David Baldacci - True Blue

Shilling & Murdoch had forty-eight lawyers in D.C., twenty in London, and two in the Dubai office. Roy had been to all three places. He’d flown to the Middle East in the private plane of some sheik who had business dealings with one of Shilling’s clients. It had been an Airbus A380, the world’s largest commercial airliner, capable of carrying about six hundred ordinary people or twenty extraordinarily fortunate ones in ultimate luxury. Roy ’s suite had a bed, a couch, a desk, a computer, two hundred TV channels, unlimited movies on demand, and a minibar. It also came with a personal attendant, in his case a young Jordanian woman so physically perfect that Roy spent much of the flight time pressing his call button just so he could look at her.

He walked down the hall to his office. The law firm’s space was nice, but far from ostentatious, and downright slum-dogging it compared to the ride on the A380. All Roy needed was a desk, a chair, a computer, and a phone. The only upgrade in his office was a basketball hoop on the back of the door that he would shoot a little rubber ball into while yakking on the phone or thinking.

In return for ten- or eleven-hour days and the occasional week-end work he was paid $220,000 per annum as a base with an expected bonus/profit share on top of that of another $60,000, plus gold-plated health care and a month of paid vacation with which to frolic to his heart’s content. Raises averaged about ten percent a year, so next cycle he would ratchet to over three hundred grand. Not bad for an ex-jock only five years out of law school and with only twenty-four months at this firm.

He was a deal guy now, so he never set foot in a courtroom. Best of all, he didn’t have to write down a single billable hour because all clients of the firm were on comprehensive retainers unless something extraordinary happened, which never had since Roy had worked here. He’d spent three years as a solo practitioner in private practice. He’d wanted to get on with the public defender’s office in D.C., but that was one of the premier indigent representation outfits in the country and the competition for a slot was intense. So Roy had become a Criminal Justice Act, or CJA, attorney. That sounded important, but it only meant he was on a court-approved list of certified lawyers who were willing basically to take the crumbs the public defender’s office didn’t want.

Roy had had his one-room legal shop a few blocks over from D.C. Superior Court in office space that he’d shared with six other attorneys. In fact, they’d also shared one secretary, a part-time paralegal, one copier/fax, and thousands of gallons of bad coffee. Since most of Roy ’s clients had been guilty he’d spent much of his time negotiating plea deals with U.S. attorneys, or DAs, as they were called, since in the nation’s capital they prosecuted all crimes. The only time the DAs wanted to go to trial was to get their in-court hours up or to arbitrarily kick some ass, because the evidence was usually so clear that a guilty verdict was almost inevitable.

He’d dreamed of playing in the NBA until he’d finally accepted that there were a zillion guys better than he would ever be, and almost none of them would make the leap to professional hoops. That was the principal reason Roy had gone to law school; his ball skills weren’t good enough for the pros and he couldn’t consistently knock down the threes. He wondered occasionally how many other tall lawyers were walking around with the very same history.

After getting some work lined up for his secretary when she came in, he needed some coffee. It was right at eight o’clock as he walked down the hall to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The kitchen staff kept the coffee in there so it would stay fresher longer.

Roy didn’t get the coffee.

Instead he caught the woman’s body as it tumbled out of the fridge.

THEY RODE in a black Town Car, an SUV loaded with security behind them. Mace glanced over at her older sister, Elizabeth, known as Beth to her friends and some of her professional colleagues. However, most people just called her Chief.

Mace turned and looked at the tail car. “Why the caravan?”

“No special reason.”

“Why come tonight?”

Beth Perry looked at the uniformed driver in front of her. “Keith, turn some tunes on up there. I don’t want you falling asleep. On these roads we’ll end up driving off the side of a mountain.”

“Right, Chief.” Keith dutifully turned on the radio and Kim Carnes’s jagged voice reached them in the backseat as she crooned “Bette Davis Eyes.”

Beth turned to her sister. When she spoke her voice was low. “This way we avoid the press. And just so you know, I’ve had eyes and ears in that place from day one. I tried to run interference the best I could for you.”

“So that’s why the cow backed off.”

“You mean Juanita?”

“I mean the cow.”

She lowered her voice further. “I figured they’d planned on giving you a parting gift. That was the reason I showed up early.”

It irritated Mace that the chief of police had to have the radio playing and whisper in her own car, but she understood why. Ears were everywhere. At her sister’s level, it wasn’t just about law enforcement; it was about politics.

“How’d you manage the release two days ahead of schedule?”

“Time reduced for good behavior. You’d earned yourself forty-eight whole hours of freedom.”

“Over two years, it doesn’t seem like that big an accomplishment.”

“It’s not, actually.” She patted Mace on the arm and smiled. “Not that I would have expected it from you.”

“Where do I go from here?”

“I thought you could crash at my place. I’ve got plenty of room. The divorce was final six months ago. Ted’s long gone.”

Her sister’s eight-year marriage to Ted Blankenship had started to unravel before Mace had gone to prison. It had ended with no kids and a husband who hated his ex principally because she was smarter and more successful than he ever would be.

“I hope my being in prison didn’t contribute to the downfall.”

“What contributed is that my taste in men sucks. So I’m Beth Perry again.”

“How’s Mom?”

“Still married to Moneybags and the same pain in the ass as always.”

“She never came to see me. Never wrote me a single letter.”

“Just let it go, Mace. That’s who she is and neither one of us is going to change the woman.”

“What about my condo?”

Beth glanced out the window and Mace saw her frown in the reflection off the glass. “I kept it going as long as I could, but the divorce took a big slice out of my pocketbook. I ended up paying alimony to Ted. The papers had a field day with that even though the file was supposed to be sealed.”

“I hate the press. And for the record I always hated Ted.”

“Anyway, the bank foreclosed on your condo four months ago.”

“Without telling me? They can do that?”

“You appointed me as your power of attorney before you went in. So they notified me.”

“So you couldn’t tell me?”

Beth glared at her. “And what exactly would you have done if I had?”

“It still would’ve been nice to know,” Mace said grumpily.

“I’m sorry. It was a judgment call on my part. At least you didn’t end up owing anything on it.”

“Do I have anything left?”

“After we paid off the legal bills for your defense-”

“ We ?”

“That was the other reason I couldn’t keep paying on the condo. The lawyers always get their money. And you would’ve done the same for me.”

“Like you ever would’ve ended up in a pile of crap like this.”