I left the letters on my desk and took a walk around the room. Then I sat down in my swivel chair, opened my pencil drawer, and pulled out a pack of index cards. It took me fifteen minutes to jot down the facts as I remembered them, one piece of information per card until I’d exhausted my store. I laid them out on my desk, rearranging the order, shuffling them into columns, looking for connections I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t amount to much from my perspective, but there’d soon be more information available. The autopsy was done by now and the medical examiner would have a concrete opinion about the manner and cause of death. We were all assuming Guy died from blunt-force trauma to the head, but there might be some underlying pathology. Maybe he’d died of a heart attack, maybe he’d been poisoned, expiring in his sleep before the first blow was struck. I couldn’t help but wonder what difference any of it made. Guy would be laid to rest, his body probably taken back to Marcella for burial up there. The various forensic experts would go on sifting through the evidence until the case was resolved. Eventually, the story would be told in its entirety and maybe I’d understand then how everything fit. In the meantime, I was left with all the unrelated fragments and a sick feeling in my stomach.
I took the letters down the hall, the one still encased in its plastic sleeve. At the Xerox machine, I made a copy of each so that I now had two sets. The copies I placed in my briefcase, along with the notes I’d made on my index cards. The originals I locked away carefully in my bottom drawer. When the phone rang, I let the answering machine pick up. “Kinsey, this is Christie Malek. Listen, the police were just here with a warrant for Jack’s arrest-”
I snatched up the receiver. “Christie? It’s me. What’s going on?”
“Oh, Kinsey. Thank God. I’m sorry to bother you, but I didn’t know what else to do. I put a call through to Donovan, but he’s out in the field. I don’t know where Bennet’s gone. He left about nine, without a word to anyone. Do you know the name of a good bail bondsman? Jack told me to get him one, but I’ve looked in the Yellow Pages and can’t tell one from the other.”
“Are you sure he’s in custody? They didn’t just take him to the station for another interview?”
“Kinsey, they put him in handcuffs. They read him his rights and took him off in the back of an unmarked car. We were both in shock. I don’t have any money-less than a hundred bucks in cash-but if I knew who to call. . .”
“Forget about the bondsman. If Jack’s being charged with murder, it’s a no-bail warrant. What he needs is a good criminal attorney and the sooner the better.”
“I don’t know any attorneys, except Tasha!” she shrieked. “What am I supposed to do, pick a name out of a hat?”
“Wait a minute, Christie. Just calm down.”
“I don’t want to calm down. I’m scared. I want help.”
“I know that. I know. Just wait a minute,” I said. “I have a suggestion. Lonnie Kingman’s office is right next door to mine. You want me to go see if he’s in? You can’t do better than Lonnie. He’s a champ.”
She was silent for an instant. “All right, yes. I’ve heard of him. That sounds good.”
“Give me a few minutes and we’ll see what we can do.
SIXTEEN
I caught Lonnie’s secretary, Ida Ruth, on her way back from the kitchen with a coffeepot in hand. I hooked a thumb in the direction of Lonnie’s door. “Is he in there?”
“He’s eating breakfast. Help yourself.”
I tapped on the door and then opened it, peering in. Lonnie was sitting at his desk with an oversized plastic container of some kind of-chalky-looking protein drink. I could see bubbles of dried powder floating on the surface and the barest suggestion of a milky mustache on Lonnie’s upper lip. From assorted bottles, he’d emptied out a pile of vitamins and nutritional supplements, and he was popping down pills between sips of a shake so thick it might have been melted ice cream. One of the gel caps was the size and the color of a stone in a topaz dinner ring. He swallowed it as though he were doing a magic trick.
Lonnie more nearly resembles a bouncer than an attorney. He’s short and stocky-five feet four, two hundred four pounds-bulging with muscles from his twenty years of power lifting. He’s got one of those revved-up metabolisms that burns calories like crazy and he radiates high energy along with body heat. His speech is staccato and he’s generally amped up on coffee, anxiety, or lack of sleep. I’ve heard people claim he’s on the sauce-shooting anabolic steroids in concert with all the iron he pumps. Personally, I doubt it. He’s been manic for the whole nine years of our acquaintance and I’ve never seen him exhibit any of the rage, or aggression allegedly generated by extended steroid use. He’s married to a woman with a black belt in karate and she’s never once complained about testicles shriveled to the size of raisins, another unhappy side effect of steroid abuse.
His usually shaggy hair had. been trimmed and subdued. His dress shirt was pulled tightly across his shoulders and biceps. I don’t know his neck size, but he claims a tie makes him feel he’s on the brink of being hanged. The one he was wearing was pulled askew, his collar unbuttoned, and his suit jacket off. He’d hung it neatly from a hanger hooked through the handle of a file drawer. His shirt was spanking white, but badly wrinkled, and he had rolled up the sleeves. Sometimes he wears a vest to conceal his rumpled state, but not today. He swallowed the last of a palmful of pills, holding up a hand to indicate that he was aware of me. He chugged off the balance of his protein drink and shook his head with satisfaction. “Whew, that’s good.”
“Are you tied up at the moment?”
“Not at all. Come on in.”
I entered the office and closed the door behind me. “I just got a call from Christie Malek. Have you been following that, story?”
“The murder? Who hasn’t? Sit, sit, sit. I’m not due in court until two P.M. What’s up?”
“Jack Malek’s been arrested and needs to talk to an attorney. I told Christie I’d see if you were interested.” I took a seat in one of two black leather client chairs.
“When was he picked up?”
“Fifteen or twenty minutes ago, I’d guess.”
Lonnie began to screw the lids back on the motley collection of bottles sitting on his desk. “What’s the deal? Fill me in.”
I brought him up to speed on the case as succinctly as possible. This was our first conversation about the murder and I wanted him to have as thorough an understanding as I could muster on short notice. As I spoke, I could see Lonnie’s gears engage and the wheels start to turn. I was saying, “Last I heard-this was from the housekeeper-Guy and Jack quarreled after hours of heavy drinking and Jack went off to a pairings’ party at the country club.”
“I wonder how the cops are gonna bust that one. You’d think at least half a dozen people would have seen him there.” Lonnie shot a glance at his watch and began to roll his sleeves down. “I’ll pop on over to the station house and see what’s going on. I hope Jack has sense enough to keep his mouth shut until I get there.”
He pushed away from his desk and took his suit jacket from the hanger. He shrugged himself into it, secured his collar button, and slid his tie into place. Now he looked more like a lawyer, albeit a short, beefy one. “By the way, where does Jack fit? He the oldest or the youngest?”
“The youngest. Donovan’s the oldest. He runs the company. Bennet’s in the middle. I wouldn’t rule him out if you’re looking to divert suspicion. He was the most vocal in his opposition to Guy’s claim on the estate. You want me to do anything before you get back?”
“Tell Christie I’ll be in touch as soon as I’ve talked to him. In the meantime, go on over to the house. Let’s put together a list of witnesses who can confirm Tuesday night. The cops find the murder weapon?”
“They must have. I know they did a grid search of the property because I saw ’em doing it. And Christie says they carted off all kinds of things.”
“Once I finish with Jack, I’ll have a chat with the cops and find out why they think he’s good for thins. It’d be nice to have some idea what we’re up against.”