Alice brightened. 'Oh, yes. Now I remember. Did Mr. Flynn send you?'
'Can I come in?' Daniel answered, finessing the question.
Alice stepped aside and let Daniel into a small front room.
'How's Patrick?' he asked.
'He had a bad night, but he's sleeping now.'
Daniel heard the resignation and exhaustion in Cummings's voice. Kate had looked up Alice in the records at the courthouse. Daniel knew that her husband had filed for divorce soon after Patrick's birth, which meant that she was raising her son alone.
'When he has a bad night yours must be rough, too,' he said.
'My nights are never as bad as my baby's. Sometimes I wonder how he goes on, but he's never known anything else.'
Alice rubbed her hands on her jeans and surveyed her front room. There was laundry on the sofa. She took a toy off an armchair and motioned Daniel toward it.
'Please, sit down. Can I get you some coffee?'
'I'm fine,' Daniel said, waiting for Alice to push some of the laundry aside and take a seat before he sat down.
'Has Mr. Flynn heard anything?' she asked anxiously. 'We're really counting on him.'
'I'm not here about your case.' Alice looked confused and Daniel felt horrible about deceiving her. 'It's something Mr. Flynn wanted me to ask you about. Do you remember visiting his office in early March?'
She nodded. 'That was my first time. I . . . I read about the Moffitts. I wanted to see if he could help me, too.'
'So you remember the consultation?'
'Of course.'
'Because a matter came up in another case I need your help with. It has to do with a phone call that Mr. Flynn insists that he received while you were with him. Another lawyer is claiming that the call never took place. Mr. Flynn's time sheets indicate that he was meeting with you when the call came in. Do you remember a call interrupting your meeting? Or the receptionist talking to Mr. Flynn over the intercom while you were with him?'
Alice thought about it for a moment. 'Yes, I do. There was a call. Mr. Flynn apologized when his receptionist interrupted the meeting. And . . . Of course! Now I remember. Mr. Flynn was upset when his secretary buzzed him. He told her that he didn't want our meeting interrupted. She was speaking on an intercom and I heard her. She said the man was calling about a murder and was very insistent. That's one of the reasons I remember the call. I don't hear people discussing a murder very often.'
'That's the call I need to know about,' Daniel said, trying to sound businesslike. 'Do you happen to remember the caller's name? That would be very helpful.'
'His last name was Arnold,' she said with a laugh. 'My father's first name is Arnold, so I remember it perfectly.'
Daniel laughed, too, even more enthusiastically than Mrs. Cummings.
'Wow,' he said, 'that was easy. Thanks.'
'I'm glad I could help. Mr. Flynn has been so good to Patrick and me. I don't know what we'd do without him. He's going to get us the money for Patrick's operations. I don't have health insurance and my husband walked out when Patrick was born.' She looked down. 'He couldn't take it. He couldn't even look at Patrick,' she said softly. 'If Mr. Flynn wasn't fighting this case for us . . .'
Daniel felt sick inside, both for her plight and for deceiving her. He couldn't imagine how she would feel when Flynn was arrested and she learned that her suit against Insufort was baseless. Daniel said good-bye, feeling like the worst kind of traitor. Partway down the block he looked back. Alice Cummings smiled and waved hopefully from her front door. Daniel couldn't bring himself to wave back.
Chapter Forty-Six.
Susan Webster looked up when Kate Ross walked into her office and closed the door behind her.
'Yes?' Susan said.
Kate sat down without being asked and laid the envelope she was carrying on Webster's desk.
'It's Kate, right?' Webster asked after a moment of silence, annoyed when Kate continued to sit and stare.
'That's right.'
'Why are you here?' Susan demanded.
'Show-and-tell,' Kate said, opening the envelope and handing Susan a picture of her and Aaron Flynn standing outside the Midway Cafe.
Susan flushed, then glared at Kate. 'How dare you follow me.'
'If you don't like it, why don't we both go up to J. B. Reed's office? You can complain that I'm harassing you and I'll tell J.B. about your clandestine meeting with Aaron Flynn.'
Susan gave herself time to calm down by looking at the photograph again.
'Why are you showing me this?' she asked.
'I want you to know that I'm onto your arrangement with Flynn.'
'Aaron and I don't have an arrangement.'
Kate smiled. 'Beer and fried chicken never struck me as your cuisine of choice. I always pictured you as more the Pinot Noir and coq au vin type.'
'Cute,' Susan answered sarcastically, 'but I didn't pick the restaurant. Aaron wanted to meet where no one would see us. He chose the Midway Cafe. As you said, I don't usually do business over fried chicken and beer. Neither does anyone else at Reed, Briggs, so we knew we'd be alone when we discussed settling the Geller case.'
'Why would Flynn discuss a settlement with you? Brock Newbauer is the lead attorney.'
Susan laughed. 'Brock is clueless in a case of this complexity. Flynn knows I'm running the show. And he didn't want Brock around when he tried to bribe me.' Kate's eyebrows went up. 'Aaron offered me a job at his firm at significantly more than I'm making if I convince Geller to settle.'
'Which I assume you're trying to do.'
'Of course, but not because I plan to leave Reed, Briggs. The Insufort case is a sure loser in court. We have to settle to save the company.'
'Was Arthur Briggs murdered so you could control the Insufort litigation?'
'What!'
'You can stop the act, Susan. I know you're helping Flynn fix the Insufort and Fairweather cases.'
'What are you talking about?'
'Before Kaidanov died, he told Daniel that his study is a hoax. Flynn's plan is going to fail and you're going down with him.'
'You better think twice before you threaten me, Ross.'
'I don't make threats,' Kate said. 'Either you go to the police and confess or I'll make sure that J.B. and the DA learn about your deal with Flynn.'
Susan shot to her feet. 'Listen, you bitch. If you say one word of this to anyone, I'll sue you for slander and see that you're fired. Joe Molinari can't keep a secret. Everyone knows that Ames is staying with you. Why don't you tell J.B. your ridiculous theory and see if he believes you? But don't forget to tell him you're fucking the man who killed his best friend.'
Kate colored, but she held her temper.
'I'll give you until the end of the day to decide what to do. After that, you're on your own.'
Kate walked out and Susan slammed her hand on the desk. Was Ross bluffing, or would she really go to J. B. Reed? Then she suddenly realized that Kate had said that Daniel Ames could testify that Sergey Kaidanov's study was a hoax. She sat down heavily. Before he died did Kaidanov give Ames hard evidence to back up his claim?
Susan tried to calm down so she could think more clearly. After a moment she dialed Aaron Flynn's office.
Chapter Forty-Seven.
There was an urgent message from Amanda Jaffe for Daniel on the answering machine when Daniel returned to the house. He called her office immediately
