“Pretty much. He wanted me to look over the settlement. I politely declined.”
Connie rolled her chair back to the window behind her desk and opened it. The Reardon Building, an inheritance of Connie’s from her father, had the old-style windows that could open from the inside.
Knowing what she was up to, Marc stepped into her office, closed the door and sat down.
Connie lit a cigarette blew the smoke through the open window and asked, “What are you and the judge doing over the Fourth?”
The judge Connie referred to was Hennepin County District Court Judge Margaret Tennant. Marc had been in a relationship with her, off and on, for several years.
“We’re going to Bemidji. We got a cabin rented on Lake Bemidji. They have boats and jet skis, stuff like that. We’ll have a good time,” Marc said with a lot more enthusiasm than he felt.
“Wow, great, sounds just like you. You gonna go fishing too? Too bad it’s not January, you could sit out on the lake freezing your ass off ice fishing. Have a good time,” Connie replied with a touch of sarcasm.
"I have friends from high school who go ice fishing and they don't sit on a lake freezing their ass off. They sit in a nice, warm, comfortable ice house mostly to get away from their wives and drink for two or three days."
“Yeah, I know that. I’m pretty sure that’s what husband number two was doing. Or was it number three? I can’t always keep track myself,” Connie replied.
“I got invited to a party at a rich guy’s lake place, Calvin Simpson,” Marc said. “You know him?”
“I know of him,” Connie said. She finished her cigarette and tossed the butt out the window onto Charles Avenue. She closed the window while saying, “I hear he’s a pretty shady Wall Street kind of guy.”
“A shady Wall Street guy,” Marc said feigning surprise. “Who would’ve guessed? A little redundant don’t you think?”
“How’d you get an invitation?”
“His son-in-law, Zach Evans, is a friend from law school. We get together for lunch once in a while. He’s with Everson, Reed doing corporate litigation. He invited me. Catered affair with free booze and fireworks,” Marc said with a look of disappointment on his face.
“Margaret still hinting about marriage?”
“Not so much. Especially since I casually mentioned I was thinking about buying a townhouse. That was a frosty night,” Marc said.
“You’re gonna get your walking papers from her pretty soon,” Connie said.
“Maybe. I have serious feelings for her, but I’m not ready for marriage. In fact, I’m not sure I’ll ever be. It wasn’t the nicest experience for me.”
“I know,” Connie said. She knew Marc’s ex-wife and how unhappy she made Marc. “You do what you think is best for you. If you get pressured into marriage, you’ll both live to regret it.”
Marc thought about what Connie said for several seconds then said, “I know, you’re right. Thanks, Mom. I have work to do.”
SIX
The driver of the twenty-five-foot SeaRay throttled back the 300hp Mercruiser inboard to drift up to the dock. The pilot had two VIP passengers on board that he was delivering to the Fourth of July party. The luxury craft's owner, Congressman Del Peterson from Minnesota's Fourth District, was bringing two friends to Cal Simpson's party.
Cal had seen the boat a quarter of a mile out coming across Lake Patwin. He was standing next to a good friend, U.S. Senator Albert Fisher, as the boat approached.
“Beautiful day,” Fisher said for at least the sixth time.
It was a beautiful day. Minnesota is known as the nation's icebox, an image the natives encourage. "Keeps out the riffraff" is the usual adage. There is, of course, some truth to it. And being referred to as flyover country is taken as a compliment.
Minnesota’s summers were typically what makes living there worth dealing with January and February. Senator Fisher, coming from the Deep South, knew what uncomfortable summers were all about.
“Sonofabitch,” Cal grumbled. “I can't stand this old hypocrite. Socialist my ass,” he said referring to the seventy-two-year-old Senator from Maine. “This phony old bastard has visions of himself standing on Lenin's Mausoleum while the May Day parade passes in review.”
“We need him,” Fisher reminded him. “And the price for his support is pretty cheap.”
“He's gotta be the only multi-millionaire communist on the planet,” Cal replied.
“Socialism for the little people,” Fisher said with a laugh. “He never said he was a socialist for himself.”
“Well,” Cal said after swallowing the last of his drink, “let’s go greet our illustrious guests.”
Cal placed his empty glass on the tray of a young waitress who walked by. He then watched her walk away admiring her backside as she did so.
“You probably have shoes older than her,” Fisher admonished his friend.
“Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the view,” Cal replied as the two of them started to walk down to the dock.
Extending out from Cal's property was a one-hundred-foot-long portable dock. There were a half a dozen expensive boats already tied to it, but Cal had made sure there was plenty of space still available for Del Peterson and his guests. By the time Cal and Al Fisher reached the boat one of Cal's security men was tying up the boat as another one helped the senator from Maine and Congresswoman Elaine Krohn from California disembark. When Cal saw Senator Roger Manion, he had to suppress a laugh. Manion was wearing cargo shorts from which extended two of the skinniest, hairless, whitest legs he had ever seen.
“Hello, Senator, Congresswoman,” Cal said shaking hands with them. "Welcome to Minnesota."
“Let's make this quick,” the self-proclaimed senator of the little people growled. "I don't want to be here all day."
“Lighten up, Roger,” Al Fisher said. “What are you worried about? Afraid you might get some sun on those legs?”
This elicited a hearty laugh from Elaine Krohn.
“Go to hell,” Manion snarled at Fisher who returned the statement with an irreverent smile.
“Didn't have your prune juice yet today?” Krohn asked.
Elaine Krohn was the exact opposite of Roger Manion. A Republican from a conservative California district, she was attractive, affable, pleasant and practical. She was also chairman of a very important subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee. Military procurements of any significance had to literally come across her desk and went nowhere without her approval.
“Let's go up to the house,” Cal said to the four of them, including Del Peterson who had joined them after securing his boat.
As Cal led the small group across the manicured lawn toward the house, the hundred or so guests turned to watch them. The most recognizable one in the group was the grizzled-looking senator with the disheveled white hair from Maine. He had recently run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination. With the promise of more free goodies than Santa Claus, Manion had made quite a name for himself. He had also created a significant following, mostly among younger people who didn’t realize someday it would be their turn to pay for all of the "free" things Manion promised.
“Too goddamn many people here. I do not like to be seen like this,” Manion grumbled.
“Relax, Roger,” Fisher replied. “You can claim you're trying to convert us by promising us seats on the Politburo.”
Cal lightly bit his cheek to avoid laughing, but Fisher, Krohn and Del Peterson laughed at the old socialist's discomfort.
“Go to hell, Albert,” Manion said again.
“I thought all of you good commies didn’t believe in heaven and hell,” Fisher replied needling the man again.
“Okay, then kiss my ass,” Manion said.
Cal led them through the house and down the stairs to the meeting room. Waiting for them were fifteen people; nine men and six women. All of them were representing themselves and others. None were here on behalf of “The People.” Six were members of the Con
gressional House and four were U.S. Senators. The rest were from private industry including three retired generals.
The new arrivals, except for Manion, went around the room introducing themselves. The socialist senator stood in a corner by himself fuming at the number of people in attendance. He had been led to believe, or so he thought, that there would only be three or four people involved.
Cal started off the meeting by introducing one of the retired generals. He was a former USAF three-star who sat on the board of a half-dozen companies involved in the military aviation industry. His name was Floyd Madison.
For the next hour, Madison, after giving the group a quick update, conducted a Q & A roundtable discussion. While this went on, Cal circulated among his guests acting as the genial host refilling drinks. Most of the questions were answered by General Madison or a woman and a man from a large investment firm from Chicago. When the last of the questions had been answered, Senator Manion stood and went to the door.
“Simpson,” he said, in a demanding voice, “get us back to the boat. I’ve heard all I need to hear. The rest of you,” he continued pointing a bony index finger and waving it around the room, “wait here until I'm gone. I don't want to be seen with any of you.”
He looked at Cal and said, “And don’t invite me to any more of these meetings. Fisher can bring me up to date on anything I need to know.”
Manion turned, opened the door and started up the stairs. Five minutes later he was back on board Del Peterson’s boat without Elaine Krohn, who had decided to stay for the party.
“What the hell's the matter with him?” Krohn asked Al Fisher. The two of them were standing on Cal's lawn looking out over the lake watching the boat with Manion aboard pulling away from the dock. Cal Simpson was walking quickly toward them having seen Manion off.
“You want a complete list or just the highlights?” Fisher asked. Without waiting for a reply, he said, “He truly believes his own bullshit. He believes the rich should turn over all of their money to the government so he, Manion himself, can redistribute it for the greater good. Of course, like most socialists, the party elites will live like royalty while everybody else lives like peasants. He and his political allies won't be subject to all of this confiscation for the greater good.”
“Leave it alone,” Cal said. He had heard the last part of what Fisher said to the congresswoman when he joined them. “We need him. He'll get us a few bipartisan votes in the Senate,” Cal said.
“For how much?” Krohn asked.
“A million bucks for him and another million or so to be spread out to his pals on Armed Services,” Fisher answered her.
“Cheap,” she said.
“Cheap,” Cal agreed. “I should attend to my guests,” he continued.
“Is your wife here?” Krohn asked.
“Somewhere,” Cal replied as the three of them turned to head back toward the party. Unnoticed by anyone, Elaine Krohn slyly pressed a hotel room card into Cal's hand. The married congresswoman was staying across the lake in a twelve-hundred-dollar a night suite at the Remington Lodge, paid for by her host.
SEVEN
“Do you know if Lynn is coming?” Evan Carpenter asked Zach Evans. Zach was standing next to his father-in-law, Cal Simpson answering questions about the toy company lawsuit. Most of the inquiries Cal was making were out of bounds and none of his business; details about the suit that Zach should not be disclosing. Cal Simpson, Zach had learned a long time ago, was not to be put off by trivialities such as attorney-client privilege. Zach had been doing his best to be ambiguous, but Cal pressed him until he got what he wanted.
“I thought so,” Zach answered his boss, relieved to be interrupted. “The last time I talked to her she was.”
“Have you met her, Cal?” Carpenter asked.
“Not sure,” Cal replied.
“You'd remember her,” Carpenter said with a wink. “Being the horndog you are. Good looking girl. In fact, I'm gonna see if I can't fit into those pants myself.”
To this very sexist remark, Zach smiled slightly, Cal chuckled, and Carpenter energetically laughed. He held up his glass to tap Cal's then took a healthy swallow.
Evan Carpenter was one of twenty members of the firm in attendance. Cal Simpson was a seven-figure per year client who merited significant ass kissing by firm partners. It was Zach's landing of Cal as a client, due to his marriage to Samantha, that had put Zach on the partner's list.
“Maybe you should introduce me to her,” Cal said while slyly looking for a reaction from his son-in-law.
“Sure,” Zach said after an obvious hesitation. “If she comes.”
“Be sure to mention Everson, Reed’s policy about keeping fat cat clients happy,” Cal added while still watching Zach.
“I'm not your pimp, Cal,” Zach said staring back at the man. Zach had learned before his wedding to Samantha that standing up to Cal would raise you up in his eyes and these little encounters were becoming more frequent.
Carpenter’s eyes widened, and he cleared his throat. A signal to Zach to not insult their host.
“You kiss his ass, Evan,” an annoyed Zach told his boss. “I'm going to circulate for a while.”
As Zach stomped off, Carpenter started to sputter an apology. Instead, Cal laughed and cut him off.
“Relax, Evan. I like to push him once in a while. Poke him a little to see how much he’ll take. He’s tougher than he acts sometimes. I like that.”
While she was being made the object of lewd comments, Lynn McDaniel was at the Everson, Reed offices. Two days before, Lynn and Zach had a blow-up argument over their client's case. Lynn had cornered Zach in the conference room where she had discovered the chief engineer's memo about the skateboard problems. Lynn was determined to find out what Zach had done with the memo and what he was going to do. Zach hemmed, hawed and stammered around the issue and tried to shut down the discussion.
Getting nowhere with that, Lynn then hit him again with the question: “Where is our relationship going”? This elicited anger and frustration and then what were obvious lies. Once again, he tried to put her off with promises to leave Samantha as soon as the time was right. Every cheating husband had used that excuse to string along a mistress since the beginning of time. Lynn McDaniel finally awakened and read the writing on the wall.
Today she had been in the office sorting through documents since eight this morning. It was now almost 6:00 P.M. Having decided not to attend Cal Simpson's party at his lake place and with nothing else planned, Lynn spent the day at work. Except the more she thought about what she was doing and why, the angrier she became.
“If I go home now, eat, shower, change and head out, I should be there shortly after ten,” she quietly said to herself. Lynn thought it over for a minute, then decided to go after all.
Zach was standing in a small group of people chatting about innocuous nonsense. Zach was adding nothing to the conversation. In fact, he was not even listening. All he could think about was how stupid he had been to tell Cal about the engineer's memo.
He knew Cal owned stock in the toy company. Or at least, he thought Cal did. At one time, when Everson, Reed was hired to defend Cannon Brothers Toys in the skateboard case, Zach had asked Samantha about her dad's ownership interest. Her response was to vaguely admit he had purchased some stock during or shortly after the IPO. But she did not know if he still owned it.
Zach knew she was lying. Samantha was intimately involved in all of Cal's holdings. She knew everything about what Cal was doing. Samantha's ambiguous answer was her way of telling Zach it was none of his business. It was also her way to avoid admitting Cal had made a fortune from the IPO and it was not strictly legal. Likely an insider trading arrangement. A hot tip from a company executive.
When Zach told Cal about the memo, Cal's eyes lit up for a brief second. Zach had played enough poker with his father-in-law to spot Cal's tell. That tiny movement of eye sparkle was hard to spot, but when he saw it, Zach knew Cal was holding. I
n this case, the information about the memo made an idea flash through Cal's brain.
The conversation about the memo had taken place earlier that morning. Cal tried to act casual about it, but Zach knew him well enough to know he was scheming up something. Cal wanted to know a little too much detail about the memo, especially who else knew what was in it and what Zach planned to do with it. When Zach told him only Lynn McDaniel knew about it, Cal adamantly made him promise not to tell anyone else and avoid disclosing it as long as possible.
Zach's phone buzzed in his pocket, and he retrieved it. “God, I hate carrying this damn thing,” he said as he looked at the screen. “Excuse me,” he said to his friends then walked away to read the text.
It was a message from Lynn, and it read, “I changed my mind. I'm coming. See you soon.”
“You okay?” Zach heard a voice ask. He looked up and saw Evan Carpenter looking over his shoulder at his phone.
“A text from Lynn?” he asked reading the screen. “She's coming?”
“Uh, yeah, um, she is,” Zach said as he tried to calmly delete the text before Evan saw what she had written.
“Good,” Carpenter said. “Look, some of us are going out on Cal’s pontoon and cruise around for a while. You want to come along?”
“Ah, no, I don’t think so, Evan. Have fun,” Zach replied with a weak smile.
All Zach could think about was having Lynn and Samantha in the same place at the same time. This had occurred a couple of times at other social events with uncomfortable results. After the second one, Samantha had turned to ice. A clear indication she knew, or at least believed, something was up between Zach and Lynn.
“You going out on the pontoon?” Zach heard Cal ask Evan. Cal had walked up unseen by either man.
“Yeah, you coming? I just found out that hot chick we were talking about, Lynn McDaniel, is coming after all,” Carpenter replied.
“Oh, really? How did you find that out?” Cal asked.
Insider Justice: A Financial Thriller (Marc Kadella Legal Mysteries Book 8) Page 4