CHAPTER FIFTY
With Cullan's files either destroyed or stolen, Mason was back at the bottom of the hill, still trying to push the boulder to the top. He would let Mickey continue plowing fields in cyberspace while he dug at ground level.
He logged on to the county's civil-lawsuit database and punched in Beth Harrell's name. Both of her divorce cases showed up. Husband number one was Baker McKenzie. Mason recognized his name. He was the senior partner in the McKenzie, Strachan law firm. Husband number two was Al Douglas, a name Mason didn't recognize. According to Beth, one of her ex-husbands had snapped nasty pics of her and had given them to Jack Cullan. Mason's best idea of the day was to find the exes and ask which one of them was the shitbag.
Mason didn't want to ask Beth which of her ex-husbands was the shitbag because he wasn't convinced that she was telling the truth. If Beth knew he was checking out her story and she was lying, she would backpedal or find some way to distract him, and he wasn't up to being distracted. If she were telling the truth, she would start crowding Ed Fiora's pole position on the suspect track.
He called the clerk of the circuit court to locate Beth's divorce files. The voice-mail system cast him into a menu of choices that he accepted and rejected until a human being answered. When the woman said her name was Margaret, he knew she didn't mean it when she asked how she could help him.
'My name is Lou Mason. I'm a lawyer and I'm trying to locate two divorce files.'
'Are they on-site or off-site?'
Mason swallowed. 'I don't know. I was hoping you could tell me.'
'If they are on-site, they might only be available on microfilm. That would mean that we shipped the hard copy off-site. If the files are off-site and you want the hard copy, it will take one to three business days to retrieve the files from off-site storage. Hold, please,' she added before he could respond.
Mason imagined dozens of different torture scenarios for bureaucrats named Margaret during the three minutes and twenty-seven seconds she left him on hold.
'This is Margaret. May I help you?' she asked when she returned to his call.
'Margaret this is Lou Mason. We've already met. I'm looking for two divorce files and I know the on-site, off- site drill. Let me give you the case numbers so you can find out where they are.'
'We can't give that information out over the phone. You'll have to come to the clerk's office and sign a form.'
He took a deep breath. 'Should I ask for you, Margaret?'
'Yes. I'll be at lunch.'
Thirty minutes later, Mason cautiously approached the court clerk's office. He was less concerned that Margaret would actually be at lunch than he was that she would be there and he'd end up a suspect in another homicide. He passed through the double glass doors of the court clerk's office. A long white counter laminated with Formica separated Mason from the employees processing the county's civil and criminal cases.
He had concluded from past experiences that they had been trained not to look up unless it was at the clock. It was ten minutes to noon when Mason rang the bell on the counter under the sign that read Ring for Service. The woman at the nearest desk raised her eyes at him; her resentment at his interruption shot through her glare.
'I'm here to see Margaret.'
She picked up her phone, stealing glances at him until he was certain that she'd called the sheriff's office. She hung up, put the cap on her pen, and disappeared to the back of the office.
Mason waited. There was a large clock on the wall to his right. He watched the second hand sweep around the dial and the incremental march of the minute hand to twelve o'clock high. The other people in the office, as if in response to an inner clock, rose in turn from their desks, vanishing into the depths of the clerk's office.
One woman remained. She walked slowly to the counter, eyeing the clock, timing her advance.
'I'm Margaret.'
'I'm Lou Mason. We spoke on the phone. You said I had to fill out a form to request a couple of divorce files.'
She reached into a drawer and handed Mason two forms, one for each file. He filled them out and flashed her his best smile when he handed them back to her. He followed her gaze to the clock.
'It's noon. I'm on my lunch break. Come back at one o'clock.'
Mason watched helplessly as Margaret carried the forms back to her desk, dropping them on her chair, never looking back.
He returned exactly sixty minutes later. Seventy minutes later, Margaret presented him with both files, neither of which had been off-site or on microfilm. He filled out additional forms to check out the files, which meant that he could take them into a small adjoining room and look at them. He would have to fill out another form to request copies, and he could not under any circumstances, Margaret explained in the severest of tones, remove the files from the clerk's office.
The files were one-dimensional ledgers of dates and dollars, the final accounting of dead relationships. He thought about his own marriage, about the passion and pain that had swept both him and Kate along for three years until Kate called it quits, depriving him of the choice to fight or surrender.
There was no exuberance in the dry recitation of the dates of Beth's marriages and no regret in the hollow entries of the decrees of divorce. It was history without humanity, irreconcilable differences code words for hearts empty and broken.
Beth Harrell had married Baker McKenzie shortly after graduating from law school. She was twenty-five and he was twenty-five years her senior. They had met when Beth worked as a summer intern at McKenzie's firm. The marriage had lasted two years. There had been no children, and she hadn't sought alimony or any of his property, asking only for the restoration of her maiden name.
Five years later, she married Al Douglas, an architect fifteen years older than her. She kept her maiden name, and they signed a prenuptial agreement that prohibited either of them from seeking any monetary settlement from the other in the event of a divorce, with the exception of child support if they had a family. Irreconcilable differences had again been diagnosed, like a recurring cancer. The court entered the decree of divorce on their fourth wedding anniversary.
It was impossible to draw any conclusions about Beth's marriages other than that they had had a beginning and an end. What had taken place in the middle was not a matter of public record. Mason would have to ask Baker McKenzie and Al Douglas to find out which of them was the shitbag.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Mason had learned one thing about celebrity. It cleared a lot of scheduling conflicts. Both Baker McKenzie and Al Douglas agreed to see him that afternoon. He started with McKenzie.
Baker McKenzie was the third generation of McKenzies in the firm his grandfather and Matthew Strachan had founded seventy-five years earlier. None of Strachan's heirs had followed their ancestor in the law, though no later generations of interloping partners had suggested removing the Strachan name from the door. McKenzie, Strachan was the oldest and largest law firm in the city, its bloodlines were the bluest, and its stockings were woven of the finest silk.
Baker McKenzie sat comfortably at the top of the firm, worrying more about his putting stroke than about the firm's clients. He had hidden mediocre legal skills and a civil service work ethic beneath the legacy of his grandfather and father. Mason had run across him once or twice in cases where the client had expected the name partner to show his face. McKenzie had shown it just long enough to make certain he didn't get it dirty before begging off because of pressing matters in the case of Tee v. Green. He was a society-page regular, never seen in public without a beautiful woman on his arm.
McKenzie greeted Mason as if they were asshole buddies. 'My God, man! How the hell are you? I swear to Jesus that you are turning our profession into one dangerous contact sport.'
McKenzie gleamed as if he'd just been washed and waxed, his teeth and hair both bleached to a high sheen.
