“So you held your loss against him?” I ask.
Victor shakes his head. “You’re not listening, Jodie. May I… call you Jodie?”
I nod.
“I admired your father even more after he beat me. He was still my goal. I told myself I would do everything in my power so that the next time we faced each other, I’d stand a chance.” He sighs. “Unfortunately, I never got that chance.”
Wrong answer.
“So you didn’t hate my father after he beat you?” I ask him. “Not even a little bit? Because I know there are some lawyers I can’t stand after they beat me. And some I can’t even stand after I beat them.”
“Oh, there are lots of lawyers I can’t stand. Reynolds. Barkin. Tomlin. You better hope you never go up against them.”
I’ve heard of them.
“But you can’t hold a grudge against everyone who stands opposite you,” he adds.
I frown. “That’s not what I said.”
Why is he giving me advice? This is an interrogation, not a counseling session. And I’m the one in charge.
“I was just saying…”
He pats my shoulder and chuckles. “Ah. You’re just as passionate as your father was.”
Now he’s paying me a compliment?
I straighten my shoulders. “You’re a passionate person yourself, aren’t you, Victor? Can I call you Victor?”
“Please do.”
“You spoke of Ernest Tomlin just now. Didn’t you have a fight with him after a basketball game a few days after you faced each other in a trial?”
Victor touches his chin. “You heard about that?”
“So it’s true?”
He shrugs. “Like I said, I can’t stand the guy. It was bad enough he had to sit a few seats away from me during the game, cheering at the top of his lungs for the opposing team. When he couldn’t shut up after the game, I lost it.”
So he can lose it.
“But you never lost it with my father, even though he beat you the same way Tomlin did?” I ask him. “You never felt the need to humiliate him like he humiliated you?”
“Like I said, I wanted to go up against him again and beat him.”
“But you never saw him outside the courtroom? You never exchanged heated words in public?”
“No.”
“You never went to his house?”
He looks at his hands. “No.”
No eye contact this time, and there was a moment of hesitation, too, before he answered.
He’s lying. Time to apply the pressure.
“You’re saying you never saw him again after that intense court battle five years ago? That’s strange, because I’m pretty sure he told me that you were at his house one time.”
That’s a lie, too, but Victor shouldn’t know that. I’m a better liar than he is.
He falls silent. Yup, I caught him.
“Tell me the truth,” I urge him.
He sighs. I brace myself for his confession.
“I didn’t steal it.”
It takes me a moment to let the words sink in. Even then, I fail to make sense of them, so I look at Victor with furrowed eyebrows.
“What?”
“I didn’t steal your father’s casebook,” Victor elaborates.
Casebook?
“You know, that notebook where he keeps his notes about all his cases, about all the judges and all the other lawyers.”
Oh, that notebook. Come to think of it, I didn’t see that in his safe when I took a peek. I just assumed he took it out and left it somewhere else.
“Here.” Victor takes it out of his briefcase and hands it to me. “You probably think that I stole it when I was at his house. I didn’t. He gave it to me. I didn’t even ask for it.”
I stare at the leather-bound notebook I’m gripping with both hands. My father’s casebook. He gave it to Victor? And Victor was really at his house? That means he was close to him, close enough to murder him.
“What were you doing at my father’s house?” I ask him.
He gives me a puzzled look. “He didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head.
“He offered me help on a case. I couldn’t refuse, of course. And then he offered me a drink. He cooked for me, too – seared tuna on a bed of greens.”
His favorite.
“After that, he’d invite me to come over once or twice a month.”
I frown. Was he that lonely?
“I enjoyed his company,” Victor tells me. “I guess he did mine, too.”
So they were friends? Why do I suddenly feel jealous?
“And when was the last time you were at his house?” I ask.
“Last month,” Victor answers. “I was going to pay him a visit when I came back from my trip to London but then I learned he’d passed.”
He was in London? Wait. All this time, I’ve been trying to establish that Victor has a motive to murder my father – and he has an alibi? He wasn’t even in the country?
I want to slap myself on the forehead.
“I paid a visit to his grave as soon as I found out where it was,” Victor adds. “I hope you don’t mind.”