This Case Is Gonna Kill Me (21 page)

“Oh, sweetie, you came. I’m so glad. Are you coming to the party?”

I shook my head. “It’s a school night, I’ve still got to do some work before I get to bed, and I have to go to New Jersey tomorrow.”

“Okay, that’s just horrible,” said Gregory. “You should get a lot of sleep before you face that.”

13

Around 4:00 p.m., the lobby guard called to tell me my rental car had arrived. I packed up my bag and headed down.

Since I wasn’t sure the company would reimburse me for the rental, I went for a subcompact. What waited for me at the curb was a Chevy that looked like a cereal box on very tiny wheels. The young man from the Enterprise office handed me the keys, opened the trunk, and insisted on lifting in my roller bag. He then asked if I wanted any guidance on the car’s features. I resisted the impulse to ask,
What features?
Instead, I accepted the keys and climbed into the cramped interior.

It was the last day of July, and sizzling. I cranked up the air conditioner to maximum and tried to listen to the radio over the roar of the fan. With my usual impeccable timing, I had managed to hit rush-hour traffic. I had thought I was being clever going up to I-95 to cross over into New Jersey rather than taking the Lincoln Tunnel, but the traffic was terrible there too, so my journey into the wilds of New Jersey took forever.

*   *   *

Gentrification and urban renewal had definitely not reached the part of Bayonne where the rental house was located. Deserted factories and warehouses gazed out across the waters of the Newark Bay on one side of the peninsula and the Upper Bay on the other. The rusting struts, girders, and unknown equipment looked like relics of an ancient and alien civilization. Mr. 2 Mil’s address was a couple of blocks inland from the rotting buildings.

Older-model cars, many showing dings and dents, were parked on the streets. The houses were narrow, three-story affairs with steep steps leading up to porches. Some had been screened, but the mesh showed tears, and there were no people sitting on the porches enjoying a summer evening or children playing in the unkempt yards.

I located the address, found an empty space along the curb, and parked. My phone chimed. I opened the large metal clasp on the front of my purse and pulled out my phone. I had a new text message from Kevin Phenrod, May’s lawyer, telling me the settlement check would be ready next week. I texted back to tell him that was okay, and that I’d send a runner for it when it was ready. Then I got out of the Chevy and slammed the door. The loud
clunk
briefly silenced the droning cicadas. In the distance I heard the faint sound of cheering. I looked around for the source, then spotted the tall lights and backstop of a city sports facility.

I locked the car and started up the stairs to the front door. The curtains were drawn on the windows. I heard the sound of a car passing in the street, then silence aside from the cicadas that had resumed singing.

The doorbell was broken. I pulled open the sagging screen door and hammered on the wooden front door. I was just about to turn away, assuming no one was home, when a strange, buzzing mechanical voice responded from the other side of the door.

“Who is it?”

It seemed male, so I said, “Sir, my name’s Linnet Ellery. I found a note among my boss’s files with this address and an interesting notation. I’d like to talk to you about it.”

“Who’s your boss?” the robot voice asked.

“Chip Westin.”

I heard multiple locks being thrown and chains rattling. I had thought that amount of security was only found in Manhattan, but apparently Bayonne was also a hotbed of crime. The door opened to reveal an old man—make that an ancient man—dressed in slacks and an undershirt that had once been white but was now gray, scuffs on his feet, and a tatty plaid bathrobe over the clothes. The hand, holding an artificial larynx to his throat, was ropy with thick blue veins that wound between dark brown age spots. He was nearly bald, but a few wisps of white hair were draped across a scalp also mottled with age spots. The eyes behind thick-lensed glasses were cloudy with cataracts.

“You his secretary?”

“No. I’m—” He interrupted before I could continue.

“Girl lawyer?” Even through the buzzing mechanical sound I could hear the disdain.

“Yes, ’fraid so,” I said. “You are?”

“Thomas Gillford,” rasped the robot voice. He gestured toward the mechanical larnyx. “Throat cancer. It was worth it. Loved my cigars.”

A sensible response was hopeless. I settled for “Okay.”

“Come in. Your boss send you?”

He moved aside and I stepped into the dim interior. There were trails through piles of magazines and newspapers, none of which bore recent dates. Some of the piles were over my head. In addition to the papers, every available flat surface was covered with tchotkes, and shelves, similarly filled, covered the walls. The dust that covered every surface was so thick that it resembled brown felt, and the room smelled both musty and sour.

“Not exactly. Mr. Westin is dead.”

“Heart attack? He was fat as a pig.” He patted his sunken belly. “Me, I’d never let myself get in that kind of shape.”

No,
I thought.
You just smoked until your throat fell out.

But I stayed polite. I also saw no reason to lie so I said, “No, he was killed—”

The reaction was startling, and if Gillford’s frailty hadn’t been enough, this made it clear he wasn’t the person behind Chip’s murder. Gillford slammed shut the door, then frenziedly threw the bolts and hooked the chains. He then twitched aside the dusty curtain and peered out. Apparently satisfied, he allowed it to fall back into place and gestured toward the stairs.

“Come upstairs. More room up there.”

There were shelves on the wall next to the staircase, and my eye kept being drawn to the gaggle of Hummel figurines, the big jar filled with marbles, the grinning Ho Tai figures with their arms upraised in celebration, dollhouse china tea sets, and porcelain-headed dolls with their legs hanging limply over the edge of the shelves. Above the shelves was a collection of reproduction shields, swords, and daggers, both Asian and European, a set of nunchakus, and a fighting staff.

He noticed the direction of my gaze. “My wife. God rest her. She loved to collect and couldn’t throw anything away. I keep it to remember her. And it’s also too damn much effort to get it cleaned out. It’d take a backhoe.”

“And the papers and magazines?” I asked.

He looked back over his shoulder. “Okay, that’s me.”

“Looks like you suited each other.” He grunted in assent.

I had plenty of time to study the junk, because the pace set by Mr. Gillford was glacial at best. Frankly, I was afraid he’d die before he made it to the second floor, but he hung in there. He led me to a bedroom. If he hadn’t been a thousand years old, it might have made me uncomfortable. As it was, I was grateful to reach the room because it was reasonably uncluttered. The sheer volume of stuff was making me claustrophobic.

There was an unmade double bed shoved against one wall, a bedside table loaded with library books, and against another wall a rolltop desk and a chair. Gillford waved me toward the chair and lowered himself stiffly onto the bed.

“Did you bring my money?” he rasped.

“So, the notation did mean two million dollars,” I said.

“Yeah, and it’s taken so damn long for you people to respond I just may raise the price.”

“And what exactly are we paying for?” I hedged. “Remember, Mr. Westin died before he could bring me up to speed on all his cases.”

“The will.”

It felt like something had exploded behind my eyes. “Will?” I managed weakly. “And which will might this be?”

“Abercrombie’s, leaving everything to Chastity. I drafted it.”

“Ms. Jenkins has a lawyer. Why didn’t you contact him? Why contact Mr. Westin?”

“Because you’re fucking Ishmael, McGillary and Gold, and the firm is loaded. I checked out Finkelstein. He’s a pisher. An ambulance chaser. He wouldn’t pay me what I want. Oh, he might claim they’d give it to me after they got control of Securitech, but I know how that game is played. I’d never see a dime, ’cause once they had control of the company they’d say it was my duty to reveal the will. But you guys—you’d pay to keep your case alive and making billable hours, and wait for Securitech to finally offer enough money that even that bitch of an ex-wife would take it.”

“We’d have an obligation to reveal the other will,” I said weakly.

“Yeah, right. When this much money’s at stake, nobody plays by the rules.”

“I don’t think there is another will. If there was, you’d have made this offer to Securitech,” I challenged.

“What? You think I’m stupid? They’re a mercenary company, and there have been rumors about how Deegan handles competitors and whistleblowers. No, the bloodsuckers were the safer bet.”

“Why are you doing this now?”

“Because I’m old, and I’m sick, and my wife is dead, and I want out of this rattrap house. I want to live out the rest of my days in comfort in an assisted-living joint, with hot and cold running nurses”—he attempted a leer—“clean sheets on the bed, and meals I don’t have to cook. I got one all picked out. Down in Florida.” He shuffled over to the desk, picked up a brochure, and thrust it into my hands. “See.”

I looked down at the glossy flyer, at the picture of the fit, tanned, silver-haired couple holding tennis rackets, and I felt enormous pity for the old man. He wasn’t going to be swinging a racket or attending the Saturday night luau. He was going to be in his room rejoicing in his clean sheets and flirting with his nurses. Was this the result when we no longer had extended families? Warehouses for the old.

Gillford pulled me back. “Now, do we have a deal or not?”

“Where is the will?” I asked.

“Uh-uh, not until I have my money. You think I’d give up my leverage? Not a chance.”

I stood up. “I’ll have to talk to the senior partners, but I don’t think they’ll agree.”

“Then I’m going to give the will to Finkelstein and blow up your case—”

I interrupted. “You won’t get your money if you do that.”

He gave me a rictus smile. “
And
I’ll tell the court how Westin was working against his own clients, and how you were preparing to pay me in exchange for a kickback. It’ll sure as hell get you censured if not disbarred.”

Suddenly I didn’t feel so sorry for him. He was a vile, evil, horrible old man, and it was going to be his word against mine, and the evidence against me was the fact I had rented a damn car and drove to New Jersey to meet with him. And I knew what would happen at the firm. The senior partners would rally around me until the State Bar had taken action, and then they would fire me.

I was trying to decide whether to cry or throttle him when I heard the sound from downstairs of chains pulling out of the wood with a rending shriek and the front door crashing open.

14

In that moment, all animus was forgotten and Gillford and I were allies. I didn’t know who was downstairs, but it was pretty clear they weren’t magazine salesmen or proselytizing Mormons. I pulled out my cell phone and dialed 911. Nothing happened. Then I noticed the icon in the upper left corner.
No service.
Which was crazy. I’d had service thirty minutes ago.

There was an old-model Princess Phone on the bedside table. I ran over and snatched it up. There was no dial tone. I stood there with a phone in each hand and wondered what kind of burglar cut the phone lines.
Not a burglar.

I dropped the landline phone and stuck the cell phone in my skirt pocket for easy access. I then slung my handbag so the strap hung across my chest, leaving my hands free.

“Is there another way out other than the stairs?” I asked. Gillford shook his head. I ran over and heaved him to his feet. “Come on. We can’t get trapped in here.”

He moved, but
very
slowly. I could hear crashes and bangs from downstairs as the home invaders searched the downstairs rooms. We reached the head of the stairs. My mind was screaming at me that it was stupid to go down to meet them, but I also knew we couldn’t just cower and hide. They would find us. We had to get outside and scream for help or hope like hell my phone started working again.

We’d managed only a few steps when a man peered up through the bannister and spotted us. He had brown hair in a crew cut and a neck as wide as his head. “Got ’em!” he yelled, and he brought up a pistol.

The barrel seemed overly long, but I’d seen enough movies to realize the extra length was a silencer. My yammering brain wondered why he’d bothered with a silencer after breaking down the door. If that hadn’t roused the neighbors, I doubted a gunshot would.

I pushed Gillford hard in the chest. He fell backward, but I was too late. I heard the gun give an odd coughing sound, and blood blossomed on Gillford’s chest. He hit the floor. The mechanical larnyx fell from his suddenly slack hand and went bounding and rolling down the steps. I tried to retreat, but the gun made another coughing sound and something slammed into my chest. The force sent me careening into the wall beneath the display shelf. My chest felt like I’d been kicked, but somehow, miraculously, I was still alive. I glanced down at my purse. The big metal medallion that covered the clasp was dented and deformed.

The wall shook, dust fell like brown snow onto my head, and the big jar of marbles teetered and then fell. I managed to catch it before it brained me, but the weight of it bent me over, which meant the intruder’s second shot flew through the space where my head would have been. My fingers were locked around the jar, and I couldn’t loosen them. I lifted my head and saw the shooter starting to run up the stairs toward me. I was weirdly fascinated with how each steel-toed boot landed on each stair tread.

I was going to die. This time he was making sure of his shot. I was both terrified and angry. The swirling colors in the jar caught my attention, and my rigid fingers moved, twisting off the lid of the jar. I jammed my hand into the jar and pulled out a big handful of marbles. I forced myself to look at approaching death, timing his steps. He was six steps below me. As his foot came up to stop on the next tread, I threw the marbles beneath his boot.