Louis Ormond looked like a quiet middle-aged rodent next to Napier, his thinning gray hair combed back behind his ears, making his long beak of a nose appear even longer.
The meeting was short, to the point, or really, to no point. Of course all client affairs were confidential, Eloise Napier explained, so she could neither confirm nor deny that Miles Wuchnik had worked on any cases for her clients. If I was a cop with a court order it might be a different story, but even then, privilege, liability, confidentiality, couldn’t promise there’d ever be a time when Wuchnik’s workload could be disclosed.
I smiled, to help me keep my temper: the last thing I needed was for Dick to see me get angry. “Was he working for one of your clients—of course, unspecified—when he went to the cemetery on Saturday night?”
Napier and Ormond exchanged glances with Dick. “We have no idea why he was there,” Eloise spoke for the trio. “We understand that Sophy Durango’s daughter was there, and we’ve heard talk that Durango might have had an assignation with the dead man.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that talk, too, but only in one place: on Helen Kendrick’s program on GEN. Dick, I don’t know your colleagues, but I know you’re too smart to repeat actionable lies in public.”
Spots of real color burned beneath the rouge on Napier’s cheeks. “Helen is a good friend. I’ve known her for years, and I can assure you that she doesn’t make up stories like that unless she has reason to believe they’re true.”
“From messages she gets in her fillings?” I asked.
Ormond sucked in an audible breath, while Dick performed one of those eye-rolling routines spouses do when their exes are unusually obnoxious. Napier’s glare could have peeled off my own makeup.
“Is Crawford the official law firm of the Kendrick campaign?” I asked Dick.
He shook his head. “We don’t take political positions as a firm. Individual attorneys, of course, may work for specific politicians, or hold fund-raisers for them.”
“So Eloise advises Kendrick.” I waved a hand toward Napier’s American flag pin. “Wuchnik might have gone to the cemetery to do something for Kendrick.”
“I can assure you that did not happen. But if you don’t believe me, you can listen to the messages in your own fillings,” Eloise said.
I laughed, hoping it would calm the waves if she saw I could take heat as well as dish it out. “You’re right—I shouldn’t have said what I did. Let’s see if we can agree on one or two things, even if we disagree on Helen Kendrick’s political views.
“The medical examiner says Wuchnik was hit on the head and then laid on the tomb, where someone pounded the rebar through his chest—that was what killed him, but he was unconscious, or barely conscious, when he died. No defensive wounds on the hands, no signs of a struggle.”
“We agree on that?” Eloise Napier said spitefully. Okay, the waves weren’t calm yet.
“Please talk to Dr. Vishnikov over at County yourself; you don’t need to take my word that those were his findings.”
I paused for a moment, to give her a chance either to call Vishnikov or to challenge me further, but she seemed willing to go forward.
“Wuchnik’s mileage log tells us that he went to Ruhetal five times between Memorial Day and July Fourth.” I handed out photocopies of the log—the original I’d moved from my apartment to my big office safe.
Dick didn’t bother to look at his copy, but Napier grabbed hers with an eagerness that told its own story. When she’d studied it, she demanded to see the rest of the log.
“That’s the only part of it I have. And it’s the only remaining piece of his documents—someone cleaned out his condo within a day of his murder. Computer, files, the works.” I watched Eloise as I spoke; maybe I imagined it, but she seemed to breathe a little sigh of relief on hearing that all Wuchnik’s papers were gone.
“I was hoping you might know about his trips to Ruhetal,” I said. “The dates—do they correspond to anything he was working on for you?”
“Did he leave a code for who the clients were?” Ormond asked.
I shook my head.
“Then why are you bothering us?” Napier asked.
“Oh, that—apparently the Global Entertainment honchos announced it in the puddle, or whatever they call their news briefing. They said Wuchnik worked for Crawford, Mead.”
The room was quiet for a beat, while Ormond and Napier both looked at Dick. He pushed himself back from the table.
“Right, Vic, it’s where you came in. He wasn’t on our payroll. Lou and Eloise hired him sometimes, but only as an independent contractor. They don’t know anything about his trips to Ruhetal. We were not his only clients, right, Eloise?”