The Associate (28 page)

“Or won’t,” Brewster answered, her smile gone. “Mr. Flynn, does the name Gene Arnold mean anything to you?”

The question seemed to take Flynn by surprise. “I knew a lawyer named Gene Arnold years ago when I was practicing in Arizona.”

“That’s the Gene Arnold I’m interested in. He was stabbed, then set on fire at the primate lab where the Kaidanov study was conducted.”

Billie watched Flynn’s reaction carefully.

Flynn seemed confused. “Gene was the dead man at that lab?”

She nodded.

“My God. What was he doing there?”

“I thought you might be able to tell me.”

“I have no idea. I haven’t seen Gene in years.”

“What was your relationship to Mr. Arnold when you did know him?”

Flynn shrugged. “ ‘Relationship’ would be too strong a word. We were acquaintances. Both of us practiced law in Desert Grove, which is a fairly small town. There weren’t many attorneys in Desert Grove, so we socialized at Bar Association meetings, things of that sort. We were adversaries on occasion, legally speaking, though this was some years ago. I don’t remember any specific cases offhand.”

“Do you know of any connection between Mr. Arnold and the Insufort litigation?”

“None.”

“So he didn’t mention the lab or the Insufort case when he called you?”

“Why would he call me?”

“I don’t know, but the phone records from the Benson Hotel show a call from Mr. Arnold’s room to your office that lasted fifteen minutes.”

“I never spoke to him. I told you, I haven’t seen him or spoken to him since I left Desert Grove.”

“If you didn’t talk to him when he called, who did?”

Flynn spread his hands and shrugged his shoulders. “I have no idea, Detective.”

Billie told Flynn the date and time of the call.

“Were you in the office when he phoned?” she asked.

“I can’t say for certain.”

“Fifteen minutes is a long time, Mr. Flynn. Mr. Arnold must have been talking to somebody.”

“Maybe I was on another line and he held for a while, then hung up. I frequently have phone conferences that last an hour or more. I’m involved in cases all over the country. I’m even representing some of the families from that air crash in India.”

“Would your staff be able to help? Maybe they remember the call.”

“I’ll ask, but I’m assuming this would have been several weeks ago, right?”

“Your billing records would show what you were doing when Mr. Arnold called, wouldn’t they?”

“They might.”

“Will you ask your secretary to make a copy of them for me?”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. It would violate client confidentiality.” Flynn smiled. “There’s that word again.”

Brewster studied Flynn. He seemed to be getting a second wind.

“Can you think of any reason why Gene Arnold would be in Portland?”

“No.”

“You represented Paul McCann, didn’t you, the man accused of killing Patty Alvarez?”

“Yes.”

“And you know about the murder of Mr. Arnold’s wife.”

“I wasn’t involved in that case,” Flynn answered, shifting uneasily in his chair.

“Could Mr. Arnold’s visit have had anything to do with the death of his wife and Martin Alvarez’s wife?” Billie asked.

Flynn looked very uncomfortable. “I can’t think of how it could.”

Billie waited a moment, watching Flynn closely. “Well,” she said as she stood up, “I guess that does it. Thank you for your time.”

Flynn stood, too. “If there’s anything I can do . . .”

Billie handed Flynn her card. “The time sheets for the day Mr. Arnold called. Why don’t you think about letting me see them.”

As soon as the door closed behind Billie Brewster, Aaron Flynn told his secretary to hold his calls. Then he dialed a number he knew almost as well as his own. A moment later the call went through.

“We got a serious problem,” Flynn said, speaking urgently into the phone. “A very serious problem.”

One wall of Geller Pharmaceuticals’ conference room was glass and provided a view of the atrium with its indoor waterfall, but no one in the room was looking at the view. Their attention was focused on J. B. Reed, who had just entered with Brock Newbauer and Susan Webster in tow. At six five and almost three hundred pounds, Reed, Briggs’s most powerful partner was used to being the center of attention.

Isaac Geller crossed the conference room and grasped Reed’s hand.

“Thank you for coming, John,” Geller said. “How are you holding up?”

“It’s been hard, Isaac,” Reed answered, shaking his head sadly. “Art and I were more than law partners.”

“I know.”

“We go back to high school. We founded the firm.”

“We’re all still in shock,” Geller said.

Reed’s features hardened into a look of rocklike determination.

“I’m stepping in, Isaac. That’s why I’m here, to let you know that I’m making these lawsuits my number-one priority.”

“And none too soon, either,” interjected Byron McFall, Geller’s president, as the lawyers took their seats at the conference table. “Kaidanov’s murder couldn’t have happened at a worse time.”

McFall’s callousness made Geller flinch, but no one noticed. Their eyes were on Reed.

“How is this going to affect our position?” McFall asked.

“I’ve been briefed about the case by Brock and Susan,” Reed replied, “but I don’t have enough of a handle on the facts yet to give you an intelligent answer. Susan?”

All eyes turned toward Susan Webster, the elegant associate who had taken the seat next to Reed.

“Sergey Kaidanov’s murder is a public relations nightmare, Mr. McFall. I pulled up several stories on the Kaidanov killing on the Internet. It’s front-page news all over the country. The press is hinting that Geller Pharmaceuticals is behind the destruction of the lab and Kaidanov’s death because the company wants to cover up his study. There’s pressure on the district attorney to start an investigation. Not surprisingly, Aaron Flynn is talking to every reporter he can find. If he brings this case to trial we’ll never find twelve jurors who haven’t heard the rumors.”

Isaac Geller closed his eyes and shook his head. He looked exhausted.

“What do you suggest we do?”

Susan looked at Reed. “Maybe I should wait for Mr. Reed to get up to speed on the case before offering any advice.”

“That’s okay,” Reed prompted. “I want to hear where you think we are in the case.”

“I’d start discussing a settlement, Mr. Geller,” Susan said reluctantly. “It could be a bloodbath if we go to trial.”

“Goddamn it!” Byron McFall said bitterly. “We had nothing to do with that lab or the study or Kaidanov’s murder.”

“That may be irrelevant if everyone believes that we did,” Susan said evenly. “We should approach Mr. Flynn with a reasonable offer. There are good arguments for admissibility and exclusion of the evidence of the murders, the study, and the destruction of the lab. Right now neither side knows what Judge Norris will let in at trial. This is the best time to feel out Flynn. If Norris rules in his favor he’ll want to try every case, and once he wins one of them we won’t be able to hold back the flood.”

Geller’s in-house counsel made a comment just as Susan’s cell phone rang. Newbauer, who was seated to Susan’s left, watched her answer it and noted her surprise. She walked to the far end of the conference room, away from the others, and continued her conversation in a voice too low to hear. She seemed concerned when she returned to the conference table.

“Anything wrong?” Newbauer asked.

“No,” Webster answered unconvincingly.

Kate Ross split her attention between
The New York Times
crossword puzzle and the exit to Aaron Flynn’s garage. An hour after she’d seen Billie Brewster leave Flynn’s building, Flynn’s car appeared. Kate put down the paper and followed him across town to the Sunset Highway entrance. It was almost 6:30 and the traffic had thinned out. Kate stayed several car lengths back as Flynn headed toward the coast. After half an hour, the lawyer left the highway and took a route that wound through farm country. Ten minutes later he pulled into the dirt parking lot of the Midway Café, a run-down roadhouse with a neon sign that advertised beer and fried chicken. It was the type of place where truckers and farmers stopped for coffee and pie, and high-priced lawyers rarely entered.

Kate drove by the restaurant then made a U-turn and parked at the far end of the lot just as Flynn was walking inside. Moments later another car pulled into a parking space near the door and Susan Webster got out.

“Bingo,” Kate said to herself. She thought about following Susan inside, but the restaurant was too small. Kate leaned over her seat. When she surfaced, she was holding an expensive camera with a telephoto lens.

Thirty minutes later the door to the restaurant opened and Susan Webster and Aaron Flynn walked out. Kate snapped off several shots.

Juan Fulano had been surprised to see another car following Aaron Flynn from his office building to the roadside café. He had been careful to stay far enough back of both cars so he would not be seen. When Kate parked in the lot Fulano drove down the road, made a U-turn, and pulled to the side of the road, where he waited until Aaron Flynn and Susan Webster came out of the restaurant. His only worry was that Flynn’s tail would follow him after he left the diner, but she did not.

As soon as Flynn drove away Fulano turned on his headlights and followed. Flynn stayed on the highway until he was back within the Portland city limits. When he turned off the highway, Fulano followed at a discreet distance. Once he was certain that Flynn was going home, Fulano fell farther back to give Flynn time to park. Then he found a spot on Flynn’s block where he stayed, watching Flynn’s house. When the lights went out near midnight, Fulano drove back to his hotel and phoned in his report to Martin Alvarez.

Billie ran a check on Burt Randall after visiting Aaron Flynn’s law office. Besides getting his address, she had discovered that Randall was an ex-marine with combat experience and former LAPD. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, the detective had a patrol car follow her to Randall’s house. Brewster drove along Northwest Twenty-third until she reached Thurman, then turned left into the hills. Randall’s modern A-frame was set back from an unpaved street on the outskirts of Forest Park. A black pickup truck stood in the driveway.

“Let’s you and me go to the front door,” Billie told Ronnie Blanchard, a uniformed officer who had played linebacker at Portland State. “Radison can cover the rear of the house.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Tom Radison, Blanchard’s partner, said. He headed toward the back of the house.

“You know this guy’s background,” Billie said. “Let’s not take chances.”

The house was dark. Billie rang the bell. There was no answer. She tried again while Blanchard tried the door. It was unlocked. The officer looked at Billie and she nodded. He edged the door inward.

“Mr. Randall,” Billie called out. Silence. “I’m Billie Brewster, a police detective. Are you home, sir?”

The living room had a vaulted ceiling. The dying rays of the sun cast a pale light through ceiling-high picture windows. Billie pointed to a dark hallway. Blanchard edged down it while Billie cautiously climbed the stairs to a sleeping loft that overlooked the entryway and the living room. The moment Billie’s head cleared the landing she knew something was wrong. She gripped her weapon a little tighter before climbing the rest of the stairs in a crouch. The blinds were closed and all Billie could tell was that there was someone sprawled across the bed.

“Mr. Randall?” she said loudly.

There was no answer.

“I do not fucking like this,” Billie mumbled to herself as she stepped onto the landing. As soon as her vision adjusted Billie made out Burt Randall in a T-shirt and boxer shorts. There were two bloodstained holes in the T-shirt and a third in the center of Randall’s forehead.

Daniel was fixing dinner in Kate’s kitchen when he heard her car pull up. She was holding a roll of film when she walked in the door.

“What’s that?”

“Photos of a secret meeting between Aaron Flynn and Susan Webster. Tomorrow morning, I’m going to have a talk with that little bitch. If she’ll admit she’s been working with Flynn to fix Insufort, we may be able to nail him.”

“That’s terrific,” Daniel said.

The phone rang and Kate answered it. She listened intently for a moment, then swore.

“What’s wrong?” Daniel asked.

“It’s Billie,” Kate told him. “Randall is dead, murdered.”

Kate listened while Brewster described the crime scene.

“No sign of a struggle?” Kate asked.

“None,” Billie told her.

“When was Randall killed?”

“Medical examiner’s rough guess puts the death around the time Kaidanov got it, give or take an hour either way.”

“It sounds like someone is tying up loose ends,” Kate said. “Did you talk to Flynn?”

“Yeah, but I didn’t get a thing. He was very nervous when I asked him about the call from the Benson. He denied talking to Arnold, even though the call lasted fifteen minutes. And he refused to let me see his time sheets so I could find out who was with him when the call came in. I’m sure he’s hiding something.”

“With Randall dead, we won’t be able to prove that Flynn ordered him to bug Daniel’s apartment.”

“With Randall dead, we can’t prove a thing against Flynn.” Billie sighed. “I phoned Claude Bernier. He’s still having trouble finding the negative. If we ever get a print of the photograph, and Flynn’s in it, I might be able to get a search warrant for Flynn’s time sheets.”

“Go get some sleep,” Kate said. “You sound all in.”

“Good advice.”

Kate hung up. “That was Billie Brewster. Burt Randall’s been murdered.”

“Then we’re fucked. The cops are not going to go after someone like Aaron Flynn without proof.”

“Maybe I can crack Susan with the photos when I—”