Motion to Kill

CHAPTER TWELVE

Mason quit his old firm, Forrest, Mason, amp; Goldberg, a week after Tommy Douchant’s trial ended. Tommy worked construction until one sun-drenched spring morning when the hook on his safety belt broke, bouncing him off steel I beams onto the pavement two stories below. Paraplegics don’t work construction. Mason sued the safety-belt manufacturer, Philpott Safety Systems, and lost.

Tommy’s case should have been settled, but he turned down two million dollars the day before the trial started. Mason told him to take it. He found out the day after the trial that his partner, Stephen Forrest, had met secretly with Tommy and convinced him to turn the offer down. Forrest didn’t care that Mason had a tough case. He wanted to ride Tommy’s broken back to a bigger payday and his share of a fatter fee.

Tommy’s case wasn’t the first one Forrest had sabotaged. Mason told him that he wasn’t quitting because of the money; it was the lack of trust. It was like coming home and finding his wife in bed with someone else-again. It was the “again” part that Mason couldn’t handle. Mason called Scott, and a week later he was the new gun in Sullivan amp; Christenson’s litigation department.

His old firm was a six-person shop specializing in representing injured people.

“It’s half a practice,” Claire told him.

“How can you say that? We help the little guy, the person who can’t afford to take on the big corporations on their own.”

“Yes, you help the outnumbered. But it’s all about the money, not noble causes. Every time I see a plaintiff’s lawyer in a thousand-dollar suit driving a hundred-thousand-dollar car and living in a million-dollar house, I want to kick him right in his jackpot.”

She’d been no fonder of Sullivan amp; Christenson. “That kind of firm has more rules than people,” she’d cautioned Mason when he told her he was changing firms. “You’re not cut out to join the army. Anybody can do what they do. Besides, there’s no honor in stealing one thief’s money back from another.”

“Even a heartless corporation deserves a good lawyer,” Mason said.

“But you’re wrong for the job. You’re not heartless. And that’s the brutal truth.”

Claire claimed all her truths were brutal or they weren’t worth believing. Mason tried convincing himself that he took the job with Sullivan amp; Christenson for the change of scenery. The brutal truth was that he took it because he thought it was safer. He could live with stealing one thief’s money back from another more easily than he could live with another Tommy Douchant. In the last three days he’d discovered that Claire was right. There was nothing safe and easy at Sullivan amp; Christenson.

Mason wondered how much of the firm’s business for heartless corporations would be left after Sullivan’s death as he cinched his navy and red tie beneath the collar of his white shirt and slipped on a gray suit. It was the lawyer’s uniform. Appropriate for partners’ meetings, funerals, and circumcision ceremonies. Today promised to roll elements of all three into one festive occasion.

Scott Daniels and Harlan Christenson were waiting for him in his office.

“Harlan and I want to go over a few things with you before the meeting,” Scott said.

Harlan’s face sagged under his silence. He had the connections that got the firm started. Sullivan had the backbone that made it a powerhouse. Without Sullivan, Harlan was lost.

“Before we get to that,” Mason said, “the sheriff investigating Sullivan’s death called me late last night. She said Sullivan was murdered.”

Harlan muttered, “Dear God,” and shrank farther into his chair. “How?” It was all he could manage.

“She didn’t say.”

“What’s next?” Scott asked.

“She’s coming here this afternoon to ask me some more questions. That’s all I know.”

“Why is she so interested in you?” Scott asked.

“How should I know? Either she thinks I did it or she can’t resist my boyish charms.”

Scott studied him for a moment. “Then we’d better focus on what we do know. I came in early this morning to get a look at the files the grand jury subpoenaed. Quintex Land Corporation was at the top of the list.”

Mason said, “I thought Quintex was the company O’Malley used for his real estate deals. St. John is after him for bank fraud, not real estate fraud. What’s the connection?”

“I don’t know. Quintex has been around a long time, and a lot of assets have passed through it.”

“Did O’Malley use Quintex for anything else?”

“A few years ago, he started using it for other investments.”

“Were the deals clean?”

“Sullivan handled the real estate deals. I don’t know about them. I handled the investments. They were all cash deals. No banks involved. St. John can’t be interested in those.”

“Maybe one of the other partners knows something that might explain some of this.”

“We have to tell them about the subpoena, but I don’t think we should put the details on the table yet. For now, we’d better keep this among ourselves. Harlan agrees with me.”

Steady breathing was Harlan’s way of saying yes.