“Which makes no sense. He might change his will. But he’d never revoke it. That would cost his estate a fortune in taxes. He’d spent his entire career making sure his clients avoided taxes. I wonder if Scott knew about this.”
“What happens to the estate now?”
“In Kansas, if you die without a will, the entire estate, after taxes, goes to your heirs. Your spouse gets one- half and your kids share the rest equally. Pamela and Sullivan didn’t have any children, so she gets it all.”
“And the charities get screwed. Just in case ten million bucks wasn’t enough to see her through her golden years, now she gets twenty million. I think the DA’s case just got a little better.”
“Not if Pamela didn’t know that Sullivan revoked his will. In Kansas, a spouse has to give written consent to the terms of the other spouse’s will, which Pamela did. She didn’t have to consent to the codicil, and she didn’t.”
“Who witnessed the will?”
Mason flipped to the last page and read the names. “Maggie Boylan and Sullivan’s secretary.”
“And the codicil?”
“Diane Farrell and Angela Molina.”
“I’ll talk to them later,” Kelly said. “The hearing on Pamela’s bail is this afternoon. Let’s have dinner at J.J.’s. Blues told me he’s playing there tonight. Meet me at seven thirty?”
“Are you serving dessert?”
Third kisses are answers, and Mason didn’t have any more questions.
After Kelly left, Mason’s secretary told him that Sandra was waiting for him in her office.
“Sorry about this morning, Lou. I had a late night,” she said.
Sandra’s desk was an oval-shaped slab of blood-veined marble supported by shiny silver pedestals at each end. The effect was simultaneously cold and passionate.
A bookcase held a collection of reference books. He noticed a copy of the
“Do you have any personal injury cases?”
“No, why?”
“I just wondered about your
“I sold pharmaceuticals and medical equipment before I went to law school. It’s a leftover from those days.”
Her long legs, crossed at the ankles, reached under the marble slab. She dropped a dangling shoe and brushed her toes against his pant leg, the effect swimming upstream against the lingering sensation of Kelly’s kiss. Mason decided to ignore her toes.
“O’Malley fired us. I hope you had better luck with the son.”
“Vic Jr. isn’t so bad if you keep his hands busy. I’ll know all his secrets by the end of the week.”
“That’s not a fair fight.”
“And I don’t like fair fights. He’s picking me up for lunch. I’ll be back in time for the partners’ meeting.”
The receptionist called, announcing that Vic Jr. had arrived. Mason walked with Sandra to the front desk, where Angela was pretending to be entertained by him. He left her hanging in midsentence when Sandra flashed her melting-point smile before taking him by the arm and heading for the elevator. He was grinning as if he’d just gotten a date with the homecoming queen.
“Don’t tell me?” Angela said.
“Yep. Hard to believe, isn’t it?”
“How can she stand the creep?”
“She put a leash on his dick and told him to heel.”
Turning around, Mason saw Scott watching Sandra and Vic Jr.’s dating game from inside the conference room behind him. Scott shifted his gaze to Mason for a moment before turning away, his eyes as cold as Sandra’s marble slab.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Diane Farrell was waiting for Mason in his office. “You want to talk about the fixtures deals or try and figure them out on your own?” She was sitting in the chair Kelly had occupied an hour earlier, holding a sandwich in one hand and a bottle of root beer in the other. “I brought you a sandwich. Consider it a peace offering,” she said as she shoved a brown paper bag toward him.
“Do I need a food taster?”
“Don’t be such a tight-ass. Try living on the edge. It’s turkey and horseradish on rye. Same as me.” She took a bite of her sandwich and washed it down with root beer.
Mason examined the sandwich and resisted the temptation to sniff it before he bit into it. “Thanks,” he managed to force out before the horseradish lit a fire in the back of his throat.
Diane laughed, reached beneath the table, and produced another bottle of root beer. She twisted the top off and handed it to Mason.
“You don’t like me, do you?” she asked him.
Mason wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Nope.”
Diane laughed again. “Good. I don’t like you either. Makes us even.”
“Then why did you buy my lunch and offer to help me with the fixtures deals?”
“Sullivan was my boss. I still work here. It’s my job. Take your pick.”
“Works for me. Tell me what I need to know.”
“Quintex started investing in these deals in 2008.”
“How many deals?”
“Twenty. In each transaction, Quintex purchased fifty thousand to seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of fixtures.”
“What kind of fixtures?”
“Retail store and entertainment fixtures. They could be used to display merchandise, serve food, or house televisions and stereos in bars and restaurants.”
“What were the economics?”
“Quintex leased the fixtures to other companies for thirty-five hundred to six thousand dollars a month on a ten-year lease with two ten-year options. Quintex usually got its money back in eighteen months. Ten of the deals have paid back the initial investment and just over half a million dollars in profit in the last year.”
Mason finished his sandwich and his root beer and jotted some figures on a legal pad.
“At an average of sixty thousand dollars per year per lease, Quintex will make twelve million dollars over ten years on an initial investment of around a million and a quarter. Who did Quintex buy the fixtures from?”
“I can tell you the names of the companies, but they won’t mean anything. They’re just shells. A parent corporation owns each one. Each parent owned five of the seller corporations. Two holding companies owned these four and a final holding company owned these two. All the companies were set up in Nevada.”
“So what?”
“I forgot you don’t do corporate work. Nevada doesn’t require shareholders and directors to be identified in state records. It lets the companies keep their ownership secret. Kind of like a Swiss bank account.”
“Somebody must have signed the papers?”
“Lawyers in Chicago had power of attorney. The firm is Caravello and Landusky. They represented the companies that sold the fixtures and the companies that leased them.”
Mason tore off the page of figures, wadded it into a ball, and fired it at his wastebasket.
“Somebody has gone to a lot of trouble to hide the ownership. If the Chicago lawyers are representing the sellers and the lessees, they could be one and the same. Otherwise, the lawyers would have a conflict of interest.”
