Maximum Security (3 page)

Harry taught me an important lesson when I moved from the prosecutor’s office to the defense bar: Keep the initial client interview spare. Get the big picture; reread the pertinent cases; think it through. And then hand-select the follow-up questions. On this side of the bar it’s better, sometimes, not to know everything.

“Mrs. Rawlings,” I begin, “why don’t you summarize the events of the past week for me. We’ll go back later and fill in the details.”

“First of all,” she says, leaning into the space between us, “the only Mrs. Rawlings I know is my mother-in-law, a woman who sobbed through her baby boy’s wedding, from beginning to end. And let me assure you, darlin’, hers were
not
tears of joy.”

I almost laugh, but catch myself. This isn’t a social call, after all.

Louisa leans back in her chair, smiling again, and recrosses her long legs. “It gives me an enormous amount of pleasure to report that
Mrs.
Rawlings went to her heavenly reward some years ago.”

This time I can’t help it. I laugh out loud and Louisa joins me. “So please,” she begs, mock dismay in her large, chocolate-brown eyes, “let that woman rest in peace.”

“Okay,” I tell her. “I will. Now why don’t you give me the short version of what happened, Louisa.”

She stops laughing but her smile lingers. She stares at me and shakes her head. “I’m afraid that’s about all I can give you, darlin’.”

I wish she’d stop calling me that. I reach for my coffee and stare back at her. “What do you mean?”

She falls quiet and her gaze moves to the water. Her shoulders are broad—swimmer’s shoulders—and the sheer sleeves of her blouse hug well-toned, athletic arms. “I mean the short version is all I know,” she says. “Only Herb knows the rest.”

I nod.

She sighs, shakes her head, and her eyes return to me. “
Knew
the rest, I suppose I should say.” She stares into her lap. “I just can’t get used to talking about Herb in the past tense.”

I nod again. That’s a sentiment I’ve heard before, more than once.

“Anyhow,” she says, “I’ll tell you as much as I can.”

I set my cup down and reposition my legal pad.

“It happened on Sunday.” She pauses and swallows hard. “Five days ago, but it seems like a century. I’d gone to the club. A few of the women members had invited me to play nine holes—make it a foursome—and then have brunch at the grill. When I got home, the house was empty. Herb was gone and so was the boat.” She looks up at me and reaches for her teacup.

“Was that unusual?”

She sips and shakes her head. “Not at all. Herb was crazy about that boat.
Carolina Girl,
he named it. That’s why we moved here”—she points out at the floating dock—“so he could keep his baby girl at the back door. It didn’t surprise me at all that he’d taken her out.”

I keep my eyes on her, but say nothing. I want Louisa Rawlings to do the lion’s share of the talking. It’s her story, after all. And once she tells it to the Chatham cops, she’ll be stuck with it.

She takes a deep breath and holds it for a moment, then lets it out slowly and leans toward me once more. “It was close to noon by the time I got home. I went straight in to shower, then put on my robe and came in here with
The New York Times
. That’s when I found his note.”

She opens a small drawer in the wicker table next to her chair, pulls out a single sheet of plain white paper and hands it to me. Five short lines of boxy handwriting in blue ink are centered on the page:

I pass it back to her, well aware that neither of us should be handling it. But that’s the prosecutor’s worry, not mine. And so far at least, there is no prosecutor. She returns it to the drawer and looks over at me, apparently awaiting a question.

“Did you call the police?”

She sighs. “No, I didn’t. Not then.”

“Why not?”

“It didn’t even cross my mind. It never occurred to me that I was looking at a suicide note. I wish to God it had. Maybe someone could have reached Herb in time, talked some sense into him.” She sighs again, gazes out at the water, and falls quiet.

“What did you think it was?”

She looks back at me, her eyes the darkest brown I’ve ever seen. “I knew what it was,” she says. “At least I thought I did.”

She stops, takes a deep breath, and I wait.

“Herb was having trouble,” she says at last.

Now we’re getting somewhere. We’ll be hard-pressed to explain the man’s suicide if he wasn’t having trouble of some sort. “What kind of trouble?” I ask.

She’s quiet again.

“Financial?”

She shakes her head. “Oh no, darlin’. Money was never a problem.”

I do wish she’d stop calling me that. “What, then?”

She folds her arms and looks into her lap. “I’m sorry,” she says, “but I find this somewhat difficult.”

“Take your time,” I tell her.

Finally, Louisa swallows and looks up, but not at me. Her eyes rest instead on some spot over my shoulder. “Herb was a good deal older than I am,” she says.

“Harry mentioned that. Fifteen years?”

She nods. “And he was having trouble…with his…”

Her eyes move to mine. She’s apparently hoping I can fill in the blank, but I can’t. I shake my head at her.

“…his function,” she says.

“His function?”

“His erectile function.” She exhales the words, her eyes still averted.

“Oh.”

“I urged him to see his doctor about it, but he kept putting it off.”

I nod, hoping she’ll keep talking, but she doesn’t. She seems to expect a reply. “Maybe he was embarrassed,” I venture.

“That was part of it,” she says, shaking her head, “but it’s not the whole story. Since his retirement, Herb put most things off. When he was working, he was a take-charge, get-things-done kind of man. But once he had time on his hands, he turned into a professional procrastinator. He loved this house—threw his heart and soul into the renovations—and he loved that damned boat. But everything else could wait. And I do mean
everything
.”

Louisa pauses and sips her tea, then looks over at me to see if I get the picture. I nod again to tell her I do.

“Anyway, we’d had a little…session…on Sunday morning,” she says, looking away again, “before I left for the club. It didn’t go very well.”

“So you thought the note was about that? About your failed session?”

“Exactly,” she says. “I wasn’t worried when I found Herb’s note. To tell you the truth, I was glad he’d taken the boat out. I enjoyed the afternoon here alone, even finished the
Times
crossword puzzle. Not something that happens every week.” She smiles and sips again.

“But then?”

“But then it started to get dark. And I knew something was wrong. Herb always brought the boat in well before dark, no matter what water he was on. He was cautious that way. And he had a few lobster pots in the channel. He always checked them on his way in—always—and he needed light to do that. He caught so many I’m sick of eating lobster already. We’ve started giving them away.”

She pauses. I wait.

“When I realized it was starting to get dark, I did call,” she says. “I called the police; they alerted the Coast Guard and the harbormaster’s office. Of course, sunset isn’t the best time to begin a search for a missing vessel. They did what they could, called it off at midnight, and then started all over at daybreak.”

Louisa looks out at the water again. “They found the
Carolina Girl
early Monday morning, not long after the search resumed. She was up on the shoals in the Great South Channel with a good deal of hull damage. They also found the half dozen life jackets Herb always kept on board.” Her eyes leave the water and meet mine again. “They didn’t find Herb, though.”

“Harry told me they still haven’t recovered his body.”

“That’s right,” she says, staring out at the ocean. “Not yet.”

“I’m sorry, Louisa.” I mean it. And I wish I’d said it sooner.

She’s quiet.

“When did the police contact you?”

“Right away,” she says. “Two detectives came to the house early Monday morning. There’d been an accident, they said, a boating accident.”

“Did you think they were right?”

She faces me again, shakes her head. “Not for a minute. Sunday afternoon was glorious. We had some weather that night, but not until late. During the day, seas were calm, winds light. Herb was at home on the ocean. He’d been boating since he was a boy. And as I said, he was cautious; he respected the water.”

“Did you tell the police what you thought?”

She shakes her head again. “No.”

“Did you mention the note?” I already know she didn’t. If she had, it wouldn’t be here.

“I didn’t even think of the note until hours after they’d gone. I didn’t connect it with Herb’s death until later in the day.”

“What else did the detectives tell you?”

“Very little,” she says. “They asked when I’d last seen Herb, where I’d been when he took the boat out. They also asked questions about Herb—basic information—and wrote my answers on a form. They asked me to sign it when they finished, then offered their condolences and left. I didn’t expect to hear from them again.”

“But you did.”

She nods and sets her cup down. “Yesterday. One of them phoned first thing in the morning. Walker, I think his name was.”

“Mitch Walker.”

“That’s it. Anyway, he said additional facts had surfaced, asked if I’d come to the station, answer a few more questions. He was evasive when I asked what the additional facts might be. He said Herb’s insurance company had contacted him, had raised new concerns, but he wouldn’t say what they were.”

“Life insurance?”

“Yes. New England Patriot.”

“How much is there?”

“A million,” she says. “At Herb’s age, it didn’t make sense to carry any more than that.”

“You’re the sole beneficiary?”

“That’s right. And I may as well tell you now, that fact didn’t sit well with Herb’s daughter.”

“His daughter?”

Louisa nods. “Anastasia. A product of his first marriage.”

I make the initial entry on my legal pad:
Anastasia Rawlings.

Louisa flashes a devious grin over her teacup when I look up, as if we share a wicked secret. “I’m the trophy wife,” she says.

Well, of course she is. The term was probably coined for Louisa Rawlings. “What about your predecessor?” I ask. “Is she still in the picture?”

“No. She was a good sort, Bess. Never cottoned to me, but I rather liked her. Passed on a few years back. Heart trouble.”

“Is Anastasia Herb’s only child?”

“Yes, thank the Good Lord. And a
child
she is. Forty-five years old going on seven.”

“Is she married?”

Louisa laughs. “Married? Anastasia? Good heavens, no. She’s a career woman of sorts. A professional spoiled brat.”

Second entry:
Only child. No love lost.

“But she is joined at the hip to a washed-up beatnik,” Louisa continues, “a flower child gone to seed. Lance Phillips. Calls himself a murder mystery writer. A modern-day male incarnation of Agatha Christie. Lance is always one scotch away from a runaway best seller, so he finds Anastasia—not to mention her ready access to her father’s wallet—rather attractive.”

Third entry:
Beatnik boyfriend Lance Phillips. Aspiring writer.

“Anyway,” Louisa says, “I had already heard that New England Patriot was kicking up a fuss about the claim. Steven Collier—he’s my financial advisor—had started the process the day before. He’d contacted the agent, had him surrender the policy. But the agent reported meeting with a good deal of resistance. A claim without a corpse is automatically suspect, I suppose.”

It occurs to me that a claim submitted less than forty-eight hours after rescue efforts cease might raise a few eyebrows too. A fourth scribble finds its way to my legal pad:
Steven Collier, financial advisor/Quick-draw McGraw.

Louisa pauses to set her teacup on the side table. “Speaking of Steven,” she says, opening the drawer in the small table again, “he thought you’d want this.” She hands me a stapled legal-size document that the cover page identifies as a life insurance policy. Herb’s. Quick-draw McGraw is on top of things.

“Anyway,” Louisa continues, “I couldn’t imagine what issues the insurance people might have raised with Detective Walker. He clearly wasn’t going to enlighten me on the telephone. And he was abrupt; his tone made me nervous. So I told him I’d cooperate in any way I could, but not without an attorney. He agreed. That’s when I called Harry.”

She shrugs and folds her hands in her lap, then lets out a small laugh. “And here we are.”

“When does Detective Walker expect to ask you these additional questions?”

“On Monday,” she says. “He wants me at the station first thing in the morning.”

“Then he’s in for a disappointment.”

“How’s that?” Louisa tilts her head to one side, curious.

“You’re not going to the station.”

“I’m not?”

“No. I’ll call Mitch this afternoon and tell him. He can ask his questions in my office. We’re talking to him voluntarily. We’ll do it on our turf, not his.”