Legal Tender

15

Acriminalist in a navy Mobile Crime jumpsuit crouched on the rug beside the laser printer, picking up the last page from the floor. She held a thick packet of already-printed pages to her chest, and I had no doubt she’d read them as she gathered them. Damn it.

“Excuse me, that’s my brief,” I said.

She straightened up. “I saw the pages falling out and thought I’d help.” Her face bore little makeup and she had a cropped, no-nonsense haircut.

“Thanks. For the help.” I eyed the papers in her arms and felt myself break into a sweat. I would’ve demanded them, but if she didn’t understand their significance I didn’t want to tip my hand and trigger another search warrant.

“You forgot you started printing, didn’t you? That happens to me all the time. You start working on something else and you forget you started printing.”

“Very good. You must be a detective,” I said, and we shared a fake laugh.

“Nope, but I want to be some day. I’m just a crime tech, second year, but you gotta start somewhere.” She hugged my papers to a black nameplate that saidPATCHETT and nodded in the direction of the empty paper tray. “It looks like the printer ran out of paper.”

“Naturally. Just my luck. Whenever you need something fast, you run out of paper.” I didn’t want to print with her watching, so I made no move to replenish the supply. We stood on either side of the laser printer, implausibly ignoring the flashing green lights. Playing chicken with the office supplies.

“Don’t you hate that?” she asked. “When people see the paper is low and don’t do anything about it.”

“It’s like running out of toilet paper. Nobody wants to be the last one. I hate that.”

“Same. Aren’t you going to add the paper now?”

“You know, I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I have no idea how to add paper.” It was a lie, of course. I could repair the fucking machine if I had to. “The secretaries do it for me.”

“I don’t think any secretaries are in yet, but I’ll help. I know how.” She looked around for the paper supply, but I edged to the left, hiding the ream that sat on the table.

“I can wait to print the rest,” I said, when I heard footsteps behind me. It was Grady, who was looking at me with a mystified smile.

“I’m surprised at you, Bennie. It’s easier than it looks, changing paper. You just watch me.”

“No, it’s all right-”

“Please, it’s no trouble at all.” Grady reached behind me for the paper, reloaded the tray, and slid it back into place with a metallic click. “PressRESET if it gives you a hard time.”

I could have killed him. “It’s so nice to have a sexist around the house.”

“I’m not a sexist, I’m a gentleman.” Grady smiled politely at the criminalist. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but she can’t make coffee either.”

Ha ha. “That’s enough, Rhett. Ms. Patchett, I’ll take those papers now.” I yanked my papers from the criminalist’s grip as the printer spat out another month of Mark’s calendar. She eyed it as I snatched it up. “Thanks a lot for your help.”

“No problem,” she said, pursing her lips. “So that’s what a lawyer’s brief looks like? Like a calendar?”

“Yes, it’s the appendix.”

“Brief?” Grady said, then his face changed as he wised up. “Are you finishing that Third Circuit brief, Bennie?”

“All done. This is the appendix, with the calendars.” The printer spewed more pages, which I gathered instantly. “I hope you didn’t read any of my brief, Ms. Patchett. It contains a client’s confidential information and is also subject to attorney-client privilege.”

“Of course not.” She smiled falsely.

“Good.” I smiled back, just as falsely. I was gauging how long it would take her to get a warrant.

And wondering if it could happen before Mark’s hidden files were deleted for good.

“Just whodid you clerk for anyway?” I asked Grady, when we were safely inside my office. “Tell me it wasn’t Thomas.”

“Kennedy, and don’t you say anything bad about him. What was that all about? You’re not writing a brief. What were you printing?”

“Notes,” I said, making a snap decision. I’d remembered the CO Wells on Mark’s calendar and decided not to confide in Grady, at least not until I understood his secret meetings with Mark. “And next time, try to think before you help a criminalist in distress.”

“Notes about what?”

“Just some cases.” I picked up a red accordion file and slipped the copies inside, then threw the file into my briefcase behind the desk.

“What cases?”

“Those animal rights guys, their case.” I was making it up as I went along, and from the expression on Grady’s face, not doing a very good job.

“Thirty pages on an animal activist? What is it, a manifesto?” He folded his arms. “I’ll ask again. What was it you printed, Bennie?”

“Tell me something first.”

“Does everything have to be a negotiation?”

“Absolutely.” I decided to cross-examine him, then watch his reaction. “Grady, where were you the night Mark was killed?”

His mouth opened slightly, then closed into a pat smile that masked something. Hurt. “You’re serious.”

“I’m sorry, I have to be. It wasn’t on the chart you made.”

“I had a date,” he said evenly.

“Who with?”

“My old girlfriend. We see each other from time to time.”

“What time did the date start?”

“At ten. I picked her up at her condo. She lives in Hopkinson House.”

“What time did you leave work?”

“After we all met in the library. I packed and left.” His answers were smooth and sure and he seemed poised, if piqued. It looked and sounded like the truth, so maybe it was. Still.

“When did you leave her apartment?”

“I’m not sure that’s your business.”

“I think it is, if you want to keep a client.”

His mouth tensed. “About seven in the morning, then I went back to my apartment.”

“In Old City?”

He nodded. “I got to work early to do some cleanup onMicroMAXel, and the police were already here. When I got the distinct impression it was you they were after, I tried to reach you. Because I knew you were innocent.”

I ignored the accusation in his tone. “Grady, what were you working on for Mark?”

“Nothing. I haven’t worked with Mark for the past two years. Not after my first year here.”

Hmmm. “Why not? Didn’t you like working for Mark?”

Grady’s expression changed slightly, his forehead creasing with discomfort. “What’s the difference? The man has passed, Bennie. I like working my own cases, that’s all.”

“That’s not all. Why?”

“All right, all right. You’re relentless.” He eased into a chair like a benched basketball player. “I found Mark to be selfish. Unkind. He didn’t like me developing my own practice, especially with the software companies. It threatened him.”

“How do you know? Did he tell you?”

“No, but I got the message. Mark was more comfortable working with someone subordinate, like Eve. He wanted a permanent second chair, not a first chair. He didn’t want an equal at all.”

I still needed an answer for the CO Wells. “Did you meet with him and discuss it? You two have it out?”

“Fight? Lord, no. I haven’t talked to Mark, alone, for ages. So, now will you tell me what you were printing? We have a deal.”

“Oh, a personal file,” I said, fumbling for an explanation. Grady was lying. The calendar proved otherwise. I couldn’t tell him the truth, not now. I couldn’t trust him anymore. And he was my lawyer.

“A personal file?”

“Love letters, to Mark. Seven years’ worth, in a hidden file. I didn’t want them on the computer anymore,” I told him, in a nervous tone it wasn’t hard to fake. Had Grady really killed Mark? Was he representing me to frame me? Outside in the hall there were voices, and bustling sounds. My house, full of my enemies. Now Grady. I felt paranoid, uneasy.

“The criminalist said it was a calendar.”

“She saw my diary. I printed that, too, because I make notes on it. I wanted to keep it private, since the police took my computer at home.”

His brow relaxed, and he seemed satisfied. “Did you delete the files from the hard disk?”

“Yes.” I remembered Grady was a computer whiz. Did he know how to find hidden files, even in backup? “Could the police retrieve deleted files, if they got to the computers in time?”

“If they had a hacker on staff.”

“How good a hacker? Good as you?”

“Good as Marshall.” He frowned. “She’s gone, you know.”

“Gone?”

“That’s what I was coming to tell you. I went to ask her about her alibi, but she wasn’t in. I called her house and one of her housemates said she didn’t come home last night. She’s disappeared.”