Rosato and Associates: Legal Tender Part 27

"I'm a lawyer and I really, really, really need to get into that clinic."

"Why?"

"It's a long story. I'll tell you on the way."

He paused, considering it. Then he opened the middle drawer. Maybe he didn't think so badly on his feet after all.

Chapter 37.

We walked down the glistening white corridor of the law school. Everything was stark and modern, except for the gold-framed oil portraits on the walls, one dead lawyer after another. I trailed behind the law student, whose name turned out to be Glenn Milestone, as he led me through the halls and down the bas.e.m.e.nt to the legal clinic. He unlocked the door when we reached it, and it swung open onto a new office that cost more than its indigent clients would make in a lifetime.

"You swear you won't steal anything?" Glenn said for the fiftieth time.

"Swear to G.o.d. And you're not going to tell the cops, right?"

"I swear. I'm going, I don't want to see this." He slipped the keys into the pocket of his baggy shorts and turned away.

"Thanks." I watched him go, then looked around to make sure n.o.body was watching. The place was deserted, so I went inside and closed the door behind me.

The clinic was set up for the kids to play office in, and I half expected to see toy cash registers with Monopoly money in white, pink, and the coveted yellow. There was a small reception area and I went past it to the hall. Off the hall was a lineup of offices. Each one was the same, with steel desks against the wall and padded chairs in front, but I was looking for the file room. I found it at the end of the hall and flicked on the light.

The files were alphabetical. I went to the J's and yanked out the drawer. The files were neatly kept by the lawyers-to-be, and I thumbed through the Jacksons, Jameses, Jimenezes, and Joneses. No Jennings. I stopped, stumped for a moment.

Renee graduated from law school three years ago, so any client file of hers had probably been put away. Where did the law babies keep the dead files? I glanced around but there were no cardboard file boxes or archives in sight. Maybe they were in the file cabinets, unlabeled. I opened the drawers, one after another, each one sliding out with a smooth sound. No dice. They were all current files, applications for credits and evaluation forms, form complaints, answers, and other pleadings. d.a.m.n.

I slammed the last one closed and stood there snarling, my hands on my hips. There must be storage somewhere. No lawyer throws away files. No lawyer throws away anything. I thought about my young friend Glenn. I was having second thoughts about him. How long before he told them about me? Would he betray me? How much time did I have? I left the file room and hustled through the office, searching for a storage room.

I ran down the hall, then checked the closets in the offices. Coats, umbrellas, and backpacks. No luck. Behind one of the offices was a small coffee room. I went inside. A can of Folger's sat next to an abandoned coffeemaker and a cord of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Red Zinger, Ginseng Plus, Sleepytime Tea, my a.s.s. I wouldn't hire a kid who didn't drink coffee. No fire in the belly. I shoved the chamomile aside and opened the closet door.

BIERS BUSINESS ARCHIVES, said the cardboard boxes. Bingo. The same archives we used at Grun. I yanked on a hanging string and turned on the closet light, but it was still too dim. I dug in my handbag for my penlight, got up on tiptoe in my clumpy shoes, and rummaged in the first box. They were dead files, but only the first part of the alphabet. I thought I heard voices outside and waited. Nothing. My heart began to pound as I dove into the middle box, propping up the other boxes on my shoulder.

Hilliard. Jacobs. Jensen. A tiny circle of light fell on each manila folder. Then finally, Jennings. My hands began to tremble as I yanked out the folder, then peeked inside to see if it was Eileen's. Complaint In Divorce, said the papers. It was a draft, and the caption read EILEEN JENNINGS V. ARTHUR JENNINGS.

Yes! I flicked off the penlight. But was it the same Eileen Jennings? I tugged the manila folder from the box and flipped to the back of the first pleading. It was signed, in a neat hand, by the name of the lawyer wannabe who drafted it: So Renee had been Eileen's lawyer! I fought the impulse to read the file and stuffed it in my purse so Glenn wouldn't see me carrying it out. I felt momentarily guilty for breaking my word to him, but it couldn't be helped. I was about to leave when a news clipping sailed to the floor. I picked it up. The paper was yellowed and the printing blotchy, like a neighborhood newspaper: York Man Found Slain A York man, Arthur "Zeke" Jennings, was found dead in the alley beside Bill's Taproom this morning, at Eighth and Main. He died from multiple stab wounds. Police Chief Jeffrey Danziger said the police have no suspects in the murder at the present time.

What? The clipping must have dropped from Eileen's file. I held it in my hand and mentally rewound Eileen's ca.s.sette tape. She'd said her husband had been shot in a hunting accident, not stabbed in an alley. What gives? And was Renee connected with it somehow? She must have been.

I heard a noise outside in the hall, then something creaky being dragged. I swallowed hard. Someone was coming in. There was no time to run.

"Who's there?" called a woman's voice, from the clinic hallway.

"Linda Frost," I answered.

"Who's Linda Frost?" she asked, coming into view. A stocky black woman, at least fifty years old, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She pulled an old cleaning cart with a white bag attached, and she squinted at me with suspicion. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm a partner at Grun & Chase, one of the law firms downtown, and I needed some information on a clinic student. They let me in to get it."

"In the middle of the d.a.m.n night?"

"We want to make her an offer tomorrow, and I forgot my notes."

"Well, they wouldn't be in that closet. The students never go in there. That's old files."

"Oh. I thought they might have stuck them in here. You know, put them away. After the interview."

"You interviewed students here today?"

"Yes. Right."

She put a skeptical hand on her soft hip. "What's this student's name? Maybe I know him. I know all the students in the clinic."

"I don't think you know this one. She graduated a few years ago."

"I been here ten years, come December." She rolled her cleaning cart in front of the door, blocking it, and not inadvertently. "What's the student's name?"

I gave up. I was out of lies. "Renee Butler."

"Oh, Renee!" Her broad face burst into a sunny grin and her distrust melted instantly into warmth. "I know Renee! Well, well, well, you lookin' to give Renee a job? You'd be lucky to have her, yes you would. She's smart, that girl, and sweet as jelly. She helped everybody that came through here and plenty of them needed it, believe me."

"I'm sure," I said, surprised.

"And she's not a sn.o.b, that girl, no sir. Not high-and-mighty just 'cause she's a lawyer. Always remembers my birthday, even now. Renee sends me a card, every August the 12th. She's smart as a whip. And strong."

"Strong?"

"Very strong. Come through fire." She nodded emphatically. "She had a bad childhood, you know. Her daddy, he beat her and her momma. She had to raise herself, that child, and she did a pretty good job of it."

I thought of Eileen's husband and the beatings she talked about on the tape. Maybe this woman knew something. "Renee told me she helped a lot of abused women at this clinic."

"She did. She was a hard worker, always went the extra mile." She nodded again, and I began to wonder what the extra mile included. Had Eileen killed her husband and Renee covered it up? And what, if anything, did that have to do with Bill or Mark? The cleaning woman had fallen silent and was looking at me expectantly. I didn't think she knew any more, so I stood up stiffly, closed the closet door, and replaced the Red Zinger.

"Thanks for your time now. I think I'll recommend she be hired. I'd better go."

"What about your notes?" She rolled her cart slowly from the threshold, and I squeezed past it, catching a strong whiff of ammonia.

"I don't need them, after talking to you. Bye, now." I went down the office corridor as quickly as I could without renewing her suspicion.

"When you see Renee, tell her 'hi' from Jessie Morgan, will you?" she called after me.

"Sure."

"And tell her to get her fat b.u.t.t to the next meeting! I never miss a meeting, I lost twenty-eight pounds in one year and kept off every single ounce!"

I reached the clinic door. "Meeting?" I asked, at the threshold.

"Weight Watchers! She missed last Monday night!"

But I couldn't ask another question. Glenn was hustling down the hall towards me, and with him were Azzic and three uniformed cops.

Chapter 38.

Run. Flee. Go! I turned around and sprinted out the exit onto Samson Street.

"Freeze, Rosato!" Azzic shouted. "You're under arrest!"

I hit the sidewalk outside at a breakneck pace. My heart pumped wildly. My only hope was to outrun them. I'd always been the fastest on my crew.

"Stop, Rosato!" Azzic bellowed from not far behind me, but I barreled up the street.

SCCRREEEEEEEEEEE! A cruiser siren blared in back of me, joined by others screeching in unison. f.u.c.k. Even I couldn't outrun a car. I needed to go where the squad cars couldn't. Where? I thought back to my college days. My legs churned faster. My heart pumped harder. Adrenaline surged into my bloodstream like jet fuel.

"Rosato! Freeze! Now!"

I careened around the corner and raced across Walnut Street in the dark, dodging cabs and a Ford Explorer that honked angrily. The uniformed cops were right behind me, I could hear their shouted directions to each other as I darted for the main campus. Students hanging out on the common gaped as we ran by. I bolted past them, the police sirens deafening, then took a hard right up Locust Walk. No cars were allowed on the Walk, it was blocked off by cement stanchions. I'd be safe from the cruisers here.

"Rosato! Give it up!"

I glanced backward. No cruisers, but their sirens screamed close by. They'd be flying up Walnut Street, parallel to me. The uniforms were lagging behind but Azzic was gaining. He reached into his jacket as he ran and pulled out his gun in a practiced motion.

I felt the shock of sheer terror. Please don't shoot me I didn't do it. I faced front and put on the afterburners.

"Stop or I'll shoot!" Azzic ordered.

A bystander screamed. I imagined Azzic dropping to his knee and aiming two-handed for my back, so I zigzagged for a few steps, then ran like h.e.l.l. I tore up the Walk and hit the concrete footbridge spanning Thirty-Eighth Street, taking its steep grade in stride. Charging up the hill with power and muscle and stone-cold fear. It was almost easy after the stadium steps. I ignored the pain in my thighs, the ache in my lungs. Even my shoes were helping, bouncy as running shoes.

One, two, three, breathe. One, two, three, breathe. Keep your knees high.

I reached the crest of the footbridge and streaked full tilt down the other side. The momentum carried me down the hill. I accelerated, surefooted from the stadium steps. My breathing was easy and free, my wind strong. Soon I couldn't hear Azzic's voice anymore. I couldn't feel the strain, I couldn't feel anything. I was running, I was moving, I was gone. Slicing down the blackness like a scull. Running, rowing hard.

n.o.body was faster. n.o.body rowed better. The night blew cool. The wind gusted behind me. The city was far away, so were the police. The city lights, streetlights, the headlights were pinpoints in the darkness, on the banks of the river. Everything was far away. There was only me, my heart pumping explosively, doing what I'd trained it to do. Sweat poured down my body. I took it up for ten power strokes with energy to spare.

One, two, three strokes, to move the scull. It was a race and I was riding high, a long-legged waterskate, feeling only the speed and the spray. Hearing only the clean chop of the oars as they splashed into the moving water, one stroke after another. No halting, no lurching, just the smoothest race possible, pulling the oar hard and then harder. Four, five, six. Rowing fast and then faster.

Taking flight. The creak of the rigging. The smell of the river. The wetness of the spray. The cops were gone. Azzic was gone. Seven, eight, nine, ten. I'd finally found the rhythm and I couldn't go wrong.

In the middle of the river, in the middle of the night.

I slumped on the floor, naked and exhausted behind the locked door of my room in the bas.e.m.e.nt. I had stripped off my wet clothes, but was still sweating from heat, exertion, and fear. The room was arid, my lungs burned. I felt dizzy, nauseated. I couldn't think clearly, my brain was a fog. I blinked sweat out of my eyes and tried not to drip on the clinic file as I turned the page.

It was a typical case file, except it was neater. The correspondence file, in its own manila folder on the top, contained only form letters from Renee at the legal clinic and no response letters from Eileen. I tossed the folder aside, not caring where it landed.

The pleadings index held restraining orders against Eileen's husband, filed by Renee. Ten orders in all, with contempt citations when the previous court order was broken. There were fines levied against Eileen's husband, but he must have been judgment-proof. Incarceration orders, too, but he couldn't be found. The record told a story if you could read between the pleadings. The courts couldn't stop Eileen's husband from beating her. She would never be free of him, no matter where she moved, no matter where she went.

Until he was dead.

Had Eileen taken matters into her own hands? Had Renee covered, or even done it for her? Was it possible? I flashed on Renee's childhood and the beatings she must have suffered. There were worse things that fathers could do to their daughters than abandon them. Renee had said she knew the depth of my anger, maybe that was because she knew the depth of her own. And maybe Eileen's anger had struck that same dissonant chord. My head throbbed. It hurt to think. I needed sleep, rest, and food, but I couldn't stop now.

I slapped the pleadings index closed and hunted through the accordion file for Renee's notes. Aboveground there would be sirens screaming for me. Azzic and the cops searching the city. I didn't think anyone had seen me slip into the building but maybe I was wrong. Maybe they were upstairs right now, entering the lobby, finding the staircase down. At the door.

Not yet. Not now. I was so close.

Renee was involved with the murder of Eileen's husband, I just didn't know what Mark had to do with it. Had Mark discovered the truth, and Renee killed him for it? Both men had been stabbed to death.

My damp fingers found notes in one of the folders. I squinted to read them, but they wouldn't come into focus. I felt light-headed, disoriented. The notes were scribbled in ballpoint on legal paper, apparently notes from another interview with Eileen. I was so close I could smell it. I just couldn't read it. My head was killing me, and the handwriting was terrible. I held up the paper. Renee didn't have sloppy writing, did she? I fought to remember but my brain wouldn't work.

I threw the paper aside and ripped through the file. I felt sick, crazy, almost deranged. Where was it? What was it? There had to be an answer. Mark was dead. Bill was dead. I had to find the answer, I was dead if I didn't. It had to be here. The initial complaint stared back at me from my wet hand. I tore off page after page, scattering it w.i.l.l.y-nilly, until I got to the last. The signatures.

There. Renee Butler's signature. It swam before me, teasing me like a fish just under the water's surface. I held the signature page next to the messy notes. I blinked. They were completely different. Renee's script was careful, but the notes were careless. Who had taken these notes? Who else had worked on Eileen's case? Another clinic lawyer? Who?

I ransacked the file, then dumped it onto the dirty concrete floor. A waterbug scurried by but I ignored him, tearing through page after page. The file flew in all directions. I was losing my mind. I found the clipping and read it again, then hurled it across the room.

Think. Think. Think. a.s.sume Renee killed Eileen's husband, what did that have to do with Mark? Where was Renee the night Mark was killed? What had the cleaning lady said, just before I saw the cops? And what had Hattie said, about Renee bringing a box of stuff to my house?

I could barely breathe. My brain sizzled. I'd played out the string and reached the end. I slumped forward, doubled over on the littered floor, a madwoman in isolation. I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed silently, every nerve, every muscle stretched to the limit of fear and fatigue. A silent primal scream. A secret cry of pure anguish.

And then it all became clear. My eyes flew open. I sat bolt upright on my haunches.

It had been right in front of me and I hadn't seen it.

Hiding in plain sight.

Now all I had to do was prove it without getting killed.

Chapter 39.

Good morning," I said into my cell phone. "This Leo the Lion?"

"Rosato!" asked Azzic, in disbelief. "What the f.u.c.k -"

"I'm at the federal courthouse. Tenth Floor. Be there or be square." I hung up, flipped the phone shut, and jumped out of the Yellow cab. It was done, set in motion.