“I think nobody can tell you what to do,” Harry said firmly, “but I’m not the one to ask. We only had Ted.”
She kept up the chatter of siblings and family spacing as she let Harry lead her from the house. So that was his son the opera singer. Not Drew, and not a brother if Harry was telling the truth about Ted being an only child, but a close relative. Harry knew Drew, no matter how he went on about termites and radon, but he’d never admit it. She’d have to find some other source.
Chapter Sixteen
“HAPPY THURSDAY,” SAMMIE SAID, coming into Eric’s office with the Hall file.
“What’s so happy?” Eric looked up from his computer. He had just finished transferring money from savings to checking to cover Lacey’s check to the handyman who had fixed Ella Dane’s window—whatever Ella Dane had been doing in there, moon dances or some kind of hyperactive yoga, there was no way a branch had caused that damage. It was easier to pay than to argue. He’d have to close the savings account; this transfer had put the balance below the minimum, and the bank would charge ten dollars a month to keep it open.
And this was his life now. He couldn’t even keep three hundred dollars in a savings account.
Sammie laughed. “After this, the rest of the week’s wall-to-wall judies. You need to get this guy in on Monday or Tuesday. Thursday’s too late.”
Eric shrugged her suggestion away and snapped his fingers for the file.
She shook it at him. “You don’t get like that,” she said. “Snapping your fingers at me. I don’t think so. You listen. These nut clients, you don’t want to deal with them on a Thursday or Friday.”
“Why not?”
“You give them bad news early in the week. They go back to work. By the weekend, they’re mad at somebody else. You’ve got to take him seriously. Always take the nuts seriously, ’specially the ones who know where you live.”
“Lex Hall doesn’t know where I live.”
Sammie dropped the file on his desk. “You wish. Happy Thursday.”
The top page was Sammie’s précis of her investigation into Lexington Hall. His legal record: twice, he’d reported neighbors to DHHS, and both cases were dismissed. Both families sued, and one lost the case because Lex had recorded the noises. The second family settled for three thousand dollars. The child was hospitalized with a fractured shoulder four months later and was removed from the parents’ custody.
Then there was one case of simple assault. Could this be the dirt that Cambrick MacAvoy mentioned? Again, children were involved. Last year, Lex Hall, recently promoted to produce manager at MacArthur’s, had seen a woman send her children through the store to shoplift. Three children, the oldest only eight, loaded up on meat and over-the-counter pharmaceuticals. He tackled the woman in the parking lot. Lex and the mother were arrested. When the dust cleared, the prosecutor dropped the charges against Lex; the children were taken into the system.
So: righteous indignation in defense of the young. Not exactly a deal breaker in family court. What had Sammie meant, Lex Hall knew where he lived? He riffled Sammie’s printouts and photocopies—if all this represented billable hours, she must have blown through Lex’s retainer and then some—and he had only five minutes before the man arrived.
Sammie’s note:
Records of Lexington Hall begin at age 20. No information prior to 1983. No birth certificate, no educational records, no military record. First legal appearance of LH: sold 571 Forrester Lane to Harry Rakoczy in 1983.
Eric felt as if he’d walked around a corner and met himself coming the other way. The Miszlaks’ house, Harry Rakoczy’s house, Lex Hall’s house . . . What did it mean?
Sammie buzzed him. “Mr. Hall is here,” she said in her receptionist voice.
“Thanks, Sammie. Listen, about that property, what about its title history?”
“Yes, sir,” she said. “I’ll look into that. Mr. Hall’s coming right in.”
He opened the door for Lex, who entered with a blue nylon shopping bag from MacArthur’s, and the scent of pineapple. He thumped the bag onto Eric’s desk. “Could you move that to the floor, please, Mr. Hall?” Eric said mildly.
Lex set it on the floor, then reached in and pulled out a pineapple, the largest Eric had ever seen, and put it on the desk. “This is a big pineapple,” Lex announced.
“It truly is, Mr. Hall.”
“I brought it for a present.” Most of its scales were golden, some streaked with orange, and juice glistened in its seams and creases. “It’s ripe. Most people buy the pineapple green and eat it green.”