Primary Justice (Ben Kincaid series Book 1) (22 page)

Ben leaned back against the wall. Here we go again.

“That’s really not fair, Julia. You know I worked very hard—”

“At some things, yes,” she interrupted. “At others, no.”

Mike took a deep breath, then released it. There was really no point in playing the scene out again. “You’re looking good,” he said. “I’m glad to see nursing school hasn’t turned you into a drudge.”

“If it hasn’t, it will,” she said, her teeth set tightly together. “It isn’t the way I planned to be living my life at this point.”

“I see you still blame me for your having to pursue a career.” He shook his head back and forth. “You know, you didn’t have to choose one of the hardest professions in the world—unless maybe you were still trying to punish me.

Julia’s eyes and nostrils flared. “I wanted to be supported in the manner to which I was accustomed. You promised me you’d take care of that, Morelli.”

“Morelli is your name, too, Julia,” he said.

“Not anymore,” she snapped. “Not anymore and never again.”

“You
guys
,” Ben said, in a slow, pleading tone. “Come on. Don’t do this.”

“I really do need to speak with Ben,” Mike repeated.

“Fine.” Julia lifted her coat off the floor, then walked to the door. “But don’t forget, Ben—”

“I’ll call Mother as soon …” He hesitated. “As soon as I can.”

Julia nodded. “See that you do. Goodbye, Ben.” She closed the door behind her.

Mike took off his coat and sat down on the floor next to Ben. “You know, I haven’t seen her for three years. Isn’t that weird? You see someone every single day, every single night, for so long, then you don’t see her at all for the next three years.” He shook his head. “Weird.”

“If I were you, I’d wait another three years before your next reunion.” Ben straightened up and tossed Mike one of the throw pillows. “What did you want to see me about?”

“I’ve got a little more evidence to share,” he said cryptically. “First tell me what you’ve been up to lately.”

Ben sat forward eagerly. “I’ve talked to Sanguine, Mike, and you won’t believe everything he said. This was as close to a flat-out fourth-act
Perry Mason
confession as anything you’re going to hear in your lifetime.” Ben quickly recounted the high points of his conversation with Sanguine.

“Did he say he killed Adams?”

“No, but he admitted everything but that. He practically fed me a motive.”

“Oh, a motive. Well, that settles everything.” He tossed the pillow behind his head and leaned back against the wall. “Didn’t they teach you anything in law school?”

“I know, I know. Motive isn’t an element of proof for establishing a prima facie case of murder. Or any other crime, for that matter. But it will go a long way toward getting a conviction from a jury. You know it as well as I do.”

Mike hesitated. “Well, perhaps I should visit Mr. Sanguine again.”

“Do it tomorrow morning. Or maybe we should go now. What if he skips the country?”

“Give me a break, Ben. The man heads a multimillion-dollar corporate empire. He’s not going to skip the country. If you’ve
really
put the fear of God into him, he
might
hire a lawyer. A slick lawyer can keep him out of prison longer than he could hope to stay hidden. Come to think of it, he’ll probably use your firm. Come to think of it, he may hire
you
. He seems to have such a high opinion of your work these days. Wouldn’t that be a knotty problem? If R T & T agrees to represent him, you won’t be able to testify against him.”

“They can’t do that. They’d have to check for any conflicts of interest before accepting the case, and I’d speak up. If a lawyer expects to be called as a witness, he can’t agree to act as a lawyer in the case. And that goes for his entire firm.”

“And so Raven, Tucker & Tubb would lose one of its most profitable clients, perhaps its
most
profitable client, perhaps permanently. Any idea how that would affect your standing with the shareholders?”

Ben had to stop a moment at that.

“Look, Ben, give us a few days to finish the physical-evidence analysis. Then, if we’re sure we’re right about Sanguine and the evidence matches up, I’ll drop in on the esteemed president of Sanguine Enterprises.”

Ben nodded his reluctant acceptance of the plan. “So what have you got now?” he asked.

“More forensic evidence,” Mike replied. “The hair and fiber team found several dark coarse male hairs on the inside lining of Adams’s overcoat. They match the ones I told you about before that we found on Adams’s body.”

Ben’s eyes widened. “Dark hair. That could be Sanguine.”

“Yeah, it could be, but is it? Adams could’ve picked them up from someone at the bar beforehand, or at his home, or office, or anyplace else for that matter. But the distribution of hairs on the inside of the coat and their proximity to blood splatters makes the fiber boys think they came from the killer. They think it happened while the killer struggled to get the body into the Dumpster.” He paused. “And I think they’re right. That would explain, for instance, why the hairs are all on one side of the body.”

Mike studied a small notepad that he withdrew from his coat pocket. “I sent the hairs and a sample of the blood we think came from the killer away for a special test. A DNA fingerprint.”

Ben looked impressed. “I’ve read about that. How does it work?”

“Well, they analyze nuclear rather than mitochondrial DNA—”

“Ahh,” Ben said. “Thank you for making that distinction clear.”

Mike continued unperturbed. “They use restriction enzymes as scissors, cut the DNA into segments and arrange the segments into patterns that resemble the Uniform Product Code labels you see everywhere now. They’re easier to compare than fingerprints. And, unless our man has an identical twin, no two are alike.”

“Isn’t there some question about whether the results are conclusive?”

“Yeah. But at this point, any evidence is better than none.”

“Brrrr,” Ben said, hunching his shoulders and rubbing his arms as if he’d caught a chill. “Genetic IDs. Sounds like something you’d hear about on the Big Brother telemonitor.”

“Do you want to catch this guy or not? I should get the test results by telephone tomorrow afternoon or the next day. Then I’ll ask Sanguine for an exemplar of his hair and blood. If the hair samples match—”

“We’ll know he’s the killer.”

“We’ll know he saw Adams within the last twenty-four hours before he died,” Mike corrected. “Since he told the police otherwise, that might be enough to bring him in for some pointed questioning. And if it’s Sanguine’s blood under Adams’s fingernails, we’ll have an airtight case.”

Ben hated to admit it, but sometimes the law did move too slowly for ordinary human beings to bear.

“You know what the really funny thing is?” Mike said slowly. “I still don’t know what I did wrong. In my marriage, I mean. I worked hard. I worked night and day. You know I did. I tried to do the right thing. I tried to make her happy. If I could do it all over again, starting today, I don’t have the slightest idea what I should do differently.”

Ben gave Mike a fraternal punch on the shoulder. “Let’s call up Julia,” Ben said. “I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you.”

The two men looked at one another and then, with some regret, burst into laughter.

W
ASHROOM PROTOCOL WAS A
peculiar feature of the law office life-style. The washrooms were perhaps the only communal meeting place for persons from all echelons of the firm. Everyone went there at one time or another, excepting the three named partners, each of whom had his own private washroom that could only be entered with a special key. In the general public men’s rooms, however, the partners and associates alike enacted a complex ritual, from greeting all present by name upon entrance to the vigorous washing of hands on the way out. Associates went to ostentatious lengths to demonstrate that they had no latent uneasiness about urinating in the presence of others, and every one of them, Ben suspected, would have preferred to remain silent and be left in peace in a private stall while they took care of business. The office washroom, however, might be the only place a junior associate ever saw most partners. Ergo, bizarrely enough, it became a place to try to make an impression.

Ben met Greg on his way in.

“Long time no see,” Greg said, pushing the door open. “Boy, have people ever been talking about you.”

Ben was reflexively defensive. “I don’t want to hear about—” Greg silenced him by raising a finger to his lips in the hush position. He rubbed his thumb and forefinger across his lips, then flicked his fingers, as if to throw away the key. Greg crouched down and checked to see if there were any feet visible beneath the stall doors. Evidently there weren’t.

“Can’t be too careful,” Greg said, turning back toward the urinals. “Partners are everywhere.”

Ben rolled his eyes. “Don’t you think you’re overdoing this firm intrigue routine?”

“Hey, I’ve planned to be a lawyer all my life,” Greg said. “It’s all I ever wanted to do. I’m not going to blow it now by being stupid. Loose lips sink ships.”

What a great place to work, Ben thought.

“I understand your first court appearance was an unmitigated disaster,” Greg said. For some inexplicable reason, he seemed to be grinning.

“Glad everyone’s heard about it,” Ben muttered. “Saves me the bother of sending out announcements.”

“Ah, well,” Greg said, “that’s why you’ve made those connections in high places, right?” He flashed his perfect smile. “A wise associate hedges his bets.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Greg. You’re starting to sound like Alvin.”

Greg’s smile became something like a patronizing leer. “You didn’t really think you could keep something like that secret, did you, old boy?” Greg zipped up and walked over to the sinks. “Don’t be so secretive. Your fellow associates were very impressed.
I
was very impressed. I hadn’t pegged you as the one to make the smooth career moves. You seemed a smidgen too busy being noble to me. But you outflanked your entire class. And in a very masterly fashion, too, I might add. How can Raven fire you now? It can’t happen. It’s perfect.” He wiped his hands on a paper towel. “I guess I should have realized you were on the fast track after that stint with Mona Raven.”

Ben stared blankly at him. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Right. That’s your story, and you’re sticking to it. I don’t blame you. Did Mona have something to do with this? I was in Chambers’s office when he found out. Was he ever pissed! He was counting on that Vancouver case reassignment to keep his billables above the freezing point. Wait till he hears this latest news.” He slapped Ben on the shoulder. “Pretty impressive for someone whose only court experience was … what was the phrase, an unmitigated disaster?”

Deep furrows crept across Ben’s forehead. “I don’t understand,” he said. “What has Mrs. Raven to do with the Vancouver case?”

“Come on, Ben—this is part of the act, right? Are you serious? Mona Raven and Sanguine are lovers. Were lovers, anyway. Before her marriage to Arthur Raven. Mr. Raven is evidently an amazingly understanding husband. Of course, at his age, he’d have to be.”

Ben was stunned. “Where do you
hear
these things?”

Greg beamed. “A good lawyer has many sources.” He winked and sauntered out of the washroom.

All roads lead back to Sanguine, Ben thought. No matter what startling new development I come across, Joseph Sanguine is always involved.

He stopped suddenly. What
was
Greg’s latest news?

B
EN WALKED BACK TO
his office, stifling a yawn. He hadn’t slept at all the night before. Too much was happening, pulling him every which way at once. Derek, Julia, Sanguine. Emily. Too much. Too much concern, too much guilt. He began to wonder if he would ever sleep peacefully again, if the gnawing in his stomach would ever subside.

Just as he had nearly made it to his office, he was stopped by Maggie. “Two messages came in for you, Mr. Kincaid,” she said, in an unnecessarily loud tone of voice.

“Thanks, Maggie.” He lifted the message memos from his spindle.

The first was from Christina. It read:
No luck yet. Still hard at it—probably conducting more audits than real IRS. Why does Tulsa need so many different places to live?

Ben smiled. Now there’s a good woman. This was probably part of the cosmic karma, he mused. In exchange for getting to work with Christina, he had to tolerate working with Derek and Maggie.

The second message informed Ben that Mr. Derek wished to see him. Ben crumpled that message in his fist and, taking his own sweet time, strolled into Derek’s office.

“Good to see you, Kincaid.”

Ben blinked. Derek actually seemed cordial, all smiles.

“Where have you been hiding yourself?”

Ben was startled by this sudden outburst of friendliness. This wasn’t the Derek he had come to know and be repelled by. Something had changed radically.

“Take a chair, son. I’d come around, but my trick knee is acting up again.”

Ben sat as instructed.

Derek looked into Ben’s eyes, but it seemed more a friendly scrutiny than the usual dissection. “Well, now, you’ve been a busy boy, haven’t you?” He squinted his eyes into impossibly thin slits, then laughed. “Just got off the phone with Joseph Sanguine.”

Oh, great, Ben thought. I pushed Sanguine too hard, and he’s ticked off about it. I’m history. Finished. Fired. Impoverished. Destitute.

“We’ve been after Sanguine for years to appoint someone to act as in-house liaison counsel for Sanguine Enterprises, and we wanted it to be someone from our firm. To solidify the relationship between our business and his.” He paused meaningfully. “Do you realize that Sanguine Enterprises paid over four million dollars in legal fees to Raven, Tucker & Tubb last year alone? Incredible. Needless to say, we don’t want to lose this client.”

Derek uncrossed and recrossed his legs manually, using both hands to lift the legs into place. He winced as he bent his right knee. “Sanguine wants you to be his in-house counsel, Kincaid. He asked for you by name and made it clear he would accept no substitutes. Frankly, we thought he’d go for someone with more legal experience, someone who’d been here ten, maybe fifteen years, rather than ten, fifteen days”—he waved his hand absently in the air—“but who are we to judge? The client always knows best. Sanguine says he wants to train someone fresh, someone who will learn to transact business his way from day one. And frankly, Sanguine knows damn well we’ll give him whomever he wants.”