Law and Disorder: Part 3

If you're new to this party, this story is a collaboration between Otin and me. If you want this to make any sense, click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2 of this story before reading Part 3.

So Jenny Dobson and Barbara Greenhill were the same person. Tammy wondered when that happened, knowing there was something more there. Jennifer's middle name had been Barbara and her mother had sometimes called her "Barbie." Jennifer could have simply decided to go by Barbara when she married Harold Greenhill.

But the name continued to tug at the edge of Tammy's consciousness. She quickly concluded the rest of the initial interview, even more convinced at her client's innocence. A grand jury had been convened and Harold wanted to testify. They set another meeting to prepare his testimony.

"Barbara Greenhill"? She knew that name, but from where?

When she returned to her office, the payroll checks were on her desk. She hated this part of her job and didn't understand why they couldn't just automate this whole thing. Why should she have to sign each paycheck herself? Tammy quickly signed the stack of checks without looking at them and threw them into her outbox for delivery to the HR department.

While on a particularly boring phone call, Tammy tuned out her adversary's rambling rendition of his client's settlement position and pulled out the payroll folder again. She looked at the checks she had signed for the first time in ages. There was a check in the middle for $10,000 made payable to "B. Greenhill." She knew that she had seen that name before!

There had to be some mistake, Tammy thought. Even her dad didn't pull down 10 grand a pay cycle! She yelled for her assistant to pull the payroll records for B. Greenhill. The information was sketchy at best. There was no first name, only the initial "B." Human Resources only had an address, no description of the job she was hired to perform, no time records. Only an amount to be paid each pay cycle and the authorization code indicated that Tammy's father hired the mysterious B. Upon further investigation, it was revealed that the payments to Barbara Greenhill had started almost thirty years earlier, at approximately the same time that Jennifer Dobson and Harold Greenhill had been wed. It had not always been $10,000, the amount had increased over the years. All of this coincidence was beginning to give her a headache. She had probably signed the Greenhill check a thousand times in her life.

Tammy had expensive investigators at her disposal, but she believed that each of her cases warranted her personal attention as well. If she was going to sell her client's story, she had to see the crime scene with her own eyes, walk the victim's last steps, feel the emotion of those last painful moments.

Tammy moved through the house slowly and methodically, her studied eye carefully searching the Greenhill home. She saved the scene of the crime for last, beginning in the bedroom. Experience taught her that you can learn a lot about someone from studying their most personal space. Tammy swept through the bedroom, finding relatively little of note. She found one of Barbara's old high school yearbooks. Tammy flipped through the pages, finding her inscription to Jenny, who she had called the sister she never had. Tammy reached for a tissue to wipe away the tears that sprung from her eyes, knocking a picture frame behind the large wooden desk.

She got to her knees to reach for the frame. The back had fallen loose and when Tammy turned the frame over to fit the pieces back together, an envelope was wedged behind the photograph. Tammy's fingers grazed the creamy fabric of the envelope and took in the elegant script. She gasped, instantly knowing the source of the writing without looking at the return address.

Shaken, Tammy hastened through the rest of her search, happy that her investigator was also there. Tammy did take careful note of the collection of kitchen knives. All of the larger knives were in a matched set. It was a cheap bargain store set, with light natural wood handles. They were nothing of particular note, except for the fact that one was missing. From the space in the knife block, it was a long blade, at least 6 inches - the exact length of the murder weapon. No other knives had been found in any of the drawers.

Later, back at her desk, Tammy mulled over some of the evidence and facts of the case. Barbara Greenhill, formerly Jennifer Dobson, had been receiving large sums of money for thirty years from the very law firm which Tammy now ran. Harold and Barbara lived very modestly. They drove cheap cars. Harold worked full time as a contractor and they had few luxury items. The Greenhill daughter, thirty-three year old Patricia, lived an upper middle class life style, even though she had never had a steady job. Tammy had not met Patricia yet, but Rose had interviewed her and she needed to be investigated further.

The murder weapon was also a bit puzzling to her. It was a very expensive kitchen knife, with a fancy gold flower pattern on the handle. It did not match any other kitchenware in the house. It was possible that they just had one stray knife but the house was so well organized, that wasn't likely. Tammy suspected that the knife was brought into the home. This would be a plus for Harold's case.

He had been fixing an outdoor faucet that evening. Where would he have gotten a fancy knife from, and why? The missing knife in the Greenhill set had been found in the dishwasher, so the murder weapon obviously did not come from their knife rack. The worst thing was that Tammy felt like she had seen that pattern before but could not remember where.

And then there was Harold. What motive would he have for killing his wife? Harold had been under the impression that Patricia was living off of a trust fund which had been given to her by her rich grandfather on her father's side. He never knew Patricia's real father. When Harold and Barbara had gotten married, she had told him that the man was deceased. He legally adopted Patricia when she was three. Money could not be the motive, because if there was a trust fund, then he would not be able to get at any of it anyway. From all accounts, the people who knew both of them said that they had seemed rather happy and rarely fought. But no matter how hard they searched, they could not find any witnesses who saw Harold, or any one else, coming or going from the house. Any other time, someone would have been nosy but not that night.

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Otin will be posting part 4 Tuesday night and you'll find part 5 over here. Wednesday will bring Part 6 over at Otin's and the finale here... Yeah, we wrote a blog story in 7 parts.

Haven't I told you before that lawyers may write briefs, but we never do anything brief?