I called Anderson for his availability to go back to talk to Leonard again. The list of days was short. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he said he was busy right now.
By the time I finished with Anderson, I was home. I put the car in park, but left it running so I’d have heat while I called Leonard Albright. I wanted to get it done before it got any later, and once I went inside, my dogs would be clamoring for my attention.
Leonard’s number rang so many times I thought he might not pick up.
“Albright,” he answered on the fifth ring.
“This is Nicole Fitzhenry-Dawes, Clement Dodd’s attorney. I have a few more questions I need to ask you, and I was hoping we could set up a time to meet.”
“I’ve told you everything there is to tell, Ms. Fitzhenry-Dawes.” His voice sounded the same as I imagined it would if he were talking to a patient who’d tried to overstep the personal-professional boundary. “I don’t want to waste either of our time with another meeting. If you truly feel I have something germane to add to Clement’s defense, you can summon me to appear in court.”
And then he hung up on me.
I mimed whacking my phone off the steering wheel. That was both rude and final. Calling him back wouldn’t do any good.
But I didn’t want to wait to question him in front of the judge at the preliminary hearing to determine probable cause. A judge wouldn’t even allow me to call Leonard to the stand unless I had more proof than a hunch that Gordon Albright wasn’t a drug addict and that Leonard dropped the lawsuit with the plan to kill him rather than forgive him.
The truth was, I didn’t know enough about what was happening to feel confident calling Leonard to the stand. I could end up looking like a fool, and that would be extremely bad for Clement’s case. Besides, I had to establish that there was a reason to call Leonard as a witness prior to the pre-trial motions that would take place after the preliminary hearing. If I didn’t, his testimony wouldn’t even be allowed at the actual trial. And waiting until the trial to show someone else had killed Gordon meant Clement might die an innocent man in prison waiting for his trial date due to his fatal insomnia.
Too much was at stake to wait and gamble. I had to find another way to get Leonard Albright to talk to me.
14
“Did you learn your unconventional methods from your dad?” Anderson asked as we rode the elevator up to Leonard Albright’s office. “Because I don’t remember reading anything about him accosting possible witnesses at their place of business.”
After Leonard refused to see me, I’d called his office and booked an appointment with him under a fake name. The only part of the ploy that made me uncomfortable was I’d had to tell his receptionist that I was feeling depressed and was afraid I might become suicidal if I didn’t speak to someone soon. Otherwise, she’d said he didn’t have an opening for a new client for weeks.
I hated lying about something like that. Depression and suicide were serious and real mental health issues that cost lives every year.
“I’m not accosting him. I’m not even going to cause a scene. But if I’m paying for an appointment slot with him, he can’t say I’m wasting his time.”
Anderson scowled.
I hadn’t told him how I planned to meet with Leonard Albright in the car. That part I regretted too. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner. I’ve gotten used to working on my own. It’ll take me a little bit to get back to working with a partner.”
He didn’t turn to look at me, but a smile played on his lips. “Does that mean you’re going to accept my offer?”
I deserved a mental self-smack for falsely raising his hopes. “Maybe we should wait to see how the preliminary hearing goes. If I really botch it, you might want to retract your offer.”
Anderson shook his head. “I suppose I have to accept that. I’m the one who pushed you to try arguing a case before you made the final decision.”
Yes, he had.
“You don’t have to look so smug about it,” he said, but there was laughter in his voice.
I wiped my expression blank, and the elevator door opened, letting us off into the reception area of Leonard Albright’s office. Anderson took a seat while I checked in with the receptionist. The plan was that he’d stay in the reception area as my backup. I’d hoped the receptionist would be in the office, and I wouldn’t be in a building alone with Leonard, but I’d made that assumption before and ended up talking to a criminal by myself. I wasn’t taking that chance again. Those who didn’t learn from history and all that. I’d learned.
My palms went a little moist waiting for Leonard to come out. All the ways this could go very wrong played in my mind.
The doorway to Leonard’s office opened and he called the fake name I’d given. I stood up.
Leonard’s gaze shifted toward me, and something flickered across his face too quickly for me to identify. All he said was, “Come on in.”
The door clicked shut behind me, and Leonard’s lips drooped down at the edges. It was the biggest emotional display I’d seen from him.
He kept a hand on the door. “This is harassment.”
His body language oozed passive-aggressiveness. He didn’t want me here, and yet he blocked the door, holding it shut with his hand so I couldn’t escape. He couldn’t realize it, or he would have controlled it.
Along with the fact that he’d invited me into his office at all, his body language told me he wasn’t going to kick me out. He didn’t want his receptionist wondering why I’d left before the session time was over. He was afraid of someone asking questions. He’d probably been bluffing and hoping I wouldn’t call him to the stand in court because then he would have had to perjure himself if he wanted to stick to his story.
That knowledge gave me the upper hand.
“I thought you might want to talk without your wife around. I know she doesn’t know the truth about Gordon.” I pulled the picture I’d taken of Maryanne Albright’s bank book up on my phone and turned the screen toward him. “But I do. I know he wasn’t a drug addict skimming from your mother’s money. Until this withdrawal, everything he took was for your mother’s care.”
Leonard moved back from the door and cracked his knuckles. The popping sent a shiver down my spine, but the trained-lawyer part of my brain whispered that it was the most honest gesture he’d made over both times I’d spoken with him. It was the kind of bad habit that people in professional careers worked hard to break. But those habits reared up again during moments of extreme stress.
If he hadn’t cracked his knuckles, I might have doubted my interpretation of the situation. Now I knew to be patient. He was already uncomfortable. Silence would increase that.
He sat in one of the armchairs in the middle of the room. I took the one across from him. And then we stared at each other for what felt like five minutes.
I knew it wasn’t that long because I was sitting right in front of the clock above his head, but we were both trying to play the same game. Counselors used some of the same technique as lawyers and police officers to get their clients to open up and share more than they otherwise would. Leonard was trying to trip me up as well. We were at a stalemate.
I rested my hands on the arms of the chair, intentionally keeping my body language open and confident since I knew he could read mine as well as I could read his.
“I’m going to tell you the argument I’m considering making in court, and then you can decide if you’d rather we talked about this here instead. That bank withdrawal makes it look like you were right when you brought the suit against Gordon. He abused his power of attorney to take the last of your mother’s money right before she died, leaving you with nothing. That’s a strong motive for murder.”
He continued to stare at me for the span of three blinks, long enough that I almost cracked and gave up.
