AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Yes, thanks,” she said slowly. “There are some paper towels in the kitchen nook.”
Jessie left the office, hurried past the bathroom and found the tiny kitchenette on the other side of the hall, where she grabbed the roll of towels and returned with it. Nina Kirby hadn’t moved.
“Here you go,” Jessie said, handing them over.
“Thanks,” Kirby mumbled, taking the roll and ripping off several sheets, which she used to sop up some of the water.
“So,” Ryan continued as if the interruption hadn’t happened, “as we investigate, we’re talking to everyone that Ava interacted with yesterday. You were among those people, Mrs. Kirby, so what can you tell us about your meeting?”
“Um, it was over lunch yesterday,” she answered distractedly as she ripped off more paper towels. “We met around 12:30 and stayed for a little over an hour. She said that had just come from the gym.”
“Why you?” Jessie asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, no offense, but Ava Martell was in a position to hire just about anyone she wanted. Why not go to one of those big Century City firms? Why select a two-lawyer firm based in an out-of-the-way Brentwood shopping center? No offense.”
“None taken,” Kirby said, though it sounded like she might have taken a little. “We knew each other already. We live in the same neighborhood and were friends. I think she wanted to speak to someone she had a comfort level with rather than some cold mega-firm.”
“So it was because she knew you,” Ryan made sure, “and not because you specialized in a particular part of the law.”
“That’s right,” Kirby confirmed. “We consider ourselves the legal equivalent of general practitioners. We handle family law, including divorce. We do real estate law, some contracts, that kind of thing. We can handle most stuff but will hand a case off to a specialist if needed. The only thing we don’t do at all is criminal work.”
“Okay,” Jessie continued, “so what issue did she want to address than made already knowing you important. And please remember, while you can certainly litigate issues of attorney-client privilege, we are talking about a murder investigation here. So you may want to consider how hard to fight that battle.”
“Truthfully, Ms. Hunt, that’s not a call I’ll need to make,” Kirby said, “while Ava and I had informally agreed for me to represent her, she hadn’t yet signed the contract. Technically, I suppose I’m not bound by attorney-client privilege, since we hadn’t formalized our agreement and now, with her death, I’ll never be able to represent her. But my larger concern is that Ava was desperate for my discretion. And I would ask that in the interest of respecting her wishes, you offer her as much of that same discretion as I intended to.”
“We’ll do the best we can,” Ryan replied, “but our investigation will take priority over anything else. We’re trying to catch a killer.”
“I understand,” Kirby said before sighing heavily. After a gulp of what remained in her water glass, she answered. “Ava was concerned that her husband, Harrison, might be involved in something ‘shady.’ Over the last six months, he’d been removing money from one of their accounts at regular intervals, totaling over $34,000. She wasn’t as worried about the amount, which wasn’t significant to her, as the purpose and the deception. He didn’t tell her about it, and she had no idea what it was for. She checked receipts for any indication of an affair but found none. Apparently, she even followed him around town, to no avail. She wanted to know if what he was up to was something that she needed to be really concerned about, whether it be gambling, drugs, or something else. She just wanted to know the truth.”
“And what did you tell her?” Jessie asked.
“I said we’d hire a private investigator to look into these things professionally. We were going to hire a forensic account as well, to really dig into his books. I told her that once we knew more, we’d come up with a plan.”
“What did you discover?” Ryan wanted to know.
“Nothing yet,” Kirby told him. “Since she hadn’t officially hired me, I couldn’t do any formal work, although I did start to cull through a list of investigators that I thought might be good for the job. I was just waiting to hear back from her.”
“You said you knew Ava through the neighborhood,” Jessie noted. “Did you know Harrison too?”
“A little bit, not as well as Ava,” Kirby conceded.
“Do you think he might have been involved in drugs or gambling, or some other questionable activity?”
“Honestly, I didn’t know him well enough to draw any kind of conclusion,” Kirby admitted. “He seemed perfectly nice to me, maybe a little on the rowdy side, but nothing objectionable. I never really formed a strong impression of him beyond that.”
“Why didn’t Ava hire you at the lunch?” Jessie wondered, switching topics.
“Oh, there was a mix-up with the bill,” Kirby explained. “I went to take care of it, but it took longer than expected. I was still dealing with it when she told me she had to get back to the office to deal with some kind of deadline. She said she’d be in touch.”
“Are you sure she wasn’t just blowing you off?” Ryan asked.
Kirby shrugged.
“You never know, I guess,” she said. “But she seemed pretty committed to moving forward. I think she was just in a time crunch. I assumed I’d hear back from her today one way or another.”
“What was her demeanor like during your meeting?” Ryan pressed. “Did she seem nervous or upset when she arrived? Scared perhaps?”
