Knock Off (9 page)

Eight

“How much are we talking about?” I asked.

“What?”

“How much money? Where did you find it?”

“In our home safe,” Mrs. Keller answered. “After Graham died, my son asked me to get all our important papers together. When my husband and I built the house, we had a fireproof safe installed inside the closet in the master bedroom.”

Get to the frigging money, please.

“It was supposed to be for the deed to our house. Wills, stock certificates, that kind of thing.”

Money. Focus on the money.

“I kept my good jewelry in there, too. Pieces from my family as well as the broach Graham’s grandmother gave me on the day we got married.”

I leaned against my chair back, afraid I’d have to listen to the complete history of the life and marriage of Graham and Martha Keller, and the provenance of every piece of “good” jewelry she owned. I didn’t dare interrupt her.

Until my question was answered, I had no choice but to let her ramble. A skill she excelled at, I decided as I watched the clock on my computer screen tick off the minutes.

Thirty minutes later I knew that 225 people had attended their wedding. I watched her smile as she told me that Graham, Jr., was born nine months to the day after their nuptials.
How Lisa Marie Presley is that?
She proudly reviewed her husband’s professional accomplishments—she’d opted to be a stay-at-home mom to mini-Graham.

Bank of South Florida had hired Graham, Sr., as a teller.

Through a series of well-deserved promotions, he’d ended up vice-president of the Private Banking Division.

“What’s that?” I asked, not familiar with the job.

“Private banking is reserved for, um, important clients.”

I doubted my tenuous account put me in that category.

Hell, I couldn’t even finagle a low-interest Visa card out of them.

She continued. “His office was in West Palm, just over the bridge at Flagler and Okeechobee.”

I knew the area. It sat right on the Intracoastal, with stunning views of Palm Beach proper as well as easy access to the bridge separating the Have-Everythings from the Have-a-Lots. Several pricey condos share the street with tasteful, valet-parking-only office complexes and St. Mary’s Hospital. Some of the best and most expensive specialists in Palm Beach County have their practices in the first few floors of the condo buildings. They even banded together to form a concierge medical co-op. For the small sum of around two grand a year, participants never had to wait for appointments—the little people got rescheduled or had their appointments canceled flat-out—and for a thousand more, house calls were included as an option. Capitalism is a beautiful if unbalanced thing.

I thought for a minute, then said, “I don’t remember a BSF on that corner.”

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Rhonda Pollero

“You wouldn’t. That’s the point. Private Banking wouldn’t be very private if they had a sign, a drive-up window, and a night depository, now would it?”

“Guess not.” I smiled. “What kinds of things did your husband do?”

“His division handled corporate and major personal portfolios.”

“Handled?”

She shrugged. “A lot of it went over my head, but he invested money, and I know he was, well, like a business manager on some of the trust funds. Mostly those rich kids from the other side of the bridge.”

“So he had access to personal fortunes?”

“Sure.” Mrs. Graham must’ve finally realized how far off topic we’d gone, and her eyes narrowed. “Why? What does this have to do with his heart attack?”

Not sure, but I’m thinking a safe full of cash is suspicious.

Money and murder often go hand in hand, at least they do
on reruns of
Murder, She Wrote. “As I said,” which felt like a year ago, “my client, Mrs. Evans, is concerned that her husband’s death wasn’t an accident. It’s my job to prove or disprove her suspicions. All I know at this point is that three jurors from the Hall trial have died in the last three months. So I’m hoping you’ll give me permission to see if there are any blood tests that may have been run at the hospital on the night your husband died.” Opening my desk drawer, I retrieved three blank copies of a standard, covers-everything-under-the-sun medical release form. “If you’ll sign this, I’ll take care of everything else.”

She eyed the form suspiciously as I slipped it across my desk. “What will blood samples tell you? It was a heart attack. The paramedics and three doctors all said so.”

“It’s just routine, really.”

“Not to me.”

Sometimes the best tactical move is to make the other person feel like they’re in the right. “I know this is an intrusion and an inconvenience. I wouldn’t even ask except that, well, I have a feeling Mrs. Evans won’t be able to accept the loss of her husband until she’s completely sure there is nothing suspicious about his car accident.”

Martha Keller visibly relaxed and plucked one of the pens from the cup on my desk. “Good luck to her,” she said as she signed next to the X at the bottom of the pages she hadn’t bothered to read. “Accident or not, it doesn’t change the situation. I get up every morning and stare across an empty table.” She passed me the papers, and her expression suddenly changed. Fear and uncertainty shone in her eyes.

I was afraid she’d had a change of heart and was going to grab the releases from me, tear them up, and toss the pieces into the trash. Crap, I’d be back to square one. “I really appreciate your cooperation,” I promised her. “I’m sure Mrs. Evans will be grateful as well.”

“What about the money?” she asked hesitantly. “My son told me not to breathe a word about it to anyone.”

Well, tell Junior that ship already sailed.
Assuming I could prove murder, someone was going to have to account for her husband’s secret slush fund. It might have been the motive for his killing. “I’m not interested in your late husband’s finances.”
Yet.

Mrs. Keller practically bolted out of the chair. “My son was right. I’m going to speak with him, then I’ll get back to you about the hospital records.”

She raced out of my office. I didn’t follow her. I didn’t have to. Martha Keller had left the fully executed releases on my desk. I glanced down at my Liz Claiborne watch with the bright pink band and rectangular face and knew I had plenty of time to get what I needed before the Widow Keller could stop me.

“Again with the pack-animal thing,” I grumbled as I en-112
Rhonda Pollero
tered the elevator. My briefcase was full, mostly with the D’Auria estate accounting. Tucked in a side pocket, I also had the information I needed for my other side trips. My Palm Pilot was preloaded with Mapquest directions to Rosita Vasquez’s home. It was going to be a busy afternoon.

And a warm one, so I thought I’d stop by the vending machines for a bottle of Diet Coke. Caffeine in its alter-nate form would have to suffice until I could find a coffee shop during my travels.

My timing couldn’t have been more perfect. A young brunette was seated at Margaret’s desk. She was the one who manned the phones while Margaret was at lunch. I tossed her a smile and felt a pang of guilt because I couldn’t recall her name.

“Finley, I need—”

“Gimme a sec,” I called over my shoulder, lifting my purse and the cutting strap of my briefcase as testimony.

“I’m just getting a drink.”

Ignoring her “but” and shoving some of the weight of my briefcase to the back of my hip, I rounded the corner into the alcove that led to the machines and the employee lounge.

As expected, the machine’s electronic feeder copped an attitude, rejecting my first two dollars. They weren’t pristine enough. Annoyed, I put my stuff down and reached into my wallet, selecting two crisp bills with the same care I’d use to pick just the right wine. Seemed like a lot of work for a freaking soda. But, the machine accepted my payment, which was the only thing that really mattered.

As the plastic bottle rumbled down toward the dispenser, I caught a few fragments of conversation coming from the employee lounge. I recognized Margaret’s voice immediately.

It had the same authoritative quality as—I don’t know—

the tone God must have used on Moses. I grabbed my drink and was going to leave when I heard my name mentioned.

Well, it wasn’t my name.

“Fat is going to get herself fired,” Margaret was telling someone.

Since I couldn’t see inside the lounge, I couldn’t identify the other person or persons she was sharing her gossip with. I could, however, feel my own annoyance and a pinch of fear pounding at my temples. Fired?

For the first time since the day I’d been hired, I was working. Not clock-watching, biding my time until five P.M., but honest-to-God investing myself in my case.

And that fact was almost as disturbing as knowing Margaret and her cronies were talking about me during their brown-bag lunch. When had I started bucking for employee-of-the-month?

“. . . Mr. Dane wouldn’t fire her,” one of the other women insisted. “Fat was hired personally by Mr. Zarnowski.”

“Whose name is only on the letterhead as a courtesy,”

Margaret replied in that all-knowing voice. “He’s in his eighties. For all intents and purposes, Mr. Dane and Ms.

Lieberman run this firm, and they don’t approve of Fat’s inability to follow instructions.

“I know her type,” Margaret continued. “She doesn’t think the rules apply to her. She does what she wants, when she wants to. That’s why Mr. Dane has me logging all her calls and visitors.”

What?!
I stifled the urge to march into the lounge and tell Margaret and the Grumblers to kiss my actually working ass. It might provide some measure of instant gratifica-tion, but in the long run, it would blow up in my face.

I had to take countermeasures. Fired, crap! I can’t get fired. I’m pretty sure Dillard’s won’t take the promise of my firstborn male child as a monthly payment. Neither would the five other revolving credit accounts I’d driven up to their limit. If I did get fired, how would I live on the measly thousand-dollar limit available on my new Visa until I found another job? Shit.

Think, think, think.
I took two deep breaths and let them out slowly. Log my calls and appointments? I considered that information with complete frustration and a healthy dose of disdain. In all my years at Dane-Lieberman, no one had so much as questioned my coming and goings. So why now? When I really was doing my job? Well, mostly doing it. I’d only taken two personal detours this week—lunch with Becky and a quickie shopping trip. But I’d more than made up for that by coming in early and working through lunch. Twice.

Relief Receptionist was waiting for me as I returned to the lobby, soda bottle in hand. “What do you need?”

She slipped a clipboard across the polished surface and had the decency to look embarrassed. “I need you to sign in and out. Some kind of new policy.”

Yeah, the Screw Finley Policy.

The form was divided into four columns. One for the employee’s name, one each for departure and arrival, and the last one requested an explanation for out-of-office business. I noticed two other people had signed out ahead of me. Made sense. If the partners singled me out, they’d leave themselves open to a claim of creating a hostile workplace and/or wrongful termination. Smart bastards.

Placing my briefcase on the floor, I pulled a pen out of my purse and dutifully—if laced with attitude—scribbled the requested information. Through the fog of irritation, I caught the scent of lemon, cedar, musk, and pine . . .

Basile.
I knew the men’s fragrance because I’d given it to Patrick on his last birthday.

It was quickly overshadowed by the heavy odor of Bal A Versailles. Not my favorite. It’s my mother’s perfume, and just one whiff is enough to send feelings of failure into my heart.

Sliding the clipboard off to the left, I allowed the couple behind me to speak to the receptionist. Under
Out-of-Office Business,
I wrote
D’Auria Estate and Evans Meeting.
Technically, I wasn’t meeting Mrs. Evans, but rather Rosita Vasquez, but I justified my omission by blaming it on the design of the form. There wasn’t enough room to write a lengthy explanation, so I was comfortable with my answer.

I had just picked up the clipboard with the intention of depositing it on the opposite side of the desk when the man to my right said, “Dr. and Mrs. Hall for Victor Dane.”

The clipboard slipped from my hand, clattering against the polished tile. The sound echoed though the lobby as my head whipped around to get my first up-close look at the doctor.

Kent Hall looked nothing like I’d imagined. The grainy, simple news-clipping photos didn’t do him justice. He was short, no more than about five-six. Never good—short men have crappy personalities and dictatorial leanings. It’s the whole Napoleon thing. They compensate for their lack of stature with huge egos.

Too bad, too, since Hall was really nice-looking, for a short guy. He had soft, light brown eyes and—since I knew from my research he was only forty-nine—prematurely gray hair. If he’d been a few inches taller, he’d have looked distinguished. Especially in that custom-made, gunmetal gray shirt paired with a mauve and gray striped silk Hermès tie. His suit pants were a darker shade, closer to slate.

His jacket was folded over his arm, which made sense since the noon temperature had already climbed above eighty.

The woman at his side surprised me. I would have

pegged Hall as the type to require a Palm Beach trophy wife. But nope, no blond, leggy twenty-year-old for him.

They held hands, no easy feat given the size of the rock adorning her left hand. I guessed it was somewhere in the eight-carat range, a little big for a woman with such small hands. Meredith Hall was a petite woman with expertly styled and highlighted brown hair. The cut flattered her heart-shaped face. She had great makeup, too.

In my experience, the more money a woman has, the darker her lip liner. The super rich usually pair chocolate brown with bright red. But not Meredith; she bucked that trend. She looked as polished and perfect as any model.