Lawyered to Death

by Michael Biehl

  “Arthur would have hated you.”

  “So what? Arthur was never the primary target.”

  “You’ve lost me.” Karen wondered how long she could keep this guy on the line, incriminating himself.

  “Karen, if you want to be a major rainmaker, you have to think big. My primary target all along was Harold Fairfax. Whatever I had to improvise, the hook was to succeed where the system had failed, to find his daughter’s killer. That was the way to get close to Fairfax. And it worked. At dinner he told me he could get me in at Kirk & Houston with one phone call. From there, who knows? What do you say, Karen? We’re a great team; are you ready to play with the big boys? Let’s make the move together.”

  “Sure,” said Karen. “I love to work with people who have me shot at.”

  Matthew laughed heartily. “You mean when you were up in that tree? Ed had some firecrackers in his Jeep for the Fourth of July, so he lit a few. We had a good laugh about it. The idea was to scare you so you’d stop poking around.”

  “You won’t get away with this, Matthew.”

  “I have gotten away with it, Karen. I know Lopopolo and Kazanski. They’ll never figure it out the way you did. They’re not smart enough. Besides, they won’t want to. They’ve got their man. Duane is nailed six ways to Sunday. Even his wife will be sure he did it when she gets the little present I had Ed send her.”

  So that explains the cash receipt from Berger’s Jewelers, thought Karen.

  “What’s to stop me from talking to them?” She was pushing Matt too hard, but his voice remained calm and even.

  “For starters, your contract. Take a look at the confidentiality provision. It’s broad enough to cover this. Breach it, and you’re liable for any damages that result to the firm or me. You’ll never work as a lawyer again, and you and Jake will be financially kaput. Especially since you can’t make your accusation stick. Other than this conversation, which I’ll deny, you haven’t got enough to make a case. Do the smart thing, Karen, and take advantage of your position. Unlike Duane, I do have alibis, and the only person who was seen doing anything was Ed. No one can ID me for a thing.” Karen could faintly hear Kenny G. coming from the Jag’s stereo.

  “Except Ed.” She heard an echoing voice—the sound of a hospital page—from Anne’s phone that was quickly hushed, presumably by Anne’s hand. Karen held her breath. Would Matthew catch on? How long could she keep this conversation going?

  “Ed is long gone with more cash in his pocket than he’s ever seen. Anything else for tonight, Karen? I’m bushed.”

  “There’s an innocent man sitting in jail for a crime you committed, Matthew. You have to do something to help him.”

  “Sorry, Karen,” said Matt. “No can do.”

  She heard him click off.

  After a few seconds of silence, Anne Delaney said, “Wow. That is one sick puppy.”

  “You think?”

  “Oh, he’s mentally ill,” said Anne. “Narcissistic personality disorder, if I remember my DSM-IV.”

  “Sounds like it’s named after the character from Greek mythology who fell in love with his own reflection.”

  “Everybody else is in love with Matt Stoker,” said Anne. “Why should he be any different?”

  McKinley intensified his whimper to a solid gripe. Anne held on while Karen found his bottle. It was way past the baby’s bedtime and Karen felt guilty about keeping him up so late. From the sound of the rain beating against the window, she judged it would be a slow drive home.

  “So, Annie, have you figured out what we’re going to do about this?”

  “Well,” said Anne, “I didn’t sign any confidentiality agreement. I’ve got Lopopolo’s number.”

  McKinley was finishing the bottle in record time. Karen wanted to be out of the building before his colic kicked in, which generally happened about fifteen minutes after his last drop.

  “Let’s sleep on it, Annie. Matt Stoker is pretty formidable, and I want to talk to Jake about this. I’ll call you first thing tomorrow.”

  “Poor Lorraine,” said Anne. “The first person to be killed as part of a lawyer’s marketing plan.”

  “Don’t bet on it,” said Karen.

  MCKINLEY, NOW SERENE and pleasant, settled down in his crib. Hard to believe this was the same child who assailed Karen’s eardrums all the way home. Karen comforted herself with the thought that the screams had to end someday. Nobody had colic as a teenager.

  Karen recalled a quotation Jake often repeated, “To understand all is to forgive all.” Was it possible to understand a person who did what Matt had done? Could any level of understanding make it forgivable?

  Not ready for sleep herself, Karen left McKinley briefly for the egg-carton studio and a cardboard box that was stored in the closet. She opened the box and took out a textbook from a college class, Abnormal Psychology,

  The book had two pages on narcissistic personality disorder. The characteristics of the disorder included a preoccupation with achievement and wealth, inordinate self-concern and a craving for admiration. That was Matt Stoker all right, but it also described a lot of other lawyers Karen knew.

  Another characteristic was a lack of empathy, indifference to the suffering of others. No question, Matthew had shown that trait. And “interpersonal exploitativeness”: taking advantage of others, a disregard for other people’s rights. Individuals with the disorder were often ruthless, remorseless and unconcerned with their own personal integrity. Their affect was usually nonchalant and imperturbable, unless their confidence was shaken.

  Anne was apparently a pretty good diagnostician, Karen thought, chagrined at having been duped.

  According to the text, individuals with NPD often treated coworkers like vassals. That was what had alienated Emerson. They could be charming and socially facile, and often achieved positions of authority. But ultimately they lacked solid contact with reality.

  A scholar named Heinz Kohut had theorized that a child became narcissistic because his parents failed to express approval when the child displayed competency. So Lorraine Winslow was dead because Matthew’s mommy didn’t adequately praise his crayon work? Karen couldn’t buy that. Besides, there were a lot of things about NPD that didn’t seem to fit Matthew. “Boastful, arrogant and grandiose,” the textbook said. She did not see Matthew as that way at all. Then she remembered something Jake had said about her partner. “Sounds a bit arrogant to me.”

  Maybe she had misinterpreted a lot about Matthew Stoker. Was his friendliness with the rank and file at the station house and with just about everybody else merely cold manipulation? Was he really sensuous and fun-loving, or were his tan and his Jaguar and his Chris Craft and his lake house just status symbols used to bolster a neurotically fragile ego? Was he really attracted to her, or was his move at the county park just another ploy?

  Ouch.

  The book also said, “Prone to rage and violence if his/her superiority is challenged.” At least she had never observed that characteristic in Matthew.

  Feeling drowsy, Karen closed the book. She missed Jake so much that she ached all over. She took off her clothes, put on one of Jake’s old T-shirts and crawled into bed. What would she and Anne do tomorrow? Report Matthew to a skeptical and resistant police force, dig for more evidence or start learning to live with a colossal injustice? Maybe she would take up a collection for Duane Billick’s defense. Whatever she did, she was out of the law firm of Van Dyke ~ Eddington, forever.

  She was feeling the first suggestions of sleep, hovering at the edges of a dream, when she thought she heard a noise from downstairs.

  The sound of shattering glass.

  CHAPTER

  29

  When she was little, Karen had a vivid imagination. Many nights, while her parents and sister slept, she would lie awake attending to random clicks and clunks of the house as it cooled and settled, converting the night noises in her mind into the sounds of creeping burglars. She would play out imaginary scenarios of how she would
react if one of the sounds that pricked her ears ever declared, unambiguously, intruder. What would she do? Would she panic and scream? Would she keep her head and plan an effective defense or a clever escape? How do you know what you’ll do when the bad thing happens, until it happens?

  Half asleep a moment before, Karen was now more than awake. Her heart pounded, her eyes darted about, she held her breath as she listened, waited for her fears to be confirmed and struggled to accept the painful fact: it was happening. One of those awful things you obsess about but never expect—your plane going down, your child disappearing, house fire, car-jacking, rape—was happening to her right now.

  The clack of the deadbolt being thrown on the kitchen door confirmed that someone was breaking and entering, and Karen was certain she knew who it was. She sat up and put her feet on the floor. Door hinges creaked; he was inside. Karen reached for the phone on her nightstand. There was no dial tone.

  Jake had the cell phone.

  “Prone to rage and violence,” the textbook said. Matthew Stoker was an agile, athletic man. He might have a weapon. Only one flight of stairs connected the floors, so there was no chance of escaping the house without being caught. Karen ran through her options and soon settled on one.

  Hide.

  But where? A closet? Her claustrophobia said no; she would feel trapped. The bathroom would be better, and the door could be locked. How about the studio? There, if McKinley started crying, he wouldn’t give them away.

  A pattern of footfalls and creaking floorboards from below ruled out those alternatives. The housebreaker was moving methodically through the first floor, checking the powder room, the dining room and the linen closet. In either the bathroom or the studio she would be a sitting duck.

  But then she had another idea. She shuffled as quickly and quietly as possible to the studio, where she found an extension cord and a pair of scissors. In the hallway she grabbed the pull cord that opened the trap door to the attic and pulled down the folding stairs. The spring on the hinge of the stairs squeaked. Karen did not stop to wonder how the person downstairs would interpret the sound if he heard it.

  While gathering McKinley up and for the second time that night putting him into the baby carrier, Karen whispered reassurances and pleaded with the baby for silence. McKinley obliged with a soft gurgle. She slipped into the carrier and crouched at the bottom of the folding stairs, working quickly and quietly to tie the end of the extension cord to the bottom stair tread. She cut the pull cord and pulled it through the hole, then placed the cord and the small plastic knob from the end of the cord into the breast pocket of her T-shirt. Within seconds she was up the stairs.

  The attic was hot and smelled musty. Karen had to move to the side of the attic opening and pull up with all her might to budge the stairs, but once she had them moving they folded easily. The spring squeaked again, sounding, Karen hoped, like a restless sleeper on an old mattress. When the trapdoor was shut, she looked up. There was only one window in the attic and it was a dark night, but when her eyes adjusted she was able to make out a protruding nail head in a rafter low enough to reach. She tied the extension cord to it as well as she could and backed away from the opening.

  Creaking sounds from the stairs to the second floor announced that the intruder was on the way up, and that he was not a slight person. He was not being particularly careful about making noise, as if he had a sense of entitlement about being in someone else’s house at night, uninvited.

  Karen said a silent prayer. There was a good chance that Matthew, or whoever it was, would not notice the trap door to the attic. Even if he did, there was no longer any cord to open it and pull the stairs down. She imagined he could get a wire coat hanger from a closet, distend it, and hook it through the hole. Still, he could not break an extension cord. Her refuge was not exactly impregnable, but it was not half bad.

  McKinley whimpered as if he’d had enough of cooperation. Oh God, please, no crying now. McKinley had been weaned months ago, but Karen slipped out of the carrier, lifted her T-shirt and offered him her breast. It seemed to mollify him, and in a few seconds he was again sleeping soundly.

  The intruder was in the master bedroom now, opening the doors on the built-in wardrobe. Karen had not realized before that those doors had a distinctive sound. Then he was in the bathroom. She heard him jerk back the shower curtain.

  It sounded like he stumbled in the vicinity of the studio. Karen remembered leaving the cardboard box full of books in front of the door. There was a thud; perhaps he had kicked the box out of the way. The opening and closing of closet doors began to sound frantic, as if he were getting frustrated or perhaps feared that she had slipped out of the house.

  She heard him walking in the hallway below. His footsteps slowed and then stopped. Two sharp taps sounded on the trapdoor to the attic. Karen reflexively took a half step backward.

  Something brushed against the back of her thigh. The realization of what it was hit her like a ballpeen hammer to the forehead. Jake’s drum set! She wheeled around in time to see the high-hat falling, in agonizing slow motion, like a felled pine tree. The pair of cymbals landed with a clangorous crash that seemed to go on forever.

  What now? Her location was no longer a secret, but could he find a way into the attic? Karen heard an earsplitting whump! McKinley awoke and started to fuss. Then another whump! With the third whump! the head of a golf club came through the thin wood of the trapdoor. A nine iron.

  Karen looked around. There was no place to hide in the attic. Through the window was the ridge of the steeply pitched roof that was set at a right angle to the attic window. Near the end of the ridge was a small brick chimney. Unfortunately, that section of roof and the chimney were completely visible through the window.

  A thought came to her. She turned on the light, a bare bulb with a pull string. As she had guessed, with the light on in the attic the window was pitch black; you could not see a thing through it.

  The head of the nine iron was hooked on a stair tread, and the intruder was pulling on it. The extension cord was holding. McKinley wound up for a bout of full-blown crying. Karen slipped on the baby carrier, unlatched the window, opened it and stepped through.

  Outside it was pouring rain, windy and cold. The wind and rain on his face appeared to perplex McKinley and he quieted down, seemingly out of respect for something he had never before encountered. Sheltering the baby with her left arm, Karen reached back with her right hand to close the window behind her. She was still clutching the scissors she’d used to cut the pull cord, thinking they might be of use as a weapon if it came to that. When she opened her fingers to push the window down, she fumbled the scissors. She watched with alarm as the scissors skidded rapidly down the roof, imagining herself for a moment in the place of the scissors, until they landed with a clump in the steel gutter. Thirty feet below the gutter on that side of the house was a concrete patio.

  Typical of Victorian houses, the roof had a slope of sixty degrees. By straddling the peak, Karen was able to inch her way forward toward the chimney. Her bare feet had remarkably good traction on the wet shingles, but the pain from the pressure on her injured toe made her cry out. With each step, she could feel the freshly knitted tissues tearing apart, four days of healing undone. The toe was bleeding again, profusely. She hoped the downpour would wash away her tracks.

  Her knees trembled and her ankles buckled as she tottered across the rooftop. When she reached the chimney she faced a new problem: how to get to the far side to hide from view. She could not crawl over the top with the baby slung on her chest, but fortunately the corners of the shingles were slightly curled and the chimney was badly in need of tuckpointing. She was able to get enough purchase with her fingers in the crumbled mortar and her toes on the curled shingles to work her way around the chimney. Thank God for deferred maintenance, she thought, as she hunkered down.

  The roof had a sixteen-inch overhang, barely enough space for Karen to crouch on, her heels at the edge, her fing
ers clinging to the chimney’s capstone. Peering over the top of the chimney, Karen had a clear view of the attic. The brown extension cord was still tied to the head of the nail in the rafter, but Karen observed with dismay that the nail was now bent downward. She imagined Matthew standing on a chair, grabbing the extension cord through the hole he had punched in the attic door and using his strong biceps to separate the cord from its anchor.

  As she watched, the extension cord popped off the nail head and dropped from sight. Was now the time to start screaming? The neighbors’ windows would all be shut against the weather, no one was out and about, and the din from the rain and wind would drown out her cries. It was unlikely anyone would hear her, except perhaps the tall, dark man who was ascending the attic stairs.

  It was, in fact, Matt Stoker. He carried the golf club casually on his shoulder, like a PGA player strolling off the eighteenth green at the end of a round.

  Karen’s ploy with the light appeared to be working. Matthew turned in a circle, looking into every corner of the attic. He looked down at the fallen high-hat from Jake’s drum set for a long time, did another slow 360-degree turn, then tipped his head back and studied the rafters. With a look of frustration, he walked over to the unfloored area of the attic and began poking with the club into the rock wool insulation. Then he appeared to give up and started descending the stairs. Only the top of his head was visible when he stopped, turned and came back up. He regarded the window. No, no, no! thought Karen, as Matthew Stoker reached for the light string.

  The window went pitch-black and Karen ducked down behind the chimney. She heard the attic window bang open.

  McKinley’s fascination with the rain in his face seemed to be abating and he was beginning to bleat. Karen could not let go of the chimney to remove the baby carrier and pull up her T-shirt, so she tried to offer the baby her breast through the wet fabric. He was not buying. His bleating got louder.

  “Karen!” shouted Matthew. “Karen, I know you’re out there. We have to talk. I’m not going to hurt you.”