“You know what I think?” Eskill said. “This is some of Reuben Frost’s mischief. That senile old bastard was brought into the Courtland case, and now he’s cooked up some psychotic theory that involves me.”
“I don’t know what to say,” Felston told his partner.
Eskill was silent for a moment, then turned to Felston, still shaken from what had just transpired. “Jerry, who’s the best criminal lawyer in town?”
Luis and Leff exited from One Metropolitan Plaza as quickly as possible.
“Pete, we’re building the electronic fence,” Luis said.
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ll explain it back at headquarters.”
Twenty-Five
The Electronic Fence
The day of the search, Reuben stayed away from the office as instructed. Shortly after noon, the phone rang. Reuben picked it up, expecting a call from Luis, and was surprised to find his caller an angry—almost incoherently angry—Eskill Lander. He had not been prepared for this.
After accusing Reuben of “making up an absurd and outrageous theory out of whole cloth” about the Courtland murder, Eskill made several rapid-fire threats. For the damage done to Chase & Ward’s reputation, he would personally see that Reuben’s retirement payments were terminated. For the damage to himself, he would sue for slander or “if you have put anything in writing,” for libel.
“If the truth be known, I’ve never much liked you, Reuben,” Eskill admitted. “You have a very superior attitude, you condescend, and you plunge into things you know absolutely nothing about, like crime investigations. You’re a senile old meddler.”
Furious, Eskill stopped just short of threatening Reuben with grievous bodily harm.
“Eskill, I don’t think there’s any point in continuing this conversation. Let’s terminate it right now,” Reuben told his partner, hanging up the phone. He found that his hand was shaking as he did so; it was not every day that one law partner made such threats to another.
Immediately, Eskill called back and repeated his vituperative outburst; again Reuben said that it was useless to talk further and hung up.
Then he remembered his promise to Russ Townley. Since events were moving rather rapidly, he felt that he should talk to Townley now, rather than later. He called the Executive Partner and asked if he could meet for drinks at the Gotham Club around five thirty. Brimming with curiosity, Townley accepted readily.
Meanwhile, the tentacles of the police investigation had reached out in a number of ways, all with the idea of completing the electronic fence.
First was the confirmation of the Meet.com material Luis had viewed the day before. Peter Leff accomplished this easily and made a record of the result.
Leff also examined the information on the confiscated cell phone. When he compared the data with Bautista, it was clear that Hallie Miller/Marina Courtland and Eskill Lander had communicated by cell phone, most recently the afternoon before Marina was killed. This was all confirmed by the calls received and calls placed as recorded on Eskill’s instrument.
Then there was the matter of his pocket engagement book. Examining it produced a lucky break. On certain dates, there were entries marked as H, and on others, the entry H-S. He concluded that the H could stand for meetings with Hallie, and S for the times they’d had sex. Luis had encountered this before, with at least two egotistical lechers he had come across in his career, who kept track of their sexual exploits with coded signals in their calendars. There were no marks of H nor S before his visits to Hallie began nor any after her death. Eskill’s desk engagement book, to which his secretary had access, bore none of these coded symbols.
While these analyses were proceeding, Reuben met with Russell Townley at the Gotham Club. They arrived at the same time and settled into a remote corner of the Club library. Reuben ordered a martini, of course, and Russ Townley, ever cautious, had a glass of sherry.
“You use this place often?” Townley asked.
“Almost every day,” Reuben answered.
“Never had any desire to join a club,” Townley said.
“I think you’ve missed something,” Reuben said. “But to each his own.”
“This is about Eskill Lander and the police, isn’t it?” Townley said at once, showing his customary fluttery nervousness.
“Yes. How did you guess that?”
“There’s a rumor all over the office, which I finally heard about an hour ago, that the police were searching his office this morning.”
“Yes, I believe that’s so.”
“Why?”
“Russ, let me get right to the point,” Reuben said. “In all likelihood, Eskill is about to be arrested for the murder of Marina Courtland.”
“Reuben, you must be joking.”
“I only wish that I was. It’s a nightmare, and I fear it’s going to be an even bigger one for the firm when the story breaks. You’ve got to be ready, and I want to help you.”
“One thing at a time, Reuben. Let’s start from the beginning. The only murder I’ve been focused on has been Edward Joyner’s. A total dead end, apparently. That dolt from the police, Muldoon, has interviewed everybody in sight and found not a clue.”
“Well, before I get into the history, my advice about the Lander mess is the same as I gave you earlier about Joyner. A memo to all hands saying that only you talk to the press. No comment about the murder investigation when the press calls—other than the usual stuff about innocent until proven guilty—and whatever you want to say about Lander’s standing as a lawyer, valued partner, et cetera, et cetera.”
“History, Reuben. Chronology. Timeline. Whatever. Tell me what the hell’s going on.” Townley’s hand trembled as he took a sip of his wine.
As they drank, Reuben ran through the sequence of events. Hallie’s murder. The discovery that she was really Marina Courtland. The Meet.com connection and her liaisons with Waggerson444. The link of Waggerson444 to Eskill Lander.
“Why on earth would Eskill do such a thing?” Townley asked.
“Oh, come now, Russ. He was fooling around with Dan Courtland’s daughter. If that ever got around to Courtland, Lander would lose his biggest T & E client and the firm one of its largest corporate accounts. And—can you doubt it?—Eskill would be thrown out on the street.”
“I’m a little confused. The only way Dan Courtland would likely have found out about his daughter’s affair was if she told him. And for that to do damage, she’d have to reveal his name. Do you really think he ever identified himself to her as Eskill Lander, rather than as ‘Waggerson’?”
Reuben reviewed the theory he and Cynthia had come up with, that there had been a mutual revelation of identities the fatal night at Quatorze Bis.
“All right, suppose all you’ve said is true. How do we deal with Dan Courtland? Is there any chance we might keep his business?”
“What do you think? The clear answer is no.”
“Another round, gentlemen?” the bar waiter interrupted. Both declined.
“When do you think this arrest will occur?” Townley asked.
“I can’t predict the police’s behavior. The detectives have to confer with the DA’s office before they do anything. And I know they want to build the electronic fence as carefully as they can.”
“The electronic fence?” Townley asked.
Reuben explained the concept as they finished their drinks.
Townley thanked Reuben for the heads-up as they got up to leave. “And this electronic fence thing is interesting. Just one word of advice, Reuben.”
“Yes?”
“Don’t you touch that fence. You could get a bad shock.”
Twenty-Six
Arrest
After the search of Lander’s office, it took the police another twenty-four hours to complete their investigation to Bautista’s sa
tisfaction. As he had told Reuben, he was not about to take on a lawyer of Eskill Lander’s prominence without covering all bases.
Bautista also needed to confer with the District Attorney’s office about the proper charges against Eskill. An Assistant District Attorney named Jonathan Perkins was assigned to the case. It was agreed that murder in the second degree—causing death with the intent to do so—was appropriate. This could lead to life in prison upon conviction.
As their investigation continued, beyond the computer and cell phone records, Luis and his colleagues discovered that Eskill indeed had an E-ZPass for his Porsche. The records showed that the pass was used on the night of Marina’s murder to cross the Triborough Bridge at 10:14 pm, thus showing that he had had enough time to kill Marina after leaving Quatorze Bis and before heading home to Greenwich.
A check with American Express showed a charge on Eskill’s platinum card for a three-month subscription to Meet.com, thus removing any real doubt that Waggerson444 was Eskill Lander.
Another check, with American Airlines, determined that Irene Lander had indeed been in California on the dates of her husband’s various rendezvous with Marina Courtland, confirming the H entries in his diary. Further investigation showed her reservations at the Mark Hopkins in San Francisco on the pertinent dates.
By this time, Eskill had hired the best criminal lawyer he could find, Paul Illingsworth, a partner in the firm of Rudenstine, Fried & D’Arms, who had obtained acquittals in six murder cases, including two notorious ones that had made his name well known.
Luis brought Reuben up-to-date in a call Wednesday evening. He informed him of the second-degree murder charge and, after negotiations with Illingsworth, it was agreed that Lander would surrender Thursday morning for his arraignment.
“I should tell Courtland about this,” Reuben said.
“Look, Reuben, what I’ve just told you about our arrest plans is strictly confidential. You shouldn’t talk to Courtland or anyone else—including your partners—until the deed is done.”
“Fair enough. Give me a call when I’m free to talk to him.”
Luis called again the next morning. Eskill had been arraigned and released on a two-million-dollar bail, which his wife provided.
Reuben called Dan on his cell number and reached him at the Speedway. He went straight to the point.
“Dan, the NYPD made an arrest this morning of the man suspected of killing your daughter.”
“Who was it, Reuben?” Dan shouted over the Gasoline Alley noise. “Who killed her?”
Reuben took a deep breath before he pronounced the name: Eskill Lander.
“I can’t believe it,” Dan said. “That goddam bastard.” It was the first time Reuben had ever heard the upright Dan Courtland swear.
“He was my lawyer. My confidant. My friend. Why? Why, Reuben, why? Explain this to me!”
“I’ll try as best I can. The police have the physical evidence that clearly points to Lander. And I’ve tried to connect the dots to figure out the answer to your question: Why?”
Reuben went on to explain how Eskill had made contact with a girl named Hallie Miller on an Internet dating service.
“He must have been mad,” Dan said.
“Yes, quite possibly. But to go on, we learned from another young man who had met your daughter on the Internet that she had used the name Hallie Miller. Then when things got more serious between ‘Hallie’ and him, she revealed that she was really Marina Courtland. She told this fellow her reason was that she was leery of guys after her money, men who’d recognize her status as a billionaire’s daughter. So she used a pseudonym.”
“You’re saying my daughter was a whore. Looking for men on the Internet.”
“I grant you it wasn’t the way we went about it, Dan. But it’s what young people do nowadays. It’s perfectly respectable, if not always entirely innocent.”
“I wonder.”
“Lander also used a fake name and fudged the online description of himself. He said his name was Waggerson and that he was a private investor from Boston. So Marina had no way of knowing she was dating her father’s lawyer, though we think she may have discovered that fact just before she was killed.”
“That evil, conniving son of a bitch.”
“Now I have no proof of this, but I suspect that Marina confessed to her identity the night she was killed. They were planning to go away for the weekend starting that evening—a new and more serious twist in their relationship, which up to then had only been going on in the City.”
“So once he knew that she was my daughter, he killed her?”
“That’s my theory. He couldn’t help but know your reputation for propriety and rectitude, and he most probably felt that you would pull your legal business if you found out about Marina’s association with him.”
“I must say, Reuben, even in my wildest thoughts—and I’ve had plenty of them these past weeks—I never suspected Eskill Lander. The most far-out theory I had was that Marina’s half-brother, Gino, had killed her. I’ve got to absorb this news. Let me call you later.”
That call, from Dan to Reuben, never came.
Twenty-Seven
Cleaning Up
As Reuben predicted, the tabloids the next morning had front-page headlines about Eskill’s arrest:
HEIRESS’S KILLER NABBED
White Shoe Lawyer Arrested
for Courtland Murder
—New York Post
WALL STREET SHOCKER
Legal Big Charged in
Courtland Girl’s Death
—New York Daily News
He dreaded going to the office, sure that he would be questioned on all sides. He was right.
When he reported to Russ Townley, the Executive Partner said he thought “a council of war is needed.”
“We’ve got some decisions to make. Let me get Jerry Felston, from litigation; young Sherwin Taylor, from T & E; and Hank Kramer. After all, now that Hank’s in charge of the CDF account, he’s the one most likely to be affected by all this. That sound right to you? An ad hoc committee to deal with the biggest scandal in the history of the firm?”
“Yes. Sounds prudent. Maybe a female voice, though, in case we start playing blame-the-victim?”
“I suppose,” Townley said in a not very convincing tone. “Grace?” He fluttered his hands upward.
He meant Grace Hartley, the most senior woman partner at the firm. A first-rate tax lawyer.
“Sure. Grace.”
Felston, Kramer, Taylor, and Hartley, all of whom had heard the office rumors—and seen the morning headlines—came to Townley’s office at once and took seats around his conference table. The atmosphere was, to say the least, grim and tense.
“I assume this means we lose the CDF account,” Felston said.
“I think you can count on that,” Reuben replied.
“I don’t believe the hit to our bottom line should be our biggest concern,” Hartley said. “What’s our face to the public? That’s more important. Do we need one of those crisis-control firms to help us?”
“That’s ridiculous, Grace,” Felston snapped. “We’re grown-up men—people—and we can use our common sense to handle the situation.”
“So, wise ones, let’s begin. What’s our obligation to Lander?” Townley asked. “He was a good citizen and partner for fifteen years, we must owe him something.”
“We have to make certain that he has proper counsel,” Felston said. “I’m sure he does—he asked me for a recommendation after the police visit to his office, and I told him to get Paul Illingsworth.”
“Illingsworth—that self-important publicity hound,” Townley said.
“Self-important, yes. But damned effective,” Felston replied. “Anyway, I’ll check to see if Eskill hired him.”
“I understand his wife put up bail
,” Reuben said.
“Miracles can happen,” Felston added.
“I hate to say it,” Reuben interjected, “but I think, Russ, you have to call Irene Lander. To tell her how sorry we are and to ask if there’s anything we can do for her.”
“That woman. She doesn’t need our sympathy or anything else. And I suspect if she’d been a warmer and sympathetic spouse, Eskill wouldn’t be in the trouble he’s in. You’re right, though. I suppose I must call her. Another joyous task for the Executive Partner.”
“And also, as I told you, you’ve got to make sure you’re the only one who speaks to the media,” Reuben said.
“Yes, I’ll send around a memo about that,” Townley said.
“These are all minor details, my friends,” Kramer said. “The important question is what we do, what the partnership does, about Eskill.”
“I think we’ve got two choices. Suspend him until there are further developments, or terminate his partnership right away,” Felston said. “In other circumstances, I’d say ‘innocent until proven guilty’ and suspend him. But here the evidence seems so clear, I’d vote to throw him out. Wouldn’t you agree, Reuben?”
“Reluctantly, yes. The evidence really is quite overwhelming.”
The others agreed. Townley said he would call a special meeting of the firm for the next day, with a conference call arranged for the out-of-town partners.
“I’m also proposing, subject to everybody’s agreement, that you, Sherwin, get in touch with all Lander’s clients,” Townley added. “Tell them you are taking them over and try to answer the hundred questions they’re likely to have.”
“That’s fine, Russ, but there may be cases where you should make the call,” Felston said.
“I suppose. Sherwin and I can confer about that.”
“I don’t envy either of you that task. Very tricky,” Kramer said. He changed to a mocking tone, “Hello, Mrs. Grady, I just wanted you to know that your trusted and revered lawyer, Eskill Lander, has been arrested on a murder charge. But don’t worry, I’m here to look after everything.”
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