“While she’s doing that, alone and vulnerable, she meets a man who will protect and care for her. She uses a handy disaster in the Midwest to create a tragic past and, fearful of losing him, never reveals her true identity to the new husband.”
“Okay,” Fitzgerald said agreeably. “We’re on the same page. So far, so good.”
“Right,” I said. “She’s at peace, Miami only a memory. Unlike Lot’s wife, she never looks back—until last summer. She sees the story; R. J. doomed to die. Maybe motherhood raised her consciousness.”
“You’re saying she identified with R. J.’s mother,” he asked, “another woman about to lose a child?”
I paused to think of Eunice. “Nah, scratch that one,” I said.
“I don’t buy it either,” Fitzgerald agreed. “People capable of what Kaithlin Jordan did aren’t altruistic. They never have high-minded motives or morals. There isn’t a noble deed in them. The basics are what drive them: money, sex, jealousy.”
“You’re a cop, you’re cynical,” I protested.
“Hey, no offense.” He patted my hand. “I’m glad that after all you see on the job, you’re still naive enough to think that way. It’s nice.”
Nice. He thought I was nice. I wished I could confide all I knew, without betraying Frances—and Kaithlin.
I kissed him hard just outside the building’s back door, trying to ignore Rooney, who lurked nearby, apparently looking out for my well-being. And I promised to join Fitzgerald for a drink when I got off, no matter how late.
I called Kagan’s office from the newsroom.
He wasn’t in, Frances said.
“Good,” I said. “I need to know the approximate dates that those checks arrived—”
“What did you do?” she whispered urgently. “He’s been trying and trying to reach you! I’ve never seen him like this! He and Rothman quarreled. He’s out of his mind. He punched right through the drywall—”
“Okay. I need to know—”
“I can’t talk to you on this line! Call me later, at home.”
She hung up.
I redialed. “Would you tell Mr. Kagan that I returned his call?” I said sweetly, as though we hadn’t just spoken.
“I’ll see that he gets the message,” she said crisply.
He called thirty minutes later.
“So what happened? Your story this morning didn’t mention me or Rothman.”
I imagined him and the detective dashing out of their respective residences in their jammies at dawn to comb the pages of the morning paper for their names. “Right,” I said. “We held those details back due to new developments. In the morning we’re running the story on her other identity and what brought her back to Miami. It’s turned into much bigger news.”
“Whattaya mean?”
“You know. The money. What she hired you to do. The Seattle husband has bank records showing all her withdrawals. A paper trail proves it was sent here, to Miami…. I’m doing an investigative piece. You should try to tell your side before the story hits the street.”
“Look,” he said, “I don’t know what other people are telling you, but I have an obligation to protect the lawyer–client privilege.”
“The client’s dead. Murdered,” I said.
“I can’t discuss this over the phone,” he said.
“In your office?”
“When?”
“Now?”
He took a deep breath. “Thirty minutes.”
“Make it an hour,” I said. I needed Frances to get home first.
I called Broussard at his hotel.
“I’ve been on the phone for the last hour. Making arrangements.” His voice quavered. “I’m taking Shannon home. The children don’t know yet. I want to tell them in person. I have to be there.”
“That’s good,” I said. “They’ll need their dad. I’m still trying to piece together why she came here and what happened after she arrived.” I asked about the cash withdrawals.
He had the dates. There were five, beginning with $50,000 on June 12. The others ranged from $35,000 to $70,000 for a total of $250,000.
No wonder Kagan was living large.
“Would you do something for me?” Broussard’s voice dropped to a weary whisper. “Tomorrow, before I leave, I want to go back to that place you showed me, where she was found. Just to—to see how it was, to say a silent prayer or something. Would you be there, to sort of walk me through it?”
“Sure. I’ll call you in the morning. Try to get some sleep. Also,” I said, loathing myself, “my editors would like a picture of Shannon, maybe a family portrait with you two and the kids, or a wedding photo. Something representative of her life out there, with you.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said hesitantly. “Someone at the house could overnight it.”
Frances answered her home phone. She sounded frightened. “What are you doing? You’re going to get me in trouble!”
“Look,” I said, “we need to find out the truth. If your boss killed Kaithlin he’s dangerous and we have to get you out of that office. If we prove he didn’t, it’ll give you some peace of mind. I need to know about the money. Does two hundred and fifty thousand sound right? She withdrew that much since June in increments from thirty-five to seventy thousand.”
“Probably,” she said slowly. “I knew the first was about fifty. I didn’t realize the total came to quite that much, but the ballpark sounds right.”
“Do you recall any of the dates that money arrived?”
“I looked them up after you called. Let me get my notebook.”
She rattled them off. Each envelope had arrived in Miami within twenty-four hours of the Seattle withdrawal.
“Frances, please, would you talk to a detective? For your own safety.”
“No!” She sounded shocked. “He would know it came from me. You promised!”
“All right,” I said. “I promised not to drag you into it and I won’t. I was only asking. Did Kagan deposit the money into his own bank accounts?”
“Some,” she said guardedly, “in different banks. But never enough to tip off the IRS. He spent a lot and paid cash. Remember”—she began to sound agitated—“you can’t tell anyone we talked. I spoke to you in good faith.”
I reassured her, said goodbye, and told the desk I was going to interview Kagan. “At the very least, Kaithlin Jordan hired him for something,” I told Tubbs, who was in the slot. “At the very worst, he killed her.”
“Do the cops know about this?” he asked, his round face puckered into a frown.
“They asked, he lied.”
“Need somebody to go with you? A photographer, another reporter?”
“No,” I said. “It would only spook him more.”
“Well, be careful,” he said doubtfully.
Traffic was a nightmare, bumper-to-bumper on the Dolphin Expressway where a jackknifed tractor-trailer had dumped a load of produce across two lanes. I arrived exactly ten minutes late.
Kagan’s office looked dark in the growing dusk but was unlocked. His secretary’s desk looked tidy, no lights lit on the telephone system. The door to his inner office stood ajar.
“Hello?” I called.
“In here.” He stepped out from behind his big desk, pointedly checking his gold Rolex. “I thought reporters were always on time.”
“I am,” I said innocently. “Your watch must be fast.”
He frowned at the timepiece, probably worth more than my car.
He wore another expensive Italian suit; his shoes were polished to a high gleam, but unlike at our last meeting, shadows ringed his eyes, a bottle of Chivas Regal stood on his desk, and there was a fist-sized hole in the drywall between his office and a file room.
He motioned me to a leather chair, while he sat on the edge of his massive desk, looking down at me from a position of power.
“What happened to the wall?” I asked, wide-eyed.
“Cleaning service accidentally pushed a piece of
furniture into it.”
“What a shame,” I said. “You should make them fix it.”
“Look,” he said. “I’m gonna be straight with you.”
“That would be nice.”
“Me to you,” he said. “Marty to Britt, one on one.”
I opened my notebook.
He held up a cautionary hand. “No notes. Hear me out first.” He licked pale lips as if they were dry, then offered a drink. “It’s after hours,” he coaxed.
I declined. His hand shook slightly as he poured his own. He drank it neat, the first swallow followed by a long shuddering breath.
“Okay,” he said, fortified. He paused. “You’re not using a tape recorder or anything, right?”
To reassure him, I upended my purse on his desk. We stared in dismay at the contents. I’d forgotten the remaining half of that greasy day-old grilled-cheese sandwich. Another surprise tumbled out with my comb, a lipstick, and small change, a resguardo, a tiny cloth pouch filled with herbs and other items, a talisman for my protection. My Aunt Odalys must have slipped it in there during our last visit. Would the Santería saints be offended by the melted cheese stuck to it?
“You don’t practice that crap, do you?” Kagan asked.
“I have this relative.” I sighed. “My father’s younger sister.”
“Tell me about it,” he said. “You remember my father, don’t you? Everybody does.”
“Sure,” I said. “He specialized in death-penalty appeals.”
“Yeah, till he stroked out six–seven years ago. Anyhow, here I am, beating the bushes to make a living, and one day last year I get an out-of-town call from some broad. She’s looking for my old man and finds me, the only Martin Kagan, attorney-at-law, currently in the book. Won’t give her name or number, but she wants help on a death-penalty case.
“I tell her she’s got the wrong guy, the old man is gone, but somehow she gets the impression I’m a knight on a white horse, young blood still fighting my father’s crusade.”
I wondered how she happened to get that erroneous impression but curbed my smart mouth.
“She wants me to stop an execution, get the sentence commuted. She’s not local, she says, and wants to stay anonymous. Wants me to claim I’m taking up the cause pro bono, like my dad used to do, but behind the scenes she’ll foot the bill.
“I snatch a figure outa the stratosphere and say here’s what it’ll cost you. I’m expecting an argument. Instead, in a heartbeat, she says she’ll send the money. Sure, I say, you got a deal, never expecting to hear from her again. But what do you know, next day an envelope arrives. Swear to God! I never dreamed she’d really send it.”
“What did you do?”
He stretched out his hands, palms up, in a gesture of helplessness, his expression ironic. “The sentence she wants commuted is R. J. Jordan’s. When my old man did his volunteering he worked to save poor bastards who were indigent, without a dime. The Jordans have more money than God. Heavy-duty legal power’s been hammering at that case for years, doing everything any legal genius could possibly conjure up. Those pros already filed every appeal in the book and then some. And despite it all, the case still looks like a lost cause.
“What am I supposed to do, show up, announce my arrival? Tell all that high-powered talent, ‘Here I am, guys, joining your team, uninvited? I never had one-a these cases but don’t let it worry ya, it’s not gonna cost ya a dime.’ They’da laughed their asses off. They’da told me if I wanted to volunteer, I should join the army.”
“And, of course, you couldn’t give the money back,” I said, “because you didn’t know where to send it, right?”
“Right.” He jabbed a finger in my direction, nodding emphatically, apparently pleased that I perceived his predicament. “I didn’t know who the hell the broad was.”
“So what did you do?”
“Had a clerk monitor the case for me, all the motions, pleadings, and appeals, so whenever she called,” he said, “I could provide her with an update, let her know what progress was being made.”
“Of course she probably misunderstood and believed you were generating some or all of that paperwork.”
His Adam’s apple lurched. “Could be that she did.” He reached for his glass.
“So she sent more money, because she thought you were really working to save R. J.”
His head shot up, eyes darting.
“Hey, who wouldn’t have done the same thing? Everything on earth was being done for the guy, and then some. I didn’t go looking for her. She fell off a Christmas tree. She found me.”
“But you led her to believe there was progress, that there was hope.”
“Well, you know, there’s always hope.”
“You did do something,” I said. “You hired Rothman.”
“That bigmouthed son-of-a-bitch shouldn’t have talked to you,” he said testily. “I don’t know what he said. But you can’t trust him.”
His righteous indignation was impressive.
“I wanted him to find out the broad’s story, where she was coming from. I mean, I hadda protect myself. Maybe I was being set up. Why would some outa-town philanthropist suddenly become a rich guy’s benefactor? She hadda have an angle. So Rothman, he’s good; he tracks her down, even makes a trip out there at my expense. Shoots surveillance pictures and, lo and behold, we put two and two together and realize the broad with the bucks is the victim in the homicide Jordan’s about to fry for!
“All of a sudden, everything makes sense. I don’t even hafta feel guilty. Taking her money is absolutely justifiable. Broad’s just buying off her own guilty conscience. I’m helping her sleep nights. What is she gonna do, file a complaint against me with the bar association? She’s not even divorced. She’s sure as hell not gonna blow the deal she’s got out there, the big house, the new husband, the kids.
“So I go on keeping her apprised as usual. Everything’s going along fine until last month. All of a sudden, the supremes shoot down Jordan’s last appeal and some goddamn tabloid TV show profiles ‘R. J. Jordan, millionaire heir, about to die for murdering his beautiful young wife.’
“My luck, the bitch sees it. Shows up in Miami a couple days later, mad as a wet hen.”
“She was shocked by the story,” I said, “because she thought your legal work was successful and he would escape execution?”
“She mighta had that impression,” Kagan confessed.
“So she shows up here and has the chutzpah to accuse me when she’s the one hung the poor bastard out to fry. She’s bellyaching that I took money under false pretenses. Me! That’s when I drop the bomb, let her know I know she’s living her whole goddamn life under false pretenses. I tell her if she don’t shut her yap I might just call in the cops and a camera crew.”
“What did she say?”
“Ah, the usual female rants, raves, and threats, but eventually we cleared the air, worked out an amiable compromise.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I was gonna sorta keep working for her, on a regular retainer. Even had a meeting with Rothman. Had it all worked out.”
“When did you see her last?”
He shrugged, eyes darting. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Somebody killed her,” I said.
“Think it was me? Think I’m crazy? You don’t butcher the cash cow.” He leaned close, his voice a raspy whisper. “What you do is you keep on milking it. Kapeesh?”
I stared back, at a loss for words.
“Look,” he said, “the way I see it, she was a legacy. A gift left to me from my old man. Like all families, we had our ups and downs, but we happened to be on a downer when he had his stroke. Left me in a awkward position. He sure as hell didn’t leave me much of anything else. This is no story. There’s no witnesses. I’ll deny it. What I told you here is deep background, just to clarify the situation, so you don’t get the wrong idea and write something that makes me look like the villain here. The real story is who killed her, and I had nothing
to do with that. I’m an innocent bystander.”
“An innocent bystander?” I said. “You were an officer of the court, willing to let an innocent man die so you could keep taking money from his alleged victim.”
“Naw, naw. I never woulda let that happen. If it came right down to the wire, I’da done something.” His eyes were furtive.
“Too bad,” I said. “You blew your chance to do the right thing, to be a hero, a crusader like your dad.”
“The old man ain’t here,” he mumbled. “You don’t know what he was like. Even if he was alive, he’da never believed I did anything right.” He stared, eyes moist.
“Did Kaithlin ever tell you why she wanted to save R. J.?”
Kagan averted his eyes to pour himself another drink. “Who knows what goes on in a woman’s head?”
“But you must have picked up a sense of why. Was she still in love with him?”
“She didn’t want a new trial, didn’t want ’im to walk or ever draw a free breath. All she wanted was to keep his ass outa the hot seat, keep him alive and in a cage. If that’s love”—he shrugged and lifted his glass—“ain’t it grand?”
16
I’d missed something, I thought, as I drove back to the office. Something obvious that nagged, just off center in the shadowy reaches of my mind.
I called Stockton, R. J.’s lawyer, at home. He wasn’t there yet so I called the Elbow Room, the downtown bar where lawyers from his building congregate. The bartender said he’d just left, so in five minutes I called his car phone.
He recalled the tabloid show well, he said, words slightly slurred. He had appeared briefly on camera himself, but refused to allow a death-house interview with his client. R. J. was the problem. Defendants who confess, find religion, and heartily repent their crimes are those whose sentences are most likely to be commuted. But, ever the bad boy, R. J. refused to repent. He kept insisting he didn’t do it.
I could stop by his office and watch the tape anytime during working hours, he offered.
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