Lisa Scottoline - Legal Tender

I ran down the hall, then checked the closets in the offices. Coats, umbrellas, and backpacks. No luck. Behind one of the offices was a small coffee room. I went inside. A can of Folger’s sat next to an abandoned coffeemaker and a cord of Celestial Seasonings boxes. Red Zinger, Ginseng Plus, Sleepytime Tea, my ass. I wouldn’t hire a kid who didn’t drink coffee. No fire in the belly. I shoved the chamomile aside and opened the closet door.

BIERS BUSINESS ARCHIVES, said the cardboard boxes. Bingo. The same archives we used at Grun. I yanked on a hanging string and turned on the closet light, but it was still too dim. I dug in my handbag for my penlight, got up on tiptoe in my clumpy shoes, and rummaged in the first box. They were dead files, but only the first part of the alphabet. I thought I heard voices outside and waited. Nothing. My heart began to pound as I dove into the middle box, propping up the other boxes on my shoulder.

Hilliard. Jacobs. Jensen. A tiny circle of light fell on each manila folder. Then finally, Jennings. My hands began to tremble as I yanked out the folder, then peeked inside to see if it was Eileen’s. Complaint In Divorce, said the papers. It was a draft, and the caption readEILEEN JENNINGS V. ARTHUR JENNINGS.

Yes! I flicked off the penlight. But was it the same Eileen Jennings? I tugged the manila folder from the box and flipped to the back of the first pleading. It was signed, in a neat hand, by the name of the lawyer wannabe who drafted it:

So Renee had been Eileen’s lawyer! I fought the impulse to read the file and stuffed it in my purse so Glenn wouldn’t see me carrying it out. I felt momentarily guilty for breaking my word to him, but it couldn’t be helped. I was about to leave when a news clipping sailed to the floor. I picked it up. The paper was yellowed and the printing blotchy, like a neighborhood newspaper:

York Man Found Slain

A York man, Arthur “Zeke” Jennings, was found dead in the alley beside Bill’s Taproom this morning, at Eighth and Main. He died from multiple stab wounds. Police Chief Jeffrey Danziger said the police have no suspects in the murder at the present time.

What? The clipping must have dropped from Eileen’s file. I held it in my hand and mentally rewound Eileen’s cassette tape. She’d said her husband had been shot in a hunting accident, not stabbed in an alley. What gives? And was Renee connected with it somehow? She must have been.

I heard a noise outside in the hall, then something creaky being dragged. I swallowed hard. Someone was coming in. There was no time to run.

“Who’s there?” called a woman’s voice, from the clinic hallway.

“Linda Frost,” I answered.

“Who’s Linda Frost?” she asked, coming into view. A stocky black woman, at least fifty years old, wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She pulled an old cleaning cart with a white bag attached, and she squinted at me with suspicion. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m a partner at Grun amp; Chase, one of the law firms downtown, and I needed some information on a clinic student. They let me in to get it.”

“In the middle of the damn night?”

“We want to make her an offer tomorrow, and I forgot my notes.”

“Well, they wouldn’t be in that closet. The students never go in there. That’s old files.”

“Oh. I thought they might have stuck them in here. You know, put them away. After the interview.”

“You interviewed students here today?”

“Yes. Right.”

She put a skeptical hand on her soft hip. “What’s this student’s name? Maybe I know him. I know all the students in the clinic.”

“I don’t think you know this one. She graduated a few years ago.”

“I been here ten years, come December.” She rolled her cleaning cart in front of the door, blocking it, and not inadvertently. “What’s the student’s name?”

I gave up. I was out of lies. “Renee Butler.”

“Oh, Renee!” Her broad face burst into a sunny grin and her distrust melted instantly into warmth. “I know Renee! Well, well, well, you lookin’ to give Renee a job? You’d be lucky to have her, yes you would. She’s smart, that girl, and sweet as jelly. She helped everybody that came through here and plenty of them needed it, believe me.”

“I’m sure,” I said, surprised.

“And she’s not a snob, that girl, no sir. Not high-and-mighty just ’cause she’s a lawyer. Always remembers my birthday, even now. Renee sends me a card, every August the 12th. She’s smart as a whip. And strong.”

“Strong?”

“Very strong. Come through fire.” She nodded emphatically. “She had a bad childhood, you know. Her daddy, he beat her and her momma. She had to raise herself, that child, and she did a pretty good job of it.”

I thought of Eileen’s husband and the beatings she talked about on the tape. Maybe this woman knew something. “Renee told me she helped a lot of abused women at this clinic.”

“She did. She was a hard worker, always went the extra mile.” She nodded again, and I began to wonder what the extra mile included. Had Eileen killed her husband and Renee covered it up? And what, if anything, did that have to do with Bill or Mark? The cleaning woman had fallen silent and was looking at me expectantly. I didn’t think she knew any more, so I stood up stiffly, closed the closet door, and replaced the Red Zinger.

“Thanks for your time now. I think I’ll recommend she be hired. I’d better go.”

“What about your notes?” She rolled her cart slowly from the threshold, and I squeezed past it, catching a strong whiff of ammonia.

“I don’t need them, after talking to you. Bye, now.” I went down the office corridor as quickly as I could without renewing her suspicion.

“When you see Renee, tell her ‘hi’ from Jessie Morgan, will you?” she called after me.

“Sure.”

“And tell her to get her fat butt to the next meeting! I never miss a meeting, I lost twenty-eight pounds in one year and kept off every single ounce!”

I reached the clinic door. “Meeting?” I asked, at the threshold.

“Weight Watchers! She missed last Monday night!”

But I couldn’t ask another question. Glenn was hustling down the hall towards me, and with him were Azzic and three uniformed cops.

R un. Flee. Go! I turned around and sprinted out the exit onto Samson Street.

“Freeze, Rosato!” Azzic shouted. “You’re under arrest!”

I hit the sidewalk outside at a breakneck pace. My heart pumped wildly. My only hope was to outrun them. I’d always been the fastest on my crew.

“Stop, Rosato!” Azzic bellowed from not far behind me, but I barreled up the street.

SCCRREEEEEEEEEEE! A cruiser siren blared in back of me, joined by others screeching in unison. Fuck. Even I couldn’t outrun a car. I needed to go where the squad cars couldn’t. Where? I thought back to my college days. My legs churned faster. My heart pumped harder. Adrenaline surged into my bloodstream like jet fuel.

“Rosato! Freeze! Now!”

I careened around the corner and raced across Walnut Street in the dark, dodging cabs and a Ford Explorer that honked angrily. The uniformed cops were right behind me, I could hear their shouted directions to each other as I darted for the main campus. Students hanging out on the common gaped as we ran by. I bolted past them, the police sirens deafening, then took a hard right up Locust Walk. No cars were allowed on the Walk, it was blocked off by cement stanchions. I’d be safe from the cruisers here.

“Rosato! Give it up!”

I glanced backward. No cruisers, but their sirens screamed close by. They’d be flying up Walnut Street, parallel to me. The uniforms were lagging behind but Azzic was gaining. He reached into his jacket as he ran and pulled out his gun in a practiced motion.