Equivocal Death (50 page)

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now at Samson & Mills — buildings that might seem either op-2

pressive or comforting, depending on your perspective.

3

The periodical room was an airy space, built on a more intimate 4

scale. Winter light spilled in through tall windows. Patrons sat qui-5

etly reading.

6

“Excuse me.” Kate tried to get the attention of a woman at a 7

computer terminal, seated behind a low counter.

8

The woman did not look up. “I don’t work here,” she said, her 9

eyes still glued to the screen. “They’re down that way.” The words 10

came with an indeterminate flick of the head.

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“Oh.” Kate was about to ask her where exactly “that way” was, 12

when her eyes fell on a booklet beside the computer.
Lexis-Nexis.

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Directory of Online Services.
Was it possible?

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“May I help you?”

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Behind the typing woman, a librarian had appeared.

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“Yes, please,” Kate said. “I just noticed that you have Nexis here.

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Can anyone use it? I mean, is it available to the public?”

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The librarian nodded. “You can sign up for a half-hour slot.”

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“Is there a charge?”

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“No charge. You can’t print or download, though.”

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Free Nexis.
Who cared about downloading or printing? She 22

could always jot down citations and look them up later off-line.

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Kate signed up for the next available spot, then sat down to for-24

mulate her searches.

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When her turn arrived, Kate plopped herself down at the com-26

puter and immediately signed on to the U.S. News database. Then 27

she typed in the first search: Carter w/2 Mills. A few seconds later, 28

she had her results. A total of 587 articles that mentioned Mills’s 29

name. The first piece was a wire-service report of Mills’s suicide.

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The next hit was the same piece, reprinted in a Connecticut paper.

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The third was yet another copy of the same article.

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Kate sat back in her chair to think. Obviously, this wasn’t going 33

to work. The search she’d framed was too broad, picking up too much ort 34

useless junk. What she really wanted was in-depth pieces, reports reg 35

from
American Law
and other similar publications. Maybe she’d 9858_02_153-356_r6jm.qxd 9/28/00 3:59 PM Page 293

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have more luck if she changed the database to Legal News. She 1

typed in the change and waited. Twenty-seven results. Much better.

2

Quickly, she scanned the list. Carter Mills’s comments on an anti-3

trust case. His thoughts on a Supreme Court decision. Farther 4

down, he was quoted in an article concerning associate dissatisfac-5

tion with life at large firms. “This is an extreme environment,”

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Mills said. “It’s not for everyone.”

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Finally, Kate found what she was looking for. The
American Law
8

piece about Madeleine Waters’s partnership election. Kate 9

scanned the first few paragraphs and then copied down the cita-10

tion. After moving through a few more pieces, she found an
Amer-11

ican Law
profile of Mills written just after his elevation to managing 12

partner. Now that was definitely worth a look.

13

It took Kate about fifteen minutes to skim through everything of 14

interest. Picking up her notebooks and coat, Kate approached the 15

reference librarian. “Where do I find back issues of
American Law?
”

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“Syble.” Or that’s what it sounded like. Kate pictured an ancient 17

prophetess in flowing robes, clutching a
Federal Reporter.
But she 18

must have misunderstood.

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“Excuse me?”

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“Syble,” the librarian said again. “S-I-B-L. The Science, Indus-21

try, and Business Library. On Madison at Thirty-fourth.”

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Entering the Science, Industry, and Business Library, Kate felt as if 25

she’d stumbled into some alternate world. Could this ultramodern 26

facility, replete with chrome, glass, and polished wood, really be a 27

public library?

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Kate found her way downstairs, past a bank of televisions broad-29

casting business news, to the McGraw Information Services Desk, 30

where she was given a call number and dispatched to the B. Alt-31

man Delivery Desk across the room. Where the main library build-32

ing had broadcast its donors’ largesse by way of discreet plaques, 33

SIBL shouted its corporate benefactors’ names from every avail-34 sh

able surface. It took only a few minutes for Kate’s call number to 35 re

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flash on the marquee. She picked up a small square box containing 2

a microfilm roll.

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There were just a few people in the Henry and Henrietta Quade 4

Microform Center. Kate had no trouble finding an empty micro-5

film reader. She managed to thread the film and then, after a little 6

more fiddling, managed to bring it into focus. The first issue on her 7

screen had a January date. The issue she needed was April. Turn-8

ing the knob to the right, she let the images fly by. Then she ad-9

justed the knob, slowing the film’s progression so she’d be able to 10

see when to stop. Only half paying attention, she watched the 11

pages drift past. Listings of big deals, with the names of lawyers set 12

out in boldface type. A gossipy article about morale at a Chicago 13

firm. A profile of a Silicon Valley deal maker.

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And then, there it was.

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The microfilm photo of Carter Mills looked weird and hyperex-16

posed. The whole report was only six pages, and Kate decided to 17

print it out. She stuck her new copy card into the appropriate slot, 18

centered the screen image, and pressed Copy. Five minutes later, 19

she was done. She rewound and boxed the microfilm, gathered up 20

her effects, and went back to the central room, where she dropped 21

off the box at the delivery desk and settled into a black mesh chair.

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As she’d expected, the piece about Mills was filled with the pre-23

dictable accolades. From his ascent at the firm, the article moved 24

on to explore his family roots. A firm historian had compared Mills 25

favorably to his grandfather Silas, one of the firm’s two founding 26

partners. Martin Drescher had no comment for the record. The 27

one jarring note was a cryptic comment from Mills’s father. “I’m 28

sure he’ll make a success of this as he has of everything else,” James 29

Mills had told the reporter. “My son has never let anything, or 30

anyone, get in his way.” Perhaps the senior Mills hadn’t intended 31

the acid tone; maybe he’d only meant to say that Carter accom-32

plished what he set out to do. But something in the tenor of the 33

words told Kate that the two men had had their struggles.

ort 34

It suddenly occurred to Kate that she’d heard the name James reg 35

recently. At Charles Harrison’s apartment. He’d referred to Carter 9858_02_153-356_r6jm.qxd 9/28/00 3:59 PM Page 295

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by that name. At the time, she’d barely noticed, considered it a slip 1

of the tongue. Now she saw it was something more. J. Carter Mills.

2

It wasn’t too much of a leap to see that the
J
had to stand for James.

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Carter must have been named for his father. He must have used 4

that name when he was younger, and Harrison had fallen back on 5

habit. But why had he made this change? Was it just to avoid con-6

fusion? Or had other factors come into play? It wasn’t a lot to go 7

on. But for the moment, it was all she had.

8

Half an hour later, Kate was seated at a computer terminal in 9

the Elizabeth and Felix Rohatyn Electronic Information Center, 10

signing on to Nexis again. She went first to the Legal News data-11

base and typed in a search: James w/2 Mills. Seven documents 12

came up. But, quickly browsing the files, she saw there was nothing 13

of interest. Two of the articles quoted a James R. Mills, a partner in 14

a Florida firm. The other five were equally inapposite, referring to 15

lawyers in Tennessee, California, and Michigan. Kate decided to try 16

a broader search. Broad but not too broad. She switched to New 17

York News.

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She was almost through the results when a headline flashed be-19

fore her eyes.
Unsolved Murders: Ten Crimes That Have Stumped the
20

NYPD.
Kate stared at the screen for a moment before scrolling 21

down, past the headless body found in the East River, past the 22

execution-style slaying of a school teacher, to the item she was 23

looking for.

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January 16, 1973.

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A cold winter evening.

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Maria Bernini, an attractive twenty-five-year-old with dreams of be-28

coming an actress, was returning to her Eleventh Avenue walk-up
29

shortly after 2 A.M. After completing a double shift at the Echo Diner,
30

where she’d worked as a waitress for the past three years, Bernini
31

stopped by a friend’s to pick up her sleeping four-year-old son.

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It was the last time she was seen alive.

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The next day, Bernini was discovered dead in her apartment, the vic-34 sh

tim of a brutal slaying. She’d been sexually assaulted and stabbed before
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being shot through the head. Her son, also bound and gagged, was dis-2

covered unharmed, propped up in a chair across from his mother’s muti-3

lated body.

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The Bernini case took a surprising twist when the gun used in the
5

killing, discovered at the scene of the crime, was traced to James Mills,
6

an independent historian from a prominent Boston family and a collec-7

tor of historic firearms. Mr. Mills, who was never charged in the case,
8

said he had not noticed the disappearance of the gun, an 1877 Colt
9

Lightning. . . .

10

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Colt Lightning.
Kate stared at the words, heart pounding.
It was
12

the same gun.
It had to be. The same gun used to kill Madeleine.

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The gun Mills had used to kill himself. Even the modus operandi 14

was the same. Maria Bernini had been brutally stabbed and shot in 15

the head. Just like Madeleine Waters.

16

Kate closed her eyes, trying to stop her head from spinning.

17

1973. That’s when Maria Bernini had died. Carter Mills would 18

have been in his early twenties. Roughly the same age as the mur-19

dered young woman. The woman he must have killed.

20

“Miss? Are you almost finished?”

21

Kate looked up with a start. A bespectacled man was anxiously 22

waiting his turn.

23

“I’m finished now,” she said. “Just let me get my papers together.”

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By the time she got home from the library, Kate had already made 27

up her mind. What she’d suspected about Carter Mills she couldn’t 28

just keep to herself. She would have liked to go directly to Detec-29

tive Valencia, but that wasn’t a viable option. She was still an em-30

ployee of Samson & Mills. And firm policy was crystal clear: first, 31

she had to go to Martin Drescher.

32

At loose ends, uncertain what to do next, Kate decided to type 33

up her notes. She sat down at her desk and turned on her com-ort 34

puter. As the screen flashed on, Kate felt her stomach drop.
I have
reg 35

some information that I think would interest you about recent events at
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your law firm.
She signed on to America Online. But there was 1

nothing unusual in her AOL mailbox. Just several more pieces of 2

junk mail. She deleted the entries and moved on.

3

From AOL, Kate switched over to the Samson network. She felt 4

a little uncomfortable putting her notes on the firm’s computer sys-5

tem, but Samson’s was the only word processing program she had 6

access to at home. She’d never had much faith in the firm’s com-7

puter security. How hard could it be to figure out that everyone’s 8

password was password? But she was just being paranoid. After all, 9

who was she? A lowly second-year associate. Anyone sniffing out 10

Samson secrets could surely find more interesting targets.

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