James Grippando - A King's ransom

She took a little more wine, then said, “If you’re sure of that, then maybe you’ll like my new idea.”

“What is it?”

“First you have to tell me that you’re sure about Lindsey. Because if we go this route and it turns out your sister isn’t squeaky clean, you could end up sending her to jail for a very long time.”

“I’m as sure as I can be. And I hate to say it, but if I’m wrong, I guess Lindsay deserves what she gets.”

She leaned into the table, seemingly excited about her pitch. “Tell the government to forget about the immunity that Agent Huitt has been offering you in exchange for incriminating information on Guillermo. Tell them you want reward money.”

“What kind of reward?”

“I did some research while you were in Colombia. The Diplomatic Security Service oversees a reward program for informants who come forward with information against international terrorists. Kidnappers are considered terrorists. If Guillermo set up your father, he’s a coconspirator, a terrorist in his own right.”

“Sounds interesting in theory. But we’re pretty pressed for time.”

“They might bite fast. The FBI sure seems eager to nail him on something. Terrorism is a lot juicier than just another drug-smuggling case.”

“Except that our pitch still has holes in it.”

“Such as?”

“Start at the top,” I said. “As far as we can prove, the only talk Guillermo and my father ever had about kidnap-and-ransom insurance was at the brunch where Guillermo’s wife figured out that my mother was pregnant. That was back in August.”

“So?”

“These policies are country-specific. The trip to Colombia wasn’t even on the map back then.”

“The original policy didn’t cover Colombia?”

“Heck no. You don’t buy coverage for Colombia unless you know for certain that you’re going there. It jerks the price way up.”

“Then how did your dad get coverage for Colombia?”

“That came later. The insurance company issued a Colombia rider before the trip.”

“Couldn’t Guillermo have been in on that?”

“We can’t prove that he was. The policy was issued to my dad, not the company. The only thing we can prove is that two people knew about the extension of coverage to Colombia- my dad and the insurance company.”

My words hung in the air. We looked at each other, Jenna seeming to read my mind.

“Maybe that’s enough,” she said.

“Does it make sense?”

“Think it through. Why would an insurance company tip off rebels to kidnap one of its own policyholders?”

“It wouldn’t. But a renegade employee might.”

She smiled, the proverbial light seeming to go on. “That would certainly give Quality Insurance Company something to hide. Which would explain their scorched-earth litigation tactics.”

I felt the excitement between us, but it was checked by the daunting reality that we both fully appreciated as lawyers.

“The question is, how do we prove it?”

Icalled Duncan Fitz in the morning, repeatedly. Each time his secretary insisted that he was “unavailable.”

I knew that Beverly was simply running interference. She had a reputation for being difficult, but this was the same considerate woman who’d literally run me down in the halls of Cool Cash to warn me that she’d “seen the memos” and that I’d better be careful in my ill-fated meeting with Duncan and the henchmen from New York.

“I don’t want to get you in trouble,” I said finally. “But if Duncan won’t take my phone calls, then let’s assume that I don’t want to speak to him either. Hypothetically speaking, is there any place I shouldn’t go today, just to make sure we don’t run into each other by accident?”

She paused. I crossed my fingers and hoped that God would reward me for those late work nights with Beverly when I’d smiled and listened politely as she droned on about all nine lives of all seven cats with whom she shared her one-bedroom apartment.

“Well, hypothetically,” she said.

“Yes?” I encouraged.

“I suppose you shouldn’t go anywhere near the inner loop of the People Mover before his three o’clock hearing in federal court. If you were to bump into him on the tram, you’d be trapped and couldn’t get away. Wouldn’t that be awful?”

“Horrible. Thanks for the warning.”

“You bet,” she said, then hung up.

From two o’clock on, I perched myself on the elevated platform at the Brickell Station. With the water table so close to the surface, the city of Miami has no subway, just rubber-tired trams that run on cement tracks elevated anywhere from two to ten stories above the city. I stood to one side of the platform, behind the elevators, watching the trains leave every few minutes. Finally I spotted Duncan climbing the escalator, toting his own briefcase for a change. The tram had stopped momentarily for loading and unloading, both sets of doors open. He entered at the set farthest away from me. I waited until the chime sounded, then hurried out from behind my hiding spot and jumped aboard. The final chime sounded, the doors closed, and the tram left the station. Duncan and I were alone in front.

“Hello,” I said.

He seemed surprised but handled it with his usual aplomb. “Mr. Rey, how are you?”

After working side by side for over a year, we were now on a last-name basis. “I spoke to Judge Korvan yesterday. She tells me that she was blackmailed off the case.”

“That’s absurd.”

“It’s true. She said it herself.”

“I’m not in the business of blackmail.”

“I’m sure you’re not. But your client would do it behind your back. Quality Insurance Company has something to hide.”

“Your family defrauded my client. End of story.”

“No, that’s their story. Ask your client how they got the case taken away from Judge Korvan and reassigned to a judge who sits in your hip pocket. The answer isn’t dumb luck.”

“Cases get reassigned every day.”

“Not the way this one was.”

“Look, I’ve been doing this law thing a little longer than you, junior. Don’t tell me how to represent my client.”

“Duncan, I wouldn’t have this conversation if I didn’t know you to have a conscience. All I’m asking is that you do the right thing and ask your client the hard questions. It’s no less than you would have expected from me as your protege.”

He stared out the window of the moving tram, silent. For an instant I thought I was getting through to him, but slowly his disposition changed.

“You’re the one who should be asking himself the hard questions. I’ve heard plenty from the FBI. Now, stop following me around on trains. Or I’ll tell Agent Huitt to add stalking to your list of indictable crimes.”

His mind had been poisoned, clearly. It would have been futile to argue my innocence, but I was too angry not to say what I really thought of him.

“Gilbert Jones killed himself, you know that?”

“Who?”

“The overweight cop, the last case we worked on together. After you made him gamble away his settlement money playing ‘Let’s Make a Deal,’ he couldn’t look at his children. He went home that night and turned off his oxygen.”

“How do you know that?”

“I guess you either know these things or you don’t. Like the first hearing you ever sent me to, when I refused to go into court and argue that one of your other insurance companies didn’t have to pay fifty bucks a week for ‘respiratory therapy’ because it technically wasn’t ‘physical therapy.’ Would that have been a victory in your book, keeping a twelve-year-old kid with cystic fibrosis from loosening the phlegm in her lungs so she could breathe?”