The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy (26 page)

Opening the envelope, I found photocopies of the
seller-to-buyer conveyance documents on the Viet Mam restaurant
building, the book-and-page references in stencil-like letters and
numbers at the top. Each page of the printed documents contained a
number of typographical errors, all corrected by hand, as though
someone hadn't proofread the ribbon originals until the closing
itself.

I didn't find much to help the cause, the seller and
his attorney—whose letterhead was on the deed—having Hispanic
names that meant nothing to me. Nguyen Trinh apparently purchased the
property through a straw, the "NT Realty Trust," probably
to conceal his identity as buyer. No surprise there.

In fact, the only real surprise came at the very end
of that document. It was the part where a notary public signs and
presses a notarial seal in taking the seller's oath that "the
above-entitled conveyance is my free act and deed."

The seller's name conformed to the typing at the
beginning of the document, but the notary line Wasn't signed by his
attorney. You had to read the signature carefully, and Without the
seal's printing coming through in photocopy like a bad dot-matrix, I
might not have taken the time to read it carefully enough. After
three go-overs, though, I was pretty certain I'd gotten it right the
first time.

The deed conveying the Viet Mam building to Nguyen
Trinh had been notarized by one "Deborah M. Ling."
 

Chapter 13
 

ON THE WALK over to Epstein & Neely's offices, I
thought about how to handle Deborah Ling. Riding to the fourth floor
in that small elevator, I settled on an indirect approach.

When the door opened onto the reception area, Imogene
Burbage was picking up a Federal Express packet from the desk staffed
by a different woman than I'd seen only the day before. Burbage wore
a gray suit, the style still conservative, the reddish hair still
pulled into a tight bun.

Turning around, she seemed taken aback. "Mr.
Cuddy?"

"Ms. Burbage. I'm glad to see you."

A troubled expression as she came toward me,
massaging the left wrist with her free hand. "Why?"

I lowered my voice. "I'd hate having to explain
myself to a new receptionist."

Burbage frowned. "Well, you should have called
first, given how late it is. Mr. Neely's attending a bar association
event, Mr. Herman's away on a trip till tomorrow, and Ms. Ling's at a
closing."

Being able to account for all her charges. Control,
fiber alles.

"How about Ms.
Radachowski then?"

* * *

"John Cuddy."

I said, "Working late?"

With one big hand, Uta Radachowski pushed back a hank
of the brown-and-silver hair, using the other to close the file on
her cherry-wood desk and tap a key on her computer. "Not really.
I'm afraid the days of nine-to-five are but a distant and fading
memory? The magnified eyes looked at me from behind her pop-bottle
lenses. "What brings you back here?"

Time for the indirect approach. "I've been
trying to come up with possible suspects, and it occurred to me that
Woodrow Gant might have had some clients who weren't part of the firm
roster."

Radachowski blinked once. "I'm not sure I follow
you."

"Everybody here told me Mr. Gant didn't have any
other opposing clients who had threatened him. What I'm wondering is,
could Mr. Gant have had some cases he was working on outside the firm
structure?"

Another blink. "You mean, that he was litigating
on his own somehow?"

"Yes, where he might have made enemies you all
wouldn't know about."

Radachowski shook her head. "No. No, I don't see
that happening. Woodrow did divorce work, and he used a software
program for tracking them." She placed her right hand on the
computer monitor. "Like the one in here I told you about last
time. If he had 'outside' cases, as you've called them, he'd have
been crazy to enter them on the 'inside' program."

"Why?"

"His secretary, Imogene, is also our bookkeeper.
If she were to go into Woodrow's computer as his secretary, Imogene
might see a file she didn't recognize from her billing software. And
if he'd tried to litigate a case off the tracking program, he'd have
had a hell of job keeping all the commitments straight"

"Couldn't Mr. Gant just have kept his own,
separate calendar for the outside matters?"

Radachowski paused a moment. "John, why is it
you even think Woodrow might have done all this in the first place?"

"How about to make money he didn't have to share
with the rest of you?"

She paused again. "No. No, it's just too big a
risk. Even if Woodrow kept a separate calendar, he'd still have to be
in court for hearings on your 'outside' cases when his docket program
said he shouldn't be, and he'd have to double-bill some 'inside'
client to 'hide' that time for bookkeeping purposes. Plus, there'd be
disbursements, like discovery costs for depositions or fees for
expert witnesses. And, secretarily, he'd still need pleadings and
other documents generated at the firm for those cases, because
Woodrow wasn't terribly talented at formatting formal paperwork on
his computer. Not to mention all kinds of countering documents from
the other side arriving here that Imogene might open first."

I thought about the typos in the deed I'd seen for
the Viet Mam building. "How about if Mr. Gant had the opposing
attorney draw up all the paperwork?"

"All of it? In a business deal, I suppose that
might fly, assuming no long-distance calls from here that our billing
program wouldn't find any 'inside' client to charge. But on a
litigated case? No, the opponent would have to be crazy. Or Woodrow
would have had to——"

Radachowski stopped short.

I said, "What is it?"

"Nothing. It makes even less sense than what you
asked about."

I gave her a minute, because something had crossed my
mind, too, as Radachowski was giving me what I needed for confronting
Deborah Ling. "Were you about to say, 'Or Woodrow would have had
to get Imogene to go along with the plan?"

No blinking at all from
behind the thick lenses now. "John, you'll have to excuse me. I
really have a lot of work to do before I can go home tonight."

* * *

I asked the new receptionist if Ms. Ling was expected
to return to the office from her closing. Given that Imogene Burbage
had immediately ushered "Mr. Cuddy" in to see Uta
Radachowski, the temp behind the desk probably thought it was okay to
tell me that the real-estate associate had said she'd be back by six.

I sat down on the love seat to wait. About 5:50, I
heard the elevator moving up its shaft, the doors opening to spill
Deborah Ling into the reception area. She'd traded the pinstriped
suit for a fawn-colored dress today, accessorized by a matching
briefcase and handbag.

Race-walking to the desk, Ling never even glanced my
way. "Any. calls?"

"Three," said the temp, reaching into the
plastic holder. "And Mr. Cuddy to see you."

"Mr .... ?" Ling turned, her pixie-cut hair
quivering a bit as I thought she tried to maintain a poker face.
"Again?"

"It'll just take a minute."

A sigh as Ling accepted her pink message slips from
the receptionist. "Come into my office."

Circling around the black, lacquered desk, Deborah
Ling sank into her swivel chair. "I've had a long, hard day, Mr.
Cuddy."

"That makes two of us."

"Can we get on with it, then?"

"Sure. The last time I was here, you told me you
introduced Woodrow Gant to the restaurant where he ate dinner the
night of his death."

Very casual, but impatient. "That's right."

"Coming back from Dedham. On a friend's
recommendation, I think you said."

Now just impatient. "Mr. Cuddy, we've already
spoken about—"

"But I'm afraid you forgot to mention something
else."

“
What?" said Ling, impatience verging on
exasperation. "That you handled the purchase of the building
Viet Mam is in."

For a moment, she didn't reply. Then, in a voice
without inflection, "What are you talking about?"

"The property is leased to a man named Chan,
who's trying to make a go of the restaurant. But you represented
Nguyen Trinh when he bought the building."

A laugh that didn't quite come off. "Who?"

"Nguyen Trinh, though he told me he prefers
'Nugey.' Woodrow Gant prosecuted Trinh and a buddy of his named Oscar
Huong for home invasion some years back."

Ling made no attempt to laugh now. "What in the
world makes you think I'm involved in any of this?"

"You mean, because there wouldn't be any billing
records here at the firm showing you ever worked on the transaction?"

Now she didn't even reply.

"Ms. Ling, your notary public seal and signature
are on the deed to Trinh."

She tried to recover. “Oh, that? I was at the
Registry one day, and another lawyer had forgotten his seal, so he
asked me to just—"

"Do you really think the lawyer who represented
the seller of the building is going to back you on that? Especially
after you had him prepare all the conveyancing documents so there
wouldn't be any embarrassing paper trail for Frank Neely or Imogene
Burbage to stumble on here at the firm?"

Ling closed down, eyes, face, even torso. Then she
looked up at me. "Are you trying to ruin my career?"

"No, but I would like the truth."

"The truth." Ling bit her lower lip. "All
right. The truth is that I met Nugey Trinh over the summer at one of
the dance clubs in the theater district. We started talking, about me
being a real estate attorney and him wanting to buy a building. Nugey
asked me to represent him on the purchase, but he wanted it 'off the
books'."

"Why?"

"Nugey said that since he met me at the club
instead of through the firm, and if I was going to do all the work,
why should Epstein & Neely get the fee? Then he—"

"Wait a minute. Trinh knew where you worked?"

Ling hesitated. "Yes. When we first started
talking—about me doing real estate law—he asked where, and I told
him."

So if Trinh had known Gant was at Epstein &
Neely, Trinh also would know that Ling worked with him there. "Go
on."

"Well, I told Nugey I'd have to think about it."

"Why did you even consider it?"

"Mr. Cuddy, Nugey Trinh is an attractive man.
Exotic, with his racial background. And I'd broken away from my
family, anyway, so I didn't have them to 'embarrass' by seeing
someone who wasn't Chinese."

"Which might explain why you'd want to date
Trinh, but not why you'd represent him ‘off the books'."

Ling looked away, out her window. "The first
time you were here, we talked about student loans." She patted
the lacquered wood in front of her. "Well, this desk was the
last tangible help I got from my parents. They won't contribute to
the loan payments, and the obligation isn't dischargeable in
bankruptcy, even if I were willing to commit 'career-icide' by filing
for it." Ling looked back at me. "Nugey's deal seemed so
neat and clean. I'm in and out of the transaction with a few thousand
in cash that neither the firm nor the IRS has to know about."

"How did you handle things with the seller's
attorney?"

“
I told him I was practicing out of my apartment.
Enough recent law grads have to do that, it doesn't seem odd anymore.
Only he forgot to send a draft of the deed to my home address for me
to review, so the first time I saw it was at the closing, where I
picked up on all the typos. I corrected them by hand, and then the
incompetent fool didn't even have his notarial seal with him, meaning
I had to take the seller's oath myself."

"Which shouldn't have been a problem, except for
somebody like me having the building's title traced at the Registry."

"Yes. Why did you do that?"

The Gang Unit, but I wasn't about to reveal my source
to her. "I thought Chan and the waitress at Viet Mam were
awfully nervous, and I wanted to see if the records gave them some
reason to be."

Ling sagged back into her chair, the eyes solemn.
"So, what are you going to do now?"

"Before we get to that, why did you really take
Woodrow Gant to the restaurant for lunch that first time?"

She straightened a little. "Just because I knew
it was there. I wanted to try it, too."

"Doesn't wash, counselor. The last thing you'd
ever do would be to bring a partner from the firm you'd shorted to
the building you'd shorted it on."

Ling seemed to go inside herself for a minute. "Nugey
and I had become . . . intimate. He's a very exciting man, Mr. Cuddy.
Very different from the ones I meet through my work."

She came out of her trance. "He wanted me to
bring Woodrow there."