No Time To Run (Legal Thriller Featuring Michael Collins, Book 1) (32 page)

Michael swore under his breath and moved on.

He walked to the file cabinets, and flipped through the research files, sample pleadings, and copies of recent correspondence. Nothing.

Then he went back to the desk and opened the narrow pencil drawer in the middle. There wasn’t much, but off to the side there was a stack of business cards bound together with a black clip. Michael picked up the stack, and shoved it in his pocket.

Then he opened the lower drawer on the desk. There, in the middle, was a green hanging folder marked “
Maltow
.”

Michael pulled it out of the drawer, and was flipping through its contents when Tom entered the room.

“
What the hell are you doing?”

“
I was just looking for a file we were working on together.” Michael lifted the folder up so that Rhonda Kirchner’s husband could see it.

“
My wife died today.” Tom’s fists clinched into a fist. “It was that firm that – ”

“
I’m so sorry.” Michael started walking toward the door. “I just wanted the file.”

“
You have three seconds to get out of my house,” Tom said as Michael passed him. His eyes were watered. He was about to explode, and Michael couldn’t blame him. “Three seconds.”

Michael hustled out the door, shoving the file under his coat.  “I’m sorry,” he said, as he headed down the stairs, not waiting for a response.

###

In the rental car, Michael turned on the ceiling dome light so that he could see.

“
Whatcha got? Whatcha got?” Kermit rubbed his hands together.

“
We’ll soon see.” Michael opened the folder.

Inside, there were memos written by him, pleadings, discovery, correspondence, and of course, the settlement agreement. Michael skimmed over the documents, trying to allow the memories of the case to come back to him, but there were few.

The
Maltow
litigation was going on at the same time that Joshua Krane was being investigated. He had worked on the
Maltow
case, but Lowell had handled the teleconferences with the client and opposing counsel. Michael had just written the briefs.

“
I don’t see anything.” Michael shook his head. “There has to be something in here, but it all looks so typical. It’s just a case.”

“
Let me see.” Kermit held out his hand. “I’ll put my keen intellect to work.”

Michael passed him the file, and removed the stack of business cards from his pocket. There were probably fifty cards in the stack. The first dozen or so were colleagues at Wabash, Kramer & Moore, with the home number and address for each handwritten on the back.

The next series of cards were personal. One was for a housekeeping service, another for a nanny placement agency, dry cleaning, grocery delivery, and so on. It was a team of service people who did everything around the house while Rhonda was trying to meet her billable hour requirements.

Towards the bottom of the stack, there were the cards from opposing counsel. The title of the litigation was handwritten underneath each of the counsel’s name, and on the back, Rhonda had written notes about each attorney’s personality and responsibilities in the litigation. It was a technique that every associate at the firm was taught when they first started.

Finally, at the very bottom, Michael found a familiar name. “Of course,” Michael thought. ”That only makes sense.”

The business card was simple, black and white. The only graphic was the seal of the State of New York, and the rest was contact information for Tammy Duckstein, Staff Attorney, Departmental Disciplinary Committee for the First Department. On the back, Rhonda had written Tammy Duckstein’s home number and address. They had been meeting and talking after hours.

CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE

Tammy Duckstein got up from her couch, and was walking toward her kitchen when there was a knock on the door. She looked at the clock. It was past eleven. Her daughter was out, but she had a key. Probably lost it again, Tammy thought. Her daughter was constantly leaving things at her father's house as she was shuttled back and forth every other week.

“
Just a second.” Tammy turned off the television and crossed the room.

She got to the door, unlatched the dead bolt, and then opened it. “You could have called, first, sweetie,” she said. “It’s late and I could have already gone to. ...”

“
Rhonda Kirchner is dead.”

Michael had rattled off a variety of instructions, which Kermit didn’t remember, but that was the most important one: Tell her about Rhonda. “The fuzz say it was suicide, but don’t believe the Man on this one.”

“
Who are you?” Tammy looked past Kermit to see if anyone else was there, and started to close the door. “Who told you where I live?”

“
I’m friends with a guy you're looking for. You’ve been wanting to talk to him.”

“
Collins.” Tammy’s eyes narrowed.

“
He isn’t with me.” Kermit held up his set of car keys, and then jangled them in front of her. “But he wants me to take you on a ride.”

“
Why don’t you just tell me where he is and I can take myself?”

“
No go, Princess Kay of the Milky Way.” Kermit slipped the keys back in his pocket.

“
Well, I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re a complete stranger.”

“
Fine.” Kermit turned and began walking down the steps. “This is all like, a take-it-or-leave-it deal.” Kermit walked to the sidewalk outside Tammy’s brownstone. “Last chance, senorita.”

“
Hold on.” Tammy stood in the doorway, thinking of options, running through the list of things she could do, most of which she shouldn’t. “Can you wait here and let me gather my things?”

“
And let you call the cops? My instructions are to let you get a coat, and that’s it.”  Kermit pointed at his eyes. “You’re never to exceed the scope of my two 20/20 peepers.”

“
What?”

“
Out of my sight.” Kermit pointed at his eyes, again. “I’m not supposed to let you out of my sight, pretty lady.” Tammy looked back at the inside of her apartment. She knew she should just let the strange man go, and then call Vatch. Let the FBI know that Michael Collins was back in New York, let the real cops chase the bad guys.

“
I’m starting to freeze.” Kermit stomped his feet. “What’s the decision, counselor?”

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Kermit allowed Tammy Duckstein to slip on another pair of jogging pants, a turtleneck, and a heavy sweatshirt. Then, he allowed Tammy to get her jacket and purse. The cell phone was removed. All she had was her wallet and keys.

They rode in silence to East 59th, and then took a left on the famed Fifth Avenue. Driving past Central Park’s children’s zoo, the conservatory and Cedar Hill, Kermit pulled over.

“
Go to one of the benches over by the Reservoir.” Kermit pointed. “He’ll find you, and if you try to make a call or take a detour, he says he’ll see it happen and disappear.”

“
Okay.” Tammy nodded, grateful to be getting out of the car.

“
Good luck, lady friend.” Kermit unlocked all the doors, and Tammy opened the passenger-side door and stepped outside.

Once in the street, Tammy started to thank Kermit for the ride out of habit, but then stopped. She was going insane. Tammy closed the car door, and Kermit sped away, leaving her alone.

Tammy walked across the street, and headed into the park on one of its many paved walking paths. Central Park was quiet and deserted. Most people were already holed up in their apartments or houses, preparing to get hit by the full front of the coming storm.

She eventually found a bench overlooking the partially iced-over Reservoir. Tammy brushed away the recently fallen snow, and sat down on the cold wood. It wouldn’t be hard for Michael Collins to find her. She was the only person there.

Tammy waited, not minding the quiet. She could let her mind wander, trying to remember the last risk she had taken, the last time she had broken the rules. Nowadays Tammy lived through her daughter, who was supposedly sleeping over at a friend’s house that night. Tammy was afraid to ask if that friend was a boy or a girl.

A pack of runners decked out in spandex
sped past, and then an old man walking a dog.

Once they were gone, the park quieted again.

At a quarter past midnight, Michael appeared beside her and sat down. Without turning his head, he spoke.

“
I’m hoping you have some answers for me.”

“
There’s a warrant out for your arrest.” Tammy stole a glance at the young man that she only knew through memos and photographs. “You should turn yourself in.”

“
That seems to be the consensus.”

She kept her eyes forward, watching the snow fall. From a distance she hoped it would look just like two strangers sharing a park bench.  Vatch could be out there watching, she thought. That would be a disaster.

“
All right.” Michael leaned back, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I go first.”

“
Okay.” Tammy tried to calm her nerves and pretend like this was just part of the job. “Then I get some answers from you?”

“
It’s a deal.”

“
It’s a deal, then.” Tammy took a breath, and then brushed away some of the wet flakes that had landed on her cheek. “I work disciplinary. You know that, but what you probably don’t know is that the job is routine. The same infractions occur all the time, maybe a fact or two changes, but it’s the same stuff. The same questions. Every day, one of the staff attorneys is assigned to answer the phones and field these questions, and that’s how I got
Maltow
.”

“
You answered the phone.”

“
That’s right.” Tammy nodded. “It was an associate from Wabash, Kramer & Moore.”

“
Rhonda Kirchner.”

“
Yes, I later found out who she was.” Tammy swallowed hard, and then continued. “So I get this call, and we don’t get calls from Wabash, Kramer & Moore or about Wabash, Kramer & Moore. None of the big boys are ever on our radar, but this associate starts telling me about the
Maltow
case.”

“
What about it?”

“
At first, just background. That it was a big patent infringement case that the firm had involving the pacemaker battery.”

“
Well, sort of,” Michael said. “Our client, Dr. Maltow, invented a pacemaker battery that could be recharged without surgery. You just put this machine over the heart and it sends a million tiny electrodes through the skin and recharges the battery. The only indication that it happened would be a little redness for a day or two. Every pacemaker sold worldwide uses this technology, and in turn, should pay Dr. Maltow a royalty.”

“
That was the allegation.”

“
Right.” Michael agreed. “There was a debate about whether the patent truly claimed the new technology that was being used or whether the patent was so old that it had expired. We filed the lawsuit in the spring, I think, just as the statute of limitations was about to run against the three biggest pacemaker companies in the country.”

“
But  it was also in the midst of the Joshua Krane litigation, at least that’s what Rhonda told me.”

“
It was a crazy time,” Michael said. “I would start a brief at five in the morning, work all day, and have thirty pages, edited and proofread, by midnight. I was billing fifteen to twenty hours a day, sleeping in my office. It’s hard for me to imagine how I did it.”

“
What has Lowell told you about me? What did he say I was doing?”

Michael skipped over the “bitch” part.

“
Told me there was a complaint about
Maltow
. That he didn’t understand it, because the client was happy. It was a good settlement, and that if I didn’t talk to you the case was going away.”

“
But he couldn’t order you not to talk to me, because that would be obstruction.”

“
Exactly.”

Tammy tested him.

“
What did you think about the settlement agreement?” She watched, wanting to believe his innocence. But was he somebody that could be trusted? Certainly nobody in her office or the FBI thought he was.

Michael thought back to his days toiling as an associate. He could say that he was miserable, but that wouldn’t be accurate. He was in his own world, then. He believed the firm’s own hype, sacrificing a life that he didn’t even know was possible until he met Andie.