One Day Gone

by Luana Ehrlich

  “As a matter of fact, he was. He was on the force for ten years. He said he got tired of all the paperwork.”

  The professor smiled. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say your father used you when he needed to have an extra set of eyes on a situation.”

  “You’re right. He taught my brother and me how to do surveillance, track vehicles, gather information, defend ourselves against the crazies, and a bunch of other stuff.”

  “Are you thinking about specializing in criminal law?”

  “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “I have a feeling criminal law is exactly where you need to be.” He pulled a business card out of his front pocket. “Call me next week, and I’ll take you to lunch. We can discuss it then.”

  When the professor took me to lunch the following week, I discovered he was acquainted with some high-powered lawyers in Washington, and I quickly decided if I wanted to move in those circles, I needed to follow his advice, stay on his good side, and exploit our relationship for all it was worth.

  That’s exactly what I did for the next three years.

  Chapter 2

  A few months before I ended my first year at Georgetown Law, Professor Epstein arranged for me to have an interview with the McKinney Law Firm for a summer associate position.

  Theodore McKinney was a criminal defense attorney who had a decades-long track record defending well-known criminal cases in the D.C. area. The firm had less than a dozen lawyers, which made it a small firm by D.C. standards, but it had an excellent reputation.

  When I showed up for my appointment—dressed in a suit and carrying a briefcase—I was surprised to discover the person interviewing me was Theodore McKinney himself.

  When he introduced himself to me, he told me to call him Mac.

  Although Mac asked me the perfunctory interview questions, he spent the majority of his time quizzing me about my skills as an investigator. About midway through the interview, it dawned on me that Professor Epstein must have exaggerated the role I’d played in my father’s PI agency in order to get me the interview.

  I went along with the deception anyway, and the next day I got a call from Mac offering me the position.

  That summer, I ended up doing some of the same type of work for the McKinney Law Firm in Washington, D.C. that I’d been doing for the Kelvin Grey Private Detective Agency in Columbia, Missouri.

  That bothered me for a few weeks, but when I got my first paycheck, I realized not only was I making more money, I was also getting a hands-on education of what it was like to work in a law firm.

  When I was invited back the next summer, I didn’t hesitate to accept the position once again, and this time, I worked extra hard to make myself indispensable to Mac.

  I must have succeeded, because in January, a few months before my graduation, I received a call from Mac offering me an associate position with the firm, not as an investigator, but as a lawyer.

  Needless to say, I accepted his offer without reservation.

  It took me ten years to finally admit I didn’t enjoy lawyering.

  Then, it took me another three years to decide what I’d do if I were willing to give up practicing law and, most importantly, give up getting a big paycheck.

  One option I never considered was moving back to Columbia and working for my father, but the prospect of doing full-time investigative work was definitely on my radar.

  While I was weighing my options, something happened that made me change my mind about leaving the firm.

  At least, for another two years.

  * * * *

  Early one morning, Mac called me into his office and told me he wanted me to have a talk with one of his clients.

  His name was Tommy Nelson. He was a young African American man who’d been accused of killing a convenience store clerk during a robbery, even though the surveillance cameras had shown the assailant was wearing a mask at the time.

  Nelson had been arrested because a young female customer, someone who’d been in the store at the time of the robbery, swore she recognized the killer’s voice. She claimed it belonged to Nelson who lived in her apartment building just around the corner from the convenience store.

  Mac had been hired by the father of the accused, Cassius P. Nelson, a City Councilmember in the District of Columbia, who also happened to be running for mayor of D.C. His outrage at the arrest of his son had brought Tommy’s case to the attention of all the major news outlets, and he’d hired Mac to clear his son’s name.

  Even though Mac didn’t tell me why he wanted me to have a talk with his client, other than he wanted me to hear his story firsthand, I suspected it was because he hadn’t been able to get much out of Tommy Nelson, and he was hoping someone closer to the guy’s age might get him to open up.

  Although Mac was only in his late fifties, he was the first to admit he had difficulty getting on the same page with young people. However, he didn’t just have trouble communicating with them, he often voiced contempt for anyone under thirty.

  After one such tirade, I reminded him he’d hired me when I was only twenty-five.

  He said, “But I could tell right away you were an old soul. Some people are born old souls, and I knew you were in that category.”

  Since Mac had never had children of his own, I wasn’t sure how he was able to make that determination, but I didn’t contradict him. In fact, I seldom contradicted him.

  From the moment I’d met Theodore J. McKinney, I knew he was a man who wanted to be treated with deference, especially by a younger subordinate.

  I knew this because of what my father called my visceral intuition.

  Until I went away to college, I thought everyone had such instincts, but when I returned home for Thanksgiving one year and happened to mention this to my father, he said, “You may not remember it, Mylas, but I tried to tell you that once. It’s the reason I knew you’d make a good PI. Every good PI has visceral intuition.”

  I suspected all lawyers had some measure of that same intuition, but instead of defending my career choice, I brushed aside his not-so-subtle comment by making a corny joke.

  “Am I hearing you correctly, Dad? Are you saying a good PI has good VI?”

  Everyone at the table laughed, and after that, he dropped the subject, which was what I hoped would happen.

  When I went to work for Mac, that same visceral intuition had let me know how to push his buttons, and I’d made it my objective to always show him respect, ask his opinion about personal matters, and praise him for his oratory after his closing arguments.

  In return, he included me in meetings, allowed me to be second chair on several occasions, and gave me extra perks usually reserved for his older associates.

  In essence, Mac treated me like a favorite son—the son he never had—which was a true analogy because, according to an older associate, Mac’s law practice had become his substitute family following the death of his wife in a tragic car accident a few years before I joined the firm.

  He told me Mac’s wife had been on her way to join him at a restaurant when a drunken sixteen-year-old kid had hit her car in a head-on collision after failing to stop at an intersection. Once I heard those details, I came to the conclusion Mac’s attitude toward the younger generation could also be traced back to that accident, especially since I was told Mac wasn’t willing to participate in cases involving young people after that. Instead, he handed them off to other lawyers in the firm, which was probably another reason Mac had asked me to have a chat with Tommy Nelson.

  However, when I got to the jail where Nelson was being held, I ran into a bunch of TV reporters and journalists, which made me wonder if Mac had also sent me to see Nelson because he preferred to have my face plastered all over the evening news instead of his.

  Once I got inside and introduced myself to Nelson, I was surprised to see how glad he was to see me.

  A minute or so later, after he made a disparaging remark about the older guy who’d showed up at the jail
yesterday—Theodore McKinney himself—I completely understood why he was all smiles.

  After chatting with Nelson about some inconsequential matters, I asked him to tell me his side of the robbery story.

  “I don’t have a story. I wasn’t anywhere near the convenience store when it was robbed.”

  “What about the female customer who identified you as the person who murdered the store clerk?”

  “She used to be my girlfriend. She was just trying to get back at me for dumping her.”

  I was skeptical of that explanation. I figured the cops had checked out the woman and found her to be a reliable witness.

  “That must have been some breakup, Tommy. You’re facing some serious charges here.”

  He looked me in the eye and said, “That’s the truth. You have my word on it.”

  I told him I believed him, but I needed more than just his word.

  I needed facts.

  I needed to know stuff.

  “Where were you when the robbery went down?” I asked.

  “I’d rather not say.”

  “Seriously? Haven’t you watched enough cop shows to know we could get these charges dropped immediately if you had a good alibi?”

  He looked down at his feet.

  “I was at my friend’s apartment.”

  “Okay, that’s good. What’s your friend’s name?”

  He kept looking down at his feet and didn’t say anything.

  I waited him out.

  Finally, he raised his head, he said, “If I tell you her name, will you have to tell my old man?”

  “Why would that be a problem?”

  “My father’s running for mayor.”

  “I’m aware of that. Everyone’s aware of that.”

  “Well . . . ah . . . my friend . . . she works for his opponent.”

  “I don’t think your father would care who—”

  “She’s also . . . ah . . . she’s older than me . . . and I . . . ah . . . I may have told her some things about my father.”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Ah . . . financial things, some deals he’s made, that sort of stuff. She’s using it in the ads they’re running on TV now.”

  Well, that explained a lot.

  Eventually, I was able to convince Tommy to give me her name, and twenty-four hours later, Tommy walked out of jail a free man.

  I never knew whether Cassius P. Nelson decided to punish his son for his indiscretions, but if so, he probably apologized to him later, because according to most political pundits, the reason Cassius P. Nelson was elected mayor of D.C. was due to the extra publicity generated by his son’s case.

  Tommy Nelson’s case also brought attention to the Theodore McKinney Law Firm, which in turn, brought in a boatload of new clients following Nelson’s release.

  Perhaps that was the reason Mac started dropping hints about making me a partner after the mayor’s election.

  But then, on a beautiful Saturday morning in May, as Mac was about to tee off on the fourteenth hole at the Westfields Golf Club, he suffered a massive heart attack.

  He died a short time later.

  * * * *

  It came as no surprise to anyone that Mac had put in place a detailed succession plan to make sure his law practice continued to serve his clients, or that he had an up-to-date will that covered all aspects of his personal estate.

  What surprised everyone—myself included—was that Mac had named me as the owner and administrator of his law practice, and that he’d left it up to me to decide whether to keep the firm or sell it.

  But, he hadn’t stopped there.

  He’d also named me the sole heir of his estate.

  Mac’s estate included his six-bedroom home in Wesley Heights, a couple of cars, an extensive stock portfolio, and numerous bank accounts.

  While I was sorry about Mac’s sudden demise, I wasn’t sorry about my sudden inheritance.

  In fact, I was pretty stoked about it.

  I mean, who wouldn’t be?

  A few months after the estate was settled, I had a meeting with my accountant, and once she showed me my bottom line, my first thought was, I don’t have to work another day in my life.

  My second thought was, if I wanted to work and the numbers on my paycheck didn’t matter, what kind of work would I do?

  One answer came to mind.

  I’d become a private investigator.

  There was one caveat.

  I wouldn’t become a PI like my dad.

  I’d go for something a lot classier, something far more prestigious, something more in line with my newly acquired social status.

  The only type of investigative work that met that criteria took place on Capitol Hill, and while I was in the process of making arrangements to sell Mac’s law practice, I put out some feelers for building a client list for my PI firm among members of Congress.

  Several of Mac’s clients had served in Congress, and I started with them first. I didn’t particularly care which party they belonged to; I was more interested in the type of investigations they required.

  My research took over a year.

  During that time, I was able to sell Mac’s law practice, move into his house in Wesley Heights, and go through the process of obtaining my private investigator’s license.

  The day I received my license in the mail was the day I received a phone call from Nathan Lockett, Senator Davis Allen’s chief of staff.

  I was sitting in the study of Mac’s two-story house on Foxhall Road—which now belonged to me—and I’d just opened the manila envelope containing a congratulatory letter, my official PI license, and a laminated identification card with my name on it.

  “This is Nathan Lockett,” he said, “I’m Senator Davis Allen’s chief of staff. To whom am I speaking?”

  “Mylas Grey. I’m with—”

  I stopped myself before I said I was with the Theodore McKinney Law Firm.

  “—I’m the head of Mylas Grey Investigations,” I said, taking another look at my new ID card.

  “Mr. Grey. I’ll get right to the point. Senator Allen is looking for a new chief investigator, and I understand from a colleague of mine that you might be interested in the position.”

  “I’m definitely interested in taking on some Capitol Hill clients. What type of investigative work does Senator Allen require?”

  “No, Mr. Grey, you must have misunderstood me. Senator Allen is interviewing for a full-time position on his staff. He’s the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He has his own investigative team.”

  “He has a team of investigators on his staff?”

  “That’s right. Unfortunately, his chief investigator, Pete Dunham, has decided to return to private practice, so he needs to replace him.”

  “I’m not sure I’d be the right person for the job. I don’t have any experience working in a congressional office.”

  “I’m aware of that, Mr. Grey. In fact, I know—”

  “Please, call me Mylas.”

  “Okay, Mylas. I’m aware you don’t have any experience on The Hill, but I know you have a law degree from Georgetown, which means you speak the same lingo as most of the people running around these corridors, and I also know you’ve been working for Theodore McKinney for several years, which means you’re used to taking orders from someone.”

  “If you know so much about me, then you must know my resume for doing investigative work is pretty thin. To be truthful, I’m only in the beginning stages of setting up Mylas Grey Investigations. I hardly think I’m qualified to be the chief investigator on Senator Allen’s staff.”

  “Mac told me you’re good at getting people to talk. Is that true?”

  “You knew Mac?”

  “We played golf together for years. I was with him when he had his heart attack.”

  “Oh, you’re that Nathan. When he talked about his golf buddies, he never gave out their last names.”

  “Mac said you were a good lawyer, but h
e also said he thought you’d be an even better investigator. In fact, a few weeks before his heart attack, he told me he had a feeling you were going to quit the firm and start your own investigative agency.”

  “He was right about that. It had crossed my mind.”

  “To make a long story short, when Pete Dunham handed in his resignation letter last week, I was curious about what you were doing after selling off Mac’s lucrative law practice, so I did some investigative work of my own.”

  “I take it you disagree with my decision to sell the firm.”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Are you saying I’m wrong?”

  “No, I’m asking you why you came to that conclusion.”

  “I really couldn’t say, Mr. Lockett; maybe it was the inflection in your voice or your choice of words. I’m sorry if I offended you.”

  “You can call me Nathan, and you haven’t offended me. Your analysis of my feelings is correct, but that’s a discussion for another day. Right now, I’m only interested in hearing whether you’d be willing to come in and talk with the senator about the position.”

  “Does the senator know about my lack of experience in the investigative field?”

  “No, he doesn’t. He won’t care anything about your qualifications. If I say you’re qualified, then you’re qualified. When you meet the senator, the only thing he’ll talk about is himself, the importance of the job he does as Judiciary Chair, and why he needs his own investigative team operating out of his office. If you’re willing to listen to him sing that song, and you applaud him for hitting all the right notes, then he’ll hire you.”

  Although I didn’t know Senator Allen personally, I certainly knew who he was. He was the senior senator from my home state of Missouri, and Lockett had just voiced my own impression of the man.

  “And what happens if he hires me?”

  “You’ll become the chief investigator for Senator Davis Allen, which means you’ll have your own staff, your own office space in the Russell Senate Office Building, and your own personal mentor to make sure you eventually become a top-notch investigator.”