Motion for Murder (9 page)

Howard began brewing himself a cup of Lemon Zinger tea, his mouth pinched tight. Clearly he had something on his mind. Dougie rolled up his sleeves and began assembling the ingredients for a protein shake. I lowered my head and watched him gather the can of protein powder, a handful of frozen strawberries, vanilla frozen yogurt, and an egg. He cracked the egg and dribbled it into the blender with some shell fragments still in it.

Howard pulled his mug from the microwave, dropped a teabag into it, and said, "I got a call today from Ronald Plackett."

Dougie scooped some frozen yogurt in on top of the egg. "Who's Ronald Plackett?"

Paige pulled a thread of lettuce from her sandwich, dropped it on her plate, and ignored both of them.

"Victoria Plackett's husband." Howard stabbed at the teabag with a spoon.

Dougie popped open the can of protein powder. "Who's Victoria Plackett?"

Paige glanced up. "The blonde."

Dougie froze in mid-measure. "Oh." A small smile played across his lips. "Her." He scooped out a level cup of protein powder and dumped it on top of the frozen yogurt.

"Somehow," Howard went on, his voice icy, "Mr. Plackett was under the impression that you made inappropriate, offensive, and sexually-related remarks to his wife. He was incensed. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he files a complaint with the Ethics committee."

Dougie shrugged, eyeballed the mess in the blender, and added a little more protein powder.

Howard yanked the teabag out of his mug and flung it into the sink. I cowered behind my meatball sandwich, and Paige stopped disemboweling her sandwich. "It might be helpful," he said, "if I knew something about her case in the event he makes good on his threats. I assume you took her case."

He assumed right. Dougie took every case.

Dougie capped his shake with the handful of strawberries and punched the Whip button on the blender. "She tripped," he yelled over the racket, "On the sidewalk outside a convenience store. Broke the heel of her four hundred dollar shoes and wants to sue. Tells you something about what kind of broad she is." He hit the
off
button.

"It tells me more," Howard said, "about what kind of lawyer you are. Was she injured?"

Dougie pulled open the cabinet in search of a glass. "No meds to speak of. Purely an economic loss. The shoes."

Howard glanced over at us with fire roiling in his eyes. Paige and I both busied ourselves immediately studying our respective sandwiches.

"That is not a case," Howard told him.

"In fairness," Dougie said, "you should see this broad. Tell him, girls."

We girls weren't telling him anything. Paige had given up on her turkey sub and was gathering her trash together, and I was flabbergasted that Dougie would jeopardize his license to practice law over a broken shoe because it came with a pretty blonde.

"That's it." Howard gripped his mug tight enough to crack it. "I've had enough of you, Heath. Do you know how many times I've had to defend this firm because of your antics? And those insipid commercials…" He shuddered. "No more. I'm meeting with Ken this afternoon about buying you out. I will not practice with an attorney of your caliber another day."

"You can't do that," Dougie said, finally pouring his protein shake into a glass he'd pulled from the sink. He sounded remarkably calm. They say the eye of the hurricane is remarkably calm, too. "I'm the bankroll behind this operation, and you know it. If it weren't for those insipid commercials, you'd be slaving away as in-house counsel somewhere, punching a time clock, and hoping your retirement account survives the recession." He dropped the blender into the sink. "You need me. Hell, I gave this firm a license to print money." He lifted his glass in a mock salute to Howard, who was standing thin-lipped and rigid, then drained half of it in one long guzzle.

"You'll regret this, Heath," Howard hissed at him. "I hope you burn in hell."

Paige and I looked at each other, and I could tell from her expression she was thinking the same thing I was:
This is getting really ugly, and we should probably find some help right now.
Or maybe:
Is my lipstick smudged?
With Paige, it was hard to tell.

As it turned out, it didn't matter what her expression said, because almost immediately after he'd taken his drink, Dougie collapsed against the kitchen counter, his face twisting into a horrible caricature of itself. The glass slipped from his hand and shattered against the floor a second before he landed among the shards and went still.

Hours later, when the police and medical personnel had come and gone, taking Dougie's shrouded body with them on a gurney, we gathered in the conference room. I couldn't shake the image of the gurney rolling past Dougie's Mercedes and into the waiting ambulance. It didn't seem possible that he wouldn't be coming back. I think we all felt that way. Even Howard, who'd added a dollop or four of whiskey to his Lemon Zinger. He clutched the mug with one hand and the fireplace mantle with the other as if he was afraid one or both would slip away and leave him adrift.

"The medical people think it was a massive heart attack," Ken said. He'd wrapped up his deposition at the first police siren and was now at the head of the table pretending he knew what to do. At least he'd dispensed with the pretense of tea and had the whiskey bottle itself in front of him.

"That doesn't make sense," Missy said. Her eyes were red and puffy, and she had a wad of tissue balled up in her fist. "You know how much Dougie was into fitness. How could he die of a heart attack?"

"Fitness doesn't mean anything," Paige pointed out. "Plenty of fit people have died. Maybe he took steroids."

"He did not," Missy said hotly.

I didn't know about the steroids, but I tended to agree with Missy. I kept seeing Dougie drinking his protein shake and collapsing, and I didn't think a heart attack had anything to do with it.

Wally had been leaning against the wall behind Howard. Now he pushed himself upright, taking a look around. "Did anyone call Hilary?"

"Oh, Christ." Howard drained his mug and left it on the mantle. "By now the police have probably notified her. Beautiful."

Ken sighed. "I'll give her a call. One of us should tell her we're sorry."

Which wasn't exactly the same thing as actually being sorry. I watched Ken let himself out to make the call.

"What were you two fighting about, anyway?" Missy ripped a tissue from the box in front of her. "You were always finding fault with Doug. He wasn't as bad as you thought, you know."

That was true. He was worse. Even Donna had had Dougie's fingerprints on her backside at some point. I sneaked a glance her way. She looked as shaken as the rest of us, but her eyes were dry. Her gaze flitted over to me and bounced away almost immediately.

Hm.

"He made this firm look ridiculous," Howard said flatly. "On television and in the courtroom. He was unprofessional. At times, incompetent."

"Guess you won't be delivering the eulogy," Paige muttered.

Missy dabbed at her eyes. "You could have stopped those commercials. You didn't have much of a problem with the money they brought in."

Ouch. Howard's lips thinned out even more than usual. "He hit on a client," he said. "We'll be lucky if we don't face an ethics complaint over it."

"Plus, he didn't bring in that much money," Janice said. "He'd lost his last three trials. I'm still paying expenses on two of the files."

My ears perked up a little. Janice didn't seem to be having much trouble referring to Dougie in the past tense, although he'd been gone less than four hours. I wasn't finding it so easy. I was half expecting him to come strutting into the meeting like usual, with his laptop in his hands and dollar signs in his eyes.

"So he was losing money." Howard grabbed Ken's bottle of whiskey and poured it into his mug, straight. "Perfect."

"What client did he hit on?" Missy asked.

"Victoria Plackett," Wally said. Evidently Howard had filled him in.

"You know, The Blonde," Paige added. She actually said it that way, with emphasis on  Blonde. Paige could hold a grudge like nobody's business. Even now, she was squinting into her water glass, trying to catch a reflected glimpse of herself. I could have saved her the trouble. She looked like hell. We all did. It was hard to absorb a death in the family while maintaining perfect mascara.

"She broke her heel," Howard said, his voice dripping sarcasm.

"Oh." Missy seemed subdued. "Her."

The door opened, and Ken slipped back into the room. "Hilary will be stopping in before the end of the week."

Everyone took a moment to reflect on that. Everyone except Howard and Wally, who'd already huddled together to plot a strategy to keep them out of the office for the rest of the week. Even I began wondering how many sick days I had left.

"Well." Ken rubbed his hands together briskly. "What say we all knock off early today? I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to get home to my wife."

Wally thrust out his chest. "By all means, you go on home. I think I'll stick around and wrap up a little paperwork first." He attempted a smile that looked more like a grimace. "It helps to keep busy," he added. I couldn't argue with him there. The thing was, I planned to keep busy in my own apartment, far from Parker, Dennis, and Heath.

Missy was still sitting there staring at the box of tissues with a vacant expression that was a little scary. I'd seen that look before, on documentaries about psychotic killers. "If Wally's staying, I'm willing to stay, too."

"Well, not me," Paige said, springing to her feet. "Strawbridge's is having a sale on Clinique, and I want to get there before they sell out of my shade of lipstick. Come on, Jamie, I'll walk you out."

I felt the weight of Donna's gaze and knew she must be somehow still expecting me to laud her to Ken before I left. I handled that by ignoring it. I said my good-byes, gave Missy one last look, and followed Paige out the door.

I took the long way home, which meant I spent the next three hours sitting on a bench in Voyager Park, breathing in good clean New Jersey air, and watching moms and their kids playing amid the swing sets and sliding boards and seesaws, while pondering the tenuous nature of life. I didn't have a grand epiphany; I didn't even have a good idea how this could have happened. I felt sick and hollow inside, and I just went with it. I owed Dougie that much.

When the park started to empty out and I started attracting curious glances, I plodded back to my car and drove home, not feeling much better but at least having a good excuse to spend the night eating junk food and watching trash TV.

I was just about to open the door when I heard Curt at the bottom of the stairs. "Jamie? You okay?"

He was standing at the trash cans, holding a green drawstring bag. It reminded me I had something else to do today, when all I wanted to do was soak in a steaming bath and curl up under a blanket and stop thinking.

"I'm fine." I gave him a little wave and pushed open the door, hoping to avoid conversation. No chance. Curt's instincts were finely honed, and he was up the steps and on the landing beside me in three seconds flat. Smelling like pizza. My stomach gave a little growl. "What's the matter? You didn't even stop to mooch dinner."

"I'm not hungry." I ignored my stomach's opinion on the matter and stepped inside. Curt stepped in right behind me. "Wait a minute. Now I know something's wrong." He took my handbag and put it on the kitchen table along with the day's mail. Then he pulled out a chair with his foot and guided me into it. Ordinarily that kind of alpha male behavior would rankle me, but he did it while pretending not to notice my unmade sofa bed, so I cut him some slack. "Talk to me. Bad day at work?"

I meant to brush him off, but what came out was a sob, and then another, and then I was blathering and hiccupping on his shoulder, which I generally tried not to do. Curt's clothes were seldom ironed, but they were always dry.

By the time I'd soaked his collar, I'd managed to tell him all about Dougie's death. He disengaged me from his shoulder and moved around my kitchen, finding cups and spoons and heating water in the little apple teapot my mother had given me one Christmas in a paean to my alleged domesticity.

"So Doug Heath's dead," he said when I stopped blubbering. "Huh."

"Huh?" I stared at him. "Huh? My boss drops dead right in front of me, and all you've got to say is 'huh'?"

"No, that's not all," he said. "Where's the coffee?"

I stomped over to the cabinet and yanked out a tiny jar of Folgers. "You are a cold man."

He spooned crystals into both cups. "Dougie was a parasite. He's what made lawyer jokes possible. You didn't like him any more than anyone else did."

Maybe not, but my mother had always taught me to have a healthy respect for the dead, no matter what their profession. And part of me actually did like Dougie, I think. Sometimes he reminded me of the skinny, geeky kid who tried too hard. I don't even know if he was a good lawyer despite the rumors, and it almost didn't matter. He was dead, and his kids were fatherless, and Hilary