Follow the Money

by Fingers Murphy

  Garrett Andersen’s deep voice came through clear, calm, and controlled. “Mr. Olson, you ought not call people from your home phone. The caller ID makes you too easy to find.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do or say.

  “You don’t need to talk,” he said. “You’ve done plenty already. But let me tell you, you’ve just stepped in shit, son, and you’d better be careful not to track it all around. Got me?”

  “Excuse me?” I’d gone completely numb.

  “Kid, you’re way out of your league.”

  Andersen hung up. I sat with the phone to my ear, dumbfounded. I thought about the lawyer in Palm Springs, thought about the calls to Andersen on the night of the murder, and immediately got up, stuffed all of the documents into my briefcase and left the apartment.

  I drove through my fog of fear and disbelief down Pico Boulevard to the beach in Santa Monica. I parked the car and headed south, strolling toward Venice on the paved sidewalk of the strand like I was just another guy out to kill a sunny Saturday afternoon.

  The late-summer crowds were still thick. Couples on roller blades whizzed around me as I waded through the crazies and burnouts who perpetually linger, hawking tarot readings, hemp bags, and homemade incense to the tourists. But I hardly saw them.

  I stopped in at the Bayside, a small bar that fronted the strand and had tables in the back with no view that the tourists never sat at. I ordered a beer and racked my brain. What did I know? And more important: what didn’t I know?

  I made a mental list that contained almost nothing. Steele had not disclosed that he had called Andersen at the same time he was calling 911. In fact, Steele had lied, saying that he had never met Andersen before he hired him. Not only did he know him, he knew him well enough to have his number handy and to think to call him immediately. And Anderson had also denied knowing Steele before he was hired to defend him. What had they talked about for nine minutes?

  Furthermore, Sharon Steele had seen a lawyer in Palm Springs only three days before she was killed and had last spoken to the lawyer only the day before. Then she was murdered. I sat there gulping a beer and trying to connect the two. Surely there could have been marital problems. There had been marital problems in the past, but no one had indicated that they’d begun again. Steele could surely have lied about it, but Becky told the same story. Any motive Becky had to lie was less likely if she believed Steele was the killer.

  Finally, there was Andersen’s reaction. He’d been angry and outright threatening. I finished my beer and ordered another. Goddamned caller I.D., I thought. How could I be so stupid? I was clearly not cut out to be an investigator. The bartender brought the beer and I was taking a drink when my cell phone rang. I jumped at the sound and nearly spilled the beer.

  “Um, hello.” I was beginning to dread phones.

  “Hello. I’m trying to reach Mr. Olson.” A cheerful voice said.

  “This is him.”

  “Hi, this is Mark Murdock, I’m returning your call from earlier today. I left a message on your machine at home, but I’m glad I caught you right away.”

  “Oh, hey, Mark, thanks for calling me back. I take it you understood my message?” I hadn’t given a moment’s thought to what I’d say to this guy. I’d half assumed he wouldn’t return my call.

  “Well, yes and no. This is a bit tough as you might imagine. Even though Mrs. Steele’s dead and all, there are still privilege issues, you understand. So, I’m not sure what I can do to help you out.”

  I leaned back in the chair and looked around to ensure no one was paying attention to me. “Well, look,” I began. “I trust you’ve seen the news lately? The news about Steele?”

  “Sure. It’s been interesting.”

  I listened to his voice. Murdock seemed too cheerful, a bit too eager to sound like he didn’t have much to say. He was a twenty-five year lawyer with too much experience under his belt to sound so helpful and unsuspecting. I decided I had to come right out with it and see what he would say.

  I said, “Well, look Mr. Murdock, I haven’t shared what I’m about to tell you with anyone. But I’ve come into some information that shows that Ms. Steele hired you only a few days before she was killed and that she spoke with you the day before she was killed. Now, it seems awfully strange that she was consulting a lawyer whose name has never come up once in the twelve-year history of the case only a few days before her death.” I stopped myself. I was afraid to finish my thought. Murdock said nothing.

  “Frankly,” I continued, “I’m not sure Steele didn’t kill his wife.” There was silence on the other end, but I could hear him breathing. I went on. “I think you know something, something important.”

  “Uh,” Murdock’s voice had changed, the pitch was lower, the tone more careful. “This is — I gotta tell you, I haven’t even thought about this case since it all happened. Well, until recently that is. Look, I don’t know a whole lot. She came to see me, but things were just barely getting started when this all happened. So I never actually did any work for her.”

  “Well, what did she come to see you about?”

  Murdock cleared his throat. “Look, Mr. Olson, I never wanted to be involved in any of this. I just took the stuff I had, the stuff she sent me, it was less than a box of stuff, and put it in storage. I washed my hands of this thing a long time ago.” He sounded like a man groping for sand to stick his head into.

  “Look,” I lowered my voice, speaking just above a whisper. “No one wants to get involved here, but the fact of the matter is we’re all involved whether we like it or not.” I could feel my heart racing, skipping beats. “I understand your hesitancy to stick your nose into things and I’ll do whatever I can to keep your name out of it.”

  There was silence again. I could hear Murdock rummaging through some papers. “Okay, look. I’m a little nervous talking about this over the phone. I think we should meet. Can you come by my office tomorrow, around noon? I’ll dig the box I’ve got out of storage and tell you what I can tell you. But remember, there are privilege issues here. I’ve got ethical obligations.”

  I said, “I understand. We all do.”

  22

  I woke up an hour away from Murdock’s office and I could hear my mother making breakfast in the kitchen. There was the smell of coffee and the familiar odors of home. After hanging up with Murdock, I’d driven straight to Riverside without returning to my apartment. The urge to get away propelled me onto the freeway. It made sense at the time. Riverside was halfway to Palm Springs.

  Everyone was surprised to see me. I told them I had a meeting in Palm Springs the next day, trying to act normal. But my mother noticed I hadn’t brought a bag. And I looked exhausted and upset, she’d said. We ate dinner, watched television, and chatted loosely about unimportant things; but there was a current of suspicion in my parents’ voices. I went to bed early to escape it, blaming the meeting for my need for sleep.

  Later, I could hear them talking at the end of the hallway near their bedroom. Hushed but concerned voices drifted in under the door. “I’m just saying he seems a little strange,” my father said. My mother countered that I was under a lot of pressure and was worried about starting classes again. “Well, all I’m saying is that working at that place has changed him. Did you see that car?” My father replied as he walked down the hall to the kitchen and opened a cupboard.

  Sleep came and went and did little to ease my concerns. I took my time getting up and straggled into the kitchen where my father sat at the table drinking coffee and staring at the sports section.

  “Well there he is.” My mother looked up from a pan of frying bacon, smiled, and began pouring me a cup of coffee. “We thought we might have to go in after you.”

  I smiled back, took the coffee, and tried to shake off my worry. My dad looked up from the paper. “How you feeling?” he asked.

  “Good. Slept like a rock.” I smiled as I took a seat at the table across from him. But it was a lie. The bacon, eggs, toast, and small talk ab
out how the boat was running were all permeated by the residual dread from the day before. I was afraid of what else I might learn from Murdock, but I was also afraid of remaining ignorant of the truth. I kept hearing Andersen’s angry voice. It was impossible to ignore.

  When I left the house a little after ten, my mother hugged me like normal, but clung a little tighter and longer than usual. And, as though sensing some kind of trouble, she spoke more earnestly when she uttered her standard, “Take care of yourself, dear.” My father just shook my hand, remained seated at the table, and smiled, somewhat distant. “Give it hell in class and finish at the top,” was all he said.

  Palm Springs sits in the middle of a desert. In August, the heat there is almost unbearable and even at ninety miles an hour I found myself debating whether to put up the top and turn on the air conditioning. It was one hundred ten degrees and the air came at me like the convection current off a blast furnace. The wide and barren Cochella Valley stretched east and south from Palm Springs until the mountains flattened out and the broad desert opened up, stretching all the way to Arizona. It is cruel land, but brown and purple and majestic in its own unforgiving beauty.

  The oddity of Palm Springs, with its endless golf courses, manicured lawns, swimming pools, and sky-high palm trees, is shocking given the surrounding landscape. I came in on Palm Canyon Drive and drove slow along Tahquitz Canyon, marveling at the boutiques and restaurants, noting at each stoplight that none of it should be there. I found Murdock’s office in a squatty brown building, parked, put the top up on the car, and waited for someone to arrive.

  After twenty minutes, a white Audi wagon pulled into the lot, drove up toward me slowly, and then stopped. A thin, athletic man in his early fifties got out and walked toward me. He had the stride of someone accustomed to a leisurely life. He was tan and looked like a guy with a single digit handicap and a killer backhand. I opened the door as he approached.

  “Mr. Olson?” He seemed hesitant.

  “Mr. Murdock?” We shook hands and Murdock looked me over for a moment, perhaps surprised to be meeting someone so young. I saw him catch my watch out of the corner of his eye. Then, he glanced behind me at the new BMW and concluded I must be who I said I was.

  “Good to meet you. Why don’t we get out of this heat. It’s impossible to do anything in the middle of the day around here. At least in August anyway.” Murdock’s crisp tan shorts brushed together as he walked to his office door and pulled a key from his pocket. “The trick is to get up and at it early,” he said without looking back. Then, turning as he opened the door, “I got eighteen in this morning.” He grinned. I grinned back and nodded approvingly.

  The office was cool and I immediately questioned whether the golf story was true. Why would someone leave the air conditioning on all weekend?

  “Well, there’s the stuff I have,” he said as we walked past his secretary’s desk. I looked at a four-inch thick folder with a flap over the top and a large rubber band stretched around it. We went in through another open door and sat in Murdock’s back office.

  The furniture was non-descript, it could have been stolen from any bank lobby in America. Murdock reclined in his chair and folded his fingers behind his head. “So Sharon Steele. What can I tell you?”

  “Well, I know that Sharon hired you three days before she was killed. I’ve got a copy of the check she wrote you for the retainer.” I paused, shifting in the chair but really watching for Murdock’s reaction. He seemed unfazed.

  “I also know that the Steeles had some marital problems in the past, but everyone I’ve spoken to indicated that those problems were resolved.” Murdock smiled at that and reclined even further, putting his feet up on the desk.

  “Man, it’s funny,” he began. “I remember her calling me and setting up the meeting. She came in and we talked. She gave me some papers and she left. We’d planned to meet again. She made an appointment, but, of course, I never saw her again. I also remember that she called me the next day or a couple of days later just to tell me that she’d had some documents sent to me. Fed Ex.”

  “What did she come to see you about?”

  Murdock held his gaze for a second and then put his feet back on the floor and leaned forward. “Look, I don’t need any trouble. I agonized over this when it happened. And after Steele was convicted, I figured it was all over.” He stopped for a second and, though still staring at me, seemed to be looking at something far off in the past. “I remember it was all over the news on that Sunday. When I came in on Monday, the Fed Ex guy showed up with an envelope from her. I really didn’t know what to do.”

  Murdock sat back again. “So I didn’t do anything. I put it all in that file you saw and I stuck it in storage. I figured I’d deal with the ethical issues when and if someone ever showed up to ask questions.” He laughed out loud and slapped his palm on the desk. “Shit! I never thought it would be twelve years later.”

  I crossed my legs and said, “Why were you concerned? Did she tell you something?”

  Murdock shook his head and gave me a look that said, you don’t know a damned thing, kid. “You know, I didn’t really play golf this morning. I came in here and stared at the file for about an hour. I was going to open it and find out what was in that envelope, but I’m pretty sure I already know. Well, I don’t know exactly, but generally. I debated whether to say anything. But it’s been twelve years and Steele’s a free man now. That concerns me.”

  “So you did know something relevant to the murder.”

  “Shit, kid.” Murdock scratched the back of his head. “Did I know something? I can’t be sure, but I’ve got a pretty good idea.” The room went quiet while I watched Murdock struggle with himself.

  “So why did she come see you?” I finally asked.

  “Shit,” Murdock uttered, with a tone of resignation. “I’m only telling you this because Steele’s out.” I said nothing, merely letting the rationalization hang impotent in the air.

  “Okay,” Murdock began. “What I remember is that she called to make an appointment and wouldn’t tell me what it was about. She just said she needed me to block off a couple of hours, that she would pay me for my time, and write me a retainer check if she decided to hire me. She sounded kind of crazy or — not crazy — but stressed, worried.”

  I just nodded and listened.

  “Anyway, I had no idea who she was. I remember she showed up, very well dressed, looking sharp. She looked like the kind of woman who had a lot of money. Real money. You learn to spot that quick in a town like this. She said her husband was James Steele, the senator, and that she wanted to divorce him.”

  Murdock paused, watching me, letting it sink in slowly.

  I asked, “Why did she come see you? No offense, but this seems kind of out of the way.”

  “That’s the first thing I asked her. I’m not one to turn away a paying client, but something about it seemed weird right away. That’s a pretty high profile case and I’ve done some big ones over the years, but there are plenty of guys in LA who could handle that for her. So I asked her ‘Why me?’ and she said it was because she needed someone who wouldn’t have any connection to her husband or any of his cronies. She seemed scared, more than just worried. I represent a lot of women in big divorce cases, they always worry about the outcome of the case, but she wasn’t. She was worried about something else.”

  “What do you think it was?”

  “Well, I think we both know what it was. She got killed didn’t she?” The words almost seemed flippant, and Murdock looked like he regretted saying them as soon as they were out. “Well, I certainly didn’t suspect anything like that at the time. But after it happened, I was sure what I knew was probably connected.”

  “You think he killed her just because she wanted a divorce?”

  “No, I think it was because of the reason she wanted the divorce.” Murdock hesitated again and then spoke quickly. “She came in here and basically said that her husband was having an affair, and had been fo
r years. She said she’d caught him once before and they’d separated briefly but had reconciled. Then, she said she got suspicious again and had an investigator follow him. She now had proof of the affair. Now, imagine what a bombshell like that would do to a U.S. senator preparing to mount a re-election bid.” Murdock raised his eyebrows and exhaled, obviously relieved at having told someone after so long.

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “You think Steele figured it out and killed her?”

  “Hell, I don’t know any more than what she told me. I don’t know what happened when she left here, but once she got killed I figured that what I knew was probably relevant. But what was I supposed to do? I’ve got an ethical obligation to maintain confidences. And that’s not bullshit. I mean, my clients tell me a lot of shit during a divorce and I can’t get a reputation as a guy who talks when the pressure’s on. Besides, they got Steele. He was convicted. I figured no harm no foul.”

  I saw his point. I thought briefly of Dan Kelly’s comment about not wanting to get involved. I was beginning to sympathize. The more involved, the more the potential to suffer severe personal harm.

  “So what then, she tells you her husband is having an affair and she wants a divorce, and what did you tell her?”

  “We talked about divorce generally. There were kids involved and so she would need to show he was an unfit father in order to get full custody. She wanted to take the kids and move back to New York. So you see, the evidence of the affair was going to come out. Or, if he didn’t want it to, he would have to just let them go and then face a lot of questions. I told her to make sure she had enough evidence. She said she did, that she’d hired this P.I. who had done a whole report. I’m pretty sure that’s what the Fed Ex guy dropped off the day after she was killed. But like I said, I haven’t looked at it.”

  Murdock took a deep breath and let it out, thinking back, trying to remember details. “So I told her it was a good idea to get a place of her own and to take personal belongings out of the house, just to get the things she really cared about out of the house. She had money, so it wouldn’t be a problem to move some things quietly. But she told me she’d already taken care of it, that she’d bought a small house up in one of the canyons and had already moved stuff out there. She gave me some papers she had, stuff she didn’t want her husband to find. She said she’d send me the stuff her P.I. had put together and we made another appointment.”