Roger Stelljes - First Case

“Sorry I have to ask this, but where were you last night between midnight and two a.m.?” Mac asked.

“No problem detective, I understand,” Busch replied reasonably. “I left the office around 6:30 last night and spent the night working at home. I went to bed around 10:30 or so. My daughter stayed the night with me.”

Mac and Lich spent another five minutes with follow-up questions and then Mac asked: “So I understand they call you Happy Hour?”

Busch smiled, “Detective McRyan, we demand our people work hard around here, especially our associates, and they make the partners a lot of money. So I don’t think it’s asking too much to take our people out a few times a week for a drink, some appetizers, an occasional nice dinner at Kincaid’s to say thanks for a job well done.”

Mac and Lich worked their ways through the offices for the next two hours, interviewing staff and lawyers regarding Gordon Oliver. They took a break in a conference room just after the lunch hour to look at their notes to review who they’d interviewed, who was left and what they’d learned. It was an interesting mix of people to say the least.

“How about that one lawyer, the older guy with the comb-over, what was his name, Sander Anthony, what a piece of work.”

“The guy who remembered interviewing me when I was in law school?” Mac asked, taking a sip of coffee. “The one who didn’t really like Oliver?”

“Yeah, that guy. He was kind of a douche bag. What did he say about Oliver’s office philandering?”

“Wouldn’t a prudent lawyer avoid the chance of such office scandal by not bedding the help,” Mac replied, mocking Anthony’s stuffy voice. “The one that cracked me up was the woman lawyer, that little pit bull named…”

“Oh yeah, Powers, Barbara Powers,” Lich finished. “Man, she went off on Oliver about his litigation skills, how he did this wrong or that wrong. How cocky and condescending he was.”

“Yeah,” Mac answered. “She’s the one on crack, I think, or at least that’s what some others in the office seem to think.”

“Why do you say that?

“As we were walking down the hall I heard a couple of lawyers quietly chuckling about ‘Barbie Law.’”

“Barbie Law?”

“Yeah, the gist being she makes the law up as she goes along. Let’s just say these folks didn’t hold her legal acumen in high regard,” Mac said with a wry smile and took a last sip of his coffee. “So let’s go over the list. We have some people left to interview. The first one we should interview is Michael Harris, he should be back now.”

Michael Harris was a senior associate who worked exclusively with Stan Busch and had worked with Gordon Oliver extensively over the last four months. Whereas Busch’s and several other partners’ offices spoke of status in the classic building, Harris’s spoke of a busy lawyer gearing up for trial. Red rope files were scattered around the floor of his office. Piles of neatly stacked papers created a skyline across his desk and credenza with multicolored cardboard and ceramic coffee cups littered among the stacks. Harris’s suit coat was draped over one of his guest chairs. His white button down collar shirt was open at the collar, his plain black tie loose and askew and his shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows. No pictures, no art nor even his law degree were to be found on the walls. Harris looked like one of those overworked lawyers you saw on a television show. Harris was all business.

If others in the firm were surprised by Oliver’s death, Harris was the opposite, “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

“Why not?” Mac asked.

“Gordy lived on the edge. He worked hard and played even harder.”

“How did he play hard?” Lich asked.

Harris looked at Lich skeptically, “Really? How many people have you spoken with around here?”

Mac scanned his notes, there were too many to count, “Let’s just say lots.”

“And you talked to Happy Hour, right?”

Mac nodded.

“Then you know about Gordon. He was a womanizer, a twenty-four seven hard-on unlike anyone I’ve ever seen. He worked all day, went out drinking at night with the express goal of getting some action. That included women here in the office and outside the office. He wasn’t terribly discriminating.” Harris proceeded to give them the women Busch, Preston and others had given them.

“We’re going to be looking into that,” Mac said. “Were there any other issues, beyond his womanizing, perhaps with work? Was there a conflict with another lawyer or client perhaps?”

Harris shook his head, “This case is really the first one I’ve worked extensively on with Gordon so I can’t be sure but I doubt it. He did exceptional work for me and Happy Hour. He was always available for his clients, almost too available.”

“What do mean too available?”

“Oh nothing really. It’s just that Gordon would walk around the office with his cell phone attached to his ear. He’d answer it anywhere and everywhere and he would walk around the office talking to clients on it almost as a way to… I don’t know… show everyone else,” Harris rolled his eyes, “how hard he was working. As if we all weren’t. It was all just a little too haughty for my taste.”

“You sound like you didn’t like Oliver,” Lich said, not a question, but a statement.

Harris shook his head. “Gordon was a little annoying and arrogant, that cell phone thing being an example and I certainly didn’t approve of his off hours activities and I will not be surprised if that is what ultimately got him killed. But when it came to work, he was all business. I could give him something and he would it get done, done right and efficiently. He was a fourth year associate but he was really doing the work of a fifth or sixth year associate. Gordon was that good. Whatever led to his death, I seriously doubt it had anything to do with how he practiced law.”

“Where were you between midnight and two a.m. last night?”

“I left the office at 11:30 and was at my apartment on Grand Avenue within ten minutes and five minutes after that I was in bed and a minute after that I was asleep.”

Genevieve Mathis was short, almost tiny, maybe not even five feet tall. She was dressed in a conservative plain black pant suit and cream blouse buttoned at the neck. She had applied a light layer of makeup and her shoulder length straight black hair was generally un-styled unless you counted that she pulled it behind her ears. She had the look of a serious worker in the office and she didn’t strike Mac as the type to indiscriminately hook up with someone like Gordon Oliver. She just didn’t look the part but the phrase ‘you can’t judge a book by its cover’ jumped into his head as he quickly assessed her. Mathis was a paralegal who worked for the firm’s trusts and estates group.

Mac got right to it, “We understand you had a relationship with Gordon Oliver and that caused some issues on your domestic front.”

“It wasn’t a relationship, detective. I slept with Gordon a few times.”

“Why?”

“What does that matter?”

“Mr. Oliver is dead. So it matters,” Mac pressed.

Mathis nodded and exhaled, “I have a boyfriend, detective. We’ve dated for a really long time. I don’t know, maybe it got boring and Gordon came onto me a few times. We were out for drinks one night with a small group here from the firm. He asked me if I wanted company. And I surprised myself and said yes.”

“When was this?”

“A month ago, the first time was on February 18th.”

“Were there other times?”

“There were three times.”

“Why only three times?” Lich asked.

“Because I ended it after that. I realized Gordon was sleeping with others here in the office and I felt I was about to become a punch line.”