The Brass Verdict

a sentencing in forty-five minutes. So I was thinking we could have a preliminary discussion now, and then I could leave you two here while I go to court. Then I’ll come back and see how much farther we’ve gotten before Cisco and I go out and start knocking on doors.”
    They both nodded, their mouths still working on their sandwiches as well. Cisco had cranberry in his mustache but didn’t know it.
    Lorna was as neat and as beautiful as ever. She was a stunner with blonde hair and eyes that somehow made you think you were the center of the universe when she was looking at you. I never got tired of that. I had kept her on salary the whole year I was out. I could afford it with the insurance settlement and I didn’t want to run the risk that she’d be working for another lawyer when it was time for me to come back to work.
    “Let’s start with the money,” I said.
    Lorna nodded. As soon as she had gotten the active files together and placed them in front of me, she had moved on to the bank books, perhaps the only thing as important as the case calendar. The bank books would tell us more than just how much money Vincent’s firm had in its coffers. They would give us an insight into how he ran his one-man shop.
    “All right, good and bad news on the money,” she said. “He’s got thirty-eight thousand in the operating account and a hundred twenty-nine thousand in the trust account.”
    I whistled. That was a lot of cash to keep in the trust account. Money taken in from clients goes into the trust account. As work for each client proceeds, the trust account is billed and the money transferred to the operating account. I always want more money in the operating account than in the trust account, because once it’s moved into the operating account, the money’s mine.
    “There’s a reason why it’s so lopsided,” Lorna said, picking up on my surprise. “He just took in a check for a hundred thousand dollars from Walter Elliot. He deposited it Friday.”
    I nodded and tapped the makeshift calendar I had on the table in front of me. It was drawn on a legal pad. Lorna would have to go out and buy a real calendar when she got the chance. She would also input all of the court appointments on my computer and on an online calendar. Lastly, and as Jerry Vincent had not done, she would back it all up on an off-site data-storage account.
    “The Elliot trial is scheduled to start Thursday next week,” I said. “He took the hundred up front.”
    Saying the obvious prompted a sudden realization.
    “As soon as we’re done here, call the bank,” I told Lorna. “See if the check has cleared. If not, try to push it through. As soon as Elliot hears that Vincent’s dead, he’ll probably try to put a stop-payment on it.”
    “Got it.”
    “What else on the money? If a hundred of it’s from Elliot, who’s the rest for?”
    Lorna opened one of the accounting books she had on her lap. Each dollar in a trust fund must be accounted for with regard to which client it is being held for. At any time, an attorney must be able to determine how much of a client’s advance has been transferred to the operating fund and used and how much is still on reserve in trust. A hundred thousand of Vincent’s trust account was earmarked for the Walter Elliot trial. That left only twenty-nine thousand received for the rest of the active cases. That wasn’t a lot, considering the stack of files we had pulled together while going through the filing cabinets looking for live cases.
    “That’s the bad news,” Lorna said. “It looks like there are only five or six other cases with trust deposits. With the rest of the active cases, the money’s already been moved into operating or been spent or the clients owe the firm.”
    I nodded. It wasn’t good news. It was beginning to look like Jerry Vincent was running ahead of his cases, meaning he’d been on a treadmill, bringing in new cases to keep money flowing and paying for existing cases. Walter Elliot must have been the get-well client. As soon as his hundred thousand cleared, Vincent would have been able to turn the treadmill off and catch his breath – for a while, at least. But he never got the chance.
    “How many clients with payment plans?” I asked.
    Lorna once again referred to the records on her lap.
    “He’s got two on pretrial payments. Both are well behind.”
    “What are the names?”
    It took her a moment to answer as she looked through the records.
    “Uh,