Fatal Connections

Chapter 48

As the elevator shot up toward the 11th floor, I put on the pair of gloves I had tucked into my pocket—and questioned the wisdom of what I was doing. There were fifteen floors in the building, but only eight or nine monitors at the guard desk. Assuming that the views of different floors rotated proportionately, I guessed that I had a roughly 50-50 chance of getting caught in a lie. With any luck, the office door lock wasn't some kind of bizarre combination of buttons and retinal scan (which seemed excessive, even for a law firm) and would respond to my bump key.

The elevator doors opened onto a wide strip of burgundy carpet that stretched down the hall. The elevator door faced the entrance to the law firm. Through the glass doors, I could just barely make out what seemed to be a smartly decorated waiting area—there was muted light from a hidden source. But there were no clues as to whether anyone else was in the office. The glow of light seemed to come from beyond the receptionist area. Perhaps from a computer or other device someone had left on. There were no shadows of movement. Hoping the coast was clear, I decided take my chances.

A quick look at the door brought some relief. The lock was not one of those fancy, high-tech ones. Not an easy one, but it was receptive to a set of lock picks, which I just happened to have, along with my bump key.

While I fiddled with picking the lock, my mind wandered back to the guard. I hoped I was right about the security cameras and wondered whether the Guard Dog was sleeping or enjoying my not very subtle attempt to break in.

As each tumbler clicked into place, I was on full alert for any sounds of moving, talking, or other human activity. So far, nothing but silence, apart from the tiny clicks and snaps of my lock-picking efforts. As I cracked the last bit of the lock and pushed the door open, I could hear the elevator start up behind me. I shoved my way through the doors, then bolted past the reception area and down a hall.

It wasn't hard to find which of the offices belonged to Aaron. I spotted an office with an engraved nameplate that identified it as Bernson's. Then I moved down the hall to a corner office. Nailed it. This door was locked, but the mechanism yielded easily to my bump key. I went inside and, without turning on any lights, I quickly scanned the room, its contents reduced to a collection of varying gray shapes in the dim light. A long section of floor-to-ceiling windows allowed the illumination from downtown Bethesda's commercial buildings to wash over the room. I made sure the door was locked before I closed it.

I could easily see a desk large enough to merit its own ZIP code. What money the Harcourts saved on their house clearly went toward legal fees. I used my phone to quickly capture the contents of the various desk drawers. If anything seemed vaguely interesting, I picked it up and inspected it more closely using my phone flashlight under the desk. The picture windows made the office feel a bit exposed. The last thing I needed was to be caught in mid B&E.

Among other things, I found a small appointment book. I flipped through it, scanning for references to anything I recognized. The Harcourts' names appeared. They had been scheduled to meet Gallagher the Monday after I discovered them. Interesting. I took a couple of photos of the calendar entry and thumbed through more of the pages. This revealed that the couple had met with the attorney about two weeks before they died.

Along with snapping photos of all the pages over the two-week period before the final calendar entry, this seemed like a good opportunity to find whatever records there were of Gallagher's last meeting with his late clients.

When I tried to start his computer, I was prompted for a password. I did a quick check for any obvious hiding places for a password list. After trying his initials, I struck out. That was it for me. I needed to focus on what I could get easily.

I moved from Gallagher's office to a small room full of filing cabinets. These guys had been practicing a while. Long enough to digitize to an extent but not give up on paper for good. Each cabinet bore a label that identified its contents in alphabetical order. I checked the labels more closely. In smaller type, each label indicated a hyphenated number prefaced by a single capital letter. The numbers seemed to suggest a date range. I suspected the capital letter stood for the attorney's last name.

A quick scan of the file cabinets confirmed my guess. In no time, I thumbed through the Hs in Gallagher's files. The name "Harcourt" jumped out at me along with the file itself. I took the time to check the previous date range and found only a thin file with their retainer agreement. I grabbed that, too. Each time, I made sure to pull up an adjacent file to make replacing the folder easier. I didn't intend to steal what might be clues for the cops. I just wanted to share the wealth.

Keeping to the shelter of the inner rooms, I found a small, book-lined law library. It was so cute, I went inside to flip through the (temporarily) pilfered files. The contents ranged from dull to yawn-inducing, which made it harder to figure out their import. Rather than agonize, I went for Gallagher's handwritten notes and file memos, figuring they possibly captured his thoughts and concerns better.

I thought I might use a copier to duplicate at least half the paperwork. I found one, but it was off. Damn. And it probably required a password. Damn again. "Times like this, I wish I had a partner," I muttered. I needed to get this done. Fast.

I improvised an assistant in, ironically, a fax machine. People still use these. And this one was on. So I loaded some notes and memos into the fax, hit what I hoped were the right buttons, and managed to make some copies that way. While that was processing, I snapped photos of the remaining documents and took handwritten notes about the other file contents. After collecting the copies, I returned the originals to their files and returned them both to storage.

Then I stole back into Gallagher's office, where I snapped one or two grainy photos. As I took pictures, I heard a thunk from down the hall—the sound a glass door makes when opening or closing. Perhaps the cleaning crew was making its rounds. Either that or it was someone I wanted to see even less.