Legal Tender

“I had a date,” he said evenly.

“Who with?”

“My old girlfriend. We see each other from time to time.”

“What time did the date start?”

“At ten. I picked her up at her condo. She lives in Hopkinson House.”

“What time did you leave work?”

“After we all met in the library. I packed and left.” His answers were smooth and sure and he seemed poised, if piqued. It looked and sounded like the truth, so maybe it was. Still.

“When did you leave her apartment?”

“I’m not sure that’s your business.”

“I think it is, if you want to keep a client.”

His mouth tensed. “About seven in the morning, then I went back to my apartment.”

“In Old City?”

He nodded. “I got to work early to do some cleanup onMicroMAXel, and the police were already here. When I got the distinct impression it was you they were after, I tried to reach you. Because I knew you were innocent.”

I ignored the accusation in his tone. “Grady, what were you working on for Mark?”

“Nothing. I haven’t worked with Mark for the past two years. Not after my first year here.”

Hmmm. “Why not? Didn’t you like working for Mark?”

Grady’s expression changed slightly, his forehead creasing with discomfort. “What’s the difference? The man has passed, Bennie. I like working my own cases, that’s all.”

“That’s not all. Why?”

“All right, all right. You’re relentless.” He eased into a chair like a benched basketball player. “I found Mark to be selfish. Unkind. He didn’t like me developing my own practice, especially with the software companies. It threatened him.”

“How do you know? Did he tell you?”

“No, but I got the message. Mark was more comfortable working with someone subordinate, like Eve. He wanted a permanent second chair, not a first chair. He didn’t want an equal at all.”

I still needed an answer for the CO Wells. “Did you meet with him and discuss it? You two have it out?”

“Fight? Lord, no. I haven’t talked to Mark, alone, for ages. So, now will you tell me what you were printing? We have a deal.”

“Oh, a personal file,” I said, fumbling for an explanation. Grady was lying. The calendar proved otherwise. I couldn’t tell him the truth, not now. I couldn’t trust him anymore. And he was my lawyer.

“A personal file?”

“Love letters, to Mark. Seven years’ worth, in a hidden file. I didn’t want them on the computer anymore,” I told him, in a nervous tone it wasn’t hard to fake. Had Grady really killed Mark? Was he representing me to frame me? Outside in the hall there were voices, and bustling sounds. My house, full of my enemies. Now Grady. I felt paranoid, uneasy.

“The criminalist said it was a calendar.”

“She saw my diary. I printed that, too, because I make notes on it. I wanted to keep it private, since the police took my computer at home.”

His brow relaxed, and he seemed satisfied. “Did you delete the files from the hard disk?”

“Yes.” I remembered Grady was a computer whiz. Did he know how to find hidden files, even in backup? “Could the police retrieve deleted files, if they got to the computers in time?”

“If they had a hacker on staff.”

“How good a hacker? Good as you?”

“Good as Marshall.” He frowned. “She’s gone, you know.”

“Gone?”

“That’s what I was coming to tell you. I went to ask her about her alibi, but she wasn’t in. I called her house and one of her housemates said she didn’t come home last night. She’s disappeared.”

16

By midmorning I ventured out of my office to see if Marshall had materialized. I’d been calling her and leaving messages, but no one picked up. I was conflicted about her disappearance so soon after Mark’s murder. Either she was in trouble or it was a vanishing act. A lose-lose proposition. Could she be connected to Mark’s murder? Did the cops know she was gone? It seemed inconceivable she was the killer, and I wasn’t about to put her on the hook to get myself off.

I was hoping one of the associates knew where she was. I walked down the second floor hallway, avoiding the stare of another criminalist, and knocked on Renee Butler’s door. “Renee? You in? It’s Bennie.”

The door opened after a moment, and Renee, in baggy jeans and a gray sweatshirt, stood there, appraising me with a cold eye. “What?”

“Do you know where Marshall is? I’ve been calling her, but there’s no answer.”

“No,” she said. She turned without another word, went back to her desk, and sat down. I saw with dismay that the office had been almost completely emptied. Cardboard boxes were stacked on the floor and files and books were packed in shopping bags.

“I think we need to talk, don’t you?” I gestured at the chair across from her desk, but she shook her head.

“No, I don’t have anything to talk to you about.Latorno is almost done, I’m double-checking the cites. It’ll be on your desk in an hour. My resignation will be with it. Today is my last day.”

“Today?” I sat down anyway, in what was left of her office furniture. Only her altar to Denzel Washington was still standing, in the corner; a poster of the star in a muscle shirt, sloe-eyed, with fan magazine cutouts beside it. I’d initially been opposed to the display, but Renee’s domestic abuse clients were tickled by it and they needed the levity. So did I, right now. “You sure you want to go, Renee?”

“Yes.”

“What will you do?”

“Go solo. I’ll work out of my house, starting in a week or two. There’s room enough, it’s right in town, and Eve doesn’t mind.” She smoothed back her hair, which was pressed into a stiff French twist and emphasized the heart shape of her face. Renee had pretty features, her skin as rich a brown as her eyes, and I never minded her extra weight.

“Why not stay? I’m working on keeping the firm. We could use you.I could use you.” It was true. She was one of the smartest lawyers at R amp; B, her raw intelligence emerging despite a childhood in the projects and an education in the city schools.

“I don’t care if there’s a firm or not, I won’t work with you. I know you killed Mark.”

It fell like a blow. “No I didn’t. Why do you think I’m the killer?”

She leaned forward. “You saw Mark leaving you and taking R amp; B with him. You loved him and the firm, and you saw them both slipping away. You had to stop it. And you’re big enough and strong enough to do it, and you have no decent explanation for where you were at the time.”

“That’s all circumstantial. None of it proves anything. The cops haven’t even charged me.”

“Whether they ever do or not doesn’t matter to me. I know you did it. I know how angry you are inside.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She eased back into her chair. “What’s the point? I told myself I wasn’t going to talk about this with you, and I’m not. Our association is over. I dropped off those books you lent me. I told the cops what I knew.”

“Told the cops what? What do you know? There’s nothing to know!”

“I told them about that day we ran the steps at Franklin Field,” she said, the conviction in her tone infuriating.