Too Big to Die

by Sue Ann Jaffarian

  I teetered on the one foot planted on the stoop, while the one that had been just inside the house went off kilter from her forceful thrust. The air filled with a strangled scream as I lost my balance and fell backwards. My arms flailed as I tried to grab for the wrought- iron railing and missed. I tumbled down the three brick steps and, with a cry of pain, hit the paved walkway.

  I lay there crumpled and dazed. Everything hurt, but especially my left shoulder, which had taken the brunt of my fall. Above me, Doris was still screaming accusations while her two dogs barked and growled. As a final gesture, she flashed a middle finger and said, “Go back and tell him that!” Then the door slammed hard enough to rattle the front window a few feet away.

  Slowly I started testing my limbs, making sure nothing was broken. Surprisingly, both legs worked fine, but I had some nasty scrapes on them, particularly my left one, which was bleeding from a gash just below the knee. I raised myself up using my right arm, which had received the least damage, and heard talking. Turning my head, I saw two elderly women, each with a small dog at the end of a leash, standing across the street. They were staring at me and talking to each other, but neither approached to see if I needed any help.

  “Thanks for your offer to help,” I called out to them. “But I’m fine, just a broken hip.” They immediately took off.

  My hip was not broken. Neither was my left shoulder, although it hurt like hell. I slowly got to my knees and used the railing as support as I got my feet under me, first one, then the other. It was then I realized that my tote bag had come off my arm and spilled across the walk. I spied my phone on the grass just off the path and stiffly went to it, but when I bent down to pick it up, I became dizzy and felt nauseous. I grabbed the phone and straightened again, then began feeling around my skull with one of my hands, wondering if I had received a blow to the head but was too stunned to feel it yet. I felt no injury there, so I gathered up my tote bag and its spilled contents and made my way to my car.

  I was hurting but knew the pain would be much worse tomorrow. Maybe I should go to urgent care just in case I was injured more than I realized? Or maybe I should call an ambulance or an Uber? Instead, I put my keys in the ignition, started the car, and drove off to the nearest McDonald’s. I still needed to pee and was surprised I hadn’t wet myself in the fall.

  nineteen

  “I need to cancel our trip to Long Beach,” I told Zee by phone once I was back in my car and heading home. “I fell down some stairs and am pretty banged up.” Besides using the bathroom, I’d also picked up a large iced mocha. Every now and then I’d pick up the cold glass from the cup holder, take a sip, then hold it against my left shoulder. The cold felt good even through the fabric of my shirt, which was stained with dirt and some blood.

  “Are you okay?” Zee asked with alarm. “Maybe you should go to the ER?”

  “I’m fine,” I assured her, “just bruised and scraped. I didn’t land on my head, thankfully. I hate to miss staking out Holly, but I think I should go home and soak in the tub.” Then I remembered that Dumpster was currently residing in our whirlpool tub. He’d have to be moved and the tub cleaned before I could use it, and I wasn’t sure I was up for that. Damn. It looked like a long hot shower was going to have to do instead.

  “Are you sure?” she asked.

  “Yeah. If she runs true to form, we can track her down next Wednesday. I can’t see that there’s any rush in it.”

  “I meant, Odelia,” Zee asked with frustration, “are you sure you don’t want to see a doctor? I can come to your house and take you.”

  “Really, Zee,” I said, “I’m fine.” I wasn’t really sure I was fine, but so far everything was working, just achy. “I’ll be home soon and can relax.”

  “Where did you fall?”

  I paused. I didn’t want to tell her that I’d gone to Aliso Viejo anyway, without her, but I didn’t want to lie about it either. “Um,” I began. “In Aliso Viejo.”

  “Odelia Grey,” Zee scolded, “did you go see Jordon’s mother after you said we’d go tomorrow?”

  “Maybe.” Oh, Gawd, I groaned in silence. I was becoming my mother, the mistress of vague responses.

  “Did you at least speak to her before you fell or did you fall before?” Zee asked.

  “During,” I told her. Traffic had slowed to a crawl. I wanted to click my heels together and be home, but even if I could, my legs hurt. “She kind of pushed me down her front steps.”

  “Kind of pushed you or did push you?” Zee asked, keeping up the interrogation.

  “She definitely pushed me,” I replied, “and hard, but it was after I talked to her.” I took another sip of my coffee drink but this time put it back into the cup holder instead of against my aching shoulder. “She’s not a very pleasant woman, Zee. At least not now, not after everything she’s been through. She’s in a lot of emotional pain, but something sent her over the edge right at the end. I never saw it coming.” While stuck in traffic, I relayed to Zee my entire conversation with Doris Hoffman. When I was done, I was just minutes from home.

  “That poor woman,” Zee said, her voice soft and squishy.

  “Yeah, and whoever did that to Jordon seems to be still tormenting her, constantly reminding her that everything she has or needs can disappear. She really thought I was some sort of spy sent to test her loyalty to the settlement agreement between them.”

  “So it’s someone with a lot to lose,” Zee said with disgust. “Someone rich enough to buy off most anyone.” She paused.

  “In Southern California, that could be a lot of people,” I said. “A celebrity, a politician, or even a foreign diplomat. I’d love to find that person and hang him by his thumbs. But one thing at a time.”

  “What were you doing when she went ballistic?”

  “Honestly, Zee, we were done with our talk. I didn’t learn anything about Jordon’s link to Jane Newell.” I ran the sequence of my visit with Doris through my tired, battered brain again. “She walked me to the door,” I continued. “I handed her my card in case she wanted to talk again. Next thing I knew, my ass was hitting the bricks.”

  A bright light suddenly went on in my head. Right before she pushed me, Doris had looked at my business card. The memory of her twisted, angry face as she lifted her eyes from the card to me came crashing through my pain. “Oh my Gawd, Zee,” I shouted into the phone secured to my dash. “It was my business card! She went nuts after reading my T&T business card.”

  “Why would that make a difference?” she asked. “Do you think she has a severe hatred for all things relating to law firms?”

  “No, I think it’s the trust,” I said, piecing it together on the fly. “Celeste said that Jordon’s expenses at Bayview were paid monthly by a trust handled by a law firm. What if it’s my law firm that is handling that trust?” I took a deep breath. “Maybe the bastard who hit Jordon is represented by Templin and Tobin. They represent a lot of important and wealthy people, especially in the LA office.”

  “Can you ask Steele about that?”

  “I don’t know if he’d be able to tell me anything. He wasn’t there when this happened,” I pointed out, “and even so, I doubt this is something known throughout the firm. This would have been handled on the QT.” I quickly ran through what I knew about the firm’s history. “In fact, I think Templin and Tobin, as a firm, was only a few years old at that time.”

  Zee became awfully quiet, and I wondered if she was thinking the same thing I was. “I know this is a reach,” she finally said, “but what if the client turns out to be Kelton Kingston?”

  “I just had that same thought myself, but it could be any one of our clients. And isn’t Kingston quite public about the fact that he doesn’t drink and never has?”

  “I believe you’re right about that,” Zee said.

  By the time I pulled into our carport and entered the back door, my left should
er was throbbing. I immediately swallowed some ibuprofen along with some water. After giving Muffin a few pats with my good hand, I balanced an ice pack on my injured shoulder and went to work on my laptop. The firm hadn’t deactivated my access to the firm’s server, so I could still access records. Since the accident happened so many years ago, it was unlikely that those documents were stored in our current document management system, but I tried to find them by doing a word search of the system. Poking out letters with just my right hand, I first tried Jordon West. Nothing came up. Next I tried Doris Hoffman, then Doris West. Still nothing came up in my search. Striking out, I finally typed in Bayview. That produced a few documents and several emails, but they mostly pertained to a medical company called Bayview Vision out of Manhattan Beach. I knew that company because I’d done some corporate work for them, and they’d only become a client in the past year.

  Each document listed had a date of creation, the person who created it, and a file number. File numbers consisted of eight digits. The first five represented that client’s individual identification number within the firm. The last three digits represented the matter number under that client. Some clients may have only a couple of matter numbers. Others may have dozens. It all depended on how much work the firm did for them. Whenever a document was created or saved or an email sent, it was supposed to be filed on the system under the client’s number and specific matter.

  Scanning down the list of documents and emails the search had supplied, I noted that almost all pertained to Bayview Vision. Search results were listed in order of date of creation, the earliest at the top. About six months earlier, though, there were a couple of emails that had nothing to do with Bayview Vision.

  I opened the earliest and read it: Celeste Jackson at Bayview called to say they didn’t get the check this month. What gives? The email was from Templin’s assistant to our accounting department in Los Angeles.

  That same day the head of accounting wrote her back: Not sure. Will look into it and let you know.

  Early the next morning, the head of accounting wrote a follow-up email to Templin’s assistant: Apparently there was a glitch in the system. Several monthly checks got screwed up and were never printed, including Bayview’s. It will be hand-cut today and sent tomorrow. Should I call Bayview or will you?

  The assistant wrote back: I will. Just make sure it gets out.

  These four emails all had the same client and matter number, which I didn’t recognize. I jotted the number down. The firm kept a master client number list on the system. I accessed it and did a search for the number. It popped up immediately. The client number belonged to Kelton Kingston. The matter description was simply stated as Settlement. The matter was opened about thirty years ago.

  Next I went back to the main search engine for the document manager and poked in the client and matter number combination. Except for the four emails, nothing was stored on the system under that number, as I suspected.

  Holy crap! Had Holly been following Marla Kingston on Saturday? If so, was she also following Kelton himself? Had she somehow discovered the truth behind Jordon’s accident? Did she know Jordon wasn’t her father or did she believe he was? But Celeste has said no one ever came to visit Jordon.

  Now I wished I had gone to meet Holly. I looked at the clock. It was after six. Too late for that, and I didn’t think I could drive. My head was killing me. Every bone in my body ached. The ibuprofen and ice were doing nothing to help my shoulder. When Greg came home soon after, he found me slumped over my laptop, sobbing.

  As soon as he could understand through my gibberish what had happened to me, Greg bundled me off to the nearest ER, where I was poked and prodded and X-rayed. I told them I’d fallen down some steps while visiting a friend but didn’t think it was all that bad. The doctor proclaimed I didn’t have a concussion, nor was anything broken, but that I had badly torn my shoulder. We departed with my left arm in a sling and a prescription for painkillers.

  Before the drugs could kick in and with Greg’s help, I showered and crawled into bed. He laid next to me and held me while I told him about my visit to Doris Hoffman and my research on the firm’s server.

  “Wow,” was all he said when I’d finished. “So do you think it was Holly West that Marla was waiting for?”

  “Could be,” I answered with a yawn. “But when we broke into Marla’s car, the meeting didn’t happen, and Holly simply filmed us with the dog.”

  “But what about Burt? How does he fit in? And why would someone shoot him?”

  I shrugged, and pain shot through my shoulder. “Maybe he knew something and Holly followed him to you and took him out.”

  “But why Burt?” Greg asked. “Why not go after Kingston directly?”

  I had no idea, and it was the last thing I heard before drifting off into drug-induced bliss.

  twenty

  I was disoriented when I woke up. Muffin had claimed Greg’s side of the bed, and Wainwright, upon hearing my grunts and groans, came around to my side of the bed and nudged me with his nose. I tried to move, but it was impossible without protests from every inch of my body. I felt like I’d been in a bad car accident.

  If Wainwright was here, Greg probably was too. “Greg,” I called out. I called his name again and tried to get up. He rolled into our bedroom.

  “Morning, sweetheart,” he said. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’ve been hit by a truck.” I tried to roll to my side so I could swing my bruised legs around to the floor, but it was difficult without putting pressure on my bad shoulder, which was still in a sling.

  “Here,” Greg said, coming closer. “Let me help.”

  It took several tries and a lot of groans, but by holding on to his strong arms with my good arm, I was able to upright myself and get to my feet. From there I shuffled into the bathroom, and after that into the kitchen, where Greg had a nice hot cup of fresh brewed coffee waiting for me on one end of the table. With care I took a seat. The sticky notes were still where I’d left them, but Greg had shut and moved my laptop over to the counter and plugged it in to keep it charged.

  “You did some nice work there,” he said, waving toward the table of notes. “I didn’t want to disturb them. Anything about Burt jump out at you?”

  I looked at the notes. I’d only placed them the day before, but it felt more like a month ago. “Just that Burt, Marla, and Holly were all in the grocery store parking lot at the same time. That seems to be the only common thread for all three.”

  Greg grabbed a lime green note and a pen. On it he wrote Jordon’s name and stuck it in Marla’s column. I nodded. It was exactly where it belonged. We now had a connection between the Kingstons and Jordon. Was there also a connection between Holly and the Kingstons other than secondhand through Jordon?

  “Burt might have met Marla once upon a time, but I don’t see a current connection between him and the Kingstons,” I noted.

  “Maybe not, but if it’s there, you’ll find it,” he said with confidence. “Just don’t fall down anymore steps trying to find out.”

  “I didn’t fall,” I reminded him, “I was pushed.” I adjusted myself in my seat. “It actually hurt less this morning once I got moving. Except for the shoulder.”

  “That shoulder is going to take a bit,” Greg said. “Even when not wearing the sling, keep the arm folded and close to your body.” He demonstrated how I should hold my arm. “No weight on the shoulder, like the doctor said. The aches and pains from the stiffness everywhere else will subside in time.” He rolled closer and leaned in to kiss me good morning. “Mmmm, nice and minty.”

  “Yeah, at least I can brush my teeth with one hand.” I adjusted the sling. It was a real nuisance but the shoulder did feel better with it.

  “Do you want some eggs, bacon, and toast?” Greg asked. “You need to eat if you’re going to be taking those drugs. I’ll bet you didn’t eat anythin
g after breakfast yesterday.”

  I searched my memory. “Nothing except for an iced coffee, but my stomach isn’t ready for bacon. How about some simple scrambled eggs and toast?”

  “You got it, sweetheart.” Greg turned and rolled to the fridge to gather up the ingredients. “Just sit and relax.”

  I glanced at the microwave. It said it was after 10:00 a.m. “What are you doing still home?”

  Greg cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl and added some milk. “I didn’t want to leave until you were up. I wanted to wait and see how you’re feeling.” He started scrambling the eggs with a fork. “I’ll stay home with you, if you like.”

  I shook my head just as the eggs hit the hot skillet. “No, I’ll be fine, honey. As long as I can walk, use the bathroom, and feed myself peanut butter and jelly for lunch, I’m good to go. And you’ve been so busy lately.”

  He put two slices of bread into the toaster and went back to watching the eggs. “Then how about I go in just after lunch. That way I can get you settled.” He moved the eggs around with a spatula. “Besides,” he said, glancing over at me, “I called Steele. He’ll be here in about thirty minutes or so.”

  I stared at Greg. “Why did you do that?”

  “Because of what you found out yesterday about Kingston,” he explained. “He should know about that.”

  “That happened thirty years ago, Greg.” My voice was thick and froggy. I took a sip of coffee, hoping the hot liquid would loosen it up. “And just because the firm set up that settlement and administers the trust payments to Bayview and Doris, it doesn’t mean they did anything wrong. They were hired to do legal work as requested by their client.” He was in the middle of scooping the eggs onto a plate. I heard the toast pop up.

  “Seriously?” he asked, reaching for the toast. He slapped some butter on it, cut the slices in two and added them to the plate with the eggs. “They have no liability in this?” He rolled over with the plate of eggs and toast and a fork.