Sheer Gall (8 page)

Chapter Eight

Taking care of business took longer than expected. The firm of Sally Wade & Associates had close to four hundred cases, most of which were garden-variety personal injury matters—slip-and-falls, fender benders, and workers' comp injuries. Curiously, most of her workers' comp claims involved the Douglas Beef slaughterhouse in East St. Louis, the same slaughterhouse that Benny had spotted from the top of the Arch. Presumably, Sally had an in with some official at the meatpackers' union.

Although Amy Chickering, Sally's assistant, had done a fine job grouping the cases into logical categories, it still took far more time than I had anticipated to get through all the files, place a tentative value on each claim, and make preliminary decisions as to which cases should be referred to which attorneys. It was a task for which I was uniquely unqualified, having spent most of my career battling over the issues that arise in complex commercial litigation. Whiplash and loss of consortium have never been much concern under the Sherman Act (except perhaps for the lawyers' spouses), and the key documents in a securities fraud claim do not include spinal X-rays and reports of treating chiropractors.

Fortunately, Amy Chickering possessed enough expertise for both of us. She had been Sally's secretary for almost three years, and, as is true of every good secretary for a solo practitioner, her duties included those performed by paralegals and junior associates at most larger law firms. I watched with deference as Amy picked up a file, sorted through the medical records, and gave me a summary and case value in under five minutes: “Okay, this is a number three lumbar. Seven thousand in specials. Full recovery. Value it at twenty grand. Let's put it in Irv's pile. He'll want this one for sure.”

It took us nearly three hours to get through all of the cases, and by the time we finished, both of us were bushed. Our exhaustion was due to more than just the volume of cases. The working conditions were cramped and uncomfortable. Basically, we moved slowly through each file drawer, pulling out one case file at a time, sorting through the papers inside, making notes on a legal pad, returning it to the file drawer, and moving on to the next one.

Amy had dressed for the task. I, unfortunately, had not. Although I shucked my shoes to pad around in my stockings, I envied her yellow cotton turtleneck, faded blue jeans, and jogging shoes.

The pizza we ordered during a coffee and bathroom break arrived a few minutes after we finished the last file. I paid the delivery boy and joined Amy in the kitchen, where she had placed two chilled cans of Pepsi on the small table.

“Boy oh boy,” she groaned. She was leaning back against the sink with her hands on her hips as she rolled her head from side to side, trying to loosen her neck muscles. “That was sure one ton of fun.”

I put the pizza on the table and took a seat facing her. Amy was in her late twenties and had a cheerful, spunky personality that had me liking her from the start. She was a slender, attractive woman with hazel eyes and curly blond hair that hung in ringlets to her shoulders.

“I keep trying to place you,” I said.

Amy closed her eyes and tilted her head back. “What do you mean?”

“You look so familiar.”

With her head tilted back, she moved her neck from side to side, working out the kinks. Then she brought her head back down and opened her eyes. “Really?”

I nodded. “It's weird.”

She smiled mischievously. “You want a hint?”

“Sure.”

She pulled a chair over and sat down. “Pretend this is a water bed.” She crossed her legs. “And imagine I'm in a sexy white negligee.” She assumed a seductive pose and turned her face as if toward a camera. She paused two beats and started. “When you're old enough to know better,” she cooed, “you're old enough for an Uncle Sam water bed. Remember, Uncle Sam wants you.” She slowly winked. “And so do I.” She paused, and then her face reverted to normal. “Well?”

“Wow,” I said, impressed. “That was really you?”

She nodded. “The high point in my less than stellar acting career.” She scooted the chair up to the table and reached for a slice of pizza.

“I should ask for your autograph.”

“Right,” she snorted.

“That was a few years back, right?”

“Four, to be exact.”

“Have you done other commercials?”

“Not since then, other than a bit part in a Rothman's Furniture ad right before I went to work for Sally. Before the Uncle Sam gig, I was the girl in the hot pants in the back of the pickup in that obnoxious Jack Bruno Ford commercial.”

“Do you do other types of acting?”

“Not for a few years.” She paused to take a sip of her soda. “It's hard getting work in St. Louis. I might have had better luck if I'd started on one of the coasts, but let's face it: there are girls with more talent and better looks and bigger boobs waiting tables in Greenwich Village and Santa Monica.”

As we ate the pizza, Amy told me more about her background. She had been born and raised in the St. Louis suburb of Webster Groves, where she was homecoming queen her senior year at Webster Groves High. After two years at Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri, she dropped out to follow what had then seemed a promising career as a fashion model. She started off doing fashion “shoots” for local newspaper ads and gradually moved into St. Louis television commercials as well. The work, when she could get it, paid well, but Amy soon learned that modeling and acting, unlike, say, banking, are professions without obvious career paths or steady paychecks. To supplement her income, she signed on with an agency that supplied temporary secretaries to lawyers and accountants. She worked for Sally a few times when Sally was still with Abraham Grozny. She must have impressed Sally, because when Sally left Grozny to start her own firm four years ago, she asked Amy to come with her full-time. Amy declined at first, unwilling to give up on her acting career, but accepted a year later. During her first year with Sally, she tried to do some moonlighting in modeling and acting, but the markets remained tight. Eventually, she threw in the towel.

“Maybe you can try again now,” I said.

She shrugged. “It'd be even harder now. I'm just about over the hill.”

“You're kidding.”

“I wish I was. I'm twenty-nine.” She sighed. “Believe it or not, that's middle-aged in the fashion world. As for acting—real acting, I mean—well, that's a tough road.”

“Not if it's what you love.”

“I know.” She gave me a self-conscious look. “I might actually give it another try once we get Sally's cases farmed out.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “This killing freaked me out. I mean, there was Sally, zooming along in her career, things getting better every month, big plans for the future, and then, boom, curtain time, strike the set, sayonara, baby.” She paused, and shook her head, staring down at the empty pizza box. “It really made me rethink my own priorities.” She looked up with a sheepish grin. “I signed up for an acting class yesterday. The first class is tonight. I called my old dance teacher this morning to see if she has room for me. She does.”

“Good for you, Amy,” I said, reaching across the table to pat her hand. “I say go for it.”

She smiled. “We'll see what happens.” She paused, her eyes watering. “This really shook me up.”

“I'm sure it did.”

“And then that horrible thing the other day with that floater. My God, that was dreadful.”

I shuddered. “I know.”

Two days ago, a family of four from Iowa had been having a pleasant lunch on the floating McDonald's restaurant that was moored to the Mississippi River levee downtown when Junior spotted something bobbing against the side of the boat. It turned out to be the dead, gas-bloated body of a twenty-four-year-old waitress who had lived and worked on the outskirts of Belleville, Illinois. According to preliminary autopsy reports, she appeared to have been shot in the head and dumped in the river somewhere north of St. Louis.

“I used to know her,” Amy said, shaking her head sadly. “She was another one.”

“Another what?” I asked gently.

“Another struggling actress.” Amy looked at me and sighed. “First Sally, then Jenny. It's totally freaking me out. Yesterday I bought myself a gun and a big German shepherd. I bought him from a breeder who trains attack dogs.” She shook her head ruefully. “I used to be a bleeding-heart liberal.”

“Hey,” I said with a smile, “I just started taking a self-defense class for women.”

Amy smiled. “All those assholes out there better watch out for us, eh?”

After we cleaned up the kitchen we went into Sally's office. It was plain and functional, with framed diplomas, bar admission certificates, and a few commendations hung on the wall above her credenza. Amy sat on the couch and I pulled up a chair to face her. I took out my notes and started asking questions.

I was surprised to learn that Amy hadn't found out about Sally Wade's lawsuit against Neville McBride until she read about it in the newspaper after Sally was dead.

“I had assumed you typed the draft petition,” I said.

“No.” She gestured toward the personal computer on the credenza. “Sally prepared many of her court documents in here. Let's see if that petition is there.”

She went over to the computer and turned it on. As we waited for it boot up, I said, “Sally came to see me on the afternoon of October fifteenth. That was a Wednesday, the day after the attack. Did she tell you what Neville did to her?”

“That wasn't her style,” Amy said, looking over her shoulder at me, “but I knew something was wrong.”

“How?”

“When I got to work that morning, Sally was in here, and her door was locked. That had never happened before. Ever. She was gone when I came back from lunch, and I didn't see her the rest of the day.”

“Did you see her at all that day?”

Amy shook her head. “Not until Friday.”

“What about Thursday?”

“She called that morning to say she wasn't feeling well and wasn't coming in.”

“And on Friday?”

“She came in late that morning.”

“How did she look?”

Amy frowned, trying to remember. “Her face seemed a little puffy. I didn't think much of it at the time, you know. I mean, she'd gone home sick on Wednesday, called in sick on Thursday. I assumed she looked a little puffy because she still wasn't feeling well.”

“What about her eyes?”

“She wore sunglasses the whole time.”

“Did that seem odd to you?”

Amy moved her head from side to side, as if weighing the question. “It does now. Back then, maybe not. I know it sounds dumb, but I probably thought the glasses were connected to her illness. I get migraines occasionally, and it helps if I wear dark sunglasses. Cuts down on the glare. I guess I thought she had a bad headache.”

“She didn't say anything about the attack?”

“Not a word.” She paused. “You need to understand something, Rachel. Sally was strictly business in this office. No girl talk, no gossip, nothing about her personal life. That's the way she was. You know that pizza you and I shared in the kitchen? Well, I worked for Sally for three years, and we never had lunch together.” She shook her head. “Not even once. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining. We had a strictly professional relationship. She was the boss, I was the employee, and that was the extent of it.” She sat back with a faraway expression. “It didn't really bother me. Back when I was a temp, I worked for a real mixed bag of lawyers. You wouldn't believe some of the weird personal stuff they expect their secretaries to handle. Sally wasn't warm and fuzzy, but she was fair.” She turned toward the computer on Sally's credenza. “Let's see if we can find it.”

I joined her by the terminal screen. She zipped through the directories with speed and skill. There were hundreds and hundreds of documents in the directories and subdirectories. Amy looked back at me. “You say she came to your office on the fifteenth?” she asked.

“Right.”

“Hmmm, maybe this is it.” She moved the cursor down to the document entitled PLEADING. It showed a create time and date of 9:49 a.m. on October 15. “Let's take a look.”

She typed the instruction to open the document. The screen went blank for a moment, and then the first page of a familiar document appeared:

Amy leaned back in her chair and gestured at the screen. “That explains why she had the door closed all morning,” she said. “She came to your office that afternoon, right?”

I nodded. It was eerie to be staring at Sally's handiwork, frozen in time on the computer a few hours before she handed it to me. “Is there anything else she created on that day?” I asked.

“Let's look.” Amy returned to the file directories.