LITMIR.BIZ

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pursed her mouth. “Mr. Pickett is …” She glanced over my shoulder, as if looking for reinforcements.

      “He’s passed away. Yes, I know.” I put on my courtroom face and refused to let the statement register. “I’m actually here to see his son.”

      “No one can go in except the family.”

      A green curtain that covered the entrance to one of the rooms was flicked back at its corner and Shane Pickett’s face peeked out. “She’s okay.” He let the curtain fall closed.

      “All right, go ahead,” the nurse said. “Sorry about your loss.”

      The emotion hit me for the first time, and I felt as if I might gag on something large, something wrong, in my throat. “Thank you.”

      I pulled back the curtain and stepped inside. Shane sat next to a metal bed, staring at the form that lay there, covered. Shane was a small man, a sharp dresser, his brown hair always parted severely and combed precisely. He had recently started wearing glasses that were stylish, but I got the feeling he wore them so that he would somehow look older, smarter. When Forester had had a heart attack a few years ago and succession planning was done at the company, Shane was made president of Pickett Enterprises, so that if something happened to Forester or when he stepped down as CEO, Shane would run the place. Forester was determined to keep it a family company. (I think he hoped Shane would have kids and that those kids would work there, too.) But Shane hadn’t been a “natural” in the business like his father was. There had been a lot of talk that he wasn’t ready or worthy for the position of CEO.

      Shane looked up at me now, then back at what was apparently the form of Forester Carlton Pickett, the kindest and most vibrant man I’d ever known, now covered with a white, hospital-issue sheet. Forester had been a simple man in many ways, but he’d loved luxury in all its forms, and in particular he’d often spoken about his 1500 thread-count sheets and how he always bought the best bedding money could buy. Something about the hospital sheet that now covered him struck me as deeply wrong.

      “Shane, I’m sorry,” I said.

      Shane stood and launched himself into my arms, crying.

      “It’s okay,” I murmured, rubbing his back. “It’s okay.”

      But it wasn’t.

      As Shane’s sobs continued, all I could think about was the discussion I’d had with Forester two weeks ago.

      We were in my office for our “monthly roundup” as Forester called it. Forester met with his key professionals to find out precisely what everyone was up to. In the early days, I hosted him in the big Baltimore & Brown conference room with its view of the Sears Tower. I always ordered in a vast assortment of coffees, pastries and exotic fruit, but he’d soon had enough of that.

      “You don’t need to feed me, Izzy,” he’d said. “And your office is just fine. Wherever you work, I work.”

      So each month, I sat at my desk with its stacks of documents and contracts, and Forester sat unperturbed on the other side, sometimes moving a large folder in order to see me better.

      That day, a few weeks ago, Q had come into the office with Forester’s usual cup of black coffee and a green tea for me.

      “How are you, Quentin?” Forester said, standing to greet him. He was a little distracted that day, but as always, Forester took the time to speak with everyone.

      “Great, sir, thanks.” Q handed him his cup of coffee with a smile. If anyone else had called him Quentin, he would have grimaced, but Q loved Forester as much as I did.

      “And how’s Max?” Forester asked, even though being gay didn’t quite register with Forester. “I don’t understand it,” he’d once said to me, almost under his breath, but not in an unkind way. Just in a bewildered way. Yet he dutifully and honestly asked about Max every month.

      “Great,” Q said. “He’s fantastic.”

      “Good. Say hello for me.” Forester patted him on the shoulder affectionately. “And thanks for the coffee.”

      We took our seats and spent the next hour discussing a lawsuit we’d filed against a delinquent contractor from a build-out of one of Forester’s studios.

      As we wrapped up, Forester shifted in his seat. “Look, Izzy, you’ve got to promise me something.”

      “I’ll be nice to the contractor at his deposition. I promise.” Forester hated needless nastiness, which was, I suppose, why he wasn’t a lawyer.

      “Thank you but, no, it’s not that.”

      I closed my notebook and waited.

      Forester shifted again. “Look, if something should happen to me, which of course it’s not going to, but if someone tries to … I don’t know … harm me, I want you to look into it.”

      “What exactly are you talking about?” I said.

      “I’m healthy as a horse.”

      “Right, I know that.”

      “It’s been three years since the heart attack, and you know everything I’ve done—how I’ve changed my eating, my exercising?”

      “Right.”

      “And this morning, I had a physical with my cardiologist. Stress test, EKG, the whole rigmarole. I passed with flying colors.”

      “Good. I’m glad. So what do you mean about someone trying to harm you?”

      Forester paused, which was unlike him. “I’ve had some problems at Pickett Enterprises. Over the last few weeks, I’ve been getting letters telling me I need to step down. That I’m too old for the job.”

      “Sent by whom?” I said, indignant.

      “I don’t know.”

      “Maybe it’s a prank.”

      “Possibly.” Another pause. “It’s just the damnedest thing.” Forester shook his head. “There’s also the matter of this homeless man. Twice outside Pickett I’ve been approached by a homeless gentleman.”

      “And of course you gave him twenty bucks.” Forester could never pass up an opportunity to help someone on the street.

      “Something like that. But he spoke to me. He said something disturbing.” Forester’s face, perennially sun-kissed from hours at golf courses and gardening, seemed to pale slightly. I noticed the lines crinkling his face. “He said to be careful. Otherwise I would join Olivia.”

      I inhaled sharply. “Are you sure?”

      Forester met my eyes. “Positive. The next time I saw him, I gave him money again, and he said the exact same thing.”

      I crossed my hands on my desk and squeezed them together. Suddenly, I felt my youth. As Forester’s attorney, I was meant to advise him, but I had no idea what should or could be done. “Did you call the police?”

      “No. There’s no crime. No extortion or anything.”

      “We’ll get you a security detail then.”

      Forester made a face. “Izzy, you know me better than that.” He cleared his throat and sat taller, as if throwing off the conversation.

      “Then let’s call John Mayburn,” I said, referring to the private investigator the firm hired for big cases.

      “Don’t worry about it. I’m handling this for now, and nothing is going to happen to me. I’m sure it’s all a coincidence.” He gave me the kind smile he was known for, and he changed the topic.

      Since that conversation, I’d worried about Forester, but I did what he wanted, and I let him manage the situation. And now he was dead. I stared at his body covered by the hospital sheet.

      “God, I can’t believe it,” Shane said, wiping

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