Lou Mason Mystery - 01 - Motion to Kill (5 page)

“Give me a break, Sheriff. That memo reads like a good example of libel, which is a motive for a lawsuit, not murder.”

“So Sullivan struck first and you struck back. Malice begets malice. Libel to kill.”

“That’s poetic, but, believe me, Sullivan wasn’t worth it and the job wasn’t worth it. I’d already decided to quit.”

“Why? Because of your lunchtime chat with Sullivan?”

Mason stopped pacing. “That’s only part of it. I’ve got a case that the firm won’t take. I’m going out on my own so I can handle it.”

“That’s your idea of a defense?”

“I’ll tell you what. You subpoena every memo Sullivan ever wrote about O’Malley. This is the only one you’ll find, if he even wrote it. I’ve been through those files. Sullivan got things done. He didn’t write memos. And he wouldn’t wait to fire me or his mother because of the damn retreat.”

“So why did he write the memo?”

“To set me up.”

“Why wouldn’t he just get rid of the documents himself? And why would he need to set you up?”

Mason didn’t answer. He sat on the arm of the sofa and let her think out loud, nodding as she said it.

“If you get rid of the documents and get caught, the memo gives him plausible deniability. If you refused, he could get rid of the evidence and still blame you if anyone ever found out. In the meantime, you’re gone.”

“Now, you, Sheriff, you put on one hell of a defense.”

“Then show me the documents.”

“I can’t.”

“You’ve got to get over this privilege stuff. This is a murder investigation until the coroner tells me differently, and you’re working your way up the suspect list.”

“It’s not just the privilege. I’ve been through those files. I don’t know what documents he’s talking about. Let me know when the coroner makes up his mind. I’m going home.”

She handed him Sullivan’s briefcase. “I’ll let you return this to Mrs. Sullivan. Drive safely.”

He hoped that she meant it.

Straight, flat roads are hard to find in the Ozarks. Two-lane county roads and state highways bob and weave like a punch-drunk fighter across and around the hilly countryside. Mason plugged his iPhone into the car radio, letting Bettye LaVette sing him home as he maneuvered his Acura in and out of small packs of slow-moving cars.

He took Highway 52 west through Eldon and on to the junction with Highway 5, where he headed north, hoping to leave the plodding traffic behind. Soon a black Escalade pulled up behind him, rode his rear end long enough to get Mason’s attention, then bolted past him and another car, cutting back into the northbound lane just in time to avoid an oncoming RV.

The car in front of Mason turned off the highway a few minutes later. Mason caught a glimpse of the Escalade and closed the distance until a quarter of a mile separated them. Content to cruise at seventy, he let go the chase.

Ten minutes later, the Escalade slowed until Mason was within a couple of car lengths, the rolling grade preventing him from passing. They reached a level stretch of road when the driver of the Escalade stuck his hand out the window and waved Mason to go around.

He eased into the southbound lane and accelerated, pulling alongside the Escalade. He started to wave his thanks when he saw that the window was up and tinted so dark he couldn’t see the driver, who was matching Mason’s pace, freezing him in the southbound lane.

Mason pushed the Acura harder, unable to gain any ground and unwilling to drop back. He was hot enough, tired enough, and annoyed enough to keep pushing and not notice that the road had bottomed out like the trough of a wave. As they started back up the next hill, an air horn bellowed from a southbound flatbed tractor-trailer loaded with hay bales bearing down on Mason from the crest of the hill.

Mason answered with a squeal from his own horn, but neither driver changed course. At their combined speeds, he realized the truck would be in his lap before he could pass the Escalade. Mason hit his brakes, intending to swerve back into his lane behind the Escalade, only to see the Escalade slow down, hanging him out in the wrong lane, threatening to turn him into a hood ornament.

The truck was close enough that Mason could see the driver, mouth opened wide, screaming at him and waving his hand, telling Mason to get out of the way. Mason screamed back, unable to hear his own voice over the wind, the road, and their dueling horns. He felt as if he were flying and knew he would be when the truck hit him.

A thin strip of gravel separated the paved road from the tall grass alongside it. Barbed wire strung between steel fence posts marked the outer boundary of a farm. Cows on the captive side of the fence looked up as if they sensed that something was about to happen that even they couldn’t ignore.

Mason pounded on his horn, screamed again at the driver of the truck and the driver of the Escalade. His hands slid around the wheel, greased by the sweat pouring off of him faster than the wind could dry it.

The Escalade cut off any retreat. The truck slowed, causing the trailer to shimmy and its load to rock sideways. But Mason knew the driver couldn’t slow quickly enough, the certainty of the impending crash clear in the driver’s stricken eyes.

Out of options, Mason spun the steering wheel hard to his left and jammed the gas pedal to the floor. The Acura bolted off the road and shuddered in the wake left by the truck as it blew past, their front bumpers exchanging air kisses.

The ground dropped off from the road, and in the next instant, Mason flew toward the cows like an unguided missile. The Acura landed hard and fishtailed clockwise. Mason fought the wheel, found the brakes, and rode out the spin until the car bounced to a stop against the barbed wire.

His airbag exploded, burying him in a fierce embrace. The jolt was no worse than the countless hits he’d absorbed playing rugby, though those blows were thrown in sport. This was a cold, calculated attempt to put him on the shelf—permanently.

Mason climbed out of the Acura and scanned the road. The Escalade had disappeared. He walked around the car, checking for damage. The barbed wire had etched an abstract pattern in the paint on the passenger side, but it was otherwise unscathed.

He leaned against the hood, waited for his heart rate to slow to suborbital speed, and tried to put the day’s events into perspective. Richard Sullivan was dead, probably murdered and last seen with an attractive blonde, not his wife, at a condo he owned with Victor O’Malley.

Mason was defending O’Malley against criminal charges the feds were about to file. Sullivan had set up Mason as the fall guy in a scheme to get rid of evidence that had to incriminate both Sullivan and O’Malley. And someone had just tried to kill him and make his death look like the result of his own reckless driving.

It wasn’t hard to connect the dots. The picture just didn’t make any sense. He realized that he’d have to take a closer look at the O’Malley files in the morning. If he lived that long.

Mason lived in a neighborhood thick with large houses built during and just after World War II. The area was a magnet that held on to older people with old money and attracted boomers with new money. A fixer-upper easily ran half a million even after the recession knocked property values into the basement. The house belonged to Claire until she gave it to him when he graduated from law school.

“I lived in this house for twenty-six years before you came along, and now I’m fifty-five,” she told him. “That’s too long in one place for anybody. I need a fresh start. I bought a loft in a rehabbed warehouse in the Crossroads District. There’s an artist on the first floor that uses his kitchen as his gallery. A couple of tech geeks took the second floor for their start-up something or other, and I’ve got the third floor.”

Kate winced at the condition of the interior when she moved in.

“You’ve got Ethan Allen, futons, chrome and glass Scandinavian, oriental rugs so threadbare a moth wouldn’t use them for a snack, Grateful Dead posters, and pictures of dead immigrants.”

“Think of it as multigeneration chic,” Mason said. “And the dead immigrants are my great-grandparents.”

The mud-colored brick on the two-story Colonial had held up better than the weather-beaten white shutters. Kate stuck her fingers in the spongy, wood-rotted window frames and called a contractor.

The house was a block south of Loose Park, a sprawling green space perfect for walking with your girlfriend or running with your dog. Mason hadn’t had a girlfriend or a dog since he and Kate got divorced a year ago.

They rescued a dog from the pound soon after they were married, a German shepherd–collie she named Tuffy because she was anything but tough. Mason spoiled Tuffy like an only child and the dog returned his affection. Custody of the dog was the last battle they fought in the divorce. Kate won when she dognapped Tuffy and dared him to complain to the judge.

Mason paid a guy to mow the lawn, rake the leaves, and shovel the snow, which he considered a fair contribution to urban gentrification. Still, most of the neighbors averted their eyes when they walked by, and he swore that a few crossed the street to avoid a close encounter. Maybe it was the untrimmed oak trees, whose low-hanging, heavy branches scraped the yard. Or maybe it was the blue floodlight he’d used to replace the burned-out porch light.

The only exception was Anna Karelson, who lived across the street. Anna and Mason were “wave and hello” neighbors. He waved and she said “hello.” When Kate moved out, she began crossing the street to visit with him on the sidewalk, commiserating about her unhappy marriage as if that made them kindred spirits. Last week, she told him that she was going to hire a lawyer.

It was eight o’clock when Mason pulled into the driveway. He’d taken his time the rest of the way home from the lake, flinching every time a black SUV came near him.

Scott Daniels was pacing the sidewalk in front of his house. He and Mason had met during the first week of law school. Mason was amazed that Scott had already outlined the assignments for the first two weeks of class. Scott was amazed that Mason understood the material after a single reading. They studied together, Scott mastering the details while Mason painted the big picture.

The combination got them through law school in the top ten of their class. They shared an apartment in Kansas City after graduation until Scott got married. Mason was his best man, a favor Scott returned at Mason’s wedding.

“I was at the office getting ready for my closing when Harlan called about Sullivan,” Scott said as he followed Mason into the house. “Harlan has called a partners’ meeting for eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

Mason dropped his bag on the kitchen floor and grabbed two bottles of Bud Light from the refrigerator, handing one to Scott and leading him onto the redbrick patio, where he slumped into a lounge chair.

“I helped Pamela identify the body. I can go a long time without doing that again.”

Scott took a long pull on his bottle, wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

“Sullivan really knows how to screw up a good retreat.”

“Better yet, the sheriff thinks he was murdered.”

Scott stopped cold, his bottle dangling from his hand. “Get out!”

“She can’t prove it yet, but his body was found in a cove on one side of the lake, and his boat was found at Buckhorn’s marina. She also found a gold earring on the boat and Pamela says it isn’t hers.”

“That sounds more like adultery than murder. Who does he suspect?”

“I said ‘she.’ Her name is Kelly Holt. And she suspects everyone who hated Sullivan or stood to gain from his death. It’s what cops do.”

Scott drained the last drops from his bottle. “Well, if that’s the test, I’ll make her list.”

Mason looked at him, wide-eyed. “Is that a confession?”

“Yeah, right. But you know that I hated the son of a bitch, and I’ll inherit his clients. Sullivan was a total shit to work for. Nothing was ever right or good enough.”

“That’s not news. You’ve been complaining about Sullivan since the day you started. But you never complained about the money.”

“Because I’m smart enough to know that I’m a good lawyer but a lousy salesman. I did all the work while he played golf. And I don’t play golf. I guess I’ll have to learn if I want to hold on to his clients.”

Mason had listened to Scott complain for years. It was the one thing that had made him hesitate about joining the firm. He’d finally decided that Scott’s grousing was just his way of dealing with the stress of his practice. Sullivan’s death added an unsettling context to his complaints and put Scott on Kelly Holt’s list.

“What happens to the firm without Sullivan?” Mason asked.

“Nothing good. You remember the death benefit I told you about?”

“Sure. If a partner dies, the firm has to buy out his ownership interest.”

“Right. The firm bought life insurance on each of the partners to pay for the buyout.”

“So the insurance pays off Sullivan’s wife.”

“That’s the problem. Sullivan never took the physical exam the insurance company required. His death was uninsured.”

“You mean the firm owes Pamela the money?”

“Exactly one million dollars, and we don’t have it.”

“Well, that’s great. What’s the good news?”

“I think we can work out a deal with Pamela. I’ve done their estate work. She doesn’t need the money. The real problem is what Sullivan didn’t tell us about him and O’Malley. This afternoon when I was getting ready for my closing, I was in Sullivan’s office looking for his copy of the contracts. I found this.”

Scott handed Mason a subpoena demanding that Sullivan & Christenson produce all of its files on O’Malley before the federal grand jury at nine a.m. on July 17.

“That’s this Friday. I’m defending O’Malley. Sullivan didn’t tell me about this.”