Motion to Kill

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Mason stayed with Cara after Kelly left. He suggested she hire a lawyer and didn’t argue with her when she quit. He caught up with Kelly at the elevator.

“Cara resigned. Are you going to charge her?”

“I don’t know. Poisoning takes a strong and patient personality. Those don’t appear to be her strengths. And she didn’t know Sullivan was HIV positive, so she doesn’t seem to have a motive.”

“Who did?”

“Look for the person who had the most to gain. Who loved him or hated him too much? Who envied him too much?”

“So many choices and so little time.”

“Maybe not,” she said.

“You’ve already got a short list of suspects?”

“I’ll start with anyone who had access to insulin. You know more of the candidates than I do. Let’s kick it around over dinner. How about six thirty at Brentano’s on the Plaza?”

“Yeah, sure.”

And she was gone. Mason started missing her as soon as the elevator doors closed. Maybe it was because he’d been overly celibate lately. Maybe it was because her badge turned him on. He wasn’t certain, but he liked missing her.

He went back to his office. Scott Daniels walked in just as Mason answered his phone. When he hung up, Mason didn’t know where or how to start, so he just plunged in.

“That was Pamela. She’s been arrested for Sullivan’s murder and, if that’s not bad enough, Harlan was murdered last night.”

They stared at each other, neither speaking, until Mason’s secretary came in to tell him that Victor O’Malley was holding.

“Tell him something’s come up and I’ll have to reschedule.”

“Pamela couldn’t have killed Sullivan. That’s crazy,” Scott said.

“So far she’s only been charged with conspiracy to murder Sullivan. They’ve taken her to the Johnson County Sheriff’s office in Olathe and she wants me to represent her.”

Claire would’ve flown to her side. Mason knew he had to go, but he wasn’t in as big of a hurry as his aunt would have liked. He had no qualms about defending O’Malley in a white-collar crime case, but he was the wrong lawyer to save Pamela from the death penalty.

Scott lost interest in Pamela’s problems. “Tell me about Harlan,” he said, his gaze on the floor while he shrunk into his chair, trying to crawl inside his three-button suit.

“I got home late last night. Harlan had left a message on my machine asking me to come out to his farmhouse and help him prepare for his meeting this morning with the IRS agent. I called him back but his phone was dead. When I got out there, he was dead too.”

“What do the police think happened?” Scott asked without looking up.

“They didn’t confide in me. They just asked a lot of questions, nodded when I answered, and then asked the same questions again.” Mason changed the subject. “Let’s send the staff home for the day. We better have another partners’ meeting in the morning and figure out how we keep this operation afloat.”

Scott agreed, and they gathered the staff in the thirty-second-floor lobby and broke the news of Harlan’s death. He was a man no one could dislike. The lawyers and staff were dazed, many weeping openly, as they staggered from the office. Angela volunteered to stay and man the phones.

Mason waited until everyone except Angela and Scott were gone before leaving. Victor O’Malley Jr. nearly ran over him as the elevator door opened. Mason was in no mood for O’Malley-lite.

“Sorry, Victor, I wasn’t expecting you. My secretary told your father that we had to reschedule. We’ve got a couple of real emergencies.”

“We never needed an appointment with Sullivan. He understood how to treat important clients.”

Weasels were lousy at intimidation, Mason thought. And he was fresh out of client suck-up.

“I’ll remember that when you’re the client. Maybe your father will let you sit in on our next meeting so you can practice.”

Scott rounded the corner in time to hear their exchange. He was redefining pale but managed to welcome Junior with a conciliatory smile.

“Vic, we’re all in shock around here,” he said while taking him by the arm. “Somebody broke into Harlan’s house last night and killed him. The police think it was a burglary that went sour. On top of that, Pamela has been charged with Sullivan’s murder. Lou is on his way to the courthouse to see her. I just talked to your father and he understands about the appointment.”

“We’ve all got problems, Scott, but we need to talk about the fixtures deals.”

Scott cast a quick glance at Mason as he stepped onto the elevator, then took Vic Jr. by the arm and led him to his office.

The Johnson County Courthouse was in Olathe, Kansas, another once sleepy small town that had grown into a virtual suburb of Kansas City, even if it was twenty-five miles southwest of downtown and on the other side of the state line. On his way there, Mason left a message for B.J. Moore, a good friend and a better criminal defense lawyer.

He first met B.J. when they shared a client who had been charged with embezzling three million dollars from his employer at the same time he was making a workers’ compensation claim against the company. The client pled guilty to the embezzlement charge and the DA agreed not to prosecute him for what turned out to be a fraudulent injury claim.

B.J. returned his call as Mason crossed the state line into Kansas. He was already at the courthouse on another case and would wait for Mason. Thirty minutes later, they were ushered into an interrogation room in the county jail across the street from the courthouse.

The room was a bleak display of tax dollars at work, off-white walls, white ceiling tiles, and green linoleum, wooden table, four chairs, and no windows. They excused the deputy sheriff who was there to protect them from Pamela and then listened as she declared her innocence and screamed at them to get her out of the goddamn jail.

“If I’d have wanted to kill that no-good bastard, I’d have shot him with my own goddamn gun!”

Jail was a true class equalizer. Dressed in an orange prisoner jumpsuit, her hair tangled, her makeup smeared, and reeking of bad breath, body odor, and stale booze, Pamela had morphed from an upscale Mission Hills widow into a drunken bag lady charged with murder.

“We’ll try to get you out of here as soon as we can,” Mason said, “but I can’t represent you.”

“Why not?” she snapped as she threw herself into one of the metal folding chairs.

“Because I could be a witness. You need the best lawyer you can get, and that’s why I asked my friend B.J. Moore to be here.”

B.J. was pear-shaped and shaggy haired, and his suit looked as if he had picked it up where he’d dropped it the night before. Women liked him because he was cuddly. Men liked him because he was without pretense. He had a knack for making people comfortable with him.

“Please don’t take offense, Mr. Moore,” Pamela said, “but I don’t know you, and I’d rather have someone I know.”

“Mrs. Sullivan, I’m more interested in how you feel after your case is over. Let me figure out if I can get you home for dinner. If you’re still here at breakfast, you can hire somebody else.”

B.J. looked into Pamela’s eyes as he spoke, holding the gaze until she softened, fussed with her hair, and dipped her chin.

“Okay,” she said.

B.J. took her hand. “Good. Let’s get started.”