Firm Ambitions (4 page)

But Tommy seemed to take the news in an eerily passive way. He nodded, tugged at his mustache, and told her he'd get his stuff. He was upstairs finishing packing when Eileen left to go to her parents' house. He was gone when she returned with the children after dinner. She had expected to find a note from him. He didn't leave a note. He did, however, leave a message, which she discovered when she got ready for bed that night: an enormous fresh turd nestled in her lingerie drawer. God, I hate divorce cases.

“No,” I said to Benny, “not another Tommy turd. Almost as bad. His attorneys filed their appearance today.”

“His father's firm?”

I nodded. We were on the porch. “I expected them. I even sent a courtesy copy of the petition to his father. But when I received the respondent's entry of appearance today, there were
two
signature blocks on the court form: one for the firm of Landau, Mitchell & McCray and the other for—you ready for this?—Abbott & Windsor.”

Benny looked at me with surprise. “In a divorce case? Who signed the appearance?”

“L. Debevoise Fletcher.”

“Deb Fletcher? Oh, shit,” he groaned.

I nodded grimly. “Exactly my reaction.”

L. Debevoise Fletcher had moved to St. Louis a year before to head up Abbott & Windsor's beleaguered branch office after the suicide of its first managing partner (Stoddard Anderson) and the hushed resignation of its second (Reed St. Germain). In an effort to stop further erosion, the executive committee of Abbott & Windsor decided to send one of its own to head up the St. Louis office.

According to my friends at A&W, Deb Fletcher had actually volunteered. Most assumed that he wanted a change of scenery in the aftermath of his extraordinarily bitter divorce from Tricia Fletcher. She had been his second wife—the so-called trophy wife. By the end of the divorce trial, however, she had a few trophies of her own, including, went the joke around Abbott & Windsor, Fletcher's bank accounts and testicles.

“So now I not only have a complete jerk for an adversary,” I said to Benny, “but one who has a personal incentive to turn someone else's divorce into a nightmare.”

“And don't forget your delightful personal history with that dickhead.”

“I know. It's going to be an awful experience.”

“Well, if anyone can handle that pompous sack of shit, it's you.”

Ozzie nudged my hand. I kneeled down beside him and scratched his forehead. “Okay, Oz,” I said as I kissed him on the forehead. “Get psyched.”

Poor Ozzie. Gitel greeted him in the foyer with back arched, hair on end, hissing and spitting. Ozzie practically clawed his way through the screen door trying to get back out of the house.

I had an extra key to Benny's place, so while he headed off for his dinner date with the stamina sultana, I drove Ozzie back to his temporary quarters. On the way over we stopped at a park to play fetch.

When I got back home there was a message from Ann.

“It's about the claims adjuster,” my mother explained.

During her long weekend in Las Vegas, burglars broke into my sister's house after first disconnecting the alarm system. The police were called by a neighbor who, unable to sleep, had gone for a walk at two in the morning and noticed movement in my sister's house. The burglars were gone by the time the squad cars arrived. The police called the alarm company to find out whom to contact. I was the first name on the list and got the call at three in the morning. I went over to her house and told the detectives not to disturb Ann and Richie, who still had two days left on their holiday. I hung around the house to help them put together a preliminary inventory of stolen items, which included Ann's silver, Richie's baseball card collection (appraised for close to $20,000, including Sandy Koufax and Lou Brock rookie cards), all of the video and stereo equipment in their “home entertainment center,” two paintings, three pairs of Richie's shoes, and all of his X-rated videos.

I filed the initial notice of claim with Richie and Ann's insurance company and had them file a supplementary claim when they returned from Vegas. Although the insurance company seemed to be acting responsibly, there were a few legal hurdles that I was helping Ann and Richie get over. I returned Ann's call, listened to her questions, and offered some advice on how to deal with the claims adjuster. “If he still has a problem,” I told her, “give him my number and tell him to call me.”

“Okay. Thanks, Rachel.”

“Sure. Hey, you want me to give you a ride tomorrow night?”

“What's tomorrow?”

“Firm Ambitions. The aerobics class.”

Her tone quickly shifted. “As far as I'm concerned, that bastard can go straight to hell.”

I paused, startled by her bitterness. “I assume that means no,” I said.

“It means hell no,” she snapped.

“What happened with Andros?”

“It's not worth talking about.”

“Tell me what happened,” I said.

“Nothing. Just forget it.”

I asked my mother the same question before I went to bed. She shook her head. “Ann hasn't told me a thing.”

“That's odd,” I said. “The guy has been calling me practically every day for two weeks, and he's never even hinted there was a problem with Ann.”

“As far as I'm concerned,” my mother said firmly, “if she's done with him and that class, that's fine by me.”

***

I went anyway. The rest of Silicon Valley was in position doing stretching exercises when I arrived at 7:20 p.m. The class was supposed to start promptly at 7:30. According to Ann, Andros was obsessed with punctuality. As the rare latecomer learned, his rage over tardiness was dreadful to behold.

So we all knew something was wrong when 7:30 p.m. came and went without the usual warm-up music. By 7:40, people were getting agitated. At 7:55, a flustered temporary receptionist came in to announce that the class had been canceled. She offered no explanation.

The explanation arrived the following morning on the front page of the
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
, beneath the headline

AEROBICS INSTRUCTOR FOUND DEAD;
POLICE SUSPECT FOUL PLAY

The article stated that Ishmar al-Modalleem, a Saudi national better known in St. Louis by his professional name, Andros, had been found naked and dead the prior afternoon in a hotel room in the St. Louis suburb of Clayton. According to the article, he had spent several years with the Gateway Health & Racquet Clubs before leaving to open Firm Ambitions. While police had not yet received the autopsy results, the preliminary evidence, according to the article, “strongly suggested that his death was caused by poison.”

I read the story twice and put the newspaper down. I took a sip of coffee as I stared out the breakfast-room window. I glanced down again at the headline with a queasy feeling.

Chapter Four

An hour later, I was flipping through the deposition exhibits in one of my trademark cases and glancing at my scribbled outline as I asked the court reporter to swear the witness. We were seated around a conference table in one of the downtown firms. The deposition ended just before noon. I met a friend for lunch at the Media Club and headed back to my office around one-thirty.

“Mrs. Landau's in there,” my secretary told me as I walked through the front door.

I paused. “Eileen?”

“She called here five times this morning. I told her you'd be back after lunch. She's been waiting in your office for an hour.”

“What's wrong?”

“She wouldn't say.” My secretary leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She seems upset.”

She was. Frantic, to be more precise. Eileen was pacing back and forth in my office, a cigarette in her mouth. The room was thick with smoke. There were eight stubbed-out butts in the ashtray, each with a peach lipstick stain on the end of the filter.

“Eileen,” I said softly, “I heard about Andros. I'm sorry.”

She spun toward me, her eyes wild. “I was there.”

“Where?”

“When he died.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. Her hand was unsteady. “My God, it was dreadful.”

“Sit down, Eileen. Can I get you some coffee?”

“No more. I'm totally wired. I must have had three pots already. I couldn't sleep last night.” She crossed her legs, uncrossed them, changed positions in the chair, crossed them again.

“Tell me about it,” I said gently.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “It was horrible. Absolutely, totally horrible.”

“The papers said he died in a hotel room.”

She nodded. “We'd met there before. Several times. He called the day before yesterday. He said he had a personal fitness cancellation for Wednesday afternoon. I told him I'd meet him at the room at three o'clock.”

“Did he show up?”

“Oh, yes. We made love. Twice. It was fantastic.” She took a drag on her cigarette and turned to blow smoke toward the window. Her cigarette hand was shaking.

I waited for her to continue.

“What happened?” I finally asked.

She shook her head distractedly. “I showered. Then Andros showered. I heard him singing in the shower as I put on my clothes. By the time he turned off the shower, I was dressed and putting on my makeup. And then…” She stopped and stubbed out her cigarette. I waited. She stared at the ashtray.

“And then?” I prompted.

She took a deep breath and exhaled. “He came staggering out of the bathroom. He was naked. He looked sick. His skin was gray. He wasn't breathing right. I had him sit down on the edge of the bed. He said he was nauseous. I told him to take a few deep breaths. I went into the bathroom to put on my eye liner.” She looked at me with a helpless gesture. “I thought he just had an upset stomach. A moment later I heard him fall off the bed. I ran to him. He was on his side.” She shook her head. “God, it was gruesome. His whole body was shaking. He was making these gagging noises. I bent over him. He was frothing at the mouth. Literally frothing, Rachel. Stuff was bubbling out of his mouth. I thought he was having a heart attack. I called the front desk. I told them to get an ambulance. When I got off the phone—he wasn't moving, he wasn't breathing. Then something happened to his insides, because suddenly all this—I couldn't believe it—all this shit and piss came out of him. I knew he was dead.”

“Oh, Eileen. What a nightmare.”

She nodded as she lit another cigarette. Leaning back in her chair, she took a deep drag and exhaled through her nostrils. “That's when I really freaked. I knew there would be police. He was dead. There was nothing more I could do. I knew I had to get out of there before the ambulance arrived. I grabbed the pictures, stuffed them into his Lands' End attaché—”

“What pictures?”

She paused and looked me straight in the eyes. She took another drag on the cigarette. “Of us.”

I nodded. “Go on.”

“The pictures were on the nightstand. So was the camera. I stuffed them into his attaché. I grabbed my purse and grabbed his bag and got out of there as fast as I could.”

“Have you called the police?”

She gave me a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding? No one knows I was there.”

“What about the hotel people?”

“I always pay cash in advance. I never use my real name.”

“Does Tommy know?”

She laughed—a quick, manic bark. “Tommy? Are you crazy? That's all I need.”

“Eileen, according to the article the police are already suspicious about his death. They think he was poisoned. They'll have autopsy results soon. If he didn't die of natural causes—and that sure didn't sound like a heart attack—there's going to be a major homicide investigation. Count on it. He was practically a celebrity. That'll put extra pressure on the police. It's better if you come forward now.”

“Jesus Christ, Rachel, I didn't kill him,” she said with outrage.

“That's not my point, Eileen. Look, the autopsy is going to show that he had sex just before he died. You probably left something in the room—maybe your lipstick or mascara, certainly your fingerprints, probably strands of your hair. It'll be a lot easier on you if you come forward now instead of letting them track you down on their own. I know how these things play out. I can arrange it for you with the police. You can tell them what you saw and—”

“Forget it,” she interrupted impatiently. “I tell the police today and then read about myself in the newspaper tomorrow. No, thanks. I'm not about to become some scandal slut. And anyway, I didn't leave my lipstick there. I didn't leave anything there. And I've never been fingerprinted in my life.”

“Eileen, you're not thinking straight.”

“I'm thinking very straight. I've been thinking very straight and very hard about this very subject and about nothing else since I got home last night. I know how these things work, Rachel. I know what kind of people are in the media. They're vultures. No, vultures wait till you're dead. They're parasites. They feed on live flesh. I saw what they did to Tommy on his drug charges. Here's a simple question: Can you guarantee that my name won't appear in the newspaper if I come forward?”

“Well, I can't guarantee it.”

“That's the answer, then. I'm not going to have my children read about this. I'm not going to have them teased at school.” She paused to take another drag on her cigarette. “Do you know what the first Sunday of next month is?”

“No,” I admitted, conceding defeat. You can give a client advice, but you can't make them take it.

“It's CSL Night.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to put a little enthusiasm into my voice.

CSL Night. Short for Cocktails over St. Louis Night. It's an annual fund-raising event put on by the Women's Auxiliary of the Mount Sinai Hospital of St. Louis. For $1,000, you can join the Jewish glitterati of St. Louis on a voyage to nowhere, i.e., a black-tie evening featuring cocktails and a motion-picture premiere aboard a specially chartered Lockheed L-1011 jet that departs St. Louis at 8:00 p.m., circles southern Illinois for four hours, and returns to St. Louis at midnight. For the Jewish country-club set of St. Louis, it is
the
social event of the season, which the Women's Auxiliary thoughtfully times to coincide with the opening of the spring fashion season. I am told that when the hospital's president announces during cocktails how they plan to spend the money raised on that year's flight, the passengers—or at least some of the sober ones within earshot—feel a warm glow.

“I'm chairman of CSL this year,” Eileen explained. “I've been planning for the event the whole year. We're having John Goodman
and
John Landis for the premiere of their new movie. There are a lot of people counting on me, Rachel. Important people. Look, Andros is dead. There's nothing I can do for him. This event is important to me. It's where my life's at these days. It's where my future is. I'm not going to have some sleazy sex scandal ruin it for me.”

Nothing I could say would change her mind. Maybe she'd get lucky. I doubted it. The Clayton police weren't the Keystone Kops.

“Okay,” I said with a sigh. “Let's talk about what you should do if the police call.”

I took her through the usual police techniques and the response she should make to each question they asked. “Understand?” I repeated.

“Yes, yes, yes,” she said. “‘I want to talk to my lawyer before I answer that,'” she recited.

“Good.”

Eileen reached under her chair and handed me a canvas attaché. “Speaking of my lawyer, I want you to keep this for me.”

“What is this?” I asked, although I had guessed the moment she pulled it out.

“His briefcase. The one I took from the hotel room. I want you to keep it until the investigation is over.”

I set the Lands' End attaché on the edge of my desk, where it seemed to spontaneously generate a series of ethical issues worthy of a law school exam.

“Eileen, this is—”

“Look, Rachel, if someone really killed him, they certainly didn't use anything in that bag. Believe me, nothing in that bag could hurt him. But the two pictures in there could ruin me. I admit I was stupid. All I wanted were the damn pictures, but I panicked and took the whole goddamn bag. Now I'm stuck. I can't exactly sneak it back into the room, right?”

I stared at the attaché. It sat there like fresh roadkill. This truly had become the divorce case from hell. “I have a safe in here,” I finally said.

“God bless you, Rachel. You have no idea…”

I held up my hand to stop her. “I'll keep it there for now. No promises about the future.”

“I understand.” She reached across the desk and grabbed my hand with both of hers. “Thanks.”

***

A fierce spring thunderstorm was raging outside my office window. Cars were creeping down the street, their windshield wipers flailing at sheets of water. The rain came in waves, thundering across the roofs, clattering along the streets. Raindrops bounced off the asphalt like shotgun pellets. The office lights flickered. I glanced at the bulky safe in the corner.

Eileen had left almost immediately after I locked the attaché in the safe. An hour later, alone in my office, still feeling used, I had looked dully up as my secretary poked her head in to say good night. The sky was already dark by then, and the wind was blowing. The first crash of thunder sounded five minutes later, followed by the rain.

I stared at the safe.

Although she said nothing in that attaché killed him
, I told myself,
how can you be sure of that unless you look
?

But
, I interrupted,
it's really none of your business what's in that attaché
.

Are you crazy
? I answered.
How about when the police get involved? What if there's evidence of a crime in there
?

Eventually, I won the argument. Closing the blinds, I opened the safe. Placing the attaché on my desk, I unzipped it and removed the contents, one by one, writing them down as I did:

1. one yellow legal pad (blank);

2. three blue felt-tip pens (medium point—0.5 mm);

3. three microcassette audiotapes (Leuwenhaupt Model 5400), each with a title written on the stick-on label:

• “Dance Routine”;

• “Low-Impact Workout”;

• “High-Impact Routine w/Jazz Steps”;

4. one calculator (Texas Instruments 2000G);

5. a handwritten outline of an article on breathing exercises that Andros was apparently planning to write for an aerobics magazine called
Fitness 2000;

6. a Polaroid Impulse camera;

7. a vibrator (battery-operated);

8. a French tickler (I think); and

9. the two photographs that had caused me to inherit the bag.

I studied the photographs. Eileen was the star of both. In one, she was alone, “posed” on her back on the bed, her legs wide apart, her right hand pressing the tip of the vibrator into her vagina. In the other, she was licking an erect penis (presumably attachéd to Andros). The second picture was off-center and slanted, as if Andros had taken it by holding the camera out to the side and snapping the shot. Both pictures were in focus, and Eileen was clearly identifiable in each one.

I could understand why Eileen hadn't wanted the police to have those pictures. But I couldn't understand why she had wanted Andros to have them in the first place. He seemed precisely the type who would collect pictures of his conquests the way others might collect hunting trophies. And like most mementos, his pictures looked like they existed to be displayed. I wouldn't have been surprised if Andros's trophy case included explicit shots from other affairs.

For Eileen's sake, I hoped the two shots she had taken from the hotel room were the only such pictures he had ever taken of her. I wasn't optimistic.