Hanging On A String

I said good-bye to Dahlia after we left Wallace’s office. I was heading to the subway station, intent on taking the train to work. I needed to talk to Raymond, and a quick phone call to Raquel, the B&J receptionist, yielded the information that Raymond had just called the offices and was expected in momentarily. My cell phone rang, and I answered automatically.

“Jasmine speaking.”

“I certainly hope so.”

Immediately, the sound of Marcus Claremont’s voice brightened what was fast becoming a dreary day.

“For someone who claims that they’re not stalking me, you’re giving me the distinct impression that the opposite is true,” I said.

“Well, I’ll put it this way,” Marcus replied. “I’m not stalking you now, but after my investigation is over, all bets are off.”

Honestly, I thought, annoyed with myself, it shouldn’t give me so much pleasure to talk to someone I hardly knew. Well, I had kissed him, and what a kiss that was. But as Marcus had already rightly determined, that kind of interaction with the sexy Marcus Claremont would have to wait for a later time.

“You’ve tracked me down,” I said. “May I ask why?”

“As much as I do love hearing your voice, there actually is a purpose for this call.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“I thought you’d like to know that Mariah Brown was arrested last night.”

“What?” I asked. “Why? What happened?”

“Slow down. I’ll answer all of your questions,” said Marcus. “She was arrested at your client Lucius Pileski’s house, and she was carrying a gun. I think the prosecutor is going to charge her with attempted murder, in addition to B and E.”

I was speechless. It wasn’t that I was particularly surprised that Mariah would snap, but I didn’t think that she’d actually try to kill Lucius. What was everyone drinking in the water in New York? When did killing become an acceptable method of settling beefs?

“Look,” Marcus said. “Do you think that we could meet later on today? Maybe for dinner?”

“Are you asking me out on a date?” I asked, clearly confused. I thought we’d determined that any hanky-panky was off limits until the investigation was wrapped up.

“No.” Marcus laughed. “I just want to talk to you about some things in this case that I can’t quite figure out.”

“I don’t see how I can help you,” I said. “It’s not like I have a degree in law enforcement.”

“That’s true,” said Marcus. “But something tells me that you’ve been sticking your very pretty nose in some specifically law enforcement business. Maybe two heads are better than one in this case. Let’s meet for dinner tonight. I talk better when I’m well fed.”

“Hmmm ...” I said. “Sounds like a desperate ploy to see me.”

Marcus laughed again. “Well, any excuse to stare into those beautiful brown eyes is a good one, but I do actually want to talk to you.”

“Detective Claremont, stop flirting with me... .”

“It’s Marcus, and I can’t help myself.”

“I bet you say that to all the lawyers ... particularly defense counsel.”

“Believe it or not, I don’t, as a tendency, butter anyone up, especially lawyers. For the record, you’re the first attorney, plaintiff or defense, that I’ve asked out to dinner.”

“I’m flattered,” I said. And I was.

“So will you go to dinner with me tonight?” Marcus asked.

“Are you sure this isn’t a date?”

“No, Jasmine. It’s not a date.”

“Okay,” I said. “I admit that I’m intrigued, and there’s some stuff I need to talk to you about.”

“Jasmine, I know you won’t listen to me, but please be careful. Three people from your firm have already met with an untimely end, to put it mildly. I’d hate for you to join them before I get a chance to sweep you off your feet.”

“I’m not the sweep off the feet kind of a lady,” I told him.

“That’s because you’ve only just met me.”

“Arrogant,” I said.

“Confident,” he replied. “Can you meet me at seven? Do you know where Saba’s Ethiopian Café is, on 122^nd and Lenox?”

I had a ridiculous grin on my face long after the phone call ended.

The first thing I noticed when I entered Raymond’s office was that he appeared to be packing up his files in the boxes strewn around the room. The next thing I noticed was that he wasn’t wearing a suit. In all the years I’d known him, even when we’d had Saturday meetings, Raymond had always worn a suit. Today he was wearing blue jeans and a light blue shirt open at the collar, an ensemble that looked as foreign as his now half bare office.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Well, hello to you, too, Jasmine,” he replied. He sounded weary.

“Hello,” I said distractedly as I found the only chair that didn’t have folders or boxes on it. “What are you doing, Raymond? Why are you packing your office? You’re not leaving, are you?”

I already knew the answer to all of my questions, but sometimes I have to actually state the obvious. I knew that Raymond was leaving the firm. I think I knew it from the time he told me about his other life. I knew then it was good-bye, but I wasn’t ready to let my mentor, and more importantly, my friend, go.

“I’m leaving, Jasmine,” he replied. He stopped putting the files in a box on his desk and stared at me.

“Raymond, don’t run,” I said. I knew that I sounded like a pleading child, but I couldn’t help it. “I know you didn’t kill Chester or anyone else. You need to stay here and fight. I’ll help you. I’ll do whatever I can.”

Raymond gave me a tired smile. “Not everyone is like you, Jasmine,” he said. “I know that you don’t believe in giving up.”

“And neither do you.” I was trying to reason with a man who, from the looks of it, already had one foot out the door. “Raymond, you’re a person of suspicion in this case. I’m sure of it. If you leave now, it’ll look like you’re guilty.”

He sat down on a corner of his desk. “I know that.”

“Then why are you going to do something so foolish?” I asked.

“I’m not leaving the country, Jasmine. I’m not even leaving New York. I’m leaving the firm. I gave Darrel and the other partners my resignation this morning. It was unanimously accepted.”

I’d wondered where the other founder of the firm, Darrel Johnson, had been over these past few days. I hadn’t seen him at the office. “Darrel accepted your resignation?” I asked.

Raymond gave me a dry laugh. “He had no choice.”

“Where’s he been?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him around since Chester was murdered.”

“Keeping a low profile,” Raymond replied. “Darrel isn’t one for conflict or controversy, but now he’s going to have to step up.”

I liked Darrel well enough, but he didn’t have the charisma or the stamina to hold this firm together, and I told Raymond as much.

“At this point, B&J is a sinking ship. He has to be the captain. There’s nobody else to fill his shoes.”

I digested this news in silence. I loved B&J, it was home to me, and now I knew that I was going to have to find a new home. The firm would never survive without Raymond.

“There’s a bunch of articles in the daily papers today, articles about me, about who I really am, articles about the mismanagement of funds. Clients have been calling left and right, asking to have their cases transferred to other law firms. It’s over, Jasmine. The fat lady has sung.”

“I’m sorry, Raymond,” I wanted to walk over and hug him, but I knew that if I moved, I would burst into tears. As much as B&J meant to me, it meant even more to Raymond. I was watching a man whose entire life was falling apart around him.

“Me, too,” he replied. “Me, too.”

“So what are you going to do?” I asked.

“I’m going to pack up my office, and I’m going to walk away.”

The lump in my throat was growing. I knew that Raymond viewed tears as a sign of weakness. He’d told me this on more than one occasion. But I couldn’t help the tears that were starting to run freely down my face.

Raymond cleared his throat, clearly uncomfortable. “Come on now, Jasmine. Don’t start crying all over my files now,” he joked feebly.

I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “I can’t help it, Raymond.”

He cleared his throat again. “If you don’t stop, you’ll have me bawling, too.”

I gave him a small smile, but the tears continued. We were silent for a few minutes; then he spoke.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said.

I wiped my eyes again.

“Irmalee had threatened to bring a sexual harassment suit against Chester shortly before he died,” Raymond’s voice sounded as worn and weary as he looked.

“I know,” I replied. “Wallace told me all about it.”

“Well, not many people knew about it. Darrel knew and so did Nina. Apparently, Chester confided in her ... among other things. Anyway, Lamarr knew about it. I think Irmalee told him about it, and that’s how I found out. I told Darrel ... but as far as I know, no one else knew ... When did you find out about this?”

“Today,” I said. “I was coming to talk to you about it. Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

Raymond stood up and walked over to the window in the corner of the room. He let out a long sigh. “I’d hoped that with Chester’s death, none of this stuff would come out.”

A chill raced up my spine. I’d been convinced Raymond had nothing to do with Chester’s death. Now I wasn’t sure.

Raymond saw this in my eyes.

“I didn’t kill him, Jasmine,” he said.

I wasn’t so sure.

“There’s something else I need to tell you,” he continued. “I met Chester years before, when he was at Yale.”

I waited to hear what I was certain was a bombshell.

“I represented him when he was accused of rape.”

“Raymond, I already knew about that—although I don’t think that too many other people had that information.”

Raymond walked back over to his desk. “That’s why I didn’t want it to get out that Chester had been sued for sexual harassment. I knew that eventually the rape case would come out, and it would ruin both of us.”

“What happened in the rape case?” I asked, wondering if there was any connection between that case and Chester’s murder? I knew that I needed more information about the rape case.

“It never went to trial,” Raymond replied. “The DA didn’t press charges. Chester had an airtight alibi, and the girl who accused him had serious mental problems. She’d been diagnosed as a schizophrenic.”

I felt my whole body grow cold, because in my heart, I knew that Chester had raped that girl. I don’t know why I was so certain, but I was, and I was equally certain that Chester had gotten away with it—with the help of Raymond.

“What about DNA testing?” I asked. “Did the DA follow those leads?”

“This happened a long time ago,” he replied. “I’m not sure the alleged victim was even given a medical exam. She reported the rape several months after it supposedly happened.”

“The alleged victim,” I repeated his words. “Raymond, this was a person ... a human being, and Chester raped her.”

“You don’t know that,” Raymond replied, but he didn’t sound as if he believed the words that were coming out of his mouth.

“Why did you want a man like that in the firm?” I continued. “You knew what Chester was capable of.”

“Like I said, he had a strong alibi,” he replied. “And that was many years ago.”

“An alibi?” I realized that my voice was suddenly flat.

“Yes, an airtight alibi. He was with someone at the time of the rape.”

“That’s mighty convenient,” I said. “And you checked out this alibi?”

“Yes, I did. I had no reason to doubt the lady in question. . . not until much later.”

My heart started to hammer in my chest. I knew that whatever Raymond was going to say was going to be nothing short of a bombshell.

“The lady in question recanted her story a few weeks ago. She told me she lied to help him. She also told me that Chester had confessed that he’d raped the student.”

“Out of the blue?” I asked. “She just looked you up and found you ... after all of this time?”

“She didn’t have to look me up. She works ... She worked for us.”

“She worked for us?” My voice croaked.

“Yes,” Raymond replied. “Irmalee was Chester’s alibi ... that is, until she accused him of sexual harassment.”

I sat in my seat, stunned. My mind was whirling. Irmalee and Chester had known each other even before they’d started working at B&J? Was Irmalee lying about the sexual harassment claims, just as she’d lied when she’d given Chester an alibi? How was this all tied in with Lamarr?

“Raymond, if you’d told this to the police, maybe Irmalee would be alive today,” I said when I finally was able to speak.

He nodded his head. “I know this,” he said quietly.

It’s hard to look at someone that you once loved and respected and feel revulsion. That was what I was feeling when I looked at Raymond. I know lawyers sometimes get a bad rap in their universal quest to win cases. I’ve witnessed lawyers who lied, backstabbed, and cheated, but in my experience, these folks were in the minority. Most of the attorneys I knew were upright citizens, even if they were high-strung. I knew Raymond was driven, but I never thought that he’d be involved in a cover-up. Even if Raymond believed that Chester was innocent when he’d been accused of rape, he’d kept that information secret from his partners, and more importantly, from the police. In his effort to protect the firm, Raymond had withheld information that could have prevented someone from losing their life.

“You don’t have to look at me like I’m a monster. I already feel like a monster, Jasmine. If it’s any consolation, I know what I did was terrible. I’m going to the police.”

He looked like a broken man, but I couldn’t waste my pity on him. Irmalee deserved my pity. Raymond didn’t. I got up and walked out of his office, without saying another word.

A few minutes after I got back to my office, my secretary, Hernanda, informed me that my brother-in-law, Brooks, was waiting for me in the reception room.

“Should I send him in?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said reluctantly. Brooks was the last person I wanted to see, but there were some things that I needed to say to him, and in the mood I was in, I figured there was no time like the present.

When Brooks walked into my office, I hardly recognized him. The calm, self-confident air of the man that my sister had fallen in love with was gone. Instead, a disheveled, clearly distracted man in rumpled clothes stood in front of me. The normally immaculate, clean-shaven Brooks was sporting at least three-days growth, and his eyes had deep circles underneath them. He looked miserable. Good.

“Can I sit down?” he asked after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

I shrugged my shoulders. This was the man who had broken my sister’s heart. He could sit in hell for all I cared.

I watched as he sat down, clearly uncomfortable in my admittedly hostile presence.

“Why are you here?” I asked before his butt hit the chair.

“I wanted to talk to you about Thea,” he replied. “I wasn’t unfaithful to her.”

I fixed my deadly lawyer stare on his face. “She seems to think differently,” I said in a tight voice.

“Well, she’s wrong. I would never cheat on her. I love her, and I love my family.”

“Apparently, you’ve been spreading your love around.”

Brooks dropped his head in his hands. “I did something stupid,” he said. “But I didn’t cheat.”

“Look,” I replied, feeling no sympathy for him, “if you’ve got some sort of confession to make, you need to go find a priest. I’m Thea’s sister. You’re not going to get a sympathetic ear here.”

Brooks raised his head and looked at me. There were tears in his eyes, but I was unmoved. Many a cheating man had shed tears; they meant nothing.

“I never cheated with this woman.”

I’d heard enough. “Brooks, I think you should leave.”

“No, Jasmine. Not until you’ve listened to me.”

I don’t know why I didn’t tell him that I was through listening to what I was sure was a complete fabrication, but there was something in his eyes, a desperation that I’d never seen before, that stopped me from throwing him out of my office.

“You’ve got five minutes,” I said through clenched teeth.

“This woman ... and I, well, we’ve been friends, and I won’t deny that there’s an attraction... .”

I felt the anger inside me rise, but I kept silent.

He continued. “Not for me. There’s no one else for me but Thea. But my friend Jesse, she’s under the mistaken impression that I’m going to leave Thea.”

“I guess that’s what happens when you start sleeping with people outside of your marriage,” I commented. “Four minutes and counting.”

“I did not sleep with her,” he replied. “We were friends. Nothing more.”

“So you had a friend that your wife didn’t know about ... not until that friend writes you about obtaining your hand in marriage ... while you’re still married to someone else. She sounds like a class act.”

“It was wrong,” said Brooks. “Inappropriate. Stupid. I was flattered by her attention. We had dinner a couple of times, but nothing happened. I realized how dangerous it was when she started showing up at my workplace... .”

When would these men learn? Hadn’t any of them seen Fatal Attraction?

“I told her that we needed to take a break from our friendship. She thought differently ... She thought that I’d led her on.”

“You probably did,” I replied. “A married man going out to dinner with another woman ... She probably saw a future with you in a tux and her in a white chiffon dress, standing in front of a minister.”

“You’re right,” Brooks said, his voice small. “I played with fire.”

“And got burnt.” I finished the sentence for him. “Did you think about Thea at any point during this so-called friendship with the woman?”

Brooks let out a long sigh. “Of course, I did. That’s why it never went further than it did.”

“It shouldn’t have begun in the first place!” I snapped.

“I know this. What am I going to do?”

I was fresh out of answers. My sister lay on her back for five months to bring their child into the world, and this was how he repaid her? She’d moved to a new state for him. She’d given up her dream of getting her PhD to support his dreams of running the investment banking world. She’d stood by him and loved him, not for what he could do for her, but for who she thought he was—an honorable man. She was beautiful, smart, loyal, and too kind for her own good, and what had Brooks done in return? He’d started up a so-called friendship with an unstable woman and in the process destroyed his marriage. I had no pity for him.

“Even if you didn’t sleep with her,” I told him, “you still disrespected my sister. It wasn’t just friendship, because then this Jesse wouldn’t be writing you about marriage, and showing up at your workplace. I’m sure you lied to her, just like you lied to my sister. You don’t deserve Thea, and you don’t deserve Reese. Get out of my office. Time’s up.”

He stood up, but before he left, he said, “No one’s perfect, Jasmine.”

I didn’t have to think of an appropriate answer. “Maybe not, but Thea and Reese deserved better than you gave them. Don’t let the doorknob hit you on your way out.”

I sat for a while in my office and stared out of the window. Even though the firm was falling down around me, I still had cases to take care of. Still, I couldn’t work up the energy to do anything except to sit and stare at the world outside my window. I felt a dull ache as I thought about my friend Lamarr. I missed his advice. I missed his company. I remembered how he’d warned me to watch the undercurrents in the firm. Had those undercurrents gotten him killed? It was looking more and more likely that this was the case. I’d heard from his sister, Maizie, that his family was going to have a memorial service for him in a few weeks. She wanted me to speak at the service. I wasn’t sure that I could do it, but I’d promised her that I’d let her know soon. Before she’d hung up the telephone, I’d remembered a question I needed to ask her. When I’d been in Lamarr’s apartment, I’d found a Yale yearbook. “Did anyone in your family go to Yale?” I’d asked. “No,” she’d replied. I then told her about finding the yearbook in Lamarr’s apartment. She’d thought that it was strange, because he’d never mentioned ever knowing anyone who’d attended Yale.

I replayed Raymond’s conversation about Chester and the rape at Yale. Was there some connection? I got up from my seat and went over to my bookcase, where I’d placed the yearbook. Going back to my seat, I started turning the pages. Very shortly, I found what I was looking for—Chester’s graduation portrait. Why did Lamarr have this? I kept turning the pages slowly, not sure what I was looking for. It wasn’t until I got to a page in the back of the book that I noticed a picture around which someone had drawn a red circle with a pen. It was a picture of a group of three smiling cheerleaders.

I looked at the faces and didn’t recognize any of them—not that I would. My only connection with Yale was that my sister had attended the institution, and that was some time ago. I looked at the names: Sophie Williams, Gemini Allen, and Christa Nettles. None of the names rang a bell. I spent the next hour or so trying to find information about each of the women on the Internet. I couldn’t find anything on Gemini or Christa, but there were about a million or so Sophie Williams and nothing to connect them with Yale University.

The telephone rang, interrupting my thoughts, and I picked up the receiver automatically. “Jasmine Spain speaking.”

“Hi, Jasmine.”

My heart sank. It was my ex-husband. Good Lord, what was going on today? It was the three faces of the apocalypse. First, my deceiving boss, then my deceiving brother-in-law, and now my deceiving ex-husband.

“What do you want, Trevor?” I got right to the point.

He gave me a short laugh. “Why do you think I want anything?” he asked. “I might have just called to hear your voice.”

“I doubt that,” I replied. “You only call when you need a favor.”

“You called me the other day,” he said. “You sounded upset. I was worried.”

This was a switch. It was true that I still called Trevor, or thought of calling Trevor, in times of trouble (a bad habit I was determined to break), but Trevor usually called me on one of two occasions—when he missed me (this was usually preceded by a few drinks of the alcoholic variety) or when he needed a favor. I’d heard through the grapevine that he’d hooked up with yet another girlfriend, so I knew that he wasn’t lonely. I could only guess that this call was about me doing something for him.

“I read about everything that’s been happening with your firm. I just wanted to know if you’re okay,” he added.

I was stunned.

“Really?” I asked, unable to keep the surprise out of my voice.

“Yeah, really,” he chuckled. “I’m worried about you.”

I couldn’t help it; the words slipped out of my mouth. “What’s gotten into you?”

“Damn, am I that bad?” Trevor laughed.

“Well, let’s see. The last time you called me, you needed a loan—which, by the way, you haven’t repaid. Then, the time before that, you wanted me to lie to some woman and tell her that you never cheated on me. Then, there was the time you needed someone to walk your dog when you were out of town... .”

“Okay, okay,” said Trevor. “I get it. No wonder you divorced me.”

“Well, that’s water under the bridge, or however that saying goes.”

“Look, I still care about you,” he said. “The divorce didn’t change that.”

He’d never said this before, even when he was trying to have a late-night booty call (which I always rebuffed).

“Are you dying?” I asked. “Did someone just tell you that you have three months left to live?”

He laughed again. “How did I let you get away?”

“You cheated on me,” I replied.

“I vaguely remember,” he said.

Unfortunately, the memory was not so vague for me.

“But I want you to know that if you need anything ... let me know. The word on the street is that B&J is going under.”

“That would be an accurate statement,” I said.

“What’re you going to do?” he asked.

“I don’t honestly know,” I replied.

“Well, if you need money or anything ... let me know.”

Okay, now I knew he was dying.

As if he read my thoughts, he said, “I’ll always love you, Jasmine.”

There was a time when these words would have meant the world to me. But although it was nice to hear, all I could think about was Marcus Claremont and how much I couldn’t wait to see him.

“Thanks for the call, Trevor,” I said, and I meant it. I hoped that we were finally on our way to coming back to a good place. I’d hated him for so long, it was beginning to feel natural, and I didn’t like that.

“Have a good day, Jasmine.”