Red Hot Lies
Tanner Hornsby fell into that second category, and so working for him, as I did, required lots of late nights in the office. But that first time I spoke to Forester, it wasn’t even late. It was about five o’clock, and I’d just run downstairs to the lobby and bought myself a massive green tea with a shot of vanilla syrup to keep me sharp for the next few hours. Tanner had already left for the day. With the weather warming up, I’d heard him on the phone earlier making plans to sit outside at Tavern on Rush, where he and his buddies would no doubt ogle women and drink themselves silly.
I was jealous of Tanner that night. Jealous that he already understood the law, that he had the money and time to hit the town on a Tuesday night.
In my office, I sipped my tea and tried to focus on an option agreement Tanner had asked me to finish.
But it became hard to concentrate because of the ringing phone in Tanner’s office, which was a few doors down from mine (and on the side of the building that actually had windows). Closer to me was the desk of Tanner’s assistant, Clarice, and I could hear her phone chiming, too.
Finally, I got up, walked to Clarice’s desk and picked it up. “Baltimore & Brown,” I said in a quick, what-the-hell-do-you-want kind of tone.
“Tanner Hornsby, please.” The man’s voice was melodic, with a slight Southern accent.
“Mr. Hornsby is gone for the day. May I take a message?”
“Gone for the day? It’s only five o’clock.”
I thought of Tanner, probably already well into his second Bombay Sapphire. “Mr. Hornsby is in a meeting.”
“Is this Clarice?”
“No, it’s Izzy McNeil, one of the associates.”
“Forester Pickett here.”
I coughed involuntarily. Everyone at Baltimore & Brown knew Forester, at least by name, but the associates were typically kept away from the clients. “Hello, Mr. Pickett. May I help you with something?”
“Well, I’m calling about Steven Baumgartner, and I need some assistance ASAP.”
Steven Baumgartner, commonly known around Chicago as “the Bomber,” was the morning shock jock on a radio station Forester owned. We’d been working on his new contract, which he had been expected to sign for millions more dollars than before, but after a recent stunt that resulted in over a hundred listeners jumping into the Chicago River to win concert tickets (many of them ending up with a waterborne virus), the station had considered letting him go.
“I’m familiar with Mr. Baumgartner,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m at Baumgartner’s house. I’ve told the guy he’s got to tone it down on air, and he’s willing to do it. He’s also willing to take a lot less money than we thought. But he wants to sign tonight. He thinks the bad press is going to lose him listeners, and he wants to turn it around as quickly as possible. His agent is on board. So I need you folks to get me that contract in the next two hours.”
I felt a charge of energy. I’d always thrived under deadlines. “No problem, Mr. Pickett. I’ll find Tanner, and we’ll get this to you right away.”
“I’ve tried his cell phone a number of times already.”
“I know how to reach him.”
I hung up the phone and called Tavern on Rush. I spent ten long minutes describing Tanner to the maître d’, insisting they find him, asking him to look again, all to no avail. I tried his cell phone, but he didn’t answer. Maybe they’d gone to Lux Bar? Or Gibson’s? Or Hugo’s? I tried each one. No one at any of these establishments matched Tanner’s description.
Finally, I called Forester back, taking pains not to reveal my panic. “I’m having a hard time reaching Tanner, but I’m sure we can get this done first thing tomorrow.”
Forester lowered his voice. “His agent is here now. They’re in talks with stations in L.A. But if we get this done tonight, they’ll sign with us. And I’ll have just saved my company a truckload of money.”
I thought about the contract. It was essentially ready to go. All I’d have to do was insert the new salary. “No problem, Mr. Pickett. What are the new contract terms?”
Forester named an amount, hundreds of thousands less than the original. I pulled up the contract on the computer, typed in the new salary term and printed it out. Now I’d have to proof the thing. If I made one mistake, I’d be collecting unemployment in a week.
Thirty minutes later I called Forester. “Does Baumgartner still get a signing bonus?”
“Ah!” he said, sounding pleased. “Excellent point. No. No signing bonus anymore.”
“I’ll take that out. And what about the bonuses if he reaches certain ratings?”
“Keep in the ratings bonuses.”
“May I have your fax number? I’ll send the contract to you in five minutes.” I took down the fax, gave Forester my direct line and told him I’d stay in my office for the next few hours in case any additional changes were needed.
I went back to my office with a pleased smile on my face. Making the changes to the Bomber’s contract, although simple, had been the first time I’d felt any proficiency with the law.
Forester called back in an hour and a half. “So you said your name was Isabel McNeil, is that right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How do you spell McNeil?”
I spelled it for him. I could hear Forester murmuring, as if he was writing this down, and the notion that Forester Pickett—media mogul, founder and CEO of Pickett Enterprises—was writing down my name was thrilling.
“Well, Ms. McNeil, you saved Pickett Enterprises today.”
I blushed. I couldn’t help it. As a redhead, the blush is impossible to control. “I think that’s overstating it, sir.”
“It’s the truth. That’s all there is to it. Now, tell me, how long have you been a lawyer?”
“Only about a year. I’ve been working here with Tanner Hornsby most of the time.”
Forester grunted at the mention of Tanner’s name. I interpreted this as a derisive grunt, which made me love him even more.
He asked me where I’d gone to law school, and I described Loyola University in Chicago. He asked about college, and I told him about the University of Iowa. And soon, I was talking about high school in the city and grade school before that and how we’d lived in Michigan before that. Forester was one of those great listeners. He chuckled at all the right times, and asked for clarification about this and that. He told me a few stories, too, like how he’d started in the business by buying a radio station, but how he’d gone to the University of Chicago at age fifty to get his college degree.
By the end of our conversation I felt, oddly, as if I was becoming friends with the man. The fact that he was a bizillionaire and I was a relative pauper didn’t matter, nor did the fact that he was one of the firm’s biggest clients and I was merely a peon associate.
When we were about to hang up the phone, Forester said, “You did well today, Izzy.” It was the first time he’d called me that, and I blushed again, but this time with pride.
The next day, Forester sent a new case to the firm. The lawsuit wasn’t anything big, just a simple torts case, a slip-and-fall accident at a theater Forester owned, and it arrived at our offices the same way all Pickett cases did.
The only remarkable thing was that the letter of retention wasn’t directed to Tanner. Instead, it was made out to Isabel McNeil.
7
An emergency-room nurse in pink scrubs stepped in front of me and held out an authoritative arm. “Who’re you here to see?”
“Forester Pickett.”
She pursed her mouth. “Mr. Pickett is …” She glanced over my shoulder, as if looking for reinforcements.
“He’s passed away. Yes, I know.” I put on my courtroom face and refused to let the statement register. “I’m actually here to see his son.”
“No one can go in except the family.”
A green curtain that covered the entrance to one of the rooms was flicked back at its corner and Shane Pickett’s face peeked out. “She’s okay.” He let the curtain fall closed.
“All right, go ahead,” the nurse said. “Sorry about your loss.”
The emotion hit me for the first time, and I felt as if I might gag on something large, something wrong, in my throat. “Thank you.”
I pulled back the curtain and stepped inside. Shane sat next to a metal bed, staring at the form that lay there, covered. Shane was a small man, a sharp dresser, his brown hair always parted severely and combed precisely. He had recently started wearing glasses that were stylish, but I got the feeling he wore them so that he would somehow look older, smarter. When Forester had had a heart attack a few years ago and succession planning was done at the company, Shane was made president of Pickett Enterprises, so that if something happened to Forester or when he stepped down as CEO, Shane would run the place. Forester was determined to keep it a family company. (I think he hoped Shane would have kids and that those kids would work there, too.) But Shane hadn’t been a “natural” in the business like his father was. There had been a lot of talk that he wasn’t ready or worthy for the position of CEO.
Shane looked up at me now, then back at what was apparently the form of Forester Carlton Pickett, the kindest and most vibrant man I’d ever known, now covered with a white, hospital-issue sheet. Forester had been a simple man in many ways, but he’d loved luxury in all its forms, and in particular he’d often spoken about his 1500 thread-count sheets and how he always bought the best bedding money could buy. Something about the hospital sheet that now covered him struck me as deeply wrong.
“Shane, I’m sorry,” I said.
Shane stood and launched himself into my arms, crying.
“It’s okay,” I murmured, rubbing his back. “It’s okay.”
But it wasn’t.
As Shane’s sobs continued, all I could think about was the discussion I’d had with Forester two weeks ago.
We were in my office for our “monthly roundup” as Forester called it. Forester met with his key professionals to find out precisely what everyone was up to. In the early days, I hosted him in the big Baltimore & Brown conference room with its view of the Sears Tower. I always ordered in a vast assortment of coffees, pastries and exotic fruit, but he’d soon had enough of that.
“You don’t need to feed me, Izzy,” he’d said. “And your office is just fine. Wherever you work, I work.”
So each month, I sat at my desk with its stacks of documents and contracts, and Forester sat unperturbed on the other side, sometimes moving a large folder in order to see me better.
That day, a few weeks ago, Q had come into the office with Forester’s usual cup of black coffee and a green tea for me.
“How are you, Quentin?” Forester said, standing to greet him. He was a little distracted that day, but as always, Forester took the time to speak with everyone.
“Great, sir, thanks.” Q handed him his cup of coffee with a smile. If anyone else had called him Quentin, he would have grimaced, but Q loved Forester as much as I did.
“And how’s Max?” Forester asked, even though being gay didn’t quite register with Forester. “I don’t understand it,” he’d once said to me, almost under his breath, but not in an unkind way. Just in a bewildered way. Yet he dutifully and honestly asked about Max every month.
“Great,” Q said. “He’s fantastic.”
“Good. Say hello for me.” Forester patted him on the shoulder affectionately. “And thanks for the coffee.”
We took our seats and spent the next hour discussing a lawsuit we’d filed against a delinquent contractor from a build-out of one of Forester’s studios.
As we wrapped up, Forester shifted in his seat. “Look, Izzy, you’ve got to promise me something.”
“I’ll be nice to the contractor at his deposition. I promise.” Forester hated needless nastiness, which was, I suppose, why he wasn’t a lawyer.
“Thank you but, no, it’s not that.”
I closed my notebook and waited.
Forester shifted again. “Look, if something should happen to me, which of course it’s not going to, but if someone tries to … I don’t know … harm me, I want you to look into it.”
“What exactly are you talking about?” I said.
“I’m healthy as a horse.”
“Right, I know that.”
“It’s been three years since the heart attack, and you know everything I’ve done—how I’ve changed my eating, my exercising?”
“Right.”
“And this morning, I had a physical with my cardiologist. Stress test, EKG, the whole rigmarole. I passed with flying colors.”
“Good. I’m glad. So what do you mean about someone trying to harm you?”
Forester paused, which was unlike him. “I’ve had some problems at Pickett Enterprises. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been getting letters telling me I need to step down. That I’m too old for the job.”
“Sent by whom?” I said, indignant.
“I don’t know.”
“Maybe it’s a prank.”
“Possibly.” Another pause. “It’s just the damnedest thing.” Forester shook his head. “There’s also the matter of this homeless man. Twice outside Pickett I’ve been approached by a homeless gentleman.”
“And of course you gave him twenty bucks.” Forester could never pass up an opportunity to help someone on the street.
“Something like that. But he spoke to me. He said something disturbing.” Forester’s face, perennially sun-kissed from hours at golf courses and gardening, seemed to pale slightly. I noticed the lines crinkling his face. “He said to be careful. Otherwise I would join Olivia.”
I inhaled sharply. “Are you sure?”
Forester met my eyes. “Positive. The next time I saw him, I gave him money again, and he said the exact same thing.”
I crossed my hands on my desk and squeezed them together. Suddenly, I felt my youth. As Forester’s attorney, I was meant to advise him, but I had no idea what should or could be done. “Did you call the police?”
“No. There’s no crime. No extortion or anything.”
“We’ll get you a security detail then.”
Forester made a face. “Izzy, you know me better than that.” He cleared his throat and sat taller, as if throwing off the conversation.
“Then let’s call John Mayburn,” I said, referring to the private investigator the firm hired for big cases.
“Don’t worry about it. I’m handling this for now, and nothing is going to happen to me. I’m sure it’s all a coincidence.” He gave me the kind smile he was known for, and he changed the topic.
Since that conversation, I’d worried about Forester, but I did what he wanted, and I let him manage the situation. And now he was dead. I stared at his body covered by the hospital sheet.
“God, I can’t believe it,” Shane said, wiping his face. He took a step back. “Sorry about that, Izzy.”
“Don’t be.” I sat in a chair at the foot of the bed, then pushed the chair back a few feet. “What happened?”
“Annette made him dinner and left. But she forgot something and came back about forty-five minutes later and she found him. He was dead. Out on the patio.”
I put my hand to my mouth. Poor Forester. What had he gone through in those last moments? “What do the doctors say?”
“Heart attack. You know he had that heart attack a few years ago?”
“Yeah, but he had the angiogram after that and he’s been so diligent about everything—his diet, the medications, the Chinese herbs, the exercise.”
“You know about all that?”
“Your dad and I were close.”
Shane nodded. “He thought of you like a daughter.”
“I also know that he had a stress test a few weeks ago.”
Shane looked surprised. “He did?”
“And an EKG. And he was told everything was fine.”
“Well, I know if you’ve had a heart attack once, it can happen again.”
“I guess.”
We both looked at the covered form on the bed. I felt an intense urge to cry. I took a huge breath. “Shane, why is he still here? I mean, the body. Shouldn’t they take him out or something?”
“They will. Any minute. We’re just waiting.” He laughed, a raw sound. “I guess I’m just waiting. He’s not really here anymore is he?”
“Will they do an autopsy?” I asked.
“They say they have to.”
“Good.” My mind raced. Had someone hurt Forester or was it as tragically simple as Shane had suggested and just another heart attack?
Shane slumped forward, shaking his head back and forth.
“Shane, are you okay?”
He righted himself and nodded.
“Has anyone been here with you?”
“Walt just left to start calling people.”
“Good.” “Walt” was Walter Tenning, the chief financial officer of Pickett Enterprises and the most efficient of men.
“I called my aunts and uncles,” he said, “but they all live down south. They’re coming in tomorrow.”
It seemed incongruous that Forester, a man who was loved by everyone he touched, would have so few people at his deathbed. I couldn’t believe that Forester—wonderful Forester who had done so much for so many—was gone. He’d given both Sam and me our careers, and Sam had always said Forester had been the best teacher, not just about business, but about life.
“Where’s Sam?” Shane asked, as if reading my thoughts.
I opened my mouth, then closed it. I thought about making up an excuse for my fiancé. But nothing came.
“I don’t know,” I said to Shane. “I have no idea where Sam is.”
8
After Forester’s body had been taken away, Shane and I hugged one last time in front of the hospital, and I went to my place in Old Town. I lived on Eugenie Street, in a brick three-flat converted to condos. I had bought the top unit, mostly because it gave me the rooftop deck with the city view, while the other owners had to make do with a balcony or patio. The downside was the three-flight walk up. Those stairs had never seemed so long as they did the day Forester died.
When I finally reached the landing and began to push open my door, I felt a twinge of optimism peek its head through my grief. Maybe Sam was here. He had spent less and less time at his place in Roscoe Village lately, and in a few short months, after our holiday wedding, he’d be living here officially.
But the place was dark, and over the kitchen bar top, I saw Sam’s orange coffee mug, sitting at the side of the sink where he’d left it that morning. Now the kitchen was bathed in a cold pool of moonlight that filtered through the window. Where was he?
The only upside to not finding Sam was that I didn’t have to tell him about Forester’s death. Forester meant the world to him and he would take this news hard.
I turned on the overhead lights and stared around the condo. The polished pine floors and the marble turn-of-the-century fireplace with its bronze grate had seemed cozy when we left this morning. Now the place felt cold. I called Sam’s two closest friends. Neither had heard from him that night. I called Sam again. It went right to voice mail without even ringing. Had his battery died or had he turned off his phone? If he had turned it off, then why? My head reeled with possibilities—an accident, a robbery, a sudden all-encompassing desire to scare the living shit out of me?
I tried his home phone once more, then the office again. I repeated the process five more times. Insanity is sometimes defined as repeating the same action over and over again, expecting a different result. I pondered this as I dialed Sam one more time.
Then a new thought hit me—it was Tuesday night, which meant the Chicago Lions rugby team practiced tonight, which meant the team would be out boozing at this moment. Sam had taken this season off, in preparation for the wedding, something that had drawn merciless taunting from his teammates. But maybe sweet, responsible Sam had flipped under the pressure. The team didn’t usually go out after practice, but maybe they’d headed to McGinny’s Tap, their favorite postgame hangout. Maybe Sam had gotten loaded, and maybe he was even cheating on me with one of the women who chased around the team.
Strangely, I was fine with this thought. Drunken debauchery I could handle right now. I could even forgive it. Yesterday, the thought of Sam cheating would have sent me careening around the city on my Vespa, a kitchen knife tucked in my faux-crocodile clutch. Now, I actually found myself praying that my fiancé was throwing up too much beer into a gutter, his arm still around a big-boobed blonde. Because then he wouldn’t be hurt. Because then, somewhere, he would be okay.
I scrolled through my phone to see if I had any numbers of the rugby guys, but there were none. There’d never been a reason to call them before.
I flicked the lights back off, went into my bedroom and stripped off my clothes. I pulled on a Jeff Beck-concert T-shirt of Sam’s and crawled under the thick duvet. It seemed wrong to lie down, to be doing nothing, but the urge to escape the day was overpowering. Behind the grief of losing Forester and the worry about Sam, I felt inconsolably guilty. Today, I’d felt overwhelmed with my job—with everything Forester had given me. And I’d felt overwhelmed, too, with the wedding, with Sam, I guess. And now, they were both gone.
9
Day Two
I never slept. The phone never rang. I finally got up at 6:00 a.m. I got on my computer and checked my e-mail. The usual batch of messages appeared in my in-box—notes from other lawyers, one from Maggie about tickets to a concert at the Vic, announcements from local clothing stores where I spent too much money—but nothing from Sam.
I showered but couldn’t deal with my hair and so I pulled it back in a low ponytail, and decided to go to the office where Q would help me, where I could figure out what to do next.
I had always liked the crisp quiet of Baltimore & Brown when the gray-white early-morning light filtered in the windows and hung there before all the troops descended. But at 7:05 it was too quiet. I texted Q and asked him to get in as soon as possible. I tried Sam’s numbers again. And again. And again. This insanity was seriously fucking with my calm. I mean, flubbing with my calm. Flubbing.
I looked at my watch. It was too early to phone Sam’s mom or sisters in California. I called the police and was told Sam hadn’t been arrested and I could fill out a missing persons report if I came to the station.
“What would you do then?” I asked.
“We just take the report,” the officer said.
“And then what?”
“We just take the report,” he repeated.
I tried Northwestern hospital, along with Michael Reese, Illinois Masonic and every other hospital I could think of. Nothing. I tried his best friend, R.T., again, who answered sleepily and said he still hadn’t heard from him.
From down the hall, I heard the swishing sound of a key card and then the click of the door opening.
“Q?” I yelled.
No answer.
“Q?”
Not a sound. It was too early for assistants to be here, and most of the attorneys didn’t start arriving until at least eight. Goose bumps rose suddenly on my arms.
I stood from the desk and hurried to the door.
“Oh!” I said, colliding with someone turning in to my office.
Tanner’s slicked-back hair had its usual sheen, but his blue eyes looked as tired as mine.
“You scared me,” I said, a hand on my chest.
“Sorry.” It was the first word of apology I’d ever heard Tanner utter. To anyone. “I saw your light on. Guess you couldn’t sleep either?”
“No. You heard about Forester?”
He nodded. “Can I come in?”
“Of course.” I sat at my desk, watching Tanner sink into a chair.
“I thought the old guy would live forever,” he said.
“Me, too.” I choked a little as I uttered the words.
Tanner shook his head, and we sat in a silence that felt both mutual and poignant. I wouldn’t have thought Tanner capable of such a moment, and I never thought I’d share one with him, but grief, I suppose, makes for unusual buddies.
“Have you talked to Shane this morning?” I asked.