“They usually talk to anyone who had contact with one of the victims shortly before a murder.”
“I couldn’t tell them anything. How did Nick tell you… I mean why did Nick talk to you about our meeting?”
“Nick and I didn’t have a lot of secrets.”
“Oh. I see.” Right now his eyes look as if they could swallow the couch I’m sitting on. His complexion has gone pale. “Tell me,” he says. “How exactly do you know Adam Tolt?” Dolson is trying to put all the pieces together.
I open my briefcase and pull out the firm’s newsletter. Hot off the presses in San Diego, it hasn’t made its way to the colonies yet. I hand it to him, pointing to the story under the fold with my name in the headline.
“I did the settlement on the insurance for Nick’s wife.”
He compares the name on my business card with the headline. Then reads the article as if he is sucking the print off the page with his eyes. When he’s finished, he looks at me. “Good result,” he says.
This is the lawyer’s equivalent of a high five after moon walking in the end zone.
“I understand Nick had a couple of meetings with you up here?”
I can tell by the look that he isn’t sure whether I know, and if so how much. He’s trying to regroup but has the look of a man struggling to fight off panic.
“It was social,” he says.
“Excuse me?”
“My meeting. My meetings here with Nick. They were social.” He says it with all the certitude of a guess on a multiple choice quiz.
I don’t say anything. I look at him. What to do with a witness who’s nervous. Let him talk.
“He just sorta dropped by from time to time. We talked. That’s all,” he says.
“So Nick came all the way up from San Diego just to socialize with you?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“But he came up specifically to meet with you?”
“Oh no. I don’t think so.”
“That’s what his calendar says.”
He looks at me. It’s the kind of expression you might expect from someone who is swallowing his tongue. “His calendar?”
“Yeah.” I don’t tell him it was on a handheld and that I probably have the only copy.
“Nick put my name on his calendar?”
“That’s what I said.”
“You’ve seen this?”
“Uh-huh.”
“This is his office calendar?”
“One of them.”
“Then I suppose the San Diego office has seen it?”
“I’d have thought you might be more interested in whether the police have seen it?”
“Oh. Well sure. That’s why you thought they might want to talk to me?”
“Sure. Why? Is there some other reason?”
“I told you. I don’t know anything. Have they seen the calendar? The police, I mean?”
“Actually, I’m not sure.”
“What do you mean you’re not sure?”
“Well they could have things I don’t know about. But I don’t think they have it. At least not yet.”
“Why are you doing this? What do you want? Is it money?”
“What makes you think I might want money?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. It’s just, this makes no sense. My name in Nick’s calendar. I told you I don’t know anything. I take it you haven’t talked to Adam about this?”
“Tolt? No. Do you think I should?”
He doesn’t say yes or no, so I turn the screws a little more. “But so that you know, you’re not alone.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“There are other names on the calendar. Meetings with other members of the firm. Dates and times.”
He doesn’t say anything, just looks at me.
“Why don’t you tell me what the meetings were about?”
“So then Nick didn’t tell you?”
“He would have, if I’d asked him. But somebody shot him first.”
“The meetings had nothing to do with that. Besides, the article says it was an accident.”
“Well sure. But then that was written by your firm. Of course they would want to keep their skirts clean. When a partner is killed, better an accident than something more sinister. Don’t you think?”
“I think you should go now.” Dolson has regrouped, gathered enough courage to convince himself that I don’t know anything. “I think you should forget about the calendar or whatever it is you saw or think you saw.”
“You can kid yourself if you want, but the calendar exists.”
“You want to know what I think?”
“Sure.”
“I don’t think there is a calendar with my name on it. I think you made it up. Where is it? Did you bring it with you?”
“If it doesn’t exist, how would I know the date of your meeting with Nick?”
“I think maybe that’s all Nick told you. Or maybe you just overheard it. As I said, it was social.” He turns, heading for his desk. “I have work to do. I’d like you to leave.”
Whatever it is, Dolson’s fear is erecting a stone wall around it. He reaches his desk, and looks at me. “Are you going to leave or would you rather I call security?” He picks up the receiver like it’s a weapon, his fingers ready to punch buttons on the phone.
“If that’s the way you want it.”
“I take it you can find your way out?”
He watches from the open door of his office as I leave, his eyes on me until the elevator doors shut behind me. The one thing I can be sure of, whatever Nick and Dolson discussed, it wasn’t social chitchat.
It’s only a few blocks, maybe a mile, from Dolson’s office to one of the three addresses listed on the memo pad of Nick’s handheld. The other two of these are in Washington, D.C., and New York.
By the time I find the address, it’s getting late. Downtown San Francisco, like most big cities, is a disaster when it comes to parking, even after hours. It takes me ten minutes to find a space. It’s after six, so I can ignore the meters. I lock up the rental car and walk two blocks back toward the address in the handheld.
The address is mixed in with some trendy restaurants, an antique shop with expensive Asian art in the window, a place some tony interior decorator might shop for well-heeled customers. The neighborhood is just off the Embarcadero but farther west than the RDD offices.
The building I’m looking for takes up about a quarter of the block, four stories and modern, a lot of smoked glass. But there is something strange; not a single light in any of the offices facing this side of the building. Usually in any business there is somebody working late, or at least a janitor.
I check the street name against what is entered in Nick’s Palm device. I could have shown the calendar to Dolson, but it wouldn’t have done any good. He would have accused me of making the entries in the device myself. It’s the problem the cops would have at this point, unless of course Nick had synced the information in the device by copying it to his computer, which by now I’m certain he did not. The information in the handheld has been out of the victim’s possession for too long a period to be credible. Anybody could have used a stylus to add or delete things. The verification for its authenticity is my word. A criminal defense lawyer, a friend of the deceased, who has withheld evidence in a murder case. Any testimony I offered would come apart like wet tissue paper.
It is the right street, so I head around the corner and up the block along what appears to be the front of the building.
This side faces the bay. Two blocks away I can hear traffic moving past on the Embarcadero in front of the wharfs with their cavernous arched doors and giant numbers on their overhead facades. I can feel a chilly breeze off
