Ansel saw her first. He had come to the Caymans alone in the firm airplane. Libby had gone west, out to Berkeley, and was helping their youngest commute to his first year in college, so the customary restraints on a married man's late-night habits were removed. Of course restraint wasn't even necessary, because Ansel was merely coming to the aid of an abandoned woman who looked like she had one more dance in her before she too, took herself off to bed.
An hour later they were on the beach, barefoot, swaying in the moonlight to the dance music wafting outside on the warm air. Her arms were around his neck and his were around her waist, a half-full bottle of Chateau Mouton Rothschild 2000 dangling from between two fingers of his right hand.
"That's cold there," she said of the sweating bottle, and moved a hand behind as if to brush it away.
"That's seven hundred dollars of grape juice you're swatting at, m'love," he whispered.
"That's less than one hour of billable time for you," she laughed.
And the retainer was signed.
They became lovers five minutes later and remained lovers up until the night she was murdered. There was only one rule, as neither wanted a child from the merger: They always used a condom. The flirtation and consummation was meant to be therapeutic only, never productive.
In fact, they had met and made love the night of her death, at the law firm. Afterward, he had gone back to his office "to finish up."
To his great surprise he found Libby in his office, sitting in his chair, and swinging back and forth as she cried and wiped her tears on the Bears sweatshirt she was wearing.
“How did you get here?” he asked. He was genuinely startled, but then realized an aide must have driven her into the city.
"I know what you're doing," she said through her tears. “I came down and shaw you in there."
"Libby, let me explain what's happened to me since your stroke--"
"Bullroar, Anshel! Itsh been going on a hell of a lot longer than shince I had my stroke!"
He plopped himself down in a client chair and faced her.
"Please," he whispered, "stop crying. Let me get you a towel."
"That would be nice. Wet it."
"Hold on. Be right back."
He headed for the partners' lavatory and the soft stack of towels kept there.
Libby saw something on his desk that abruptly stopped the flow of tears.
Could it be? She leaned closer and moved an envelope to the side.
It was.
She opened the plastic container, hefted herself upright with her cane, and headed back to Suzanne's office.
10
Chapter 10
Lunch left no doubt about it: they were really and truly in a Mexican jail. The tortillas, beans and rice erased all doubt.
It was served--as it were--on paper plates folded and passed through the bars of the cell. It could then be unfolded, unstuck from the plate, and crudely introduced onto the tortilla, rolled, and eaten. Four more prisoners had arrived, all Hispanic, leaving a pair up against a full house. Two on five, or five on two, depending.
From the get-go it was clear the Mexicans had no use for the two white guys. Not enough seating, there were four Mexicans on one side, one Mexican and two whites on the other. Thaddeus listened as the five amigos did their back-and-forth, tossing glances at Thaddeus and Burton as they spoke. Evidently the new guys were being updated on the two Americans, with particular focus on Thaddeus, the one who had shown he could handle himself.
"Gonna eat all that?" Burton asked.
Thaddeus stopped chewing. "What? You want my lunch?"
"I'm just asking."
"Shut up and eat. Every time you speak, these guys think we're plotting against them. Try not to look threatening."
"How do I do that?" said Burton, who sat upright at the suggestion he might be looking like a threat to anyone.
"It was a joke. Never mind. Just shut up and eat."
Five minutes later the same rotund Federale as before rejoined them and demanded return of the paper plates. Thaddeus took Burton's and passed the two back through the bars. The Mexicans were slower to respond and made a big show of chewing and swallowing the last bites before they would surrender their paper plates. The Federale rolled his eyes. But he was outnumbered and didn't want to make any enemies.
"So," Thaddeus said to the man's back as he was leaving. "Anyone out there looking for an easy five grand?"
"Not yet," said the jailer. He continued on through the door and out.
"Hey man," the original tall man said.
Thaddeus looked at him. "You talking to me?"
"Yes, man. You got a way out of here?"
"I'm working on it."
"You take me with you?"
"I don't think so. I'm a one-man show."
"You taking that loser next to you though, no?"
"We'll have to see. He might have something I need."
"He gonna bend over for you, man?"
Thaddeus smiled. "No need for that, friend. Let's be amigos, eh?"
"Chure, man, you take me with you. Then we friends."
"I'm working on it. We'll see how it goes."
"These new guys want you, but I told them you were too strong."
"What's not to want?" Thaddeus laughed. He made a joke, but inside he was praying they would decide to spend their time doing something besides assaulting him.
"That's good, man. That's good."
"Tell you want. I'm going to try to get us all in front of a judge. I can't offer any more than that, but that much I'll try to do."
"It's a deal, hombre. Now you talking."
"Good. Pass the word to your friends."
The tall Mexican said something to the new guys. Their expressions didn't change, although one of them nodded.
At which point the Federale who had searched the Toyota and found Thaddeus' gun appeared in the doorway.
"You want to see a judge?" he said to Thaddeus.
"I do."
"You can afford it?"
"I can."
"Let me see the money. I didn't see no money when we booked you in."
"Let me use your phone. I can have five grand here in five hours."
He knew it would take Christine just five hours from Flagstaff to Nogales. Including a quick stop downstairs, at the Bank of America. He had thirty-five million on deposit with BOA. Five grand shouldn't be too hard.
"Five hours. We can have a judge here five hours from now. But he will need five grand too."
"Done."
"But if you're lying to me, man, you won't see no judge for six months. I promise you."
"The money will be here. It's what, one o'clock now? We can do the deal at seven. If you let me use your phone."
They took him up front and, instead of allowing him to use their phone, they gave him access to his mobile. His plan was worldwide, so the call from Mexico to the States went smoothly.
She would be there at seven o'clock with ten thousand dollars. Added to Hermano's money hidden inside the spare tire in the trunk of the Toyota, he would be good to go.
They returned him to the cell. He explained to the Mexican man they would all get to the see the judge. At seven o'clock. They looked placated.
Which meant there would be no attack before then.
But if it went wrong or the judge refused, it could be a very long and painful stay in that cell.
Very painful.
11
Chapter 11
Ansel couldn't make preparations to flee fast enough.
First there was Libby to collect up.
She was found in the den. She had managed to disarticulate the vacuum cleaner canister from frame. She sat cross-legged on the floor, the skeleton and guts of the machine pulled half up in her lap, the schematic open in her hand, extended at arm's length, reading glasses perched on her forehead but thought by her to be lost. She was frozen in deep thought as she absently spun a small fan with her finger and read. So, Ansel had
to take care not to startle her. He knew that the startle response in stroke victims was very unpredictable and could range from being ignored to loss of bowel control to physical assault.
He paused in the doorway and cleared his throat.
“I hear you, Anshel. Pleash ride this down: Libby appears bishy.”
“And I didn’t want to disturb you for that very reason. But I’m afraid something unexpected has come up and we need to deal with it immediately.”
“Thersh no ‘immediately’ with a stroke victim, Ansh. Have you not heard the doctorsh?”
“I have heard the doctors. But this is one of those times. We need to leave town for a few days.”
“That won’t happen. Whatever it ish, you go without me. Pleash.”
“I don’t have time to argue. Now, what about your passport? Do you remember where it might be?”
She turned her head to him and her reading glasses plunked down on her nose—askew, but located. “I don’t need it. I’m not leaving my housh.”
“Ah, but you are—we are. We’ll discuss it on the way. Now, do I look in the roll-top?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Please. Put the vacuum away. We need to change you into travel clothes and get moving.”
“I can’t put it away like thish. It’sh apart.”
“I’ll buy you another. Whatever.”
“Whatsh it about?”
“Business.” Ansel took a seat in the white chair, one of two. He leaned toward his wife and immediately felt like a conspirator offering a bribe. "There's a large sum of money overseas that I have to retrieve for the firm. It's waiting for me to come get it. Pretty simple stuff. A large amount would be yours."
"If itsh so shimple why do you need me?"
"There's a person there who might need to hear certain things from you. That's all I can say right now."
Up to then, he had told her nothing about David, nothing about the missing funds, and nothing about the David note. But he believed he knew where David had gone and he believed he knew the fastest way to retrieve the missing funds and return them to where they belonged. David would dissolve once his mother lit into him. He had never been able to stand up to her. Libby was thus an essential element. She was a must-have, a sine qua non.
"Ohhh," she said in a Halloween-scary voice, "big mishtery, have we? Put me down for that. Make me a definite ‘yesh,’ Ansh."
"Please. Don't ridicule. I stand by you, Libby. All I'm asking is you stand by me now."
"Do we need to talk to the doctor before we go?"
"Oh, I'm okay to travel. Okay to work, come and go, fit as a fiddle."
"Right. Where've I heard that before?"
"Roll-top?"
"Passport, right hand drawer desktop level."
"Hold on." He crossed to the roll-top and opened the indicated drawer. Below two Chicago roadmaps he laid hands on the passport. Checked the date. Valid until 2017. His own passport he stored in an inside pocket of his overnight bag. That way, it was always on hand even when he had to unexpectedly leave the States. Which had happened, and so now he was always prepared. Managing partner duties and all that.
"Okay, I'm busshted. Hand me my cane and help me up."
He did as she ordered and offered his hand. She gripped it with her left hand, as her right side was still virtually useless. She had enough arm strength to plant the cane and push off as she would go along. Just that feat had taken three months of daily physical therapy.
She began the hobble toward the hall stairs, where she would sit in her Stair-Assist and ride up to her walk-in closet. He followed her upstairs, into her bedroom.
A glance at his watch. Twelve-thirty. Packing up would eat up a good hour as they quibbled over her selections, then a thirty minute wait once he called for the cab, then two hours to O'Hare because they'd be fighting outbound traffic, then thirty minutes to check-in--he ran the math and decided they had an all-clear window at five o'clock. Fine, so he'd make flight reservations for five or later. Hopefully the Fibbies wouldn't have put him on a no-fly list before then and they would get out of the country.
The thought of the FBI investigation that even then was coiling in on him like a python frightened the hell out of him. He felt his bowels shift deep down and a toilet urgency raced to his brain. The toilet was down a small hall off the bedroom and he headed there to gather his thoughts and un-gather his bowels. The laptop was indicated, so he reversed field and retrieved it from the bed, then reversed field yet again and headed for the promised land.
Libby observed his gyrations, of course, and he could see her trust meter sink to four.
"Lots going on," he offered, and touched the side of his head.
"Uh-huh," she said, and began opening drawers. With Libby it was always underwear in first, then the slacks, then a black dress--good for cocktails or burials--and two sweaters. She would be chilly at night no matter the latitude, so always with the sweaters. Four shoes would make it inside the suitcase, situated north-south-east and west. They were arranged to help absorb the shock of baggage handling as she--probably accurately--imagined it behind the scenes.
Ansel turned back to his toilette.
Ansel was no sooner planted on the porcelain and the first deposit of sub-stratum laid down than his cell phone chimed. JM.
"Ansel. What's up?"
The panic was marked in his voice. "Did you call the XFBI people?"
"Yes," Ansel fabricated. "They're already on it."
Ansel didn't want them "on it." Not yet, not until he was clear of the U.S.
"Any feedback? What do they think?"
"Think? They think we've been embezzled is what they think."
"Who's our contact there?"
"Can't give that out." He made something up. "They want clean margins around the investigation," he said, making it sound like surgery to remove a tumor. "They only want one contact point with the firm. And that's me. You understand."
"No, I don't understand. But if you say so."
"Well, that's just the way they want it. If it was me, I'd say whatever. But it's not. Now, what about Suzanne? Have they found a gun?"
"No, but I did get the medical examiner's guy to talk to me a minute."
"Oh? What did he have to say?"
"He doesn't believe it was a suicide. No powder burns."
Ansel remembered something from some forensic evidence class he was forced to take somewhere along the way, probably a Continuing Legal Education credit to satisfy some damn bar requirement. Something about gunpowder burns and the absence of.
If the gunshot wound is self-inflicted there will be powder burns left behind on the skin of the victim, as they're unable to hold the gun far enough away from the head not to leave gunshot residue.
So JM had the inside story: a third hand fired the fatal shot. Which meant they were looking for a killer. It sounded very bad.
Immediately his fear quotient for David skyrocketed. It was just too coincidental. But why would David shoot Suzanne? Did she get in his way? But he was on a ministry, a mission to save kids. Last time Ansel looked, ministries didn't commit murder to obtain funding. In fact, neither did they commit embezzlement. But that was a conversation for another day. Maybe even later that day--that night--once he found David and ordered a sit-down.
"So no suicide. Any leads?"
Ansel wasn't a criminal lawyer. But he'd seen enough TV and movies to know it was a reasonable question to pose.
"No, no leads. But that's the other thing. The dicks want your home address. I held them off like the FBI. But Anse, everyone here is pissed. I mean really pissed. They'll need to speak with you personally in the next hour. How's it going at the hospital? You are at the hospital?"
He looked around the bathroom.
"Yes, I'm in the waiting room. They took her to Xray. I have no idea what's up. Scans or something."
"Is her neurologist there?"
"Neurologist and psychiatrist."
And I
’m sending out for a phrenologist for myself, he thought with sudden glee. Examine the lumps on my own head.
JM was a considerate soul.
"Jeez. Poor kid. You don't need all this at the same time, either. Not with your deal."
"Believe me, I know. But I'm fine. It's just my world that's collapsing."
At which point Libby called in, "Do I have an unopened pantyhose?"
He barely got the phone shoved down a pant leg before she finished. Tentatively he returned the phone to his ear. "Libby's calling. They need me. I'll get back to you, JM."
"Thought I heard Libby. All right, you go take care of her. Give her my love. Esme and I are thinking about her."
"Will do. Talk in a while."
"How long should I tell the dicks?"
"Tell them two hours. Text me their number and tell them I'll call them in two."
"Got it. Anse, one other thing."
"Yes?"
"I don't need to be worried about you, do I?"
"Of course not, JM. I'm here, it's me, buddy. Relax."
"I'll try. I'll try."
They ended it.
"I'm not in charge of your pantyhose!" he called back to Libby.
But he might as well be. For the first few months he had been responsible even for wiping her ass. Literally, usually at 3 a.m. when she crapped the bed in the middle of the night. He knew that until you had cared for a stroke victim, you wouldn't know what he was talking about. So it was only natural for her to think he might have also taken up pantyhose inventory control, as well.
He joined her at her open middle drawer.
"Where are we?"
She clenched her fists. "Don't rush me, dammit. Pleash!"
"We'll be gone three days--four, max. So you need four undies, four T-shirts, two slacks, two pair of shoes, flip-flops for the beach, and two sweaters. Always with the sweaters."
"Then I need two more T-shirts."
"How about the one says 'Cal Golden Bears.'? It's young."
"Okay. What elsh?"
"This one," he said, riffling through the neat stack. "This pink jobbie. I like this on you, tan skin, happy eyes, running to me across the sand--"
The Mental Case (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 6) Page 5