Dead Lawyers Tell No Tales (20 page)

AFTER THE COURT HEARING
on Friday morning, Landon went home and changed into jeans and a T-shirt. He made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and stopped by a 7-Eleven on the way to the office to grab an ice cream bar for dessert.

He was feeling good about the hearing but not looking forward to an afternoon of drudgery—boxing up files the firm had closed out in the wake of Harry’s death and taking them to the firm’s storage unit. He put the earbuds in for his iPhone, fired up the firm shredder, got out the boxes and packing tape, and started working.

For two hours, lost in his thoughts, Landon waded through files, boxed them up, and labeled them for closure. He made copies of the case files he had to send to other law firms—new lawyers hired by clients who had originally chosen Harry, not the firm.

With each file Landon prepared to close, he asked a single question: “Is there anybody in this case who wanted to kill Harry McNaughten?” By four o’clock, he had jotted down a dozen candidates on a yellow legal
pad. He didn’t send those files to storage but kept them in Harry’s office until he could show the list to Detective Freeman sometime next week.

At four, he was joined by Rachel, wearing tight shorts, a tank top, and flip-flops. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and she wore sunglasses propped on her head. The conservative businesswoman who had appeared in court that morning was gone, and Beach Rachel had taken her place.

“Need some help?” she asked. “Brent and Parker are gone for the afternoon, and after what you did for me in court, I feel like I owe you one.”

Landon popped out an earbud. “You don’t owe me anything, but I could use the help. What’s Janaya doing?”

Rachel started picking up files. “Brent sent her home for the day. After this morning, he’s feeling pretty generous.”

Landon explained his system and set down his iPhone while he and Rachel continued packing the files they had organized earlier that week. The conversation flowed easily—first about the court hearing, then about Maddie, and finally about Rachel’s personal life. It was, according to Rachel, “pretty much a hot mess.”

The sun was streaming through the windows of Harry’s office, illuminating trails of dust floating around the room. Landon found himself studying Rachel, fascinated by her easy self-confidence. She had the kind of carefree attitude that Landon and Kerri had lost a long time ago. None of her personal problems seemed to affect her bubbly self-image. Landon’s DNA was wired for intensity; Rachel’s for enjoyment. And right now, Landon had to admit, she was making the mundane task of boxing up old files seem surprisingly like fun.

He found another case with a potential Harry-hater and wrote it down.

“What’s that?” Rachel asked.

“I’m putting together a list. Folks who might have wanted Harry dead.”

Rachel walked over and picked up the legal pad. She studied it for a moment, and her pretty face twisted into a perplexed look. “This guy
gave me the creeps,” she said, pointing, “but I think he’s serving something like twenty years.”

“Maybe he’s got contacts on the outside.”

Rachel shrugged. She nibbled at a fingernail and studied the list some more. Deep in thought, she put the list back on the desk.

She picked up her water bottle and slouched in one of Harry’s office chairs. Landon continued to stuff files into boxes.

“Do you really think somebody wanted Harry dead?” Rachel asked.

“We’ve been through this. I don’t know.”

“Have you ever thought that maybe Harry knew something he wasn’t supposed to know? That maybe somebody wanted him dead not because they were mad at Harry but because they wanted to silence him?”

It seemed like a stretch to Landon. “Not really. Most of Harry’s files weren’t that interesting. It’s not like he was working the JFK assassination.”

Rachel took another swig of water and stood up. She walked over to where Landon was organizing files and hopped up on the desk, sitting a little sideways, a few feet away. “I think you need to be careful,” she said. The carefree lilt to her voice was gone. “If it was something he knew, and you take over that file . . .”

She stopped, her point made.

“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much room,” Landon quipped.

She reached out and touched his arm. It made him stop and look at her.

“I’m serious, Landon. I don’t want to see anything happen to you.”

For a few seconds, maybe longer, neither of them said a word. Maybe it was the way Rachel had said it, the twinge of desperation in her voice. Maybe it was the sudden seriousness on a lighthearted afternoon. For whatever reason, Landon just stood there.

“I’ll be careful,” he said.

The moment passed, and Rachel dropped her hand. She got down from the desk and got back to work.

“You sure you don’t want to start Strach and Reed?”

“You mean Reed and Strach?”

“If that’s what it takes.” Rachel said it while leafing through a file, not even looking at Landon. He had a hard time telling if she was serious about the idea or not.

“I’ve often felt like I wanted to just start over,” Rachel said. “My career. My personal life. Everything.”

For Landon, the idea of a new firm had some merit. Yes, much of Rachel Strach’s personal life was a disaster. But she was also smart and a hard worker. Professionally, she and Landon got along well.

But the plan had a serious flaw. There was no way Kerri would agree to it. And days like this were precisely the reason why.

“Harry brought me to this firm,” Landon said. “I’d feel like a traitor if I left it.”

“I get that,” Rachel said. “I really do.”

///

His first mistake was agreeing to stop at Starbucks for coffee. They were on their way back from the storage unit, a few blocks away from Thirty-First Street, when Rachel asked if she could buy Landon a latte to thank him for being her lawyer that morning.

“I don’t drink that stuff,” he said.

“But I do,” Rachel responded. “So you can stop anyway to thank me for helping you pack boxes all afternoon.”

He didn’t put up much of a fight, certainly not the kind of fight that hindsight would later suggest he should have. He detoured a few blocks and parked his truck in the parking garage across from the Hilton. When they got to Starbucks, there was a line nearly out the door, and Rachel suggested an alternative. They walked another block toward the ocean and ended up in the bar area of the Catch 31 restaurant, surrounded by big-screen TVs and the bustling activity of a Friday night happy hour just getting started. They commandeered a booth from
which they could see the ocean on one side and the outdoor fire pits on the patio on the other. Within earshot was a small gazebo where a band was unpacking and tuning their instruments.

Rachel’s latte turned into a light beer, and she tightened her ponytail holder. Landon noticed the muscles in her arms that she had put to good use all afternoon carrying boxes. She had held her own and refused to be treated like a girl. She was, thought Landon, tougher than she looked.

They talked naturally and good-naturedly. They made fun of tourists, and Rachel went on a roll about Parker Clausen’s books. They were over-the-top and cheesy, according to Rachel. The love scenes were especially ham-handed. Clausen had asked for Rachel’s feedback once, and after reading a few of his scenes, Rachel had brought in three Nora Roberts books and suggested that Parker read them. She spent the next three days trying to avoid getting cornered by Parker so she wouldn’t have to debrief the details of Nora’s romance scenes. “I think he even went to a romance writers’ convention one year,” Rachel said.

Landon was enjoying the banter but had the good sense to cut Rachel off at one beer.

“No ride home tonight?” she asked.

“You’re a quick study,” he said.

A waitress brought the bill, and Rachel handed her a credit card. When the waitress left, Rachel’s blue eyes turned soft. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Do you think Brent and I have a chance at making it work? I mean, how do you and Kerri do it? You guys seem so committed to each other, and the whole thing about her waiting for you while you were in jail . . . It’s just so—” Rachel seemed at a loss for the right words, unusual for her—“so romantic. It’s a little like a twenty-first-century fairy tale.”

Landon had been getting restless. He was feeling guilty for being there, in a bar with a beautiful woman, much longer than he had planned. He loved being around Rachel because they were good friends
and the conversation was easy. Still, there were boundaries he had promised he wouldn’t cross. Yet the question gave him an opening to talk with Rachel about Brent.

“I like Brent,” Landon said. “He’s a good lawyer and I respect him.” He hesitated. Comments like this next one had a way of backfiring. “But I think you can do better. A lot better.”

Rachel blushed. “You can’t prove it by my track record.”

Landon wanted to tell her she was selling herself short. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was fun to be around. But he didn’t say any of those things. She might take them wrong.

“If he’s really the one—you’ll know,” Landon said. “I know it sounds clichéd, but it was true for me and Kerri.”

“I don’t think it sounds clichéd at all. To me, it makes perfect sense.”

Rachel ran her finger along the lip of her glass. She studied the drink in silence, as if even looking at him would spark more electricity than either of them could handle.

After a few seconds, she looked up—less pensive, her voice lighter. “Tell me how you and Kerri met.”

///

Later that evening, after they had left Catch 31 and were walking on the boardwalk toward the parking garage, the conversation turned back to Rachel and Brent. Rachel claimed she needed Landon’s help to understand things from a man’s perspective. A few blocks from the truck, she took a step closer and placed a hand on Landon’s arm. “Thanks for not judging me for who I am,” she said. “I don’t have many people I can talk to like this.”

He gave her a ride back to the office and pulled up next to her car. He thanked her for helping with Harry’s files.

“You really do love Kerri, don’t you?” Rachel asked.

“Yes,” Landon said, without hesitation.

“She’s lucky to have you,” Rachel said. She sat there for a moment,
looking at him, her blue eyes reading his thoughts. “I’d better go,” she said at last.

“Yeah,” Landon said. “You’d better go.”

///

The photos were perfect. Landon and Rachel approaching the Hilton. Landon and Rachel at the bar. Landon and Rachel on the boardwalk. Rachel moving closer, her hand on his arm.

He already had a photo of the kiss from the last time they were together.

It wouldn’t take a genius at Photoshopping to put together the most damning photo of all. Rachel and Brent Benedict had been caught coming out of a hotel room. Now it would be Landon’s turn.

FOR KERRI, THE TIME NEVER SEEMED
quite right. Landon spent most of Saturday at the office, and when he arrived home Saturday night, Maddie was sick. Sunday was church and family day, but Maddie, who had rebounded with a vengeance, was with them the entire time. Kerri really did want to talk with her husband about the job opening in D.C., but she couldn’t just blurt it out in the middle of the chaos that seemed to swirl around their lives. She had envisioned a long walk on the beach or dinner alone in a restaurant. None of that was going to happen.

She had paid extra attention to Landon all day Sunday. A touch on the arm during church. A hug when they were changing from church clothes into shorts and T-shirts. A back rub after lunch. Landon interpreted the overtures as an invitation for romance, and Kerri finally got her opening to talk when it was nearly midnight, her exhausted husband lying beside her.

She turned toward him and propped her head on an elbow. “Can we talk about something?”

“Sure.”

He still had the glow, and it was almost unfair, taking advantage like this. She went ahead anyway. “There’s something I’ve wanted to talk to you about for a couple of days, but the time just didn’t seem right.” Kerri watched as her husband’s face turned from that satisfied I-don’t-have-a-care-in-the-world look to one of concern.

“It’s nothing bad,” she added quickly. “In fact, I’m pretty excited about it.”

“What’s up?” he prompted, placing a hand on her side.

She hesitated—
How do I phrase this?
—then decided to just jump right in. “There’s an opening for an investigative reporter at the NBC affiliate in D.C. The salary alone is half again what I’m making now. Sean Phoenix knows the station manager and has talked to him about me. He says I could probably get the job if I wanted it.”

She watched the news register on his face. He chose his words carefully.

“Would we have to move?”

Kerri chuckled. “Last I checked, most stations like their investigative reporters to show up at the station every day. Of course we’d have to move.”

Landon pulled back his hand. He frowned.

His expression made her heart sink.

“I don’t know, Kerri. I mean, D.C. is a great market. But I thought we were digging in here, making this our home. Can’t you just use this to negotiate a raise at WTRT?”

“Not really. That’s not the way it works. And even if it did, Hampton Roads will always be a small-time market.”

She twisted around so that she was lying on her stomach, her arms under her pillow, still propped up on her elbows. They were no longer face-to-face. The romance, which had been so perfect thirty minutes ago, had quickly left the bedroom.

Landon must have sensed her frustration and put a hand on her back. He cheated, starting a back rub while making his case. “It’s a bad
time to leave McNaughten and Clay,” he said, his voice soft. “I know it’s not the world’s greatest firm, but they gave me a chance when nobody else would. And now, with Harry’s death, I feel like it’s somehow my legacy to take care of his clients and build this criminal practice that he had. It’s not perfect—heck, it’s totally dysfunctional—but it seems like family. If I left now I’d feel like I was quitting again, turning my back on my team. I promised myself in prison that I would never do that again.”

On some level, what he said made sense, and the back rub was definitely hitting the spot. She turned again toward him, ending the contact and evening the tables.

“I’m tired of hearing about Harry. I know he was a great lawyer and all that, but this isn’t about Harry. That firm doesn’t own you, Landon. You’ve given them everything they could ask for.”

Like many of their disagreements, the words being left unsaid were more important than the ones they were saying. Whose career was more important? Could Landon handle it if Kerri became the primary breadwinner? And did Kerri really want that? In some ways, she was hoping Landon would say no. The demands of her current job were enough to cause a never-ending stream of guilt in her life. If she took the D.C. job and Cipher Inc. became a constant source of high-profile stories, she’d have to spend even more time away from Maddie.

Maybe it would be best if they just stayed here.

But it bothered her that Landon couldn’t see how illogical he was being. He was putting his job at a small-time firm—the kind of firm that was on every street corner—above a career opportunity that very few journalists ever even sniffed.

“I just thought you’d be more excited for me,” Kerri said. “I’m not saying I think we should make the move. But I thought you’d at least be proud.”

Landon edged closer and put his arm around Kerri’s shoulder. “I am proud,” he said. He leaned toward her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “And we’ll figure this out later. Tonight, we ought to just celebrate the fact that somebody’s finally recognized true talent when they see it.”

“We already celebrated,” Kerri said.

“But that didn’t count. We didn’t know why.”

Kerri snuggled into her pillow. “Let’s just talk about it tomorrow,” she suggested.

///

Landon lay awake for an hour trying to navigate this new challenge. On the one hand, he felt selfish for raining on Kerri’s parade. A good husband would have suggested she call the station the next day. A good husband would have been excited for his wife.

On the other hand, Landon felt manipulated by the way Kerri had played this out. She had waited forty-eight hours until she thought the moment was just right to spring it on him. And as much as she had supported him the last several years, she didn’t seem to value his work at McNaughten and Clay. She certainly didn’t understand the impact Harry had made on his life.

He hated to admit it, but he had always been more comfortable when he was the star. He wanted to be the guy on the field, not the one carrying the clipboard. Yes, he wanted Kerri to do well—he really did. He always swelled with pride when people talked about what a great reporter she was. But he wasn’t excited about playing Mr. Mom.

In his dreams, he had already figured life out. He would be a big-shot lawyer; she would be a big-time reporter. Their stars would shine equally. They would share duties with Maddie, the child genius.

But what if Kerri’s star shone brighter? Could he handle that?

He turned to Kerri and watched her sleep. This was what it meant to love your wife sacrificially. She deserved this. If God had opened this door, who was he to slam it shut?

He stroked her hair and she stirred, then turned her back and curled up on her side. He fell asleep facing her.

Nobody ever said that marriage would be easy.