Where There's a Will ....There's Murder

by Julie Ramson

  He stared at me, eyes narrowed and said, “Yes. We are. And you are fired.” Then the bastard blackballed me from every major firm in the city. Probably the world. As I found out when I went new job hunting. Seemed no one was hiring right now. At least not hiring me. So........I did what any self-respecting, unemployable attorney would do. I rented cheap office space, had a few hundred cards printed and called myself a Solo Practitioner.

  I still had a couple of good friends at the firm though. Danny Shaw and Jillian Clover. Jillian didn’t answer so I thought about calling Danny Shaw. Danny was a fellow junior associate with me at Cavenaugh and an all around good guy. Plus, he was gay so I could call him without worrying about sending the wrong message to him. Or any message at all for that matter. Thinking of Danny made me smile. Brown hair, brown eyes, perfect nose and mouth - he is six feet of gorgeous. What a waste. At least for me, not for the gay men of the city. He and I had spent a lot of time together at the firm. He was desperate not to let the partners know he was gay. They - especially the Senior Partners at Cavenaugh - are not the most open minded group. They have probably heard of gay guys but there was no way in hell they would hire one. For a long time, people at the firm thought Danny and I were an item. I wish. He was funny and sensitive and a great conversationalist. And gay. Figures.

  I dialed the first few numbers then hung up. I hadn’t called him in a while. Oh, well, what the hell, I thought and dialed the whole number. Danny answered after about three rings.

  “Dan? It’s me, Maggie.” I probably sounded a little hesitant.

  “Maggie! Great to hear from you!” And he even sounded like he meant it. Danny had seen me through the whole Norman the Boring episode and I had seen him through a couple of disastrous relationships as well.

  “I know it’s been a while, but I have been thinking of you,” I started. But Danny was Danny. “Hey, Mag, no problem. I figured you needed a little space but I was going to call you if you didn’t make contact soon. How’s it going?”

  I started talking. And talking. And poured out the whole sorry story of starting my own practice. I left out Emily, the illegal entry into Lily’s house and someone attacking me. Why give all of the boring details? Danny told me of the changes at the firm, the secretaries coming and going, the associates who weren’t billing the required 200,000 hours a year and the big news about Hartmann: His wife had left him! Yes, there was a God! And She smiled! Big nasty divorce. Served him right. May he be left with a tin cup on a seedy street corner.

  Okay, I am small and petty. Sometimes. It is a luxury I allow myself when times get tough. Like now. Then I decided to tell Danny about my new client but left out the breaking and entering, the attack, the battered face and nose and head. We laughed and gossiped and when I hung up it was with a promise to meet him for lunch the following week. I was smiling and felt better than I had since I deposited the check into my account that morning.

  Emily! I needed to call her and schedule another appointment. What was with her aunt’s apartment that someone would threaten me? I would call her first thing in the morning.

  With that, Killer and I headed for the kitchen. He had a dog treat and I had three aspirin and a glass of milk. We then fell into bed and oblivion.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  TUESDAY, JANUARY 8

  Morning. A new day and I was going to get some answers. I hoped. I glared at the clock when the alarm went off at 7 am and thought about getting up. Thirty minutes later I swung my legs out and - Yikes! If I thought I had been stiff from my little head bash and fall to the ground last night, today was a whole new ball game. I hurt in places I didn’t know I had places to hurt. I crawled carefully out of bed and headed to the kitchen. I started coffee then bundled up in old jeans and a sweatshirt for Killer’s first outing of the day. I told him it had to be fast but I would make it up to him soon. I was not specific about when “soon” would be. Possibly June. Maybe not even then. I was not even out the door and I had already told my first lie. To my dog! Not a good start to the day.

  Back in the apartment, I showered and put on clean jeans and a sweater. I avoided looking in the mirror. I tried to run a brush through my bed head hair but the boulder on the back stopped me cold. The comb didn’t feel much better. I gritted my teeth and did what I could. Then I just pulled my hair into a low, loose ponytail. Make up next. Covering the two black eyes was a real challenge and I did not rise to it. To hell with the black eyes. I moved on to the lump on my forehead. Since I couldn’t even bear to touch the area around the lump on my forehead, much less the lump itself, I gave up. I just patted everything gently with powder. My nose had gone down a bit but was still swollen and when I talked it sounded like I had a bad cold. My eyes were red rimmed. All in all I was a wreck.

  First, I had to call my sister, Mary Grace, or MG for short. She answered after a couple of rings but I could tell she was distracted. Two kids, a husband and a part time job kept her busy. I gave her the good news about my first client.

  “Maggie! That's great!” she enthused. I knew I could count on her. “I want to hear all about it – No, Kevin! Not yet...”

  “Call me, MG. When you have a minute that is,” I laughed. She did, too. I breathed a sigh of relief. The news of my attack had not yet reached the family.

  “I will. I want to hear about your first real client! I am so excited for you!”

  We hung up on her promise to call that evening. By then I figured Sean would have reported my latest escapade and she'd have more questions anyway.

  I planned my day. It was going to be a short one at the office. I would pay the rent and call Emily. I hoped she had some answers for me. Now I just had to think of the right questions.

  I bundled up for the sleet and wind and headed out to the car. On impulse, I decided I needed to share my good news of a paying client with Sam. I needed some time with a friend. I detoured to the Italian Bakery and loaded up with a coffee cake, treats and Italian roast coffee. Then I drove to Sam’s house and rang the bell. She answered the door in a ratty bathrobe, looking like she had just gotten out of bed. Oops. She’d had a date the night before. I hoped she had been in bed alone and I wasn’t interrupting anything fun.

  Samantha comes from a family as Italian Catholic as mine is Irish. She is about six inches shorter than I am and slim. She has short blond curly hair, blue eyes and the face of a cherub. She was - and is - a perfect partner in crime because she never looks guilty. Of anything. We could skip Mass at St. Mary’s in grade school - she’d get off. We could sneak cigarettes at St. Pat’s in high school - no detentions. She could widen those wonderful blue eyes and everyone would believe whatever nonsense flowed from her mouth. Over the years some of her technique has rubbed off on me. I have learned how to look innocent from the master. It’s a trait that has been useful more than once in my life.

  Sam has two older brothers, Joe and Dom. Joseph and Dominick. They, along with my brother, Sean and his pal, Jimmy, were the banes of our childhood. We had our ways, though, to get even and we did that whenever possible. Sam may look like an angel but she has the mind of the devil. She brings new meaning to the words “devious” and sometimes even “diabolical.” I adore her.

  “Sam, we are celebrating! I have a client - a paying client! I got a retainer check - I am back in business and on my way!” I pumped my fist in the air.

  “Wow! Maggie! How great!” She threw her arms around me and hugged. “But what happened to your face?” I followed her into the house. She had gotten a small house several blocks from my apartment about three years ago and, as a CPA, ran a small but very successful accounting practice out of it, keeping the books for several small businesses.

  “I’ll tell you about it.” I grimaced at her expression. Apparently the powder hadn’t worked very well.

  We stepped into the living room. It looked like Sam. There was a warm, homey feel to the deep raspberry tapestry sofas facing each other with a fireplace between them. The tables were cherry wood and the matchi
ng chairs a light pink with dark blue accents. Huge windows flanked the fireplace and another large window at the front of the room gave it lots of light - or at least, did on a day when the sun shone.

  She walked behind the living room and into the kitchen. Sam cooked about as much as I did - which is to say, not at all. Her mother constantly bemoans the fact that Sam cannot cook. “How can this be?” she would wail. “A good Italian girl and she doesn’t cook! How will she ever catch a man?” Translation: How will Sam ever catch a good Italian man if she can’t cook? Reality: Sam had more men in her life and in her past than you could count. They were nuts about her and it had nothing to do with her cooking abilities. They scrambled to take her out to the finest restaurants and shower her with flowers and gifts. Men naturally gravitated to Sam and she had left a long line of broken hearts in her wake.

  Another of the many differences between us.

  “How was last night’s date?” I asked as we sat down.

  She made an ugly face and turned both thumbs down. I raised my brows and she laughed. “Maybe, Mag, if I get to be 60 and have never had another date in my life will I think about going out with him again. Maybe.”

  The kitchen was done in sparkling white and blue. We sat at her round cherry table and dug into the vanilla iced chocolate chip coffee cake.

  “So, dish,” she said. “What’s the case? And what happened to you?” Since Sam was officially my bookkeeper, I could talk about my cases. She was part of the firm and therefore privy to my cases and bound to same secrecy code. Plus we had always shared it all - the good, the bad and the ugly. And the probably illegal.

  I explained about Emily and her aunt. Then I explained about going to the house the day before, my breaking and entering and then being attacked. I knew the breaking and entering wouldn’t bother Sam in the least. I was right. She skipped right over that and went directly to the attack.

  “I remember the murder.” Sam’s brow furrowed. “It was ugly. But why would someone attack you in the house now, though? I’m surprised that anyone was in there!”

  “Me, too. It sure looked empty. Do you think someone else is also looking for Lily’s will?”

  “Could be. Isn’t Sean on this case?” She leaned her chin on her fist. “What does he say about it?”

  “Before or after he screamed at me for breaking and entering and then being so stupid as to get attacked?” My tone was wry.

  Sam laughed. She knew Sean. We both had learned to laugh at our brothers over the years or we would have strangled them by now. Several times. But, as I said, we also got a bit of our own back from time to time.

  I sighed. “Well, he was pretty upset. So was Jimmy. They have really tried to work this case and it’s been over a month. And he’s got another bad case, too. You remember the two kids who found the wooden box with the skeleton? He and Jimmy are on that one too. Taking up all their time right now.” I grinned. “I’m hoping he won't have time to stay mad at me and that he will also be too busy to set me up again soon with one of his godawful blind dates. I swear I don’t know where he finds them.”

  Sean’s blind dates for me were legend and trailed back years. He seemed determined to find someone for me but his opinion of a good man for me and my opinion of a good man for me were clearly not in synch. He either set me up with guys who could bore a corpse to tears or real creeps who couldn’t lift their eyes up from my chest long enough to string more than two words together at a time.

  I had pointed out to him once that I have never set him up on blind dates as bad as his choices for me. He claimed that was because he had never been as desperate as I was. Funny man.

  Sam giggled. “Yeah, I’m still laughing over the New Year’s fiasco!”

  The New Year’s date had been an all-time low. Even for Sean. I was home in bed by 10:30 pm - alone. He had set me up with a “really great guy.” Ha! We went to a party at the home of one of this jerk’s friends. Once there, this “great guy” turned into Octopus Man. The party was jammed with people and, despite the crowd, he tried nailing me against the wall, on the couch, even against the kitchen sink. After spending two hours beating his hands off I told him I had to go to the bathroom. I escaped into the bathroom off the kitchen, sat on the side of the tub and used my cell phone to call a cab. I was home fifteen minutes later.

  The next day, New Year’s, I sneaked into Sean’s apartment with my key very, very early while he still slept - and salted all his food. I salted his bread, cereal, the deli meat, the coffee, the sugar, juice, milk, and his opened liquor bottles. Even the ketchup and mustard. And the ice cubes. Lots and lots of salt. Then I sneaked back out. That was just over a week ago and he was still furious! Every time he thinks that he has found and thrown out all the salted stuff, he finds more. He is convinced I did it but he can’t prove it. I’m denying all.

  Sam’s only regret was that she had not been part of the Great Salt Caper.

  We chatted and caught up on each other’s news. We could talk all day but I looked at my watch. It was after 10 and I really had to get to the office. I bundled back into my coat, hat, gloves, boots and a scarf and ventured out. It had stopped sleeting but was still gray. There was a heavy wind that cut through everything and chilled my bones. I climbed into the CRV, turned the heater on full blast and sat there. I froze and the car defrosted.

  Ice everywhere. I crawled to the office. The temperature had dropped just enough to turn yesterday’s sleet into today’s ice. I would have been better off trying to ski to work but I was too stiff and sore to even think of that. Well, to be honest I could be in prime shape and I would still not want to ski to work or anywhere else. I hate sports. I know, I know, being 5' 10" you would think I would love sports. I don’t. I hate them. I am too gangly, too ungraceful, too uncoordinated and most of all, I hate being uncomfortable or in pain. I don’t do sports.

  I got to my office building and parked. I rounded the building hoping there would be less ice on the sidewalk in front. Wrong. I did the tip toe, mincing step walk to the building’s door. My office was the first one inside the building on the right. I walked toward the office, pulling my keys out as I walked.

  I unlocked the door, reached to turn on the light - and screamed. A man was sitting - no slouching - in my receptionist’s client chair. I stopped dead and felt the blood drain from my face. I was frozen in place, paralyzed.

  “I wondered what time you started. Late, I see.” The man uncoiled from the chair. There is no other way to describe that cat-like movement. He stood up. And up. And up. He had to be at least 6'5" and broad. He had jeans on with a heavy dark blue sweater with a bulge at the side that could only be a gun. I hate guns. His blond hair was too long and curled over his collar. He had a two day old beard but it was his eyes that pinned me. They were blue. Clear blue lasers that could go right through you. All in all, he scared the bejeezus out of me.

  “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in here? How did you get in?” I could tell my voice was too high and too breathless. Was this the guy who attacked me? Had he been that tall? That big?

  “Now don’t get all in a bundle,” he grinned at me. He was not classically good looking but certainly compelling. More Harrison Ford than Tom Cruise. “Sean sent me. Said you needed an investigator and that’s what I do best. One of the many things I do best.”

  “What?” I was almost sputtering. “What do you mean Sean sent you? And how did you get in?”

  “Locks are rarely a problem for me, Toots. And Sean sent me because he said you had an, uh..... encounter yesterday with someone with a hard object who used it on your hard head.” He grinned. “And gave you a short but ugly face first trip to the floor. Said you could use some help because you were in over your head. Although looking at you, it’s hard to believe that anything much would be over your head.” He was almost laughing, clearly enjoying this.

  Dammit! This was so Sean. Take over, don’t ask if you can help, just move in and make all the decisions. I decided I was going
to dump that Ben and Jerry’s over his cement head the next time I saw him!

  “No. I don’t need an investigator. I am not in over my head! I am fine. So you can leave.” I was seething. Well, I wasn’t exactly fine. Lie 2 for the day.

  “No can do, sweetheart. Sean called in an old favor and I am here to stay. At least for a while.” He was now openly laughing. I wanted to hit him, box his ears, wipe that stupid grin off his face with a trowel. “Looks like Sean was right. Your face is......purple. No, green. Green and purple. And red. Sort of like you had an up close and personal encounter with a snowplow. Or the abominable snowman.”

  “Funny. Funny man. What happened is none of your damn business. And I want you to go. I don’t need you or Sean’s help. I am doing just fine on my own.” Lie 3. “Leave.”

  “Oh yeah. You look like you are doing just fine. That face really shouts that all is well and you are in control.” He made a big show of looking over all of my face. I scowled but couldn’t do anything about it. I had to look up at him - a rarity for me and I didn’t like it. I had things to do today. I wanted to call Emily for starters and I did not want an audience when I did.