Trophy Widow (27 page)

I slowed as I reached the door. The microfilm reader I'd been using was against the wall on the far side. Although I'd turned the power off when I left, I hadn't bothered to rewind the tape. Now the power was back on and the loan documents I'd been studying were displayed on the screen. Leaning forward to study them was Herman Borghoff. I took a step back to duck out of sight if he turned. He stared at the screen, his back to me, his palms resting on the table, his face close to the illuminated text. He straightened in the chair and looked down at the microfilm boxes containing the other reels I'd reviewed. He picked up one of the boxes and squinted at the label on the side. Frowning, he looked back toward the screen.

I turned and moved quickly down the hall on my tiptoes toward the elevator, my heart racing.

***

When I got back to my office I found a memo from Jacki on my desk:

Rachel
—

You were right 23 lawsuits, 23 default judgments. Copies of the docket sheets are attached. Note that none of the corporations bothered to hire an attorney
.
Found 32 other lawsuits over properties in the redevelopment area. Your theory seems to hold up. Copies of those docket sheets are attached
.

I studied the bundle of docket sheets she'd attached to her memorandum. The ones for the suits against the Michael Green clients were exactly as I predicted—default judgments solely against the corporations. Any doubt about the existence of a scam vanished when I scanned the docket sheets for twenty-eight of the other cases. In each lawsuit, the defendants included the borrower
and
the personal guarantors. Thus, the city knew how to make a redevelopment loan with proper documentation.

I picked up the final four docket sheets and slowly paged through them. These were the loans that had no relation to Michael Green—all, in fact, were made after his death. Nevertheless, these four loans, like the twenty-three involving Green, were also missing personal guarantees.

I looked at my watch. Three minutes before five o'clock. Opening my legal directory, I flipped to the phone number for the corporate records division of the Missouri secretary of state. I dialed, praying that the state employees didn't leave early.

A woman answered on the third ring. “Secretary of state's office.”

“This is Rachel Gold calling. Can you run a quick check for me on four corporations?”

A weary sigh. “Let me have the names, honey.”

It took her less than five minutes to run the names through the computer and pull up the results. Although by then it was after closing time, she was nice enough to read me the information slowly so that I could copy it down. I thanked her and hung up.

Leaning back in my chair, I stared at the page of notes. The first of the four corporations was formed about a year after Michael Green's murder. The other three followed at roughly four-month intervals. Each corporation had one shareholder. Two of those shareholders I recognized from puff pieces that had appeared in the
St. Louis Business Journal
.

But all four corporations had one thing in common: Percy Trotter. He was the lawyer on all four sets of incorporation papers.

Percy Trotter
?

“Son of Scam,” I mumbled, reaching for the phone.

Benny answered on the second ring. “Talk to me.”

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You busy?”

“Hell, yes, woman. I'm busy waiting for goddamn ESPN to give me the goddamn Mets score. My boys had an afternoon game against the Giants and I'm sitting here listening to these two douche bags talking about a fucking golf tournament. What's up?”

“I need a man.”

“Then this is your lucky day.”

Chapter Thirty

At six-thirty that evening, Percy Trotter and I were in a booth near the back of the Summit, a downtown restaurant that was a shrine to Frank Sinatra—from the menus made out of his record albums to the framed glossies of him on the wall to the sound system that had him crooning “I Get a Kick Out of You.” I could safely assume that the lyrics did not echo Percy Trotter's sentiments toward me. It was also accurate to say that a more appropriate Sinatra tune for my state of mind was “How Little We Know.”

Percy Trotter was an African-American attorney in his early forties—a plump, light-skinned man with a round bald head, thick eyebrows, and a pencil-thin mustache. Although he started off as the son of a city factory worker, he was now a prominent member of the Missouri Republican Party who lived in a gated community in the suburbs, drove a Range Rover, sent his two children to an exclusive private school, owned a summer home on Nantucket, and had a wardrobe of elegant double-breasted suits from his London tailor. Today's was navy blue with maroon chalk stripes.

Trotter and his wife Lucinda were avid social climbers who'd started on ground level and managed so far to reach the lower rungs of the St. Louis corporate elite. His legal practice, however, had not kept pace. Although he had a big enough book of business to become a partner at one of the larger firms in town, his clients were hardly silk stocking, consisting instead of minor-league banks and second-tier entrepreneurs at whose glitzy country clubs he played golf and in whose private jets he traveled to Super Bowls and Las Vegas trade shows.

Percy Trotter had all the traits of a successful phony—the hearty laugh, the warm handshake, the soulful gaze, the photographic memory for names, the affable grin. He was what we used to call a “show partner” in my days at Abbott & Windsor—long on form, short on substance, a superb salesman who could lure the clients into his lair while concealing the fact that he wouldn't actually be doing any of their legal work. It wasn't that Trotter was a poor lawyer; he simply had no interest in reviewing a twenty-five page stock purchase agreement or drafting a set of corporate resolutions, especially if he could be out hustling a prospective client on the links or schmoozing one of his client contacts at the Rams game.

In short, I didn't like him.

I'd been astounded to see him listed as the attorney for the four corporations that appeared, at least from the docket sheets, to be engaged in the same type of real estate scam Michael Green ran. Not because Trotter was a saint—or even close. The scent of sin trailed from him like cheap cologne. No, I was astonished when I realized that this flamboyant Republican must have had a key connection within that ultimate bastion of Democratic politics, St. Louis City Hall.

That realization made me call Benny. We'd originally planned to confront one of the other twenty-three tonight—perhaps Jack Foley, before whom Benny had already given his demented performance as the art critic Benito. But Foley was a long shot, since he probably knew nothing of the City Hall side of the details. Michael Green had been savvy enough to understand that whatever his clients didn't know couldn't come back to hurt him.

From the loan records, Percy Trotter appeared to have occupied the same role as Michael Green in a subsequent but smaller version of the same scam—four deals versus twenty-three. If so, then he would know what Jack Foley and Don Goddard and the other twenty-one Green clients might not, namely, the identity and the role of each of the coconspirators.

Although Benny had wanted to join me in the booth, I figured that my chances were better if I met Trotter alone. I'd run into him at enough professional and charitable functions over the past two years to know that he'd recognize my name and probably recall that I was single. Marital status was an important piece of information for Percy Trotter. According to what I'd heard from a female partner at his firm, he had a special room arrangement at the Marriott for his noontime trysts. All of which meant that he might be more susceptible without Benny there.

Not that Benny wasn't near. The good professor was, in fact, seated on a stool in the bar area, ostensibly keeping an eye on me while directing the rest of his attention and all of his charm and energy toward the flashy blonde in the black cocktail dress and pearls seated on the stool to his left.

Percy Trotter and I zipped through the small talk. By the time the waitress brought us our drinks, he'd realized that this was not a conversation likely to end with the uncorking of a room service bottle of champagne.

“Michael Green?” Percy Trotter frowned. “I am not in the least bit following you, Rachel.”

“Here's how he worked it,” I said, and took him through a quick version of the scam.

He listened, his expression neutral.

“Assuming that Green pocketed the full legal fee,” I said, “he was paying up to eight thousand dollars per painting as a bribe to someone connected to City Hall. I assume your numbers are similar.”

“Numbers?” Trotter tugged on his earlobe, looking bewildered. “Rachel, you must be confused if you believe that I have any idea what you are talking about or attempting to suggest.”

“Look, Percy, I'm here to give you an opportunity. I have twenty-three names connected to Michael Green, including some big fish in this town. That's more than enough to convince an ambitious U.S. attorney to launch a criminal investigation. I don't need to give her your name, and I don't need to give her the names of your clients. That's why I asked you to meet me here. You give me the City Hall connection and I forget we ever had this conversation.”

Percy leaned forward. “Rachel, I can assure you that I have no idea what Michael Green may have been doing, if anything. Although I never met the gentleman, I have no reason to believe that he was involved in any illicit activity. Now that he has passed, and tragically at that, I cannot imagine why anyone would want to besmirch his reputation.” He took a sip of his Glenfiddich. Lowering his voice, he fixed me with a severe look. “As for my clients, Rachel, despite the fact that I am offended by your insinuation that any of them could have been involved in such questionable activity, I will nevertheless look into the four transactions you have identified. Although I am not generally involved in the preparation of the legal documents for my clients' deals, I shall try to determine whether there was anything even colorably amiss in those transactions. I must emphasize, though, that I seriously doubt that I will find anything wrong.” He paused, his face somber. “I can sense that you are under great strain, Rachel. I only hope that in your zeal to uncover some irregularity involving your client's former husband you will not stain the reputations of innocent men and women with no connection to those matters.”

I had to concede that it was a superb performance—the concern for my mental health coupled with the lawyer's professional obligation to protect his clients, the voice perfectly modulated to mingle confusion over my accusation and innocence on his part. I'd underestimated Percy Trotter. He was not going to give up a thing.

Unless he had nothing to give up.

Maybe his façade of bewildered innocence wasn't a façade. I'd made several key assumptions in building my case against Michael Green. Although every piece seemed to fit logically, I had to concede that each one was circumstantial. Were there alternative hypotheses out there, especially for Percy Trotter? While twenty-three defective loans might be enough to incriminate Green, were just four such loans enough to incriminate Trotter?

He finished his glass of Scotch and signaled the waitress. She came over all smiles and giggles. “Yes, Mr. Trotter?”

Percy glanced at me. “Another, Rachel?”

“No, thanks.”

“Well, Suzie,” he said to her with a chuckle, “guess it's time for this ol' cowboy to saddle up and hit the trail.” Before I could reach for my purse he'd slipped a pair of twenties off his gold money clip and placed them on the table.

After she left, he turned to me. “Rachel, I assure you that I will personally review those files—if not tomorrow, then early next week. Should I detect anything of a questionable nature, I will find a way to notify you, within the bounds, of course, of my professional obligations under the attorney-client privilege. All I ask from you is time enough to complete my investigation. Is that fair?”

I stood, gathering my purse and briefcase. “I don't know what's fair here, Percy. You do what you need to do, and I'll do what I need to do.”

“Come on, Rachel,” he said, a trace of annoyance in his voice now. “A few days is surely not much to ask, especially if it turns out that my clients have done nothing wrong.” He leaned in close. “Why put their reputations at risk, and in the process put yourself at serious risk of liability for defamation, when the prudent course is to first determine the facts? Mr. Green has been dead for several years now. A few more days won't matter one way or the other.”

“I'll think about it.”

“You do that.”

“No promises.”

***

“What a load of crap,” Benny said in disgust.

“But effectively delivered,” I said. “I'll give Percy that much.”

We were standing by my car, which was parked just down the block from the Summit. I'd gone into the rest room to avoid leaving with Trotter. I stayed in there for ten minutes, and then waited outside of the restaurant for Benny to join me. He did—but only for a few minutes. Benny had high hopes for the flashy blonde, whose name was Sabrina.

After her second martini, Sabrina had told him that she liked a big man. “I like 'em built for comfort, not for speed,” she'd said, borrowing a line from Howlin' Wolf.

After her third martini, she confided that her husband had divorced her because he claimed she was “too kinky.”

Benny was, to put it mildly, anxious to return to his perch alongside Sabrina. But God bless him, raging lust hadn't shut down the cognitive region of his brain.

“He's going to examine his clients' files to see whether anything's wrong?” Benny snorted. “That's like a husband telling his wife that he's going to examine his appointment calendar to see whether he was
shtupping
his secretary over the lunch hour last Friday. That slick bastard either is or isn't up to his asshole in this cesspool, and he surely doesn't need to look at any goddamn files to figure that out. Right?”

“I guess so.

“All of which means that Mr. Clean is dirty. Examine his files?” Benny snorted. “Guy is jerking you around, Rachel—just trying to buy time.”

“But for what?”

“To cover his fat ass.”

We stood there in silence.

“So what's your next move?” he asked.

“I'm going to see Sebastian Curry's minister, and I'm going to talk to Ron Blitz. He's the Blitz of the Blitz detective agency.”

“Tomorrow?”

“No, the day after. I've got a hearing down in Crawford County tomorrow.”

“What case is that?”

I groaned. “That's the creepy family that's been battling over their grandmother's estate for four years. I represent the younger sister. I'll be there the whole day.”

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Benny glanced toward the restaurant. “Well, my dear, ordinarily I'd love to shoot the shit out here with you, but we must not forget that I have an extremely attractive lady waiting back there who claims she likes a full-figured man and says her husband divorced her because he thought she was too kinky. Think of that.” He shook his head in wonder. “A good-looking chick who's kinky
and
has the hots for me.” He placed his hand over his heart and gazed heavenward. “Forgive me, Lord. You have finally sent this humble servant irrefutable proof of Your existence.”