One Taste Too Many

by Debra H. Goldstein

  “Can’t we fight this? Maybe you can file some kind of legal challenge? After all, I’ve been taking care of RahRah with Bill’s blessing all this time.”

  “I can go to court on your behalf and at least make the argument that you’ve cared for RahRah for years and you have a mutual loving relationship, but we still have to be realistic about what state law dictates. If we make the argument, it won’t help us if it can be demonstrated you defied the law by refusing to give RahRah up. This is a two-edged sword: your loving relationship against the documents. I can argue how fit you are to be a trustee, but the other side may question your abilities by saying you were so naïve Bill scammed you into caring for RahRah while he rode RahRah’s legacy to the bank. The court may pity you or acknowledge your love and care of RahRah, but the judge will be compelled to rule against you in the face of these documents.” He closed the folder and dropped it on a stack on his desk. “I’m sorry, Sarah. Everything seems properly executed and they name Jane, not you.”

  “But surely we can show Jane can’t take care of RahRah like I do.”

  He nodded affirmatively. “Unless we can demonstrate that Jane is unfit to take care of RahRah, and we don’t have any evidence to that effect, the court must go by the letter of the law. Fighting this might be good emotionally, but it isn’t worth your time or money.” He closed a black-covered book that lay open on his desk.

  Sarah struggled against breaking down. It shouldn’t matter if Jane was fit or not. What should matter was what RahRah wanted, what was best for RahRah. In her home, RahRah was comfortable and loved. Surely love needed to play into the equation. Harlan often talked of the letter and the spirit of the law. If she lost RahRah, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue working in the legal profession.

  Awash with her thoughts and struggling to keep her cool, Sarah simply shrugged at Harlan, at a loss for words she could say to change things.

  Taking advantage of her silence, Harlan grabbed a worn book and the briefcase she carried for him at the police station and headed for the door. “Sarah, I’ve got to go, but you need to turn RahRah over to Jane when she comes to pick him up tomorrow morning.”

  She stared at him, an emotionally void calm replacing her prior trembling sensation. Her mouth set in a straight line, she followed Harlan’s steps into the waiting room. She stopped short when Harlan paused without warning.

  “George, walk with me. I’m running late, but we can talk on the way to the courthouse.” He turned his head back toward Sarah. “Please don’t leave until I get back. I won’t be gone long. I promise that the minute I get back, we’ll find out if there is anything to your hunch about Emily and Marcus.”

  She nodded, but Harlan didn’t see it. He and George were already gone.

  Sarah squared her shoulders, deciding to focus on practicality. She might not be able to help RahRah, but she could still be there for Emily. Her choices were simple. Wait for Harlan and keep her job, considering how little work she’d done of late, or leave the office, find Marcus, and lose her job. Confronted with this choice, the answer seemed like a no-brainer. She knew what she wanted to do emotionally, but she needed her paycheck.

  Being rational, which she didn’t want to be right now, she couldn’t argue with why Harlan asked her to stay. As much as she hated waiting to find Marcus, Sarah’s pragmatic side dictated she do some work while she was here.

  She doubted Emily, if faced with the same dilemma, would make the same choice. Her reaction probably would be a combination of “Damn the torpedoes” and “Let the chips fly.” The big difference between the two of them was Emily would leave the office unattended, save the day by coaxing the truth from Marcus, and then convince Harlan to reemploy her with a raise. Sarah would simply muddy things up and end up canned.

  A sudden blaring of the University of Alabama’s fight song startled her. It took her a moment to realize it was the ringtone of Harlan’s phone coming from his office. She followed the sound and saw his cell phone sitting on his desk. Apparently, in his rush to leave for the courthouse, he’d left it behind.

  Concerned it might be the important call coming in on his private cell instead of the office number, she picked up the phone but before she could punch the answer button, the ringing abruptly ended. Worried, she hit recent calls. Like her cell phone, Harlan’s recent call listing showed the name of the caller if the person was listed in his contact list. She heard her own slight intake of breath because the bold letters spelled out the caller as JANE CLARK.

  Why was Jane phoning Harlan? Sarah wanted to hit the call back button but instead stared at the name. If this call was to arrange when and how RahRah would be turned over to her, Sarah wanted no part of it. Perhaps she could stall RahRah’s departure if she hid the phone. She looked around the office for a hiding spot. Rationally, she knew it wouldn’t change things to hide the phone, but the temptation was so great she held it in her hand for a moment as her eyes scoured the room.

  Her eyes were drawn to the built-in bookcase behind Harlan’s desk. Two shelves were devoted to black cloth–covered books like the one he took to the courthouse. She moved closer to examine them. The Code of Alabama.

  Most of the books were in pristine shape, but a few were obviously well handled. That made sense. From her work as Harlan’s receptionist, she knew that although he pretty much took any case that came in the door, most of his work was confined to wills, divorces, property transactions, and DUIs. Leaving the phone on Harlan’s desk, she traced her finger across the spines of his books, more closely examining the ones he used the most.

  As she touched the books, she noticed from their dates they weren’t current. She remembered Harlan telling her he’d inherited the books, but she hadn’t realized how out-of-date his version of the Code of Alabama was. Now she understood why Harlan received tear sheets in the mail every month from a subscription service—small booklets that covered current changes in state law.

  The monthly updates arrived wrapped in plastic shrink-wrap already three-hole punched. When she first started working for him and they came in the mail, she asked him what binder or notebook he wanted her to put them in, but he responded he preferred reviewing them before they were filed away. From that point forward, when the updates arrived, she put them neatly in his “in” basket. She hadn’t realized, until now, he stacked the still-wrapped packets on the bottom shelf of his bookcase.

  Considering his obvious backlog of reading material, she wondered, because she didn’t remember ever typing paperwork for an animal trust, how current he was on that kind of law. Maybe there was a loophole she could use? She didn’t know the code section to check, but she was sure if she keyworded different search engines on her computer with “animal trust” and “Alabama,” something would come up.

  She smiled as she woke her computer from sleep mode. Harlan had asked her not to leave the office, but he hadn’t forbidden her to use his office equipment for personal research.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Nothing. Sarah tried all the tag words she could think of: “animal trust,” “cat trust,” “wills and animals,” and “animal trustees,” but every article or statutory reference she found didn’t vary from what Harlan told her. Maybe the paper updates were stacked in his office, but whether by computer or some seminar, he was, it seemed, sadly current on animal trust rules in Alabama.

  With a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, Sarah thought about what else she could do until Harlan got back from court. Filing? Typing? Harlan might want—make that need—both things done, but neither was good for her to do now. Between her worries about Emily and RahRah, she was sure she’d screw up anything she touched. At least, without Harlan being there to overhear her avoiding work, she could call and check on Grace.

  As she punched in the hospital’s phone number, she realized she didn’t have to look it up. She still had it memorized from dialing it daily when Mother Blair was hospitalized for her final stay. How such a warm and good woman had rais
ed a jerk like Bill was hard to fathom. It was also puzzling that she’d named Bill as RahRah’s trustee. She knew how allergic he was to cats. Given how close Mother Blair and she were and Mother Blair knew how much Sarah cared for RahRah, Sarah was surprised she hadn’t named her as RahRah’s caretaker.

  “Wheaton General Hospital. May I direct your call?”

  “Patient information, please.”

  “One moment.” There was a click and a few bars of generic music before a voice came on behind a second click. “Patient information. May I help you?”

  “Would you please connect me with Grace . . .” She paused, uncertain of Grace’s last name. She remembered Grace telling it to her. “It’s on the tip of my tongue,” she said to the voice asking if she had a last name. She mentally ran through her previous meetings with Grace.

  “I’m sorry, I need a name please.”

  “It’s . . . um . . .” The image of their introduction came back to her. “It’s Winston.”

  “I’m sorry. We don’t have a patient admitted by that name.”

  “She came in through emergency earlier today.”

  Again, there was a pause on the other end of the line. “No, we don’t have anyone admitted or in emergency at present by that name.”

  “Does that mean she checked out?”

  “I’m sorry, but I’m not allowed to give out that information. May I help you with anything else?”

  “No, thank you.” Sarah hung up. Apparently, Grace was okay or she would have been admitted. Sarah felt relieved. Now she could concentrate on worrying about her sister and finding something to do during the rest of the time she waited for Harlan.

  Looking around, she decided the mail seemed like a good thing to tackle. It would take a lot to mess that up. Chanting “Mail is Mindless” to herself, she turned her attention to the unopened mail from the past two days. At least getting rid of the overflowing mail bin on the floor next to her desk would make Harlan think she’d worked during his absence.

  As she emptied each envelope, she put its contents in one of three places. The advertisements and junk mail she dropped directly into the circular file. Any correspondence Harlan needed to read went into a second pile of letters she would put in his “in” basket. Sarah stuffed anything that needed filing, like copies of court orders and pleadings, into a folder she kept hidden in her desk drawer to be worked on at a future time.

  Once she’d distributed the mail, except two checks, she went back into Harlan’s office and pulled the firm’s ledger from a wood-grained filing cabinet. She took the ledger back to her desk and on separate lines entered the numbers of the respective checks, their amounts, what case they referenced, and who had made the payment. After updating the ledger, she filled out a bank slip to deposit the two checks.

  She knew the firm’s balance was in the black, but she couldn’t help but notice that these two checks, the only two received this week for work completed, weren’t enough to cover her weekly salary. Seeing such a low cash flow, she could understand why, with all the pro bono time Harlan had put in helping Emily and Sarah this week, he was concerned about having some billable hours, too.

  Sarah checked her watch. Four thirty. If this was a normal day, she would only be scheduled to work another half hour. If the call Harlan was waiting for was a business call, it should come by five, too. Hopefully, Harlan would get back soon. If he didn’t, she was torn between leaving on time to search for Marcus or going straight home because RahRah was alone and it might be their last evening together. Then again, Harlan had specifically asked her to wait for him. She opted to give Harlan an extra thirty minutes beyond her normal quitting time before she powered down her computer.

  The reception desk computer screen had just gone black when she heard Harlan’s private entrance being unlocked. She rose to check if it was Harlan.

  “I’m glad you’re still here,” he called from his office. She heard him drop his coat and briefcase on his desk. “I was afraid I’d missed you.”

  “What?” she began, but words deserted her when Emily walked out of Harlan’s office.

  Without waiting, Sarah ran to hug her. Emily hugged back, holding on tightly.

  “Are you okay?” Sarah held her twin at arm’s length. Emily looked tired, but there was something else, too. For a moment, Sarah couldn’t pinpoint the difference. Then she realized the furrows in Emily’s brow were relaxed. Emily was smiling—something Sarah had rarely seen her do since coming back from San Francisco.

  “More than okay. Harlan got Judge Larsen to hold a special hearing and let me out.”

  “Temporarily, on bail,” Harlan hastened to add as he watched their reunion from the safety of his doorway.

  “A bail hearing on a Saturday? Who put up the collateral for Emily?”

  Harlan blushed. “It wasn’t a big deal. I ran into Judge Larsen when I went for coffee this morning. Because he’s going out of town next week and our other judicial post is vacant, Judge Larsen agreed it wasn’t fair to make Emily sit and wait for a bail hearing until he got back. Neither Peter nor the city prosecutor raised any objections with what Judge Larsen wanted to do, but the case hasn’t gone away. Emily still isn’t a free woman.”

  “We’ll simply have to work harder to find the real killer.” Sarah gave her sister’s shoulders another squeeze.

  “Or at least some grounds for me to use to create reasonable doubt.” Harlan motioned them into his office. He sat down in his leather wingchair and indicated they should take seats on the matching brown couch.

  As Emily settled herself onto the couch, Harlan made a show of leaning back and resting his booted feet on the coffee table. Sarah was so busy trying to decide whether his feet would touch the floor if he sat all the way back, she almost missed his drawling cowboy imitation. “Time to ’fess up, Emily.”

  Emily and Sarah looked at each other.

  “Sarah, I’m sorry. I know I should have told you earlier about Marcus and Bill and what’s been happening at Southwind, but I didn’t want to complicate things any more than they were.”

  “I’m confused. How can things be more complicated than they now are?”

  Harlan snorted but Sarah ignored him. She kept her eyes glued on her sister’s face.

  Emily returned her gaze. Emily held her head high, with her chin jutting out. “I came back from San Francisco because Marcus and I were seeing each other exclusively.”

  “What is this, high school? You couldn’t tell me you’re going steady?” Sarah stood.

  “We didn’t want to hide it, but it was a business decision.”

  “I don’t understand.” Sarah walked to the front window and stared outside.

  Emily came up behind her. She placed her hand on Sarah’s shoulder, but Sarah shook free.

  Now she fully understood why Emily had stopped sharing food and thoughts with her. “You didn’t trust me enough to tell me you were dating?”

  “It wasn’t like that. It wasn’t a matter of trust. It was business.”

  “Business? Do you think I’m an idiot?”

  “No. I was the fool. Because of Southwind’s precarious financial situation, I was afraid for us to admit we were a couple.”

  “I don’t understand.” At the sound of Harlan clearing his throat, Sarah jumped on him. “Harlan, did you know? Is that why you didn’t want me to talk to Marcus this afternoon?”

  Harlan held up both hands in mock defense of himself. “I didn’t know before this afternoon. In fact, with Emily refusing to help me with her case, I probably never would have considered the possibility of them having a relationship but for your hunch she was shielding someone. Because of another matter, Judge Larsen delayed Emily’s hearing by thirty minutes and I ran with what you suggested to bang some sense into her head. I called her out on keeping secrets and making matters worse by trying to shield everyone and ending up protecting no one.”

  Emily again reached for Sarah.

  This time, Sarah didn’t resist.
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br />   “Honest, Sarah, I was only doing what I thought was best. In San Francisco, our boss had an unwritten rule against staff members dating.” She made quotation marks with her fingers. “He believed ‘Kitchen romances create undue tension and feelings of jealousy.’ Once I got back here and found out Bill was involved in keeping Southwind afloat, I was scared. Knowing Bill, if he was mad at anything I said during your divorce, he wouldn’t care how much money he lost or who he hurt to get even with me or as a way of still getting to you.”

  Sarah nodded in agreement.

  Emily picked up the thread of her story. “Marcus and I were trying to get Southwind turned around enough that Marcus would be able to buy back his restaurant when Bill decided that in addition to our limited catering business, we needed to handle food services for Civic Center events.”

  “And you didn’t say no?”

  “They couldn’t,” Harlan said. “Think about it. Bill controlled them.”

  Emily clenched her fists in the same way Sarah remembered seeing Marcus do at the nurse’s station. “If Marcus didn’t go along with Bill’s business plan, Bill threatened to pull his financing and shut Southwind down. He’d bought out the other investors, so there was no one else Marcus could enlist to his side.”

  “In true Bill fashion, he had you over a barrel.”

  “Yes. We didn’t have a choice but to take on the Civic Center gig after Bill signed the contracts over Marcus’s objections. By that time, Bill had made him add Jane and Richard as line cooks . . .”

  “Jane, I understand, but Richard?”