Primary Justice

43

“IF YOU DON’T HAVE any more questions, I’ll leave the two of you alone to read the documents,” Ben said.

Ben was standing beside the long conference room table; Bertha Adams and Emily were seated on the other side. Emily seemed calm and detached. All the tragedy of the past month has centered around her, Ben thought, and what little of it she ever knew she’s entirely forgotten. That’s life in the fixed moment.

“After you read through them, sign each place I indicated and leave the papers with my secretary,” Ben said.

Bertha looked up and nodded. She seemed more at ease than she had at any time since Ben first met her. “Thank you, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Sure.” Ben left the conference room and walked back to his office.

Christina was waiting for him. She was wearing her brown miniskirt and the familiar yellow leotards.

“So you decided to come back to work?” he said, smiling. “How are you?”

“I’m going to be fine. C’est la guerre.” She brushed her golden hair away from her eyes. The thin black scab on her right cheek was still noticeable. “You’re the one we should be worrying about.”

“Well, this is cozy. Got room for a third?”

Mike was standing in the doorway.

“Come on in,” Ben said. “What have you and your squad of law-and-order zealots turned up?”

“Not a lot,” Mike admitted. “We’ve searched Tidwell’s house and come up with a birth certificate. Catherine was his daughter, all right. And we’ve found a marriage license. Tidwell was married some twenty-eight years ago, when he lived in Flagstaff. Catherine was born soon after. Real soon, if you know what I mean. Catherine’s mother died when Catherine was about six and apparently, sometime not too long after”—he hesitated for a moment—“Tidwell let Catherine take her mother’s place in his affections. Some time after then and before he moved to Tulsa, Emily was born.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Ben muttered quietly. “And I thought I had father problems.”

“We’re talking to former neighbors and tracking down relatives who might have known Tidwell when he lived in Flagstaff,” Mike continued. “He only moved to Tulsa two years ago. Seems he had to leave Flagstaff in a hurry. I think he kept Emily’s existence a secret after he moved to Tulsa. He couldn’t explain her parentage, and he didn’t want to stir up trouble. We’ve interviewed his current neighbors, and they don’t know anything about Emily or Catherine. Tidwell had evidently discovered it was safer to keep Catherine and Emily at a separate residence under lock and key. I expect that was easy enough to do. Emily was a little girl, and Catherine’s mind was disintegrating. I suppose he told poor Catherine she’d be killed if she left the apartment. Or that he would hurt Emily.”

Christina was confused. “What I still don’t understand is, how did Emily end up with Bertha and Jonathan Adams?”

Mike stood and faced the outer window. “Some of this is just conjecture, but I think Catherine was losing her mind as far back as the time of the Tulsa move. Years of confusion, guilt, isolation, depravation, and sexual abuse were taking their toll. I think she became progressively unstable. That made her not only unpleasant to be with, but dangerous as well. Tidwell was an important businessman now in a fairly high profile position. What if she got loose? Who knows what she might say or do? At the same time, there was this new little girl, unknown to the world, that, for whatever reason, he was very interested in. He needed a way to bring Emily into his home without creating suspicion.”

Christina was beginning to follow. “So Tidwell arranged for Jonathan Adams to find Emily.”

“That’s right,” Mike continued. “Tidwell instructed Adams to investigate the franchise location in Jenks, after arranging for Emily to be abandoned there. He set up the whole coincidental discovery. His idea was that Adams would of course be too old to adopt, but that he, the younger, respected, philanthropic businessman and father, would step in and adopt the foundling.”

“That’s crazy!” Christina exclaimed. “A million different things could go wrong.”

“Evidently Tidwell didn’t see it that way,” Mike said. “But you’re right. The master plan didn’t work out. Something happened he didn’t count on. Adams never turned Emily in to the authorities as he was supposed to do, and he never mentioned her at work. They just kept her.

“Time passed. Tidwell was stymied. He didn’t want to raise suspicion, but he couldn’t let the old couple keep Emily forever. I’d bet anything it wasn’t a neighbor that sent the police officer over to investigate Emily—it was Tidwell. And then, when Adams confided in Tidwell about the problem—because Adams hated Sanguine, but everyone loved Tidwell—Tidwell had Sanguine’s legal counsel arrange what was bound to be a futile attempt at adoption, while he waited in the wings to snatch Emily up as soon as Adams failed.”

Mike leaned back in his chair and thrust his fists in his coat pockets. “I’ve talked to Derek. He tells me that Tidwell specified that he wanted a young lawyer on the adoption case. Allegedly to reduce the legal fees.”

“But really because he didn’t want any lawyer assigned who had a prayer of winning,” Ben said. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

“I’m not sure how Tidwell found out about Brancusci,” Mike continued. “Maybe he overheard something at the office, maybe he noticed documents were missing, or maybe he saw Brancusci talking to Ben at Derek’s party. However it happened, he knew Brancusci knew about the diversion of funds, possibly knew about Emily and Catherine, and could blow this thing wide open. So he killed him.” He glanced at Ben. “Personally, Ben, I’m glad you weren’t home the night he came visiting your apartment.”

Christina cast a suspicious eye in Ben’s direction.

Mike chuckled grimly. “What Tidwell must’ve thought when the two of us came barging into the office—and accused his boss of being the killer.”

“And I was stupid enough to tell him that I thought I could get Catherine to talk,” Ben said quietly. “Tidwell had probably written her off as hopelessly confused and insane. He didn’t realize just how strong she was—or was trying to be. He didn’t know that her desire to see her daughter again was maintaining her last vestige of sanity. But I told him.” Ben withdrew a red handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it against his lips, then put it away.

“In retrospect, it’s a miracle he hadn’t killed Catherine long ago,” Mike said. “Maybe he wasn’t a killer yet. Maybe, deep down, he really did love her. Way deep down.”

“She might’ve been better off if he had killed her,” Ben said quietly.

Christina reached behind Ben and gently laid her hand on his shoulder. “I understand Tidwell and his lawyers are planning an insanity defense,” she said.

“Too true,” Mike murmured.

“Think it’ll play?”

Mike shrugged. “Hard to imagine anyone crazier.”

“Tidwell knew what he was doing,” Ben said. “He’s not crazy. Sick, yes. Insane, no.”

Mike nodded. “And yet, when I arrived at that apartment and he was looking down at Catherine’s body, he seemed genuinely affected. Like a father. Only minutes after he killed her.”

“So what did all the business about financial records and crooked accountants have to do with the murders?” Christina asked.

“Nothing really,” Mike answered. “Just another nasty pie Tidwell had his finger in. And, of course, he was using some of the diverted funds to finance the apartment at Malador. That little act of greed proved to be his undoing.

Mike turned toward Ben. “And you’re gonna love this. Guess what Sanguine was doing with his cut of the slush fund? He was donating almost all of it to the reservation he grew up in. They’re creating an educational trust fund in his name, to help underprivileged Native Americans go to college. Well, they were, anyway.”

“Great,” Ben said. “Now the entire Sioux tribe will probably be gunning for me.”

“I suppose those bureaucrats at the Department of Human Resources will snatch Emily away from Mrs. Adams now,” Christina said.

Ben and Mike glanced at one another.

“No,” Ben said simply.

“No? Why not?”

Ben lifted his head and stared out the window. “Funny thing about Catherine. Just before she died, she drew up a holographic will. Mike and I found it in the apartment. Among other things, she named Bertha Adams as the woman she wanted to raise her little girl.”

Christina stared at him in disbelief. “That’s not poss—” She reconsidered. “Will it stand up?”

“Who’s to fight it? Tidwell’s busy at the moment, and no one else has any interest. Even Sokolosky and the DHS crowd won’t contest a will executed by Emily’s mother.”

“But Catherine was insane. Of unsound mind.”

“Says who?” Ben argued. “Nurse Harriet has disappeared without a trace. I personally spent several hours with Catherine, and I will testify that she was perfectly cogent and lucid. Who’s going to testify against me?”

Christina smiled. She leaned across the desk and kissed Ben on the cheek. “You’re a pretty good guy, Kincaid.”

“Second the motion,” Mike said. “But no kiss.”

There was a loud knock on the door. Mike opened it. It was Maggie. “The Executive Committee is ready to meet with you now.”

Mike pointed his finger at Ben. “What about …”

Ben nodded. “I haven’t forgotten.” He looked at Maggie. “I’ll be along in a minute. I have a couple of stops to make first.”

“They’re ready for you now,” Maggie insisted.

“They’ll have to wait,” Ben said calmly. “It’s not going to matter much anyway.”

He glanced back at his friends. “Wish me luck.”

Ben poked his head through the half-closed door to Alvin’s office.

“Mind if I come in?”

Alvin looked up from between two tall stacks of casebooks and briefs. “Please do. I’ve been wanting to talk with you, but I wasn’t sure if you were … available.”

Ben sat down in one of the leather chairs facing Alvin’s desk. “This will only take a second. I just wanted to say that I know I acted kind of negatively when you first told me about you and …”

“Candy.”

“Candy. Right.” He took a deep breath. “Alvin, I was wrong. If she really makes you happy, and you’re sure it’s what you want, then you should do it, and to hell with what other people say.” Ben fell back in his chair, glad he had gotten that off his chest.

Alvin frowned. “Funny you should bring this up, Ben. It sort of relates to what I wanted to tell you, Candy and I have decided to call it quits.”

“What?”

“Yeah. It just wasn’t working out. It’s not as if we really had a lot in common. I mean, you saw her at that party at Derek’s. She didn’t exactly fit in.”

Ben stared at him blank-faced.

“To be honest, she may have been using me.”

“No!” Ben exclaimed with exaggerated horror.

“Yes. I think she saw me as her ticket out of the strip joints and into undergraduate school.”

“That’s awful! I guess you put that idea to rest.”

“Well, no. I agreed to go ahead and pay her first year’s tuition at TU.”

“At TU! That must cost a fortune!”

“Well, it seemed like the right thing to do. There was the little girl to think of.”

“A noble gesture, Alvin.”

“Also, she had these photographs—”

“I don’t want to hear about it, Alvin.”

Alvin nodded. “Just as well. To tell you the truth, I don’t know what happened to me. I totally lost control. People were laughing at me.”

“Say it ain’t so.”

“Yup. I was lucky to get out when I did. I could’ve blown my whole career in a single stupid move.” He shook his head. “I guess I forgot what’s important.”

Ben sighed. No comment.

“Good luck with the EC,” Alvin said.

“You heard about that?”

“Didn’t everybody?” He glanced at his watch. “Derek came in a couple of hours ago asking what I knew about this business with Sanguine and what you’ve been doing. I played dumb.” He looked down at his papers.

“Thanks, Al.” Ben walked out of the office.

Greg was talking animatedly to someone on the other end of the phone. Ben caught his eye. Greg flashed his familiar smile, waved Ben into the office, and pointed at one of his visitor chairs.

Ben reached across the desk and brushed a stray hair off Greg’s shoulder. “You’ll lose your dapper reputation if you keep this up,” Ben said.

Greg whispered thanks and returned to his conversation. Ben sat down and waited.

Eventually, Greg completed his phone call. “Man!” he bellowed. “Clients will talk your ear off if you let them.” He leaned across his desk “I didn’t expect to see you today. Have you already met with the EC?”

“Not yet. I’m on my way.”

Greg fidgeted with a pencil. “Well, I hope it all works out for you. We’re all behind you, you know. Spiritually, I mean.”

“Yeah. That isn’t really why I stopped by.”

“Oh?” Greg shifted in his chair. “What was it, then?”

“I thought you might want to tell me about it.”

Greg’s eyebrows moved almost imperceptibly closer together. “Tell you about what?”

“About you and Jonathan Adams.”

Greg leaned back slowly. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Very smooth, Ben thought. But not convincing. Not anymore. “You knew him, didn’t you? I mean, before you came to work here. And you recognized him, that first day, when you bumbled into my office while we were talking.” Greg did not respond.

“After Tidwell flunked the hair and fiber matchup for Adams, I started trying to think of everyone who had been in contact with Adams shortly before he died. It took me awhile, but eventually I remembered you. You did react strangely when you saw him in my office that day. So did he, for that matter.” He paused. “I already know part of it. I’ve done some checking up on you. But I was hoping you could fill in the blanks.”

Greg ran his fingers through his hair. “I don’t believe I care to continue this conversation.”

“Whatever.” Ben started to get up. “The police lieutenant is just outside.”

“It was just an insignificant incident,” Greg said abruptly.

Ben sat back down.

“Totally stupid. Trivial. Back at the Beta house, when I was an undergrad.”

“That was in California?”

Greg looked up at him. “Right. It was just a party raid, you know? I mean, we were a fraternity house, for Christ’s sake. It was required, practically.” He pressed his fingers against his temples. “It was harmless. A minor invasion of privacy, a few dirty jokes, a little mooning, a few photographs. But some uptight bitch in the sorority house called the police—and we got brought up on charges.”

“Indecent exposure?”

“Yeah. And breaking and entering—and sexual indecency, too. And just because I was a frat officer, I was named as one of the three instigators. It was awful. We had lawyers, parents, newspeople—everybody screaming their heads off about nothing! We plea-bargained down to a misdemeanor indecent-exposure charge. No jail time. But I had a record. And you know what that meant.”

Ben reflected for a moment. “It meant the state bar examiners wouldn’t let you sit for the bar exam. Not with a police record for sexual immorality, however minor. Probably couldn’t get into law school. And even if you did find some sleazebag school that would accept you, you’d never get hired. Especially not at the kind of firms you were interested in.”

“Precisely,” Greg said bitterly. “All I ever wanted in my entire life was to be a lawyer. That was all! And after years of planning and preparation, it all went up in smoke. Over nothing.”

“But how does Adams fit into this? I remember that he mentioned he was assigned to the California office for several years.”

Greg nodded. “Adams sat on an appellate academic review panel, part of an effort to involve members of the business community in campus affairs, no doubt with the ulterior hope of securing generous corporate grants. His panel approved the Panhellenic Committee’s decision sanction the Beta house and suspend me and the officers for a semester.”

Ben looked amazed. “You mean, all this was just to get revenge for being suspended?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Greg said. “I got over that a long time ago. I moved to another state. Changed the spelling of my last name. Started going by Greg instead of John. Finished undergrad school in New Mexico, got into law school in Texas. After law school, I moved again, to Oklahoma, and started working here. In October, I’m taking the bar exam. I paid some bum twenty bucks to put his fingerprints on my application. No questions, no problems. Nobody here knew who I was.”

“Until you bumped into Adams.”

“Until Adams. All those years of moving, lying, and law school flushed down the toilet because one stupid old man turned up in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“And so you killed him.”

Greg leaned back in his chair. “Sorry, Ben. End of conversation.”

“You tried to get Adams to stay quiet, didn’t you?” Ben continued. “That’s why you arranged the meeting at the Red Parrot. And he was just the kind of old-fashioned, noble sort who might refuse to be bought off. So you killed him.”

Greg held his tongue.

“I think you wore your white camel’s hair coat. The same one you wore earlier that day to the office. That’s why Crazy Jane, the street lady, in her religious, alcoholic stupor, thought she saw a huge white dove. And after you killed him, you continued to mutilate the body, to make it look like the work of some drug-crazed north-sider. That’s why you wore a different coat to Derek’s party. After you stabbed Adams several dozen times, I bet that white coat was thoroughly disgusting.” He paused. “And when Tidwell killed Brancusci, he copied your M.O. to confuse the police.”

Greg stroked the side of his chin. “You have no proof of any of that.”

“Yes I do. Right here in the palm of my hand.” Ben held up the hair he had taken from Greg’s shoulder. “This hair is going to match the dark hairs found on Adams’s body.”

“That’s not conclusive,” Greg said unevenly.

“We’ll see.”

Greg picked up the phone. “I’m calling a lawyer.”

“Excellent idea. Let me give you some advice, though. Don’t hire anyone at this firm.” He paused at the door. “Just answer one more question, When you set up the meeting with Adams, did you use my name? Or pretend to be me?” He took a step toward Greg. “When Adams went out to be slaughtered, did he believe he was meeting me?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“No,” Ben said. “I guess not.”

There were eight men sitting in the conference room. At the head of the long table sat Derek, obviously positioned to preside. A short stack of typed papers lay on the table in front of him. At Derek’s right hand sat Arthur Raven, sound asleep as far as Ben could tell. The other six members of the Executive Committee sat next to Derek and Raven, three on each side of the table. They did not look at Ben when he entered the room.

Derek pointed toward the chair at the opposite end of the conference table. Ben sat down.

Derek cleared his throat. “Doubtless you know why you’re here, Kincaid, so I won’t drag this out. The Executive Committee met yesterday afternoon and decided to terminate your employment.”

Ben’s eyes focused on a point someplace in the middle of the table. “May I ask why?”

“Don’t make this more difficult than it already is. I think you know the reasons.”

“I’d like to hear them from you.”

Derek rested his palms on the table. “Fine. Have it your way. One: you have repeatedly disregarded the directives of your supervising attorney—namely, me.”

“Always with a reason.”

“Not relevant. Two: although I have assigned several cases to you in the past few weeks, some with pressing deadlines, you have ignored most of them and focused on one case—and even there your efforts could hardly be termed legal work. Certainly nothing that can be billed. You are guilty of neglect in the worst way, and that is one of the most grievous violations of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

“Because of your relative youth and inexperience, we have decided not to file a complaint with the bar committee. Nonetheless, Raven, Tucker & Tubb has a global reputation, and we can’t allow someone like that to work for us.”

Ben tried to contain himself. “Is there anything else?”

“Yes. Three: you violated your duty of loyalty to your clients, Joseph Sanguine and Sanguine Enterprises. Rather than acting as a zealous advocate, you actually worked against their interests. That is also a grievous violation of the Rules of Professional Conduct.”

Ben locked eyes with Derek. “You lost the client, didn’t you?”

“Damn right we did,” Derek said, departing from his prepared text. “A long-standing working relationship. Sanguine Enterprises represented approximately twenty-three percent of total Raven billings in the last fiscal year. And you lost it. Care to guess how many millions in lost revenues that amounts to? Do you have any idea how you’ve crippled this firm? In addition to attorneys, we have over three hundred staff persons who depend on the revenues of this firm for their livelihood. I don’t know what we’ll do to compensate for this shortfall. No raises, that’s clear. I just hope we don’t have to fire anyone.” He glared at Ben. “How do you plan to explain this to the staff, Mr. Kincaid?”

“I’ll say I did what I thought was right in the best way I knew.”

Derek slammed his opened palm against the table. Raven’s eyes fluttered a bit at the sound of the impact, then returned to their position of rest.

“Joseph Sanguine tells me he saw you running away from the scene of the break-in at his office with an unidentified female.”

“Joseph Sanguine knew I was wise to his embezzling scheme,” Ben countered. “That’s why he tried to buy me off.”

Derek became even more agitated. “Joseph Sanguine contends that you forced your way into his office with your cop friend and accused him of murder.”

Ben didn’t say anything.

“And you were wrong, Mr. Kincaid. Tragically wrong.”

Ben stiffened a bit. “That’s true,” he said quietly. “I was wrong.”

“And what is most incredible is that you did this the very day after that man offered to make you in-house counsel! The day after we thought we had solidified our relationship with Sanguine Enterprises for life.”

“How dense are you?” Ben flared. “The only reason he offered me the in-house counsel position was to shut me up. It was hush money.”

“If you had found it in your heart to accept his job offer, the relationship between Raven and Sanguine would be as solid as concrete. Instead, it’s ashes. Dust in the wind.”

Ben drummed his fingers against the table. “That’s what it all comes down to, isn’t it? The rest of this crap about ethics violations is just smoke.” He surveyed the stony expressions of the other shareholders in the room. “I didn’t do anything wrong. But you lost a client. A powerhouse client. And now you have to find a scapegoat. Someone to take the fall when you explain to the rest of the firm why revenues are down. And I’m elected.”

Derek ignored the remark. “Of course we’ll give you the traditional two weeks’ notice. We don’t want to be unfair.”

“Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll leave today.” Ben rose. “Oh, and Dick?”

“Yes?”

“Your toupee is slipping again.”

Without thinking, Derek reached up—then stopped short.

Ben wagged his finger. “Sucker.”