Cas studied me, probably to see how I took the graphic details. I didn’t tell him he hadn’t seen graphic details until he’d watched C-section videotapes, which is how I’d spent some afternoons in my previous life.
I stared at the tire marks still visible underneath the slow water at the creek’s edge. The car must have landed hard.
“But that’s not what killed him,” I said.
His expression registered no surprise at my stab in the dark. Cas Kirkland wasn’t telling me everything. With his hands in his pockets, he seemed falsely relaxed, waiting for me to tell him something. He kept watching my face intently with his practiced manner and his bald-looking, lashless blue eyes.
He wanted me to rash in to fill the silence with chatter, but I recognized the technique. I ask questions for a living, too. I waited him out.
Finally he answered. “All I can say at this point is we still have some questions. Looks like we’re going to have to wait until the autopsy before we know any more.”
I stared across the narrow creek at the shale bank on the other side. The plant growth was thicker there, hanging out over the creek in spots. I pretended not to notice Cas staring at me, but his stare was beginning to bug me.
“How well did you know Mark Tilman?”
I studied the chest-high and impenetrable marsh grass farther down and across the creek. “Not well at all. We’re from the same hometown. I knew his brother. Mark found out I was in Charleston and came by my office, said he wanted to talk. Suggested we meet for supper, at the restaurant down the road.”
“Who picked the restaurant?”
“He did. He said it was a local favorite, easier to get into than some of the downtown restaurants. And closer to his clinic on the island.”
“That where he worked?”
“At least yesterday afternoon. I don’t know much about his schedule. I believe medical residents service the clinics on a couple of the islands around here.”
“What’d he want to talk about?”
“I don’t know that either.” I turned to face him.
“Any guess?”
“Nope.”
He looked like he was having trouble believing that, but he wasn’t ready to make me angry. That might come later.
He paused. “Know anyone who would wish him harm?”
That took me by surprise. “Officer Kirkland, I don’t believe you told me what department you’re with.”
He paused. He had a measured, almost syncopated way of starting his sentences. “It’s Detective Kirkland. Crimes Against Persons.”
“So routine traffic accidents aren’t your usual assignment.”
“No.” The almost imperceptible crinkle at the comer of his mouth indicated how much he enjoyed playing that ace.
Standing in the sun with the water whispering past, I felt sick at my stomach. “I wish I could help you.” I put aside my game-playing attitude. This wasn’t a game and it wasn’t fun anymore. “I barely knew Mark when he was a kid. The only thing I know about his Me now is that he’s a medical resident. He also had a Ph.D. in some science field. He didn’t show up for dinner last night. And—” I almost said And I drove right by here last night, past where he was dead.
“And he wanted to talk to you.” Kirkland’s tone gave it more meaning than it probably deserved.
“It could have been anything. He might have been a lonely guy away from home, glad to see a familiar face.” This time, I paused. “What makes you think it was something other than an accident?”
He shrugged. “We just have some unanswered questions. That’s all.” He stared down at the tire marks. The creek’s edges were slow-moving, but another tide would carry away all evidence of the car’s landing. The wild sea grape bushes would soon repair the breach. Then no one would be able to spot this place, just driving by.
“Detective Kirkland, something caused you to be called in. I think you owe me at least a little explanation.” The frustration in my voice had to do with my anger and guilt, but he couldn’t know that.
Cops collect information. They don’t give it out, unless it’ll help them some way. And unless it won’t cost them anything. His eyelids hooded his eyes as he weighed his options, then he said, “He was robbed. His wallet held no cash. The credit cards were tossed beside the creek.” The detective studied my face as he dropped his last tidbit: “We don’t know if he was dead at the time of the robbery.”
I’m sure I looked shocked. I’d heard stories—accident victims in these swamps robbed and left to die, human vultures coming well in advance of any natural scavengers. Buzzards don’t try to save their victims, but they usually have decency enough to wait—albeit anxiously—off to the side until their meal is ready. Not so with some of the things that crawl out of these swamps on two legs.
I crossed my arms but said nothing.
He finally said, “Let me take you back to town.” He took me by the elbow and heaved me up the embankment to the car.
We drove in silence to the inn at Two Meeting. Even though the drive took only twenty minutes, the scenery flashing past—wild marsh, tidal river, fast food, slums, antebellum homes, bustling businesses, tourists—was a world away from that desolate place full of slow water and sawgrass.
Cas dropped me off on the sidewalk and thanked me before pulling off in his dusty sedan.
As I stepped through the opening in the hedge sheltering the stately white house from the street, my cell phone buzzed. I always jump, startled, when that happens, especially when I’ve wandered off deep in thought.
I didn’t recognize the voice. “Avery? Avery Andrews? I—uh—I need to talk to you? About Mark?” His voice rose at the end of each sentence, as if he were asking permission. “This is his father, Martin. Tilman.”
“Mr. Tilman.” OK Lord. What could I say? “I’m so sorry about Mark.”
“Thank—you.”
Please don’t let him start crying.
“Did—did you see Mark? Did that policeman...”
“Yes, Mr. Tilman. I’m so sorry.”
Silence. Then, “Did you talk to Mark? Before?”
“Only briefly, yesterday afternoon. We were to meet for dinner last night, but...”
Another awkward pause. If this was awkward for me, think what it must be for him.
“Avery, did he tell you—anything? About—”
“We really didn’t talk long.”
“He needed to talk to you. To talk to somebody. He didn’t tell me much. Just that there was something happening at his work that he was very concerned about and he didn’t know who to talk to. I told him your dad said you were in Charleston. I told him it was a sign, that he should talk to you. I told him you’d be just the one, you bein’ a lawyer and everything.”
And everything, I thought.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Tilman. We never got a chance to talk.”
The pause lasted too long. “Avery. I don’t know what to do, what to ask.” His voice changed. It was quieter, more urgent. “Avery, he was scared. And angry. And—I don’t know. I was hoping... can you, is there anything you can do to find out? It doesn’t seem right, that he was so worried and upset and now he’s dead. Something’s just not right. Can you...?”
“Mr. Tilman, you know if there was anything I could do, I’d do it in a minute. I’m just not sure there is anything. I’m so sorry.”
“I truly appreciate you going to see—you know. It would’ve been hard to get down there. Mark’s mama’s not well, you know. We have to wait the funeral. On the autopsy. It’s tearing Mark’s mama up.”
I tried to make appropriate soothing sounds. Mrs. Tilman was confined to a wheelchair, something degenerative. She’d first been diagnosed when Gregg and I were in high school.
“Avery, something scared him. I thought it sounded odd at the time, but I’m wondering now if he wasn’t—if somebody ...” He couldn’t finish the sentence.
I couldn’t leap in with any soothing sounds on that one, not after my ride
with Casper Kirkland of the Crimes Against Persons Division.
“I’m sure Detective Kirkland and the police will cover everything. I’ve met him and he seems quite competent.”
“Avery, I know from my insurance work that cops get busy. Whatever you could do to keep an eye on tilings, we’d appreciate. This is tearing his mama up.”
Apparently Mr. Tilman best expressed grief through his wife.
“Avery, if you could just talk to some folks he knew, find out what was wrong. I’d be happy to pay you. Whatever the charge. I’ll sign a contract. You can fax one to the office. Let me give you the number.”
I dutifully listened as he gave me the fax number at his insurance office, though I had no intention of sending him a contract.
“Mr. Tilman—”
“His apartment’s near Barnard Medical.” He gave me the address. “Oh, and Ginnie just reminded me. Mark had a girlfriend, but we have no idea how to get in touch with her, to let her know what’s happened. Sanda MacKay. S-a-n-d-a. I’m not sure how to spell her last name. We don’t know much about her. She’s not been here to visit or anything. I think she’s an artist.”
Denial is a natural part of the grief process. No amount of soothing sounds on my part would make Mr. Tilman admit to himself that Mark had driven off the road and been killed in a car accident. A simple, stupid, lonely car accident.
Telling Mr. Tilman about the gruesome robbery wouldn’t help matters. So I wrote down Sanda MacKay’s name and promised to stay in touch. His thank-you sounded lighter, as if he felt some relief.
I called directory assistance and got the number for S. MacKay. I’m amazed how well an initial works to hide your identity. I’d once had a nutty client who kept pestering the office for my home phone number. The same nut never once tried to call the A. Andrews listed in the Columbia phone book.
Sanda’s answering machine picked up. “This is Sanda. Leave me a message at the tone.” Quick and to the point.
“Sanda—urn. This is Avery Andrews. I’m an attorney. Mark Tilman’s father—” A clicking sound interrupted. Sanda’s machine hadn’t given me much time to get my act together.
I called back and talked fast. “Avery again. It’s about Mark.” I left my cell number and hung up.
While Mr. Tilman and I had talked, I had wandered back through the hedge and across the narrow street to White Point Garden. The only other person sharing the too-shady park was a guy trying to teach his dog to fetch a stick. I crunched across the tabby walk to a wooden bench and plopped down facing the old Fort Sumter Hotel. This wasn’t really much of a garden—just giant oaks and bleached, cranchy paths through gray-black sand. Live oaks don’t lose their leaves, so the shade was dank this time of year.
I sat staring, without really thinking, letting the wind chill my cheeks and hands. I needed to push this business with Mark aside and get busy. Tomorrow was Friday. We had a trial starting and we were flying by the seat of our pants. But my grief—or was it guilt?—numbed my pre-trial anxiety.
One small step at a time. Come on, Avery. Focus. I still held my cell phone, so I dialed Melvin Bertram’s number in Dacus.
5
THURSDAY AFTERNOON
Melvin Bertram’s radio-announcer voice answered the phone.
“Melvin! It’s Avery. How’s our soon-to-be abode?”
“Fine.” He chuckled. “How nice of you to call and check on your house. Or your office. Whichever.”
Melvin was pressuring me to rent the other half of the Victorian where he was setting up his office. He’d made up his mind it was a good move for me, even if I hadn’t. “I need a favor.”
“Another fine, thoughtful reason for calling.”
“Okay, okay. I’m shameless. I admit it. But I call to pay homage to the fount of all knowledge, oh most wise financial guru.”
“Uh-oh. What now?”
“Perforce Pharmaceuticals and an antidepressant called Uplift. What can you tell me about them? I mean juicy stuff. Inside poop.”
“That’s a technical legal term, I presume. Poop. What kind of poop?”
I could picture him sitting at his massive mahogany desk, every silver-tinged sandy hair in place. Probably wearing a light wool sweater and the heat turned down to fridge degrees.
Melvin Bertram had left Dacus fifteen years earlier as an accountant suspected by many of having killed his wife. He’d returned as a successful financial adviser and had decided to stay and run his investment business from Dacus. His clients lived all over the country, so it didn’t really matter where he lived, as long as he had Internet access and could get to an airport.
‘Tell me what makes Perforce and the people who run it tick. Are they vulnerable? If so, where? What do they believe in? Why do they think they’re in business? Any whiff of scandal? Personal or corporate. You know, the usual stuff.”
“The usual stuff. You realize that’s why polite society thinks you trial lawyers are lowlifes, scavenging around for stuff.”
“Until they need us to fish them out of trouble or fight to protect them. So what do you know? What can you find out?”
‘I’m seeing—or, rather, hearing you in a whole new light.”
“I doubt you can ‘hear’ me in a ‘new light.’ But anyway...”
“I’ve only dabbled on the edges of some biotech venture-capital projects, so I don’t know how much help I’ll be.”
Truthfully, I don’t understand much of what Melvin does. I just know it involves money, managing it, and investing it for himself and for others. He throws the phrase “venture capital” around a lot, and he’d explained it meant getting people who had money together with people who had good ideas.
“Guess you know all eyes are trained on your trial,” he said. “At least all drag company analysts’ eyes. Apparently any time a depressed person taking Uplift decided to kill himself or someone else, a lawyer stood ready to explain that Uplift made him do it. Yours is the first case scheduled for trial. The analysts are waiting to see if the great Jake Baker can take down Perforce in this case, because if he can, other lawyers will be on Perforce like ants on picnic potato salad.”
“The lawsuit’s not that simple, you know.” I didn’t miss the business-guy disdain for lawyers in his tone.
“To an investment analyst, it’s exactly that simple.”
I’d known plaintiffs’ lawyers with cases lined up or already filed would be watching this case, but hearing Melvin talk about its national scope made it feel more urgent.
“Perforce will give this one all they’ve got,” Melvin said. “They’ll have to. They want it to be the last Uplift case, or at least so decisive that all the smart lawyers leave and they can pick the dumb ones off at their leisure.”
Perforce losing the suit—or even quietly settling it for some undisclosed amount—would be blood on the waters for lawyers already sharking around a potentially big drag liability lawsuit. So we had a real fight on our hands. A trial is always a fight, but, somehow, I’d never had one play out on a stage with a national audience watching. Or at least I hadn’t been aware of it. Maybe that was the difference with medical malpractice cases—one little doctor and one little patient. The doctor always thinks everybody in the world knows he’s being sued, but few people really pay any attention or, if he’s a good doctor, few change their opinion of him. But a big drag company with millions of dollars at stake—and lawyers with millions in their sights? Different equation.
“I can pull the basic information on Perforce,” Melvin said. “How much Perforce is worth, its stracture, product lines, distribution. That’s encyclopedia-entry stuff. Sounds, though, like you want gossip column material.”
“I don’t know that I’d characterize it like that, but what would you say to me if you introduced me to the CEO or the head research scientist at a cocktail party? Or, better still, what would you whisper in my ear while we stood near the french doors, what juicy bits would you share?”
Melvin laughed out loud. “That, Av
ery, is what makes you my idea of a truly exquisite trial lawyer. I’ve got a couple of places I can look, a couple of phone calls I can make. But those will have to wait until tomorrow.”
‘Tomorrow will be great. I’ll call you late morning. Or you can call my cell.”
“I thought your trial started tomorrow.”
“Only the jury selection. Jake and his associate will handle that since I really don’t know a soul down here. Meanwhile, I’m playing catch-up, seeing if I can shake loose anything Jake hasn’t already found.” I sighed. “I really hate feeling this ... behind on everything.”
“You’re just anxious because you entered the game late and you don’t have everything under control yet. You will—you don’t know any other way to attack something.” His voice was soothing—and reassuringly sincere.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence. I feel under the gun on this one. Or, more accurately, like I’ve been shot out the end of a gun, flying fast and out of control.”
“We’ll see if we can’t get you a stack of information to pad your landing.”
I had to laugh at that mental image. “Made any progress on the house this week?”
“Molasses slow. They came to repair all the screens and broken window panes. It took them two days and they didn’t do nearly the job you did on your lake cabin.”
“You flatter me, hoping I’ll be cheap labor for you.”
He chuckled. “No, I just want to tell people ‘That’s my lawyer up there’ when they stroll past and ask who’s patching my roof.” He paused. “On second thought, I’d best not be mentioning lawyers to anyone here in Dacus. That’d lead to one of those awkward silences where they start remembering I was almost charged with murder. Then they start wondering if I know that’s what they’re thinking, and we just stand there shuffling our feet and clearing our throats.”
“Melvin, for Pete’s sake. Your imagination runs overtime. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you had a guilty conscience.”
But I did know better. I’d heard the real murderer confess to killing Melvin’s wife. I shivered at the memory and got up from the park bench where I’d taken roost to walk toward the sea wall and some sunlight.
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