Page 20 of Pro Bono

Foltz led the way, unlocked and opened the side door into the house, went through a mud room with empty coat hooks and into the kitchen. Warren could tell somebody had remodeled the kitchen and replaced the appliances and cabinets. When they reached the marble island in the middle, Stamford said, “Stop here.”

Warren stopped.

Stamford said, “I’m afraid we’re not allowed to let you enter a command post without being searched. Please put both hands flat on the counter.”

Warren complied.

“This won’t take long. Are you carrying anything that might compromise physical or electronic security of this building?”

“No.”

Stamford reached into Warren’s jacket pocket and extracted his cell phone.

“Is it necessary to take my phone?”

“It’s not just a phone,” Stamford said. “It’s also a high-capacity recording device, a camera, a global positioning system, and a radio that can archive unlimited quantities of information in the Cloud.”

Stamford said, “I need to pat you down and check your other pockets. You’re not carrying a firearm or other weapon, correct?”

“Correct.”

“Are you carrying anything that might injure my hands?”

“I’ve got a pocketknife in my right pants pocket, but it’s closed.”

Foltz removed Warren’s car keys, wallet, and pocketknife and put them with the phone on the marble surface of the island. Stamford said, “They’ll be here when you leave. When you do, I have to caution you not to turn on the phone again until you’re back in your office.”

The two guided him into the living room. “Have a seat on the couch.”

Warren didn’t like it much because the couch put him in a lower position than the two straight-backed chairs where they sat. The couch was soft and yielding, so he knew he couldn’t get up easily.

Agent Stamford said, “Vesper Ellis is a client of yours, right?”

“Yes. She was referred to my firm by a friend of hers I had represented a few years ago. She believes someone is stealing money from some investment accounts of hers.”

“Any other connection? Do you have a personal relationship, or are you dating her or anything?”

“Absolutely not. I never met her until a few days ago. As I said, she was—”

“We’ve cleared that up,” Stamford said. “What we need to talk about is you.”

“Sorry?” Warren said. “Me?” He felt a chill up his spine. Did they think he was the one who had kidnapped her? Did they know about her call?

“We have some information that we’d like to discuss with you,” Agent Stamford said.

Agent Foltz said, “We’ll start with what we know about you. In the summer when you were seventeen years old, your mother, Linda Warren Stone, was robbed by her second husband, who specialized in marrying rich women and walking off with their money. McKinley Stone was just what he was calling himself this time. On August 14, the day he realized he’d got as much money as he was going to get, he drove off in the BMW he’d bought with your mother’s credit card. You followed him ina borrowed car to Route 50 in Nevada. Then you drove him off the road into a crash that killed him.”

Warren was good at controlling his facial expressions to conceal what he was thinking or feeling, but this was like a sudden drop in the room’s air supply.

“There was an article about you in theLos Angeles Timeswhen you got your law degree and started practicing. Do you remember that?”

“That article didn’t say or imply I ever drove anyone off a road.”

“It said your widowed mother had been robbed by a con man, and that the culprit had died in a one-car crash, and that you were hoping to start a law practice that stood up for victims,” Foltz said. “Just a coincidence?”

Agent Stamford said, “I want you to think back to the moments right after you ran McKinley Stone off the road into the ditch. You turned around and headed west, back toward California. You were going fast, so you had to swing a little wide on a curve. There was a big passenger bus coming the other way. You kept your head and didn’t let the centrifugal force slam you into the front of the bus. Instead, you accelerated coming out of the turn and shot out of there, just missing the bus.”

“I can’t believe I’m listening to this stuff.”

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