Inadvertent Disclosure (11 page)

The supreme court justice spoke
first. “So, you’ve invoked your right to counsel, eh, Ms. McCandless?  Will a doddering
old fool like me do?”

Unlike Stickley, Justice
Bermann gave her a smile that lit up his entire face. His eyes crinkled and he
chuckled at his own self-deprecating joke.

“Justice Bermann, it’s truly an
honor to meet you, sir. And, you, as well, Mr. Griggs. I just heard you speak
at the civil RICO CLE in Pittsburgh. Fascinating.”

If Sasha’s time working at
Prescott & Talbott had taught her anything it was how to handle a roomful
of titans. During high-level meetings of the powerful business executives who
were their clients, the attorneys at Prescott & Talbott took great pains to
ensure that each CEO left thinking that he or she had been the most important
of the VIPs present. The fact that she’d recently suffered through a
mind-numbing CLE at which the attorney general had delivered a droning keynote
was a stroke of luck.

Both men beamed.

Russell caught her eye and
raised his brow to let her know he was on to her.

Stickley looked like he smelled
something bad. Maybe himself, she thought.

She  went on, “I was just
explaining to the sheriff that, despite the terrible news of Judge Paulson’s
death, I need to be getting back to Pittsburgh.”

Griggs frowned. “I’m sorry, Ms.
McCandless, but we really do need to speak with you. You aren’t being detained,
of course. But, the Chief Justice and I would like to impose on just a few more
minutes of your time. Consider it a personal favor.”

Justice Bermann nodded along
like a metronome to the flat voice.

She didn’t have a choice, of
course. Not unless she wanted to set her bar license on fire and find a new
line of work. And everyone in the room knew it, but at least the two power
hitters had the decency to give it the appearance of free will. Not like old
Stinky, she thought.

“Of course.”

Griggs rewarded her with a
bright white smile. “Thank you.”

He turned to the sheriff and
tilted his head in the direction of the door. “Carl, we need to speak to Ms.
McCandless in private.”

Stickley’s face clouded. His
started to speak, then his mouth clamped shut. Open. Shut. Like a fish.

After he'd swallowed whatever
he'd been planning to say, he managed a strangled, "Yes sir," and
headed for the door, motioning Russell to follow him. “C’mon, Russell.”

Justice Bermann stopped him
with a raised hand. “Actually, Sheriff, we’d like you to post your deputy at
the door. To secure the scene, you know. Deputy, if you’ll just stand guard
outside.”

“Yes, sir,” Russell said,
trailing his boss out of the room with a grin he couldn’t quite hide.

The chief justice claimed the
seat behind Judge Paulson’s desk and the attorney general perched on a
straight-backed chair tucked into the corner behind the desk and a bookcase
lining the far wall. That left a choice between two leather guest chairs in
front of the desk for Sasha. She sat in the closer of the two and watched as the
two men passed a series of meaningful looks back and forth.

They put her in mind of her
older brothers trying to decide who was going to tell their mother the details
of one of their childhood misdeeds.
You tell her
.
No, you tell her.
It was your baseball
.
You’re the one who threw it
. Sasha just
waited. It was what her mother had always done. Sasha saw no reason why the
tactic wouldn’t work on senior public officials just as it did on a pack of
unruly Irish-Russian-American troublemakers.

Justice Bermann weakened first.
He leaned forward, elbows on Judge Paulson’s polished desk, and said, “We’d
like your help, Ms. McCandless.”

“My help?” she repeated,
cringing at how stupid she sounded. “Please, your honor, call me Sasha.”

“Yes. We’d like you to help out
with the investigation into Judge Paulson’s horrific murder.”

“Help out?”

“We understand you had a case
pending in front of Judge Paulson.” Griggs horned in.

“Yes. Well, actually, two. I
was here arguing a motion last week for a client and the judge appointed me to
represent a gentleman at his incapacitation hearing, which is also pending.
That’s why I’m in town today, to meet with the allegedly incapacitated man.”

She didn’t care if they were
the chief justice and the attorney general—her clients’ identities were
confidential unless they chose to reveal that she represented them. She
realized, of course, that both men could access the identity of each client
she’d ever represented in less time than she could order a pizza, but she saw
no upside in volunteering the information.

What Griggs said next made her
wonder if they’d done just that.

“No good deed goes unpunished,
eh?  I’m sure when you were at Prescott & Talbott you never imagined you’d
be representing someone like Mr. Craybill.”

Justice Bermann got out in
front of her next question.

“We called some of our friends
at your former firm when we learned that you had spoken to the judge this
morning. I must say, they spoke quite highly of you,” he said, then nodded to
Griggs.

Griggs added, “So highly, in
fact, that we would like to appoint you special prosecutor to oversee the
investigation into Judge Paulson’s murder.”

Sasha would have been set back
on her heels if she weren’t sitting.

“I have no prosecutorial
experience, sir. I have, at best, a glancing understanding of how things work
in the county. I don’t know anything about Judge Paulson, other than he liked
pie.”

“All true,” the justice agreed.
“But, you’re obviously bright and not easily intimidated, as evidenced by that
mess with Hemisphere Air last year. We need someone who’s not going to be
cowed. Someone who isn’t tied in to the local scene. The handful of attorneys
who practice up here have dozens of cases on the judge’s docket. And, you may
not know this, but Judge Paulson was being threatened. That’s not to say that
the threats were coming from a local lawyer, but they did relate to his docket.
The attorneys who practice here have their own agendas. You have no agenda.”

Everyone has an agenda, she
thought. Hers was to grow her fledgling solo practice. Would devoting the time
and resources required to serve as special prosecutor in a county four hours
away further that agenda?

She wasn’t sure. She started to
ask for some time to think about it, but she caught herself before the words
were out.

An opportunity like this could
make her career. Why was she even entertaining the idea of passing it by?

While the judge and the
attorney general waited for her answer, she examined her reaction. To her disgust
and surprise, she realized she was afraid. Afraid she’d fail.

Fear could be an important
survival mechanism. It alerted a person to danger. Fear of failure was just an
unproductive emotion, an excuse for the weak.

“I’d be honored,” she said.

CHAPTER 15

Sasha could hear Gloria’s
stomach growling. It was well past quitting time, but the secretary refused to
leave.

After Chief Justice Bermann and
Attorney General Griggs had gone off in search of the sheriff, she joined Sasha
in the judge’s chambers.

“I’m told you’ll be working out
of the judge’s office?” she said.

Sasha searched the woman’s tone
to get a sense of how she felt about that development, but found nothing.

“Only for a day or two. My
understanding is the chief justice will be appointing one of the retired judges
to finish out Judge Paulson’s term. Once those arrangements have been made,
I’ll  be kicked out. I guess they’ll find me a desk somewhere.”

  “There are plenty of empty
offices in this building. Where are you planning to stay?”

Sasha hadn’t thought about it.
“Can you recommend a nearby hotel?”

Gloria chuckled. “No chance.
The oil and gas people have booked every room within one hundred and twenty
miles of the courthouse through next year and then some. We’re talking every
hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, and inn. Big Sky even brought in some trailer
homes and set people up in the motor court out on past Herr’s run. There’s no
room at the inn, honey.”

It figured.

The thought of driving home to
sleep and then turning around to drive back before the sun rose in the morning
did not appeal to her. She contemplated sleeping in her car.

“You can stay in the judge’s
apartment, I guess.”

“Oh, I don’t think . . .”

“No, it’s okay. I’m his
landlord.”

“You are?”

“I was. He’s been renting the
top floor of our home since 1994, when his wife died. It has its own entrance,
a kitchen, and a private bath. Really, it’ll be fine. We won’t even know you’re
there.”

Sasha was about to decline but,
considering her options, simply said, “I appreciate that. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” The secretary
smiled. “You don’t mind cats, do you?”

“The judge had cats?”

“Two of them. Poor things,
they’re not going to understand what happened.”

Tears filled Gloria’s eyes.
Sasha could see her mind racing—who was going to pack up the judge’s things,
take care of the cats, cancel his appointments? Her days were going to be
filled with the sad business of wrapping up a life.

Sasha asked, more to distract
the woman than anything, “Did you know the judge was being threatened?”

Gloria swallowed hard but
answered the question. “Of course. I’m the one who told the sheriff. Judge
Paulson kept saying he could handle it, but it was weighing on him, I could
tell.”

“What kind of threats?”

“Someone, a man, kept calling.
He wouldn’t give his name but he his voice sounded familiar, I just couldn’t
place it. Anyhow, he’d ask for the judge and, of course, I’d say he wasn’t
available. Then, every time, he’d say the same thing. ‘Give the judge this
message: A lawyer with his briefcase can steal more than a hundred men with
guns.’”

Sasha looked at her closely.
“That was the threat?”  It sounded more like a warning to her.

She nodded. “It’s from
The
Godfather
. The judge just laughed it off, but it was creepy. He’d call once
a week, like clockwork.”

“Did Judge Paulson know what it
was a reference to?  Aside from the movie, I mean. Was there a particular case
or litigant?”

“No. But, almost his entire
docket is somehow related to the Marcellus Shale now. Except for criminal
stuff, but the criminal matters are always drunk driving or petty theft. Once
in a blue moon, there’s a domestic matter or a small drug bust. Nothing that
anyone would get worked up over.”

“Oh. Well, there were also
cases like Mr. Craybill’s incapacitation hearing. That has nothing to do with
the shale.”

“That’s what you think.”

Sasha arched a brow. “Pardon?”

The older woman sighed, like
she wished she hadn’t said anything, but now that she had, she plowed ahead.

“Jed Craybill is sitting on 160
acres of land. All of his neighbors have signed leases with the oil and gas
people. All of them. He’s an island in a sea of drilling and he refuses to
sign. He’s been fighting with his neighbors over it since before Marla died.”

“But, what difference does it
make to them what he does with his land?”

The secretary shook her head.
“I’m not sure. We live here in town, so there’s no drilling near us. But, as I
understand it, they—the oil and gas people—can’t really use all the mineral
rights on the adjacent property because they can’t do anything that impacts
Jed’s land. And, even if they are toeing the line, they have to deal with old
Jed out there, shaking his shotgun at them and cursing a blue streak. Big Sky
already told him if he doesn’t knock it off, they’re going to get a restraining
order.”

Clients, Sasha thought. It
didn’t matter if the client was the CEO of a publicly traded company or an
angry old man trying to stay in his home; they never told you the whole story.

“I see. Listen, why don’t you
head on home?  I’m just going to make a few calls and check my e-mail. I’ll
lock up.”

Sheriff Stickley had sent
Russell on his way hours ago.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m positive. You have to be
exhausted. If you’ll just give me directions, I’ll come over to your house when
I’ve finished up here.”

Gloria leaned across the
judge’s desk and scrawled her address on the notepad by the phone. She handed
it to Sasha along with two brass keys that she removed from a key ring. “This
key with the red fingernail polish dot locks his office. The other one is to
the door to my office. My house is literally around the corner. You can walk
there. Turn right at the light on the corner. That’s Primrose Street. My house
is on the left, four houses in—it’s the red brick house. I’ll leave the porch
light on for you. When you get there, I’ll show you around the judge’s apartment
and introduce you to Atticus Finch and Sir Thomas More.”

Sasha stared at her for a moment
before it dawned on her.

“The cats?”

“The cats,” she confirmed.

After Gloria put on her coat
and fetched her handbag from her desk drawer, Sasha closed the exterior door
and called Connelly to let him know that she wouldn’t be coming back to
Pittsburgh after all.