Twenty minutes later Georgia pulled up to a building in Rogers Park with a sign proclaiming, “Paul Kelly: Lawyer & Insurance Agent.” Kelly was a lawyer she’d worked with during her first big homicide case. His office consisted of two large but sparsely furnished rooms on Morse Street. She stopped in the coffee shop three doors down and bought two coffees. She tried to remember how he took his; one sugar, no cream, she thought. Armed with steaming cups, she pushed through the door.
The light was on in the front room, but the door to his office was partially closed. Even so, she could hear him on the phone. “Yes, rates are going up. They’re trying to jack ’em up before ACA is fully implemented.” There was a pause. “Of course it is. But you ever known an altruistic insurance company? They’re not charitable institutions, you know.” A few more words, then she heard the sound of the phone being slipped into the cradle.
She walked in. “Hey, Kelly, how’s the insurance biz?” She used to tease him he was hedging his bets—if he couldn’t make it as a lawyer, he had a fallback. In reality he was an excellent lawyer.
“Don’t let it get around,” he’d shot back. “I make good money from insurance.”
Now he swiveled around in his chair where he’d been gazing out the window. “Davis. What a surprise!” He gave her a broad smile, which the deep frown lines on his sixtysomething forehead said he didn’t do often. “What brings you down here?”
“I thought you could use some coffee.” She handed it to him. He nodded, took the coffee with one hand, and motioned her into a chair with the other. He wasn’t a big man, and he always wore the same thing: a shabby navy jacket, khaki pants, and a blue shirt. Fluorescent light bounced off his shiny bald head.
He doctored his coffee methodically, throwing the sugar packet in the trash before he stirred his drink with a wooden stick. Satisfied, he brought the coffee to his lips.
“So what’s up? I have a feeling this isn’t a social call.”
“I was hoping you could get me some information about a lawyer.”
“What about him?”
“He was suspended from the bar two years, according to ARDC.”
“Dipped into the client’s trust account, did he?”
Georgia tilted her head. “How did you know?”
“That’s the most common reason lawyers get suspended.”
“I didn’t know.” She paused. “Paul, I need to know more, but I don’t want to work my way through the hearing transcripts.” She could get them if she went online, but she didn’t want to admit she was dyslexic. Plowing through them would take hours. “Can you run down the case for me? Don’t you have a friend on the board or something?”
“She’s a clerk. But it’s the same thing.” He grinned. “You want I should give her a call?”
“That would be great.”
“For you, Davis. Only for you.”
He put on a pair of reading glasses, spun his circular black Rolodex—the old-fashioned kind with white cards you don’t see much these days—found what he was looking for, and picked up the phone. He paused, took a sip of coffee, then punched in the numbers.
“Jamie? Hi, Paul Kelly here. Hey, I need a favor. Yeah. Suspended by the Supreme Court.” He covered the phone. “Who and when?”
“Chad Coe. About three years ago.”
Kelly repeated the information, then laughed. “I’d wait for you until the clock strikes thirteen, sweetheart.” He sipped his coffee, played with the telephone cord, and whispered to Georgia. “She’s checking. Got everything all computerized. Easy, peasy.”
Georgia nodded.
He waved her off, then sat up straighter. “Yeah, uh-huh. Hold on. Lemme get some paper.” He grabbed a sheet and a pen. “Okay. When? Uh-huh. Really? How? Okay. I got it. Thanks.”
He hung up and studied his notes. “Well, I don’t know what your dealings are with this guy, but I hope you got—or get—your money’s worth.”
“Because…”
“Chad Coe apparently has or had a gambling habit. Sports mostly. Bookies, racetrack, casinos. Was in over his head and got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. To the tune of a hundred grand.”
Georgia folded her arms.
“His firm fired him, of course, and a couple of his clients filed a complaint with ARDC.”
“And?”
“He didn’t contest it. Admitted he was a gambler, showed remorse. Said he was going to GA. Therapy too. So they only gave him twenty-four months. He was reinstated,” Kelly said. “By the way, he paid the money back right away.”
“If he was losing his shirt, how did he suddenly get a hundred grand?”
“That’s what I asked.” Kelly shrugged. “Jamie doesn’t know.”
“You think he went to a shark?” In which case whoever fronted him the money owned him.
“Who knows? Could have been family. Or a bank loan. But it’s clear he found another source of income.”
Georgia thought she knew who that source was.
He picked up his coffee. “Why are you interested in this creep?”
“His name came up in a case I’m working.”
He peered at her over his glasses. “I don’t have to tell you that a law degree doesn’t make someone a good guy, right?”
“You are.”
He colored all the way up to his shiny bald scalp.