Suspicion of Guilt (35 page)

Miriam said, "E is for Ehringer?"

"Very good. His father started Easton. Samuel Ehringer."

"So what does this do for Patrick's case?"

"Probably nothing. But it bothers me," Gail said. "Nobody will tell me who's in the Easton Trust. I don't like that."

After Miriam went out, Gail sat down with her micro-cassette recorder to dictate some notes. There were three other files on her desk she had to finish today.

She started on one, but couldn't concentrate. Her mind was racing over lists of real estate and corporations. The connection between Howard Odell and the Aphrodite Motel, or Sun Goddess Escorts, or even Wild Cherry, was tenuous, but Gail could see a shadow beneath the surface, moving silently as a shark.

She pushed the files aside and dialed Anthony Quintana's office number. The thrill of the hunt had made her bold. She would say to him,
Listen, I'm sorry if I acted a little strange last Friday. What a day. I was totally stressed out.

No. That sounded phony. Try again:
Anthony, I need to see you.
God, how pathetic. Maybe just
Hi. I've been thinking about you.

His secretary told her, "I'm sorry, Ms. Connor. He's in trial."

"So he is." Gail pushed her hair behind her ear. "He said he would be, but it slipped my mind."

"Is there a message?"

"Just say ... I'll call tonight." She nearly hung up, then said, "Mirta, wait. Did he get Rosa Portales's address and phone number from the Miami Beach Police? She was Althea Tillett's housekeeper." There was no reply. Gail said, "It's a case we have together. Patrick Norris? Surely he mentioned it to you."

"Patrick Norris. Right."

"Well? Do you have the phone number?"

"I don't think so."

"Could you check his file while I hold on?"

"I never go into his files, Ms. Connor."

"You're his secretary."

"I mean, Mr. Quintana told me not to give out that information to anybody."

"I'm not just anybody. It's my case."

"Uhhh ..."

Gail willed herself not to scream into the phone. She smiled instead. "Mirta. Did Mr. Quintana instruct you not to give me Rosa Portales' address and phone number?"

"Of course not."

"I'll bet. Just tell him to call me, would you?" Gail hung up, fuming. Anthony Quintana was pulling back on the reins. Why? Most likely an attempt to keep her out of trouble.
Bastard.

She picked the phone up again, intending to ask Miriam to get Detective Davis of the Beach Police. But Davis wouldn't give out Rosa's address for free. He would want her to come in and talk to him about Carla Napolitano. About her suicide. Or accident. Or ... murder. Gail replaced the phone and rested her forehead on her arm.

The three other files were still waiting. What she didn't get done today, she would take home with her. Karen wouldn't like that. Gail had promised to take her shopping for new jeans.

Eric Ramsay knocked at the door just after eleven o'clock carrying a folder.

"Come on in." Gail finished a time slip and stuck it in the file.

He said, "These are the motions in the Norris case you asked me to do." Standing by her desk, he flipped his hair out of his eyes. "I would have done them last week, but I had to write a brief for a tax appeal. I decided they could wait, since we aren't going to file the case until we see what happens with Odell."

Some day, Gail thought, a junior associate would drop everything to get
her
work done first. She quickly read the motions. They were packed with Eric's usual bombardment of minutiae, and ended with the demand that Rudy and Monica stay out of the decedent's mansion and that a neutral party be appointed to oversee her property.

"All right. These will do. Where are the subpoenas?" she asked.

He hesitated. "They're up in word processing."

"I see. Eric, what if we have to file these today before the courthouse closes? Or early tomorrow? We can't get motions served without subpoenas. I wanted these on Friday. If you're going to save your job at Hartwell Black—and I assume you still want to—you can't make excuses. 'Oh, I was busy with some other assignment.' Uh-uh."

He shifted his weight to the other foot. "Okay. Sorry."

"And what were you doing in Fort Lauderdale?" She knew she was getting worked up, but couldn't stop. "We have couriers for deliveries. You have a secretary."

"Look, Gail—"

"I don't want you running around South Florida on some other matter when we've got Odell and his attorneys coming in, and Miriam is absolutely buried—"

"It was for a trial, for Chrissakes! Look, I'm sorry, Gail, but I had to do some exhibits in a tax fraud case and get them to Fort Lauderdale before the client testified. We had to show why he could deduct four-point-two million dollars in accelerated depreciation,"

"Okay." Gail pressed her fingertips into her forehead.

"I'd have been here if I could. You know that."

She dropped her hand to the desk.

"Hey, Gail." He leaned over and gripped her wrist. "You're coming apart." His fingers were warm. "You need something? I've got something in my office I could give you. Very mild, I promise."

"I'm fine." She sat back in her chair. "Did you find anything on Howard Odell's house on Star Island?"

"Right. It's the same house he asked me about, but I didn't do the sale. I only reviewed the contract for him. He was getting a divorce, and he wanted to save as much on taxes as possible."

"How much did he make on it?"

"Oh, gee. That was last year."

"I need the numbers. Didn't you look at the file?"

"It's in storage." He held up a hand. "But I'll ask my secretary to find it."

"And have it down here before my meeting with Paul Robineau?"

"No problem."

"Sorry, Eric. I don't mean to be so crabby. You said you wanted to be a trial lawyer? Well, this is it. Massive anxiety before you even get inside the courtroom. Most of the time you never do. You sit at your desk and make threatening phone calls and throw paper bombs at the other side. And try not to lose your breakfast."

He looked at her, his brow furrowed. "What's going to happen in this meeting with Odell?"

"Give me a crystal ball and I'll tell you."

"Let me sit in. I want to see what they say, how you handle it. Hell, it might settle by this afternoon. All the action's going to be upstairs in Robineau's office."

The phone buzzed.

"Excuse me." Gail answered it.

Her mother came on the line. "Gail, dear. It's important. Are you busy?"

"Not at all. Hang on." She put her hand over the receiver and told Eric to go help Miriam with the research on Odell. "She'll explain what she's found. Whatever else you have scheduled for anyone, including God Almighty, dump it. I need you. And Eric?"

He turned around at the door.

"About that meeting ... not this time. Okay?"

He shrugged. "Sure."

She said into the telephone, "Mother? I'm back."

"Gail, I've just had a call from Irving."

"Irving?" She began to write a time slip for her conference with Eric Ramsay.
Conf w/ assoc atty,
.2.

"Irving
Adler.
You remember, don't you? I went to see him last week about Althea. I should have done it before. Irving isn't feeling well."

"What did he say about the will?" Gail laid down her pen. "Did he say anything about that?"

"Not when I was there last week. We had a couple of drinks and gossiped for a while. I did mention the will once, obliquely, but Irving changed the subject. Anyway, five minutes ago he called me. He said yes, Althea's will was forged, and he helped to do it."

Gail stumbled out of her chair. "But what did he say? Who was he helping? Rudy Tillett?"

"I didn't ask. He wants me to bring you to talk to him."

"Me? Why?"

"He wants to talk to you about Althea. He said, 'I don't want to die with this on my conscience.' "

"With what on his conscience? The forgery?"

"No, my impression was, he wanted to talk about Althea."

"What about her? Her death? Was that it?"

"I don't know. Oh, Gail. He was crying. Poor man, it broke my heart. We have to go see him as soon as possible. Now. Or whenever you can get away."

Gail glanced at the clock on her bookcase: 11:09. "I can't leave now. Call him back and ask if this afternoon would be all right." The meeting with Ehringer's attorneys would be over by then. "No, wait. Karen has her first session with that new psychologist at five, and I have to be there. I can't cancel it."

Irene said, "What about tomorrow morning?"

"I don't want Irving to change his mind," Gail said. "Ask if we could come tonight at seven. And, Mother, when you call, be sure to say thank you. I'll be very easy with him, I promise."

Chapter Twenty-Two

Paul Robineau's secretary had arranged for lunch to be catered from the restaurant upstairs. There was food enough for four in his conference room, but only three sat at the table. Larry Black hadn't shown up. Gail supposed he didn't want to be closed in with Paul Robineau for two hours.

She gave Robineau and Jack Warner copies of Miriam's notes with a summary that included what Miriam and Eric had found out since this morning.

Robineau and Warner interrupted only with pertinent questions and made few notes. Warner sliced into his roast beef, smiling from time to time as if he were imagining Odell on the stand. Robineau wolfed down a ham croissant, then stood by the window, feet apart, flexing his heavy shoulders under his sleek gray jacket. His collar was as crisp and white as a folded sheet of letterhead.

Gail had worn her best suit today, a charcoal pinstripe that had cost her eight hundred dollars two years ago; on sale. Her nails and hair were perfect, and her gold jewelry glittered discreetly at her ears and throat. She had found half a Xanax rattling around in the back of her desk drawer.

For the last half hour or so, Gail had explained that G. Howard Odell, executive director of the Easton Charitable Trust, was probably knee-deep in the muck of topless bars, escort services, and adult movie houses.

She explained the connections. Atlantic and Seagate, which ran these operations, had been founded in 1979 and 1981 by the current president of Biscayne Corporation, a Leo Dolan, a former banker and sometime investment partner of Howard Odell. Odell held the position of treasurer.

Biscayne had been incorporated in 1938 by two men, Walton Nash and George Odell. Gail assumed that George was a relation of Howard, perhaps his father. In 1983 the corporation was known as Biscayne Casinos, Inc. There had been casinos in Dade County dating from the Twenties. By the Fifties, when the mob tried to push its way in, the owners closed them down voluntarily.

Biscayne, now known as the Biscayne Corporation, became a holding company. Its current operations included a rental apartment complex, two restaurants, and a company that made plastic bubble wrap. All legitimate, all clean. Atlantic and Seagate were something else. Legal? That was iffy. Clean? Depended on your definition of the word.

Who owned these corporations? As yet she had not obtained information as to which living, breathing persons actually owned stock in Biscayne or in Seagate and Atlantic, but Gail assumed they overlapped. She also assumed, without evidence, that G. Howard Odell had a stake in them.

She told Paul Robineau and Jack Warner about Irving Adler's confession: finally, to add to the document examiner's expert opinion, they had firsthand proof that the will was phony. But until Adler's testimony was safely in the form of a sworn statement, they couldn't count on it.

For now, they would demand a good settlement, playing on Howard Odell's possible connection to X-rated businesses—an adult motel in Hialeah, a porno theater on Biscayne Boulevard, an escort service on the Beach, or a travel agency that could send you on a sex tour of Bangkok.

Howard Odell's associates included a pimp, Frankie Delgado, who had an underage girlfriend. Gail couldn't prove what was going on, but something was. Threats of exposing Odell's dirty businesses could work to secure his cooperation in settling the Norris case. The members of the Easton Charitable Trust, in all their moral rectitude—whoever they were—would find it all so embarrassing that they would take away his executive directorship. The people he invested with would say he was bad for their image.

"Let me ask your opinion on something," she said. "It appears that Odell may have made a deal for himself at Easton's expense. Example: the house on Star Island. In 1987 someone donated it to the Easton Trust at a declared value of $700,000. That was probably an inflated figure for tax purposes. In any event, Odell bought the house six months later for $400,000. He sold it last year for $1.5 million. These businesses could follow that pattern. Pick up some odds and ends of Easton real estate cheaply through Biscayne, sell them to related corporations or to friends. The profits could be enormous."

Gail stood up and walked over to the cart that the restaurant had sent down. She put a few more shrimp on her plate and a dash of cocktail sauce.

"I think we ought to assume for now that Sanford Ehringer doesn't know what Odell is doing. The trust is only one of dozens of activities Ehringer is involved in. If we lay it all out to his attorneys in the meeting, we might lose our advantage. I believe we should speak to Odell privately beforehand. We can't hold this over his head if Ehringer finds out about it."

Robineau nodded. "I agree. How soon can you verify his involvement in these other companies?"

Gail took a bite of shrimp. "It could take weeks, unless we hire an investigator."

"Perhaps. We'll see how it goes today."

Jack Warner patted his mouth with a cloth napkin. He had taken off his navy blue jacket and hung it over the back of a chair. She had seen him wear this suit arguing cases in the Florida Supreme Court. It would do for the meeting with Ehringer's attorneys. Jack knew the moves; he'd been a litigator for thirty years.

"Well, now," Warner said. "How much do we want for this case?"