“That’s the problem,” he says. “The former wife’s name is on the policy. I think I met her once at a firm social function. Name of Margaret. Do you know her?”
I take a deep sigh and nod.
“She probably doesn’t know her name is still on the policy. Not yet anyway.” He’s futzing in the briefcase, making sure he has everything. “It puts us in a difficult position,” he says. “Any claim on the policy by somebody else, and the carrier is going to have to notify her. Doing insurance work, I’m sure you understand.”
“I don’t do insurance work.”
“I thought you said…”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Your card says you’re a lawyer.”
“I do criminal work. That’s how I knew Nick.”
“Oh,” he says and stops packing. His bushy eyebrows, furry and gray, turn heavy hooded and move to the center of his forehead like two migrating mice.
He picks up my card once more and takes a closer look this time, reading it as if to himself: “Madriani. Madriani. I remember. You defended in that thing about a year ago, they found the body in her office out by the beach. What was it?”
“The Hale case.”
“That’s it. The old man who won the lottery. The victim was a woman.”
“Zolanda Suade,” I say.
“That’s the one.” He closes the lid on the attache case and looks at me. “That was a fair piece of work,” says Tolt. “And all that free publicity.”
“And I thought nobody noticed.”
“Ever do any white-collar work?” he asks.
“Some.”
“Really.” His eyebrows go up a notch, wondering, I’m sure, how fast my fingers might be able to work the billing software on the unattended computer in Nick’s office. He leaves the closed briefcase on his desk and settles back in his chair. “How long did you say you knew Nick?”
“We go back a few years.”
He sits silent, looking over the desk at me, waiting for details. I offer none.
“Unfortunately I didn’t know him all that well. I regret that I didn’t take more time with the man. I suspect he resented it, but unfortunately Nick didn’t understand how hard it is running a firm like this. Grumbling partners, every one of them wanting bigger bonuses at the end of the year, having to reason with them constantly in order to expand. Practicing law in a firm like this is like trying to herd cats and they’re trying to fight. It doesn’t help that the last two years we’re down on profits.”
I’m starting to bleed for him, looking at the priceless Matisse framed in gilt behind his chair.
“Too many lawyers,” he says.
“From what I hear, still looking for more.”
He smiles.
“Nick and I would pass each other coming and going. Talk at Christmas parties. I think we collaborated twice on cases. Client business matters that went awry.”
What he means is that Nick was called in when the firm needed help cleaning up a criminal mess left behind by one of their clients whose business practices went up on two wheels cutting corners.
“And then he did a few drug cases. I don’t think there were a lot of them. We tried to keep him in the white- collar area as much as possible.”
“I see. That’s as far down the criminal food chain as the firm wanted to go, is that it?”
“Something like that. Don’t misunderstand me. I don’t want you to think I would disparage what other lawyers do. Their clients are certainly entitled to a vigorous defense.”
“But not here?”
“Well…” The answer is in his expression. “Unfortunately we’re a little thin on the criminal side right now. I mean we have a couple of young associates, but Nick was the guiding light. So we couldn’t afford to have him doing other things. And now we do have a problem. With Nick gone, we have to start looking for somebody to fill the void. Nick had cases. They need tending,” he says. “That’s your field. Maybe you could give us some recommendations?”
If I didn’t know better, I might think he was offering me a job. Crisis of the moment: like men of power everywhere, Adam Tolt realizes the only problems that count at this moment are those belonging to him.
“Maybe we should wait for the body to get cold,” I tell him.
“Of course,” he says. “Thoughtless of me.” The words may pass through his lips, but the commercial squint does not leave his eyes. Tolt is a cross between FDR and the devil. He has the toothy grin, the flamboyant hail- fellow-well-met, and the presence of command, everything but the cigarette holder and the paralysis. In fact, he seems remarkably fit and moves like a man half his age.
“I wish I could do more for you,” he says. “But you understand the problem? On the insurance?”
“Yes.”
“What do you plan to do now?”
“I’ll go back and tell Mrs. Rush. Can I get a copy of the policy?”
“I don’t see why not. I’ll make a note and have one mailed to your office. Of course, they could resolve it,” he says. “The two wives.”
“How?”
“Agree to share the policy.”
“What’s the face amount?” I ask.
“Two million,” he says. “They’d have to agree to each take half.”
“Why would the named beneficiary agree to that?”
“Well, she could have some problems too. There could be a property settlement agreement when they divorced that could undercut her claim to the insurance.”
“Is there a settlement agreement?”
“I assume,” he says. “You would think leaving her name on the policy after a divorce was an oversight.” He looks at me over steepled forefingers, his elbows on the arms of the chair, then sits up and clicks the snap locks closed on his briefcase. A grand an hour, a hundred sixty-five dollars every ten minutes, small talk off the clock gets expensive.
“And if it can’t be resolved by settlement?” I ask.
He makes a face, looks at me. “Then I suppose the carrier will have to file an interpleader.”
What he means is a stakeholder’s action, a legal free-for-all in which the insurance company will throw up its hands, confess that it owes money but doesn’t know who to pay. A court will have to sort it out. After a year or two of litigation, with lawyers for the insurance company and the two women brawling in open court, a check will be made out, but whose name will be on the payout line is anybody’s guess. The only thing more certain than death is that the lion’s share will go to the lawyers.
Harry was right. I’ve stepped in it. Now I will have to call Dana and give her the sorry news. The old saw is on the mark: the last people on earth to have their wills up-to-date and their affairs in order when they die are attorneys.
CHAPTER NINE
This morning Harry has information. It comes by way of a telephone call from a friend of his, a deputy D.A. he meets with on Thursday evenings in a friendly card game. Last night between shuffling and dealing, the guy let slip that an arrest has been made by federal authorities, not in Nick’s murder, but according to this prosecutor there may be a connection.
Harry is standing in the doorway to my office having just bought a newspaper from the rack in front of the cigar store out on the street. He is scanning the inside pages. On the front page, which is open to me, is a picture
