I said, “How so?”
“Overly trusting, idealistic.”
“You called the coroner—”
“I was desperate, Enow had stopped answering my calls. I wanted to talk to an expert because the poison thing made no sense, there’s no way Rod would know anything about that, let alone use it on himself. The person I spoke to wasn’t a doctor, just a lab person. Nice enough but he couldn’t tell me much. I left a message for the coroner, passing along the same thing I told Enow, maybe they should look at Rod’s work. I requested a call-back, never received one.”
Milo said, “Let’s talk about the work situation.”
“Let’s,” she said. “First of all, Rod was hired under false pretenses. He was promised at least some training in trusts and estates. His interest was in estate work, he felt it was less confrontational than most other aspects of law. Also, I encouraged it. Thought it would be helpful to have someone in the family with those skills.”
She sighed. “Rod always called me the heiress. Kidded me about his being a hired hand.”
She got to her feet, ran out of the living room and up a short hallway. A door closed sharply, just short of a slam. She remained away long enough for Milo to eat three cookies, before returning with straighter posture and her hair released, a mop of blond cascading over her shoulders. I noticed her eyes for the first time. Gray, sharp, active.
“Sorry,” she said. “It hasn’t gotten easier. What makes it worse is I feel I’ll never know.”
After she’d settled and drunk some water, I said, “Hired under false pretenses.”
“Oh, yes, that. It was supposed to be a standard legal assistant’s job — doing scut in return for being able to shadow a senior attorney. And at first, Loach made Rod feel welcome. Took Rod out to lunch at the Water Garden, couldn’t have been nicer. But the next day, he was out of the office. Same for the following three days. When he finally showed up on Friday, he stayed an hour and gave Rod nothing to do. Rod was going out of his mind with boredom but Loach didn’t seem to be aware. Or care. He’d just walk by Rod’s desk, clap Rod’s back and leave. Another person might’ve loved getting paid to sit around. For Rod it was torture. He was like one of those dog breeds that needs to work. The second week, he tried to talk to Loach and Loach said there’d been a temporary lull, things would pick up. But it didn’t, Loach continued to be absent with no explanation. After a month of that, Rod tried to raise the issue with another lawyer in the firm and was informed since he was Loach’s assistant, all decisions were made by Loach.”
“Did Loach see any clients at all?”
“Only one,” said Andrea Salton.
“Who’s that?”
“All Rod told me was one, he wouldn’t give me details because of confidentiality.”
Milo said, “Assistants are bound by confidentiality?”
“That’s what I said to Rod. He said it wasn’t a matter of the law, it was the law’s intent, as far as he was concerned anything conducted under the ‘rubric’ of the firm was bound. I must admit I got a little contentious and challenged him. Did that include parking lot attendants? A plumber who came in to fix a toilet? He laughed it off and told me to put it in my dissertation.”
“He did communicate that Loach had only one client.”
“He blurted it out once when he was totally frustrated. ‘Can you believe it, Andrea? He gets a huge corner office, a massive salary and bonus, all for one client.’ Then he made me promise I’d never repeat it. He could be a little overly... I know this is going to sound bad to you guys but I used to tell him he was overly law-abiding. We’re talking about someone who if he came out to his parking meter and saw that he’d overextended his stay and gotten away with it, would reimburse the machine.”
Milo said, “Too many like him, I’d be collecting unemployment.”
Andrea Salton laughed. “Thank you, Lieutenant. That’s the first time I’ve come close to levity in a long, long time.”
I said, “Rules meant a lot to Rod. The worst person to put into such an unstructured situation.”
“Perfectly put.”
“Why didn’t he quit?”
“He felt if he left too soon, it would look bad on his résumé. He and I discussed the minimum time he could stay without appearing flaky. I felt three, four months was enough, he felt it needed to be longer. We agreed on six months, worked out a way to cope. He’d use the time to study his first-year law books in advance, get a head start, maybe be able to free himself up to do research with a professor.”
She smoothed her hair and shook her head. “Six measly months. He never made it.”
I said, “You told the coroner’s assistant you thought his death was work related.”
“I didn’t say that, I was trying to tell him suicide was out of the question, our home life was ideal, the only stress in Rod’s life was work. He was getting lots of studying done but he didn’t feel right about it. I told him Loach had to be a rainmaker. Someone with connections who brings business in and doesn’t have to do much else. My dad plays golf with a guy like that.”
“Anything else we should know?”
“I wish there was. If my remark about work was taken out of context, I’m sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry for,” said Milo. “I can’t promise you we’ll solve it but we’ll treat you differently than Enow.”
“I know you will — have some cookies. If you don’t take them, I’ll eat them and that’s the last thing I need.”
She filled a bag and gave it to us. We thanked her and headed for the door.
“You think of anything that might’ve bothered your husband,” said Milo, “you call. Anything at all, for that matter.”
Andrea Salton stood there.
“Ma’am?”
“There is one thing that happened but I can’t see any possible way it’s related.”
“Try us, anyway,” said Milo.
“A few days before he... before it happened, he came home looking even grimmer than usual and I asked him why, expecting him to tell me everything was okay, as he usually did. But instead he said it had been an interesting day but not in a good way. A homeless woman had wandered into the outer office where Rod sat and demanded to see Loach. When Rod told her Loach wasn’t in, she started screaming, making a scene. Rod had to call security and they escorted her out. At the end of the day, when he was leaving the building and walking to his car, the same woman appeared out of nowhere and began haranguing him, right there on the street. As if she’d been waiting for Rod. He tried to calm her down but she got aggressive, grabbed his arm and insisted he needed to bring her to Loach, her mother was a movie star and Loach had killed her, she demanded justice, if Rod didn’t give it to her, he was just as guilty. The area’s full of mentally disturbed people, Rod had been panhandled aggressively several times, but never anything like that.”
She smiled. “Of course, he gave money to anyone who asked. Sometimes he’d take the time to talk to them. Which is what he tried to do with this one. He asked her if she wanted to sit down and tell him her story. She said he was wasting her time, she’d told him everything he needed to know. Then she turned her back on him and left. It bothered him. How deteriorated she was. His inability to help her. Rod cared when other people didn’t and that night I found him on the computer reading up on mental illness. I tried to get him to come to bed and he said he needed to understand what led people to be like that. That’s the way he was. Engaged. And God-fearing and principled.”