Firm Ambitions

by Michael A. Kahn

  “What don’t you like?” I asked.

  “What kind of things do companies put in these storage places?”

  “Depends,” I said. “A lot of them store old files.”

  “These don’t look like old files.”

  “Why do you say that?” Benny asked her.

  “Look at these times,” she said as she slowly moved her finger down the column on the right. I looked over her shoulder at the numbers:

  11346780 04-02 12:21

  11346782 04-04 02:57

  11346781 04-12 22:29

  11346781 04-16 03:34

  11346780 04-19 12:13

  11246780 04-22 21:23

  11246782 04-25 03:23

  11246781 04-25 23:02

  11236780 04-30 01:19

  “Except for these two during the lunch hour,” my mother said, pointing to the first and fifth row, “the rest are late at night. Three in the morning. Ten-thirty at night. One-thirty in the morning. Three in the morning. Eleven at night. What kind of files are getting stored in there at those hours?”

  I looked at Benny. “She’s right,” I said. “In fact, the guy out there noticed the same thing. Look at the stuff I found in there.” I flipped to the next page of my notes, where I had recorded the serial numbers of the speakers, computer terminal, and video cassette recorder. “You’d ordinarily expect to find this kind of stuff in a storage space rented for personal use. Maybe for a family that doesn’t have an attic or basement, but not for a business.”

  “Still,” Benny said, “you’re talking about a one-man operation. He could have been using the space for personal storage, too.”

  “If it’s a one-man operation,” I said, “why were three separate cardkeys issued?”

  “His friends?” Benny mused.

  “Possibly.” I checked my watch. “Tell me about Charles Kimball.”

  “First let me tell you about Andros and Kimball.”

  “Okay.”

  “Andros was a Saudi national who came here for college,” Benny said. “He dropped out of St. Louis U after a year and took a job as an aerobics instructor. At some place called, uh—”

  “Gateway Health & Racquet Clubs,” I said. “Nick Kazankis is one of the owners. He hired him.”

  “Ah,” Benny said, raising his eyebrows. “Connections everywhere. Anyway, before long Andros was Gateway’s star attraction. The women loved him. He started doing aerobics workouts at their different clubs each week. But then another plot twist.”

  “Oh?”

  “At eleven o’clock on one balmy night in March four years ago, Andros did two of the dumbest things you can do to a plainclothes cop in a public rest room.”

  “We’re talking about a male cop?”

  “We are indeed. The scene unfolded with a round of linguistic confusion worthy of an Abbott and Costello routine. Andros tried to offer the cop some cocaine. However, he didn’t call it cocaine. According to the police report, Andros asked the officer whether he, quote, wanted some blow. Because Andros had such a thick accent, the officer wasn’t quite sure what kind of ‘blow’ was being offered. It turns out Andros was offering the daily double. First he pulled the cop into one of the stalls and handed him a bag filled with white powder. And then, using universal sign language, our hero offered to, shall we say, play ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ on the cop’s skin flute.”

  “Not the kind of behavior designed to get your green card renewed,” I said.

  “Either crime was enough to get him shipped back to Saudi Arabia. Do you have any idea what happens over there to guys who get caught giving other guys blow jobs? That knucklehead must have been frantic down at the police station. His only hope was to get the charges dropped. Otherwise he spends the rest of his days singing soprano in the Riyadh boys’ choir.”

  “So what happened?”

  “His lawyer did a hell of a job. He cut a deal where the case would be nolle prosequied—”

  “What?” my mother interrupted.

  “Dismissed,” I told her.

  “Right,” Benny said. “The case would be dismissed if Andros stayed clean for twelve months.”

  “Ah,” I said. “And Charles Kimball was his lawyer.”

  Benny nodded. “Yep. Earned his fee on that one. Nothing on the arrest ever appeared in the newspapers.”

  “And Andros stayed clean?” I asked.

  “I guess. He opened Firm Ambitions four months later.”

  “With Landau, Mitchell and McCray doing the incorporation work,” I added. I leaned back in my chair. “Charles Kimball. You think he’s the one who introduced Andros to Harris Landau?”

  “Probably,” Benny said. “How else does an immigrant health club employee end up represented by someone like Harris Landau?”

  “I wonder if Harris knows that his daughter-in-law was involved with Andros,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.

  “So this man you’re going to dinner with,” my mother said with an edge in her voice, “represented that pig who was exploiting Ann?”

  I shrugged. “Mom, that’s what Kimball does for a living. He’s even represented Tommy Landau.”

  “And now you want him to represent your sister?”

  I sighed. “I’ve told you I shouldn’t be the one to represent Ann if the case goes to trial. You just can’t effectively defend a member of your own family.”

  “This I still don’t understand. Who could possibly do it better? And anyway, you have Benny to help.”

  “Mom, we’re not criminal defense attorneys. You wouldn’t want a radiologist performing open-heart surgery on you, and you don’t want a commercial litigator handling your murder trial.”

  “A courtroom’s a courtroom,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “And a sister’s a sister, Mom. I’m going crazy on this case. I’m her lawyer, I’m her sister, I’m her lawyer, I’m her sister. One moment I’m the professional evaluating an evidentiary issue, the next moment I’m screaming at her husband for acting like a creep. My head’s spinning. This isn’t like giving a family member advice on taxes. This is heavy stuff.”

  My mother shook her head. “I just don’t understand, and I certainly don’t understand how you can pick a man who would stoop to represent that animal.”

  “Mom, I’m not picking anyone. I just want to talk to him about the subject. No one but Ann is going to pick her trial lawyer.” I turned to Benny with a pleading look. “You want to help me here?”

  Benny held up his hands and shook his head. “Me no speaky English. Sorry, mahn.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  We were seated in a secluded booth at Dominic’s, waiting for the pasta course to arrive. Charles Kimball held his wineglass near mine. “To lawyers with green eyes.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said with a smile as we touched glasses.

  The sparkle of the wineglass was reflected in his green eyes. Younger men who wonder why some women their age marry men old enough to be their fathers could learn plenty from watching Charles Kimball, who was, at least for me, the archetypal sexy older man. He was a battered swashbuckler, with a roguish but worldly aura that reminded me of a John Huston or Sean Connery.

  “I certainly remember those dazzling green eyes,” he said after taking a sip of wine. “And all that dark curly hair. But I must confess, Rachel Gold, that I cannot for the life of me recall the question.”

  “What question?”

  “Back at Harvard. After the lecture. I remember you, but I do not remember your question.”

  I leaned back in my chair, trying to recall his words. “At the beginning of your lecture you told us that Perry Mason was a buffoon. You said he was a walking malpractice case. But you never told us why. After the lecture I asked you why.”

  He gave me a puckish smile. “And what did I say?”

&
nbsp; “You said that a defense lawyer must never forget that the state has the burden of proof. The accused has nothing to prove.”

  Kimball nodded in recognition. “Ah, yes. How did I put it? ‘A defense lawyer’s role is not to state the solution but to cast doubt upon the state’s solution.’ That remains sound advice, Rachel.”

  “Maybe so,” I said with a sigh, “but it’s not always easy to follow.”

  He nodded. “It is once you realize that a criminal trial is not a multiple-choice test.”

  I frowned. “I’m not following you.”

  He paused to refill my wineglass and then his. “The most important element of our criminal system,” he continued, “is the presumption of innocence. Among other things, it means that the person standing trial in a criminal case is technically not a ‘defendant.’ He is the accused.” Kimball took a sip of wine. “So long as the accused remains the accused, the jury understands that the state must prove its accusation beyond a reasonable doubt. But as soon as the accused becomes an accuser, as soon as the accused offers his own solution to the crime, then the entire dynamics of the trial shift. Suddenly there are two accusers, two competing versions of the truth. In that jury’s mind, the trial becomes a multiple-choice test. When that happens”—he paused to snap his fingers—”the presumption of innocence disappears.”

  “Why?”

  He smiled. “Because we are a nation of multiple-choice test takers. We’ve been taking them since elementary school, and ever since elementary school our teachers have drilled into our heads three rules for picking the right answer when you’re not sure. Rule Number One: narrow the choice to two possible answers. Rule Number Two: go with what seems like the better of the two answers. And Rule Number Three: if you still aren’t sure, make your best guess. When the accused becomes an accuser—when you offer the jury a second solution to the crime—you turn the trial into a multiple-choice test. When you do that, you run the risk that the jury will forget the presumption of innocence and instead choose between two poor answers.” He put on his stern lecture-hall face. “So keep it a trial, Counselor, not a multiple-choice test.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, giving him a salute.

  “And just in the nick of time,” he added with a smile as our waiter removed the empty salad plates and set down the platters of pasta.

  I inhaled deeply through my nose. “Mmmm.”

  “That does look scrumptious,” Kimball said as he watched me take a forkful of linguini with fresh basil and sun-dried tomatoes.

  I closed my eyes in bliss as I chewed. “It’s heaven.”

  He chuckled. “With enough garlic to repel Count Dracula.”

  As he turned his attention to his own pasta, I took a sip of wine and studied him. There comes a point in a man’s life— usually, it seems to me, somewhere between his sixtieth and seventieth year—when the gradually accruing scars of time seem to coalesce, and suddenly the robust patriarch becomes an old man. Charles Kimball was still the patriarch, and a sexy one at that, but the scars of time were visible— especially on his face, where up close there were wrinkles and little brown splotches and sags that hadn’t been there nine years ago when a dazzled law student—the one with the wild curly hair and green eyes—had hung around the lectern after class.

  He’d earned those scars over the past decade, according to Benny. There had been a big malpractice verdict against him after a lawsuit he had filed on behalf of several victims of a toxic chemical spill was dismissed while he was out of the country skiing in the Alps with several politically correct members of the Hollywood rat pack; he failed to learn of the dismissal order until it was too late to get it undone. Then, two years later, just a month after he obtained an acquittal for a man accused of aggravated rape, the same man raped and mutilated his thirteen-year-old niece. Kimball closed his practice and taught law school for a year. When he returned to the courtroom, it was first as a lawyer, then as a defendant, and finally as a Chapter 7 debtor after he lost a $250,000 palimony case brought by his former secretary.

  Although he was now back on his feet, professionally and financially, Charles Kimball had long since ended his role as an eloquent champion of underdogs and left-wing causes. Instead, according to Benny, he had settled into the role of an adept, somewhat flamboyant, and rather expensive defender of the bread-and-butter clientele of a successful criminal defense attorney: the alleged drug pushers, pimps, prostitutes, burglars, and thieves, with an occasional murderer; he drew the line at defending accused rapists.

  My hopes of having Charles Kimball assist in Ann’s defense fizzled on our drive to the restaurant when, in an offhand way, he mentioned his displeasure over the police department’s refusal to confirm that it no longer suspected Tommy Landau of any involvement in the death of Andros. I decided he couldn’t be Ann’s attorney: even if not technically a conflict of interest, it was too awkward to have him represent Ann when he was still representing Tommy Landau and sort of representing Eileen Landau. Nevertheless, I told myself, he could still be a terrific resource. He could recommend some good defense attorneys, and, just as important, help me deal with the multiple-choice-test aspects of Ann’s case.

  I took another sip of wine. “What about the circumstantial case?” I asked.

  He set his fork on his plate and wiped his lips with his cloth napkin. “Such as your sister’s?”

  I nodded. “How do you cross-examine a can of sodium cyanide?”

  He mulled it over. “In a circumstantial case,” he said thoughtfully, “the accused is the only eyewitness. I’d put your sister up there on the witness stand and let her deny it.”

  “But how do I avoid the multiple-choice test?”

  He smiled and arched his eyebrows. “Are you proposing to solve the crime?”

  “No, but her defense is that someone set her up.”

  He shook his head forcefully. “No, it isn’t,” he stressed. “Her defense is that she didn’t do it. Period.” He paused for emphasis. “Let the jurors conclude on their own that she was set up. Give them the facts to reach it, but don’t do it for them. Remember, the state has the burden of proof.”

  I sighed. “You’re right.”

  We were both silent for a while. “Rachel,” he said in a kind voice, “I don’t think it’s wise for you to represent your sister.”

  I gave him a resigned smile. “I agree, Charles. I want to turn her over to a good criminal defense attorney well before trial. Frankly, that’s why I called you today. I wanted to see whether you could represent her. But with your involvement with Tommy Landau and your prior connection to Andros, it’s probably better for Ann to hire someone else.”

  He nodded. “I tend to agree.”

  I took a deep breath and exhaled with frustration. “It’s a damn shame, though,” I said. “You’re my first choice.”

  “I’m flattered. I’ll be happy to be a resource. When I get back to town next week we’ll sit down and go through my short list of St. Louis defense attorneys. I’ll help you select an excellent lawyer for your sister.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  A moment later the waiter arrived with our entrees and a new bottle of wine.

  “Oh, my,” I said in awe as I stared at my veal scaloppine with ginger and lime.

  The meal was divine. When it was over, I leaned back in the booth and said, with a contented sigh, “Wonderful.”

  Kimball shook his head and chuckled. “I have rarely seen someone enjoy a meal as thoroughly as you just did.”

  “I didn’t just enjoy it, I was overwhelmed by it. Swept away.” I placed my hand over my heart and did a mock swoon. “I’m ready to marry the chef. I’m ready to move to Italy and have his babies and darn his socks and iron his boxers so long as he agrees to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner for me and still adore me when I weigh two hundred and fifty pounds.”

  Kimball laughed. “S
top. I’m insanely jealous. Before you run away with him, you must at least sample my veal piccata.”

  I looked impressed. “You’re a chef as well?”

  “Absolutely, and not just Italian. My dolmades could be served on Mount Olympus.”

  “Hmmm,” I said, pretending to weigh my options. “Do you wash the dishes when you’re done?”

  “For you?” He placed his hand over his heart. “But of course.”

  “Well,” I said, suppressing a grin, “I’ve already pledged myself to one chef, but I suppose a prudent bride should have a backup.”

  There was a brief awkward moment as we left the restaurant: Kimball suggested that we go back to his place for some cognac. I knew, and he knew I knew, and I knew he knew I knew, that his beverage invitation included not merely an after-dinner drink but also coffee in the morning. Not yet, I told myself. Your life is complicated enough already. First take care of Ann’s situation and then you can worry about your own. So I yawned and I checked my watch and I asked for a rain check. He gave a good-natured shrug, extended the rain check, and picked up the threads of our prior conversation exactly where we had left them.

  “Although defense counsel shouldn’t try to solve the crime in the courtroom,” Kimball said as we pulled onto the highway, “I admit it’s hard not to try to solve it before you get in the courtroom. Especially in a circumstantial case.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Do you have any idea who set her up?”

  “No.”

  “Who would have the motive?” he asked as he took the exit ramp off the highway.

  “To kill him or to set her up?”

  “Both.”

  I crossed my arms and peered through the windshield. “I suppose there are lots of people who could have a reason to kill him.” I debated whether to toss out any names that came to mind but decided against it. If he couldn’t represent Ann because of his prior and ongoing attorney-client relationships, it was better to view him as a resource instead of a sounding board. “Kill him, yes,” I said. “But who would have a reason to make it look like my sister did it?”