Who was this Twitter creep, and was he a threat?
My mind was full of questions without answers and fears that were too easy to define. But I didn’t know how to interpret the vaguely ominous language. Cai stopped abruptly on the sidewalk, swinging me into a quick sidestep, my arm bumping into her bag as we walked. We had shared a cab to Daley Plaza after breakfast, where she was on her way to an emergency hearing and I was scheduled to meet the burn victim Mateo Ortiz had told me about.
Tagging someone in an ugly tweet wasn’t a cop-worthy incident—hell, that’s what Twitter existed for—but it might be worthwhile to tell Michael in case things escalated. There were too many “I didn’t think it was a big deal at the time” stories gone wrong. I wasn’t going to take that chance.
My guilt campaign had moved Ortiz enough that he had contacted his friend Sebastian, and we’d arranged to meet before his lunch shift today. But Cai’s news had my mind wrapped in knots over the jerk on Twitter instead of the jerk in The Chicken Shack.
“What is it?” I said, following Cai’s gaze past a couple arguing loudly in some Slavic language that sounded like Polish and a parked food cart hawking cafe con leche and casadielles. The scent of the fried dough tempted even me. Cai’s eyes were riveted to the brown stain still holding vigil on the pavement where Judge Reynolds had lost his life. I swung my head back to her and watched her diaphragm heave and saw the tight line of her mouth hold firm.
“You okay?” I asked, touching her arm, bringing her out of her thoughts.
“I…I didn’t think it would still be here.” She let out a whoosh of air and gave me a weak smile. “Doesn’t someone wash away the blood? I didn’t think… Shit! I’m shaking all over again. It caught me off guard. I’m still trying to understand what happened.”
Her eyes seemed to hold the confusion only the senselessness of an unexplained murder could provoke. The relentless why? why? why? uttered by centuries of people before her.
“I know,” I said, my own memories of that moment gripping my gut. “You’re not the only one trying to make sense of it. For now, there are no logical answers, but CPD will figure it out. Trust me. They’ll find the guys that did this. Michael and Janek won’t let it go.”
She nodded unconvincingly. “If they’d picked off one of our own, I’d understand. Because, lawyers…” There was a false lilt in her voice as she tried too hard to make light of the stereotype.
I imagined Zipsdefender was also on her mind whether or not she admitted it. He was certainly on mine. With Judge Reynolds’s murder so recent, there was a foreboding air to the tweets that I couldn’t shake. It was clear the guy was a jackass, although a jackass that hadn’t crossed the line between ugly free speech and threat. The bigger question was, would he?
“Well, I should probably get inside,” Cai said, finally letting out another rush of air and tilting her head toward the courthouse. “I’m back in court with my spa client today, but this time for real legal work. She’s counting on me to solidify her franchise contracts and, in the process, neuter the asshole she’s trying to divorce before he kills her business. It isn’t enough that he wants all of their marital assets. He wants to break her business and therefore her future, too.”
“What’s Mr. Wonderful doing now?” I asked, noting a ping on my phone and seeing a text that my burn victim was running late.
“Rae, my client, has four new franchisees ready to sign deals, and crazy ex thinks it’s a fun game to piss her off and hamper her progress by threatening her potential buyers with financial complications,” Cai said, her sharp lawyer voice returning as she shifted her thoughts to the work in front of her. “Naturally, the interested parties are getting cold feet, wondering if she’s worth betting their futures and hard-earned money on. There are also time limits to the purchase offers that are approaching. In my opinion, the ex is trying to block her from moving forward on the deals just for spite. The motions he’s filing are a complete joke. Typos. Ridiculous arguments with no standing. At best, he’s a legal hack. And Rae tells me he’s continuing to refuse very generous financial settlement offers that would end this madness. I think he just wants her to suffer.”
“So Judge Reynolds wasn’t presiding in this issue?”
“No, the contracts themselves are not under the purview of the divorce court. She can run her business as she sees fit, although the financial benefit will be part of the bigger valuation. In my opinion, the husband is hampering her business for spite. I’m pleading an emergency motion to get him off her ass before the franchisees bolt. If I can’t do that, then I’ll go after him for causing financial loss. That is, if my client has any money left to pay me. But you can bet the outcome will come up as they handle the settlement.”
Good. Righteous anger was back. An attorney’s best friend.
“Tell that son of a bitch he can get it done today, or I’ll personally come over there and shove his head up his ass!”
I turned toward the sound, my eyes drilling into the man shouting into his phone as he passed us. His voice was an icy growl. Same wavy gray hair, ample stomach, and another ill-fitting suit. It was the man in the crowd who had disparaged Judge Reynolds as he lay dead in the street. He strutted toward the building entrance, his tie loose, a heavy leather briefcase in hand, as he continued to issue orders. An attorney had said such ugly things?
I turned to Cai. “You probably didn’t notice, but that guy who just walked past, the one in the brown suit, he was here the other day. He was standing right behind us when CPD was processing the body. Said some ugly things about Reynolds. I don’t think you saw him, but I’m certain it’s the same guy.”
“Wait. Cheap suit. Clompy walk? That guy?” she said, following my gaze.
“Yeah.”
“That’s Felix Panici, my client’s husband.” Her brows were drawn as she watched him cross the Plaza. “What did he say?”
“That Reynolds deserved what he got.”
“I told you he was a jackass. Now I can assume a racist jackass at that.”
“He saw Reynolds murdered and still said he deserved to die. That’s pretty callous.”
My mind tumbled with questions, wondering if there was a connection between the men or if the color of the judge’s skin was the only factor in his animus. According to Cai’s assessment, extreme was one of Panici’s core personality traits, but wishing someone dead was beyond extreme.
“You’re in court with him now, right? Mind if I sit in?” I said, stepping toward the building without waiting for her to respond. What if his comment about Judge Reynolds deserving to die was more than racism?
Cai scrambled after me. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but okay? You can sit in. Just no backseat lawyering, please.”
We followed Panici into the courthouse, and I watched him fumble at security, then try to muscle his way through after setting off the metal detector first with keys, then a second time with coins still in his pocket. He grumbled and joked with the guards, who simply gave him an eye roll and made him do it again, while people behind him shook their heads or looked at their watches.
We were about twenty feet back, and I watched the man as he moved through the paces. He struck me as a solo practitioner, strip-center personal injury attorney rather than a corporate heavy. There were all kinds of lawyers, but I couldn't see this guy rubbing shoulders with C-suite types.
He lumbered down the hall, briefcase half-open, buckles jingling and flapping against the squeaky leather as he walked. Stopping at room 211, he yanked open the heavy oak door with a clang.
“Here are the rules,” Cai said, pausing outside and tugging her jacket into place. “Sit in the back. Say nothing. If anyone questions your presence, I intend to say you’re a new attorney shadowing me today.”
I smiled and mimicked a locked-lip gesture before following her inside.
Slipping into a seat that gave me a profile view of both parties, I turned my attention to Panici as he continued to paw through his ratty briefcase. He plopped a huge stack of files on the table with a loud thud, as if to imply he had lots of material to present. I smiled to myself, recognizing the fake power move of the bully attorney, and watched Rae Panici roll her eyes. She’d seen this movie before, too.
Cai leaned closer to her client, their heads just inches apart, speaking quietly until the judge entered the room, silencing everyone and signaling formalities were now underway.
Rae sat upright in her seat, carefully fluffing the teased mound of hair on top of her head. Her long, red-lacquered nails glowed against her dark strands. She had a smug arrogance about her, mirroring her husband’s attitude, that I could feel from here. Images of a marriage full of fiery verbal brawls between the two flashed into my mind.
Panici was on his feet the minute Cai opened her mouth, attempting to hijack her opening summary of the issue at hand. Rae shot him a look that could have curdled milk as her estranged husband displayed his brazen disregard for both the court and her counsel.
Cai kept her cool, as she always did, protesting the breach of protocol and Panici’s arrogance, which led to Panici spewing verbal diarrhea full of vague, outrageous-sounding legal claims about his estranged wife’s business, forcing divorce animus into what was a business issue. Eventually, the judge, already annoyed with the legal posturing, felt the need to remind the parties they were in a courtroom, not a schoolyard.
The legal wrangling between two divorcing people who hated each other at this point was not my interest, however. Although it was huge fun to watch Cai rip into the guy, I was curious about Panici and wondering if there was anything in his history that might have inspired his animosity toward Judge Reynolds, other than the divorce proceedings. Perhaps a friend or family member had also felt his legal wrath. Or it may have had nothing at all to do with the judge’s official role.
As I pondered the potential scenarios, the door behind me squeaked open and a man moved quickly up the aisle. He was thin and wiry, with a widow’s peak formed by the thinning brown hair on his forehead. Panici turned toward the man mid-sentence and lifted his palms in a what-do-you-want gesture. Mumbling a weak apology to the judge, Panici stepped into the aisle and the two men leaned close in whispered conversation. After a moment, the man opened the leather portfolio he carried and handed Panici an envelope, which he stashed in his breast pocket.
The visitor moved back down the aisle as quickly as he’d come in, and I watched, curious about the exchange. What business was so urgent it required a court interruption? He wasn’t an attorney, that I was sure of. Khakis, polo shirt, heavy-duty ankle-high velcroed sneakers tinged with mud that looked more like boots. He stared back at me with icy green eyes. His gaze was piercing. His jaw fixed hard. He was the kind of guy who set off a stay-the-hell-away vibe just with his eyes.
A flash of color on the black portfolio he carried drew my attention as he neared the door. It was a red diamond-shaped sticker with the word Abbiocco.