Page 4 of Insidious Threats
“Y-yes. I mean, no. No, of course not. I know you can read. I just … well … I’ve put these dossiers together before, and this one’s weird.”
“Weird, how?” She wondered whether the roughly seventy grand a year that Stanford Law charged in tuition included any instruction in the fact thatweirdwasn’t a legal concept. Poor Oliver had certainly not taken the class if one existed.
“Well, um, the one lawyer, she’s gotten a lot of press. Like, a lot.”
Amanda closed her eyes briefly and suppressed a sigh. “That’s not unusual. I’m sure Ms. Farley retained the best attorney she could afford. Well-regarded attorneys tend to garner news articles, Oliver.”
“I know, but not like these.”
“Likewhat?” While she waited for Oliver to spit it out, she drained her espresso, caught Stasia’s eye, and raised the empty demitasse cup. The attendant nodded her understanding.
“So, there are two attorneys on all the paperwork. The firm is McCandless, Volmer & Andrews. Two of the named partners are handling Ms. Farley’s case. Naya Andrews, who’s a top-notch transactional partner, and Sasha McCandless-Connelly, who’s a litigator. She founded the firm after leaving Prescott & Talbot. You know it?”
She did. It was an East Coast white-shoe firm. Big on tradition and full of old-money legacy types.
“Ms. McCandless-Connelly couldn’t cut it, huh?” Those types of firms had a strict up or out policy.
“No, the opposite. They offered her partnership the first year she was eligible. She turned them down and struck out on her own.”
Amanda’s eyebrows crawled toward her hairline. Thatwassurprising. Then she shrugged. “Maybe one of her supervising partners was handsy. It happens. It used to happen a lot. How long ago was this?”
She heard pages flipping. “Twelve years ago.”
“It was a different world back then, Oliver.” She felt positively ancient saying it, but it was true.
“I guess. But she’s supposed to be a civil litigator. Volmer’s the white-collar criminal guy.”
“Okay?”
“Well, her resume doesn’t say civil litigator to me. She solved the murders of a couple attorneys and, separately, the murder of a state court judge. She’s represented a serial killer, broke up an international human trafficking ring, sued the police and the local prosecutor’s office for misconduct, and a bunch of other wild stuff. She was stabbed by some forensic pathologist who was mixed up in a political scandal, and she nearly died. The list just goes on and on. I didn’t know if I should put all these articles in the background file because they don’t really have anything to do with her practice, but … I thought you’d want to know.”
From his hesitant tone, if Oliver had been a puppy, he’d have had his tail between his legs, waiting to be reprimanded for piddling on the floor. She relented.
“Send me everything. You’re right, most of it is likely irrelevant. And you’re also right, it’s unusual enough that I’d like to know about it. Good work.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he chirped. She could hear the smile in his voice. “Oh, there’s one more thing.”
“What is it?”
“I was surprised to see Maisy Farley’s name featured prominently in one of the more recent articles. She’s apparently started a true crime podcast and solved a murder that the local cops had misclassified as a suicide. The dead guy was supposed to be the star witness in McCandless-Connelly’s case against the prosecutor’s office. That’s a weird coincidence, right?”
There he went with theweirdagain. How had the Supreme Court missed snagging this guy as a clerk?
“I suppose it is. Pittsburgh’s notthatsmall of a town, is it?”
“No, ma’am. At the last census, the population—”
“It was a rhetorical question, Oliver. Just send all the articles and make a note of which one involves Maisy Farley.”
“Will do. I’ll put them all in a folder on the document site. The headline for the one about the suicide that was really a murder is ‘Peach of a Podcaster Takes a Fresh Look at Landon Lewis Death.’”
Stasia returned with the fresh coffee and an apologetic smile. “It’s time to board,” she mouthed.
“I have to go.” Amanda hung up on Oliver and stowed her phone in her bag before he could formulate a hesitant goodbye.
As she followed Stasia out to the tarmac where the glossy white private jet waited, she drew her eyebrows together and searched her memory. Landon Lewis. She knew that name. She just didn’t know why.
“How long is the flight?” she asked as they crossed the carpet to the stairs.
