“The place looks disorganized, but it doesn’t look like anyone ransacked the place,” Lich observed.
“No it doesn’t, although we need to review the video footage from the front door and garage to be sure,” Mac answered and jotted down a reminder. He perused the loose papers on the small table, a combination of work papers, legal briefs and cases and a few bills, one for cable and another for his cell phone. A red toolbox sat just to the side of the table and Mac smiled, thinking of the bartender’s statement, “You gotta use all the tools in the toolbox.” Of course, that referred to Oliver’s penchant to chase skirts.
Mac and Lich spent time knocking on a few doors but none of Oliver’s neighbors heard anything or were aware of any problems.
CHAPTER THREE
“You can’t make that shit up.”
The Lowry Lewis Building was a five-story classic located in the middle of downtown St. Paul, six blocks from The Mahogany. The interior of the building featured a five-story courtyard with skylight. The offices opened to balconies that overlooked the courtyard. Marble, carved mahogany and oak were the distinctive finishes of the interior of the historic building. The first floor was occupied by a series of small businesses including a jeweler, shoe repair shop, clothier and barber. Krueger, Ballantine, Montague and Preston occupied the second through fifth floors. The receptionist area for the law firm sat at the top of a wide grand staircase that rose majestically to the second floor from the street level entrance.
McRyan looked at the listing of attorney names on the wall behind the receptionist and counted forty-six attorneys. He recalled from his law school days of interviewing with firms that KBMP, as it was known, specialized in corporate transactions and the complex litigation that attached itself to that kind of work. It was an old-time St. Paul law firm, having first opened its doors as Krueger and Ballantine in 1922. Krueger and Ballantine had long since passed, and Montague was listed as retired. The only name partner still active was Marie Preston, who was listed as the firm’s managing partner. She was who Mac asked to see.
Marie Preston was a woman in her mid-to-late fifties. She wore dark round tortoise shell glasses. Her black hair, with strands of gray, was pulled back in a tight bun. She was dressed in a plain black pant suit, red blouse with a double strand of pearls around her neck. She wasn’t dressed matronly but certainly conservatively. Mac broke the news to Preston about Gordon Oliver’s death.
“It is such a shock. I saw him here just last night. Do you know who killed him?” Preston said after a few minutes, having regained her composure, although her eyes still watered.
“We’re trying to figure that out, ma’am,” Mac answered. “What can you tell us about him?”
Preston explained that Oliver was a fourth year associate who was an up and coming litigator. He was an extremely hard worker who had billed over 2,100 hours the previous year and was ahead of that pace in the current year. Good numbers for a young associate, requiring late nights and lots of weekend time.
“Gordon was a good young trial lawyer. He tried his first jury trial last year and won. He had the mindset for litigation, he was going to be a good one, a very good one. A lawyer’s lawyer,” Preston explained. “He liked the battle and grind of it and he had just the right amount of arrogance for it.”
“Arrogance?” Lich asked.
“If you want to be a good lawyer, particularly a good trial lawyer,” Mac answered, “you need to be confident. You need to be arrogant.”
“And Gordon didn’t lack for either quality,” Preston added.
“Arrogance, huh. You were going to be a trial lawyer, weren’t you, Mac?” Lich said smiling.
Mac shook his head, ‘walked right into that one,’ he thought. Then to Preston, “You said he worked long hours?”
“If you want to be a good litigator, a good young lawyer for that matter, you must be willing to grind it out hour-by-hour, day-after-day. Gordon could do that and seemed to like doing it.”
“We’re going to have to ask this question of a lot of people around here, but did he have any problems with anyone?”
“Professionally? No. His conduct as a lawyer was exemplary. In fact, even though he was a very young lawyer, he’d become something of our professional responsibility expert when others had some ethical questions. Professionally, he was an absolute stickler for the rules.”
“But personally?” Lich followed, picking up Preston’s tone.
Preston sat back and picked her next words carefully, “With litigators like Gordon, you want them kind of living on the edge, to have something of a fearless attitude, to be willing to go at a hundred miles an hour. They are more effective that way. Gordon was no exception. With those kinds of lawyers you take the good with the bad.”
“I assume the good was the legal work and billings,” Mac said.
“Yes,” Preston replied. “Partners make money on profitable associates. Gordon Oliver made us money.”
“What’s the bad?”
“Well,” Preston answered slyly, “Gordon could be pretty abrasive and well, he really liked the ladies.”
“So we’ve been told,” Lich said. “At least about the ladies. The abrasive part is new.”
“So what about his liking the ladies was a problem?” Mac asked.
“That he shared his affections with soooo many of them around the office,” Preston replied disapprovingly.
“So many? Like how many?” Mac asked, pen at the ready.
“Well there were at least three women that I know he slept with. There was a secretary, a paralegal and then one of our associates.”
“Three? At least that you know of?” Mac asked skeptically, jotting down notes. “Were there more?”
“I suspect there could have been but there are only three that I know of for sure.”
“Hey, at least he’s equal opportunity, hitting everyone on the law firm food chain,” Lich said lightly.
“Indeed,” Preston answered. “Gordon was, what one of my fellow partners likes to call, a hound. In any event, the problem in one case was that the woman was married and in another case, the woman was in a long-term relationship and it created some issues, particularly with the married woman.”
“What kind of issues?”
“Well, about a month ago we had a rather angry husband appear at our reception desk demanding to see Gordon.”
“What was his name?”
“Martin Burrows. His wife Tammy Burrows is a secretary in our office.”
“Did Mr. Burrows see Mr. Oliver?” Lich asked.
“He did, unfortunately,” Preston related that as Burrows waited at the reception desk, Oliver and two other associates walked up the staircase, returning from a Starbucks run. Burrows attacked Oliver, landing one punch before the two other associates were able to get between them. Building security was called and Burrows was physically escorted out of the building.
“Were any charges filed?” Mac asked.
“No. Gordon let it slide. He didn’t want to make it any bigger a deal than it was. Perhaps he should have.”
“The bartender at The Mahogany said that Oliver and another man got into it one night at the bar. No blows, but it got heated. Do you know if that was Burrows as well?” Dick asked.
“It might have been. I heard some gossip about that incident but I didn’t hear that Burrows was attached to it. Who knows, it might have been the significant other of some other woman Gordon bedded. He was pretty adept at making that happen.”
“You mentioned abrasive, how is that an issue?” McRyan asked.