He spent the next day getting to know Sterling Greene. In the great tradition of Houston entrepreneurs, he seemed to have appeared out of nowhere with his first big deal, an office building in Katy, a booming suburb. Then he’d moved into the big city in a big way, demolishing an old hotel on the edge of downtown and putting up a luxury shopping destination with condos above. There’d been some irregularity about that one, the old hotel lying in ruins before the demolition permit had actually been issued. But Houston was an out-with-the-old kind of place. City leaders preferred something new and gleaming over something shabby with history. Greene came out shining himself.
Then it was an empire: plans announced, crews at work, Greene appointed to boards of directors. There were several articles about him receiving awards. And the marriage to Diana, a fabulous affair at the River Oaks Country Club eight years ago. Only one article mentioned in one sentence it was a second wedding for the bride, after a youthful starter marriage to a rich boy she’d probably known from high school. Diana was described as a socialite, which Edward took to mean a lovely person inexplicably well off without working. She had been a model a few times, but nothing like a career. Articles about their parties and social engagements followed: not many, the newspaper didn’t care about that sort of thing any more, but on-line sources and one of Houston’s glossy magazines did. It looked like a wonderful matched life.
Linda, who’d been helping him, said in their shared office at her house, ‘No kids.’
‘I noticed. Doesn’t mean anything.’
She agreed with a shrug. ‘You know what else I’m not finding. Anything about him having a program to hire ex-convicts. No reform movements. He’s got all these plaques for other things, if he did something like that as a business course you know he would’ve maneuvered to get himself recognized for it.’
Edward sat back. ‘Hmph. You’re right.’
‘Always.’ She smiled.
‘I guess I’ll have to ask him.’
Linda lost her smile. ‘When?’
‘When I interview him. This afternoon.’
Linda looked even more worried. ‘I’ll go with you.’
Edward shook his head. ‘I need to do it. Don’t look like that, I’ll be fine. You know how many angry victims and families I’ve talked to? Besides, it’s at his office.’
That turned out not to be true. Edward had an appointment that afternoon, but when he got there the receptionist acted as if nobody remembered, and said Mr Greene was on a job site. His offices were rather grand, in a building adjacent to Greenway Plaza, but also rather empty. Edward heard no hum of activity, just the receptionist, a near-teenager who kept looking at her phone instead of him. ‘I had an appointment,’ he repeated hopelessly.
She shrugged without looking up. ‘I can’t teleport him across town, can I?’
‘You could call him.’
She looked up as if it were an outlandish idea. ‘He’s not going to come in for you. Trust me.’
Edward’s foot was tapping hard on the linoleum. ‘Where’s the job site?’
‘Look, I …’ She saw something in Edward’s face and stopped. Or more likely he just annoyed her beyond endurance. She wrote hastily on a slip of paper and held it out to him with an expression that said she sincerely hoped a girder would fall on him as soon as he stepped out of his car.
Meanwhile Linda continued her research. She knew the date Donald had gotten out of prison and the date of his arrest, barely six weeks later. She scoured the Houston Chronicle for that time period, looking for an article about the Greenes or Greene Construction, anything that might have drawn Donald’s attention to them. Assuming the prosecution’s case was sound, what had attracted him to Diana as a kidnap victim? She found no mention of the couple, broadened her search on the theory Donald might have read about them while he was still in prison, planning his crime before he was even released. But she had to go back six months to find an article about a reception for the opening of the art exhibition that included the portrait of Diana, and she doubted Donald would have had access to that information while still in prison.
She returned to the day of Donald’s arrest and past it, momentum carrying her forward in time. She stopped at a small item on page four in the summaries of stories with fewer details, usually crimes. ‘Hmmph,’ she said. And smiled. Not that the item was good news, but now she had something to share with Edward.
The construction site was out the Gulf freeway, just inside the Houston city limits. Here was the bustle of activity Edward had missed at Greene’s office. Half a dozen men in hardhats and yellow vests walked around a huge lot, several acres, which had been cleared of whatever had been knocked down here and a hole dug for a foundation. A bulldozer was still working on that, while other guys dug holes to connect to the water, electrical, and sewage systems. There was one girder planted in a corner, looking lonely and possibly symbolic. It had no siblings waiting in stacks to be similarly hammered in.
He had no problem spotting Sterling Greene. He was the one in the tie the others huddled around, while the big man looked at a blueprint and pointed around the lot. Edward studied him as he approached. Except for the tie, Greene fit right in among the burly construction workers. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled up as if they’d found it impossible to contain those hairy forearms. A hardhat shortened his face so his main feature was a large mouth and square chin. Slight beginning of jowls. He might have been forty, but it looked like they’d been a tough, active forty years. Classic high school athlete grown into successful businessman in one of the manly occupations. Sterling Greene produced things, huge things. Unlike, to pick an example at random, lawyers.
Edward parked on the street behind a big black Mercedes with a man in black pants and white shirt leaning on its bumper. Edward left his briefcase and jacket in the car, walking carefully across the gravel and chunks of concrete. His object didn’t look up even when Edward was a few feet away, though Edward got the curious stares of a couple of the others.
‘Mr Greene?’
He finally looked up, showing nothing but irritation. Didn’t bother to reply.
‘I’m Edward Hall, the lawyer. We had an appointment, about half an hour ago.’
Greene handed the blueprint off. ‘Ex-lawyer, isn’t it? You start off every conversation with a lie?’
His crew laughed. ‘On this case I’m a lawyer again,’ Edward said calmly. ‘Specifically Donald Willis’s lawyer. I have a few questions for you.’
‘I have a few nothings for you. Diana’s sister said neither of us has to talk to you.’
‘But Diana did talk to me. Julia was there too.’
‘What?’ Greene scowled, and he had the face for it. He stepped forward and put a finger in Edward’s chest. ‘You stay away from my family, understand? Do that again and you’ll be sorry.’ The finger threatened to turn into a drill. Edward stood his ground.
‘You realize it’s my job to investigate, right? Among other things, that might help us settle the case so you and your wife don’t have to testify at trial.’
Sterling considered his point for a moment. It was a good one. A few minutes right now might spare him and especially his wife being grilled in front of a much bigger audience. But Greene had already staked out his position, and he seemed like a man disinclined to change his course once under way.
‘You can talk to me now or on the witness stand,’ Edward added.
But Greene sneered. ‘I’ll take the witness stand. Why should I do any favors for the asshole representing the bastard who snatched my wife?’
Wow. He’d played the asshole–bastard coalition card that quickly. ‘Mr Greene, it would be for the best—’
‘Charlie!’
A guy detached himself from the gang in the hole and came over slowly, sizing up the situation from the great height of his head. Greene obviously had his own Big Donald. Big Charlie was white, with a stubbled face and small eyes that fixed on Edward as the piece that didn’t fit. He was heavily muscled but Edward thought he could take him. In a race. At chess.
‘Charlie, this … person … is uninvited from my job site. Can you show him the door?’
There was no door in sight, but Charlie got the metaphor. He quickly closed the gap and before Edward could move shoved his shoulder hard enough to spin him around.
‘You other guys help,’ Greene said.
So Edward walked, quickly but with great dignity, so much so some of them started laughing. Edward got directly into his car and slammed the door, glaring out the window at Charlie, who was obviously going to stand there until he was gone. But Edward took a moment to look across the lot at Sterling Greene, who stared back at him.
And Edward smiled.
As he drove away he thought, So Mrs Greene didn’t tell her husband about our meeting. Interesting.
And he’d learned something else, too.
Linda had news when he returned. She explained her quest and its futility at finding something that would have drawn Donald’s attention to the Greenes. Nonetheless, she had an article pulled up on her screen. ‘This is the front-page story about the kidnapping and Donald’s arrest.’
It was a big article, above the fold, with an excellent photo of Donald on the ground while the happy couple were reunited across from him. ‘I’ve seen it.’
Linda nodded. ‘But here’s another one, from three days later. Much smaller.’
It was headlined ‘Local Artist Found Dead’. The story was about the Houston portrait and landscape painter Antonio Alberico, a promising young artist who had been found dead of a gunshot wound in his Houston home. Police knew nothing else as yet, not even whether the cause of death was murder or suicide. The gun had been found close to the artist’s hand and there was no sign anyone else had been present. But he’d been dead for two days by the time he was found. ‘So tragic,’ said someone identified as a friend who also exhibited his works. ‘Tony was right on the cusp of an amazing career.’
Edward looked up. ‘Sad. But so?’
Linda pointed. ‘This is the guy who painted that big portrait of Diana Greene. Just a strange coincidence.’
‘Sad,’ Edward repeated. His lawyer’s brain started trying to make some connection. Donald went to the exhibition of portraits looking for a rich victim, then found the artist and interrogated him too vigorously trying to get an address? No, that was ridiculous. First it broke down from the premise of Donald going to an art exhibition.
Linda shrugged. ‘I spent a lot of time on this and I wanted something to show you for it.’
‘Welcome to the world of investigating a case. Lots of wasted time. But it does point out I need to get an investigator.’ He saw Linda’s face and added, ‘An additional investigator.’ One familiar with the criminal milieu in which Donald had moved his whole life.
Linda stood up from the computer desk. ‘Anyway, I’m not going to have as much time. I start my new job Monday.’
Edward said, ‘I guess I’ve already started my old one.’ Linda had sounded much happier about her new beginning.
‘Did you find out anything from Sterling Greene?’ she asked.
‘Only that he’s surrounded by hired muscle, and I get the impression at least one or two of them wouldn’t balk at doing something marginally illegal. He wouldn’t have needed Donald for that.’
They both stood thinking. Then Edward grinned. ‘So I’ll see you around the Justice Center.’
Linda smiled back, looking nervous.