One Dead Lawyer (David Price Mysteries)

by Tony Lindsay

  “Regina’s statements upset me. And you and I hadn’t talked about how we were going to handle things with her. So I figured we both could use a little space.”

  “Oh . . . okay . . . But did I tell you that I really liked you in that camisole?” I lowered my head to her neck and kissed it, again and again.

  “What?”

  “I like your suit, too.” I kissed her neck on the other side. “I like how you matched your colors with mine.” I kissed the tip of her ear. “I like your thin but shapely legs.” I kissed her ear lobe. “I like your pouty lips and round hips.” I lightly kissed her lips and the tip of her nose. “I like your thin hair and slender neck.” I unbuttoned her jacket.

  “And in case you forgot, we got someplace to go tonight.” My hand was under her camisole; I flipped my thumb across her nipple and kissed the top of her cleavage. “I need to go there. It’s been a hard day and I hear people can relax there.” I dropped my hand to her thighs and found her stockings were off. I took my hand up and found wetness. “Mm, you can’t leave here, woman . . . no . . . you got to take me to the country.”

  Later, I planned to ask her about the white Bentley, but at that moment my mind was on convincing her to spend the night.

  It was 12:30 A.M. and the phone was blaring. Daphne grabbed it and said, “hello” and then, “sorry.” She handed the receiver to me.

  It was Regina. Before a word came out of my mouth, she called me an evil conniving bastard. She said she hoped Daphne was a good fuck and a good lawyer, because it would be a cold day in hell before I saw Chester again. She advised me to forget I had a son.

  It was officially on.

  Neither Daphne nor I could go back to sleep after Regina’s call. She laid with her head on my chest, not saying a word for close to half an hour before she asked, “What do you think?”

  “About?”

  “Regina.”

  “I think she’s being the spoiled brat she has always been.”

  “Only a man would say that.”

  “What, is this another one of Gina’s power moves?”

  “I didn’t say that, but I do understand how she feels. I’m her girl and I’m laying up with her man.”

  “I am not her man. I am her ex-husband. It’s been over between me and Regina.” I was lying a little, but technically it was the truth.

  “Regardless, I understand how she feels.”

  The doorbell chimed, and Yin and Yang went ballistic. The only time they bark at the doorbell is when Ricky rings it. I looked at the clock. It was close to one in the morning, no longer Ricky’s traveling time. A bit spooked, I immediately went to the door.

  When I opened the door, the words out of his mouth were, “Man, what the fuck did you do to Gina? Martha had to go out to her place to stop her from comin’ over here and shootin’ ya ass. What da fuck is up?”

  What stopped him from barreling past me into the house was Yin and Yang. They would not allow him to pass the doorway. Their ears were lowered and their teeth were bared. Ricky must have done something really mean to them when they were puppies, because they truly hate him.

  “Man, you better tell these mutts to bow down, before I put they ass to sleep fo’ real.” To them, he said, “You two mutts ain’t scaring me.” But he didn’t move past the break of the doorway. I gave the command “friend” and they reluctantly let him pass.

  “Martha went out to Harvey this time of night?”

  “Yeah, and you lucky she did.” Ricky dropped his heavy frame down on my couch. “Gina was set on comin’ over here with pistol cocked. What’s going on, man?”

  “I was going to tell you earlier, but I didn’t. Regina is getting married to this rich white cat and she wants him to adopt Chester?”

  “What? A white cat? Damn, pissed you off, huh? But hold it, how she gonna put a boy up fo’ adoption dat got a daddy?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “It can happen.” Daphne walked into the front room in my robe.

  Ricky turned his melon-sized head to see who was speaking. She walked into his line of vision, “Hello, I’m Daphne Nelson.”

  “Mm . . . oh!” The eyebrows on his fat face rose with his exclamation. Ricky’s huge face shows what he feels and thinks. “You must be ‘the heifer that’s over there now’ dat Regina wants to come see.” Ricky alone laughed at his Regina rendition. “You ain’t got to introduce ya’self like we strangers. I knew you when you used to jump rope out in Harvey.” Ricky turned his melon to me. “And you did too, didn’t you? You said you was protecting her son. Is da boy even here?”

  I stepped to him in a snap. “Nigga, who is questioning like that? This is my damn house.” Ricky knew good and well he never saw Daphne jumping rope on the block. She had to be a teenager when Regina and I moved to Harvey. Her son was four or five when I first met him.

  “I know whose house it is, man. Calm yourself.” He put a sly, consoling grin on his face. “I was just tryin’ to get my facts straight. I come over and she got on ya robe, you in ya shorts and ya wife—”

  “Ex-wife!” I interjected.

  “Okay, ya ex-wife, Gina, screamin’ on da phone about shootin’ you and a heifer. I was trying’ to get a understandin’ of what was really goin’ on. But shit, I didn’t even have to come over here. I coulda stayed my fat ass in da bed.” He turned away from me and Daphne and huffed. “I don’t need dis here, call myself helpin’. I ain’t da one dat got the li’l girl from down the block in my bed. No wonder Gina talkin’ about comin’ over and bustin’ a cap in ya ass.”

  Before I could set his self-righteous tail straight, the doorbell chimed and all three of us jumped. Ricky asked, “You think I should get it? It might be her.”

  “No, this my house, and I can answer the door.”

  I went to the door and asked, “Who is it?”

  “It’s me, David. Carol.”

  I thought I even heard the dogs sigh in relief. Out the corner of my eye I caught a flicker of Daphne running up the stairs. My guess was to get dressed. I commanded the dogs to the kitchen and let Carol in.

  “David, I’m sorry to bother you like this. It’s just that I got a call from Regina a little while ago and it bothered me.” Carol walked in and hugged me. “Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Come on in, Ricky’s here too.”

  “Hey, Carol the kitty.” Ricky had twisted his melon all the way around to see Carol. They have a history. He flirts with her, she can’t stand the sight of him. “Come on over here and sit next to me.”

  “Thank you, but no thank you, Mr. Brown.”

  When she walked past the couch Ricky moaned, “Slimmie slimmie, please let me.”

  Carol sucked her teeth and slightly audibly said, “Disgusting, married, yellow pig.”

  I know he heard her, but he acted like he didn’t, and after she sat in the recliner she smiled at him just as nice and asked, “How is Mrs. Brown?”

  “She fine . . . Dat sho’ is a pretty sundress. Dat African print looks nice on you. Did you go to Africa to get it?”

  Carol completely ignored his compliment and question, “David, Regina was livid. I had the office phone forwarded to my home, and the message she left you was serious. She’s planning on going to court over your son. Whatever plans you have, you better get started right away.

  “She left another message by mistake; I think she thought she’d reached her attorney’s service. She was giving him the go-ahead to get started. What happened?”

  I hunched my shoulders and threw up my hands. “I guess her lawyer boyfriend called her and told her Daphne was my lawyer, is the best I can figure.”

  “And that sent her into a rage? No. That doesn’t sound like Regina.” Carol sat back in the big chair and crossed her legs.

  Ricky reached into the pocket of his sweatsuit jacket and pulled out a pack of Newports and lit one.

  “Yeah you right ’bout dat. Sounds like somebody ain’t tellin’ you everthang. Huh?”


  “Pardon?”

  “Don’t pay him any attention, Carol.”

  Daphne hadn’t left to change clothes. She returned wearing my robe and carrying the file of newspapers from her trunk.

  “Oh! Hello, Daphne.” Carol gave Daphne the same smile she gave Ricky and settled her catlike eyes on me.

  I sat down on the couch next to Ricky and Daphne sat in the love seat. Carol, who was in the recliner, was kind of out of our circle.

  “Well, ain’t this cozy?” Ricky exhaled smoke and words simultaneously.

  Daphne was directly across from Ricky and me with my mahogany coffee table between us. She placed the file on the table and emptied the contents. Carol stood and walked toward us.

  Daphne’s eyes went to the newspapers on the table, then up to us. Her eyes were filled with tears. Her hands and shoulders started trembling. I was going to go to her, but Carol sat down and hugged her. Ricky tore off the top of his box of Newports and extinguished his cigarette in it.

  Daphne cried openly. “I didn’t mean for it to happen.” She pulled free from Carol’s hug and pointed to the papers. “Look . . . look and see what I did. I did that. I got those people killed!”

  The headlines read, CHURCH BUS CRASHES. 16 BURN TO DEATH.

  “I set the accident up. The driver of the car was a pro. He was supposed to get a truck to rear-end him up on the embankment, but the car hit the bus and the bus hit the wall. The bus blew up and killed all those people. All those church folks burned to death.”

  Daphne stood and went to my book case/ bar. She filled a highball glass full of Remy and drank. “I told Randolph we had to go to the police.” She sipped from the glass. “He said no; told me the case would be our breakthrough case. He represented the families of the passengers on the bus.” She looked into her drink. “He was right. It was our breakthrough case.

  “After he got all those families large settlements, we became the personal-injury lawyers for black folks. He said he was going to stop doing the staged accidents, but he didn’t, and neither did I. The money was too easy. Companies started settling as soon as they saw his name on the documents. Instead of doing fewer staged accidents, we did more.”

  Holding one of the newspapers in my hand, I said, “I remember this.”

  “Yeah, me too. Aspire Trucking. The guy who ran the joint was a decent guy. Matthew MacNard was his name. It was a operation with only two trucks. Da accident closed them down.”

  “Yeah, I remember, the manger of the trucking company shot himself in the head.”

  “David!” Carol shot me a look.

  “What!”

  Carol cut her eyes to Daphne. I hadn’t thought about how my words might have added to her guilt.

  “Damn, baby, I’m sorry, but this wasn’t your fault. Death goes where it’s supposed to. You, me, nobody can direct it. God’s will is God’s will.”

  This was a painful lesson for me to learn, but I had learned. We are powerless over death.

  “Try telling that to Eleanor. Her mother was on the bus. My girlfriend’s mother was killed in an accident I set up!”

  Ricky adjusted his mass on the sofa and said, “You didn’t put her mama on dat bus and you wasn’t drivin’ da car dat hit da bus. Yeah, settin’ up da accident was fucked up, but like D said, you ain’t God.

  “It was a bad time fo’ the whole city, li’l girl, everybody had somebody on dat bus. Seems like the funerals lasted fo’ever. Da whole thang was sad.”

  “Daphne, I agree with them, and I think your friend Eleanor would too.”

  “I don’t know. If it was me and Eleanor had set up an accident that got my mother killed, I would want her.” She poured more Remy and drank without looking up. “Randolph married Eleanor after the accident. He married her and bought her a mansion out in the ’burbs, all out of guilt, I believe. The marriage didn’t last long, but she got to keep the mansion.”

  Daphne returned to her seat next to Carol and gathered the papers. We all sat there quietly until Carol said, “Not meaning to be insensitive, but how will this help David with his son?”

  Daphne answered, “Leverage against Randolph. We can always threaten to go public.” She pulled a thin manila envelope from the hanging file. “David, this is the only paper trail leading from the driver of the car to Randolph. Here you have copies of checks written to him for previous accidents, along with invoices from his hospital stays and a memo telling me to order plane tickets for him to Barbados. The only people who can connect the driver to Randolph are Eleanor and me.”

  “Eleanor?” Carol asked.

  “Yes. She used to bird-dog for Randolph. Started out doing only data entry, but once she found out about bird-dogging and the commissions associated with it, she outdid me. Eleanor takes money very seriously.

  “She knew the driver in the accident. If she had seen his name associated with her mother’s death, she would have known Randolph was involved. He had me remove all this information from the office records.” She fanned through the folder. “I thought he believed I destroyed the info, but catching him searching my home causes me to think otherwise. I want you to keep this for me, David.” She tossed the file into my lap.

  The door chimes sounded again. No one moved. We four sat still.

  “Answer the door, David,” Carol prompted. I waited to see if Ricky was going to say he would get it. I looked at my Rolex—it was a little past two in the morning. When neither Ricky nor anyone else volunteered to answer the door, I got it.

  When the front door opened, I experienced an array of emotions; happiness, shock, anger and happiness again. The first face I saw was Martha’s, and I was relieved, but behind her I saw Regina and she had the nerve to be smiling. When I looked down at her hand, Chester was holding it, and he looked up at me grinning just as bright-eyed and bushy-headed as he wanted to be and said, “Hey, Daddy Man, we went to White Castle’s!” I scooped him up in my arms, and all was right with the world.

  Chester didn’t stay awake for five minutes. I carried him to the room Stanley was in, but Stanley slept too bad; he was all over the bed and snored like a drunken old man. I toted my son upstairs to my bed.

  I was in no hurry to get back downstairs. Lingering at the top of the stairs, I listened to see if conversation had started. It had, but I couldn’t tell if it was Martha or Carol who prompted Daphne to retell her story. I took a couple of steps down and heard Daphne begin.

  “I physically cannot go over it all again, but I will tell you this. Randolph is not a man to be trusted. He was a party in the death of his first wife’s mother, and he has kept the truth from her and others who deserve to know what happened to their loved ones. He is a man solely motivated by wealth. I think it would be a mistake to allow a man like him into your little boy’s life.”

  The second Daphne finished, Regina launched, “Who I let into my son’s life is absolutely none of your concern!” The harshness with which Regina spoke brought me down the stairs.

  Regina’s index finger was targeted at Daphne’s heart. “And if not for Martha, your concern would have been to get whatever legal expertise you possess in order. Because, missy, you are going to court!”

  When I entered the living area, Regina was sitting on the tip of the sofa cushion between Martha and Ricky. Across the coffee table were Daphne and Carol. Regina’s eyes were locked on Daphne. Daphne, along with Martha and Ricky, looked at me expectantly.

  I asked Regina, “Has Martha changed your mind about going to court?”

  She rolled her emerald eyes from Daphne, cast them sharply on me and said, “Yes, she has. I was wrong, David. Chester is your son and he should bear your name. We were blessed, David, to have good friendships that survived after our marriage. I thank God for Martha, and you should too.”

  I stood there looking at the austere expression on my ex-wife’s face. There was no remorse. She matter-of-factly admitted that she was wrong, and that was all I was going to get. The past twenty-four hours of agitation caused by h
er were to be forgotten.

  Martha on the other hand, had a warm, happy, grateful smile on her round face, and that pulled the “thank you” from me to Regina.

  “No need to thank me. As Martha pointed out, it was the Christian thing to do,” was Regina’s reply.

  A slight revelation noticeably crossed Carol’s face. She jerked her head toward Daphne and said “Well, I guess that means David won’t be needing your legal services after all.”

  Although my eyes saw both women smiling at each other, it wasn’t a pleasant feeling that generated from the love seat.

  “Yes, you’re right,” Daphne said, standing.

  She walked over to me and laid her hand on my chest. She let my robe fall open, allowing only me to see her nakedness, but everyone in the room could tell it had fallen open. She looked over her shoulder to Carol and Regina and said, “David is a bachelor, a free and available black man, and, ladies, I am interested. If you had him and didn’t keep him, too bad. If you wanted him and didn’t move on him, too bad. I’m here now. I’m leaving tonight only because my son has a 7:00 A.M. dentist appointment. If not for that, ladies, I would be camped out.”

  The next sound heard in the room was her lips smacking on mine. She then shook her booty at those sitting in the living area and dashed up the stairs, giggling.

  Damn! I was feeling that girl.

  Daphne and Stanley were the first to leave. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think Martha, Carol and Regina made it up in their minds that they weren’t leaving with her in my home. After her little living-room dance, which only Ricky and me found funny, the other women glued themselves to their seats.

  Daphne got dressed, woke up Stanley, kissed me good-bye again and left. No sooner had the door closed, than I got the sucking teeth, the exasperation, the popping of lips, and a whispered, “How could he? She’s got to be fifteen years younger.”

  When I turned around from the door, I couldn’t tell which of the three said what, because they all smiled at me pleasantly.

  I’d decided to ignore them all and go warm up some food, but gunshots rang out and we all froze.