No Show of Remorse

by David J. Walker

  I didn’t succeed.

  It was only Tuesday and, although the deposition hadn’t been much fun, it was far from the low point of my week so far. Even the note, with its mutilated spider and its sophomoric threat, wasn’t the worst thing. That prize went to another letter I’d found in the same pile under my mail slot, this one in an envelope with a postmark and a return address. A letter from Lynnette Daniels, D.V.M.

  I’d never owned an animal and might never have met a veterinarian if I hadn’t been handed the stiff, mutilated body of a dog a while back, and wanted to find out what killed it. I should have guessed that a relationship that began with an autopsy might not end on any happier note. Lynnette and I had cared for each other, though, and even when it all started to break apart we never got into any raging, angry shouting matches. Instead, we each tried to adjust, doing what we thought would please the other—like her cutting back on her yoga and fitness classes, and me filing for reinstatement to the bar. There were those who said we’d be better off to scream at each other … but I doubt it would have helped in the long run.

  The letter said Lynnette was moving to northern New Mexico, where she had—or did I read this part in?—another romantic interest. Not entirely unexpected. But you can study a dark wall of clouds from the time it first takes shape on the horizon and starts to roll in, and still be surprised at how hard the storm hits.

  But that was yesterday, right?

  I felt suddenly light-headed, and remembered I hadn’t eaten since before I’d torn Lynnette’s letter into snowflake-sized pieces and flushed it down the toilet—twenty-four hours ago. I popped the cap off another Sam Adams, and fried up some bacon. It was Canadian bacon because Lynnette said it had less fat. Less flavor too. But with her off to Santa Fe or wherever, I put my fat-conscious lifestyle on hold and whipped up some butter and half-and-half in a bowl with three eggs and, when the bacon was done, slid the frothy mixture into the frying pan.

  While the eggs cooked, I finished my beer and blamed myself for the break-up. I ought to be less independent and more understanding; less stubborn and more considerate. Less of a lot of this and more of a lot of that.

  Two pieces of wheat toast popped up. I loaded them up with butter and homemade strawberry jam, dropped the empty beer bottles in the recycling bin, and poured coffee into a mug that had a quote on its side from someone who liked dogs better than people—thinking I’d have kept my mouth shut about it if I felt that way. I sat down at the kitchen table and ate, and thought about how I would change, dammit.

  The food was gone before I tasted it. So I made two more pieces of toast and ate them, this time very slowly, with lots more strawberry jam. It tasted so good I decided to call the Lady—she’s the one who made the jam—and tell her so, as soon as I finished the dishes.

  My “coach house” was an apartment over a six-bay garage beside a crushed stone drive leading to the Lady’s mansion by the lake in Evanston, not far from the Northwestern campus. The Lady had come to Chicago from England, planning to stay a few months while her husband, Sir Richard Bower, crisscrossed the country, lecturing neurovascular surgeons about some procedure he’d pioneered. Then, one dark November day, Sir Richard’s chartered jet fell out of the sky at O’Hare.

  I’d just started practicing law then, and was working with my friend Barney Green for Barney’s dad, a very successful personal injury lawyer who made his money the old-fashioned way—chasing cases. One of those cases was the Lady’s wrongful-death suit and Barney and I took it over when his dad suddenly dropped dead. We worked the case hard and finally settled it and I dumped my half of a pretty big fee into a trust which was set up so the principal couldn’t be invaded, either by me or by anyone I might owe money to. The trust started kicking out regular income and eventually I left Barney and went on my own, mostly criminal defense work—until I lost my law license. These days the trust income was still coming in, but wasn’t enough to live on. I had my private detective’s license, though, and an occasional paying client; plus the gig at Miz Becky’s, which about kept me in beer and paid the piano tuner.

  Meanwhile, the Lady—with her inheritance, life insurance proceeds, and the lawsuit settlement—had found herself with more money than she thought she needed. She decided there was nothing for her back home, and plenty she wanted to do right here. She bought the Evanston mansion, leased the coach house to me, and got busy. Now she owned two other big old homes, both in the city, and ran them as shelters for battered women—most of them prostitutes trying to get out of the life. She’d never had children of her own and I sometimes wondered whether she thought of me as a surrogate son, or as simply one more beat-up Chicagoan in need.

  When the dishes were stowed away I sat down at the table again and tapped out her number. She wasn’t in and the woman who answered the phone said I could either leave a message or be transferred to her voice mail.

  “Voice mail,” I said.

  “This is Helene…” That’s her name, Helene Bower, although most people call her “the Lady,” which she doesn’t care for, and the message was the usual one about being out or on another line, and sounded like a BBC announcer reading the news.

  “It’s Mal,” I said, after the beep. “Just wanted to tell you again how good that strawberry jam is. Everything’s fine. Oh, Lynnette’s moving to New Mexico. Anyway, let’s get together, when you have time.”

  I hung up the phone and sat there for a while, then went out to the living room and lay on my side on the sofa and stared into the empty fireplace in the dark.

  * * *

  TWO HOURS LATER the phone woke me up. It had to be the Lady. She’s very alert—sometimes to a fault—and she’d have known right off that my “everything’s fine” was a lie. When I got to the kitchen phone, though, my caller I.D. said “anonymous” and I knew it couldn’t be the Lady.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Mr. Foley?” A woman’s voice. “Is this Malachy Foley?” She pronounced my first name correctly—rhyming the last syllable of mine with the last syllable of hers—but that’s not what surprised me. “Well,” she finally said, “are you going to answer or not?”

  “It’s past ten o’clock. Besides, the rules say you can’t talk to me except through my lawyer.”

  “I’m sorry,” Stefanie Randle said. “But this is different. This is … personal.”

  “Oh? And here I thought I wasn’t at my charming best this—”

  “Don’t be absurd. I don’t mean…” She sounded worried. “What I mean is, I need your help with something.”

  “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

  “Please. Something wrong is going on and I’m not certain what it is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Not on the phone. It’s … I just don’t know what to do.” More than worried, now. Frightened. “We need to talk, but I’m not sure how to arrange a meeting.”

  “Simple enough,” I said. “You suggest a restaurant and a time, like noon tomorrow, and—”

  “No! I know it sounds crazy, but I think maybe I’m being … watched.” Frightened, for sure; with crazy seeming more possible every minute. But then, being watched is a scary, crazy-making experience. Ask me about it.

  Hanging up was the obviously sensible choice, but I had nothing to do except look for Lynnette Daniels in my fireplace and mess around with a petition I’d have gladly abandoned if it weren’t for some goof who thought a dose of pureed spider would send me away in tears. So, if not hanging up was a dumb mistake it wouldn’t be the first—

  “Mr. Foley? Are you still there?”

  “We’ll meet tomorrow, right at your office. Renata will come with me and it’ll look official and no one will think anything of it. What time?”

  “I guess … ten o’clock. But I don’t want Ms. Carroway to hear what I say.”

  “We’ll be there,” I said. “And Renata’s okay. She likes you. She told me you were a human being, with a name. Which reminds me. Was it you
r parents who spelled it with an ‘f’? Or did you change it yourself, like … maybe in seventh—”

  “I’m not happy about calling you like this, Mr. Foley.” She paused, and this time I did hear a sigh. “So could you just put away the goddamn sarcasm?”

  CHAPTER

  4

  I SET THE TIMER for the morning coffee and went down the backstairs to make sure the outer door was locked. Then I had to run back up, because the phone was ringing again. This time it was the Lady.

  “Your assurance that ‘everything’s fine’ is clearly untrue.” Her vocabulary always fit perfectly with her British accent.

  “I read somewhere,” I said, “that it’s not a lie if you know your listener will know it’s—”

  “Perhaps you’d like to come over now, Malachy.” With her it was never Mal, always Malachy. “We’ll have a sip of brandy,” she added.

  * * *

  A “SIP” is about all you get of the Lady’s brandy, unless you have nerve enough to keep pouring your own, which I did. She stocks only the best—not that I’d know without reading the label—and it would last her forever if I didn’t give her a hand with it. We sat face-to-face in two wingback chairs in front of the fireplace in her front parlor. She had two “parlors” on the first floor, but no “living room,” of course. God knows how many other women were living in the house just then … maybe two, maybe three or four. I seldom saw any of them coming or going.

  People who’ve heard of the Lady are usually surprised to find her so unremarkable in appearance, with her short gray hair and her plain, pleasant features. “Tell me about you and Lynnette,” she said, and lifted her glass to her lips.

  So I told her, going on longer than I should have. She was interested and concerned, and absolutely nonjudgmental—about both me and Lynette. She’d been the same a couple of years earlier, when my marriage disintegrated. That had hit her hard because she’d been close to Cass. And here I was, having messed up another relationship, but again she never uttered a word of blame. Someone once remarked you could tell the Lady you’d had an affair with a Burmese yak, and she’d nod and say something like, “Really, dear, and however did you happen across a yak?” She does sound a little too good to be true … but there you are.

  Eventually I finished my sad saga and we both sat silently for a while.

  “So that’s the end of that,” I finally said.

  “Yes.” She sipped some brandy. “What about that request to get your law license back? Since it was Lynette who wanted you to do that, will you drop it now?”

  “No,” I shook my head, “I can’t.”

  “Can’t?” She likes accuracy in speech, and that’s a word she loves to pounce on.

  “Won’t, then.” I went on to tell her about the threatening note. And about Stefanie Randle’s phone call.

  “So then,” she said, “you don’t actually want your law license, but feel compelled to prove you’re unafraid of whoever is opposed to your getting it back.”

  “Something like that,” I said. “Except I don’t have to prove that I’m not afraid. I have to show them that—afraid or not—they can’t push me around.”

  “Ah.” That’s all she said.

  “‘Ah’ what?”

  “Since we’re being precise, Malachy, it’s clear you feel a need to demonstrate something to someone. But is it really to them?” She smiled.

  I understood where she was going, but kept still.

  “At any rate”—she stood up—“you’ll do whatever you believe the circumstances require.” She walked me to the front door, then turned. “The universe is so amazing, isn’t it?”

  “Amazing?”

  “The manner in which everything gets … oh … put together or something.” She paused. “Consider this. A woman you’ve become quite fond of is about to go away and leave a void; but first, knowingly or not, she herself causes a circumstance which ensures that after she’s gone—when you might otherwise be inclined to wallow a bit—you’re left with a project to keep you occupied.” She opened the door. “Rather amazing.”

  I stepped outside and stared back at her. “I suppose so.”

  “Always something to be thankful for, isn’t there? Good night, Malachy.” She smiled and closed the door.

  “Rather amazing,” I said, and stared at the door. It was solid oak, several inches thick.

  I turned and walked back down the drive to the coach house. The night air was warm and heavy with fog, and maybe I caught a glimpse of the back of someone farther down the drive, disappearing beyond the Lady’s wide-open iron gate. I know I heard a car drive off.

  “Always something to be thankful for,” I said, staring at my own front door now. This one was thick plate glass, beveled around the edges … and smeared all over with fresh-smelling excrement.

  CHAPTER

  5

  WE HAD TO CHANGE THE TIME of the meeting to fit Renata’s schedule. Even so, it was past noon before she got to the disciplinary commission, and I’d been waiting a half hour. The receptionist directed us to the same conference room where my deposition had begun less than twenty-four hours earlier.

  Stefanie Randle was already there. “I know you’re pressed for time, Renata,” she said.

  “That’s right, and so far no one’s told me what’s going on.”

  “Well,” Stefanie said, “I’m not sure just how to ex—”

  “It’s simple,” I said. “There’s a reason why I need to talk to Ms. Randle, privately. But since you’re my lawyer she won’t do it without your permission.”

  “Your talking to her privately is absurd,” Renata said. “And besides, I could have given my okay on the phone, or by fax. Except…” Her eyes narrowed a bit behind her glasses. “Except if I wasn’t here it might appear strange to someone, might be noticed.” She was as quick a study as anyone I’d ever known, and she’d figured out why I dragged her here.

  “There’s no phone in here,” I said, “so why don’t you go down the hall and make some important calls? Ms. Randle and I will wait here for you.”

  Renata didn’t much like being manipulated—and I’d hear about that. “Fifteen minutes,” she said, and closed the door remarkably quietly as she left.

  Stefanie sat down across the polished wood table from me and studied her left palm. “Maybe I should start by—”

  “Just a minute,” I said. “Stand up.” She did, and I checked the table and the six chairs—the only furniture in the room—and found nothing. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a little microphone somewhere, inside a wall, up in a ceiling light fixture—maybe even hidden on Stefanie, for that matter. “Keep your voice low, and get to the point.”

  We both sat down again. “I’ve only been at the commission six months,” she said, “but my caseload is already so heavy I wasn’t able to get really familiar with your case. I just knew the supreme court ordered you to reveal what a client told you, and when you refused they jailed you and suspended your license indefinitely. Yesterday, when you broke off the deposition, I had extra time, and went through our old file on your case more carefully. There’s a huge stack of police reports and transcripts.”

  “I know. I had access to your whole file, long ago, and I read everything. I can’t believe there’s anything there that made you call me.”

  “No, but it was fascinating, and I couldn’t stop reading. It finally hit me that when you disobeyed the court’s order it was really a matter of principle. I’d thought you were simply an arrogant, stubborn person. But, I mean, sitting there in jail month after month, when you could have gotten out in a minute.”

  “The court said the attorney-client privilege didn’t apply, which made no sense to me. It was that simple. But privilege or not, I’d promised Marlon that whatever he said wouldn’t get beyond me, ever. Which doesn’t mean,” I added, “that I’m not an arrogant, stubborn person. Just ask Renata.” I looked at my watch. “Why did you call me?”

  “I called because…” She took a d
eep breath, then started over. “You knew I agreed to take your deposition yesterday, even though our office closed at noon.”

  “Right. Renata reminded me how cooperative you were being, and what a jackass I was. I said you were probably avoiding a boring meeting somewhere.”

  She smiled and I knew I was right. “A training seminar; at the bar association. Anyway, our phones were all switched to voice mail and there was hardly anyone here. Reading your file, I lost track of time. I had a vague sense that a few people went by my office, saying good night. But I just kept reading. Before I knew it, it was past seven o’clock.”

  “No one expecting you for supper?”

  “No. I have a young daughter, but she’s with her father for a few days. Actually, with his mother. He … Anyway, when I saw how late it was I grabbed my coat and purse and switched off the light. Then I heard voices. Two people, I thought, a man and a woman. Coming closer, probably on their way out to the elevators. Even before I could make out their words I knew they were arguing about something, and … well … I didn’t want them to see me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I know it sounds strange, but for some reason I felt embarrassed being there so late, when the office was closed. Plus, I guess I didn’t want them to think I was listening in on their argument. So I decided to stay where I was and let them go by. My office is a small room, with no window; and it was very dark. As they came closer I could tell one of the voices was Clark Woolford’s. I guess you know who he is.”

  “The administrator of the commission. Your boss. And the woman?”

  “I didn’t recognize her voice. But I stayed where I was and … and…”

  “You eavesdropped.”

  “Yes. I mean not really, but…” She was blushing.

  “Hey, don’t look for me to blame you. I’d put eavesdropping in paragraph one on my résumé … if I had a résumé.” That was supposed to make her smile again—but it didn’t work. “So, what were they arguing about?”