Free Firm Ambitions by Michael A. Kahn

lawyer?”
    â€œThat’s her,” Deb Fletcher said.
    â€œI apologize,” Kimball said. “I didn’t realize you two hadn’t met. Tommy, this is Rachel Gold. Rachel, this is Tommy Landau.”
    Eileen was right. He’d really put on weight since I had last seen him. Indeed, he looked as if someone had inserted an air hose into his midriff and inflated him to about 30 percent over the recommended pressure. But there was nothing soft or cuddly about this Michelin Tire Man. Tommy Landau had a thick neck and meaty hands. He wore his straight brown hair combed at an angle across his forehead. He had dark, squinty eyes, a full walrus mustache, and a thick porcine nose. His eyebrows joined along the ridge at the bridge of his nose. If you dressed him in a white full-length apron, put a cleaver in his hand, and posed him stiffly behind a meat counter, Tommy Landau could pass for a south St. Louis German butcher in one of those nineteenth-century daguerreotypes.
    â€œHello, Tommy,” I said coolly.
    â€œYour client’s got a lot of nerve,” he said. His voice was flat and slightly hoarse.
    â€œPardon?” I said with a touch of annoyance.
    He snorted as he shook his head. “She sues me for divorce, and all the while she’s fucking that scumbag camel jockey.”
    I turned to Fletcher. “Control your client, Deb.”
    Fletcher chuckled. “What can I say, Rachel? My client’s got feelings.”
    â€œGenital warts, too, according to his wife. Tell him to save his speeches for the witness stand.” I turned to Kimball, pointedly ignoring Tommy Landau. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
    He gave me a conspiratorial wink and turned to the other two. “Gentlemen, we’ll finish our discussion later.”
    Kimball moved through the police with the easy assurance of a man on familiar turf. He greeted clerks and officers by name as we passed them in the hallways, and each gave him a smile and a hello in return. He ushered me into an empty office. I sat behind the desk and he stood near the door as he filled me in on what he had learned about the status of the homicide investigation.
    â€œCyanide?” I repeated when he finished.
    Kimball nodded. “I’ll have the police get you a copy of the autopsy report.”
    â€œHow was he poisoned?”
    â€œThrough his daily vitamins. Apparently, he carried around a big bottle of the damned things. A real potpourri of pills and capsules and tablets—megavitamins, calcium tablets, powdered seaweed, flower pollen, powdered egg protein, mineral supplements, amino acid capsules. He took several different ones each day.” He gave a bemused chuckle. “Supposed to keep him healthy, make him live longer. The police found the bottle in the hotel bathroom. It had fallen behind the toilet. According to the inventory, there were twenty-nine capsules in the bottle, along with various pills and tablets. The lab report showed that twenty-one of the twenty-nine capsules were filled with powdered sodium cyanide.”
    â€œHow many did he swallow?”
    â€œJust one, but one was enough to kill five men.”
    I leaned back and crossed my arms. “Is Eileen really a suspect?”
    Kimball squinted and shook his head. “Not much of one. I spent twenty minutes with Detective Israel. He’s the homicide dick on the case. Frankly, I think the police are more peeved with Eileen than suspicious.”
    â€œPeeved?”
    â€œBased on the evidence, Andros clearly had a visitor in that hotel room. When the police figured out that Eileen was the one—indeed, that Eileen and Andros were having an affair—Poncho was furious that she hadn’t come forward on her own.”
    â€œWho’s Poncho?”
    â€œThat’s Detective Israel. His first name is Bernard. But except when he’s on the witness stand, most folks call him Poncho. In any event, he’s cooled off.