Suspicion of Guilt (12 page)

"Oh, God!" Gail clamped her fingers into the armrests.

The boat skipped from one crest to the next, the seat rising and falling.

Anthony shouted, "Gail, look at her. She can do it!" His arms extended around Karen, not quite touching, and his hands were poised at the wheel.

Chapter Eight

The management committee of Hartwell Black and Robineau was comprised of six of the seventeen partners. Gail tracked them down at lunch, in the corridors, or in their offices. More law firm business got done that way than in formal meetings. She told them about Patrick Norris and the phony will.

Larry Black had been surprisingly noncommittal. Jack Warner, head of litigation, wanted to hear more. Paul Robineau, with no time to listen, requested a memo. Cy Mackey from real estate and zoning had laughed. He said, "Hey. Rock and roll." The head corporate lawyer, Bill Schoenfeld, said he would wait to hear what everyone else thought. Forrest Putney, the oldest member of the firm, had invited Gail to attend the meeting.

The committee convened late Monday afternoon, their regular month-end get-together. It was nearly six o'clock before they called Gail in to explain why she wanted the firm to take on Patrick Norris as a client.

Paul Robineau, who might have been counting the little holes in the acoustical ceiling tile as she spoke, swung his chair back toward the table. "Questions? Anyone?"

The six men looked tired, and the room stank of cigarettes. Papers, coffee cups, calculators, and files littered the polished oval table. Gail sat next to Larry Black along one side.

Cy Mackey grinned at her from under his brushy, gray-streaked mustache. "Jesus. Fifteen mill. You sure about that?"

"It's a fair estimate. I did a real estate title search and came up with a list of holdings Patrick Norris didn't know about. Without the inventory, this is the best we can do for now. It could go higher."

"Rock and roll. Hey, Jack." Cy Mackey tapped a rhythm on the table. "What are the numbers on a case like this? I'm talking fees."

Warner, tie loosened and jacket off, was reaching around to refill his coffee cup from the pot on the credenza behind them. In his late fifties, one of the state's top litigators, Warner had to be pulling down well over a million a year. He could walk into a courtroom and hypnotize a jury. Uncanny. Lately the talk was that if Jack Warner had his way, he and Paul Robineau would move the firm out of the cramped quarters on Flagler Street and into one of the sparkling towers on Brickell Avenue.

Warner was a tall, slender man with thinning gray hair and heavy-lidded eyes, which now moved toward Cy Mackey. "I'd want to go with the standard contingency fee. Thirty percent if settled, forty if it goes to trial, fifty on appeal."

"Excuse me?" Gail said. Everyone looked at her. "Six million dollars for a trial? Isn't that a bit much? I quoted the client an hourly rate."

Warner smiled slightly. "Hourly?"

'Two-fifty office, three hundred in court."

He and Robineau exchanged a look.

Paul Robineau said, "Gail. Please don't tell me that you agreed to a fee before you discussed this matter with us."

"No, I gave Mr. Norris an estimate. But I in no way intimated that he'd be paying a standard contingency fee. I've never used that for commercial litigation. It's for tort cases. Personal injury."

Robineau raised an eyebrow. "I believe fraud is a tort. Have they changed the law?"

Larry Black said, "Lay off, Paul. You know what she means."

Three of the lawyers started talking at once. From the other end of the table, Forrest Putney tapped the bowl of his pipe on his coffee cup and waited for quiet.

"Ms. Connor is correct," he said. "It's exorbitant." Putney's hair stood out from his pink scalp like dandelion fluff, and age spots dotted his forehead. He was wearing a seersucker jacket and a red bow tie. Fifty years ago, returning from the war with a Navy Cross, Putney had clerked for the firm's original founding members.

"You'd be in probate court, gentlemen. The probate judges don't like big fees. Takes money from the heirs." He gripped his pipe in his teeth and felt around in the inside pocket of his jacket, retrieving a thin green book. He thumbed through the tattered pages. The title read
Florida Bar Minimum Fee Schedule 1970.

Putney spoke around his pipe. 'The old guideline for contingency fees in will contests is fifteen percent. I wouldn't go over that."

Mackey snickered. "Fuckin' book's a little out of date, isn't it, Forrest?"

Robineau raised a hand. "We'll get to this later. Are there any more questions for Ms. Connor?"

"If I'm going to do this case," Gail said, "I expect to have some input as to what we charge."

Cy Mackey grinned. He glanced at Robineau, who was playing with his pen. Robineau said slowly, "Ms. Connor. On major cases, this committee assigns counsel and determines the amount of attorneys' fees."

She felt her stomach tense. "I know the policy. I also know that Patrick Norris will go somewhere else if he thinks we're overreaching."

Robineau made a smile. "Something of a conundrum, isn't it? He wants you. He doesn't want you if you charge the going rate. What do you suggest?"

"Fifteen percent would probably be acceptable to him, against an hourly rate of three hundred. Ten percent if it's settled, twenty on appeal. Plus costs. If other attorneys at the firm become involved—Mr. Warner, for instance—the hourly rate would go up accordingly."

Jack Warner asked, "Is it winnable at trial?"

"I never guarantee—"

He swiveled his chair around. "I'm not a client you're talking to. You want a twenty grand cost advance. I want to know what we get for it Do you believe the case is winnable or not?"

"Winnable, yes," Gail said. "I wouldn't recommend it otherwise. And remember we have security—the $250,000 cash bequest to Patrick Norris." She casually poured herself a glass of water. Her mouth was going dry.

Mackey laughed. "Come on, Jack. This kind of fee potential and you've got a bug up your ass about twenty grand?"

Schoenfeld took another pull on his cigarette. He was pushing sixty and overstuffed on deli food from years in smoky conference rooms. "So even if we lose, we can't lose. So to speak."

Larry got out of his chair and took his coffee cup to the insulated pot on the credenza. The curtains were drawn. Already the light behind them was fading. "I don't like it." He glanced at Gail—apologetically, she thought. He said, "We'd catch more hell than it's worth."

"Who from?" Mackey asked. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the charities who'd think we were taking their money." He lifted the top off the porcelain sugar bowl. "They'd be right too."

Gail had expected opposition, but not from Larry. Warner's gaze was fixed on the opposite wall. The two men worked together, but apparently they had not agreed on this one.

Larry measured two level teaspoons of sugar. "Yes, we might collect a sizable fee. But this is one case. What about the long term? My God. Killing a half-million-dollar bequest to the University of Miami? I'm on the Orange Bowl Committee, let me remind you." He laughed. "They'd cancel our season tickets. Oh, hell. It isn't that. The point is, you don't screw the people who count in this town. You don't even allow the perception that you're screwing the people who count."

Schoenfeld chuckled. "I'm worried what my wife would do to me. She plays golf with Weissman's wife, Mona." Jack Warner leaned back with his hands locked behind his head. "You know, Alan and I did a seminar for the Bar a couple of years ago. I think he was slipping, even then."

Mackey poked Schoenfeld. "I was in Sally Russell's the other day at lunch and he was slipping off his fuckin' barstool."

"Yeah, but forge a will," Schoenfeld said. "What a dumb-ass thing to do. He drinks, but he's not stupid. Is he on coke or something? Is he screwing Monica Tillett? What?"

"May I remind you, gentlemen—" Forrest Putney's voice, honed on forty years of trial work, could still resonate. "We in this firm do not question the integrity of fellow members of the Bar without cause."

"Sorry, Forrest." Mackey smoothed his mustache, trying to look serious.

Schoenfeld spoke to Gail over Larry's empty chair. "What about conflicts? Did you run all these names through the computer? I can't believe we don't represent at least one of the beneficiaries. I'm not talking about your mother. She's willing to let the ring go. We've got no problem with that."

Gail said, "There is one minor thing. We advised the YMCA last year with relation to renewal of their lease."

Paul Robineau asked, "Are we on retainer?" When Gail shook her head, he added, "So they aren't a current client."

"Paul." Forrest Putney looked pained.

"Forrest is right." Larry Black set his cup down on the table but remained standing behind his chair, stirring, the spoon clinking, clinking in the cup. "It's a conflict." He looked at Gail. "Did they send us a letter terminating our representation? Anything?"

She had to admit she didn't know.

Warner sighed. "Larry, forget it."

Gail could guess what Warner would do. If the YMCA complained, he'd ask Patrick to pay the amount listed in the will. Five grand. A cost of doing business.

Mackey said, "Hey, Larry, you going to drill a hole in that cup or what?"

Still frowning, Schoenfeld tapped his ashes into a cut-glass ashtray already full of butts. "What about this residuary beneficiary? What about that?"

Gail said, "The Easton Charitable Trust. They get the leftovers, whatever's not otherwise mentioned in the will, which should amount to quite a pile of cash, even after the other beneficiaries collect. Easton has an office on Brickell Avenue and a phone number in the book." "Which I assume you called."

"I did. A woman answered—very cultured voice. I pretended to be doing an article on local charities for the
Miami Business Review.
She told me that the Easton Trust was established in 1937, that their projects are strictly confidential, and that the man who runs it is G. Howard Odell. The executive director."

She glanced at Larry, who was hiding behind his coffee cup. He knew Howard Odell, but he wasn't going to say so, and she wasn't going to bring it up first, not here. "Howard Odell was out of the office. The woman offered to have him call me, but I said no. I'd given her a false name."

Cy Mackey laughed. "Hey."

Gail went on, "The chairman of the board is Sanford V. Ehringer, currently residing on South River Drive." She added, "Ehringer is also the P.R. of the estate."

Larry lowered his cup. "Say again?"

"Sanford Ehringer is the personal representative. The executor."

Schoenfeld said, "Sanford Ehringer. Shit." "What's the deal? Who's he?" Mackey asked. Larry looked at Paul Robineau. "We'd be suing Sanford Ehringer."

"In name only, Larry. Don't get into a panic. His legal expenses would come out of the estate."

"I know that, dammit."

Mackey repeated, "Who's Sanford Ehringer?"

Larry walked to the end of the table and smiled, making an effort. "Paul. Tell me. What is Ehringer going to think if we try to grab the money Althea Tillett left to his favorite charity?"

"He'll think it's business. I'm not going to sit here worrying what the hell Sanford Ehringer will think. If we don't take this case, another firm will."

"Of all the asinine—" Larry's cheeks flushed. He thought better of whatever else he had to say and stalked to the other end of the room. Gail had suspected these men resented each other, but she hadn't known until now how much. They weren't fighting over Althea Tillett's will. They wanted to control the law firm. Blood was beginning to spatter the table.

Mackey said, "Ehringer lives on South River Drive? Nobody lives there. It's a bunch of boatyards and scuzzy apartments."

"You are mistaken, Cy," Forrest Putney announced. "If you had been reared here, you might know. At one time, South River Drive was home to some of the most exclusive estates in Miami. Most have been sold off and divided. Ehringer's remains."

"Okay, I'll ask one more time. Who the hell is he?"

Putney took time to relight his pipe, then expelled a puff of smoke upward. "Sanford Vanderbilt Ehringer served as ambassador to Greece after the war. He has been a guest of royalty. He speaks five or six languages. He plays the violin, writes poetry, collects rare tropical plants. He owns—" Putney seemed at a loss. "God knows what he owns."

Gail exchanged a glance with Mackey across the table. "Vanderbilt? As in,
the
New York philanthropist Vanderbilts?"

"Yes. A cousin." Putney spoke around the stem of his pipe. "Perhaps because of that, or from a natural distrust of publicity, he places great value on anonymity. His family wintered here and in Palm Beach. Sandy stayed, didn't like the cold. I've advised him from time to time. Nothing within the last few years, however." Putney cocked a bushy white eyebrow at Gail. "If you need his phone number, I have it."

Warner said, "I met Ehringer at a reception when President Bush was in town. He was old then. What is he now, Paul? Eighty?"

"At least." Paul Robineau seemed to be watching Larry Black pace along the narrow room. In his dark suit, Larry could have been dressed for a funeral.

Mackey asked Gail, "Who was Easton?"

"I don't know," she said. "I couldn't find a record of anyone by that name." She looked around. "Do any of you know?"

There were only blank stares, even from Forrest Putney. Gail wasn't certain what they meant. Ignorance or an unwillingness to say?

Schoenfeld lit another cigarette, then played with the matchbook cover. "Easton. I know where I heard the name now. My department did some work for somebody from Easton."

Gail said, "Howard Odell?" She looked at Larry, but he was still pacing.

Schoenfeld exhaled smoke. "Well, shit. I can't remember if it was the Easton Trust or Odell. If it was the trust, we'd have a problem."

"We would indeed," Larry noted. "A clear conflict of interest."

"That kid from Michigan Law handled it. Ramsay. Let me see if I can track him down." Cigarette in a corner of his mouth, he heaved himself out of his chair and reached for one of the three phones in the room, got through to the receptionist and asked her to find Eric Ramsay, if he was still around, and have him call the conference room on fifteen.