“Martin told me. I don’t care about that.”
“At any time, the Florida Bar could notify me that I’m suspended and must drop all clients.”
“Whatever. Look Sandy, I’m going to lay out why I’m here and hope you’ll respect my confidence even if you decide not to help me,”
She nodded for him to continue.
“I want you to look over some financial documents such as my life insurance, my trust, my will and some minor accounts. I need to be certain everything is in order for my wife when I die.” He noticed her shaking her head. “Everything’s already done. The trust is written, the life insurance policy issued, the accounts are open—everything. I hate it when I hear some guy dies and his wife is in total darkness about their affairs. She’s going to have shock enough without worrying about a bunch of legal shit....” He was speaking faster and faster.
“Whoa.” She held up both hands.
He ignored her and hurried on, “Everything’s set up so my wife gets whatever I have. That’s the way I want it. Of course, she has all the important money in the family anyway. I just don’t want her to have any problems with my junk. She’s bailed me out and cleaned up after me plenty over the years. Maybe I can do something right this time. All my advisors tell me not to worry—she gets it—no problem. I don’t trust any of them. They’re all a bunch of crooks. The lawyers are the worst bastards of all. Not you, of course. My so-called financial advisor, my insurance agent and the guy at the bank, who are they trying to kid? Those people are all looking out for themselves. They’d pimp their own mother on the corner if....”
She stood abruptly behind the desk and yelled, “Stop!”
He put one hand to his mouth. She could see he was trembling. “Now relax and slow down.” She sat. “You obviously have mistaken me for someone who knows her way around finances. That’s not me. I prefer a tort to a trust. You say you know Martin, well he’s your man.”
“No! Martin can’t know about this.”
She frowned and said nothing.
“I’ve no doubt you can handle this.” He was starting to breath normally again. “Martin says you get off on leaving wrongdoers twisting in the wind. I want your suspicious eyes looking for something wrong in these papers.”
“You’re not listening. I’m not qualified to do it. Plus, I don’t want to do it. I don’t know your situation, your resources, your goals.”
“You don’t need all that.” He pulled out a single white paper from the expansion folder, placed the paper on the corner of her desk and pointed. “Everything in this stack is listed here with a number beside it. All organized. Just look through it. If something questionable jumps out at you, I’ll go back to whoever did the work and question them.”
“Why did you say Martin can’t know about this?”
He placed the thick folder on her desk, shrunk down in the chair and examined his hands. “I don’t want anyone to know I intend to kill myself.”
She leaned back to distance herself from him. She studied his face for the smile that would tell her this was a sick joke. Instead, she saw only a tight grimace and a tic starting around one eye. They stared at each other for a full minute.
“First off, I hope you’re under medical care. Second, no way am I going to help arrange your self-destruction.” She wasn’t certain how to handle this.
“You’re not arranging. I’m already as good as dead. It’s happening whether you help me or not.”
“I won’t do it.”
“You won’t do it for my wife, my widow?”
“Don’t put it that way.”
“What if I told you I had a fatal illness, would you help me then?”
“Suicidal thoughts might be logical for someone terminally ill and facing an agonizing death. In that case, I’d seriously consider helping you. Everything in your manner tells me this isn’t a fatal illness.”
“Let’s say it is.” His eyes were now teary, his face drawn and sagging.
“Except it isn’t.”
“What if I told you I’m a total failure?”
“Brad, think about this some more. Horrible mistakes can be straightened out or lived down. Time will heal things. In time, everything changes. Problems can be solved. Problems are temporary. Death is forever.” She was uncomfortable in this situation; she wasn’t qualified to handle him and feared she might do more harm than good. “You need a doctor not a lawyer. Are you under the care of a physician? Are you on medication?”
“I should have known this wouldn’t work out with you.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I disgust myself. As usual, I’ve got everything screwed up.”
“You say you love your wife. And you say you don’t want to put her through the agony of cleaning up your affairs. What of the agony of cleaning up your death? Many suicides are an act of hate. Men go in a room, put a shotgun in their mouth and blow the back of their heads off, so their wife will never forget the bloody pieces of their brains on the wall. She’ll be as good as dead herself and will be punished for the rest of her life. Sounds like the opposite of love to me.” She wasn’t a professional. She should shut up.
“It’s all planned. Nice and quiet. There’ll be no blood in sight.” He was quiet for a moment and then looked down. “I’m worthless. I’ll be doing her a favor.”
“Brad, please seek medical care. At least give it a try. Other than telling you that, I don’t know how I can help you.”
He stood and tucked the expansion folder under his arm.
She got up and stepped around the desk. “No, don’t leave. What can I do?” What was going on here? This guy bounces in here like he’s going to sell her a car then he falls apart. Obviously depressed. She wished she’d paid more attention in Psych 101. “Have you seen a doctor? You absolutely need to do that. Don’t worry all this is confidential. I’ll never say anything.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come. You have your own problems.” He turned to the door.
She reached out and touched his arm. “It can’t be hopeless. You’re not terminally ill. I understand problems can mount and seem overwhelming.”
“I had a money problem—a giant one. I had no choice other than to come up with the money.”
“Money problems can be tough but are unimportant compared to living.”
“Three hundred thousand dollars is important enough for me. Gone now and I’ll never be able to get it back. Not all the money in the world, still it’s my savings. I’ll never be able to retire now. I’ll have to beg my wife for money. She’ll soon get tired of that and dump me. Life will keep demoting me until I’m too old for anyone to bother with. I’ll just crouch in the corner of some filthy little room and think about all the things I’ve done and the people I’ve hurt. Better to check out now when everyone thinks I’m on top. If I’m dead I can’t gamble anymore.”
“Gambling? Where do you gamble big time like that in South Florida?”
“Internet operations located offshore. I kept borrowing and moving money around. I thought if I could just hit one big score, I’d get back even and then I’d stop. I ran up all the credit cards and borrowed from everyplace until I hit a stone wall. Today I cashed in my retirement account and paid everyone off.”
“Are you saying you gambled away the family money and are leaving your wife destitute?”
“Oh no, she has gobs of money. Major family money. Our finances are separate.”
“Brad. Gambling is nothing. Money is nothing. You’re a capable man. You love your wife. She needs you.”
“Maybe I don’t love her, with what I’ve been doing. I’ve pushed her away to the point she doesn’t love me anymore.”
“You can get her back. You have friends who like you. What about Martin?”
“He wouldn’t like me if he knew what I’ve been doing behind his back. I disgust myself. And we are lifelong buddies.”
“Martin doesn’t judge anyone regardless of their weaknesses. I can tell you that. He doesn’t care wha
t you’ve done. He’ll forgive anything. Now relax and take a deep breath. Why don’t you come back and sit down. You can handle all this, Brad. Maybe all you need are some little pills to change your mood. I’ll try to find someone who can help you.”
He put the folder down on the edge of the desk. “Yes, that’s it.” He started smiling with a new thought. “I do need someone who can help me.” His shoulders were now straight and his head was up. He was now leering at her as though his spirits had suddenly been renewed. “I need someone with a good heart who is willing to help. Someone caring like you. I get this sense that you truly do want to help me. I can tell you’re not just pretending to be a nice caring person. When it comes right down to it, some people just aren’t willing to give. I believe you are willing to give.” He was now looking at her up and down as though he had x-ray vision. “You could relieve my suffering and satisfy your own personal needs. You’ve a right to take care of your own needs now and again don’t you agree?” He took a step toward her and put a hand around her wrist. “We could help each other, Darlin’.”
She picked up the folder from the edge of the desk and shoved it hard into his stomach. Then took a step around him, hurried down the hallway to the front door and opened it. After a hesitation, he followed her and stood before her with a confused look on his face. She motioned him on out. “Go peddle your cars, buddy.”
He left and she walked back to the big office to retrieve her legal pad. She sat back down in the high-backed swivel chair. She was shaking slightly and mad at herself. What had she done? He was an obnoxious sick man, and she’d treated him like an obnoxious healthy man. So what if he was looking through her clothes. Why had she acted like that? She was smarter than that.
She could have handled him and steered him in a better direction. Why had she let him set her off like that? Her eyes drifted up to the corner of the desk and the white sheet of paper he had shown her. She grabbed it and ran to the front door, but he’d already left. She studied the paper. It was a computer printout titled “Final Affairs” and listed his financial documents. Scribbled across the bottom in ballpoint was the note: “Don’t tell Martin what I’m about to do.”
Chapter Thirteen
Sandy sat quietly at her desk staring at the wall and contemplating suicide. More specifically, Brad Ebert’s suicidal depression. He had left her office an hour earlier, but the questions remained. Was he serious? Had he enacted the doing away with himself scene before? Had he come there with serious concerns about wrapping up his final affairs, or was his visit a veiled plea for help?
What happens now? Should she interfere? The tragic part, she thought, was his life is probably not all that bad; he just thinks it is. Or does his life hurt so much he wants to stop it? She couldn’t think of any good reason for suicide, but then she wasn’t depressed, she wasn’t hurting, she wasn’t the one giving up.
After such intense thinking, eating seemed frivolous, but it was lunchtime. An emergency bag of chips was down in her desk, however she needed to leave the office and break the spell of despair left behind by Brad. The morning mail had not brought the check she expected from the public defender’s office for some field investigative work last month. She wasn’t totally broke, she just had to stretch her money somehow. She locked up and walked the block and a half down to the Windward Bar near the courthouse.
She paused before going in as it occurred to her this lunch would have to go on her credit card. She hated to do that. She’d order a Schooner—the cheap oversized mug of beer that was the specialty of the place. She’d sit at the bar where they have the free nuts. It’d be enough for lunch. She wasn’t starving, just needed to give her stomach something to do until dinner.
The noontime courthouse crowd had packed the place. She stood at the bar waiting for a stool. “Look who’s here,” a familiar voice called out. Mel Shapiro and Detective Jaworski sat in a booth near the front. Shapiro waved her over and motioned for her to sit.
Jaworski got up, she thought to let her slide in. Instead, he said, “Got to run. We do need to talk socially sometime, Sandy. Hey, can you eat that plate of fries? I don’t know why I ordered them.”
Shapiro caught the eye of a server, “The young lady wants to order.”
Sandy shook her head and casually placed one hand near the French fries to claim them. “Just came in for a beer. Mel, pass me that ketchup.”
“Put the beer on my ticket,” he told the server. Then looking at her, “It’s the least I can do considering we made you spend a night in jail.”
“Thanks, my day is getting brighter all the time.” She shoved two fries into her mouth.
“Mine is too, since I ran into you here.”
She wondered what that was all about. She wished he’d stop staring. “Maybe we should talk business.”
“Okay, except if we talk business, you’ll have to pay for your own beer.”
“Is that the way it works?” The server brought her beer, and she took a quick gulp followed by another fry.
“Boy, you’re rock hard. Relax, I’m just joking around. If I decide to come on to you, I’ll let you know.”
“I can wait.” Why did she say that? He didn’t deserve her attitude. He was being pleasant and she was acting like a smartass. “I’m sorry, Mel. I had an upsetting encounter this morning with a client, well not a client. A friend of a friend.”
“Want to talk about it?”
That was nice. “Thanks, but I don’t even want to think about it.” He was studying her face and hair, which made her a bit uncomfortable. “Do I have ketchup on my nose?”
“No, you look fine.”
She didn’t care what he was thinking; she wasn’t leaving until the fries were history. “Don’t know much about you, Mel. Talk to me. How did you come to be a prosecuting attorney?”
“That’s a long story, but I can tell you how it started. I bounced around jobs after high school. I guess college was in the back of my mind, yet none of my friends were going. I was working the counter at McDonalds when I had an epiphany.”
“You realized it was one of those jobs you’d never list on your resume, yahta, yahta, yahta.”
“Not exactly. But the nametag somehow set me off. I know many excellent jobs require nametags, and I know why they can be essential. It wasn’t a status thing. Just that McDonalds caught me at a moment in my life when I was trying to discover my identity. I realized other people could decide who I was, where I was going and brand me with a nametag. In other words, if I didn’t define myself, they would define me. At that moment, I decided I’d better get on the ball, start making my own choices about what I wanted to do with my life and go do it. People would maneuver me around as long as I didn’t have a strong sense of where I was going. I don’t know if that makes any sense.”
“I get it. It’s not crazy. Many of us have revelations, but don’t recognize them or don’t act on them. Sometime you can tell me how all that led you into the law.”
“That’s the first time I ever explained it to anyone.” He watched her alternate between sipping beer and eating a fry. “I’d hate to be the one who comes between you and those fries.”
“A cold fry is a terrible thing to waste.” She noticed him checking his watch. “I know you have to run. Can you take a second to tell me whatever you can about the courtyard murder?”
“You’ve probably read the police report by now.” He leaned closer to the table. “The husband hurried back from Atlanta as soon as he learned his wife was shot. Claimed he was in Atlanta at the time of the murder and we verified his stay with the hotel. However, he could have come back, shot his wife and left again. A lousy alibi.”
“Only the guilty have good alibis.” She got that line from Chip and it sounded cool. “So he’s your man?”
“You know who, thinks so. To the rest of us he’s a person of interest.” He made a slight grin.
She knew he meant Moran. “Okay, thanks for the beer, Mel.” She drained her beer, stood and they
nodded goodbye.
She wanted to talk with the husband who Moran thought was more than just a person of interest. She needed to decide for herself whether he was the type who could hold a gun against his wife’s forehead and pull the trigger.
Chapter Fourteen
Sandy parked her car alongside the boardwalk opposite the Azul Del Mar condo in almost the same spot as on the fateful night the previous weekend. The weather, this time, was gorgeous.
Her brief lunch with Mel Shapiro hadn’t given her much she didn’t already know, except that Moran apparently thought Robert Frome was guilty of shooting his wife.
The inside word on the case from Chip was his interrogation had been merciless; an indication the police thought they had their man. She hoped that was the case, assuming he was indeed guilty. In any case, she wasn’t comfortable sitting around waiting for an unlikely confession to get her off Moran’s hook. The sooner this murder was solved the better, solved for the sake of justice and be cleared of all charges in the bargain.
She walked around the high concrete wall and up to the lobby entrance. She ran her finger down the index of occupants. No Frome listed. She typed in Park Beach County Tax Collector on her smartphone and searched for taxpayer Frome. Unit 314 came up. The nameplate next to 314 was missing. Probably removed to discourage annoyances such as Sandy.
She pushed the button and shortly a male voice answered with, “Go away.”
“Mr. Frome, this is Sandy Reid. I’m the person who first discovered your wife’s body.” No response for a full minute. She wondered if he had heard her. Then the lobby door buzzed and she went in.
As she approached 314, she saw the door was open a crack and restrained by a chain lock. The man held himself off to one side; even so, she could see he was still in pajamas and robe. She caught a glimpse of his face, and other than needing a shave, he didn’t look particularly evil. What does a murdering spouse look like anyway? She hadn’t seen that many. He appeared as normal as any other short and balding forty-year-old did. If she were casting a movie, she’d make him the hero’s best friend. The shy one who never gets the girl.
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