeared stunned, dismayed. Karen had t
hought it was because he was surprised to see her there, after terrorizing her and stranding her in the middle of the state forest at dusk. But it was Matt’s presence that had shaken Duane, not hers. Duane recognized the lawyer as the same guy who once embarrassed him in court and demolished his big lawsuit against Swenson Foods.
Matt had lied to Karen when he told her that he had discovered some “interesting stuff” at the county courthouse on Wednesday. He had discovered it all long before Lorraine Winslow died. Before Arthur Winslow became CEO of Shore-view Memorial Hospital.
Before the collapse of the law firm of Winslow & Shaugh-nessy put all of Arthur Winslow’s clients in play.
Karen spent the next hour combing through every shelf and drawer in Matt’s office, while McKinley crawled around and drooled over the office supplies. He was especially entranced by the Post-it dispenser and a cardboard mailing tube. He seemed to intuit that something exciting was going on.
Matt’s desk was locked. Like Karen’s desk, when the center drawer was locked, all the other drawers locked automatically, except one. In the unlocked desk drawer Matt kept files of personal documents—tax returns, bank statements, utility bills, credit card statements and receipts. Karen perused the receipts, expecting to find something important.
Sure enough, on June 15, Matt Stoker charged over $24,000 at Berger’s Jewelers in Chicago. Apparently he had an impressively high credit limit. He also had a cash receipt from Berger’s dated June 28.
Karen had seen enough to convince herself. Now she just needed enough to convince the district attorney. She called Anne Delaney’s home number and got no answer, then tried her office number.
“What are you doing at the office on Saturday night?” asked Karen.
“Right now I’m eating a chicken pot pie. My caller ID says you’re at the office, too.”
“Are you sitting down, Annie? I think I figured out who murdered Lorraine Winslow.”
“Not Duane Billick?”
“Stay on the line, don’t make a peep and take notes. We’re going to try to catch a killer.”
“Hayes, this is why I always enjoy working with you. You’re so predictable.”
CHAPTER
28
Shari Billick set a brown paper bag on the small table in her motel room. She held out her hand and admired her ruby for the hundredth time. Closing her eyes, she kissed the ring and held it to her breast.
Duane might not love her anymore but someone else did. Someone better. A handsome, charming, genteel man. Wealthy, successful, distinguished. The kind of man she never thought she deserved but always wished that a miracle would drop in her lap.
It was time for a little celebration. She opened the bag and pulled out a bottle of Mouton Cadet. A copy of the Jefferson Courant came out with it. She decided to read the article about Duane first, then celebrate.
By the time she got to the end of the article, her high spirits and high hopes lay in ashes. The police were looking for a large ruby Duane had pried from Lorraine Winslow’s Medic Alert bracelet.
Shari crumpled the anonymous, typewritten card that had come with the ring and tossed it into the wastebasket. She should have known Arthur would not spell love “L-U-V.”
Matt Stoker was loading golf clubs into the trunk of his Jag when his cell phone chirped.
“Why’d you leave the party so early?” he asked. “Arthur, Trevor, Shirley and I squeezed in nine holes afterward, then we had dinner with Harold. You missed it.”
Oh yeah, thought Karen, riding around in a golf cart with Shirley Roach. How could I pass that up?
“I had some work to do,” said Karen. “At the party today Emerson said the files we had on Duane Billick were interesting, so I took a look at them. You never told me you defended a case brought by Duane Billick.”
“Didn’t I mention that? Yeah, I was wet behind the ears back then.” Karen heard a car door slam.
“You did a helluva job on the case, though. All that stuff you used at Duane’s deposition to make it look like he poisoned Arthur’s wife. The library records and his history of bogus lawsuits. You had all of that stuff years ago. Funny, you told me you turned it up on Wednesday.”
The attorney laughed, and Karen heard the sound of a car engine starting. “I guess I thought it would be more impressive if it looked like I just figured it out. Sorry about that. Where did you see those files?”
“In your office. There was a card in the file room that said they were signed out to you. And while I was looking for them, I stumbled across the receipts for the Rolex watches you used to pay off Ed Luebsdorf. He took Lorraine’s drug allergy sheet out of her chart and snatched her Medic Alert bracelet.”
Matthew laughed again. “What are you talking about? Have you and Jake been smoking dope again?”
“It was your idea to get Ed that security job in the first place, wasn’t it? I’ll ask Margaret where Ed got the watches. If she doesn’t know, I’m sure Berger’s Jewelers has the serial numbers.”
This time Matthew did not laugh. He spoke in a tone Karen had not heard from him before, deep and cold as Lake Michigan in March. “You could be fired for tampering with the contents of my desk. I want you out of the building right now.”
“What did you pay Ed for tailing me? I know it was his black Jeep Cherokee that was next to the outbuilding on Duane Billick’s property last Wednesday morning. You knew it would be there because you had already arranged it. That’s when you planted the typewriter and the Medic Alert bracelet.”
Matthew paused. When he spoke, his voice was flat and guarded.
“You can’t tie me to the bracelet.”
“You told me you saw it at the bottom of Lake Weyawega.”
“I don’t know what I saw. Maybe it was a fishing lure.”
“You gave an accurate description of the bracelet. But you couldn’t have seen it or anything else on the bottom of Lake Weyawega, not in water deep enough to run a Chris Craft. The flowage is too turbid. You can’t see six inches into that water without x-ray vision. You’d know that if you ever fished the lake. It was a stupid lie, Matthew, and you told it to Arthur, too. That’s why he was ready to plead guilty at his arraignment. Your story about Amy on the pier convinced him his daughter had killed her own mother. How heartless can you get? Wasn’t it enough that you poisoned his wife?”
“She had a debilitating, terminal illness. Whoever poisoned her did Arthur a favor.”
“What did you do with the ruby you pried out of the bracelet? Is it locked in your desk? Or does the $800 cash purchase you made at Berger’s have something to do with it? The police won’t check small jewelers in Chicago, but I guess I could.”
A long pause. The line crackled with static from the cell phone. It sounded as if Matt were passing under a power line.
“Well, well, well,” he said. “I certainly underestimated you, didn’t I? So now you know where one of my bodies is buried. That gives you a valuable ally and more job security than an equity partner. But you’ve got to do something about the snooping, Karen. Nobody likes that, and you spoiled my big moment.”
“What big moment?” Karen imagined Matt in the sporty Jag, flying down the road, spirits only slightly lowered.
“The day we had lunch at the Mill Wheel you told me about how you figured out that Lorraine’s medical record had been altered and her Medic Alert bracelet removed.” Matt’s voice turned off and on, a cell phone failing. “I could tell you were just getting warmed up. I had to freeze your investigation. That’s why I told you the story about Amy on the pier. It stopped Arthur cold, but you, Karen, you just kept plowing ahead.” The line crackled more and Karen had to strain to make out Matt’s discourse. “You figured . . . fshsht . . . food poisoning didn’t chchch . . . from the cafeteria fffftt . . . found out about the chocolates. Damn it,” and his voice climbed into overdrive, “when you turned up the order form at the messenger service, I had to move fast. Nailing Duane at the deposition got the job done, but I didn’t plan it
that way.”
“You planned to do it at the trial,” Karen accused her partner. To her surprise, Matt was starting to sound like his usual self.
“Can you picture it, Karen? Calling a surprise witness, then clearing the defendant and exposing the true murderer, in open court, with media from all over the state? You cost me my fifteen minutes of fame, but I’ll let you off the hook this time. I still got what I wanted.”
“And that would be?”
“A huge, instant book of business, and the kind of power connections it takes most guys decades to develop. Arthur is the most awed, grateful client you ever saw. He can swing enough work our way to keep half the firm busy, and everything he refers goes on my billing list. I’m the youngest partner in the firm, but this fiscal year my distribution will top Trevor’s. All of which means that you’ll be right there in the catbird seat with me.”
In the background Karen heard the kish-thunk, kish-thunk, kish-thunk of windshield wipers and looked outside. It was pitch-dark and now raindrops were spattering the window. McKinley was making querulous noises and trying to stuff a pencil up his nose. She grabbed him to her and said, “It was a reckless plan, Matthew. What if Lorraine had gotten extremely sick but not died?”
“Then I save Arthur from a charge of attempted murder.”
“What if Duane Billick had a solid alibi?”
“Fallback positions. That’s another reason for planting the story about Amy dropping the bracelet in the lake. Anytime I needed to I could’ve taken the runabout over and tossed the thing in at the end of Arthur’s pier, then tipped Lopopolo. With the right timing, it could have been just as effective.”
This made no sense to Karen. If the purpose of setting up the charges against Arthur was to win his undying loyalty, pinning the crime on Amy would have been self-defeating.
“Arthur would have taken the fall himself rather than see Amy’s life ruined,” said Karen, wondering if she should ask first where Matt was.
“Her life wouldn’t have been ruined. Minor children of wealthy parents almost never do hard time for intrafamily crimes.”
Lawyered to Death Page 24