Sudden Death

by David Rosenfelt

  It’s also safe to assume that calling him back won’t help me drag the secret out of him, so I roll over and go back to sleep for another hour. When I wake up, I go out to the front yard and get the paper, an act that Tara has never accepted as dignified for golden retrievers to perform.

  Karen has nailed the story well; it will certainly have the desired effect of shaking up the public perception of the case. Quintana is not likely to be thrilled with it; Karen has done some additional reporting that makes his connection to Preston seem even tighter.

  I sit for a while and ponder what my next steps should be when Laurie comes in and reminds me that I have a breakfast with Sam Willis at eight.

  Sam is my accountant, a position that increased significantly in importance when I came into my fortune. He is also my friend and my competitor in something we call song-talking. The goal is to work song lyrics smoothly into our conversation, and I am probably giving myself too much credit by referring to Sam as my competitor. He is a master at it and has long since outdistanced me.

  I let Sam choose the restaurant for breakfast, and he picked a place called Cynthia’s Home Cookin’, which the signs say is noted for “Cynthia’s World Famous Pancakes.” I’ve only been to Europe twice, but no one has come up to me and said “Ah, an American. That’s where Cynthia makes her famous pancakes.” But Sam is a regular here and always chooses the place, and they do have great pancakes.

  Since it’s not fair to leave Adam in the office listening to Edna all the time, and since he’s supposed to be observing me, I invited him to the breakfast with Sam. He’s waiting for me in the parking lot when I arrive, as always writing something in his notepad.

  “Good morning,” I say. “No trouble finding the place?”

  He smiles. “Are you kidding? It’s world-famous.”

  I point to the notepad. “You’re taking notes about it?”

  He nods. “It’s a great setting for a scene.”

  We go inside the restaurant, which is basically a dump, albeit a crowded dump. There is not an empty table in the place. Sam sits in a booth near the window waiting for us. He waves, then calls out to the waitress. “They’re here, Lucy.”

  “Coffee comin’ up, Sam” is her response, then she comes over to the table and pours coffee for all of us even before we arrive. Decaf is not an option at Cynthia’s.

  I introduce Adam to Sam as we sit down. I notice my chair is covered with crumbs and sweep them off before sitting. “Nice clean place you brought us to.”

  Sam shrugs and fires his opening salvo. “Sometimes you wanna go where everybody knows your name.”

  Adam brightens up. “Hey, that’s a song. Cheers, right?” I had forgotten to warn Adam about the song-talking.

  Sam says to me, “This guy’s sharp as a tack.”

  “He’s a big-time screenwriter,” I say. “So be careful, or he’ll have Peewee Herman play you in the movie.”

  I start to tell Sam what I want, which is to have him use his incredible computer expertise to hack into the life of the deceased Troy Preston. Put Sam in front of a computer and he can find out anything about anybody, and right now I’m interested in financial dealings that can connect Preston to drug money. I provide Sam with the personal information about Preston that was in the police reports, as well as the information the Giants were able to provide.

  Sam gives the material a quick look, then casts a wary glance at Adam, who is still taking notes. The kind of research Sam does is not always strictly legal, and his unspoken question to me asks if Adam can be trusted. I nod that it’s okay, so Sam promises to get right on it.

  The waitress, Lucy, comes over and spends a few minutes joking with Sam, who tells Adam that Lucy can “light the world up with her smile. She can take a nothing day and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile.” Adam recognizes it as being from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, which surprises me, since he’s not old enough to have seen it, other than in reruns.

  Sam asks Adam a bunch of questions about the movie business, including one about how Adam got into it in the first place. He grew up in a poor rural area in Kansas, and his first and fondest memories are rooted in his love for movies. Five years ago he was living in St. Louis working at an ad agency and spending his free hours writing something called a spec script. That’s a script that no one commissions in advance and therefore can be sold as a finished product to the highest bidder. His sold for “mid-five figures,” as Adam puts it, and though it never came close to making it out of the sewer pipe, it resulted in his getting more work.

  “But I had to move to LA so I could sit in meetings, look creative, and pretend to know what I’m talking about.”

  I see an opportunity, so I say to Sam, “They said that Californee is the place he oughta be, so he loaded up the truck and he moved to Beverlee—Hills, that is.”

  Sam nods in grudging respect to my Hillbillies reference. “Makes sense… swimming pool… movie stars.”

  I tell Adam that I will meet him back at the office, that there is something I need to talk to Sam about privately. Adam leaves, and Sam makes the logical assumption that I want to discuss my personal finances, which is not at all what I want to discuss.

  “There’s somebody else I want you to check out.” I say it hesitantly because I’m more than a little ashamed of what I’m doing. “His name is Sandy Walsh. He lives in Findlay, Wisconsin.”

  Sam writes down the name. “You want to tell me why?”

  As long as I’m doing something this slimy, I might as well at least come clean as to why. “He’s Laurie’s old boyfriend… he’s offered her a job back in Findlay. She’s thinking of moving there.”

  He shakes his head in sympathy; he likes Laurie and knows how devastated I would be if she left. “You think she will?”

  “I don’t know,” I say honestly.

  He shakes his head again. “Just walking out on you and going back to her hometown… damn, there must be fifty ways to leave your lover.”

  I’m going through this torture, and he’s actually song-talking Simon and Garfunkel. The mind boggles. “This might not be the best time for song-talking,” I say.

  “Sorry, sometimes I can’t help it. What do you want me to find out about this guy?”

  “That he’s a slimeball. Maybe a crook, a terrorist… whatever you can come up with. Something that will make Laurie decide to stay here.”

  “I assume you don’t want her to know about this?”

  I nod. “That’s a safe assumption. It’s not my proudest moment.”

  “Jeez, Andy… I thought you guys were gonna get married.”

  “We talked about it. Maybe we should have; things were going well enough. I certainly didn’t expect anything like this.”

  “Ain’t it always like that?” he asks.

  “What?”

  “I mean, the relationship goes on, you think you’re making progress… I don’t know… sometimes it just seems the nearer your destination, the more you’re slip-sliding away.” He smiles slightly, hoping I won’t take offense at his inability to stop song-talking.

  I don’t. “Just for that you can pay the check,” I say.

  He nods. “Who do you want me to look into first, Preston or this Walsh guy?”

  “Preston,” I say with some reluctance.

  “I’ll get on them both right away,” he says, understanding. “You can count on it.”

  I stand up to leave. “You’re like a bridge over troubled water,” I say.

  He smiles. “I will ease your mind.”

  I MAKE IT A POINT to meet frequently with my clients during the pretrial period. It’s not vital to their defense; the truth is that as time goes on, they have less and less to contribute. This is usually because they’ve already told me everything they know, though I’m not sure that’s the case with Kenny Schilling. But with Kenny, as with all my clients, my visiting is vital to their sanity, and they are generally desperate to see me and learn whatever is going on in their case.


  My visit to the jail this morning finds Kenny in surprisingly good spirits. A guard has slipped him the morning newspaper, and he’s read Karen’s story raising the possibility that Preston was the victim of a drug killing. It’s the first positive news Kenny’s heard in a very long time, and though it’s totally speculative and publicly denied by Dylan, he chooses to be euphoric over it.

  “So you think this Quintana guy could have done it?” he asks.

  “Somebody did,” I say, deflecting the question. “Preston didn’t go in that closet and shoot himself, did he?”

  “He sure as shit didn’t,” he says, laughing and punching me in the arm, which seems to be his way of being jovial. Since he’s a two-hundred-thirty-pound professional football player with a punch that can dent iron, I’m going to have to give him any future good news over the phone.

  Kenny’s been getting visits from some of his teammates on the Giants, and that has made him more upbeat as well. I’m always torn in situations like this over how much to level with the client. His situation is fairly grim at the moment, but it would do no good to bring him down emotionally. There will be plenty of time for that later.

  My next stop is back at my office, to receive a chemistry lecture from a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University, located off Route 4 in Teaneck. The professor, Marianna Davila, will serve as my expert witness on the subject should I need one at trial. I’ve used her before and have always enjoyed the interaction. She’s a very pleasant, attractive young woman who has developed an incongruous reputation as one of the leading authorities on street drugs in North Jersey.

  I find with experts in any field that it is counterproductive for me to ask other than general questions early on in our discussions. I don’t want to lead them where I want to go; there’ll be plenty of time for that when I get them on the stand. I want the raw facts first, and then I can figure out how I want to manipulate them.

  I have Kevin and Adam sit in on the meeting, and I start by telling Marianna that we are meeting on a matter relating to the Kenny Schilling case. She tries not to show it, but I see her perk up. I know from past conversations that she wouldn’t know a football from an aardvark, but no one is immune from the barrage of media coverage this case has gotten. And it’s only beginning.

  “Tell us about Rohypnol,” I say.

  “Its nonproprietary name is flunitrazepam” is how she starts, and my eyelids begin drooping. “There is no medically accepted use for it in the United States, and it’s produced almost exclusively outside the country. It’s most prevalent in the U.S. in the South and Southwest, but lately, it’s gotten up here in much bigger quantities. Most of it comes out of Mexico.”

  “How long does it take to have an effect?” I ask.

  “Usually, thirty minutes to an hour, but it peaks in maybe two hours. Blackouts are possible for eight to twenty-four hours after taking it, which is why its main use is as a date-rape drug.” Anticipating my next question, she says, “It lasts in the bloodstream for up to seventy-two hours.”

  “What kind of a high does it give?” Kevin asks.

  She shakes her head. “It doesn’t. It’s more of a low. Think Valium, only way stronger. Very relaxing… gives a feeling of peace, serenity, when users know what they’re doing.”

  We continue to question Marianna, whose knowledge of the subject seems complete. She’ll make a fine witness if we need her, especially since she says that Rohypnol could absolutely be slipped into a drink.

  Marianna leaves, and Adam does as well. I doubt it’s a coincidence; Adam seemed to be so taken with her that he didn’t even take notes while she talked.

  I have to wait for Laurie to come by with the report on where she and Marcus stand in their investigation. I’ve structured it so that Laurie is in charge of the overall investigative efforts, and Marcus reports through her. Basically, I’ve set it up this way because I’m afraid of Marcus and Laurie isn’t.

  Laurie’s not due for about an hour, so I play a game of sock basketball. It’s a game where I take a pair of rolled-up socks and shoot it at the ledge above the door, which serves as the basket. I set up mock games, and it serves as a stress-reducer and confidence-builder, mainly because I always win.

  I’m the Knicks this time, and we beat the Lakers 108–14, the highlight being my thirty-one blocked shots of Shaquille O’Neal. After the twentieth block he gets in my face, but I stare him down. When it comes to nonexistent three-hundred-pound, seven-foot basketball players, I make intimidating eye contact.

  Destroying Shaq makes me work up a sweat, compounded by the fact that Edna doesn’t believe in air conditioners and instead keeps the windows open so that we can have fresh air. It’s a concept I’ve never understood. Where do air conditioners get their air in the first place? Don’t they just cool off the same air we always breathe? Or is there some mysterious tubing that leads from some stale air factory direct to our air conditioners? Edna seems to think the air that comes from the dirty city streets through our windows is straight from the Rockies, although I don’t remember seeing too many Coors commercials shot against the backdrop of Market Street in Paterson.

  I wash up in the bathroom down the hall and then go back to the office to wait for Laurie and do some paperwork. It turns out that the paperwork part is going to be difficult because sitting at my desk is a large, very ugly man.

  “This place is a shithole,” Ugly says.

  My first instinct is to run for it, figuring that no normal person, even a nonlarge, nonugly one, would enter my office and sit like that at my desk if he was up to any good. But it seems like a particularly cowardly and ridiculous thing to do; this is my office, and I should at least be able to find out what he is doing here before I bail out.

  “Sorry it’s not up to your standards,” I say, “and by the way, who the hell are you?”

  Ugly shakes his head. “That doesn’t matter. What matters is who sent me and what he wants.”

  “Fine. Who sent you?”

  “My boss. He doesn’t like you talking about him.”

  “Cesar Quintana?” I ask.

  “Didn’t I just say he doesn’t like you talking about him?”

  “So that’s why you’re here, to ask me to be quiet?”

  Ugly laughs and stands up, walking slowly around the desk. I start to gauge the distance between myself and the open door. “Right. I’m asking you to be quiet. And if you don’t get quiet, he’ll come see you himself, cut your tongue out, and strangle you with it.”

  He moves slowly as he talks, sort of toward me but at an angle. He’s not stalking, just ambling. I move as well, and before I know it, I have been outmaneuvered to the point where I don’t think I can make it to the door before he gets to me. This is not good, and for a moment I consider whether to move toward the double windows overlooking the street. Since Edna left them open, I could call out into the fresh air for help.

  I can’t think of anything to say, and my guess is, it wouldn’t matter anyway. Ugly has been given an agenda, whatever that might be, and he wouldn’t likely be entrusted by his boss to make decisions or changes in the moment based on circumstances.

  For some reason I notice that he has a bit of a gut and is not in the best of shape. I contemplate whether this gives me any advantage at all and quickly realize that it does not. We’re not going to run the marathon, nor am I going to bob and weave for ten rounds. He might huff and puff a little, but it’s nothing that will stop him from kicking the shit out of me, if that is his mission.

  I’m so intent on his motions that for a moment I don’t realize that he is still talking. “… has something that my boss wants. So you get it from him, and maybe we can let you live.”

  “What?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about your client. You get it from him, give it to me, and we’ll be fine.”

  This is a little bewildering. “Get what?”

  “Ask your client. He’ll know. And tell him if he doesn’t come up
with it, we can get to him in prison.”

  “Why don’t you tell me what it is?” I ask, and I can immediately tell that I’m starting to piss him off. He’s won the strategic maneuvering game, and I can’t make it to the door. He starts to move toward me, more threatening now, and I back up toward the window, finally leaning against the wall next to it.

  One moment I see him coming toward me, and the next moment my view is blocked by Marcus Clark, standing between us and facing Ugly. I assume he came in through the door and walked across the room, but he managed to do it without either of us noticing him. I know this because I see a flash of surprise on Ugly’s face, but no real concern. He’s not afraid of Marcus, which makes him an idiot. But he does seem to realize that Marcus will be somewhat more difficult to contend with than I am.

  “Step aside, friend,” Ugly says.

  Marcus, ever the gregarious conversationalist, just stands there and doesn’t say a word.

  “I’m not going to tell you again,” Ugly says, and then without waiting for a response, pulls his fist back to take a swing at Marcus. It is safe to say that Ugly is not a Rhodes scholar.

  Marcus’s movement is so quick as to be imperceptible, but the thud of his fist hitting Ugly’s stomach echoes through the office. It is followed by a gasp and then gagging, as Ugly doubles over in stunned agony. As he leans over, Marcus picks him up over his shoulder, so that the very large Ugly is completely off the ground.

  “Put him down, Marcus.” The voice is Laurie’s, and I look up to see that she has just joined the party. “Come on, Marcus, put him down.”

  Marcus looks over at her, nods, then walks a few feet and drops Ugly out the open double windows. I hear a thud as he lands and some screams from people one floor below on the street.

  “I think she meant to put him down in the office,” I say, but Marcus seems unconcerned with his mistake.

  Laurie and I go to the window and look down. Ugly had crashed through one of the awnings above the fruit stand, crushing it. He then landed in a display of cantaloupes, which I hope were ripe enough to have cushioned his fall.