Page 63 of Pro Bono

“Let me talk to our mutual friend and I’ll get back to you.”

“Sure. Call me on this phone and let me know what you guys decide.”

The 11:50A.M.Hawaiian Airlines flight from Kahului Airport landed at LAX on time and taxied toward the terminal. In a moment Linda Warren had her only bag on her lap and her seatbelt unfastened. She waited patiently for the crew of the plane and the ground crew to complete all the steps—theWelcome to Los Angelesannouncement, the warning about bags in the overhead compartments shifting, making the accordion folds of the boarding tunnel outside stretch out to press against the plane’s fuselage, the unsealing and opening of the door. When all that was done, the aggressive passengers who had to be first and had pushed their way ahead to the overhead compartments and were now occupying the aisle began their lockstep advance past her and out the doorway. She was now fifty-nine but had not yet let her hair go gray, so nobody stopped to let her into the aisle until another woman about her age came along, nodded, and smiled. She stood, said, “Thank you,” slipped into the aisle, and headed for the door.

Linda Warren had moved away from Los Angeles before her fiftieth birthday. By then her only child had graduated from law school, passed the bar exam, and had started his own small law firm, seemed to be supporting himself, and didn’t have time to accept much motherly attention. First, she had put her belongings in storage, rented out the house on the west side, and moved to a succession of different parts of the country.She would stay in each place for a year or two until she felt restless again, and then move somewhere else.

She had lived in Hanover, New Hampshire, for long enough to explore New England, then wanted to be warm again, so she moved to Key West, Florida. She next tried New York City, but eventually found the crowds and tall buildings made her feel hemmed in. She then went to Hawaii, and after a time rented a house on Maui. The place suited her, and she made friends and felt happy until the fire, when four of the friends who lived in Lahaina died and the others were all displaced. She had put up twelve of them in her rented house on the north side of the island. They had all moved out and moved on now—the families first, then the singles, one at a time. She was now considering moving on herself, to put herself physically away from the memories. The fact that they were good memories didn’t help, because they were memories of people and places lost. She liked being near the sea better than other places, and was considering either the northwest coast of Washington, or maybe a place in the east like Maine.

She walked with her head up and her spine straight, in her usual perfect posture. Her carry-on bag was strapped across her chest with her left arm resting on it. She kept her strides at the same pace from the landing gate, along the concourse, to the down escalators toward the baggage claim area where people were waiting for passengers. She saw her son before the escalator had taken her down five feet, and then looked for the girlfriend. There she was, just at his shoulder, looking up to study Linda as she came down the escalator. Of course, she thought, and used the time to study her. Very pretty face. Shoulder-length dark brown hair, done by a good hairdresser. A modest dress to keep the cute figure from being the only impression—either because she was meeting his mother or she simply felt it was tasteful—please make it bethat. Vesper. It was odd, but she looked like somebody who was up to having a name like that.

She reached the shiny floor and walked toward them as they came to meet her. Charlie held his hand out to take the strap of her bag and then leaned in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “Aloha,” he said. “Linda Warren, this is Vesper Ellis.”

Linda held out her hand and Vesper shook it, and then Linda held on to her hand and said, “You look like a very nice person, Vesper. I knew you would be when we talked on the phone. I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Thank you,” Vesper said. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

Charlie said, “Is this your only bag?”

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve become a very efficient packer since I moved away from here.”

“It’s great to see you again, Mom. I turned in my rental car for a nicer one in your honor.”

“I’m flattered. Lead the way.”

They drove north on the 405 freeway past the exit for Charlie’s office or his condominium. “Where are we going?” Linda asked.

Vesper said, “We talked and it seemed to us that it made the most sense if we all stayed at my house. It’s bigger than Charlie’s condo, and since your case could involve some pushback, the fact that neither of you are officially connected with my place might help keep things safer. There’s plenty of room, so we won’t feel crowded.”

Linda said, “That’s very thoughtful of you.” She turned to Charlie. “Tell me about this ‘pushback.’ ”

He said, “That’s just it. I don’t know what forms it might take. I’ve learned that one of the things that money does is attract predators, and sometimes it even turns people into predators who weren’t before. I also know that Mack Stone was a criminal, and I assume he knew other criminals. We’re about to start tracing things backward, asking questions that somebody may not want answered. Sometimes people will do desperate things to protect secrets. We need to use your name as our legal right to ask, and the attorney doing the asking will be me. Same surname.”

Linda didn’t take her eyes off him. He was keeping his eyes on the road ahead—or was he just avoiding looking at her? “I see,” she said. “The real reason you wanted to drag me back to the mainland to Los Angles was that you didn’t want to start this while I was living alone in Hawaii. You’re trying to protect me.”

“Well,” he said, “your name is going to come up a lot.”

The next morning Charlie drove his mother from Vesper’s house to Warren & Associates. As soon as they were in the car and in motion she said, “I’ve waited a long time to see you with a woman like her.”

He waited. Finally, he said, “And?”

“You’re both adults. You’ll figure it out.”

They reached his office building and he parked in one of the spaces for visitors in the underground garage and they took the elevator up to the third floor, where his firm had been moved into a new office. When they entered the outer office Martha said, “Hello, Mrs. Warren. It’s nice to see you again. Charlie, I put Mr. Copes and Mr. Minkeagan in the conference room.”

“Thank you, Martha. Come on, Mom. Time to get started.”

They walked into the big conference room. “Gentlemen, this is my mother, Linda Warren. And this is Alvin Copes and Andrew Minkeagan, the men I told you about.”

She shook hands with them both, and then went to the chair that her son pulled out for her and sat.

“All right, gentlemen,” Charlie said. “Are those the papers you referred to?”

Minkeagan said, “Yes. We put them in this filing envelope right away because the manila envelope was greasy and grimy. But this is everything, and all of it is just the way it was.”

Copes said, “His name was Daniel Webster Rickenger. It’s on his birth certificate, Social Security card, passport, and all the financial papers.”

“I see,” Linda Warren said. “Where is the birth certificate from?”

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