"Gets real annoying, you being right all the time, you know," he said, adjusting his hat.
"Dirty job but somebody's got to do it," I responded. All my guys were special, but Anderson Halloway was a legend, the last of his breed of gentlemen attorneys. The legal world would be the poorer when he departed the practice of law, which I was sure wouldn't be until he departed this world. "Now, do you have your cell phone and is it—"
"Yes, I've got it, and yes, it's on, and yes, I'll keep it with me."
"Good man. Can't wait to hear how it goes."
Chapter Three
I didn't even have to ask. Anderson was gushing when I came in the next morning.
"I don't know where you got that guy's name, Ariel, but he's a miracle worker. Had a real long talk with the girl, she's cooperating about the deposition, won't hurt us too bad. Sure as hell not as bad as she'da hurt us if Sandy Rozier'd gotten to her first."
"Good to know," I replied, stashing my purse under my desk. "What time did he call you?"
"'Bout 9:00 last night, I think. Get this—major problem we had with getting her to talk to us is she's gotten married. So with an ex-boyfriend in the mix and all, she didn't want her husband upset and the new husband doesn't want her upset. So our guy sat with the new husband for an hour and a half while the dude grilled hamburgers before he'd let him talk to her!"
"Well, I did tell him to use kid gloves," I said. "Must have a really soft pair." The mail hadn't been distributed yet, so I pulled up Outlook and started through the emails. War@war-n-wit wasn't too far down in the mix:
Our Ms Tiffany Leigh Andrews Hartwell, date of birth 8/12/78, social security no. xxx-xx-8723, 5-3, 120, blonde with help as evidenced by the dark roots, no glasses, don't know about contacts, is back at the 1380 River Cliff address in Shellman Bluff, Georgia. She works at one of the local restaurants and I would imagine with the tourist trade coming, does pretty good on tips. Home phone 555-8742, cell phone 555-3815. She has a new husband of a little under a year and believe me when I tell you he is very protective of her and very resentful of the way the insured driver in this case treated her and I will leave to your imagination the descriptive phrases utilized in expressing that resentment. I sat on their patio handling with kid gloves while he grilled hamburgers and hotdogs for an hour before he would consent to permit her to come out of their bedroom where she was watching television. I then called Mr. Halloway on his cell and handed it over to her. Consequently, this assignment is complete with this report to Anderson Halloway and his secretary Ms Ariel Anson. Invoice to follow by mail for one skip trace in the amount of $200.00 and one service for $175.00, for a total of $375.00. Please note that War-N-Wit, Inc. stands ready for the next assignment. Have a good day.
Was this man real? Obviously. But maybe I could fictionalize him, and my fertile brain which had not so sub-consciously stored him away as the base for a future character back when Mark's case went into overdrive. I hit the reply button.
Did they at least offer you a hamburger or a hotdog? You are awesome, and they should do a reality show on you! Anybody in the firm needs anything doing in South Georgia, believe me, you da man! (And we're a big firm, look us up. I'll see what I can do about getting business your way for sure.)
I went through two more emails before his response popped up. And this time, it wasn't from [email protected]. It was from [email protected]. He'd switched me to his personal Email?
Yes, actually, they did offer me a hamburger, but I declined as I felt it breached the level of professionalism I was trying to maintain and besides, I didn't want the kid gloves to wear through as I much prefer being totally straight which is sometimes translated as mean. Further, please note that War-N-Wit, Inc. services all of Georgia, Alabama and Florida, not just South Georgia. You can run but you can't hide. Thanks for the kind words, but I was just beefing up my chances of lunch with you at Carrabbas.
I'm a closet writer, remember? I'm going to pass up the chance to chat with a guy with a sense of humor, an obviously high IQ, a made-for-television career, and enough charm to blow the top off a charm-o-meter? Give me a break. I don't think so.
Of course they offered you a hamburger! Southern hospitality dictates that you offer a burglar a glass of ice tea. I stand corrected, your area of service is noted, and if anybody needs anything doing in the firm, I'll certainly steer 'em your way. You can run but you can't hide is what I tell my guys when I track 'em down in the men's room, by the way. (Not really, but they're not too sure I wouldn't if I really needed 'em.)
Well, that was fun, I thought. That was the last one, of course, he'll get on to work and so will I. Brightened the day though, sure enough. It took about five minutes for the next one to come in.
If you're going to track a man down in the men's room, we definitely need to form a partnership. So, what about the chances for lunch at Carrabbas the next time I swing up I-75?
Yet again I asked myself if this guy was real. But I sure as hell intended to enjoy the exchanges for as long as they lasted. I hit the reply button.
Be warned. And be careful what you wish for, you might get it. You're a character just waiting to be put in a novel, and I'm a closet writer. I write books and put 'em in the closet. My sister gave me a T-shirt for Christmas that says "Watch out or I'll put you in my novel."
I hit the send button before I realized what I'd said. I did not just tell a perfect stranger that I wrote novels. I didn't tell close friends that I wrote novels. What the hell was the man doing to me?
If you're serious about writing, we definitely need to corroborate. Everybody tells me I should fictionalize my cases and write a book. I would love to see your closet. And send me something, I'd love to read some of your work.
I chewed my lip before replying. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. And anyway, this was just an email flirtation. I'd never meet the man anyway.
I'm serious as a heart-attack about writing. I have seven novels in my closet, though actually, I had to move them to a file cabinet. But you don't need any help writing. You're a great writer yourself. And I don't believe I'm telling you this, I know you don't believe this the way I'm gushing, but I don't tell anybody I write. Only my sister knows.
It didn't take but a minute this time for the response to arrive.
So where's my sample? Do you really write that much and just put it aside? Surely you've given publishing a shot?
He must be having a slow day. My morning wasn't all that heavy either. I could take the time to play for a minute or two or ten. I pulled up the excerpt from my last completed novel that I'd culled and prepped for submission to a couple of agents and looked at it thoughtfully. Stacy thought I didn't try to submit much, which drove her crazy, but in actual fact, I tried rather frequently. I just didn't tell her about it because the one or two times she had known about it, the rejections upset her a hell of a lot more than they did me. Well, hell. Why not? I repeated to myself I was never going to actually meet the man anyway.
Well, I told you to be careful what you wished for. Pulled this out of my last one as the requested first pages and sent it to a few possibilities. But writing and publishing's not what people think. In actual fact, you can't get published if you don't have an agent and you can't get an agent unless you're published. I think it was Stephen King who said that by the time you could get an agent, you didn't need one. And you can use brute honesty, I don't need kid gloves. Wouldn't have survived in a law office for eleven years if I did. You're under no obligation to ask for any more of it.
And with that, I hit send and turned sideways from the screen to get back to the massive pleadings waiting to be indexed in Anderson's med mal defense case. Certainly he wasn't going to read that sample, certainly if he read it, he'd think it was juvenile beyond belief, and almost certainly he wasn't going to hurt my feelings by telling me so, both because he was a natural charmer who liked the ladies and because the firm was a new and potentially quite lucrative client for him and I was its contact
. No joke, we were big, at one time the biggest in the state outside of Atlanta and if we were no longer the biggest, which I wasn't sure about, we were pretty damn close.
Then I sat bolt upright. Shit! That particular novel had an undercover agent, drug-running, dirty rural county plotline. The man was a private detective, and most private detectives had a law enforcement background. Oh, my Lord, he'd think it was worse than juvenile, he'd think I was a complete and total dumbass! Maybe his law enforcement background wasn't that extensive though. I flew into Anderson's office. The secretaries had email access but not internet access for fear we'd play on Facebook or shop on line all day, and in all fairness, insofar as some of the girls, they were probably right. No problem for me; anytime I needed the internet, I just waited till Anderson was out of his office. I Bing'd War-N-Wit, Inc. to see if it had a web site.
Oh, yeah. Sure as hell did. And Chad Garret was ex-Fort Lauderdale PD and ex-Florida Bureau of Investigation. Well, that explained the accent or lack thereof. And I'd just sent an undercover, drug-running plot to an ex-Florida drug-capital-of-the-world Bureau of Investigation agent. Way to go, Ariel! I hated feeling like a fool.
I didn't want to even glance at the computer screen as I sat back down, but of course, I couldn't stop myself. Why do all humans just have to stop and look at car wrecks? And there was another, and this time I was sure it would tell me he had to go to work on something right now.
Okay, so you mean to tell me the love of Billy's life thought he was dead for 25 years? Billy is probably helping out his own son he never knew he had which made Mom marry Joe asshole in the first place. OMG maybe it will turn out better if I get the rest of the story. It's great thus far, but please don't leave me hanging like this!
He was just being charming, of course, and wasn't he just about the best at being charming I'd ever run across? I certainly wasn't going to send him anymore of that one. Thank heavens what I'd sent him was set up so that it didn't get into the inner plot. Maybe I could end this little email flirtation without him knowing what a complete idiot I was.
Since Billy's been gone 25 years and the kid's 17 that'd be a little difficult. And besides, I'm not that obvious, the son he never knew he had's been done to death…
And for the moment, I surrendered completely to the pull of that powerful personality sitting at a computer screen down in South Georgia near the Florida line. Responsible, conscientious, what are the day's deadline's Ariel Anson disappeared. I didn't care what needed to be done today (unless it was a deadline that was going to get us sued for malpractice, of course, and I never let anything like that get remotely close). I didn't care which attorney needed how many copies; I didn't care if Scott needed me to pick up his dry-cleaning on my lunch hour or what he wanted me to fix for supper that night. I'd care if Stacy needed me, of course, but for the first time in I didn't remember when, that was about the only thing I cared about other than the computer screen in front of me and the emails that never seemed to stop.
Chapter Four
By mid-afternoon, I'd received his picture. I looked at the strong lines of his face, the dark hair already heavily threaded with pure silver, the eyes emphasized by laugh lines and the Florida sun. "Reciprocation requested," read the subject line. Like most women, I didn't like too many pictures of me and went out of my way not to collect them. I didn't even have—oh, wait a minute! Yes, I did. I had a picture of me and Stacy from last Easter that wasn't too bad. I attached it to the email and advised that at least that would have the effect of putting a stop to the increasingly not-so-subtle requests for a definite lunch date.
I didn't realize until after I'd sent it that I hadn't specified which figure in the picture I was. I shrugged. Just as well. He'd write back gushing about the glorious hair and the sparkling eyes and of course he'd be referring to Stacy. Little sister was a fox, her hair an unusual blend, not a red-head, not a blonde, not a brunette. Just a cloud of shimmering brightness. And she'd modeled for GAP at some local modeling shows at the mall when she was a teenager, too. Well, all good things came to an end, and then I could reassure myself that he was, after all, just a man, and men went straight for looks.
If you want me to stop pushing for lunch, you shouldn't have sent that picture. Why on earth would you think that would send any man running anywhere except towards you? My God, that dark hair and those slanting, mysterious eyes, that long jaw line…how 'bout yesterday? No? Tomorrow? Tonight?
What? I clicked the picture back up. There was no way he'd mistakenly referred to Stacy's hair as dark, nor anyway he'd refer to her eyes as slanting and mysterious.
Say what? I'm the bright-haired gal with the bright blue eyes, there's nothing dark and mysterious about me.
The response was instantaneous, blunt and to the point.
"Bullshit."
I might be in serious trouble here. I was beginning to believe that if I told him to meet me in two hours at the Perry Motel, he'd be there. No, I wasn't beginning to believe that. I believed that. And all good things come to an end.
Okay, I'm the dark and mysterious girl, though I don't recall anybody ever actually referring to me that way. The usual description boils down to, "she's okay." So what is it about a few emails that's got you in such hot pursuit? And actually, it seemed a little irrelevant under the circumstances of me being here and you being down next to the Florida line, but I'm engaged. I'm getting married in six months. And I've enjoyed today tremendously but I'm not exactly in a position to meet you anywhere tonight. Or any night. I didn't mean to come on like a tease, I really didn't think you were serious and actually you probably aren't, which means you really think I'm stupid, it's just—you're so easy to talk to. Really, it was a great day.
Pleasant interlude over. Back to reality. And boy, did I screw that one up, way to seem like an insecure teenager.
I don't mind talking about our significant others, but they have no place in this. You're a natural flirt, which is good, as there's a whole chapter in a mental health book I have dedicated to the Southern Cavalier, who is my soul mate. Psychologists (and psychology is my field) believe that the Southern Cavalier is a natural flirt filled with romance and charms. Yes, we still open doors, allow females to go first, pay for our joint dinners, etc. We listen and we flirt and that all is a mentally healthy and perfectly innocent game. The players have to choose just how much further the game goes. I'm ready to go a whole lot further and if you're willing to wait six months to get married, it means you're definitely not so overwhelmed with your significant other that you can't live without him and something's missing on your end that makes me bet you'd be willing to go a whole lot further, too. Think about it, baby girl. And much as I hate it, the day's drawing to a close and I have a dude about to get off work that I've got to go corral. But I'll be around. Remember, you can run but you can't hide. And you are well beyond being "okay". You're more special than you know.
That was a perfect sign-off. And who the hell was the significant other he'd implied he had and what status did that significant other hold, girlfriend, fiancé, wife? And why the hell did I care? I was engaged. I was going to marry a good steady man who'd be a good husband and whose passwords on all his bank accounts would be some combination of sensible numbers. I wondered what Chad Garrett used as a password with such an unusual business name as War-N-Wit. I wondered again what War-N-Wit stood for.
Then I remembered I wouldn't be here Monday. I was going out of town this weekend with Scott to visit his parents. I almost sent a final email to let him know should he drop in for a flirtation and then I stopped myself. He wasn't going to be back Monday. He'd had a slow office day and I'd provided entertainment. End of story. But maybe I'd come in Monday at least around lunchtime, just to take care of the email. Emails got backed up on the weekends, always took a while Monday morning to clean them out and it'd take a lot longer if I let them go till Tuesday. And then, just in case he'd dropped back in, he wouldn't think I was ignoring him. I shook my head firmly, called mys
elf a total idiot, and started clearing my desk for day's end.
Chapter Five
I didn't go in Monday, though I won't lie and say I didn't want to. By Monday night I was in a foul mood, slamming around my kitchen and throwing together the meat loaf recipe Scott insisted I get from his mother. I'd promised to fix it tonight. We didn't live together, although we swung back and forth frequently overnight. I suppose the living arrangement was telling, at least on my part. For Scott it was just a comment on his personality and frugal nature. We'd both just signed year-long leases on our respective apartments when we got engaged and he didn't want to risk one of us sub-letting to a tenant who might trash the place and thus circumvent refund of the deposit. Since the leases were for a year, we set the wedding date for a year. Romantic, huh?
I was in a foul mood for more reasons than one. In one of those serendipitous things that sometimes happen, I was a good cook though I really didn't like to cook. Most folks who don't like cooking don't do it and aren't good at it, but somehow I seemed to know instinctively what went with what, how to modify a recipe to make it better, adjust cooking times up or down. Stacy could do it, too, but she actually did like to cook. Scott was the only person on earth who always tried to improve on my cooking skills, probably because his mother sucked as a cook and he had no idea how things were actually supposed to taste.
In any event, he didn't like my meatloaf. This recipe, however—oh, my God. This was going to taste like crap, way too much sour in the mix, meatloaf needed brown sugar mixed with tomato sauce, sweet and tangy, not this—nauseating blend of mustard and garlic. And then there was that little niggle in the back of my mind, the urge to run to the office right now and see if Chad Garrett had made an appearance.
Needless to say, the evening was not a spectacular success. Scott's frequent exclamations confirming this was how meatloaf was supposed to taste didn't help things a damn bit.
War-N-Wit, Inc. - The Witch Page 2