The Mental Case (Thaddeus Murfee Legal Thriller Series Book 6) Read online

  The Mental Case

  John Ellsworth

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Preface

  1. Chapter 1

  2. Chapter 2

  3. Chapter 3

  4. Chapter 4

  5. Chapter 5

  6. Chapter 6

  7. Chapter 7

  8. Chapter 8

  9. Chapter 9

  10. Chapter 10

  11. Chapter 11

  12. Chapter 12

  13. Chapter 13

  14. Chapter 14

  15. Chapter 15

  16. Chapter 16

  17. Chapter 17

  18. Chapter 18

  19. Chapter 19

  20. Chapter 20

  21. Chapter 21

  22. Chapter 22

  23. Chapter 23

  24. Chapter 24

  25. Chapter 25

  26. Chapter 26

  27. Chapter 27

  28. Chapter 28

  29. Chapter 29

  30. Chapter 30

  31. Chapter 31

  32. Chapter 32

  33. Chapter 33

  34. Chapter 34

  35. Chapter 35

  36. Chapter 36

  37. Chapter 37

  38. Chapter 38

  39. Chapter 39

  40. Chapter 40

  41. Chapter 41

  42. Chapter 42

  43. Chapter 43

  44. Chapter 44

  45. Chapter 45

  46. Chapter 46

  47. Chapter 47

  48. Chapter 48

  49. Chapter 49

  50. Chapter 50

  51. Chapter 51

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by John Ellsworth

  Afterword

  Copyright © 2014 by John Ellsworth

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For Elva MacAllaster, Ph.D., for showing me I could have a double major, for giving me the joy of literature, for prescribing writing as a therapy for life.

  When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I buy food and clothes.

  Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus

  Preface

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the by-product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  If you would like to be notified of new book publications please sign up for my email list. You won’t receive email from me for anything but new book announcements.

  —John Ellsworth

  1

  Chapter 1

  There was a girl to be saved. She was nine. She lived in Nogales, Sonora. He had never met her, had never seen a picture of her, and had never spoken to her. Yet, he felt he knew her. He felt he knew her because he knew about kids' hearts. He knew how fully they trusted and how easily they were broken. He couldn't let that happen. Not to Maria of Sonora.

  He chose a Toyota Camry for the trip. It was beige, several years old, bookended with brick-red Arizona plates. The license plates would only make sense, crossing at Nogales, Arizona, into Nogales, Sonora. Gringo coming into Mexico--everyday it happened tens of thousands of times.

  Border station rising up out of the desert, gull wings in flight. Two giant concrete spans, northbound, southbound passing below each wing. The sign looming in the quivering heat: PUERTO FRONTERIZO SON MEXICO. Too late to turn back now, inching ahead with the long lines, six abreast, souls floating into Mexico. On the hills ahead, stunted saguaros, all but dead from the assaults of angry, aimless children of Mexico.

  Thaddeus wet his lips. Truth-telling time was just about here. He was hiding a handgun up under the dash. He planned on saying nothing about it to the officers up ahead. Glock 26, pocket holster--your best friend in a fix. He would need it below the border.

  He nosed up to the yellow stop line and cracked a window. Cold air out, oven air in.

  The border guards carefully looked him over. Motioned him to step out. They made him open the trunk. They raised the lid and unzipped his single blue bag. They flipped through its contents. Blue jeans, three tee-shirts (Suns, Cardinals, NAU Lumberjack Football), Jockeys, Teva sandals, three balls of white athletic socks, navy RL windbreaker, toiletries, and a folding knife with four inch blade.

  "Señor?" said the agent, a Federale wearing the navy uniform of Mexican customs. The man's eyebrows met in the center, but the eyes--blue and piercing—missed nothing.

  Thaddeus looked at the knife and nodded. "Don't want to get mugged down here. It's for self-defense. My apologies if it's a proscribed item."

  "Yes, Señor," said the agent. He opened and closed the blade. "It's a proscribed item. I could put you in jail but I won't. You don't look dangerous, just uninformed. We'll keep it here for you."

  "I can pick it up when I return?"

  "Si," said the border agent.

  Thaddeus nodded. The knife was a ruse. It was to make them feel like they had found something and done their jobs correctly. All the while failing to discover the gun taped under the Toyota's dash. The Glock was not only proscribed, it was a felony to possess a gun in Mexico, a crime punishable by thirty years in a Mexican prison. Thaddeus felt the sweat break out across his shoulders. Even six months in a Mexican prison was impossible. It was a death sentence for an American.

  He shook his head as if injured. "I was hoping I could bring my knife in," he told the agent. "But I guess you're just doing your job."

  All innocence. He shrugged. The agent went for it. Or did he?

  "Show me your driver's license."

  Thaddeus complied.

  "I write your name on this knife."

  "Thanks. I would like it back when I leave."

  "You can pass through now, Señor," the agent replied. "And don't forget to pick up your knife on the way back. We will leave it with ICE on the other side."

  He meant the U.S. customs agents. He was telling Thaddeus he would turn the knife over to them so that they could return to Thaddeus when he came through northbound. Fat chance of that ever happening, thought Thaddeus. But the hand had been played. They waved him through, gun and all.

  Now he was free to do what he had come for. Which was to meet Hermano Sanchez and escort him and his family to Mexico City, away from Sonora.

  Hermano Sanchez had been a drug client in Flagstaff. He had been arrested when he was linked to a suitcase filled with fifty pounds of marijuana. Hermano’s reason for becoming a dope mule was simple: the cartel would pay him $1000 on delivery in Flagstaff. Otherwise they would make his nine-year-old smuggle drugs. So he went to try to save his baby girl. With $1000, he could move his family far away from the cartel. But he was caught in the US. Thaddeus had represented him until his bail was paid and Hermano fled back to Mexico. That had seemed to be the end of it.

  Then Hermano had called. The cartel was going to take Maria if he didn't pay them for the marijuana he lost to the police seizure of the drugs.

  "I don't know anything about dealing with the cartel," Thaddeus had told him. "I wouldn't even know where to start."

  "Señor Murfee, they are coming for Maria in one week. They will take her from me if I don't have their money."

  "Look, I'll come
and meet with you. I can help you get moved the hell out of Nogales. What about Mexico City for you? Does that make sense?"

  "Si, that makes sense. I pray you to do it."

  "I’m on my way," Thaddeus had said. "Give me one day and we'll meet."

  "There's a pharmacy, Roberto's Farmacia, where we can meet. At the counter."

  "I'll be there tomorrow at five p.m. Meet me."

  They had hung up and Thaddeus had made arrangements to journey to Mexico.

  Thaddeus had long regretted he hadn't been able to do more for Hermano. Hermano's daughter was in jeopardy. The kids would smuggle drugs in walk-bys--passing from Mexico into the U.S. with a backpack full of drugs, posing as students. After a few times of this the kids became useless because the border agents got to know them and got suspicious. Bags got searched, drugs got seized, and the kids were held. At that point the cartel rescued them, only to pimp them in the red light district.

  That haunted Thaddeus.

  He had lost countless hours of sleep fearing for Maria. His own daughter had been kidnapped. He couldn't stand to let it happen to some other child.

  "We stop this insanity one kid at a time," he told Katy, his wife. Then, the more he had thought about it, the more it seemed like Hermano's help must come from Thaddeus. There just wasn't anyone else.

  The gun was protection against the cartel’s plans for the girl. It probably wouldn't be needed. But if it were, there it was. So the gun made the trip.

  "Proceed, Señor!" The Mexican border guard tossed off his best military salute and looked Thaddeus directly in the eye. Thaddeus nodded and was just about to apply the gas, when, "¡Alto! Halt!"

  His foot jammed on the brake. He waited.

  The guard returned to the driver's window. He made a rolling motion with his hand. Thaddeus complied, again lowering the window. "Did I do something wrong?"

  "Yes, you looked guilty."

  "What?" It was said in amazement. How could someone look guilty?

  "Twenty years I have studied faces. Yours has a guilty look. Step outside, please."

  The agent's drug dog glowered, straining to sniff inside. He would have the gun in five seconds. Yes, border dogs knew guns all too well. It was cake for them.

  Thaddeus quickly debated offering a bribe. He decided he had nothing to lose at that point. Reaching inside the breast pocket of his shirt he displayed the top-half of a $100 bill, USD. The guard's eyes fastened on the move.

  "Señor, do I look like a thief to you?"

  Thaddeus shook his head. "Not at all."

  The man tilted his head. A querulous expression formed on his face. "So why treat me like one?"

  "It didn't mean anything--"

  "Oh, yes. It meant something, señor. It meant you are guilty of something. It is my job to find out what that something is now. Go to the windows and have a seat on the bench."

  Thaddeus shrugged, climbed out, and inched around the dog. He crossed four lanes of hopscotch traffic. A cement bench was indicated and he plopped down. Great, he thought. If they find that gun--

  The guard was advancing, holding the holstered pistol before him as one would carry a dangerous snake. The dog was on a short leash. He appeared to be prancing. Almost rejoicing at his find.

  "Señor, this is very bad. Follow me inside, please."

  "Should I move my car first?"

  "We will take care of the car, señor. Just follow me, please."

  Inside the station, air conditioning was beating back the desert heat although it was still early morning. On overload, ice sprouted from the window AC's vents, wheezing and choking off every few minutes. It was then Thaddeus knew: this wasn't the United States where a federal maintenance crew stood poised to repair air conditioning units. This was the other side of the world, the Third World. Here when the air shuts off, brother, it stays off. Maybe for days, maybe forever. He knew way more about it than he wished. He had heard the stories and he had experienced some of Mexico during his trials and travels. But now he was in it for the close-up, the money shot, the minute his life had been waiting for: he had tried to smuggle a gun and he had been caught. Thirty years loomed as he was pushed against a wall and his photograph taken by a remote camera. They were booking him!

  "Señor, please come with me," a tall Mexican man wearing a white shirt and bolo tie and natty dress slacks said. He crooked a finger at Thaddeus, who fell in behind.

  Down a short hallway, then to the right. He knew it.

  A holding cell. Maybe twelve-by-twelve. A stinking gutter at the back wall, two cement benches. Unlighted. Reeking of urine and despair. He was amazed at what he didn't see: toilet paper. There was no toilet paper in the cell and he would have bet everything they didn't allow restroom breaks. Images passed through his mind, erratic and useless. He had to admit: he was scared.

  Two angry-looking Mexicans were there before him. They watched as the guard clicked a keypad and the cell door sprang to life. Then he felt a push at his back and--just like that! He was in. The cell door whooshed behind him and clanked into place. A metal maw awaiting its next delicacy. White meat from Los Estados Unidos, Thaddeus thought.

  The two Mexican inmates stood and softly began clapping.

  2

  Chapter 2

  January of that year in Chicago, the hawk was flying.

  Winds whipped up from the lake. Gusts at forty miles per hour lashed the streets, leaving office habitués to plunge like Chicago Bears running backs. But for Ansel Largent, partnership in the city's premier law firm overrode the power of Lake Michigan's blast and made placid his way. Partners scored underground parking in the eighty story Citibank Building.

  He nosed his black Escalade between the lines at the headstone marked LARGENT. Nearby was the elevator, heated and tucked away from the outside bluster of winds and commerce.

  He checked himself in the rearview. Neat, graying hair, wings on the side, straight back on top, gray eyes. He turned his head and admitted that Libby was right: the profile was hawkish. He bobbed his head in the mirror and caught up to the inner beat that only he heard. Ta-ta-TAT, it went, Ta-ta-TAT.

  Not actually hearing things. Not actually not hearing things.

  He timed the elevator from basement to seventy-eighth floor.

  Exactly three-minutes-ten-seconds without stopping.

  The elevator didn't stop because there was no one else out and about at 6:20 a.m. Which was lucky, because Ansel Largent vomited up his raisin-bagel and salmon cream cheese on the elevator deck. Withdrawing his pocket square, he wiped it all up. No trash receptacles there, so he stored the mess in a side pocket. Breakfast lost to a bad case of nerves came as no surprise. That morning, Ansel Largent would announce the terrible news to his partners. They were broke. And he was headed for jail.

  Or worse.

  What could be worse?

  Ninety-nine lawyers gunning for you. Definitely worse.

  It was simple math: when he logged out Friday night the ending trust account balance tipped the scale at $200 million. Over the weekend a rather large withdrawal had been made. Leaving home that morning, he checked the account online. One-hundred-and-sixteen dollars remained.

  Ansel had been a partner in the 820 lawyer firm long enough to know that it wouldn't look kindly on lawyers who stole from its trust account. Like the Bible, trust accounts are sacrosanct. Trust accounts are the lawyer's solemn promise to guard a client's money like Brink's. The trust account at MacDevon Largent Law had been tapped and bled dry. All eyes would be on Ansel. Which meant they would be looking in the right direction.

  The actual withdrawal had been made by someone near and dear to him. The afternoon Chicago Tribune would report the theft on page one of the business section. Right above Promotions and Awards. The press would learn all about it because Ansel was beholden to turn in the thief. Which would bring down the FBI because the account was federally insured.

  Ansel knew that turning someone in did nothing toward recovering the funds. But it woul
d reveal the name of the thief. Which would astonish all hands because the wrongdoer was one of them. The wrongdoer was a guy who knew the secret handshake, who wore the right suits and pissed in the carpeted john, who could write a personal check for $500,000, who knew the login and password to the trust account.

  The elevator door whooshed open. He stepped into the pastel-and-gray reception area. Water-lattice sculpture twelve feet in height in the center of the room, receptionist station constructed like a hotel front desk, nine separate islands of expensive seating (everyone there had secrets), a tennis court's worth of hardwood flooring at $32 per, and modern art straight from the Art Institute faculty show of 2014--all creating the sense of an oasis of calm and trust. Ansel hurried through, looking neither right nor left, head bobbing to the internal drum track.

  He made coffee in his office. He settled into the ergo-chair and took stock as he sipped.

  The questions the FBI would ask were predictable:

  1) What was Ansel's role in the embezzlement? He had entrusted the guy with full administrative access to the client trust account and its bounty of $200 million.

  2) How close was Ansel to the thief? Truth be told, Ansel loved the guy like a son. In fact, Ansel believed the thief was his son. David, newly-minted multimillionaire, was a junior partner.

  David had been given trust account access when Ansel was out of town and David needed trust funds to settle a simple auto accident case. The firm was holding the insurance company's reserve; $100,000 was needed to pay the other driver for her back injury. Ansel's solution? Give David the user name and password. Let him login, issue the funds, close the case. Business as usual, so why not? Ansel believed that David, for whatever reason, hadn't stopped at $100,000. David hadn't stopped at $100 million. David had stopped only when he had cleaned them out to the tune of $200 million. All of it except for $116. He had left them enough to pay the wire transfer fee. The wire transfer used to move the money to Zurich, then to Africa, then to Antigua, back to the Caribbean, vaulting north to Mexico City, where the trail ended.