The Nassau Secret (The Lang Reilly Series Book 8) (2 page)

4.

L
aw Offices of Langford Reilly

Peachtree Center

227 Peachtree Street

Atlanta, Georgia

April, 2014r

              Lang Reilly stood as Sara, his secretary (she refused the contemporary sobriquet ‘administrative assistant’) issued in Dr. Elizabeth Rountree. Appropriately named, the woman was about as round as an oak, a feature accentuated by being only a few inches over five feet, topped with a hair do reminding Lang of the old Shirley Temple movies although she was well north of sixty. The light skinned black woman peered through Harry Potter round glasses that magnified her eyes. According to the form she had filled out, she had collected enough degrees in education and school administration to paper a good sized wall. He indicated one of the pair of 18
th
Century French chairs facing the desk. “Please have a seat.”

              He glanced at the file open on the Boule desk. Until 2005, the Atlanta Public School System had lagged behind every urban system in the country except for the District of Columbia. The school board had hired Dr. Rountree, giving her a superintendent’s contract with heavy financial incentives to improve the situation, incentives she had passed along to every school principal: “Failure is
NOT
an option.”

              Her minions had interpreted this as a command to lower the river rather than raise the bridge on the Criterion Referenced Competency Test. From 2005 through 2009, the results by Atlanta Public School system showed dramatic improvement on the No Child Left Behind mandated tests, so dramatic as to be suspicious. Closer inspection revealed a remarkable number of erasures on the multiple choice exam changing wrong answers to correct ones, some not even in the same pencil.

              In the end, thirty-five educators and administrators, including Superintendent Rountree were indicted. Almost immediately, the defendants began to sing like canaries: Rountree fired teachers and principals who declined to attend actual parties where answers were changed. Job security depended not on integrity or ability but upon capabilities of changing a certain number of answers on the compromised tests.

              The sixty-five count indictment against the former superintendent included fraud, RICO, conspiracy, making false statements to law enforcement and theft. About the only charge missing was spitting on the street.

              “. . . And of course, I never dreamed they would do such a thing.”

              Lang drifted into and out of paying attention. It was difficult to believe an experienced educator such as Rountree could see an unprecedented improvement in test scores and have no suspicion as to the reason. But then, it wasn’t his job to believe his clients. Years of defending white collar criminals had taught him his duties to those who robbed with computers, the United States Mail or other non-violent means. Nor did it include gullibility. Provide the best defense possible and let a jury decide the issue of guilt.

              “. . . You can’t imagine how shocked I was. . .”

              Lang held out a hand, stop. “I think before we go any further, Dr. Rountree, we need to discuss my fee.”

              Hard experience had taught Lang the facts of life of the criminal practice: Get paid up front. Not only did the miscreants he defended have no qualms about adding their lawyer to the list of their victims, some even rationalized it: If the defense was unsuccessful, the lawyer hadn’t done his job. If the client were acquitted, well then, the client hadn’t really been guilty, had he? And an innocent man had no need of a lawyer’s services.

              Rountree was digging in a purse the size of a small suitcase. She set it down, holding up a document. “I think you’ll see your fee is no issue.”

             
Only if I don’t get it
, Lang thought, reaching across the desk.

              He spent the next few minutes reading the contract Rountree had signed with the Atlanta Public School System. Not only did it provide  healthy incentives per percentage point of improved test scores, it obligated the System to “hold harmless from any and all damages, legal fees or other expenses incurred due to or by reason of the employment described herein or any part thereof.” 

              Lang looked over the top of the document. “I’m guessing you figure the ‘hold harmless’ clause includes my fees, right?”

              She nodded emphatically. “I’m not a lawyer but the language is pretty clear.”

              Lang shook his head. “It’s not the language. It’s the policy considerations that bother me. I mean, it would be against public policy to, in essence, compensate a felon for the felony he committed. I’m afraid that clause may be unenforceable.”

              Her enthusiasm was replaced by righteous indignation, feigned or real. “Mr. Reilly, I am
not
a felon!”

             
No, none of his clients ever were. At least, not on the first visit.
But he said, “That, Dr. Rountree, is for a jury to decide. I’m not willing to risk the time and effort necessary for your defense on what a jury might or might not do. Plus the fact that if you were to choose to plead out, even to lesser charges, that would also make you a felon and therefore not entitled to benefit under the hold harmless.”

              She scooped up her purse and stood. “Well, Mr. Reilly,” she huffed, “it is clear to me you have already prejudged my guilt or innocence. I would think a lawyer of your reputation. . .”

              Lang held out another stop sign. “Dr. Rountree, I’m prejudging nothing other than the possibility of not getting paid for a lot of work. If you are dissatisfied. . .”

              She spun around with an agility belied by her bulk and walked to the door, opened it and slammed it behind her. Seconds later, a puzzled Sara stuck her head into the office.

              “What was that all about?”

              “It would seem the good doctor may be finished in the education business but as a career public servant, she isn’t finished supping at a trough not her own.”

              “In other words, she doesn’t want to pay your fee.”

              “Good guess.”

              Sara shook her head while extending a pink call back slip. “Well, while you were arguing about where who was going to sup, Celeste Harper called.”

              Lang stood and took the paper. “Celeste Harper, as in the reporter for the
Daily Report?”

             
Lang was referring to the local legal newspaper.

              “The same.”

              “How the hell would she know I was talking to Rountree?”

              “If that’s what she was calling about.”

              Lang frowned. “What else would she or her paper be interested in?”

              Sara was closing the door. “One way to find out would be to return her call.”

              Celeste Harper had given Lang more than his share of favorable press, far better publicity than the advertising that filled late night TV promoting the ambulance chasers and the DUI and bankruptcy hacks. He punched her number into his iPhone.

              “Lang?” she answered before the first ring had ended. “Thanks for calling me back.”

              That wasn’t her usually cheery voice. Celeste was the arch-typical cheerful fat person. Well over two hundred pounds, she always wore a smile and clothes the less than charitable described as being designed by Omar the tent maker. Lang had never heard her disparage anyone personally although her articles could have the edge of a surgeon’s scalpel.

              “Of course I’d return your call. What’s up?”

              There was a pause before, “Lang, I need your help.”

              Lang had long ago learned not to answer that summons before learning what was involved. He said nothing.

              “It’s Livia. She’s disappeared.”

              Celeste was the Hardy to her partner’s Laurel, at least as far as figures went. A professor of modern history at Emory University, Lang remembered Livia Haynesworth looked far more like a model than an academic: tall and slender to the point of near anorexia. Her long blond hair surrounded a thin, high cheek boned face that was more classical than beautiful. She reminded Lang of faces out of Renaissance paintings. Unlike Celeste who rarely met a stranger, Livia spoke little if at all.

              Lang knew little or nothing about lesbian relationships and whether they tended to be more or less stable than heterosexual ones. Or if there were statistics one way or the other. He did know that the first twenty-four hours were critical in finding missing persons.

              “Disappeared? Like vanished? You two have a fight or something?”

              There were tears in the reply. “No, nothing like that. She just. . . Well, let me explain: We aren’t in Atlanta. I’m calling you from Nassau.”

              “In the Bahamas?”

              “That’s the one. She won a contest of some sort. Grand prize was a week at Atlantis.”

              The Bahamas in general and Nassau in particular were not high on Lang’s list of places to vacation. Arrogant officials, a high crime rate and downright unfriendly natives spoiled the gin clear waters and golden beaches. He had noted, though, the hassle factor diminished in direct proportion to the increase in distance between Nassau and any other part of the island country. He had seen the ads for Atlantis, the mega resort located on Nassau’s Paradise Island, formerly known as Hog Cay because for years the island had provided a perfect place to keep the native’s pigs.

              “How long has she been gone?” Lang asked.

              “Since about ten this morning. She was taking a shopping tour of downtown.”

              Lang glanced at his watch. It was a few minutes past three. “That’s only, what, five hours?

              “Believe me, there’s not five hours’ worth of sights on this whole island. You can drive all the way around it in an hour. She isn’t answering her phone. She always answers her phone unless she’s in class which obviously she is not.”

              “Celeste, something has you worried. Want to tell me about it?”

              There was an audible sigh. “Ordinarily, I wouldn’t be so concerned. Livia doesn’t have the sense of time of a child: Once she is shopping, the world stands still.”

              “But?”

              “We got here yesterday and were walking round downtown, such as it is. For some reason, she wanted to visit the library. I think it was something she saw about a special collection of some sort. She’s got a real intellectual curiosity. Guess that’s why she got a Ph. D.”

              “And?”

              The exhibit, such as it was, was about some old murder case. I got bored and insisted we leave. An hour or two later, we got back to the hotel and someone had been in our room.”

              “The maid, perhaps?”

              “I don’t think so. The maid wouldn’t sort through our things. I mean, my hair brush was on the other side of the sink from where I know I left it, the sunscreen bottle’s cap was on the floor when I specifically remember screwing it on, things like that. Livia noticed it, too.”

              Lang thought a moment. Although he didn’t know Celeste beyond a few interviews, he had seen no signs of paranoia. “And you think this, er, intrusion into your room has something to do with Livia’s being gone five hours?”

              There, he’d said it, the absurdity patent in the words.      

              “I’m not sure how you think I can help.”

              “Lang, you have a reputation for, well, finding people.”

              Lang was a bit of a mystery to his brethren at the bar. As the Cold War wound down, he had spent two years in a grimy building across the street of Frankfurt’s
Hauptbahnhoff
, railway station, monitoring broadcasts from the Iron Curtain countries. Not the James Bond type of job he thought he’d signed on for. But even assigned to Intel instead of the more storied Ops, he had undergone the rigorous training that stood him well today.              It was there in Frankfurt he had met Gurt, who was in Ops, had a brief affair and married someone else when he left the service. Only after his wife’s death had he rekindled the relationship with Gurt.

              Lawyers are no less prone to speculation than anyone else. Rumors concerning Lang’s past were wide spread, perhaps induced by the perception of wealth far beyond what the law practice could yield. The fact he had faced down one of the world’s wealthiest and most secretive organizations was unknown but to less than five people outside that establishment. The wealth that institution paid annually into an eleemosynary foundation named in honor of one of their victims who had just happened to be Lang’s sister and the privileges that came with operating that foundation were perceived variously as hush money, protection or something even more sinister if unnamed. Lang’s abilities in self defense, though rarely witnessed by local attorneys, were a mainstay of what he viewed with no small amusement as fabrication based on gossip built upon ignorance germinating from a tiny kernel of observation by his next door neighbor and fellow lawyer whose small son had been kidnapped a few years back only to be recovered by Lang and Gurt.