“Hjs partner,” he says. “Mr. Skarpellos.”

There are little murmurs in the courtroom.

“So if Mrs. Potter were”-I search for a better word but can’t think of one-“eliminated, then Mr. Skarpellos would take her part of the estate?”

Hazeltine swallows hard. “That’s correct,” he says.

“Oh.”

The full measure of Matthew Hazeltine’s reluctance is now clear. Matters of confidence or not, I can be certain of one thing. Whatever Hazeltine knows of Ben’s will is also known to Tony Skarpellos. Such is the Greek’s domination of his so-called partners. I am finished with the witness and release him to a worse fate: his office and the wrath of Tony Skarpellos.

CHAPTER 18

“Is it important?” I ask her.

I I’m on a lunch break from Talia’s case, wolfing down a deli sandwich and working to return phone calls, a stack of slips left on my desk by Dee from that morning.

“Not vital,” she says, “but a loose end that we should tie up before we close the estate.”

I’ve never met Peggie Conrad, the paralegal recommended to me by Harry to handle Sharon’s probate. I messengered the file to her after an initial telephone conversation. Since then I have talked to her twice, each time by phone. In listening to her talk I conjure the image of a dowdy, middle-aged woman. Her voice has a certain frumpish quality, a rasp that gives off mental odors of alcohol and cigarettes. It seems that Sharon’s probate, like so much of the rest of my life, is not going well. A couple of items are missing from the file.

“I just about got it assembled,” she says. “It’s a little messy, the file. Nothing I can’t fix, you understand. When I’m done goin’ through everything I’ll publish the notice to creditors, prepare the decedent’s final tax return-unless her father already did one.” It is more a question than a statement.

“Better do it,” I say. Knowing Coop and his mental state at the time of Sharon’s death, I’m sure he was in no mood for dealing with the minutiae of tax returns. The fact that the state could tax this transaction, the death of his only daughter, was, I am certain, as foreign to George Cooper as capital gains are to the homeless.

I’ve heard this morning, through the grapevine, that the police have run out of leads. A month ago they thought about checking cellular telephone records on the off-chance that the driver of Sharon’s car may have had a hand-held portable phone, and that he or she may have used this to get a ride from the scene. But this was such a long shot, one that even Coop could not justify pursuing. Instead he has called in every chit he holds, and finally convinced the cops to give him one man, a skilled forensics tech, for three hours, to go over the car one more time in hopes of finding something they may have missed in earlier searches.

“I’ll take care of it,” says Peggie Conrad. “The tax return. Then I’ll set up the property schedules. That’ll do it, I think.”

“How long before we can close?” I ask. “I’m anxious to get it done,” I tell her. “A favor for a friend.”

“Thirty, maybe forty-five days. One court appearance. We might be able to avoid it. If there’s no complications, no creditors’ claims, sometimes they’ll take a case on a written submission. Do you want me to try?”

“If you can, it would help. This thing that’s missing, the receipt, is that a complication?” I ask.

“A claim check,” she corrects me. “I doubt it.”

I work my pen over a legal pad as she talks, listing the items she needs to finish.

“Sharon’s W-2 form for the last year. For the tax return,” she explains.

I grimace. “I’ll have to get that from her father.” Sharon is a tender wound with Coop. The thought of opening it, even for a minor matter of business, is not a pleasant one.

“Now to the claim check,” she says. ‘The police inventory from the accident shows Sharon’s personal effects. It’s nothing much, but it lists this claim check from a hardware store, a place called Simms. Doesn’t say what it’s for, but whatever’s there is an asset of the estate. The claim check seems to be missing. You might check with her dad or just call the store. No big thing. If we can’t find it, we’ll just abandon the item and show it as lost on the schedules.” Peggie reads the number of the claim check to me and I make a note. I will call the hardware store. On this I can avoid dealing with Cooper.

“Is that it?”

“As far as I can tell. Do you do these often?” she asks.

“Never before”-I hesitate for a second-“or again.”

“I can tell.” She laughs.

“That bad?” I say.

“No worse than the usual. Some lawyers give me probates so old they’ve gone through two generations of executors,” she says.

“The lawyer’s motto,” I tell her. “When in doubt, procrastinate. It’s what makes malpractice so lucrative.”

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“I’ll call you when I have the other items.” Then I hang up.

Next on the stack is a message from Skarpellos. I call and get Florence. Tony’s out to lunch, seems he’s meeting with Cheetam. He wants to talk to me. According to Florence, it’s important. She builds me into his schedule for later that day, following Talia’s afternoon session. I hang up.

I feel as if suddenly I’m welded to the Greek, part of his mercantile empire. Like a bag lady at a one-cent sale, Susan Hawley has accepted Skarpellos’s offer, a free defense for her silence in “boink-gate.” I am now left to juggle Hawley’s defense as I watch Talia slide slowly into the abyss that has become her preliminary hearing.

Like envoys at the United Nations we sit four abreast at the defense table, Cheetam next to Talia. I’m to her right. Today Harry’s joined us. I’ve told him about the blunder over the bullet fragment, how Cooper handed our leader his own head on a platter. Cheetam thinks that Harry’s presence here is a show of force, a turning out of the troops for his case in chief, the first day for the defense. He has glad-handed and back-slapped Harry all the way into the courtroom. But I know Harry better. Having missed the big one, he nurtures hopes of seeing Gilbert Cheetam get his ass waxed one more time. There is a certain quiet malevolence in the nature of Harry Hinds.

In the early afternoon, Nelson’s putting the final touches on his case. He calls a witness from the state department of justice, a woman from the records section. There is little fanfare here, and no surprises. She testifies to the registration of a handgun in the name of Benjamin G. Potter. This is the small handgun purchased by Ben for Talia, the one that Talia and Tod have yet to find. As with everything else owned by Ben, this was a pricey little piece, a $400 semiautomatic Desert Industries twenty-five-caliber ACP. Nelson ties this neatly to Coop’s testimony, the fact that the twenty-five-caliber ACP is the smallest steel-jacketed round manufactured in this country.

O’Shaunasy is taking notes.

Having delivered this final blow, Nelson rests the case for the state.

O’Shaunasy inquires whether Cheetam is ready to proceed. He is.

Cheetam is up and at it. He calls his ace expert.

Dr. Bernard Blumberg is a medical hack known to every personal injury lawyer west of the Rockies. A psychiatrist by training, Blumberg, for a fee, will testify on every aspect of medical science from open-heart surgery to the removal of bunions. He is notorious for being available on a moment’s notice-the expert of choice when others have failed to shade their findings sufficiently to satisfy the lawyers and clients who hire them.

It is what has happened here. Cheetam has exhausted the pool of local experts, men who in good conscience could not dispute the substance of George Cooper’s pathology report. Several have offered to put a favorable spin on some of the findings. But this was not good enough for Cheetam. Skarpellos has put him in touch with Blumberg.