Cafe Underground Presents
River Of Lawyers
-- Chapters 3
The Detective Andi Wicksham Series, by RL Bell
Copyright © 1997 RL BELL
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Andi Wicksham's INVESTIGATORY SERVICES
Chapter 3
She worked, shirt sleeves folded, notebook under pencil, coffee to the side. There were three firms Chang-Turner admitted minor conflict with, each with at least four logged calls in the last two weeks. Houston Light from All American Industries met with him twice before the party, once the preceding week and made four calls between Thursday morning and Friday night. R.I. Drexler from Brian-Core, Inc. met once and made a couple calls Friday and Saturday. Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI met twice and phoned once. She scribbled a note to question Chang-Turner more specifically, she might have logged when he was in office or out.
On a whim, she telephoned Bryant’s home phone number and listened to his pleasant, high-tenor wish callers a fine day and invite them to leave a message. The machine beeped its short electric buzz and Andi heard silence until she hung up. She looked up the number for immigration and asked if it was possible to track the use of a Canadian passport. After seventeen minutes on the phone, most of that on hold, she learned that internal use documents were not available to the public, asking snidly if she was a law enforcement representative?
Andi spent the next hour typing notes. It always seemed a waste of time, but fatter reports justified more higher billing. With things typed in, it was easy to excerpt sections for weekly reports. Still, she begrudged every second it took out of her day.
A glance at her watch. Four thirty. She weighed stopping early, going home to read her biography of Emma Goldberg, taking a walk, going out for a sauna against pecking away at her backlog until six. Guilt weighed in–hissing that she was lazy. After another inch of files went by swamped in the guilt of not working on Bryant’s case. No guts no glory, she’d work until her nerve gave out and catch a plate of pasta at the Café Underground, then swing home. She slogged away in silence. No one waited–no one cared whether she came home or jumped in front of a train. God, her personal life was tragic. It wasn’t fair–even loud, obnoxious, people had lasting relationships, why was she dumped? She ruffled her hair with both hands, cursed the self-pity and settled back to work.
Thursday morning she didn’t want to get out of bed, listening to the vague traffic noises and human sounds leaking indistinctly through the walls–barely audible voices, slammed doors, the clattering heels of life. She lay warm in her blankets, in a quiet room while outside the temperature hovered barely above freezing and cars ground and pumped to roars over chains of clear ringing footsteps. She listened, eyes shut against daytime glare–a bevy of pre-adolescents passed by loudly, then a quarrelsome conversation drifted up from the apartment of the wheelchair bound neighbor downstairs. The half-heard voices set her thinking.
Who did Bryant argue with the morning he disappeared? One of the “friends” for dinner and breakfast or business and if that the firm’s or his own? His social skills implied a set of friends who knew how he shopped, told jokes and cooked, friends who talked on the phone and went to movies.
Andi pulled a pillow over her head and willed the questions away. Who would know Templeton, Morse and Bryant’s business? What were the driving forces? Finance? Revenge? Payback? Jealousy? Passion? Was Morse’s concerned for Bryant or himself? Why else muddy the waters?
There would be no more lying in bed; the demons hurled demands in her brain. She threw her pillow, indulged in a silent, frustrated scream, kicked the comforter to the floor and stomped into the bathroom for a shower.
An hour later, at her desk, resting her head on the telephone and jotting notes, she was still frustrated. Chang-Turner was as helpful as ever. Turned out that Houston Light was a woman–CEO of All American Industries, three questions later she found they owned paper mills, a high-tech manufacturing plant and some small electronics businesses.
R.I. Drexler was president of Brian-Core, Inc. an engineering and development firm Andi vaguely remembered from a newspaper article. They were pushing through an industrial plant after the hostile takeover of the business that held a major portion of the site. three
The third of the trio, Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI, vice president, attorney and point-person in acquiring software development contracts. That much was volunteered, but that was the end of it. Chang-Turner claimed no knowledge of or opinion about Bryant as a human and avoided every question on Morse.
Andi hung up and re-dialed, this time asking for Mr. Morse. She got the receptionist–he was busy. Andi settled for voice-mail and actually got a call back ten minutes later. Confronted by bland conciliation Andi down-shifted, asking through clenched teeth if he could suggest people she might question.
Morse listened quietly and offered to look into the matter, excused himself and hung up, leaving Andi holding her phone, open mouthed. She grabbed her coat, stormed down the stairs and walked a couple of blocks though the cold.
Back at her desk, she scribbled her early morning questions into her notebook before breaking down and dialing Traci only to hang up on her voice mail. She made an outline for Morse’s first weekly report due in only six days, glanced at the time and decided it was time to head to Flying Pie. She had enough time to cruise up and over Mount Tabor park.
There was a light mist falling. Mount Tabor was the remains of an old cinder cone–said to be the only technically active volcano within the limits of any US city. True or not it was a park threaded with forested drives, strategically planted between her office and Flying Pie.
She grabbed her umbrella and walked up the road to a bench with a view of Mount Hood. Its glacier caught the sun through a break in the clouds and gleamed, framed by thunder-heads like some fabled island rising from a sea of cloud.
Years ago she’d stood at that very spot listening to an argument. The scene lingered in her mind. It was drizzling of course–Sonny’s older cousin Danny, a seedy looking forty, argued with an unknown woman twenty-five years older.
Andi had left them to argue without her. It was before they put in the benches, long after they stopped letting vehicles up top. “You don’t know...I was there...” he’d screamed. “How can you defend murderers?” A month later he disappeared–just never returned to his room. Just disappeared like Bryant, that must be why she was thinking of him. But he was far from a corporate lawyer and she had been paid to care. Andi pushed him from her mind–there was blood on a boat house floor.
Ramirez was immersed in a report when she came in, evidently taking a working lunch. He had ordered their usual, small Sromboli; pepperoni, onions, green peppers, and Italian sausage and chosen a corner table next to a woman with shaved head and tattoos engaged a man dressed in yellow. Andi and Ramirez sipped water and waited for the other to begin.
Andi gave in. “Mi amigo. You do good work.”
“You don’t need to butter me, I owe the pizza.” He pushed a recycled envelope across to her. “You help, we help...unofficially; photos vehicle records and the lab report. First run on the blood narrows the search to only twenty percent of the male population, they’re looking for his for a match. No significant fingerprints, even Bryant’s, but a maintenance guy and a couple of members with a shell, with alibis who all say there wasn’t any blood, narrows it to between seven and eight. Uh, and the sun glasses are Bryant’s prescription.”Andi pulled envelope almost to her lap without looking at it. A moment later Ramirez’ name was called and she went to get the pizza, tucking it into her notebook as she went.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“Officially a missing person, but already a suspected murder. What a world, no body, motive or weapon, yet it’s a murder.”
“What’s the crystal ball say?” Andi wiped her mouth with a napkin.
“Not a snowball’s with what we got right now. Oh yeah, a lawyer hired by Templeton, Morse and Bryant...that you?”
She nodded as she bit.
“Filed some suit to get some of the blood, for their own tests.” Ramirez shrugged and let out a tired breath. “Their money, I guess.”
Andi shrugged–another important piece she wasn’t told. Did Morse already know it was Bryant’s?
“One thing more...a boat was stolen from a berth just below the boat house. The night of the party.” He paused for another piece of pizza.
Andi looked up.
“Mmiffell..pappt” Ramirez pointing with his little finger to the envelope.
“Thanks.” Andi smiled and gulped some water.
Ramirez swallowed, “You gotta come to dinner. Tanya wants to dose you with medicinal chicken thighs and chocolate.”
“I’ll give her a call.”
She got him chuckling over Chang-Turner and Morse, passed on Bryant’s neighbor’s mention of yelling Saturday morning, and bragged about the lawyer’s offices. Ramirez nodded sagely, they grinned, traded congenial belches and went their separate ways.
Andi just topped the stairs at her office as a bicycle delivery guy in a neon jersey with a small brown envelope knocked on her door. Andi signed his clipboard and dumped dump its contents on her desk–an audio cassette labeled “Robert Bryant-voice mail” enfolded in a type-written note on Templeton, Morse and Bryant letterhead and a somewhat crumpled napkin.
The note, signed by Lionel Morse, affirmed that the tape was Robert Bryant’s voice mail and that the police were receiving a copy too. Andi set the cassette aside and was tossing the crumpled napkin when she saw something printed in pencil,
Lon Lively
(homophobe--offer $).
On the other side of the napkin was a phone number. She unfolded it; a bit stained, somewhat used, standard issue, cheap commercial stock. Virtually untraceable and certainly deniable. The question was, who put it in the envelope and why? If it was Morse he was be unnecessarily obscure. Chang-Turner or executive secretaries or somebody even lower down would probably have access. It was a fair bet Morse hadn’t put the envelope in the delivery guy’s hand.
There wasn’t a cassette player in the office–part of a regime of keeping the office a workplace–no computer games on the computer, no crossword puzzles, no dart board on the door or down-sized basketball hoop over the wastebasket. There were distractions enough outside, enough unsolicited thought stalked her brain. It was survival discipline; the office maintained as a place of toil.
Bryant’s client’s needed to be researched and no sense talking to Lively without doing her homework, then there was the party’s guest list to go through. She’d make calls between other chores. Most folks worked daytimes so it would be evening and weekend work. She drove across back across the river to the libraries to winnow the “Business and Commerce” files for everything she could find on All American, Brian-Core and Noris-SDI, it would just about kill the day.
Friday morning Andi woke in the dark before her alarm. A boat stolen the night of the party? She mulled as she showered, dressed and sat down to a bowl of cold cereal, trying to remember the setting. It was obvious there had to have been a boat. She left her half-finished bowl of cereal in the sink, pulled on a coat and raced back to the office.
Ramirez’ slim, paper-clipped envelope was in her bottom drawer--she paged quickly to the boat report. Early Sunday morning, a twenty-eight foot cabin cruiser, double inboard engines, lots of electronic gadgetry, valued at two hundred thirty grand. Owner reporting the theft: R.I. Drexler.
Andi’s interest shifted up a gear.
She shuffled though Chang-Turner’s list of clients. R.I. Drexler–president of Brian-Core, Inc. He had interacted with Bryant the week before the party. Feeling a quick smug flush she typed Drexler’s address and phone number into her report file and picked up the phone. Ramirez didn’t answer and when she punched zero to page him the duty officer said he wouldn’t be in until eight-thirty, would she like his voice mail?
It took a moment for the comment to sink in. Andi looked at her watch– seven thirty-three.
“Damn...” she cursed, what was she doing working so early? She re-locked the office and stomped downstairs to drive cross town to Java Jan’s and scan a newspaper until it was safe to call.
Ramirez answered the phone like a man condemned to endless paperwork and phone calls. She didn’t bother with their usual small talk, cutting to the proverbial chase. “It’s Andi...the guy who owns the boat made three phone calls to Bryant before the party and met at his office the day before.” The words tumbled out so quickly she had to retrace their path to get Ramirez on track.
He hummed as if mentally fitting the piece in.
“Might be your chance to be a hero.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Just helping an old lady cross the street.”
“OK scout.”
“President of Brian-Core, Inc who’s the client. Bryant’s diaries can be had from the secretary at Templeton, Morse and Bryant.”
“Some uniform saw her and got nothing.” He tisked, in dismay as he wrote himself a note. “OK”
“If you end up a hero it’s another lunch. My work here is done.”
“Sayonara, kemosabe.”
She dashed home to get her carry-around tape player and returned to sit staring out her office window listening through headphones, noting time and a short comment, trying to get a feel for the flow. It took almost two hours. In the week preceding the party, Houston Light from All American, R.I. Drexler and Sandra Ibbe from Noris-SDI left messages sounding like they nursed foul moods. Cross-referencing with his phone log, he either didn’t return half of those or didn’t log them in.
Even more interesting were messages made Sunday, after Bryant’s disappearance–two calls by Drexler demanding return calls as soon as possible, with a goodly dose of hostility in his voice. Unless Drexler was exceptionally cool and left the message to throw off the hounds, he didn’t know Bryant was missing. That would be enough to bump him off the short-list.
She considered phoning Ramirez and sharing that insight, but thought better of it. Maybe the recruit assigned to transcribing the tape would miss the significance of the timing and the city would put some effort into checking Drexler out. One could always hope.
She paged through Bryant’s vehicle records, photos, forensic reports and laboratory analysis–highlighting anything that might fatten a weekly report. Another half-hour of typing notes and scratching her head and it was lunch time. She sweet-talked Sonny into meeting at the Cup and Saucer, she for lunch and Sonny for her usual at-noon-breakfast.
Back at her office she called Lon Lively. The gruff, annoyed voice challenged with “What do you want?” instead of “Hello.”
“This is Andi Wicksham Mr. Lively.” Andi played no-nonsense-business-woman-with-a-smile. “I’m a private investigator here in Portland.”
She paused to allow let him respond, but the line hung silent. “I’ve been retained by a local client with interest in Templeton, Morse and Bryant and understand you might have some knowledge. I’m willing to pay you fifty dollars for an hour or so of your time.”
“Fuckers.” Lively mumbled.
“Beg pardon?” Andi queried perkily.
“Sure, I know some shit they did. They canned me you know.” Lively seemed like he might have already started drinking.
Andi made vaguely understanding sounds and considered the pros and cons of interviewing him then.
“Who are you again?” He asked suspiciously. “Fifty dollars?”
Andi re-introduced herself and agreed to meet at a hole in the wall bar up Sandy Boulevard. “If you don’t think you can trust me you don’t have to stay and earn the money, OK?”
Lively allowed that it sounded fair. Andi said “Forty-five minutes? Say two o’clock?”
Lively grunted agreement and hung up.
Andi locked her office and rushed home to change into her one and only cotton dress, nondescript black flats and a non-matching handbag. She took ten crisp ten-dollar bills from a book on Islamic Art, dividing it between two pockets in the purse and rummaged in her underwear drawer for an old pair of horned rim glasses, then she strode to the bathroom, took out her contacts, slipped into her coat and dashed back to her car.
The bar was a greasy café with a full liquor license and pretensions as a lounge despite its graveled parking lot and weather worn sign. She parked at the curb so her equal rights bumper stickers wouldn’t show and approached the door. The dark, humid interior was lit by beer signs and three televisions turned to golf and smelled of strong spirits, old tobacco, spilt beer and oblivion.
It took a minute for her eyes adjust. There were a handful of people in view. Two greying, women bartenders moved slowly before three patrons at the bar who seemed all but passed out over their drinks. An oddly matched couple seemed to be negotiating a romantic encounter at one table and three or four single men slouched over drinks at others.
She stepped slowly toward the bar as she scanned the corners, it was too dark to distinguish faces. She should have asked Lively what he was wearing or told him she’d carry a newspaper, but just before the bar stools a man emerged from the shadows.
“You her?” he demanded cryptically.
Andi recognized the voice. “Andi Wicksham.” She let her name hang in the musty air and didn’t offer her hand. Lively was quite a bit younger than he sounded. Late twenties at the outside, but already sallow and depleted.
He led them back to a corner booth and sat stiffly. “You brought the money?”
Andi pursed her lips and slowly nodded.
“No checks...” he demanded abruptly.
“No check, Mr. Lively.” Andi opened her handbag and pulled out five of the bills, splaying them on the table before her.
Lively reached, but she lay her hand across them. He paused and she pushed two bills across the table. One of the bartenders made her way across the room. “Why don’t I buy you a beer Mr. Lively?” Andi offered brightly. He glanced up at he approaching bartender and quickly pocketed the twenty dollars.
“Beer for me, she told the matron, and...?”
“...boilermaker.” Lively said without looking up. He fell silent until the waitress left. “Templeton et al...cream-puff assholes...faggot fucking yuppies. They fired me you know.”
Andi offered a neutral smile. “What was your official role, Mr. Lively?”
“Research...I did a year of law school so I know the business. I worked for that faggot Bryant three years without a single problem, then was booted for putting the make on a lesbo intern.” He seemed mired in memories and sat silently a moment.
“These things happen.” she offered. “But that’s not my problem. I’m investigating them, not you or anything that happened to you.”
He sat back a bit more at ease as the bartender slid their drinks before them. Andi handed her another ten, Lively sipped his whisky, blinked and took a pull from his beer before dropping the shot glass of whisky into it.
“I want to know about Templeton, Morse and Bryant’s relationship with All American, Brian-Core and Noris-SDI.” She sat back, giving Lively any space he needed.
“American, Brian-Core and Noris? They hate Bryant’s guts, that’s the relationship. Them and a dozen others loath him. He has ‘em by the tail and is wringing ‘em dry.” Lively ran his finger along the rim of his glass.
“Wringing them? They were clients weren’t they?” Andi found herself a bit lost.
“Clients? Sure they are. Bryant cranks their contracts and disputes, files their suits as corporate shyster...he is slick.” Lively sat back and took another sip of his beer.
“So how was he wringing them?” Andi pressed.
“He’s got serious blackmail material over each of ‘em and churns out lucrative busywork milking the suckers like dairy cows. Legal services are impossible to justify...six-hundred, fifty an hour for having lunch and thinking, two hundred an hour for my work, paper trail or not. Then trust accounts to administer and skim...it’s a scam.”
“You think Bryant’s doing that?”
“Underneath that yuppie facade they’re sleazeballs. You see, All American, Noris and Brian-Core were Morse’s opponents in big, nasty suits.” Lively leaned forward intensely. “Morse develops serious goods on them, but doesn’t lower the boom, settles cheaply, and then...surprise, surprise, American, Noris and Brian sign up for lots of legal services with Bryant–his partner and get locked in to whatever he wants to bill ‘em, because somebody from Morse whispers they have to.”
Lively leaned back in his chair, then forward again. “Note that Morse’s dirt was found prior to signing with Bryant and when he was the opposing council. Good shark, bad shark, eh? Officially Bryant doesn’t know a thing and it looks strictly kosher.”
“Maybe they liked Bryant’s work?”
“Hey, I worked there remember? Good work is good work, this is a whole ‘nother thing. My job was to hack through paper jungles and pull out what they wanted, but I took some enlightening side trips...checking deeper than asked and into corners they didn’t send me. I know what I’m saying.”
Lively sat back with smug confidence.
The guy was a bleary alcoholic, but there was a ring of truth under his despising Bryant and Morse. “So what does he do with his money?” Bryant must have made a huge salary. Despite driving a Jag he lived within his means.
“Who knows? Off-shore accounts, real estate in Texas, phony corporations that buy out good ones and turn legitimate over night? When you’re an expert at bending rules, stashing money’s not a problem.” Lively gave an expansive gesture and watched Andi over the top of his glass. “Anything else you want to know?”
Andi sat silent a long moment. “How did you feel about working there?”
“It was OK. I even liked it. Paid good, wasn’t pushed hard, nice offices.”
“How do you feel about telling me this?”
Lively’s eyes were heavy lidded. “Hey, the sharks and barracuda all feed on each other. His clients were vulture capitalists, screwing people over without a qualm. He helped them do it as if it was something good. I kind of like the idea of taking them down.” He offered a quivering smile.
Andi sat quietly, watching his face, listening to the sound of the muted TV’s and distant bar-voices. “What do you know of the partners in the firm? Did they like each other?”
“Templeton’s an old man with long-time clients, established industry, old money, connections. He comes in three times a week for half a day and services his own clients with his own staff. That’s how their set up if you didn’t know. Each partner has his own crew of attorneys and secretaries. Everything separate, files and everything to maintain the illusion of a firewall.”
“Morse?”
“Bad blood between him and Bryant. Icy tension when they’re together, but they worked OK. Morse plays the heavy in a thousand dollar suit, Bryant did the fleecing. Morse’s the vision guy, Bryant the bean counter.”
They sat a moment without speaking. Then, Lively reached cautiously for the remaining bills. Andi lifted her hand to let him take them.
Without looking up, he rose and slid through the dark to the door.
Andi left the change from their drinks on the table, it was Morse’s expense-account, and returned gratefully outside to breathe fresh air.
It took the rest of the afternoon to record what she got from Lively and crank Morse’s weekly report–holding back a handful of nuggets to pad next week’s. With luck, there would always be another report for weeks to come. She typed and reread the notes until she put the report in an envelope, stamped it and leaned it against the door jamb to remind herself to mail it.
Lively hated Templeton, Morse and Bryant–it was motivation enough to lie, but the meat of his story was a bit too over the top to be pure fabrication. The questions were, how much was real? What relevance did it have to have to Bryant, and what could she do with it? Her job wasn’t protecting the world from legal malfeasance. Implicating clients in blackmail and extortion was way off-beam.
But if Lively’s story was even partly true at least some of Bryant’s clients had good reason to wish his disappearance. Lucre still had considerable standing in the motivational hit parade. There were another dozen or so possibly hostile firms beyond the ones Chang-Turner put on the A list. It didn’t have to be one of the three whose cross references drew her attention, iIf the killers were smart they wouldn’t have gotten near Bryant in the month before taking him out.
Andi gave a sour smile. The client angle was a great theory–too bad it didn’t have a shred of evidence to support its dead weight. She leaned back in her chair and turned her attention to Bryant’s invisible social life. Despite the lure of money, sex and friendship still came in as the overwhelming major player in murder statistics. Who were Bryant’s friends and how could she break through their wall of silence?
Few people were completely without friends and nothing supporting the idea he was a sociopathic loaner. He had dinner parties, people came over, sometimes spent the night and went to brunch. Who argued with him Saturday morning? Did he confide dark secrets during pillow talk? What did his money go? Somebody snuck her the napkin with Lively’s number, friend? Enemy of somebody else? Maybe like Morse?
She phoned Morse and left a voice mail asking for access to Bryant’s house, cursing that she hadn’t pushed earlier. It would be nice to look before the cops swarmed through. After scribbling a note to ask what he knew of Bryant’s investments she mailed the report and zig-zagged north through the Colonial Revival and Craftsman suburbs before cutting down Fremont and crossing the river.
She ate dinner at Seafood Mama’s, cioppino with sourdough bread and pinot noir. The after-work crowd still loitered, slowly turning over space for early diners. She left a decent tip and slipped outside–maybe she would have some luck with Bryant’s neighbors.
The house on the left side of Bryant’s had its lights on. She rang the bell and introduced herself, asking a slim, young woman in batiked silk pants if she’d seen her neighbor over the last week or so.
“No. Honey have you seen Robert in the last week?” She leaned against the door jamb and called toward the back of the house.
“Last weekend...I think..” came a male voice from the kitchen. “Yeah, he was leaving with that friend. Must have been Saturday, cause Sunday we slept ‘till noon, remember.”
The woman at the door shrugged.
“What did his friend look like?”
“Uh, tall, but not really tall, he wore a brown leather coat.”
“Know his name?”
A slow head shake.
“But you’re friends with Mr. Bryant?”
“We collect his mail and newspapers when he goes off on business...which seems every week or so. It’s such a hassle to cancel things and get them turned back on.” She pulled an errant strand of hair from her face and toyed with it.
“Did he ask you to watch his house this week?”
“No...is there something wrong?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just been asked to make sure. He’s not wanted by the police or anything, but some friends are concerned. Do you know who his house cleaner was?”
The neighbor shrugged. “No...but I guess he had one.”
“How about friends?”
The woman called back to the kitchen. “Johnny...what do you know of Robert’s friend, the one he went to brunch with?
“Not much...an OK sort I guess.” Johnny poked out his head to give Andi a puzzled stare.
“Man? Woman? Do you remember the name? Maybe hair color or something?”
“Woman. Maureen I think...tall, brown hair. Might work with him or something. He’s a lawyer somewhere downtown.” The man retreated back to his kitchen.
“Is there anything else?”
“Did you hear a fight last Friday or Saturday?”
The woman’s eyes opened wide and she shook her head. The man poked his head from the kitchen, echoing her expression.
Andi mumbled thanks and retreated back to the street.
The houses across the way both had lights on. At the gingerbread on next door the man was pleasant, but had little to say about Bryant other than he sometimes waved sometimes. At the other house a middle-aged professional woman answered with her shoes still in her hand. She knew Bryant casually, thought she’d seen him with the same man friend a number of times, didn’t know their relationship and hadn’t seen the tall brunette the people across the street mentioned.
Andi knocked at other duplex on the right side of Bryant’s. The man recognized her and was friendly again. She asked if he could remember anything about a tall woman with brown hair Bryant might have gone to brunch with last Saturday.
“Oh my no.” the man answered. “A woman for brunch? But of course I don’t see everything.”
“Never seen her?”
“Can’t say that, many women would come to small dinner parties...that sort of thing. The man’s not a hermit.”
Andi trudged back to her car through a drizzle that was turning into rain. It was turning cold and she hoped it wasn’t building up to snow or a night of black ice.
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