Motion to Kill

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

By Tuesday morning, the thirty-first floor had become an obstacle course of copy machines, banker’s boxes, and stacks of files. Phil Rosa was asleep in the conference room, stretched between two chairs, snoring softly under a Pizza Hut box planted like a teepee over his face. Mason picked up the box, waving away Phil’s pepperoni morning breath, the fresh air enough to wake him.

“Any survivors, Phil?”

“Barely. Two of our copiers went down after midnight. We ran out of paper at three. Maggie and I tried to organize the leftovers. Everyone else went home.”

“How far did you get?”

“About two-thirds of the way through. We’ll have to send the rest out to be copied if we’re going to get the files delivered to O’Malley today.”

“I don’t like it, but we don’t have a choice.”

“Well, well, the prodigal partner returns. I hope you can find some new assignment to keep us challenged today,” Diane Farrell said as she sauntered in.

“Diane, I’m glad you’re here. Phil-take the day off. Diane will finish up.”

“And the horse you rode in on, boss,” she said.

“I didn’t know you were an animal lover, Diane,” Mason said on his way out.

Sandra stood him up for their seven o’clock meeting. He hoped that meant they were even. At nine, Mason’s secretary delivered a memo announcing that the partners’ meeting had been moved to one thirty. Scott’s secretary answered Mason’s call to his office and told him that Scott wouldn’t be in until noon.

“Do you know where he is?”

“No, sir.”

“Can you check with the other partners?”

“Sorry, Mr. Mason. You’re the only partner here.”

He should have seen it coming then, but he was too busy to pay attention to the firm’s radio traffic and troop movements.

Kelly was a welcome sight when she walked into his office. He knew when he had a crush on someone. In high school, he called it being in deep like. In his twenties, he called it magic. Now in his midthirties, he called it dumb luck and hoped it would last long enough to fill the crater Kate left.

“Wait here,” Mason told her, motioning to a small, round conference table. “Pamela and B.J. gave me permission to show you Sullivan’s will. I’ll be right back.”

“Your office is too masculine,” she told him when he returned. “You need some flowers.”

“Since when is masculine a bad thing?”

“It’s almost my favorite thing,” she answered. “But you need more hormonal balance.”

“I’ll rent you space,” he said, pulling his chair next to hers.

“The will was signed on August 31, 1997,” Kelly noted as she began reading.

“There’s a trust agreement that runs twenty-five pages. Fortunately, Scott included a summary.”

“What’s the bottom line?”

“Sullivan’s estate is worth about twenty million dollars. Pamela gets half, and half goes to charity.”

“Unfortunately for Pamela, ten million dollars is a hell of a motive for murder.”

Mason started to put the will and trust back into the file when a sealed envelope he hadn’t noticed before slipped out. Kelly grabbed it and tore it open before he could claim another privilege.

“I don’t get it,” she said as she handed it to him.

Mason studied it for a few minutes. “I don’t get it either. This is a codicil, an amendment revoking his will.”

“So he died without a will?”

“Which makes no sense. He might change his will. But he’d never revoke it. That would cost his estate a fortune in taxes. He’d spent his entire career making sure his clients avoided taxes. I wonder if Scott knew about this.”

“What happens to the estate now?”

“In Kansas, if you die without a will, the entire estate, after taxes, goes to your heirs. Your spouse gets one-half and your kids share the rest equally. Pamela and Sullivan didn’t have any children, so she gets it all.”

“And the charities get screwed. Just in case ten million bucks wasn’t enough to see her through her golden years, now she gets twenty million. I think the DA’s case just got a little better.”

“Not if Pamela didn’t know that Sullivan revoked his will. In Kansas, a spouse has to give written consent to the terms of the other spouse’s will, which Pamela did. She didn’t have to consent to the codicil, and she didn’t.”

“Who witnessed the will?”

Mason flipped to the last page and read the names. “Maggie Boylan and Sullivan’s secretary.”

“And the codicil?”

“Diane Farrell and Angela Molina.”

“I’ll talk to them later,” Kelly said. “The hearing on Pamela’s bail is this afternoon. Let’s have dinner at J.J.’s. Blues told me he’s playing there tonight. Meet me at seven thirty?”

“Are you serving dessert?”

Third kisses are answers, and Mason didn’t have any more questions.

After Kelly left, Mason’s secretary told him that Sandra was waiting for him in her office.

“Sorry about this morning, Lou. I had a late night,” she said.

Sandra’s desk was an oval-shaped slab of blood-veined marble supported by shiny silver pedestals at each end. The effect was simultaneously cold and passionate. We are our furniture, Mason thought as he sat across from her.

A bookcase held a collection of reference books. He noticed a copy of the PDR, the Physicians’ Desk Reference, which explained how drugs acted, how they should be used, and the risks of misuse. The library at his old firm had a copy, but no one at Sullivan amp; Christenson had ever chased an ambulance.

“Do you have any personal injury cases?”

“No, why?”

“I just wondered about your PDR. I didn’t know anyone around here had one.”

“I sold pharmaceuticals and medical equipment before I went to law school. It’s a leftover from those days.”

Her long legs, crossed at the ankles, reached under the marble slab. She dropped a dangling shoe and brushed her toes against his pant leg, the effect swimming upstream against the lingering sensation of Kelly’s kiss. Mason decided to ignore her toes.

“O’Malley fired us. I hope you had better luck with the son.”

“Vic Jr. isn’t so bad if you keep his hands busy. I’ll know all his secrets by the end of the week.”

“That’s not a fair fight.”

“And I don’t like fair fights. He’s picking me up for lunch. I’ll be back in time for the partners’ meeting.”

The receptionist called, announcing that Vic Jr. had arrived. Mason walked with Sandra to the front desk, where Angela was pretending to be entertained by him. He left her hanging in midsentence when Sandra flashed her melting-point smile before taking him by the arm and heading for the elevator. He was grinning as if he’d just gotten a date with the homecoming queen.

“Don’t tell me?” Angela said.

“Yep. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

“How can she stand the creep?”

“She put a leash on his dick and told him to heel.”

Turning around, Mason saw Scott watching Sandra and Vic Jr.’s dating game from inside the conference room behind him. Scott shifted his gaze to Mason for a moment before turning away, his eyes as cold as Sandra’s marble slab.