Trophy Widow by Michael A. Kahn Page A

degenerate lifestyles of said defendants.”
    But he saved the best—or rather, the worst—for last. When I reached the final page, I stared at the signature block: “MackReynold Armour, Attorney for Plaintiffs.”
    â€œOh, great,” I groaned aloud.
    Mack Armour, aka Mack the Knife, was the kind of litigator who made opponents consider career changes—that is, when they weren’t considering ethics complaints and contract hits. Although I’d never faced him before, I knew his reputation. He was belligerent, devious, and brazen—and to top it off, an unabashed male chauvinist pig. He was always looking for the sly angle in his lawsuits, and this case was a perfect example. Blackwell Breeders should have been the defendant in the case, but Armour jumped the starting gun and filed first, seeking a declaratory judgment that his client didn’t have to refund a penny. As an added bargaining chip, he tacked on Charlie Blackwell’s ludicrous claim for mental anguish. His goal: scare off my clients.
    They didn’t scare.
    â€œWe’re not backing down,” Maggie told me over the phone after I’d described Mack the Knife.
    â€œHe’ll drag your personal lives into it, Maggie. He’ll try to turn the case into a freak show.”
    â€œWe understand,” she said calmly. “This is a matter of principle, Rachel. Mr. Blackwell cheated us. When he learned of the problem we had with his ostrich, he should have done the right thing on his own, but he refused. So now we’ll ask a judge to make him do it. We’re not looking for sympathy, Rachel, and we’re not looking for favors. We’re looking for justice.”
    â€œYou won’t always find it in a courtroom.”
    â€œWe understand that. If we lose, we lose. We can deal with it, Rachel. We’re big girls. Just get us our day in court.”
    ***
    Beverly called around five to tell me that Stanley Brod could meet me tomorrow morning at nine. I’d planned on spending the morning getting ready for a deposition that afternoon in a copyright case, but I thanked Beverly and told her to let Stanley know I’d be at his office at nine. Then I canceled my dinner plans, called Domino’s Pizza, and settled down to do tomorrow’s deposition preparation tonight. I didn’t get home until almost ten o’clock. I was feeling crabby and antsy and tired. I knew the cure.
    â€œHey, Oz,” I said, kneeling next to the greatest golden retriever in the universe. “Wanna go for a jog?”
    Ozzie wagged his tail and padded off to the kitchen, returning a moment later with his leash in his mouth.
    â€œLet me change first, cutie.” I patted him on the head. “I can’t run in these heels.”
    He followed me to my bedroom, where I slipped off my attorney clothes and put on my jogging outfit. As I tied my Nikes, he sat on the rug at the foot of my bed, the leash on the rug between his front paws. He listened attentively as I filled him in on my day.
    â€œSo I’ll meet with his accountant tomorrow morning,” I told him as I stood up. “We’ll see what he can tell me.” Ozzie seemed to think that was a good idea, since he wagged his tail, barked once, and picked up the leash.
    We took the five-mile route. I spent most of the run trying to figure out what I was doing and where I was going with Angela’s case. I supposed that Stanley Brod might be able to shed some light on the equitable adoption issue in the lawsuit, and he’d eventually get to repeat it under oath when the clown patrol representing the other defendants fired up their discovery juggernaut. But I knew that my real interest in Stanley, like my real interest in Beverly Toft, was the possibility of finding a new angle on the crime at the heart of the Son of Sam case. I could rationalize it as part of the defense—after all, the Son of Sam claim would vanish if Angela were