Motion for Murder (4 page)

"You will be."

"I'm thirty-one," she said. "If I'm going to have a baby, I have to do it soon."

"That's not true. You have time. Nowadays women have babies in their forties."

Sherri snorted. "Not women who have to work for a living. What, I'm going to go to my kid's high school graduation when I'm sixty? I don't think so."

"It's been done," I said.

"Not by me." She gave up on the crouton and poked at her salad. "I might as well go out with Frankie. How bad can he be?"

I put my
fork down. "You are not dating Frankie Ritter. I'll help you find someone."

A light went on behind her eyes, and she sat up straighter. "You will? Really?"

"Sure." I swallowed. "How tough can it be to find a decent guy?"

"Blond," she said. "And it can be pretty tough. Thanks, Jamie. You know you'll be my maid of honor, right?"

Like I needed one more hideous bridesmaid's dress. "Let's find the guy first," I said. "Then we'll worry about the wedding."

"And the baby. Jordan. Boy or girl, it'll be Jordan." She reached across the table to squeeze my hand. "I feel a lot better just knowing we're in this together. And I'm buying."

"In that case," I said, "I feel better, too."

I was lucky enough to miss Hilary Heath and her traveling Inquisition. She was gone by the time I got back.

Missy wasn't at her desk, but Paige was, more or less. She was pale and shaken, staring into space with her fingers twisted in her lap, her shoulders slumped. She seemed even less aware of her surroundings than usual. I rushed over to her. "Are you alright? What happened?"

She flinched and turned her head to look at me, but I'm not sure she saw me. "Water."

I hurried to the kitchen to pour her a glass of water. Hilary's visit must have been even worse than I'd imagined. Paige's hand shook hard enough to slop water over the edge of the cup. "It was awful," she said in a croaking whisper. "She saw Dougie with
her
and…"

Oh, no. I looked around for a trail of blood.

Paige shook her head. "Hilary wouldn't believe me. I tried to tell her Bambi was a new client, but she wouldn't believe me." One hand dropped to the blotter and came up clutching a computer-generated sheet. "I have the CFA right here. She never got to sign it."

CFA meant Contingent Fee Agreement, the document that proscribed Dougie's percentage of any recovery in a case. He didn't lift a pencil without a signed CFA in the file. No exceptions, no negotiations. His brand of legitimized theft had bought him a house once featured in
Contemporary Living Digest
. Of course, the photo layout had omitted the indoor/outdoor swimming pool in the master bedroom, probably because Dougie had been too busy
schtupping
the photographer to show it to her.

Paige's eyes glazed over. "Hilary told him she wished he was dead. It was ugly. Even Howard ran for the back door." Followed by Wally, no doubt. Paige dropped the CFA and the empty cup. "I think I might quit. That woman scares the hell out of me."

"You don't want to quit," I said, although I couldn't think of a single reason why. Quitting sounded pretty good.

"That's easy for you to say. You haven't even dealt with her a year." Paige shuddered. "Maybe I can put my desk in the basement. No one would bother me in the basement."

"There are no windows in the basement," I said.

"I don't need windows."

"Plus there are spiders."

"Maybe the basement isn't a good idea," she said. "Do you think they'd let me move upstairs?"

"I don't think so," I said. "Look, how angry could she be? They went out to lunch, didn't they?"

Paige shook her head. "She stormed out of here alone, screaming about going to see a divorce lawyer. Dougie left the building with that Bambi person to try to smooth things over." She caught my frown. "Victoria Plackett."

Oh. "So where's Missy?" I asked.

Paige rolled her eyes upward, which either meant heaven or the second floor. Since I didn't think Hilary was quite that powerful, I took it to mean the second floor, so I headed upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. I half expected to find Missy curled up in the fetal position in a corner somewhere, but instead I found her in Dougie's office, rifling through his desk with an urgency unmatched since Dougie's ill-fated experiment with sushi.

I hesitated in the doorway, watching her slam the kneehole drawer shut and yank open one of the side drawers. Papers rustled as she rummaged around inside then pulled out a single blue sheet. It looked like the sort of inexpensive faux-marbleized stationery available at any office supply store, but it was clearly something more than that to Missy. She took a second to read it over before folding it in thirds, her mouth drawing downward.

I was wishing I'd stayed downstairs at my desk, or even in the basement with the spiders, when Missy noticed me. "Jamie!" She slid the drawer shut with her leg, her cheeks reddening a little. "Boy, did you miss a show." She tucked the sheet into the pocket of her skirt.

"So I heard." I leaned against the doorframe. "Paige is still recovering."

"She got the worst of it." Missy came around the desk "Hil was in rare form today. Come on, let's get back to where we drones belong."

"What were you looking for?" I asked.

"Huh?" Missy glanced back at the desk, then out the window, then down at her feet. "Nothing. I wasn't looking for anything."

"Okay. Then what'd you find?"

"Just something Dougie wanted me to follow up on. No big deal." She flashed a weak grin. "There's nothing here for me," she said, and I got the feeling she wasn't talking about Dougie's desk. "Let's go."

I followed her toward the stairs thinking Dougie Digits sure made life complicated for a lot of people.

The rest of the day was business as usual. Howard came back from lunch and left fifteen minutes later for a two o'clock deposition with Wally in tow. Ken's door closed shortly afterward and stayed that way until four o'clock. Dougie's two-thirty appointment came in and left a half hour later, followed shortly by Dougie. All of which left the three of us free to get our work done in peace. It was just like a normal office, if you forgot about Adam Tiddle and Hurricane Hilary's visit and Dougie's new commercial debut. If you couldn't forget about those things, it was just the calm before the next storm.

At four-thirty, Donna crept down the stairs clutching a sheaf of papers. Not exactly a storm, more of a mournful breeze. "I'm awfully sorry," she said to none of us in particular, "but could someone tell me where the Biederman file is? I can't find it anywhere, and Mr. Biederman wants a status report."

Paige lifted her head. Her eyes were still a little glazed over, but at least she'd stopped twitching. "What?"

Donna hugged her papers harder. "Biederman. I can't find it."

"I don't know where it is," Missy said without looking at her. "It's not one of my files."

"It's Doug's case," Donna said.

Missy narrowed her eyes. "I don't know where it is."

I made it a point never to be caught playing computer games during work hours, so I closed my game of Solitaire before I stood up. "I'll help you find it."

Donna's little squirrel face brightened.

"We'll go look in Dougie's office," I said, slipping Missy a sideways glance. Missy was engrossed in the effort of looking engrossed in her work. All afternoon her teeth gnashing had been distracting me, and now she was playing it like she was expecting a gold watch on Secretary's Day. I still thought her issue with Dougie was between them, but I wasn't liking my idea of what the issue was. It smelled like an affair to me. Missy's anger, the paper she'd taken from Dougie's desk, it all fit. Of course, I'd been wrong before. Accepting this job was one example that sprang to mind.

"I hope he isn't coming back today," Donna said as we climbed the stairs. "He makes me kind of uncomfortable."

 "He's a teddy bear compared to his wife," I said, trying to ease her anxiety.

But to my surprise, she said, "Oh, I don't mind Hilary. She's not so bad."

Which just went to prove how wrong I could be.

"I've been working on a brief in support of his Motion for Trial
De Novo
for a solid week," Donna said, standing aside so I could enter Dougie's office ahead of her. In case there were booby traps or something. "It went through four rewrites. I was researching citations until midnight last Friday. And today I heard him tell Ken he whipped the thing up in one day."

I made a laser line for the desk. Maybe there was more of whatever Missy had confiscated tucked away in there. "Isn't that just like a man?" I said, wondering why she was telling me this. "He was probably trying to earn brownie points with Ken."

"I could see Wally doing something like that," she said. "He could use all the help he can get. But Doug?" She shook her head. "I expected better from him."

"For God's sake, why?" I watched her thumb through the files on the floor beside Dougie's sitting area. Plain and breakable, Donna made me look positively voluptuous, so I sat beside her whenever possible at office meetings, but beyond that, she was the brains behind Dougie's operation. I'd always thought she preferred to remain behind the scenes, churning out erudite legal documents in contented anonymity twenty hours a day. Who knew she wanted to jump from scriptwriter to starring role.

"Where do you think
Doug
was on Friday night?" she asked me. "Not here, I can tell you that."

Probably not with his wife, either. "You know the partners don't work those kinds of hours anymore," I said. "That's why they hire people like you and me. And Wally."

She squinted up at me. "You don't understand."

Not the first time.

"He takes credit for everything I do," she said. "He didn't even tell Ken I had written the brief. Don't you think that's wrong?"

"Why don't you tell Ken yourself?" I said. "You know, work it into the conversation casually."

"Conversation?" She pushed her glasses up her nose. "I don't have conversations with Ken. I don't have conversations with Howard, either. He just leaves notes on my desk, what he wants me to do."

"But you work for all three of them," I said. "You must talk to them at some point."

She shrugged and clambered to her feet, taking a second to smooth out her dress. "That's what e-mail is for."

It seemed to me e-mail was for the rampant proliferation of ads for erectile dysfunction treatment and low-rate mortgage offers, but then I worked on the first floor so maybe I wasn't privy to its more intellectual applications. I went back to nosing through Dougie's desk drawers before I said something stupid. Like this: "I'll be happy to mention it to Ken next time I talk to him, if you want."

I could be wrong, but it looked for a second like she levitated right off the floor. "You'd do that for me?"

Sure, I could fit in right between finding a husband for my sister and a new location for Paige's desk. "You deserve some credit around here," I said, and I meant it. I just wasn't sure I was the one to get it for her. I didn't have Missy's seniority or Janice's personality or Paige's looks, but hey, I could always type a note and slip it under Ken's door

Just when I was feeling virtuous over the whole thing, she said, "Then this afternoon he dropped the bomb."

Uh-oh. I stopped snooping in Dougie's desk and waited for the proverbial other shoe to drop. Now that I'd evidently committed myself without all the facts, it was probably about to drop on my head.

"You know I sit in on all of Doug's trials," she said. "I help him locate documents, keep exhibits and witness lists straight, that sort of thing." She sneaked a glance at me, so I nodded. "Well, Lezenby's set for next week." Her toe dug into the carpet. "He told me he doesn't want me in the courtroom anymore. He said my looks are a liability with the jury."

Jeez.

Her eyes lifted to meet mine, and I had to work hard to keep sympathy off my face. "What's wrong with my looks?" she asked.

In a perfect world, there was absolutely nothing wrong with her looks. She was bright and capable and very professional, even in her long-sleeved, high-necked, floor-length granny dress. And with her hair drawn back so tightly into a bun that her eyes were slitted. Okay, so she had a little work to do in the looks department. But that shouldn't have kept her out of a courtroom, and it certainly shouldn't have any effect on a jury. My guess was in Dougie's world, without benefit of makeup and push-up bras and the brazen flashing of skin, she was a piece of furniture. My skin prickled at the injustice of it.

"I can't answer that," I said, which was true enough. "But I think Dougie's being very short-sighted not recognizing your value to this firm."

A small, resigned smile flitted across her lips and was gone, swallowed up by a massive sigh. "Story of my life," she said. "Look, I don't think the Biederman file is here. I'll just find it tomorrow. Thanks anyway."

I circled Dougie's desk, my ransacking intentions forgotten, and caught up with her at the doorway. I've always had a soft spot for underdogs. "Are you going to be alright?"

She seemed a little surprised, maybe even touched by my concern. "I'm always alright," she said. "But I'd be better if Doug would fall down the courthouse steps someday."

Which is when I began to like Donna a whole lot more.

I haven't carried too many childhood traumas into my adulthood. Long ago I came to grips with the fact that I couldn't cook like my mother, I didn't yearn to give birth like my sister, and I wouldn't ever preside over a diversified and profitable retirement account like my father. I didn't hold a college degree. I was single, and I lived in a shoebox. Some people would call this failure. I called it opportunity. I lived on a street in a town called Mapleton that was lined with trees and filled with bungalows, some of them expanded to two stories. My shoebox was on the second floor of a bungalow owned by Curt Emerson. It had lots of lawn, beige vinyl siding and a brown roof, and Curt kept the lawn mowed and the leaves raked, which was good enough for me.  Curt was a package delivery driver by profession, a confirmed bachelor by preference, and a landlord by sheer luck. Mine. If I earned an actual living wage, I'd have to come up with reasons not to buy a place of my own, and I liked spending my evenings on Curt's deck enjoying the view. Of Curt. He was finer than any caricature I could watch on my television upstairs, alone. Plus, he fed me. Sherri once suggested that I had a thing for Curt, which was patently ridiculous. He was full of annoying habits, like keeping up on his laundry, keeping his cupboards stocked, and keeping his property tidy. I could never fall for anyone like that.