especially if they wore neckties and counted money for a living.
“How do you know any of them are accountants?”
“You go out there and watch how they move. Only accountants move like that.”
Mason didn’t want to hear his critique of lawyers. “How’d you make out at my office?”
“I didn’t find any more bugs. It looks like somebody cleaned house.”
“How could you tell?”
“The bugs have an adhesive backing to hold them in place. Two phones were sticky where they shouldn’t be sticky.”
“Whose offices?”
“Scott Daniels and Harlan Christenson.”
“If someone was bugging all three offices, why leave the one in Sullivan’s office?”
“Maybe they wanted to or maybe they didn’t have time to pull it out.”
“What’s the range on these things?”
“Not much. Whoever was listening couldn’t have been more than a floor or two away.”
“I’m supposed to find out if Sullivan left any dirty laundry behind. It looks like I may be able to open a dry cleaners.”
Mason left as Blues weaved through the crowd toward his piano.
The next morning, he told Sandra about Blues while they drove to Pamela Sullivan’s house. She accused him of being sexist and patronizing for not telling her sooner. Mason told her she was right. Before he could lie and tell her that he was sorry, she told him that he was on his own if he left her out again and that he was invited to her place for dinner Friday night to show that there were no hard feelings. Mason was still trying to remember when she started calling him Lou when they pulled into Sullivan’s driveway.
“Pamela, this won’t take long,” he said as she let them in. “We need to make certain we’ve got all of Richard’s files on client matters.”
“Of course, I understand.”
“Before I forget, I have your husband’s briefcase at the office. There wasn’t much in it. Just a book, a newspaper, and a CD. I’ll have someone bring it out to you.”
“That’s not necessary. I don’t need it. Keep it or give it away. Can I offer you a Bloody Mary?” she asked, holding up her own tall glass. “I tried orange juice, but I needed something a little stronger. I’m afraid I’m not very good with death.”
“Another time,” Sandra said.
Pamela shrugged, set her glass down on a narrow table in the entry hall, and led them into a paneled, bookshelf-lined study with overstuffed furniture, a fine Persian rug, and prints of English hunt scenes on the walls. A high-backed chair sat next to a small table adorned with an inkwell and feathered quill. A pearl-handled letter opener lay alongside the antique writing instruments.
Sullivan’s desk had six drawers that were devoid of anything related to his law practice. A credenza behind the desk contained tax returns, financial records, and a locked cabinet.
Sandra asked, “Pamela, do you have the key for this cabinet?”
“Try the desk drawer.”
Sandra rifled the desk again with no luck. “Any other suggestions?”
“Well, perhaps.”
Pamela walked over to the bookshelves, reached behind the six-volume Carl Sandburg biography of Abraham Lincoln, and pulled out a handgun. Before they could move, she calmly fired two rounds into the lock.
“There, that should do it.”
They gawked first at Pamela and then at the gaping hole in the cabinet and then back at Pamela.
“Richard bought the gun for me after someone broke in last month. He said it might come in handy. He was seldom wrong,” she said as she returned the gun to its hiding place.
The cabinet was empty except for an unlabeled CD case. Mason opened it and found another DVD.
“Do you mind if we take this to the office, Mrs. Sullivan?” Sandra asked.
“Not at all. But I would appreciate it if you could do a small favor for me.”
“You name it,” Mason said.
“Have someone let me know what to do to collect Richard’s death benefit. When he told me about it, I never imagined actually getting the money. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who would ever die.”
She said it with a wistful, sad tone laced with genuine surprise. Her mix of anger and grief since last Sunday made sense to Mason, as did her drinking. Sullivan may have been a son of a bitch, but he was her son of a bitch. It was the way a lot of dead people left their survivors.
Still, her request felt as if she’d just fired another round from her revolver. Mason wasn’t ready to tell her that her husband had been diagnosed with HIV and didn’t get the life insurance policy to pay for his buyout and that the firm didn’t have the money to pay her. He would leave that happy task to Scott after Mason warned him about her gun. But he did tell Sandra on the drive back to the office.
She looked straight ahead as she muttered through clenched teeth, “That no-good son of a bitch!”
“Seems likely,” Mason said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The conference room had given birth to a landfill. It was littered with half-empty coffee cups, Coke cans, wadded paper, and pizza boxes. Phil and Maggie had matching sets of bags under their eyes. Diane Farrell looked fresh, rested, and completely in charge.
They had rolled in portable erasable whiteboards to keep track of O’Malley’s projects. Each project was cross-referenced to the others so that assets, ownership, and attorneys could be visualized at a glance. Diane was busily entering data on the computer so they could sort information into endless combinations.
“Diane, what do you know about these? We found one in Sullivan’s office here and the other one at his house.”
Mason handed her the two DVD cases.
“You found Richard’s porno flicks-big deal.” She turned back to her computer monitor. “What do you want-a psychohistory of a man who watched dirty movies on his computer? Give it a rest. Besides, we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, Diane, you work for me now, so unless you want to peddle your bullshit at another firm, cut the crap. Make sure there’s nothing else on these DVDs.”
Mason wasn’t certain he could fire Diane, but he doubted that anyone would fight to keep her now that Sullivan was gone.
“The king is dead. Long live the king. Would now be soon enough?”
For her, it was a surrender speech.
“That would be lovely, Diane.”
She inserted each disk into her computer and pulled up a list of the contents on the disks. The only document shown on each was the movie title.
“Satisfied, boss?”
“How do you know if the list identifies everything on the disks?”
“That’s what it’s for.”
“Can you put something on the disk that wouldn’t show up on the list, something that you’d have to have a special password to access?”
“I don’t know. Programming is not one of my areas. I just run the software on the system.”
“All right.” Mason turned his attention to Phil and Maggie. “How far have you gotten?”
“Phil and I are about halfway through the files. We should have the raw information compiled in a couple of days. Then we have to figure out what we’ve gathered. Some trends are starting to appear,” Maggie said.
She stopped, waiting for them to ask her to continue. It was the nature of too many young lawyers not to speak unless spoken to, especially if they’d been to the Sullivan school of intimidation.
