Love and Murder

Chapter 3-2

Noah didn’t return my phone calls Sunday. I didn’t see him Monday morning either. As soon as I walked in the office, Lou Ann greeted me. Her gray hair pulled in a bun, her sun-weathered face was set off by a warm, wide smile.

“Good morning, Jake.”

“Morning. Have you seen Noah?”

“I called and said he was checking on stuff.”

“Oh.”

Lou Ann didn’t bother me for the rest of the morning except to remind me of a hearing I had.

Later, after finishing up at the courthouse, I walked back to my office and saw Noah. He sat with three other men at the pizza parlor. I recognized the others as attorneys with the public defender’s office. The one closest to Noah, who had his arm on him, was Tyler Newsome.

I made a beeline to talk to Noah, and almost made it through the doors of the restaurant, but then my path was blocked by Anton Hersch.

“Hey, Jake, it’s been a while.”

I tried to look behind Anton, but didn’t want to appear obvious.

“Hey, Anton. Didn’t know you liked pizza.”

He’d certainly preferred the Bartow Country Club when I worked for him. He usually ate at the club three days of the week when he wasn’t having food delivered for lunch for him and the other senior partners at Hill & Donaldson.

Anton recruited me to come work for him a few years back before he fired me, and I started my own practice three years ago. When he hired me, he told me he caught one of my murder trials as a public defender. Later, deep in our affair, I learned Anton had other reasons for hiring me. He’d seen me around the courthouse and had an investigator check up on me. When he found out I frequented gay bars in Tampa, he offered me a very well-paying job as his associate. That I was a very good trial attorney was icing on the cake to him, as he would bed me when his wife was out of town, or f****d me when the office was closed every time he had a chance.

I’d still be working there but I had an affair with a client, Noah Beckwith, a cop’s son, who picked up a DUI charge. Although it was okay for me to cheat on my wife with Anton, I learned it wasn’t okay with Anton that I cheated on him with Noah.

“Jake, it’s been a while. You look good.”

“Thanks.” As I spoke, Noah gathered his things from the restaurant table, and walked out with Tyler. Noah left through the side door rather than going through the front where I stood.

I heard Anton saying something.

“Anton, I’m sorry, I didn’t hear what you said.”

“I said we need to catch up,” he said, sounding sincere. “I’ve left a couple of messages with Lou Ann, asking you to call me, but I figured you are still upset with me after all these years.”

I did get those messages in the last few weeks, but I never returned them. Too much pride. Too much anger. But, now I was curious to find out what he wanted. I could always tell him to eat s**t and die later.

“Yeah, we should bury the hatchet.”

Maybe he’ll finally apologize to me. This ought to be good.

“Okay, let’s catch up tonight. How about the Starbucks at Beacon in Oakhaven, say around six?

“Umm, sure. You don’t want to talk now? Here?”

“I’d rather talk to you in private without so many people from the courthouse around us. Listen, I’ll make it worth your while. I want to run some ideas by you.”

“All right. I have to pick up my daughter at school, but I’m dropping her off at Elena’s so I can meet you at six.”

Shaking my hand, he said, “See you there tonight,”

I walked out the door and soon felt a vibration from my cell phone. It was a text message from Lou Ann: Frank was in jail, arrested for second-degree murder. First appearance was that afternoon. Frank’s sister-in-law had dropped off a retainer check for twenty-five thousand dollars.

As I approached my office, I saw Noah’s red Jeep. Knowing that he was in the office, I quickly went upstairs. I had to go to Frank’s first appearance soon.

Lou Ann was standing by the copier, and pointed to my office. I walked in, and saw Noah sitting on the chair, poring over a file. He was the first to start, pulling a couple of pages from the file. “Here’s a copy of the probable cause affidavit for Frank.”

“Thanks. I’ll look it over. I’ll be heading out to first appearance soon.”

“Well, there’s one thing you should know about this investigation.”

“What’s that?”

“Before Frank’s arrest, Pineridge police was asking—and getting—help from a prosecutor on how the affidavit should be drawn up and what facts to put on it. I found out yesterday when my dad and I were golfing. One of dad’s golf buddies is still on the Pineridge force, and pretty close to Gary Bush.”

“Oh? That’s not that unusual.”

“Gary was talking to a female prosecutor.”

I hated this twenty questions thing that Noah liked to play.

“Noah…what are you getting you at?” Then it dawned on me. “Elena.”

“Yup, Elena.”

Noah started to head out the door when I interrupted.

“Are we going to talk about the other night?”

“I don’t think there’s anything to talk about.”

“Listen, I am so sorry for what I said.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It is what it is.”

“I just need more time,” I implored. “I promise that I’ll do everything I can to change things.”

“Whatever. I’ve heard it all before.”

Noah turned to walk out, obviously still angry about the other night, putting papers into his briefcase. I was expecting this response. He always acted passive-aggressively when it came to Elena.

As he fiddled with his bag, his .40 Glock, still holstered, fell out, making a thud on the floor. “Damn briefcase.”

“Holy s**t, Noah!” What if your gun went off? You’d freak out Lou Ann.”

“Lou Ann knows I carry. It’s no big deal to her. The gun’s safeties are on, so just calm down. Besides you have your own gun.”

“My dad left me my grandpa’s old Walther PPK from World War II. It’s locked up at home. I don’t walk around with it.”

“You should for your safety,” he said. “Especially around here and the line of work we do.”

“I’m not going to walk around with a weapon.”

“Whatever. By the way, what did that asshole, Anton, want? He seemed pretty insistent whatever it was.”

“You saw us talking? You could have come over and said hello.”

“Okay then.” He threw his bag on the chair. “You want talk. Let’s talk and be f*****g honest. I’m still pissed about the other night and if you weren’t my boss, we wouldn’t be talking right now.”

“No, you’d rather act like a ten-year-old, and flirt with Tyler.”

“Tyler? Tyler doesn’t give a s**t about me. Not every gay guy is going to f**k anything that walks like someone I know.”

I knew that the emphasis on someone was directed to my comment the other night, and I knew I couldn’t keep arguing with Noah so I tried to change the subject.

“Anton just wanted to talk, about what I don’t know, but we’re meeting tonight at Starbucks. Do you want to join us?” My comment came out more sarcastically than what I wanted.

Noah’s face turned red. “You can tell that hypocritical asshole to go f**k himself. And, no, I’m not joining you guys. I don’t know why you want to meet with him. He f****d you over at his firm—literally and figuratively—because of us and there’s nothing I’d like better to do than run him over with my Jeep. Why do you let people s**t on you, Jake?”

I stood there in silence, shocked.

“Let’s face it, Jake, you don’t think much about us. And, you don’t care what it means to me that you were talking to your ex.”

“Anton was never my ex.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot. You were just f**k buddies.” Noah’s voice was louder, sterner now. “You two deserve each other.”