Jeff Sherratt - The Brimstone Murders

I was irritated that I let the counterman at Dolan’s get on my nerves, making me waste the donuts and almost a full cup. It wasn’t his fault that my nerves were shot. But the photo pushed me over the limit, reminded me that I was still a target and that my problems wouldn’t go away until I somehow brought Robbie back.

“Psst, Jimmy. Over here.”

I set the cup down and glanced around. It sounded like Rita, but no one was in sight.

“Psst, Jimmy. Your office, quick.”

I saw her peeking out from behind the slightly opened office door and walked to where she stood. She pushed the door open all the way, pulled me in, and quickly closed it behind us. She looked tense.

“Rita, my God, what’s the matter?”

One hand covering her mouth, she stood with her back to the door and jabbed her finger toward the filing cabinet across the room.

“Did you see a mouse?”

She dropped both hands. “Oh Christ , Jimmy, gimme a break,” she said. “Your gun is behind the filing cabinet.”

“What?”

“Yeah, your gun.”

I rushed to the cabinet and pulled it out a little. Sure enough, a.38 revolver sat there, as if someone had carelessly dropped it into the space between the cabinet and the wall. I ran to my desk, found a wire coat hanger, fished out the gun, and held the hanger with the.38 dangling by its trigger guard.

Rita grabbed her purse off my desk and held it open in front of her. “Don’t touch the gun, Jimmy. Quick, drop it in here.”

Suddenly a bag of emotions, sadness, and guilt rocked my consciousness. I knew what she was planning. Rita was going to hide the gun, not turn it over to the police.

We both figured the gun was the murder weapon. The cylinder held five live rounds and one spent cartridge. By concealing the weapon, she would not only be violating her personal code of ethics, she’d be breaking the law. If caught, she’d not only lose her bar license, she’d go to jail. Rita was going to risk all of that for me.

“No, Rita…”

“We don’t have much time. Gimme the gun!”

“Go and call Hammer. Tell him you found the murder weapon.”

She didn’t move. She just stood there silently, holding her purse open. She looked small and vulnerable and hurt. My head throbbed with frustration. We stood there eye to eye for what seemed like a long time, but it was only a few seconds.

“Rita,” I finally said. “How did you know it was there?”

She lowered her purse. “Last night when I was getting ready for bed, I started thinking about the gun, and what you said about it being the murder weapon. Remember, you said how the real killer would hide it where the cops would eventually find it and it would be somewhere that would make you look guilty?”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well, I climbed into bed, turned out the lights, but it kept nagging me. I couldn’t sleep. Something was missing. Then it hit me. Where else could the real killer have planted the gun to implicate you?” She was quiet for a moment, giving me a chance to absorb what she was saying.

“My God, Rita you’re right. It could’ve been behind that cabinet since the murder.”

“I got up and rushed here. I wouldn’t be able to sleep until-”

“Until you came to the office and searched and found the gun.”

“It only took about five minutes to find it. The killer would bring it back to your office. Finally, I peeked behind the cabinet. Bingo. But here’s the scary part.”

“What?”

“The police already searched all around the crime scene, your apartment, and heck, they even scoured the trash bins. Now they’ll get a warrant and search the office.”

“It was easy for them to get the no-knock to search my apartment,” I said. “But to get a warrant to search a criminal defense lawyer’s office would be a lot harder. They would have to get a special master to accompany them.”

“He’d have to oversee the search,” Rita said.

“Yeah, client privilege, our files are sacrosanct. To get one, they’d need solid evidence. The D.A. would have to be involved. Even Frisco wouldn’t sign a warrant assigning a special master without a compelling reason. Too many watchful eyes.”

“Jimmy, the very fact that you were the last known person to see Hazel Farris is enough to convince a judge. But, getting a special master would delay the search. Maybe only for a day or so, though.”

“The cops could show up sometime today.”

“That’s what I figured. That’s why I had to be sure your gun wasn’t here. But it was…”

“And the murderer left it here. My God, he was here in my office twice, once when he stole the gun and again when he brought it back.”

“He came in here, got the gun, drove to her trailer, shot her and came back,” Rita said. “He had to come back to hide the gun. He just waltzed in and out like he owned the place. You never lock the doors at night, Jimmy.”

“Maybe it was one of our clients.”

“Don’t be silly, boss, we don’t have any clients. But the killer had to have been here both times. He had to be here when you weren’t sitting behind your desk. He had to know your routine. And he had to know you were defending Robbie. Maybe he was following… or maybe, there were two guys. One guy who stole the gun…”

“Aw, Rita, nobody followed me. Anyone could’ve come in here and taken the gun, and brought it back during the day, even.”

“Like who?”

“We’ll ask Mabel if any delivery guys happened to drop by when neither of us were here,” I said.

“Oh, Jimmy, I hope it’s not the pizza guy. He’s kinda cute.”

“Rita, he’s a pimply-faced kid. You can do better, for crying out loud,” I said with a disingenuous smile. “Anyway, Hazel Farris was killed with a bullet, not a bad anchovy.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I know…” We fell quiet again. Finally I broke the silence. “And now, young lady, you are going to march into the other room and call Hammer. You’ve got to call him before he gets the warrant and comes barging in the door.”

“This is all they’ll need. They’ll come looking for you. They’ll arrest you. I’m not going to bury you.”

“Then I’ll call him myself.”

“You do,” Rita turned and pointed, “and I’ll walk right out that door. You’ll never see me again.” Her voice was filled with strong determination and she waited for me to make my move. I knew Rita, and I knew she meant what she said. She wasn’t bluffing.

“Rita, listen to me. I’m your boss.”

“And, I’m your lawyer, and I’m-”

“Listen to me, please! It might not even be the murder weapon.”

Her face taut, she looked at me. “Wanna bet?”

“Rita, I couldn’t live with myself if I let you violate your personal code of ethics, not to mention break the law. When you first became a lawyer you told me that when the time comes, the time when you have to make the hard choice, you’d do the right thing.”

She stood there and stared silently at her shoes.

“Do you remember saying that?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to make the call?”

Her head snapped up. “No! And I’m not kidding, I’ll walk!”

After my discussion with Rita,I left the office and drove back to Dolan’s to grab a dozen glazed. As the counterman quickly tossed the donuts in a bag, he looked at me with his eyes wide as if I were about to drop dead, or maybe he figured he saw a ghost. I thought about making a scary face, but that wouldn’t be a dignified way for a lawyer to act, so I just said boo. Then I headed directly to the ten-story office building that housed Sol’s corporate security and investigations firm, Silverman Investigations, Inc.