Follow the Money

20


I spent what was to be the final week of the summer trying to distract myself from thinking about Liz. The problem was, there wasn’t a lot to do. Most of the other summers had already left.

Although there wasn’t much in the way of work, there was the monitoring of the Internet, and the reading of news stories about the case that never named me but to which I felt an intimate connection nonetheless. I cleaned my office. I bought books for my classes. I answered the questions of the curious people who just wanted to talk about the case. But in the quiet moments, my mind drifted to a singular focus: Liz.

I could see her eyes, at the moment of recognition, when she realized that I’d been as cruel to her as I possibly could without so much as a thought about the depth of the pain I would ultimately inflict. I could see her turn and walk away. I had watched that image replay itself in an infinite loop inside my head. One moment of action that I hoped I could somehow undo, if only so she was not so hurt or, perhaps simply so I could feel better about myself.

I had called her only once in the days immediately afterward, but I did so at a time I believed she would not be home. It was halfhearted, true, but I left a message that permitted me to think, at least for a while, that I’d placed the ball squarely in her court. That somehow it was her responsibility to fix it.

In many ways, the shitty life a lawyer ended up with because he worked too much was easily avoided by simply working more. I found that I began to delight somewhat in the obscene logic of it all. But as the final week of the summer died, there was less and less to occupy me. As I sat in my office on the last day of the last week before classes began again, I had nothing left to distract me.

I reached for the phone to call Liz, unsure of what I would say, but it rang before I picked it up. It was Jendrek.

“Hey, hey, Mr. Bigtime, how’s it going?”

“Uh, just cleaning my office up a little.”

“You got some time to get together? We need to figure out what we’re going to do for this class. I’ve got some ideas, but I’ll need you to do some things before the first class. Can we get together before Monday?”

“Sure, how ‘bout this afternoon?”

That was all I needed. It was perfect. It would forestall the inevitable and uncomfortable confrontation until the following week at the very least. I had a class to T.A. I had work to do. There was always work to do. It was a refrain that would govern my life at K&C. Personal problems that could not be solved simply by throwing money at them could be avoided by late nights, by business trips, by devotion and commitment to clients.

I shut off my office light, swung by my secretary’s desk, picked up my thick stack of mail, and left the building just after noon. I drove my new BMW down the ten freeway with the top down and the late August heat blowing over me. I got off on Robertson and drove north into Beverly Hills. With the money I would make working part-time, I had thought about moving to a nicer place, something in the hipster area between Santa Monica and Sunset and east of La Cienega in the small triangle of West Hollywood that sat just off the Sunset Strip. For a couple grand a month I could get a place with city views within walking distance of the trendy clubs and bars and restaurants. I imagined the late nights full of food and drinks and live music. I imagined returning to my swanky pad at three A.M. with a crowd of people where I would entertain them on my balcony with the city lights and the latest cocktail they’d all heard about. It was all within reach. It was all accessible. It was mine. I had worked for it, and I would take it.

I went up Olympic and approached the Century City Mall from the south. I would meet Jendrek for drinks at the same place as before, but first I would kill some time and treat myself to something. I wandered around the open air shops until I found it. I knew what I’d come for, another distraction, another accoutrement of my new life.

I’d seen the jewelry store with the fancy watches before. I spent a half hour picking it out.

“Among connoisseurs, the Omega is one of the most prized makes,” the thin, balding man with the affected English accent went on. He peered at it over the top of his glasses as though he’d never seen it before, as though he did not dust it and polish it everyday.

I held it. It was solid, heavy, ornamental, yet practical. It was the kind of thing only truly successful people could afford to own. It was a watch that communicated to the world not only the time, but the fact that I, Oliver Olson, had made it, had arrived, had succeeded in life where others had failed.

“If you ask me,” he began, as if I weren’t really asking, “I think jumping into a Rolex is a sign that the buyer really doesn’t understand fine watches at all. The Rolex is all flash, it’s style over substance.” He laughed heartily, “I suppose that makes it perfect for this town. But really, the Omega is understated. It makes a scene without making a scene. If you know what I mean.”

I didn’t, but his delivery was good and it was undeniably a fantastic watch — all silver, even the face. It gleamed in the special light of the jewelry store. I had read that the most important thing a young professional man could spend money on was a fine watch. Most people can’t tell the difference between a five hundred dollar suit and a two thousand dollar suit, but a fine watch is immediately recognizable. I figured it would be a good thing to have, and now that I was staring at a counter full of them, I knew the article had been right.

Four thousand dollars later, I walked out of the shop with the new Swiss chronometer strapped to my wrist. I tossed my old watch in a trash can and walked along, checking the time much more often than before.

Jendrek whistled long and slow when I took the stool beside him. “Nice watch. You look like a plaintiff’s lawyer with that thing on.”

I just grinned, feeling slightly embarrassed, but figuring I’d have to get used to people noticing it — and wasn’t that why I’d bought it in the first place? “Ah, well, I figured it was the kind of thing that will last forever.”

“It’s probably worth more than you and me put together.” Jendrek was halfway through a beer already. “So I saw your guys all mixed up in that Steele case. Pretty interesting stuff.” He gave me a knowing look and winked. “Don’t suppose that had anything to do with what we talked about last time?”

I could feel my cheeks flush. I was proud of my work and excited about being involved in something everyone was talking about. I also figured it was acceptable now to talk about the case. And I wanted to, badly, and Jendrek could see it. I went through every detail, embellishing my own role in the strategy decisions, and then finished with my acceptance of the job offer.

“Ha, ha! That explains the watch.” Jendrek ordered another round and went on. “Well, that’s great. You’ll do great there. They need some people like you around there. A blue collar type to stir it up a bit.”

“Well, I don’t know about that. They’re actually a good group of people.”

Jendrek gave me the look of someone who knew a lot more than the guy he was talking to and knew when to keep it to himself. “So, I hear he’s going to run again. He’s already out making speeches.”

“That’s what they say. But who knows.” I could hear the tone of my own voice lowering, trying to sound world-weary, salty, like a guy in the know. “They’re also saying Carver might get a judicial nomination out of it. You know, if Steele gets reelected.” I winked as I said it, unaware of my own obnoxiousness. By the time I was two beers into the next day’s hangover I’d stopped paying attention to myself.

“Well, with connections like that, you might do alright for yourself in the bigtime.”

“Who knows.” I shrugged. “I like it so far, it’s a great way to get some experience and pay off my student loans. Besides, getting to work on cases like Steele’s ain’t bad either.”

“Course,” Jendrek continued. “With friends like that it’s easy to make powerful enemies too.” He smiled and took a swig. “A guy’s got to play his cards pretty well.”

Just like the time before, all the times before, we never got around to planning the class or even mentioning it. Jendrek was a cool hand and knew how to get the job done. The fact of the matter was, he liked me and felt responsible for making sure I didn’t drift too far out into the abyss. After some minor jabs at big firm life and the damage it can do to a young lawyer both personally and professionally, I could tell Jendrek realized he had a lot more work to do. When we got up to leave, I snatched the check and paid it. “Big spender,” Jendrek laughed on the way out.

When I got home I found a large envelope on my doorstep. I recognized Liz’s handwriting on the outside and I tossed it on the coffee table. As usual, my apartment was three degrees shy of hell on a balmy day and I fired up the air conditioner immediately. I was feeling drunk and drowsy in the heat and I removed all of my clothing except the watch. I decided to enjoy my new toy a little longer. For all I knew, I might never take it off. It was waterproof up to one hundred meters, after all.

I sank into my battered couch and stared at the silver watch face. At that very moment, it was far and away the most valuable thing in my apartment. But I kept glancing at the envelope, wondering if she’d dropped off a pile of personal things I’d had at her apartment. Finally, I tore it open. It was Steele’s credit report and the supporting documentation that went with it. I’d completely forgotten I’d asked her to get it.

The first things in the pile were past due credit card statements for accounts held by both Steele and his wife. There were several pages comprising the charges from the month prior to the murder. I scanned through them, grinning at my voyeuristic glimpse into the lifestyle of the politically powerful and wealthy. Meals out at restaurants nearly everyday, in locations all over the country. A five hundred dollar purchase at Neiman Marcus in San Francisco two weeks before the murder. There were plane tickets to Dallas on the first line of the statement. There were bills for haircuts, dog grooming, car washes, dry cleaning. The final entries on the bill were for restaurants and hotels in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska. I rolled my head back on my neck and thought of Ed Snyder’s comments about the Alaskan Wilderness Preserve and the article I’d read in the LA Times.

The next set of papers were bank statements. The joint account had $132,268 in it the day of the murder. Two days later the account was closed. I wondered why that would have been. Then I remembered Becky Steele’s comment about her mother’s family having all of the money. I also remembered that the grandparents, and presumably the holders of the purse-strings, had come to town to retrieve the grandchildren. I flipped through the bank papers carefully and found what I was looking for. The grandfather had also been a signatory on the account and had closed it after the son-in-law was arrested and the evidence appeared to point to him. I almost laughed at the outlandish cruelty of it. Steele sure must have felt good, left for dead and penniless in a state penitentiary only days after his arrest. But surely he must have had some other account of his own, how else could he have afforded Garrett Andersen?

Behind the bank statements were sheets of paper with photocopied checks that had been dishonored on the account after it was closed. There were three checks to a page and six pages in all. Many of them appeared to have been written by an accountant with signature authority to cover routine household expenses such as water, power, maid, gardener, landscaper, pool guy, and a bunch of other stuff. I shook my head and marveled at the idea of having other people to do everything for you, even pay your bills. And then I thought that my own life might soon be like that, and then the idea didn’t seem so strange.