Moment of Truth (24 page)

“He reported to you as such?”

“Yes. All department heads report to me.”

Davis made a note, to get Whittier used to it. He did it all the time in court so the jury couldn’t tell what mattered and what didn’t. “Now, Honor Newlin’s family foundation is represented by the Tribe firm.”

“Yes, the Buxton Foundation.”

Davis nodded. “What is a foundation, anyway?”

“Damned if I know.” Whittier laughed again. “Only kidding.”

“I figured,” Davis said, though he hadn’t been so sure.

“Well, let’s see, a foundation is simply a private charity, established in this case, by a family. The Buxton Foundation donates the Buxton family money to public charities. By law, the Foundation is required to give away five percent of the total fund each year. Our firm helps it do that, with the tax advice and filings and whatnot required by Uncle Sam. It’s a real tangle of paperwork, you can imagine. You work for the government, in effect.”

Davis ignored the slight, even if it was intended. “And Buxton Foundation matters were handled by Newlin?”

“Yes, Jack brought the Foundation to us when he married Honor, and he supervised its matters for the firm. Essentially, he ran the Foundation, sat with Honor on the board, and doled out its legal work to our partners in various fields, as well as associates and paralegals.”

“How large is the Buxton Foundation?”

“Hah! Real large.”

“How large?”

Whittier glanced at Field, who nodded imperceptibly. “The Buxton is one of the more substantial family foundations. Two hundred million dollars, approximately.”

Davis blinked.
Large
. “How much does the Foundation pay Tribe per year, in fees?”

“Does this matter?” Whittier cocked a pale eyebrow, his good cheer gone flat as keg beer.

“Absolutely.”

“Three and a half to four million dollars a year.”

Davis made a note, as if he could forget that staggering a sum. “The firm cannot have many clients that bill as much, can it?”

“Frankly, the Foundation is our largest client, and that’s all I’ll say about the Foundation. Understood?”

“Understood.” Davis switched gears. “As to Jack, did he receive a portion of the fees the Foundation paid the firm? I know that’s typical in the larger firms.”

Whittier nodded. “He did. Jack was the billing partner on most matters, so he received a percentage of his client’s fees, as a billings bonus.”

“What percentage?”

“It was substantial. Thirty-three percent, as I recall. We could supply you with the exact number under document subpoena.”

“I’ll look forward to it.” Davis accepted the answer for now. So Newlin would get thirty-three percent, more than a highway robber but less than a personal injury lawyer. If the Buxton billings amounted to three million dollars a year, which they easily did, Jack would take home a mil of that. And it also meant that as between the Foundation or Newlin, the Tribe firm would choose the Foundation, never mind that they’d have to hang their own partner. “Let’s get to the night of Honor’s murder.”

“Yes, let’s,” Whittier said, plainly relieved, and Davis thought it ironic that Whittier would rather talk about murder than money.

“You saw Jack the night of the murder, didn’t you?”

“Yes. Let me think a minute.” Whittier gazed out an immense window to the spectacular view of the city below. Davis was watching him so closely he saw his pupils telescope down in the light. “Around six o’clock, I think.”

“How long did you two speak for?”

“About fifteen minutes, as I remember.”

“Would you have billed that time?”

“Yes, we bill in six-minute increments,” Whittier answered, without apparent shame. “My time records would reflect the exact time we spoke.”

“I’d like to see your records for that day, if I can.”

Whittier exchanged looks with Field, then said, “You’re serving the firm with a document subpoena.”

“Yes, it’s already included.”

“Fine, then.” Whittier pressed a button on the conference phone and asked his secretary for the records. Davis was sure Whittier could have accessed them from his laptop, but that would have necessitated moving from the second home to the third. While they waited for the records, Whittier remained silent, taking in the view out his window as if neither Davis nor Field were there. In a minute, the secretary emerged with the records, handed them to Whittier, and vanished. Whittier slipped tortoiseshell reading glasses from his inside jacket pocket and popped them on the bridge of his nose. “I hate that I have to wear these now,” he grumbled, almost to himself.

“What do the records show?” Davis asked, because he couldn’t not. If something had gone wrong with Newlin’s plan, it could have been the timing.

“Well, I was right,” Whittier said, underlining one entry with his finger. “CI: JN re Florrman bill. That means I spoke with Jack Newlin from 6:15 to 6:30, regarding the bill in Florrman.”

“May I see that, please?” Davis accepted the records, without remarking that Whittier would bill a client for discussing the client’s bill. He knew it was common in the white-shoe firms. That was how they paid for the second and third homes. Davis skimmed the records. Shit. The timing was a dry hole. “Did you record this right after the conversation?”

“Yes, I always do.” Whittier paused. “It does bring back my conversation with Jack, that night.”

“I was just getting to that. Tell me about it.”

“Well, I saw him walking past my door, his office is just down the hall, and it struck me as earlier than he usually left. I had been wanting to talk to him about the Florrman bill all day but I got tied up in meetings, so when I saw Jack I knew I had to grab him. I called to him and he didn’t stop, so I went to fetch him in the hall. I told him I had some concerns about the bill in Florrman, that at six months it was an older receivable. It was time to dun the client in some effective manner. More effective than whatever Jack was doing.”

“What did he say to you?”

“He loathed to dun clients, but he said he’d get it current and that he had to go. He said he had dinner planned with Honor.”

“He said ‘dinner planned with Honor’?”

“Yes, and he seemed agitated.”

Davis wrote it down verbatim. “How agitated?”

“Very. He was preoccupied the entire time I was speaking with him. He seemed nervous, and in a hurry. It was evident, and I told him so. I asked him if anything was the matter.”

Davis made a another note. It was so good for premeditation. “What did he say?”

“He said he was fine. Great. Never better.”

“Would you testify to this conversation and your observations at trial?”

“If I were subpoenaed.”

“Fine. Do you know how he and Honor got along?”

“Well, as far as we could tell. They were an intensely private couple, though, not the type to socialize or serve on boards other than the Foundation. Still, Honor was a wonderful woman, a lovely woman. Devoted to her husband and daughter.”

Davis paused. “She must have left a will.”

“Yes, it will be probated as soon as possible.”

“The will was prepared by this firm, right?”

“Yes. I supervised its preparation.”

Davis wasn’t surprised. A document that important would have to be blessed by the firm’s managing partner, and Newlin was too smart to do it himself. It would look like a conflict of interest for him to prepare a will that named him the lucky winner of the Buxton lottery. “Who benefits under her will?”

“The beneficiary won’t be released until we receive a death certificate, and that information is confidential.”

“Again, I’ll honor the confidence until probate, when it becomes public record. But I need to know now. Who benefits under the will?”

“Well, well.” Whittier cleared his throat, setting his neck wattle jiggling above a stiff white collar. “The answer to your question is rather complicated, but in essence, Honor left a personal estate worth fifty million dollars. Now, as you know, that’s separate from the Foundation’s corpus, which would exist in perpetuity, even after her death. Only the fifty million descends under the will, and none of it was earmarked for charity.”

Davis smiled to himself.
Only
the fifty million. “So Newlin gets the fifty mil.”

“No.” Whittier shook his head. “Not at all. The daughter does. Paige inherits the fifty million.”

The prosecutor’s mouth went dry. It couldn’t be. His theory of motive flew out the window. “Newlin
doesn’t
benefit under the will?”

“Jack? Not a penny.” Whittier’s lips set firmly. “He gets nothing.”

“That can’t be. Do you have the will? I’ll keep it confidential and I did subpoena it.”

“I have it right here.” Whittier glanced at Field, pulled a thick packet with a blue backer from a folder in front of him, and passed it across the desk.

“Thank you,” Davis said, snatching the will from the table. Its pages felt smooth under his fingers, which almost itched as he thumbed through the document. How could this be? He speed-read the provisions, all corporate boilerplate, until he got to the relevant provisions, which clearly explained the bequest. It provided that Paige would inherit one-third of her mother’s estate at age twenty-one, one-third at age twenty-five, and the final third at age thirty. There was no mention of Jack Newlin at all. Davis looked up, speechless, but Whittier had taken a sudden interest in the cityscape outside the window.

“You may want to talk with one of our other partners, if you have further questions,” he said casually.

“What do you mean?” Davis looked from Whittier to Field and back again. He didn’t get what was going on. The will had thrown him off-balance. Were they trying to tell him something? And trying not to, at the same time? It was exactly what you’d expect from a law firm that wants to shaft one of its own partners and avoid massive liability. “Who else should I speak with?”

“His name is Marc Videon. But you’ll need a subpoena.”

“I’ll have it sent right over.”

“We’ll need it before you speak with him.”

“Consider it done.” Davis felt urgent. Where was this leading? “Who’s Videon?”

“He’s one of our more specialized lawyers at Tribe.
Sui generis
. A department unto himself.”

“What’s this Videon do?”

“Divorce,” Whittier answered, and for a minute, Davis couldn’t reply.

“Follow that cab!” Mary told the cabbie and couldn’t help but feel a little thrill.

The driver, a diminutive, dark-haired man with a curly mustache, turned around in the front seat. “No Eeenglish,” he said, and Mary pointed at Trevor’s cab, a trifle disappointed.

“Go! There!” she commanded. She kept her eyes on the cab ahead as it idled in the congested traffic on Market Street. The outline of Trevor’s head was visible and he moved as if he were talking to the driver. In the next minute his hand emerged from the back window, halting a car that was trying to cut in front of them. He must have been in a hurry. Trevor’s cab burst forward, going west, away from the city.

“Hurry, please!” Mary said. Trevor’s school was behind them, so he wasn’t going back to class. What was he up to? Something was going on; her lead hadn’t been so dumb after all. Trevor’s cab reached Seventeenth Street and took a left, a familiar jog that Mary took all the time, negotiating the one-way streets of her hometown. William Penn had laid out the grid two hundred years ago, and he hadn’t taken cabbies and lawyers into account. She took a guess where Trevor was headed, and ten minutes later found out she was right.

Both cabs pulled up in the drop-off island at the Thirtieth Street train station, one after the other, as if unrelated. Both cab doors opened at the same time, and Mary left her cab only a split second after Trevor left his, and followed him into the station, keeping her excitement in check. Trevor hurried into the tan marble concourse past the left wing of the station, bypassing the suburban trains. Mary tracked him as he threaded his way through the crowd of travelers getting off the train from Washington. Trevor made a beeline for the ticket counter, and she picked up her pace.

The lines were long at the ticket windows, and Mary got behind Trevor in line, a zigzaggy affair cordoned with black tape. She looked at him up close, to see what she could see. Was he the kid who had bumped into her in the hall at Paige’s condo? She couldn’t tell. His hair was a light brown color, expensively feathered around the ears, and he wore a thin gold hoop in his ear. His eyes were large and clear blue, and in profile, he had a straight nose with a suspiciously perky tip. His shoulders were broad in a brown bomber jacket with a white T-shirt underneath, and he was easily six feet tall. Trevor struck her as a young prince, a type Mary disliked. Maybe because she couldn’t pass for a princess. If Paige was the delicate cycle, Mary was distinctly regular.