This Case Is Gonna Kill Me

by Phillipa Bornikova

  The train’s arrival was heralded by a gust of warm air. The subway rumbled into the station, brakes squeaking as it slowed and came to a stop. The doors opened with a sucking sound, and we stepped aboard.

  I got the Binghams off at their stop, and was surprised and touched when Todd gave me his business card and promised me a free meal at Yummy’s if I ever got to Muscle Shoals.

  I then half-closed my eyes and scanned my fellow riders. Rocking with the swaying of the car, lulled by the clatter of the wheels, I watched a young Hispanic couple cuddling across from me. He was trying valiantly to grow a mustache, but right now he just looked like he had a dirty upper lip. The girl was gorgeous, with a tumbled mane of black hair and gold jewelry that glowed against her amber-colored skin.

  In the front of the car, a bearded Hasidic man in his black suit, hat, and payot sat reading. Not Proust, but the summer’s latest potboiler. Its lurid cover seemed to pulse under the flickering lights. It was a perfect antidote to cliché.

  Best of all, none of them looked like werewolves.

  At 181st Street, I got off and headed up to the sidewalk. My phone chimed. I had a message. It was my dad. And he had sent a car for me.

  * * *

  The driver pulled up at the door of the Sofitel. The doorman opened the door and assisted me out of the car. The bell captain had instructions to bring me directly up to my father’s room. The care was so extreme that I almost expected the bell captain to place me on a luggage cart and roll me up to the room so I wouldn’t have to walk.

  A discreet knock, and the door flew open. My dad held out his arms. I raced into his embrace and burst into tears. The bell captain closed the door on our emotional reunion.

  Daddy provided me with a handkerchief. The way his first action echoed Meredith’s was sort of disconcerting, but I wiped my eyes, blew my nose, and allowed him to lead me over to the sofa in the room. His eyes were red rimmed and his features slack with exhaustion. His jet-black hair, frosted with silver at the temples, was tousled. I touched his cheek.

  “Daddy?”

  “It’s all right, honey. Everything is all right now.”

  “They’re going to fire me.”

  “No, they’re not. That’s why I didn’t come to you right away. I went to see Bainbridge. He called Gold and McGillary and told them he would take it as a personal affront if his fosterling was dismissed. Your job is safe.”

  I blinked in confusion. “But I just saw Meredith. Well, a few hours ago. He came to my apartment.”

  There was a brief moment of silence, then he said, “Yeah, he said he was going to.”

  “But he hadn’t talked to the partners then.”

  “He called me and told me what he’d done.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  Respect is a big deal with vampires, and Bainbridge had just warned the partners that I was still under his protection. It should have been a relief, but I was still confused. “You went first to Meredith before you came to me?”

  “It couldn’t wait. If they actually fired you, their sense of honor would never permit them to hire you back.” He hugged me again. “I’m sorry, honey, but this was important.”

  “And how is it that my job is more important than my mental health?”

  He smiled at me. “I know you. If you’d lost this job your mental health would be in a far worse state. You’re too competitive.”

  “And who made me that way?” He swayed, pretending my fist bump to the shoulder had rocked him back.

  “Guilty as charged.”

  My smile died and I shook my head. “I can’t get it out of my head. I just keep remembering…”

  “You won’t forget, but the horror will fade. And you’re an Ellery. We don’t quit. You’ll make me proud. You always do.”

  We sat silent for a few moments. I gave myself a shake. “You’re right. I have to go back. I’ve got to find out why this happened.”

  “Linnet, it’s not your job to solve murders. That’s a job for the police. You let them do their job and you do yours. You keep your head down and just be a lawyer.”

  It was good advice. Which I probably wasn’t going to follow.

  6

  When I reached home late on Sunday night, there was a message that all associates were to return to work on Tuesday—which gave me Monday to start my investigations.

  I started with a Google search to see if there were any angry debtors bitching about Chip. I didn’t find any. Next I checked for open civil or criminal cases. Again, nothing. So maybe he had a secret life in Atlantic City, or a mistress stashed in Jersey—though how I was going to find that was unclear.

  I decided to try the direct approach and go to his house. My computer skills were sufficient to garner an address, and soon I was riding the subway out to Brooklyn. I located the apartment building, then got cold feet. How could I impose on a recent widow? I knew Chip had kids. They’d be there too. I walked nervously down the street, noting the plethora of Italian restaurants and an Italian bakery. I considered Chip’s waistline, then entered the bakery. There were three women wearing crisp white aprons over their street clothes, and hair nets securing their red, black, and gray hair. I ordered an amaretto macaroon and took a bite of chewy coconut goodness. I then asked casually if Mr. Westin was a customer.

  A wall of suspicion went up. “Why? Are you one of those asshole journalists?” the gray-haired woman demanded.

  “No, no.” I held up placating hands. “I worked with Chip. I’m an officer of the court.” (Not a lie.) “And I’ve been asked to make a few inquiries. We’re all devastated by what’s happened, and we want to get to the bottom of this.”

  “Well, okay.” The three women exchanged glances. Here it comes, I thought, I’m going to find out something disreputable. Something that will shed light on the killing.

  “Mr. Westin was just the best. We’ve provided the cakes for every one of his kids’ birthdays.”

  “Do you know if Chip made trips out of town, particularly on weekends?” I was pursuing my notion of Chip as rogue gambler.

  “No, he came in every day to buy a coffee and a danish before he headed to the subway, and on weekends the whole family came in. Saturdays were cookie days, and on Sundays it was chocolate and almond croissants,” said the red-haired woman.

  The image of Chip as secret swinger vanished with a pop. “Well, thanks. And I’ll take a dozen of those macaroons. They’re amazing.”

  Provided with a white box neatly tied with a string, I headed back onto the street and spent the next few hours talking with the pharmacist at the drug store, the guys at the shoe repair store, and the clerks at the toy store. I ducked in and out of restaurants and sandwich stands. Everyone knew Chip. Everyone liked Chip. Everyone was worried about the family. I ended up eating a late lunch at one of Chip’s haunts and doodling around the map of Italy printed on the paper placemat. I had meant to make notes summarizing my research, but it boiled down to this: Chip was a really nice guy who had spent his life either at the office or at home with his family.

  I finished my ravioli, paid, and started back toward the subway. As I passed the apartment building, I realized there was a funeral parlor, Purelli and Sons, directly across from the front doors of the apartment. There was still one last question to be asked. Maybe Chip and his wife had presented a normal facade to the world, but had crazy, dangerous visitors.

  There was a man in a rather too snappily cut black suit loitering in the door of the funeral parlor and smoking a cigarette. He had slicked-back black hair and a long face, and looked to be around forty. I crossed the street and realized he was watching my approach with a knowing smile.

  “Hello, Nancy Drew,” he said as I stepped up on the curb.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Nancy Drew, girl sleuth. You’ve been asking about Chip all around the neighborhood.”

  “And how would you know that?” I demanded.

  The man gave me a smile and a wink as he tapped the side of
his nose. “There’s not a lot that goes on in this neighborhood that we don’t know about.”

  I looked up again at the name of the funeral home. “Don’t tell me. You’re the mob funeral parlor.” He just gave me another smile and flicked ash onto the sidewalk. “Okay, I may as well cross every T. Did Chip and his wife have strange guests or wild parties?”

  “They played canasta on Friday nights. Does that qualify?” I just stared at him. My feet were tired, it was hot, and I was beginning to face the reality that the reason for Chip’s murder had originated at the law firm. I had been working with Chip on the only big case he had, ergo … I looked nervously over my shoulder.

  Something in my expression must have penetrated, because the grinning undertaker stopped smiling. “Look, kid, Chip was a decent guy and a good neighbor. We’re providing the casket, the hearse, everything. Now, I really hope you’re not going to bother the family, because Susie and the kids don’t need that.” I nodded and started to walk away. “You were smarter than the cops, though. You talked to the neighborhood, not just the immediate neighbors in the building.”

  I nodded and almost ran to the subway. I wondered how many locks I could add to my apartment door. Then I remembered the hound bursting through the office doors. Locks weren’t going to help.

  * * *

  The lobby was still a crime scene. A burly cop, with more gut than was probably strictly regulation, waved all the tenants toward the delivery entrance in the back of the building. Another cop guided us onto the freight elevators. I had dispensed with the hat, but I was still wearing the Garbo glasses. Whispers pursued me, but no one spoke to me directly, as if murder might be catching. I had been an outcast before. Now I was a pariah.

  The seventieth floor was also off-limits. All the associates, secretaries, and legal secretaries ended up milling around in the library. The senior partners made a call to One Police Plaza and a few hours later a group of cops, under the supervision of the vampire partners, boxed up our files and brought them up to us.

  I had a lot of boxes, and once I pulled back the flap on a couple of them I realized why. I had files from not only my office, but Chip’s as well. The momentary flash of excitement was followed closely by a frantic yammering in the back of my head.

  But you’re ninety percent sure it was something in his cases that got him killed! So if you take over the cases, you might get killed too. Let a vampire take over. They’re dead already.

  But I also wanted justice for Chip, and since the personal life angle had been a bust I needed to tear into his files and try to find the reason for his murder. I clicked on the stopwatch program on my laptop and settled down to read. When you have no idea what you’re looking for, anything might be significant, so I was concentrating like mad. But it was hard to sustain that amount of focus when most of the reading was boring. Securitech might be a mercenary army, but its financial statements were just like any other company’s—dull.

  There was another subgroup of papers that was silly rather than boring. My favorite was a six-inch-thick file dealing with increasingly testy arguments over the valuation of an alpaca farm in Taos, New Mexico. Why Henry Abercrombie had owned an alpaca farm in Taos, New Mexico, had never been addressed. Maybe Securitech was training them for secret military missions in South America.

  The final category was provided courtesy of our clients, that was the batshit-crazy files.

  And I had only gotten through two boxes out of twenty-three.

  My cell phone rang. I checked the incoming number and felt my heart lift. I knew that number. For three years it had been the emotional focus of my life. Devon. “Oh, God, you called. I’m so glad you called,” I blurted out.

  “Linnet, are you okay?” He had a soft baritone and just hearing his voice brought back memories and regrets.

  “Physically, yeah. Emotionally, not so much. How did you hear?”

  “My mother sent me an e-mail.” He sounded very far away. I knew it was probably illusory, based on the many miles and time zones that separated us. My face felt hot, there was a pricking behind my eyelids, and I struggled to swallow past the tightness in my throat. If I had married him, I’d be safely in Dubai. None of this would have happened to me. Maybe I’d been stupid. Could our relationship be repaired? No, too much time had passed, and with it my chance at that life.

  “What happened?” Devon asked.

  “There was a werewolf. He killed Chip and tried to kill me.”

  “That’s horrible.” There was an awkward pause.

  “Yes.” Another long stretch of silence. “What time is it over there?” I asked. He told me, and we fell silent again.

  “Well, listen…” I began.

  “Well, I better get…” he started.

  We laughed nervously. “You first,” Devon said.

  “I better get back to work.”

  “Me too.”

  “Thanks for calling,” I said softly, struggling to hide the thickness in my voice.

  “Sure. You take care.”

  He hung up. I stared at the phone and longed to call him back. And not just on the phone.

  I gave my nose a defiant blow and wiped my eyes. Then I pulled open the top of box number three and dove back into the current of legalese. A soft touch on the bare skin of my arm made me jump and gasp. It was Shade.

  “Pardon me, Linnet.”

  I was suddenly aware of the surprising number of sounds in the normally hushed library. The click, like chickens pecking on concrete, of computer keyboards. Low-voiced conversations and the grind and hiss of an espresso machine disgorging another cup of coffee. It too had been lugged up from the seventieth floor. I forced myself to focus on Shade.

  “Our security has informed me that Lieutenant Washington is coming upstairs. The partners would prefer that you offer him no further information. He has your statement. Nothing else is necessary.”

  “All right.”

  Shade seemed startled at my meek acquiescence. “Well … that’s … good.”

  “I’m going to blame you.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “Well, not you, you. You, the partners. I’m betting the officer won’t be happy with me when I clam up, and I don’t want him blaming me.”

  “That’s acceptable,” the vampire said.

  Shade left. I waited, checked my watch, waited some more. Finally I went back to excavating the box.

  I opened an envelope from the county clerk’s office in Appomattox County, Virginia. I glanced briefly at the letter, picking up a word here and there. Dear Sir … regret to inform … document is unavailable … fire … 1997. I returned the letter to the envelope and set it aside. I’d figure out what Chip had requested later.

  Another envelope and another letter. Nitrogen … viability … expected shipment … Oh, God, it was a letter about valuing frozen alpaca sperm. I saw Detective Washington approaching and set aside the letter with relief. Only alpaca sperm could make a visit from the police seem like a good thing.

  The lieutenant reached my carrel. “How you doing?”

  “Okay. Well, kind of okay. Actually, barely okay.”

  “And that’s okay too,” he said, and smiled at me. “You had one hell of an experience.” He pulled over a chair and sat down. “You think of anything that might be helpful?”

  Nervously twisting a pen through my fingers, I shook my head and said, “Not really. No.”

  He pushed. “Anything at all? Some offhand remark by Mr. Westin, a phone call he received where he sent you out of the room?”

  I shook my head again and added, trying to shove him away from questions about cases, “Maybe it didn’t have anything to do with his work. Maybe it was something from his private life.” I said it even though I knew it wasn’t true.

  “We’re checking on all that,” Washington said gently and patiently.

  “Well, duh … yes, of course you are. How stupid of me to be telling you how to do your job.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I’m sorry
.”

  “No problem. This Securitech case, was it likely that the company was going to have to fork over?” the police officer asked.

  “Well … uh … look, I’d really like to help—” I broke off, took a deep breath, and just said it. “I’ve been instructed not to answer any questions regarding our cases or clients.” I sounded like a bitch even in my own ears.

  “Your boss gets disemboweled in front of you, and you toe the company line?” His evident scorn and the reminder of what I’d witnessed only two nights before, set me to shaking.

  “I have a duty.”

  “Obviously not to the dead,” Washington said, and stalked away.

  If he was trying to shame me, he missed the mark. I had started an investigation, and while one could argue that it might have been better left to the cops, I had a distinct skill set that made me more likely to succeed. The key was in the case and I had the training to find it. Once I figured it out, I’d tell Detective Washington.

  * * *

  Late in the afternoon, the senior partners had coffee and a selection of pastries delivered to the library. The milling crowd of associates was like a herd of thirsty cows heading for water. Sometimes being small has its advantages. I ducked under a couple of outstretched arms and snagged a slice of Sacher torte and an iced latte that looked like it needed a home.

  I took a bite of the chocolate and apricot goody, then spotted Caroline sipping a black coffee. She didn’t have a pastry. I swallowed the bite and felt like my hips spread two inches.

  David Sullivan walked past. He also had a cup, but his drink left a faint red line on his upper lip. He caught me looking, made a face, and gestured with his cup. “House blend. Half pig blood, half blood bank, most of which seems to have been donated by drunks. Nasty.” He glared up toward the ceiling and the seventy-third floor. “They know I’m down here.”