Southern Justice, Part 39

I’m Fixin’ To present part 39 of Southern Justice:

After Patty’s abrupt departure from the law office and rude rebuff of his pass, as instructed, Ray McKinley had returned to his boss’ office where he was receiving instructions.

“Ray,” B. Wendell said with a note of concern in his voice, “I want you to have the alarm system changed, and get it upgraded while you’re doing it. Do it today, and nobody is to have access to it except you and I.”

“I’ll get right on it boss. Uh– what happened with Patty?”

“The little snit graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, got her license to practice and the first I heard of any of it was a few minutes ago. She wants to set up her own practice—do her own thing.”

Ray was still visualizing Patty’s image in his mind when he said, “I couldn’t believe how great she looked this morning. I had no idea she was built so nicely.”

“Yeah,” B. Wendell agreed, “she’s been doing a great job of hiding that pretty face and nice body. I wonder if she’s hiding anything else?”

“Like what? What do you mean?” Ray asked.

“I don’t know, just a feeling. Listen, Ray, I also need you to get some information for me concerning Pic-Ric Products. Find out if they have an in-house legal department. If not, we’ll need to know the name of the law firm they use.”

“Okay, boss. Uh–any suggestion on how I could go about that?” Ray inquired.

B. Wendell shook his head and signed due to lack of his man’s imagination before he said, “You could start by calling their human resources manager and tell them you want to apply for a job in their legal department and take it from there. Use you head, man. That’s what I pay you for!

“Now, one last thing,” B. Wendell continued as he slid a sheet of paper across his desk. “This is the name and private phone number of a friend of mine who happens to be a judge. Call him from a phone somewhere away from this office and tell him I am requesting he have lunch with you tomorrow.

“Once that is done, you destroy that piece of paper. During lunch inform him that you need to be alerted the second anyone attempts to process any legal papers pertaining to Rick Haselton Senior’s estate. I’m concerned about them contesting the will. The judge might also be able to tell you who their outside law firm is, if they have one.”

“Why don’t you just call him and set it up, boss?” Ray asked.

“Because, Mister Security man, there are records of phone calls,” B. Wendell sarcastically informed Ray.

“Also, I want you to discreetly deliver this to him,” B. Wendell said as he tossed a fat envelop across his desk toward Ray.

“What’s this, boss?” Ray asked.

B. Wendell lowered his voice and said softly, “It’s two thousand in cash!”

Earlier that same Monday morning, in the parking lot of Pic-Ric Products, Chris Adams opened the glove compartment of his car and took out the stolen hand-written list of Rick Senior’s assets. He wanted to get a real good look at it in the daylight. After studying it for a few moments, he confirmed to himself that there was no doubt about it.

Rick Senior had personally signed his pay checks in the early years when they were building the company, plus he had always written all of his notes and memos in longhand. So there was no doubt in his mind that someone other than Rick Senior had added “Pic-Ric Products” to the list of the assets that were to be willed to his widow, Jackie Payne.

The question now was what to do with it? He wondered if he should reveal the information to his partners immediately, or wait.

He decided to sleep on it and locked the list back inside the glove box; besides the strategy meeting wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow anyway.

He was also wondering what to do about the woman he had left in his bed.

(tmdunagan@aol.com)