“HAVE A SEAT, PLEASE,” Schiff said. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks. I go by Andy now.”
“Yes, yes, I should have realized. The Browns and all that were a long time ago, weren’t they?”
“Yes, they were.”
As he spoke I glanced at a framed poster on the wall, a blown-up photo of a capacity crowd at Ohio Stadium, a quintessential feature of thousands of offices around the state.
“Busted,” Schiff said, following my gaze. “It’s a bit of an obsession for us, isn’t it?”
“There are worse,” I said, wondering who he meant by “us.”
“Just for the record, I never thought you got a fair shake up here. You didn’t get enough credit for mounting a comeback. Everybody expected too much, too soon. That’s always the way with Browns’ fans, isn’t it?”
“I suppose. But it’s hard not to see their point.”
“That’s generous of you.”
He swung the door of the office shut. I sat on a gray leather couch. He pulled a matching chair across the carpet and sat opposite me, a glass coffee table filled with glossy magazines between us. Ohio Lawyer. The Economist. Forbes. That day’s Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Schiff picked up the Times, which lay the slightest bit askew, and set it down aligned with the Journal. He glanced at the closed door and then back to me.
“So what can I do for you? Eileen said something about Judge Porter? Is everything all right?”
“That’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Anything I can do to help.”
His face open, expression friendly. No hint of distrust. I found myself liking the guy, in spite of myself. In person, he was even better looking than the photo on the firm’s website would lead you to believe. Tailored gray pinstripe suit, red power tie, black shoes glowing from a recent shine as if they were carved from polished ebony. His prematurely white hair, which might have suggested frailty in another man, gave him instead an aristocratic air that exuded power and virility. I contrasted him with Paul Thayer, whose picture I Googled within three nanoseconds of being with Laura for the first time. Schiff was the more conventionally handsome man: blue eyes, angular face, workout physique. But Thayer was far and away more interesting looking. Black hair tinged with gray and worn just the slightest bit long for a corporate lawyer; bushy eyebrows; perpetually exhausted eyes set deep within their sockets; hawk-like nose and striking chin. Even putting personality differences aside, it was easy to imagine a young Laura falling first for Schiff, with his all-American good looks, but then unsuccessfully fighting an attraction to the Heathcliff in the room.
Heathcliff. Dark hair, eyes set back in sockets, striking chin. A face I’d seen recently. A face—
“Andy? How may I help?”
I snapped back to attention, reluctantly setting aside the thought. I said, “Laura contacted me recently. Asked if I could help her out. We’re old friends,” I added.
“I didn’t realize that. So this wasn’t in your official capacity?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re an investigator now, aren’t you? Private?”
Pawn to queen’s bishop 4. A solid opening. A lot of Ohioans who hear my name know what I did as a football player—or didn’t do, depending on their perspective. Far fewer know my current occupation. The fact that Schiff did could mean almost anything, but it was an interesting gambit. Now I had to figure out how to counter.
“That’s right. And as a matter of fact, I am working for Laura.”
“Let me guess. Something to do with her campaign?”
The question of the week, apparently.
“Something along those lines. She led me to believe she’s in some kind of trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“That’s what she said. I’m just wondering if you know what she meant by that?”
“Me? Why would I know?”
“Well, you’re supporting her candidacy, for one thing. According to campaign finance filings, anyway. That made me wonder if you’ve been in touch.”
“You’ve done your homework. And since you have, I assure you my support’s on the up and up.”
“But have you—”
A nearly imperceptible glance at the closed door. “She didn’t say what this trouble was?”
“No.”
“And you think because I’m supporting her, I know something?”
“Do you?”
“I know she’s a good judge. That’s about it, I’m afraid.”
I thought about bringing up his business card in the van by the barn. Instead I tried a different tack. “Let me ask you this. The donations you made.”
“What about them?”
“One appeared to be in a private capacity, during the primary. The second, more recent one, came back to an address connected to a company called PG Inc.”
That won me a small blink. “That’s right.”
“If I may ask, do you work for them?”
“If you don’t mind me saying, these are unusual questions for an unannounced visit in the middle of the day.”
“That’s fair, and I hate to bother you with all this. It just happened that I was up here and realized I had an opening.”
“I’m sure your schedule’s more elastic than mine,” he said with a smile. “I envy you, in a way. As far as PG is concerned, it’s more a situation of doing work for them. I’m on retainer as counsel. Why are you bringing this up, if I may ask?”
“The thing is—as I’m sure you know—PG Inc. and Rumford share an address. And since Rumford is involved in the Mendon Woods lawsuit—”
“I see. You’re wondering if I’m involved in that too.”
“Well, you or that company. Strictly from a campaign finance perspective,” I added quickly. “I don’t care about the lawsuit or the swamp—I have a thing about mosquitoes. It’s just a question of the perception of impropriety.”
“What do you mean?” His voice harder now.
“Your campaign donation. And others that connect back to PG Inc., and hence to the developer. Whether, to be frank, there’s an attempt to unduly influence the judge. There could be a lot at stake.”
“At stake how?”
I mentioned Flota, the European AI company. The scuttled project in Indiana—maybe looking for a home elsewhere?
He leaned back. “The implication is that Rumford wants Judge Porter to rule in their favor in the lawsuit and is bundling donations to provide her incentive.”
“If you put it that way, yes.”
“I don’t think it’s a state secret Rumford wants that land. It’s why they went to court.”
“But what about PG Inc.? What’s their interest—or is it yours? And is it connected to—”
“This is where client confidentiality enters the picture, I’m afraid.”
“But am I correct that PG or Flota or both also have an interest in Mendon Woods? PG is a cloud-computing company, right? It builds warehouses of a sort, but for information, not tangible things? Like AI?”
Schiff looked at me for several seconds before replying.
“What an interesting question,” he said.