Trophy Widow by Michael A. Kahn

move the trust accounts to Guaranty Trust. According to Beverly, the two men got into a shouting match in Michael’s office three days before the murder.
    â€œI don’t think he’d be the one to pull the trigger, of course,” Beverly said. “But Mr. Berger would certainly know how to hire one. He was that type.”
    â€œWhat did they argue about?”
    â€œI don’t know, and Mr. Green refused to tell me. He said it wasn’t any of my business. But they were angry, believe you me. You should have heard the words they called each other.” She fanned herself with her hand. “Such language.”
    Number two on Beverly’s list was Millie Robinson, ex-wife of former St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Larry Robinson. Millie was a recovering cocaine addict who’d lost custody of her children in a postdivorce battle in which Michael had represented her ex-husband. When the court awarded full custody to Larry Robinson, he promptly moved to Detroit with the children. That was one month before Michael died.
    â€œMillie called Mr. Green day and night, screaming obscenities and death threats. I was the one who answered the daytime calls.” Beverly shuddered. “It was awful.”
    â€œDid you report her to the police?”
    â€œMr. Green said not to. He said she’d get over it.”
    â€œDid she?”
    â€œI don’t know. The calls tapered off. I didn’t receive one from her that last week.”
    â€œHow about Michael? Was he still getting calls at home?”
    â€œHe didn’t mention it.”
    Number three was Jerry Feckler.
    â€œYou’re kidding. The Dingdong Man?” I was grinning.
    Beverly gave me a weary smile. “The very same.”
    â€œGood grief, I’d forgotten Michael represented him.”
    Jerry Feckler, aka the Dingdong Man, became Michael Green’s client about a year after undergoing an experimental surgical procedure on his penis. The poor man was hoping that longer and thicker would equal more and better luck with women. Alas, more equaled less and worse. Although he did gain approximately an inch in length, the fat liposuctioned from his love handles and injected into his penis for added girth gradually migrated south, leaving him with a weird appendage about as useful in bed as a bell clapper, which it happened to resemble. Unfortunately for Jerry, a nationally syndicated columnist got wind of the lawsuit, flew down for the medical malpractice trial, and wrote a funny column that got wide distribution during a slow news week. The headline said it all: LONG DONG DREAM BECOMES DINGDONG NIGHTMARE.
    When his medical malpractice suit ended in a defense verdict, Jerry’s odds of getting laid got a whole lot longer. He blamed it all on his lawyer, whom he then sued for legal malpractice. Two months before Michael Green died, the judge dismissed Feckler’s malpractice case against him, inspiring the Post-Dispatch’s headline writer once again: JUDGE RINGS FINAL BELL FOR DINGDONG MAN; RULES FECKLER’S CLAIM FECKLESS.
    Feckler’s final communication with Michael was a enraged message left the next night on the office phone-mail warning Michael that “misery loves company, especially miserable dicks, you sleazy bastard.”
    ***
    Visions of malformed penises were dancing in my head, though not quite like sugar plums, when I returned to the office and discovered that the afternoon’s mail had brought me the petition in Blackwell Breeders LLC and Charlie Blackwell v. Maggie Lane and Sara Freed .
    The crazy ostrich case.
    I read the petition with a skeptic’s eye. Charlie Blackwell alleged that my clients “acquired sole custody and control of said ostrich at an especially sensitive stage in its development.” He claimed that “if said ostrich has any alleged defect, then the proximate cause of said defect is the negligent animal husbandry procedures, general incompetence, and