Lou Mason Mystery - 01 - Motion to Kill (3 page)

“A ski boat belonging to Sullivan was found tied up at the Buckhorn marina this morning. We found an earring on the boat, and your partner doesn’t look like the earring type. I doubt if he hit his head, fell in, and the boat drove itself back to the marina. I’m betting someone helped him into the water. I’m sorry if that’s hard on Mrs. Sullivan, but that’s the way it is.”

“If you’re going to question her, you’ll do it in my presence and you’ll stop when I tell you.”

He was drawing lines for a client who hadn’t retained him. Claire would have told him he was finally showing some promise. He and Kelly eyed each other, trying to guess when the confrontation that was brewing between them would finally erupt.

“Take her back to her house, and I’ll meet you there in an hour. Questioning is always more productive immediately following a death. I’ve been through this enough times to know that.”

“Yeah, Sheriff, I’ll bet that the lake is a real hotbed of murder and mayhem.”

Her withering stare confirmed that he’d just made an ass of himself. He conceded the moment to her and shepherded Pamela to the car.

They made it back to Sullivan’s just before eleven. Diane Farrell, Sullivan’s legal assistant for ten years, was sprawled on the doorstep. She was leaning against a brown grocery bag filled with fresh fruit for the brunch, flicking ashes from her cigarette into clay pots brimming with red, pink, and violet impatiens. Pamela walked past her without comment, too dazed to speak.

Diane was plain and thick with a blocky face bolted to a rectangular body. Her hair was a washed-out brown matching the grocery bag. She had dark, wide-set eyes, a nose too small for her broad face, and thin lips on a downturned mouth.

She promoted and protected Sullivan as if he were her own. Try to go around her or behind her and you’d probably end up just going—to another firm. Office scuttlebutt had her madly in love with Sullivan, though no one could picture them together. Sullivan played only with beautiful women. Ordinary need not apply. But she had job security and a kinship with Pamela, who welcomed her as a link to her wandering husband.

“Mason, what’s going on? Where’s Sullivan?” she asked.

Mason knew Diane well enough to dislike her, and he disliked her enough not to soften the blow.

“He’s dead, Diane. Someone found him floating in the lake this morning. Pamela and I just identified the body.”

She studied his face for some hint that it wasn’t true. Her eyes were like black holes, sucking in everything and emitting no light. When he didn’t recant, she went inside, calling for Pamela. Her stoic response made him feel like a heel for smacking her with the news.

Mason spent the next twenty minutes telling his colleagues, as they arrived for brunch, that even though the firm’s biggest producer was dead, everything would be fine. They didn’t believe it and neither did he, but it was the sort of thing people said and accepted when bad news was too fresh to argue with. Some wanted to stay and help. But he told them there wasn’t anything for them to do.

He was waiting for the sheriff. Claire’s voice wouldn’t let him leave Pamela to be questioned without a lawyer. When the last group drove away, he picked up Diane’s fruit and went into the house.

No one was in the den, and he was enough of a stranger not to knock on closed bedroom doors. Diane emerged a few minutes later, dry-eyed, with her normal shade of pale.

“How’s Pamela?”

“Her husband is dead, so that’s a bummer. Other than that, I don’t know.”

“The sheriff will be here soon to question her. I’ll stay for that. You don’t have to stick around.”

“She expects me to stay, Mason. You play lawyer. I’ll take care of Pamela.”

One more reason not to envy Pamela, he decided.

Kelly arrived at noon. Mason introduced Diane, who studied Kelly’s badge like it was counterfeit before saying that she would ask Pamela to join them.

Pamela had showered, changed, and added fresh makeup and appeared composed as she returned to the den. She and Kelly took the same seats as before. Mason stood at Pamela’s left with Diane on her right. They were a mismatched pair of sentries.

“When did you last see your husband, Mrs. Sullivan?” Kelly began.

“Last night about seven o’clock. We were supposed to go to Buckhorn for dinner. We had a fight and he left.”

Mason drifted away from Pamela’s chair so that he could watch her face for any signs of weakness that would trigger his instruction not to answer any more questions.

Kelly continued. “What did you fight about?”

“I never remember anymore. We just fight.”

“Where did he go?”

“He took the ski boat. I watched him from the kitchen window.”

“Which way did he go when he left the cove?”

“Toward Turkey Bend.”

“Do you know anyone who lives up that way whom he might have gone to visit?”

“No, we don’t have many friends at the lake. We have a lot of visitors, and they either stay with us or at a client’s condo.”

“Whose condo is that?”

“One of Richard’s clients has a condominium in a cove near here. I don’t know who really owns it. Richard never talked about his clients. I only knew that he was able to use it for guests when we entertained at the lake.”

“Did you have guests at the condo this weekend?”

“No.”

“Do you water-ski, Mrs. Sullivan?”

“No, why do you ask?”

“Has anyone else used the ski boat recently other than your husband?”

“No, and he doesn’t ski anymore either. He says his knees can’t take it. He just uses the boat for transportation.”

“Mrs. Sullivan, the lake patrol found your husband’s boat at dawn. It was abandoned. I wonder if you can identify this earring that was found on the boat?”

Kelly handed her an evidence bag containing a single gold hoop earring. Pamela reached for her ear and removed one of her own clasp hoops.

“It’s not mine, if that’s what you mean. I’ve never pierced my ears.”

Kelly’s silence told Mason that she knew her business. She would learn more by listening than by asking. Pamela let the silence hang for a moment. She pulled herself upright, looked directly at Kelly, and answered with a last shot of dignity.

“The earring probably belongs to someone younger with a flat belly and firm tits and I don’t know her name. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long morning.”

She rose and turned away. Diane padded behind her as they retreated into the bedroom.

“Son of a bitch!” Mason said.

“Seems likely,” Kelly added.

“How about a ride back to Buckhorn, Sheriff?”

“Sorry, Counselor. I’m not running a taxi service.”

“I wasn’t planning on tipping you. You dragged me into this mess. You can’t leave me stranded here.”

“Yes, I can. Your partner’s death isn’t neat and tidy, and I like neat-and-tidy deaths. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

“Maybe I can help.” Her arched eyebrows told him that she didn’t think so. “Look, I admit I’m a reflex smart-ass. But I helped identify the body and brought you here. And I was just trying to protect Pamela.”

Mason doubted that Sullivan had died of natural causes, as any decent asshole would have done. O’Malley’s indictment on charges that he’d skimmed money from the bank that he owned was inevitable. Sullivan had done everything but confess to helping O’Malley steal the money when he asked Mason to lose documents that incriminated him. Mason knew that Sullivan’s only chance to save himself would be to testify against his client. O’Malley couldn’t invoke the attorney-client privilege to prevent Sullivan from testifying about their crimes. O’Malley’s best defense would be a lawyer who was too dead to testify. Mason was the only other lawyer in the firm who knew what Sullivan knew—or who knew what Sullivan had intimated to him. If Sullivan had been murdered, Mason wanted to know sooner rather than later. His protective instincts were becoming self-centered.

“Who said she needs protection, Counselor?”

“Anybody who starts the day with a dead husband needs protection.”

“Miss Farrell can take you back to Buckhorn. This is an official investigation. I don’t need any volunteers.”

“Don’t worry. I’m going home today, but I’ve got an obligation to my partners to find out what happened.” Though true, that was the least of his concerns. But it was the only excuse he could use until he knew whether Sullivan had been murdered. If Sullivan’s death wasn’t murder, telling Kelly that both his client and his dead partner were crooks would put him on O’Malley’s hit list. “Just tell me what your next step is. Maybe I really can help.”

Kelly sighed, as if he would accept her annoyance as an answer. His silence said not likely.

“Okay. I follow the most logical line of investigation. That means find out where Sullivan went and who he was with before he died. He left his house around seven. Mrs. Sullivan saw him heading toward a client’s condo. I want to know where it is and who owns it.”

“How will you find it?”

“I’ll start with county records of property ownership.”

“Perfect. I may recognize a name and save you a lot of trouble.”

Kelly looked at him as if she’d just found a stray dog and couldn’t decide whether to feed it or take it to the pound.

“I hope you’re ready for a long ride home. I’ve got some stops to make.”

“Sheriff, I’m like lunch meat; I’m always ready.”

Kelly punched in a number on her cell phone as they pulled away in her pickup truck, leaving the call on speaker.

“Riley, it’s Kelly. Get your lazy ass off your back porch and meet me at the courthouse in half an hour.”

The playful teasing in her voice told Mason that Riley didn’t have a lazy ass. He wondered what kind of ass Riley really had that caused Kelly to react that way.

“Listen, little girl. I got you that badge, and I can have it back in a heartbeat. Your daddy never woulda talked that way to me.”

Riley’s voice was filled with pleasure that said they’d played this piece many times before. Kelly’s laughter was rich, lighting her eyes.

Mason was relieved that Riley sounded a generation removed. He was also surprised at his relief. He had lost track of the different emotional chords Kelly had struck with him in less than half a day.

“Friend of yours?” Mason asked.

“Riley Brooks has been the register of deeds since I was a girl. He talked me into taking this job until a new sheriff is elected in November.”

“What happened to the other sheriff?”

“He got carried away with strip-searching women who ran stop signs. Someone had to finish out his term.”

“Don’t tell me you weren’t first choice, Sheriff?”

Kelly gave him another annoyed glance. She seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.

“I was an FBI agent for ten years. My partner was killed last winter. I quit and came home. End of story. Now, tell me about the poker game. When did it start?”

Mason didn’t blame her for being more interested in figuring out who killed Sullivan than in becoming his new best friend, so he didn’t mind changing the subject.

“After dinner, about eight.”

“Was Sullivan there when the game started?”

“No, he didn’t get there until after nine.”

“So we’ve got at least two hours unaccounted for. Give me the names of the players and, this time, leave out your imaginary playmates.”

“Scott Daniels, Sandra Connelly, who runs the litigation department, Harlan Christenson, Angela Molina, Phil Rosa, and me.”

“Who are Angela and Phil?”

“Angela is the executive director of the firm, chief bean counter, and administrator. Phil Rosa is an associate. One of the rising stars in litigation.”

“Was Sullivan alone when he left the card game?”

Mason hesitated because he knew where she was headed. She was interested in more than tracking Sullivan’s movements in the hours before he died. She was making a list, probably a short one, of suspects. Mason didn’t know whether she would put his name on that list if she learned that Sullivan had asked Mason to commit a crime. He didn’t want to find out. All he could do was steer her investigation away from the O’Malley case until he knew if Sullivan had been murdered. If he had been, Mason would tell her everything and put his faith in the system.

Kelly cut through his hesitation. “If you don’t tell me, Counselor, someone else will. Someone always sees something, and they’re always anxious to talk about it.”

Mason knew she was right.

“Sullivan left with Cara Trent, one of the law school students who work for us during the summer.”

“I’ll need a list of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of everyone who was at the retreat, especially Cara Trent. I’ve only got the partners’ names so far. Chances are one of them will know where Sullivan was before and after the card game.”

“I’ve got a firm directory at the hotel. You can have it.”

“Fine. Let’s start with you. Where were you last night?”

The color rose in Mason’s cheeks as he considered the tone of her question.

“I was in my room before the card game, and I spent the rest of the night on the beach where you found me this morning.”

“Alone?”

“Alone. Before and after.”

“Did you talk with anyone? Did anyone see you?”

“I had room service. You can check with the hotel.”

“What about when you were on the beach?”

“Just a couple who were too busy with each other to notice me. You better take me in, Sheriff. I confess. The job was too good. I couldn’t stand all the money.”

“Let’s hope everyone else is so helpful.”

The corners of her mouth creased in a neat smile.
Well, even the Berlin Wall eventually came down,
Mason thought.