Dearly Departed

A

“But I want it back. Without any rocket ships or baseball diamonds doodled in the margins,” she said. “Meanwhile, I’ll try to grease the skids for you with Teeters.”

“You’re being awfully cooperative, A

She leaned across the desk and spoke slowly between clenched teeth. “I do not like it when women are killed simply because they are women. It is UN-AC-CEPT-ABLE.”

Now you know why A

“I’ll tell you another thing,” she said but never did. That’s because she was interrupted by a detective, a black man whose reputation was also unfairly marred by an affirmative-action label.

“Yo, mama!” Martin McGaney called as he danced toward us, waving a folded piece of paper like a baton before him.

“Yo, mama?” I repeated quietly.

“This better be good, Martin,” A

“Lookee what I have,” he said, drawing out the words, handing A

“You finally found the guy who stole my ten-speed when I was in high school,” I ventured.

“Taylor, you’ll appreciate this. You used to be a good investigator.”

“Used to be?”

“When you were young.”

“Ahh.”

“The bastard who raped and murdered that woman in front of her twelve-year-old daughter a couple weeks back? I got ’im!” He pumped his fist as he said it.

The case had made daily headlines since the crime occurred. A woman and her daughter had been driving home from a movie late at night when their car broke down. A “good Samaritan” stopped to offer assistance. Some assistance. He forced the woman and the girl into his car at gunpoint, drove to a secluded spot, and raped the mother, threatening to shoot the daughter if the woman resisted. When he was finished, he told the daughter she was next. The mother went to protect her child, and he shot her dead. In a panic, he shoved both mother and daughter out of the car and drove off. The daughter described the well-dressed assailant in detail but not the car, telling the police only that it was dark and “sporty looking.”

“I took the daughter with me,” McGaney said. “She wanted desperately to help us find her mother’s killer. We cruised the car dealerships on the 1-494 strip, looking for a model she might recognize. We found it. A Ford Taurus GL.”

“A Taurus is sporty looking?!”

“She’s a little girl, what does she know from cars? Anyway, I obtained a list of every black or dark-blue Taurus in Mi

“Nice,” I told McGaney, and I meant it; he’d done a helluva job. “Very nice.”

“Where is the daughter now?” A

“At home, waiting for me to call her about a lineup.”

“The county attorney?”

“Licking his chops.”

“And the sorry sonuvabitch named in the warrant?”

McGaney smiled. “At his place of business.”

A

A

“Backup? We don’t need no stinking backup,” another replied in an accent that was supposed to be Hispanic, paraphrasing a line from The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

They headed for the door en masse, A

I hadn’t felt so excluded since my friends won the softball league championship the season after I retired from the team.

Cynthia Grey always greeted me the same way, like an old friend she hadn’t seen since the last high-school reunion. This time she gave me a warm hug and happy smile in her office suite, located in a former cloister not far from the St. Paul PD. Her office manager didn’t approve—not of the hug and certainly not of me. Once again I had arrived without an appointment, distracting Cynthia from the task at hand, which was the practice of law.

Cynthia was known in the Twin Cities for her stalwart defense of DWI suspects, and her quotes were often sought by the local media. Like MADD, she wanted them off the street. But unlike those militant enemies of drunk drivers everywhere, she wanted the lawbreakers in treatment, not in jail. However, it was a stu

She had filed a complaint against a women’s clothing manufacturer on behalf of a dozen female employees, alleging that the company’s TV and print ads—which always depicted women in a sexual context—fostered an environment inside the company that condoned, if not encouraged, sexual harassment. Stories about the suit appeared in several local and national publications, usually accompanied by a photograph of the women and their lawyer. You could always tell which woman was Cynthia. She was the beautiful one in back who wasn’t smiling.

Anyway, the clothing manufacturer settled. No one knows for how much because the settlement was sealed. But it was big time. You could tell by the quality of the cars the plaintiffs went out and bought immediately afterward. Cynthia bought a car, too. And gave it to me. True, it was only a 1991 Dodge Colt—it was all I would accept—but, still, when was the last time your girlfriend bought you a car?

Which brings me back to Miss Efficiency, aka Desirée Smith, the office manager. The phone had been ringing nonstop since the settlement, and without her, Cynthia wouldn’t have time for all that media schmoozing. Without her, Cynthia probably would be late for most of her court appearances and client meetings, few of her motions would be filed on time, and her highly organized brigade of freelance attorneys and legal assistants would become a confused rabble. Chaos would reign, and the firm would fall. At least, that’s how Miss Efficiency sees it. And whenever I come along, well, there goes the schedule.