12

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 6
8:00 P.M.
LARRY’S BAR
NORTHEAST MINNEAPOLIS

Looking around the place, Ian concluded that Larry’s Bar, if a bit cleaner, could have once been a stop for the U of M law-review crowd—the top students who published the Minnesota Law Review journal every year. It was local enough, with no college kids in sight. A little faded. Yep. If Larry bothered to serve craft beers, the upperclassmen might’ve found it interesting.

Midway through his first year of law school, he’d been invited to join the law reviewers for a Saturday beer tasting. Apparently they invited out top 1Ls every year to vet for recruitment the following year. Ian accepted, and they all met at a microbrewery in East St. Paul.

Counting Ian, there were three 1Ls with the second- and third-year veterans that night. At first, Ian felt flattered by the attention from seniors nearing graduation. But around his third beer, he grew conscious of another layer to the conversation, grounded on knowing nods and insider laughs; a common understanding that law review was a stepping-stone to entitlement to the best jobs and salaries in the downtown offices of Minneapolis, Chicago, or New York—giving law reviewers a leg up on their colleagues for future careers. The beer had turned flat in his mouth as he’d thought of how many of his classmates prayed for any decent job coming out of the Great Recession.

Ian woke up the next day with a slight hangover, feeling stupid for judging people he hardly knew, based on simple ambition. Still, the morning-after sourness stayed with him, and that spring he didn’t bother applying for law review.

The other two 1Ls with him that evening both joined the journal. Zach Harmon fit in especially well and eventually landed a position with the big-ticket Minneapolis firm of Paisley, Bowman, Battle & Rhodes. Brook Daniels, the second 1L and a new friend at the beer tasting, fulfilled her dream of a job with the Minneapolis U.S. Attorney’s Office after graduation.

Neither one’s trajectory surprised Ian. What blindsided him was Brook dating Zach right after graduation. Then staying at it, with a few breaks, for five years now.

Ian sipped the dregs of his second beer. What had he expected? They became inseparable friends in law school, but he’d never asked Brook out. Did he think she’d slip into a nunnery to await his exalted invitation? And what had he been waiting for? In fact, what grand, climactic event in his life did he always feel like he was waiting for?

He glanced at his watch. Rory Doyle was late. And apparently one beer was his limit, if two set those kinds of memories in motion.

A man slipped through the bar’s entrance. Ian doubted it could be Rory, until the guy caught sight of him in the corner and approached. Sliding into his booth, he looked Ian up and down and began playing with the ring on the index finger of his right hand.

For some reason, Ian had expected Rory to be a younger, gentler version of Sean Callahan. He was neither. Sean Callahan and Rory Doyle looked around the same age—early to mid-fifties, around Ian’s father’s generation. But where Callahan was tall and past-his-prime muscular, Rory was short and all bones and tendons. Where Callahan appeared tightly wired, Rory was drawn and strained. Callahan seemed the predator, Rory the scavenger. The only thing they shared was a stare that made Ian instantly uncomfortable.

“You’re the lawyer,” Rory said curtly.

“Ian Wells.” Ian extended a hand. “Rory, right?”

Rory nodded, still playing with the ring and leaving Ian’s hand untouched.

It was better than the Callahan iron-grip alternative, Ian told himself as the bartender approached their booth, a dish towel in his hand. “What do you want, Rory?” he asked.

“Nothing, Larry,” Rory said impatiently. “We’re fine.” The bartender nodded, then moved to an empty table nearby and began clearing glasses.

Ian reached for the trust document in the briefcase at his side. “I’m sure you know that your father’s trust—”

“I know all about the trust,” Rory interrupted. “You don’t need to professor me.”

Ian paused. “Then you know what I’ve been hired to do.”

Rory began twisting the ring faster, as if he could unscrew his finger. “Yeah, I know. But first, I’m curious what you think about all this. Is it just about the fee to you? Or do you tell yourself you’re helping my dad do a fatherly duty? Capping Jimmy Doyle’s plan to keep his wayward son Rory out of a life of crime.”

Ian leaned back, jolted by the unexpected turn of the meeting. “I don’t know about your father’s motives,” he answered carefully. “I wasn’t hired to judge. Just to do a job.”

Rory laughed before sliding into a rasping cough. “Not hired to judge?” he managed to get out. “That’s very good.” His coughing slowed. “Very good. Because I thought that’s exactly what you were hired to do. Judge if I deserve the money.”

“Not exactly,” Ian said, shifting uncomfortably. “I’m supposed to confirm a fact about all of the beneficiaries of the trust.”

“There’s the lawyer I expected.” Rory’s smile stiffened. “The thing is, Dad wasn’t worried about Uncle Ed or Sean. They’re just in there as a twisted way to look fair. Nope, this is about keeping me out of the money. Except I deserve the money and I’m gonna get it.”

Ian opened his mouth to respond, but Rory wasn’t finished.

“Tell me something—what kind of thing is a trust that it can let a man hide money even after he’s dead? Even money that didn’t belong to him in the first place?”

“What do you mean?”

Rory shook his head. “Forget it. Ask me your questions.”

Ian slowly reached for the pen resting on the pad. The questions he’d written out suddenly seemed shallow and off point. “Do you have a criminal record?” Ian began.

“No. So we done here?”

Ian looked up at a hollow grin. Frustrated, he set down the pen. “Rory, I don’t know what we’re talking about tonight. I also don’t care who gets the money. I get paid either way. But I do care about doing my job right. And if you don’t cooperate, there’s no way I can conclude you deserve a share of the money—which means it all goes to Mr. Callahan, your uncle, and the Church. You want that to happen?”

Rory stopped spinning the ring.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Ian went on, his mouth tasting of stale beer. “Look, I’m late for another appointment. You’ll need to get me whatever can confirm the jobs you’ve held since the trust was created in 1998, with wage or salary information, your tax returns for those years, plus the names and addresses of your closest relatives. After that, we’ll talk again.”

He thought he was speaking calmly, but when he looked up, Ian saw more than one person looking over their shoulders or their drinks in his direction.

Rory’s grin was gone when he looked back. The man reached into a jacket pocket and pulled out a thick handful of folded papers. “Here’s a job list. The only tax returns I filed are there—or my ex has ’em. Lisa Ramsdale. She lives in Mankato. She won’t do you much good beyond the tax returns, though. We divorced a few years after my mother died.”

Ian glanced at the papers. “I’m told you have children.”

Rory nodded. “My daughter, Maureen, lives with her mother in Mankato. My boy, Liam, I lost touch with. Haven’t seen him in ten years. But the kids aren’t going to know anything more than Lisa.”

“How can I reach you if I have questions?”

“Same way Sean Callahan does. Leave a message at the bar.”

“That’s not good enough,” Ian protested. “I’ve got only six days to finish this after tonight.”

Rory shook his head. “You’re reporting to Callahan, and I’m not giving him any information on where I sleep.”

Before Ian could respond, Rory slid from the booth and stood to leave.

“Wait,” Ian said.

Rory looked back impatiently. “What?”

He suddenly wanted an answer to the question that had been a backdrop to his thoughts since meeting Callahan. “Why was my father hired to do the trust?”

The thin man’s eyes narrowed. “You serious?”

“Yes.”

Rory stared for a moment longer. “You’re the investigator. You figure it out.”