Whiskey Beach(31)
New goal, she determined. Giving Eli Landon reasons to smile more often.
But right now, she needed to put his underwear in the dryer.
Eli had barely settled in Neal Simpson’s waiting area, declined the offer of coffee, water or anything else made by one of the three receptionists, when Neal himself strode out to greet him.
“Eli.” Neal, fit in his excellent suit, shot out a hand, took Eli’s in a firm grip. “It’s good to see you. Let’s go on back to my office.”
He moved athletically through the slickly decorated maze of the Gardner, Kopek, Wright and Simpson offices. A confident man, an exceptional attorney who at thirty-nine had grabbed full partner and put his name on the letterhead of one of the top firms in the city.
Eli trusted him, had to. Though they’d worked in different firms, often competing for the same clients, they’d moved in similar circles, had mutual friends.
Or had, Eli thought, as most of his had slipped away under the constant media battering.
In his office with its wide, wintry view of the Commons, Neal ignored his impressive desk and gestured Eli to a set of leather chairs.
“Let’s take a minute first,” Neal began as his attractive assistant brought in a tray with two oversize mugs filled with frothy cappuccino. “Thanks, Rosalie.”
“No problem. Can I get you anything else?”
“I’ll let you know.”
Neal sat back, studying Eli as his assistant stepped out, shut the door. “You look better.”
“So I’m told.”
“How’s the book going?”
“Some days better than others. Altogether not bad.”
“And your grandmother? She’s recovering from her accident?”
“She is. I’m going by to see her later. You don’t have to do this, Neal.”
Brown eyes shrewd, Neal picked up his mug, settled back with it. “Do what?”
“The small talk, the relax-the-client routine.”
Neal sampled the coffee. “We were friendly before you hired me, but you didn’t hire me because we were friendly. Or that wasn’t at the top of the list. When I asked you why you’d come to me, specifically, you had several good reasons. Among them was you believed the two of us approached the law and our work along similar lines. We represent the whole client. I want to know your state of mind, Eli. It helps me decide what actions or non-actions to recommend to you. And how much I’ll have to persuade you to take a recommendation you might not feel ready for.”
“My state of mind changes like the goddamn tide. Right now it’s . . . not optimistic but more aggressive. I’m tired, Neal, of dragging this chain behind me. I’m tired of regretting I can’t have what I had, even not knowing if I want it anymore. I’m tired of being stuck in neutral. It may be better than sliding off a cliff in reverse, the way it felt a few months ago, but it sure as hell isn’t moving forward.”
“Okay.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change how Lindsay’s parents—or anyone else—thinks or feels about me. Not until Lindsay’s killer is found, arrested, tried, convicted. And even then, some will think I somehow slipped through the fingers of justice. So screw that.”
Neal sipped again, nodded. “All right.”
Eli pushed to his feet. “I need to know for me,” he said, pacing the office. “She was my wife. It doesn’t matter that we’d stopped loving each other, if we ever did. It doesn’t matter that she cheated on me. It doesn’t matter that I wanted the marriage over, and her out of my life. She was my wife, and I need to know who came in our home and killed her.”
“We can put Carlson back on.”
Eli shook his head. “No, he played it out. I want someone fresh, someone who comes into this fresh, starts at the beginning. That’s not a dig at Carlson. His job was to find evidence to support reasonable doubt. I want new blood, not looking for evidence to prove I didn’t do it, but to find who did.”
On his legal pad, Neal made a lazy, looping note. “To go into it without automatically eliminating you?”
“Exactly. Whoever we hire should look at me, and hard. I want a woman.”
Neal smiled. “Who doesn’t?”
With a half laugh Eli sat again. “That would be me for the past eighteen months.”
“No wonder you look like shit.”
“I thought I looked better.”
“You do, which only shows how bad it got. You specifically want a female investigator.”
“I want a smart, experienced, thorough female investigator. One Lindsay’s friends would be more apt to talk to, to open up with than they were with Carlson. We agreed with the police determination that Lindsay either let her killer into the house, or the killer had a key. No forced entry, and after she got home at four-thirty, coded in, the next coding in was my own at about six-thirty. She was attacked from behind, meaning she turned her back on her killer. She wasn’t afraid of him. There wasn’t a fight, a struggle, a botched burglary. She knew and didn’t fear her killer. Suskind’s alibied, but what if he wasn’t her only lover? Just the latest?”