[Lou Mason 01.0] Motion to Kill

by Joel Goldman

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “WHAT WAS ALL THAT ABOUT?” Kelly asked as he pulled into the funeral procession.

  “I don’t think she likes you.”

  “She doesn’t even know me. Do you?”

  “What? Like you?” Kelly was bright, strong, and attractive. What wasn’t to like? She was also direct and Mason usually wasn’t, but he liked the question. “You’re my favorite former FBI agent turned sheriff.”

  “Well, you’re not my favorite smart-ass lawyer. But I’m getting used to you. Now, what’s this about the firm investigating Sullivan’s death?”

  “I’m not investigating Sullivan’s death. I’m trying to figure out how much trouble he left behind, and I’m starting to feel like the guy who follows the elephants around at the circus with a shovel.”

  “How deep is it?”

  “Stop me if I tell you what you already know. Your pal St. John sends his regards. Why didn’t you tell me you’d been investigating the firm?”

  “Listen, Counselor. After all your talk about privileged information, you should be the last person to complain. But you may be able to help me.”

  “With what? You still haven’t told me how you know that Sullivan was murdered. Tell me what’s going on. Then we’ll see who can help who.”

  “Whom.”

  “Are you always this annoying?”

  “Are you always this insecure?”

  “You just bring out the best in me.”

  “Maybe I should have gotten a ride with your partner.”

  It may not have been Romantic Comedy 101, but the banter was easy and the teasing friendly and promising.

  “Okay, that’s enough combat for one funeral. Am I still a suspect?”

  “I checked the damage to your car. One of my deputies took a report from a farmer who was hauling a truckload of hay down Highway 5 when some idiot tried to pass another car in a no-passing zone going the other way. The farmer said the idiot flew off the road just before he was about to get creamed.”

  “You see? My story checks out.”

  “Wrong. It doesn’t mean your story checks out. Passing in a no-passing zone makes more sense than your story that someone was trying to kill you. I could charge you with reckless driving.”

  She smiled as she said it, which comforted Mason. It wasn’t the smile of a woman about to arrest him.

  “Why didn’t the farmer come back to check on me?”

  “He had to go home and change his shorts.”

  “So I scared the shit out of him. Very cute. Have you been practicing your punch line all day?”

  “Just since breakfast. Actually, the farmer does back you up. He said the other driver held you out in the wrong lane. And he did have to change his shorts. Did you?”

  “Yeah. And I haven’t stopped since. Now, what’s the story on Sullivan?”

  She faced him with a pure cop look that left no room for negotiation. “I want your complete cooperation.”

  “Do I get yours?”

  “To a point.”

  “I’ll take the same point. Deal?” Kelly raised her chin and grimaced, giving him her no-deal look. “I don’t know who killed him or who tried to kill me, but nobody wants to find out more than I do. I can’t give up a client unless I’m not worried about being wrong. And you’re not going to tell me anything about St. John’s investigation that could blow his case. So we both know what that point is. We’re college graduates. If it gets tricky, we’ll work it out. Deal?”

  She slipped out of her cop look and put on her punch-line smile. “Deal. Sullivan sustained a blow to the back of the head. Probably not enough to kill him or even knock him out. Water in his lungs proves he drowned.”

  “That’s not news. What else do you have?”

  “Cause of death was drowning, but he had a heart attack first. The coroner says it was probably drug induced. He doesn’t have all the lab tests back yet. But he does have one test back. Your partner was HIV positive.”

  “AIDS?”

  “Not yet. Just HIV positive. We’re not disclosing that information yet. I’ve got an appointment with the family doctor, Charlie Morgenstern, after the funeral, to examine his medical records.”

  “Any more surprises—maybe a birthmark that turned up missing?”

  “Close. He had needle marks on the inside of his left arm and the inside of his thighs.”

  “Don’t tell me he was an intravenous drug user too!”

  “Intravenous user of something. That’s what the lab tests are about.”

  “HIV explains one thing. Sullivan was stalling on the physical for the life insurance policy to cover his death benefit at the firm. Now I understand why. I wonder who gave him the virus and who he passed it on to.”

  “Spreading that news would not improve his sex life and might make someone angry enough to get even. The insurance policy is another motive. Who was the beneficiary?”

  “Technically, the firm, since the money was to be used to buy out his stock. So I guess his wife ends up the real beneficiary. But what difference does that make? He never got the policy.”

  “Maybe his wife didn’t know that. Maybe she only knew he had the death benefit.”

  “Where do you go with the information on his HIV status?”

  “Missouri Department of Public Health. Morgenstern had to report the HIV diagnosis. The state may have tried to track down his sex partners to notify them.”

  The mental picture of Sullivan listing the names of his sex partners was too much. Mason would have bet money he asked for extra paper.

  “Did you know Sullivan and my firm were targets of St. John’s investigation?”

  “No. St. John wanted O’Malley. We knew about Sullivan, but nothing I saw pointed at him or your firm.”

  “Well, something changed. St. John sent Sullivan a target letter naming him and the firm about six weeks ago. Then he served Sullivan with a subpoena for the firm’s records on O’Malley. Sullivan was supposed to turn the files over this Friday.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “Scott Daniels found the target letter and the subpoena in Sullivan’s office on Sunday.”

  “That’s convenient.”

  “Yesterday, Sandra and I met with St. John to buy some time on the subpoena. Your name came up when I asked about wiretaps. St. John said they weren’t tapping our phones. Then we found this in the phone on Sullivan’s desk.”

  He handed her the bug.

  “Too cheap for the bureau. This is strictly amateur stuff.”

  “That’s what St. John said. I don’t think I’m on his Christmas list anymore.”

  “Did you find any others?”

  “I’ll know soon. Is that all I get from you, Sheriff?” he asked as they pulled into the cemetery.

  “Maybe. Depends,” Kelly said as they stepped out of the car.

  “On what? I’ll even buy you dinner.”

  “On what my pal St. John wants.” St. John stood alongside his sedan a hundred feet away, motioning her toward his car. “I don’t think I’ll need a ride back. Dinner sounds great. I’ll call you next week.”

  Mason congratulated himself on getting a date at a funeral and walked toward the grave site.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ONE THING MASON LEARNED from Blues was to pay more attention to his hometown. After all, he was a fourth-generation resident in a city that at one time had been home to more hogs and whores than just about anyplace in the history of either commodity.

  Kansas City was born as the last trading post before the pioneers’ leap into the Great American Desert, later known as Kansas. It survived its adolescence as one of the most wide-open, swinging, corrupt towns of the twenties and thirties and matured into a five-county metroplex straddling the Missouri-Kansas state line, bragging that it had more fountains than Paris and more boulevards than Rome.

  Following the funeral service, friends and family gathered at the Sullivan home in Mission Hills, the richest of the Ka
nsas-side municipalities that grew into a seamless patchwork of neighborhoods, oblivious to the state line.

  An out-of-towner couldn’t tell where Jackson County, Missouri, ended and Johnson County, Kansas, began. But it was easy to tell where the money was, and a lot of it was in Mission Hills. This enclave of the locally rich and famous was five minutes and a million dollars west of Mason’s house.

  Huge homes sat on large, heavily treed lots, along winding streets that oozed an old-money ambiance. The Sullivan home was a handsome Tudor set back on a broad, carefully manicured lawn. The circle drive was filled with cars bearing Mercedes, BMW, and Lexus hood ornaments. American-made cars lined the street.

  Two hours spent pumping the hands of colleagues who were planning their pitches to Sullivan’s clients was enough for Mason. He found Pamela in the family room, sitting on a small sofa next to a stern-faced, dark-haired woman who was holding Pamela to her breast and stroking Pamela’s hair. The woman looked up at Mason with a defiant glare. Two half-empty cocktail glasses sat on the butler’s table in front of them. Mason cleared his throat. Pamela raised her head and sat up. The woman brushed Pamela’s lips with her own while Pamela brushed imaginary lint from the woman’s breast. This was a post-funeral visitation, not a slumber party, he thought.

  “I know this isn’t a good time, Pamela, but I’d like to come back tomorrow morning. Richard may have left some firm files at home.”

  Her eyes were glassy. He couldn’t tell whether it was grief or booze or both. She didn’t introduce her friend, who kept her high-beam glare trained on Mason.

  “Certainly, Lou. I should be up and around by ten.”

  Mason spent the rest of the day and early evening returning calls from clients and answering mail until it was time to meet Blues at The Landing.

  The Landing was a piano bar in the northwest corner of the downtown in what used to be the garment district. The buildings that used to turn out dresses and coats had been rehabilitated as offices and lofts. One, however, still ground coffee beans, and when the wind was right, the aroma swept the streets like a runaway Starbucks.

  The Landing occupied a three-story redbrick building on the northeast corner of Eighth and Central that felt as if it had always been a saloon. Maybe it was all the beer and whiskey that had been absorbed by the wood-plank floors and the bartenders who looked as though they’d heard it all. The food was good and the music was great. The bar was jammed when Mason arrived at nine, slicing his way through the crowd until he found Blues finishing his dinner in the kitchen.

  “It’s about time you got here, man. I go on in five minutes. I’m gonna play ‘Green Dolphin Street’ no matter how many times those accountants taking inventory of each other ask me to play some hip-hop bullshit.”

  Blues was not a fan of professional people. In fact, Mason couldn’t name many people Blues was a fan of, especially if they wore neckties and counted money for a living.

  “How do you know any of them are accountants?”

  “You go out there and watch how they move. Only accountants move like that.”

  Mason didn’t want to hear his critique of lawyers. “How’d you make out at my office?”

  “I didn’t find any more bugs. It looks like somebody cleaned house.”

  “How could you tell?”

  “The bugs have an adhesive backing to hold them in place. Two phones were sticky where they shouldn’t be sticky.”

  “Whose offices?”

  “Scott Daniels and Harlan Christenson.”

  “If someone was bugging all three offices, why leave the one in Sullivan’s office?”

  “Maybe they wanted to or maybe they didn’t have time to pull it out.”

  “What’s the range on these things?”

  “Not much. Whoever was listening couldn’t have been more than a floor or two away.”

  “I’m supposed to find out if Sullivan left any dirty laundry behind. It looks like I may be able to open a dry cleaners.”

  Mason left as Blues weaved through the crowd toward his piano.

  The next morning, he told Sandra about Blues while they drove to Pamela Sullivan’s house. She accused him of being sexist and patronizing for not telling her sooner. Mason told her she was right. Before he could lie and tell her that he was sorry, she told him that he was on his own if he left her out again and that he was invited to her place for dinner Friday night to show that there were no hard feelings. Mason was still trying to remember when she started calling him Lou when they pulled into Sullivan’s driveway.

  “Pamela, this won’t take long,” he said as she let them in. “We need to make certain we’ve got all of Richard’s files on client matters.”

  “Of course, I understand.”

  “Before I forget, I have your husband’s briefcase at the office. There wasn’t much in it. Just a book, a newspaper, and a CD. I’ll have someone bring it out to you.”

  “That’s not necessary. I don’t need it. Keep it or give it away. Can I offer you a Bloody Mary?” she asked, holding up her own tall glass. “I tried orange juice, but I needed something a little stronger. I’m afraid I’m not very good with death.”

  “Another time,” Sandra said.

  Pamela shrugged, set her glass down on a narrow table in the entry hall, and led them into a paneled, bookshelf-lined study with overstuffed furniture, a fine Persian rug, and prints of English hunt scenes on the walls. A high-backed chair sat next to a small table adorned with an inkwell and feathered quill. A pearl-handled letter opener lay alongside the antique writing instruments.

  Sullivan’s desk had six drawers that were devoid of anything related to his law practice. A credenza behind the desk contained tax returns, financial records, and a locked cabinet.

  Sandra asked, “Pamela, do you have the key for this cabinet?”

  “Try the desk drawer.”

  Sandra rifled the desk again with no luck. “Any other suggestions?”

  “Well, perhaps.”

  Pamela walked over to the bookshelves, reached behind the six-volume Carl Sandburg biography of Abraham Lincoln, and pulled out a handgun. Before they could move, she calmly fired two rounds into the lock.

  “There, that should do it.”

  They gawked first at Pamela and then at the gaping hole in the cabinet and then back at Pamela.

  “Richard bought the gun for me after someone broke in last month. He said it might come in handy. He was seldom wrong,” she said as she returned the gun to its hiding place.

  The cabinet was empty except for an unlabeled CD case. Mason opened it and found another DVD.

  “Do you mind if we take this to the office, Mrs. Sullivan?” Sandra asked.

  “Not at all. But I would appreciate it if you could do a small favor for me.”

  “You name it,” Mason said.

  “Have someone let me know what to do to collect Richard’s death benefit. When he told me about it, I never imagined actually getting the money. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would ever die.”

  She said it with a wistful, sad tone laced with genuine surprise. Her mix of anger and grief since last Sunday made sense to Mason, as did her drinking. Sullivan may have been a son of a bitch, but he was her son of a bitch. It was the way a lot of dead people left their survivors.

  Still, her request felt as if she’d just fired another round from her pistol. Mason wasn’t ready to tell her that her husband had been diagnosed with HIV and didn’t get the life insurance policy to pay for his buyout and that the firm didn’t have the money to pay her. He would leave that happy task to Scott after Mason warned him about her gun. But he did tell Sandra on the drive back to the office.

  She looked straight ahead as she muttered through clenched teeth, “That no-good son of a bitch!”

  “Seems likely,” Mason said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE CONFERENCE ROOM HAD GIVEN BIRTH to a landfill. It was littered with half-empty coffee cups, Coke cans, wadded paper, and pizza bo
xes. Phil and Maggie had matching sets of bags under their eyes. Diane Farrell looked fresh, rested, and completely in charge.

  They had rolled in portable erasable whiteboards to keep track of O’Malley’s projects. Each project was cross-referenced to the others so that assets, ownership, and attorneys could be visualized at a glance. Diane was busily entering data on the computer so they could sort information into endless combinations.

  “Diane, what do you know about these? We found one in Sullivan’s office here and the other one at his house.”

  Mason handed her the two DVD cases.

  “You found Richard’s porno flicks—big deal.” She turned back to her computer monitor. “What do you want—a psychohistory of a man who watched dirty movies on his computer? Give it a rest. Besides, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

  “In case you’ve forgotten, Diane, you work for me now, so unless you want to peddle your bullshit at another firm, cut the crap. Make sure there’s nothing else on these DVDs.”

  Mason wasn’t certain he could fire Diane, but he doubted that anyone would fight to keep her now that Sullivan was gone.

  “The king is dead. Long live the king. Would now be soon enough?”

  For her, it was a surrender speech.

  “That would be lovely, Diane.”

  She inserted each disk into her computer and pulled up a list of the contents on the disks. The only document shown on each was the movie title.

  “Satisfied, boss?”

  “How do you know if the list identifies everything on the disks?”

  “That’s what it’s for.”

  “Can you put something on the disk that wouldn’t show up on the list, something that you’d have to have a special password to access?”

  “I don’t know. Programming is not one of my areas. I just run the software on the system.”

  “All right.” Mason turned his attention to Phil and Maggie. “How far have you gotten?”

  “Phil and I are about halfway through the files. We should have the raw information compiled in a couple of days. Then we have to figure out what we’ve gathered. Some trends are starting to appear,” Maggie said.