Steve Martini - Double Tap

“I see it,” says Sims.

“I’m wondering whether anyone here or on the board of directors had an opportunity to talk to the reporter who wrote the piece, or anyone else at the magazine, before it was written.”

“What are you getting at?” Havlitz asks.

“I’m wondering where they got their information, the reason for the story. I have to assume they didn’t pick your boss by throwing darts at a list from Forbes .”

“Are you suggesting that somebody here put them up to it?” says Havlitz.

“I’m not suggesting anything. I’m asking whether anyone in the company talked to the reporter or anybody at this magazine either before or after the piece was published.”

“We’ll have to check on that and get back to you,” he says.

“I’m told that there was a faction on the board that was at odds with Ms. Chapman. That this group may have wanted to wrest control of the corporation from her.”

“Who told you that?”

“Is it true?”

“No, it’s not true. There’s always some dissatisfaction on every corporate board,” says Havlitz. “That doesn’t mean somebody inside the company wanted to push her out the door. She was well liked. Highly regarded. She was the founder of the company. Why would somebody here want to kill her?”

“I said they wanted to wrest control of the corporation from her.”

“Well, yes, but the inference. .”

“And unless she was shot twice in the head by accident, somebody wanted to kill her. From my reading of that article, there are a number of unidentified sources close to the corporation who fed the reporter information. That kind of detail could only come from people working inside the company. Since the article wasn’t terribly flattering, it would be difficult to view them as friends and supporters of the victim. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Sims puts a hand on Havlitz’s arm before he can get into it with me. His chest shrinks a size or two. He settles back into his chair.

“What is your point?” says Sims.

“I’m simply trying to find out why a woman, the head of a significant corporation, would want to get rid of her own personal security detail just weeks before she is killed.”

“And my clients have told you they don’t know.”

“No. Mr. Havlitz has told me he doesn’t know. I haven’t heard from anybody else.” I look toward the far end of the table, hoping to be able to take a poll, maybe open some lines of communication. No one wants to look at me except Harold Klepp.

“I know she wasn’t happy about that arti-” he says.

Havlitz cuts him off. “My answer goes for everybody at the table.” The corporate answer.

Klepp leans back in his chair and shuts his mouth.

“So I guess we have to leave it that whoever engineered the article may have had a hand in effecting the removal of Ms. Chapman’s personal security, at least indirectly.”

“As I said,” says Sims, “that’s your assumption.”

Havlitz, squirming in his seat, can’t resist any longer. “From where I sit, we would have been well advised to terminate the security detail much sooner, seeing as your client-one of her bodyguards-is charged with her murder.”

“I thought you said the corporation didn’t terminate security-that the victim made that decision.”

“She did,” says Havlitz.

“But you just said ‘we’ should have terminated it sooner.”

“Did I say that?”

“Yeah, you did.” Klepp mumbles it under his breath and gets a look that could kill from his boss.

“Then I misspoke,” says Havlitz. “Let me be clear: the corporation had nothing to do with ending the security detail for Ms. Chapman. That was entirely a personal decision on her part.”

“But you said you didn’t talk to her about it.”

“I didn’t.”

“Then how do you know that it was a personal decision or, for that matter, what it was based on?”

“You’re twisting my words.”

“No, I’m simply asking you a question.”

“We don’t have to sit here and listen to this.” The large vein in Havlitz’s neck begins to bulge from under the starched collar of his linen shirt. “This isn’t a courtroom,” he says. “I invited you here as a courtesy.”

“For the purpose of obtaining information,” I tell him.

“Exactly,” he says. “If you want to know the truth, I’ll tell you the truth.” He is working to a fever pitch. “Your client was stalking Ms. Chapman. That’s right”-he smirks-“why else do you think they arrested him so fast?”

With the word stalking , Sims’s head snaps back. He looks at his client wide-eyed. He had been preoccupied scanning the magazine article, skimming it with a finger for details, trying to ferret out the unidentified sources. Now he has a bigger problem, but it’s too late.

“Was this before or after Ms. Chapman ended the security detail?” I ask.

Havlitz looks at his lawyer, who shakes him off like a pitcher on the mound.

“Forget it,” says Havlitz. “Just forget I said anything.”

“Did you tell the police this?” I ask.

“I can’t remember,” he says. “I’m not sure.”

But I am. Not only did he tell the cops, they had taken pains to keep it out of their reports. The police made sure not to put it in their notes. They would have the DA put Havlitz or another witness on the stand for some other purpose. Then on cross-examination I would find myself tripping through the tulips in a minefield, working over the witness, only to have him coldcock me with the gratuitous testimony that Ruiz was stalking the victim before she was killed. It’s the kind of bombshell that would cave in the sides on an M1 Abrams tank. You can object all day, but if you’ve asked a question that opens the door, you’re dead. Even if the court strikes the testimony from the record and instructs the jury to disregard it, it’s going to be there like a screaming penny on top of a cash register when it comes time to tally up in the jury room. Suddenly they have a mental image to go with the state’s motive: a jilted lover dogging the victim after she told him to get lost.

“Did Madelyn Chapman tell you she was being stalked by the defendant?”

He doesn’t answer but shakes his head. It’s not clear if this is a yes or a no, but if I had to guess, she didn’t. The little vein on Havlitz’s forehead is now pulsing, beading over with sweat. It’s clear he either saw something or heard it from someone else.

“I think we’re going to have to call it a day.” Sims is on his feet. “I have an appointment,” he declares. He looks at his watch, an afterthought, the obligatory haphazard glance at the gold chunk on his wrist. It’s the only way he is going to get me out the door and he knows it. “I’ve got to be somewhere,” he says.

Right. Anywhere but here. I’d love to be a fly on his lapel when he calls the DA to explain how they managed to accidentally detonate one of the state’s major roadside bombs a little early.

“ That can’t be Paul Madriani?” If you can visualize a smiling face, round as a cherub’s, Asian and with freckles, it would belong to Nathan Kwan.

I am walking at a good clip, halfway through the rotunda on the way back to my car, when I see him.

“Nathan?”

“By God, it is you.” He is all smiles, five-foot-seven and trim as the day I last saw him more than a decade ago. The only change is a little more gray at the temples so that he now looks the part of the seasoned statesman.

“Jeez, where have you been?” he says. “I haven’t seen you in so long, I thought you were dead.” He glides toward me across an acre of marble, hand outstretched. When he reaches me, he grabs my hand and drops his briefcase, his other arm going around my shoulder. “God, it’s been such a long time,”