Maximum Security (5 page)

Since Luke left for Boston College six weeks ago, Harry and I have fallen into a Friday-evening routine. I get to my cottage first and feed Danny Boy, our eleven-year-old Irish setter. Then I fill the old claw-footed tub with bubble bath and water as hot as I can stand it, light a few candles, and soak. Harry stops at the fish market, picks up a couple of lobsters, and puts a pot of water on the stove as soon as he comes in. Then he joins me, bringing a Heineken for himself and a glass of sauvignon blanc for me. He sits beside the tub, on an old cedar chest that holds summer beach towels, and we enjoy our own, private version of happy hour.

Tonight I could barely wait to slide under the thick white blanket of almond-scented bubbles. Steaming-hot baths have always been my substitute for therapy. They’re cheaper, for one thing, and available on demand. Besides, I was married to a shrink once. I can’t bear the thought of being alone in a room with one again.

Harry taps on the door and leans into the bathroom. “You want company?”

This is not a question he normally asks. The candlelight is too dim for me to read his expression, but it’s pretty clear he thinks he’s still in the doghouse for his conference-room comments. “I want wine,” I tell him.

He crosses the room, sets both drinks on the windowsill, out of my reach, and kneels beside the tub. “It’s a package deal,” he says, leaning over and brushing his lips against mine.

I take hold of the knot in his already-loosened tie and pull him closer, so I can kiss him for real. It’s hard to resist Harry.

He smiles at me—that narrow-eyed, tight-lipped smile—then retrieves our drinks and assumes his perch on the cedar chest, a patch of white bubbles dissolving slowly on the front of his open-necked shirt. “So tell me, Attorney Nickerson, what’s your take on the Rawlings matter?”

I lean back against the cool porcelain and sip my wine. “I don’t have a take. Without the body, it’s anyone’s guess.”

“Bingo,” he says. “And as long as it’s anyone’s guess, nobody goes to jail over it.”

He’s right, of course. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but he’s right. It’s the cops and prosecutors who need to figure out what actually happened, not the defense attorney. A seasoned defense lawyer would be overjoyed to have every one of his cases remain a mystery. And Harry’s a seasoned defense lawyer right down to his soul.

He leans over and clinks his green bottle against my wineglass, then swallows a mouthful of beer. “Here’s hoping old Herb never surfaces.”

I shake my head and close my eyes.

“What?” he protests. “What’d I say?”

I open my eyes again, to see if he’s serious. He is. “The man is dead,” I remind him.

“I know that, Marty.” He sets his beer down and leans forward, resting both hands on the rim of the tub. “That’s the point. If I thought the guy could be rescued, I’d want him to turn up. But since he’s dead, he may as well rest in peace in the depths of the Great South Channel. He won’t cause any trouble there.”

“He won’t have a proper burial either.”

“Says who? What’s wrong with the ocean floor? Beats the hell out of a patch of dirt. Tell you what. When the time comes, you can bury
me
in the Great South Channel too. I’ll keep old Herb company.”

“Swell, Harry. Maybe you and Herb should invite Glen Powers to join you. A reunion of Louisa alumni.”

He laughs and retrieves his beer. “How’d it go today, anyhow? Did you two hit it off?”

I don’t think Harry’s ever asked me if I hit it off with a client before. “It was fine,” I tell him. “But we have a lot more ground to cover before Monday.”

He nods, then tilts his head to one side. “Did Louisa ever have any kids?”

I
know
Harry’s never asked
that
about a client before. “No,” I tell him. “But she does have a wicked stepdaughter. Five years her junior.”

“Sweet Jesus,” he says, taking another swallow. “That could get ugly.”

“Louisa refers to herself as the trophy wife,” I tell him. “God only knows what the stepdaughter calls her.”

“Trophy wife?” Harry laughs. “She must have mellowed over the years. The Louisa I knew wouldn’t have settled for being any old trophy. She’d have called herself the Triple Crown.”

Well, of course she would have.

I’ve had about enough of Louisa Rawlings for one day. And my bathwater has grown tepid. I pull the plug and Harry gets my towel from the hook on the door. He wraps it around me as I step out of the tub, then pulls me close for another kiss. Another real one.

“I’ll bet the water’s boiling,” he says. “Ready for lobster?”

Lobster isn’t what I want at the moment, but I don’t say so. “Sounds good,” I tell him instead. “I’ll make a salad.”

He kisses me again—a quick one this time—and then heads for the kitchen.

I wipe the mist from the bathroom mirror, turban a towel around my wet hair, and sit for a moment on the edge of the cedar chest. It’s just as well. I
am
sort of hungry. And I’m too damned tired to compete for the Triple Crown.

Even on Saturdays, the Kydd is invariably the first one at work. Today is no exception. He’s stationed in the front office when I arrive, his feet propped up on the old pine table. His face is buried in an advance sheet, a paper rendition of the Commonwealth’s most recent judicial opinions, the industry’s heads-up to practitioners. Advance sheets are published within days of appellate decisions being rendered, long before hardbound casebooks can be produced. The Kydd’s focused expression tells me one of the high courts of the Commonwealth has recently waxed eloquent on the topic of life insurance.

Casebooks surround the Kydd in stacks of three and four, pink Post-it notes sticking out from their pages like multiple taunting tongues. My watch says it’s not quite eight o’clock, but it’s obvious the Kydd’s been in here working for a while. He looks up as I enter, dog-ears his spot, and takes his glasses off to clean them on his shirttail. “Marty,” he says, examining his lenses under the brass lamp at the edge of the table, “I have to thank you. What a career-enhancing assignment you’ve given me. I don’t know that I’ve ever been exposed to such intellectually stimulating reading material.”

“Sarcasm suits you, Kydd.” I sink into the chair across from his, awaiting his list of complaints.

“Jesus,” he says. “People spend their lives handling this stuff? Day in, day out?”

It occurs to me that the members of our esteemed insurance defense bar might be at least equally appalled by the daily fare we criminal types handle. I don’t mention it, though.

The Kydd puts his glasses back on, pulls our copy of Herb Rawlings’s life insurance policy out from under an open casebook, and flips to a section highlighted in yellow. The Kydd intends to enlighten me, it seems, whether I like it or not.

“The party of the first part,” he recites, “hereinafter the Company, agrees, subject to the provisions and limitations of this Policy, to immediately pay to the party of the second part, hereinafter the Beneficiary or Beneficiaries…”

The Kydd sounds a lot like those guys who spit out too many words in too little time at the end of car commercials. He pauses for an elaborate, drawn-out yawn.

“…the death benefit, the amount of which is set forth in the Policy Specifications, if and when due proof is furnished to the Company at its Home Office that the Insured, while this Policy is in full force and effect…”

He stops again, this time for a dramatic intake of breath. “These sentences don’t end,” he says, “none of them. Not in this policy…”

He holds the document up in front of me, as if I might not otherwise know what he’s talking about, then taps on the text in the open casebook between us.

“…and not in any of the policies discussed in the cases. The sentences never end and no one seems to notice. People must either fall asleep halfway through, or they die of asphyxiation.”

The Kydd stares accusingly across the table at me, as if I single-handedly drafted every life insurance policy in the Commonwealth.

I can’t help laughing. “Don’t worry about the policy language,” I tell him. “We can’t do anything about that anyhow. We’re stuck with whatever it says. Just worry about the law. Find as many reasons as you can for the company to deny coverage. At least find the authority that says there’s no recovery if the insured’s death is caused by suicide.”

The door opens behind me and Harry appears, looking well rested and comfortable in jeans and a light gray hooded sweatshirt. His thick hair is still damp from his morning shower. He’s carrying three tall coffees in a cardboard tray and a box that’s undoubtedly filled with morning treats from Sticky Buns, Chatham’s best-kept little secret of a neighborhood bakery. The Kydd looks up at him for a moment and eyes the goodies, then turns his attention back at me. “No can do,” he says.

Harry nudges a couple of casebooks aside, deposits his treasures in the middle of the pine table, and then drops into the old wooden chair next to mine. “Tonto,” he pleads, looking stricken, “say it isn’t so. Kimosabe believes you can do anything.”

The Kydd grins at him and takes a coffee from the cardboard tray, along with three plastic thimbles of cream. “Not this time, Kimosabe,” he says. “Turns out suicide negates life insurance coverage only if the death occurs within three years of the date the policy issues.”

Harry leans toward me over the arm of his chair, tearing open a half dozen packets of sugar all at once. “Uh-oh,” he says, dumping a white avalanche into his coffee. “Maybe you missed a class or two after all.”

I frown at him. It’s true, though; I didn’t remember that part. And Herb Rawlings was well into his sixties; his policy almost certainly issued more than three years ago. Folks in his tax bracket start their estate planning early. I look across the table at the Kydd, silently asking the question I think I’ve already answered.

“You guessed it,” he says, tapping his pen against the issue date stamped on the policy’s first page. “Three years and a month.”

It’s worse than I thought. A groan escapes me.

“Damn,” Harry says, sipping his coffee. “I hate it when that happens.”

“To the day,” the Kydd adds. “And that’s not all.” He pauses, reaches into the cardboard box and pulls out a square knot, Sticky Buns’s nautical version of the universal cinnamon roll. “It gets worse.”

“Kydd,” I say, taking the last coffee from the tray, “I had precisely one strategy for this case. You just told me not only that it’s a failure, but that it actually hurts us, cuts the other way. How much worse can it get?”

I regret the question even before I absorb the expression on his face.

“Worse,” he repeats, flipping through Herb’s policy to yet another highlighted section. “In addition to the other benefits provided herein…”

The Kydd interrupts his recitation, looks up at Harry and me to make sure we’re listening. We are.

“…the Company agrees to pay twice the face amount of this policy if the insured has suffered loss of life as the direct result of bodily injury caused solely by accidental means.”

A double-indemnity clause. I’m speechless.

Harry lets out a low whistle.

The Kydd sets the policy down, takes his glasses off again and tosses them on the desk. He leans back and examines his square knot before taking a huge bite. “The motive…” he says, pointing what’s left of his pastry at us.

I consider telling him not to talk with his mouth full, but I bite my tongue instead.

“…just doubled.”

 

The Kydd and I turn onto Easy Street on schedule, at high noon. This morning’s fog has burned off and the mid-October sun is bright, but not quite warm. It glitters on the small waves lapping at the Rawlingses’ dock and turns the crushed oyster shells in their driveway an impossible, almost blinding white. Even the seagulls, busily dropping quahogs from the sky to the rocks below to crack their shells, look cleaner than usual. Sun-bleached feathered fishermen.

It’s obvious Louisa Rawlings is expecting us. Her inside front door is open, the screens in the outer door admitting the autumn chill to her otherwise buttoned-up house. Three ears of Indian corn—one yellow, two rust-colored—hang from the shingles beside the front door. A large pumpkin—uncarved as yet—sits on the top step. These are new additions since yesterday. The grieving widow has done a bit of seasonal decorating.

I cut the Thunderbird’s engine and grab my beat-up briefcase from the backseat, but the Kydd doesn’t reach for his. He doesn’t move at all. He seems frozen in the passenger seat, eyes wide as he takes in the Rawlings estate. “Hot damn,” he says, “what a spread.”

“We’re in the high-rent district now,” I tell him. “So behave yourself.”

He grins.

“If you don’t, you’ll be exiled to the slums of South Chatham for life.”

He laughs out loud.

South Chatham is a quaint seaside village of antique shingled cottages, small professional offices, and family-run shops. It doesn’t feature the lavish landscape of its wealthy sister to the north, and it certainly doesn’t host an exclusive country club, but it’s not a slum by anyone’s standards. The Kydd lives there, in a rented cottage. And Harry does too, in a small apartment on the second floor of our office building. They both tell anyone who’ll listen that they’re slumming it down south.

Louisa emerges from the house as the Kydd and I extricate ourselves and our briefcases from my old, tired Thunderbird. She strides toward us on the brick walkway, perfect crimson lips smiling, every bit as impeccably turned out as she was yesterday. Today’s color scheme is different—slacks and heels dark brown, blouse an opalescent cream. And her hair is restyled, pulled back in a French braid. But the overall effect is exactly the same as yesterday’s. Long. Lithe. Lovely.

“Marty,” she says, checking her watch as she nears us, “you’re right on time.”

Had I not spent so much of my life with the Kydd during the past few years, I might have thought Louisa said I was “rat on tam.” But I know better; my Southern-speak is well honed now. Besides, I’m so happy to be addressed by my given name—as opposed to
darlin’
or
honey chil’
—I don’t much care what she said afterward.

I return her smile, then pivot so I can direct her attention to the Kydd. No need, though. She’s way ahead of me, waiting for the introduction.

“Louisa, I’d like you to meet Kevin Kydd, our associate. He’s going to be working with us.”

She takes another step toward him and extends a manicured hand. “Mr. Kydd,” she says, “I am delighted to make your acquaintance. And I am truly grateful for your assistance. I cannot thank you enough.”

Mr. Kydd
looks like he’s in the midst of a beatific vision. His expression is one the shepherds might have worn upon discovering the swaddled babe in the manger.

“Oh, ma’am,” he responds, receiving Louisa’s hand as if it might shatter at the touch of a mere mortal, “the pleasure is all mine. And please do not thank me yet. I only hope my assistance will prove useful.”

Maybe I’m imagining it, but both drawls seem to thicken when Louisa and the Kydd speak to each other. The two of them have developed an acute aversion to contractions too. And the Kydd seems to think Louisa’s hand is his to keep.

“Please come in,” she says, turning in her high heels to retrace her steps to the front door. “I made tea.” She glances back at us over her shoulder and flashes her wide smile again. “Iced tea, y’all say in these parts. Sweet tea, we call it at home. Or unsweet tea, for some.”

That’s the first
y’all
I’ve heard from Louisa Rawlings. At least it’s a contraction.

She faces forward again and heads for the house. I fall into step behind her, but the Kydd doesn’t move. After a few paces I pause to look back at him. “Kydd,” I say quietly.

He doesn’t seem to hear.

“Kydd,” I repeat, a little louder this time.

He blinks and shakes his head, as if he’s snapping out of a trance. His expression suggests he’s never seen me before.

I hold his gaze and walk back to him, so our client won’t hear my words. Even at this distance, I don’t dare risk more than a stage whisper. “I don’t want to be bossy, Kydd, but I think you ought to close your mouth.”

He steals a glance ahead, at Louisa, and swallows hard before he takes my suggestion.

“Now come on,” I tell him. “Let’s get to work. After all, we’re rat on tam.”

 

My teeth have grown fur. One sip of Louisa’s home brew did the trick. I don’t dare take a second. Calling it sweet tea is like saying there’s a pinch or two of salt in the Atlantic.

The Kydd is already finished his and I wonder for a moment if I can get away with switching our glasses. Too late, though. Our hostess is pouring him another. “You were thirsty,” she says.

He shakes his head as he watches her pour. “Not especially, but this is fine tea, Mrs. Rawlings. Mighty fine.”

That settles it. The Kydd is definitely speaking a new dialect. He’s always had a distinct drawl, but he’s never sounded like a Ewing before. I expect he’ll swagger any minute now.

“Please,” she says to him, “call me Louisa.”

Either my eyes deceive me or my associate is blushing, right up to the rims of his sizable ears.

Louisa sees it too. She smiles and hands him the refill. “I’m so glad you like it,” she tells him. “Herb always said my sweet tea should be patented.”

Plenty of liquids are patented. Chemicals, for instance. Commercial fertilizers. Industrial-strength disinfectants. That doesn’t mean they’re fit for human consumption. I clear my throat, intending to put an end to this meeting of the Southern Admiration Society, but the doorbell drowns me out.

“Excuse me,” Louisa says, wiping her hands on a terry-cloth towel at the sink. She leaves the Kydd and me in the kitchen and heads back through the living room toward the front door. Another non–Cape Codder has come to call, it seems, using the wrong door.

I cross the kitchen and hand Louisa’s file to the Kydd. For a split second, he seems not to know why. “We came here to work,” I remind him. “Not to attend a tea party.”

He drains his glass, sets it on the counter, then stands at attention and salutes. I hand him my glass, still full. “Drink that,” I tell him. He does.

Louisa returns with a tall, sharp-featured man in tow. He’s dressed in a well-cut navy blue suit, starched white shirt, and maroon tie. He looks as if he might be campaigning for political office, canvassing door-to-door in search of votes. “This is Steven Collier,” Louisa says to the Kydd and me. “I believe I mentioned him to you, Marty.”

She did. He’s the money guy, Quick-draw McGraw. He apparently makes house calls. And on Saturday afternoons, no less.