Firm Ambitions (19 page)

The house was silent. My mother's bedroom was dark as I climbed the stairs, sweaty and panting and triumphant. I kicked off my running shoes in my bedroom, opened the door to the bathroom, turned on the shower, shed my jogging clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, closed the bathroom door, and stepped under the hot spray. Thirty minutes later, clean and relaxed and ready for bed, I wrapped a bath towel around my body sarong-style, clicked off the bathroom light, and stepped into my bedroom.

Yawning, I pulled open the top drawer of my dresser to select a pair of pajamas. As I did I glanced at myself in the dresser mirror and noticed the cat in the reflection. She was on the bedspread by the pillow, facing me.

“Hello, Gitel,” I said as I sorted through the drawer.

Something must have seemed slightly awry, because I glanced at her again in the mirror. She was studying me with her usual inscrutable stare. I selected a pair of red silk shortie pajamas and loosened my towel.

Red. It clicked.

“God!” I gagged as I spun around, stumbling backward against the dresser. The force of my body knocked over the bottles of perfume and nail polish and deodorant. Several clattered off the dresser and fell to me floor. I pressed my fist against my mouth.

Gitel was studying me through sightless eyes. Sightless eyes in a severed head. She'd been decapitated. Her body was nowhere in sight. The head had been pressed back against the white pillowcase. It was surrounded by a growing stain of red.

I took a step toward the bed, reaching to the floor for my towel, never taking my eyes off the head. Then suddenly I straightened up.

My mother. My God, my mother.

Frantic, I ran down the hall and yanked her door open. The light from the hallway flooded the room. My mother was on her side facing me, her eyes closed. I moved closer, straining to hear the sound of breathing over the pounding inside me. She opened and closed her mouth, frowned in her sleep, and turned onto her other side.

Thank God
.

I scanned the room for a sign of the cat's body. Nothing.

And then the full significance hit me. Someone had been in the house.

In my bedroom.

While my mother was sleeping.

While I was in the shower.

There had been an intruder in our house.

Had been? Or still was?

He could be in my mother's closet right now, or in her bathroom, or anywhere in the house.

I had to call the police.

There was a telephone on my mother's nightstand. I lifted it carefully, quietly.

Damn.

It was dead. He'd cut the telephone lines.

Then the other telephones started ringing—the one in the kitchen and the one in my bedroom. The jangling startled me. I moved toward the door and stopped.

My bedroom was down the hallway. I would have to pass two hall closets and another bedroom. He could be waiting in one of those closets, or in that bedroom. He could be waiting in my bedroom.

“Rachel?”

I jumped as I spun around. My mother was sitting up in bed. “Sweetie, why are you naked? Is that the telephone?”

“Ssshh. I think there's someone in the house.”

“What?” she said with a frown. “Who's calling at this hour? Plug the phone in.” She pointed to the cord by the nightstand. The end of the cord was on the floor near the telephone outlet. Then I remembered: she unplugged the phone every night before she went to bed. I knelt and quickly plugged it in.

“We have to call the police,” I hissed as my mother lifted the receiver.

“Hello? No, this is her mother. Who is this? Do you have any idea what time it is? Who is this?” She shook her head. “He won't say.”

“Give me it,” I said, reaching for the phone. I held it to my ear. There was static on the line. “Hello?” I said.

No response. “Hello?” I said again.

“I guess your pussy isn't feeling so good, huh?” It was a male voice—muffled, disguised.

“What do you want?”

“That was a hint, bitch.”

I gripped the telephone. “Who is this?”

“That's what happens to nosy little pussies.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“Figure it out. Hey, talking about pussies, you got one hell of a bush on yours. Nice titties, too. Too bad I didn't have a camera ready when you dropped your towel. Maybe next time, eh?”

There was a
click
, followed by a dial tone.

Chapter Twenty

“Where did he do it?” my sister asked with a wince.

“In the backyard,” I said. “He either caught her back there or he brought her back there to do it.”

It was the morning after. Ann and I were drinking coffee in her kitchen. I think I'd had a total of one hour of sleep the night before.

“Was there a lot of blood in the house?” she asked.

I shook my head. “The police think he brought the head upstairs in a plastic bag while I was in the shower. He had enough time to arrange it on the pillow before he left.” I closed my eyes for a moment. The image was burned into my brain. “He even made sure her eyes were open.”

Ann shuddered. “That is
so
sick. And he was, like, watching you the whole time from the backyard?”

I nodded grimly. “The police found a lot of footprints back there.”

Ann pressed her palm against her forehead. “Oh, God, Rachel, I feel so horrible.”

“Don't, Ann.”

Her eyes were red. “That sicko terrorized you and Mom, killed and mutilated her poor cat, snuck around your house, and…” She paused, her lips trembling. “And it's all my fault.”

“It's not your fault, Ann.”

“Of course it is,” she said, her voice cracking. “I was the one who had the affair with that creep, I was the—”

“Ann, Ann,” I said, “don't punish yourself. You're a victim, too.” I reached across the table and grabbed hold of her arm. “You're not to blame for what's happened. Dozens of women had affairs with him.”

“Then why's this happening to me?” she demanded. There were tears trickling down both cheeks. “To us?”

“Why?” I said with a shrug. “Why do serial killers kill the people they kill? Just bad luck. There's no reason for any of it. Whoever killed him decided you were a convenient fall guy. It's not some cosmic punishment. There's no one out there balancing the scales of justice. The world doesn't work that way.” I stood up. “Let me get you some Kleenex.”

After I got her the Kleenex I poured us both a fresh cup of coffee.

“How did he get in the house?” Ann asked after she blew her nose.

I shook my head in resignation. “You know how flimsy that back-door lock is. He just popped it open, probably with a screwdriver.”

Ann wiped her eyes with a fresh Kleenex. “Mom's got to get deadbolt locks.”

“I called the locksmith at seven this morning. He'll be there before noon.”

“Good.”

“And,” I said with a contented grin, “Ozzie has already moved in.”

She smiled through her tears. “That's even better. You two need a big dog around the house.” Ann sighed and shook her head. “Mom sounded terrible,” she said.

I nodded sadly. “It really freaked her out,” I said, “and she's really broken up over Gitel. How old was she?”

“About four, I think.”

“Didn't Dad give her Gitel for her birthday?”

Ann nodded miserably.

“Poor Mom,” I said softly, my eyes suddenly welling up. I reached for a Kleenex.

We sat together quietly, sipping our coffee.

“You know,” Ann finally said, “I didn't realize you can see into your window from the backyard.”

“Sure,” I said. “Remember we used to watch Mom hang the laundry from up there?”

“God,” Ann said with a shudder. “He was out there watching?”

“Judging from the static on the line when he called, the cops think that he may have been standing back there with a cellular phone.”

“That is
so
creepy,” she said.

I nodded. “You know what was almost as bad?” I said with a grimace.

“What?”

“Having to tell those two cops exactly what he said.”

“Were they guys?”

“Yeah. Both in their twenties. Young studs. You know the type.”

Ann made a face. “God's gift to women.”

“I almost didn't tell them.”

“But you did?”

I nodded. “They were okay. The one asking the questions, I looked him right in his eyes and told him exactly what he said to me. Word for word. I swear, if he had looked down even once—at my boobs or lower—I would have kicked both of them out of the house. But he was cool. So was his partner.”

“What are they going to do?”

“Probably not much. They're going to send a couple crimelab guys around this afternoon. I can't wait,” I said sardonically. “Believe me, it's not going to be a high priority with them.”

“You must be kidding,” Ann said in disbelief.

I shook my head. “Think about it. At any given moment they have way more unsolved crimes than detectives to solve them. They have to run a triage operation. When the captain has to choose between assigning one of his detectives to catch a cat killer and assigning that same detective to catch a rapist or murderer or burglar, you know what he's going to do.”

She nodded reluctantly. “I guess you're right.”

“It's the same with your case. The problem is that the police think they have it solved. They want to leave it that way. Close the file, pass it on to the prosecutor, move to the next case. That's the mentality. That's why it's practically impossible to get them to follow any new leads. They just don't want to hear about it. We're going to have to hand it to them neatly tied up and gift-wrapped before they do anything.”

She took a sip of her coffee. “Can you?” she said. I could hear the discouragement in her voice.

“I'm sure going to try.” I filled her in on the different leads our mother, Benny, and I were running down. She'd heard most of it before. “Something's going to pan out,” I concluded, trying to inject some optimism into my voice. “I just know it.”

I poured us both some more coffee.

“Talking about burglars,” Ann said between sips, “last night was definitely not a great night for home security.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you remember Holly Embry? She used to be Holly Goodman.”

“Sure.” Holly Embry was one of Ann's friends from high school—no longer a close friend but someone Ann occasionally saw at parties or in the supermarket.

“What happened?”

“Someone broke into her house.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I asked.

“No. Carol Marcus called this morning to tell me. She said it happened while Holly and Chuck were at the hockey game. Their kids were at her parents' house.”

“That's good. What was stolen?”

“Carol said the burglars took all of the silver, Holly's fur coat, and several paintings. Fortunately, they're all covered by insurance.”

I frowned in concentration. “Holly Embry? I've seen that name somewhere.”

“She was in Jerry Berger's column a couple months ago.”

“No, it was somewhere else.”

***

Three hours later, I was seated in the office of L. Debevoise Fletcher, waiting for him to get off the damn phone. It was a vintage Ma Bell.

For one creepy moment, I flashed back to my junior-associate days at Abbott & Windsor in Chicago, back to the one act that most partners at most large law firms inflict upon every associate in the firm: they answer every single telephone call that comes in while the associate is in their office.
Every single telephone call
. Dozens of times during my days at Abbott & Windsor—no, hundreds of times—I had been summoned to a partner's office for “a five-minute meeting” only to emerge forty minutes later, having had those five minutes parsed out in sixty-second sound bites sandwiched between five leisurely incoming calls.

At Abbott & Windsor, we called them Ma Bells. Associates at other firms had their own name. At Emerson & Palmer they were known as Your Mamas. The more astute student of hierarchy—such as any ambitious associate at a large law firm—grasps early on that Ma Bells are not restricted to partner-associate relations. Indeed, the pecking order within the intricate power structure of the partnership can be ascertained by a careful charting of partner-to-partner Ma Bells. Figure out which partners are Ma Bell inflictors and which are inflictees, ally yourself with the right inflictor, and someday you may no longer be an inflictee.

Fletcher's Ma Bell, combined with my lack of sleep and general edginess after last night, quickly had me incensed enough to storm out. But I made myself remember that Fletcher's client and Fletcher's client's father were offering Eileen Landau a generous financial settlement. If part of the settlement price was a Ma Bell, so be it.

To calm my jangled nerves, I looked around his office. On the wall above his head was a large wood display plaque—the kind used for displaying the mounted head of an African lion or wildebeest. Fletcher's was empty. Beneath the place for the missing head was a brass plaque that read “MAX FEIGELBAUM (
Homo selachii
).” I had to smile. Max Feigelbaum, a/k/a Max the Knife, had represented Fletcher's wife in their bitter divorce trial. According to an article on divorce lawyers that had appeared in the
National Law Journal
, Max the Knife's victory in the acrimonious case of
In re the Marriage of L. Debevoise and Patricia E. Fletcher
had resulted in a property and alimony award that “resembled a decree by Vlad the Impaler.” When sober, Fletcher refers to his nemesis as the “Fiendish Feigelbaum.” After several drinks, according to sources at Abbott & Windsor, the Fiendish Feigelbaum becomes Max the Kike.

I stood up and walked over to the picture window. Fletcher's office had a beautiful view of the Old Courthouse and its shimmering reflection in the Equitable Building. On the wall by the window was a photograph of Fletcher in his Green Beret uniform shaking hands with John Wayne. Next to that photograph was the framed Silver Star awarded to him in Vietnam. One of the unwritten survival rules for any associate assigned to a case with Fletcher was to feign keen interest when, at the end of the day, Fletcher leaned back in his chair to tell one of his repertoire of four interminable Green Beret stories.

At last, Fletcher brought the telephone conversation to an end. “Sorry about that, Rachel,” he said unapologetically. “Now where were we?”

I turned to face him just in time to catch his eyes shifting up from my thighs to my face. I held his stare for a moment. “Trying to tie down the loose ends, I believe. We were on point six.”

He looked down at the list of settlement demands I had given him. Eileen was willing to accept her father-in-law's divorce settlement proposal, but on my advice had added eight additional points—relatively minor, but proper nevertheless. For example, point five required Tommy to pay the legal and accounting fees Eileen incurred in the divorce. I hoped to prevail on at least four of the eight points. Fletcher and I haggled over the remaining items for another thirty minutes and ended with an agreement in principle.

“You understand, Rachel, that this is all subject to the agreement of my client and his father.”

“Then get it, Deb.”

“I certainly intend to recommend it.”

“Why not call them now? I'll go down the hall and call Eileen from another phone while you talk to Tommy and his father.”

“You're certainly in a hurry to get this done.”

“So is your client's father, Deb. After I talk to Eileen I'll wait for you in the firm's library.”

Eileen was delighted when I told her that Fletcher had agreed to six of the eight points, including the four that we wanted and two of the four we were prepared to give away. Fletcher's door was still closed when I got off the phone, so I walked down the hall to wait for him in the firm's law library. I was on the couch by the periodical stand leafing through the current issue of the
National Law Journal
when Fletcher poked his head in.

“Well, Counselor,” he said with a broad grin, “it looks like we have a deal.”

“The same deal you and I agreed to?” I asked pointedly, having observed firsthand that Deb Fletcher was the type of attorney who would keep trying to sneak an extra term into the deal up until the time the final papers were signed.

He chuckled. “The very same, Rachel.”

“Then I'll draw up the papers and fax you a draft by the end of the week.”

“Very good.” He grinned as he shook his head. “For a while there I thought you and I were going to be climbing into the ring on this one.”

“I'm sure it won't be long before we get that chance in another case.”

“Maybe so, but this one would have been a doozy. Especially with those pictures of your client. I'll say one thing about her—”

“Don't,” I interrupted.

“My, my, aren't we touchy these days?”

I exhaled slowly. “Deb, unless you want to reopen negotiations, drop it. I won't say anything about your client, you won't say anything about mine. You got it?”

He shrugged and gave a chuckle. “Fair enough, Rachel. I must say, however, that you're getting just a tad hypersensitive as you get older.”

I forced a smile. “That's supposed to be clever?”

“Ah, so now we're going to have a battle of the wits.”

“I don't think so, Deb. It's against my code of honor to fight an unarmed man.”

He gave me a tight smile—the kind that seemed to say that if I were a man he'd punch my lights out. I returned the sentiment with an equally tight smile that tried to suggest that if I had a Sherman tank at my disposal I would drive it through the side of his house and leave treadmarks across his back. We walked side by side to the front of the offices, exuding that special bonhomie of fellow members of a learned profession.

“I almost forgot,” Fletcher said as I waited for the elevator. “Harris Landau told me you had asked for information about some company his firm had done some work for.”

“Right. Capital Investments of Missouri.”