Page 45 of The Wrong Side of the Law

“Jesus Christ. You’ve gotta be kidding me.” The Birchall-Jones family is as close to royalty as it can get. They may not have ever gone in for the presidency, but they’re every bit as rich as the Bushes, or even the- “Gerald Birchall-Jones is the guy who bankrolled Joe Kennedy’s first smuggling run, for God’s sake!”

“Yeah,” Lopez answers somberly. “Exactly. I had a thread to pull on, but they’ve got the strings on all the puppets. And this sorta puts the damper on ol’ Bobby Ferry’s origin story, don’t it? That’s why they keep it so well hidden, by the way.”

“A kid that rich is probably a lot less marketable than a someone who got arrested on his way to Woodstock.”

“Oh, that actually did happen,” Lopez says, laughing. “Difference is, he didn’t climb out the window of the cop car and run away… Grampa’s lawyer came and took care of things.”

“Shit,” I say. “This is going to really complicate my life. Why’d you decide to tell me about all this?”

“I’m good at complicating things,” Lopez says, cheerful again. “Just, y’know, be careful. And I’m telling you because you’ve got a good reputation, and because I hold a grudge against anyone that messes around with my work. I’m close enough now to retirement that I decided to take a chance.”

“Thanks,” I say, dry and sarcastic. “I think.”

“Again, man. Becareful,” Lopez warns me. “This guy has fingers in a lot of pockets. A lot of highly-placed pockets. I’m counting on you.”

While I retrace my steps back to the office building, I mull over this new set of information. Diego Lopez didn’t exactlysayit in so many words, but I had the general impression that he felt guilty. Selling out for a promotion probably comes with a high price for a man with a conscience.

The first thing that I’m going to have to do is see if there’s any connection between the Birchall-Jones family, or any of the companies that they own, and Whitehall. Florida Secretary of State’s website lists campaign donors, so that’ll be the place to start. If there’s any links there, I’m going to be walking on eggshells.

No, not eggshells. Broken glass. And I’ll be barefoot.

I stop off at Emily’s cubicle farm before heading up the last flight of stairs to my office, and she looks up at me with a mixture of surprise and irritation.

“My office,” I say, hooking a thumb over my shoulder in the vague direction of the elevator. “Now.”

My brain is so wrapped up in the new set of complications to this not-yet-even-a-case that I barely even hear Emily mumble something about manners behind me, or the other two paralegals giggle about it.

Emily catches up to me just as the elevator door opens, looking at me expectantly.

“Wait,” is all I say.

Karin glares at us while I unlock the door, and Emily is ready to burst by the time we get inside my office, practically vibrating with curiosity and still-growing irritation. I’m not sure which one is leading the race, at this point.

“Your unofficial investigation just got a lot more complicated,” I tell Emily, without preamble, and keeping my voice barely even a whisper. I donotwant Karin to learn anything interesting from this. “We’re in the middle of a goddamn minefield.”

“What’re you talking about?” Emily asks, suddenly nervous.

“Diego Lopez-”

“You called him?” she interrupts.

“Yeah, and great job on that,” I say. “You’ve flipped over a lot of rocks here, and it turns out there’s a bunch of interesting things crawling around underneath them.

Emily’s eyes widen for a moment, but quickly narrow again as she tilts her head. She’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I almost wish you hadn’t flipped this one over, though,” I say. “Seriously. And you might, too, in the end.”

“Is it going to help my brother?”

“I don’t know, yet,” I say. “But I will say this: it’s going to either lead to him in prison and us unemployed, or it’s going to make us all famous.”

“That’s…” Emily pauses, considering. “That’s not really much of a choice,” she finally says.

“I suppose there’s a third option, too. Your brother famous and in prison; you and I famous and unemployed. And unemployable, for that matter.”

“Okay, what’s going on? And why are we whispering about it?”

“What are you doing tonight?” I ask, deliberately ignoring her question, and the suspicious tone of it.

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