The Red Kimono

By Lawrence M. Friedman

Frank May's practice leans heavily to estate planning. Murder cases are way out of his line. But when his client, Stanford law professor Peter Prosser, is murdered, Frank becomes deeply entangled in yet another violent death. Prosser had been writing a detective novel; Frank has the only copy of the manuscript, minus the crucial last chapter. Far from a literary masterpiece, the novel features the (thinly disguised) members of the Soames family, the family of Prosser's ex-wife — and even a character based on Frank himself.

Can this badly-written novel tell us why Prosser died and who killed him? Mysteriously, real-life events start paralleling events in the novel, including a second murder: a woman in the Soames household, dressed in a red kimono, is strangled in her room. As Frank follows the trail, it leads to a number of unlikely places, including the cultural studies department of Stanford University and a wedding chapel in Las Vegas. Maybe if he can endure reading the dead professor's novel, he can solve the evolving mystery.
Part of the series The Frank May Chronicles by QP Books.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Quid Pro, LLC
• Release date: Mar 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781610274043

Lawrence M. Friedman

Lawrence M. Friedman is the Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law at the Stanford Law School.

Book preview

1

Let me begin this story by introducing myself, to those of you who don’t know me already. My name is Frank May. I’m a lawyer—an attorney. I’m a solo practitioner, which means I work for myself; I don’t have any partners. Baker & McKenzie has 3,000 lawyers working for the firm; they’ve got offices all over the world, Tokyo, Riyadh, God knows where else, but I’m not in any one of those, either there or here.

What I do have is a small office in San Mateo, California. San Mateo is a suburb of San Francisco. The city is on a peninsula, it sticks out into the water like a big thumb, with San Francisco Bay on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other. The Golden Gate Bridge connects San Francisco with Marin County; across the bridge are the giant redwoods, and the wine country, and miles and miles of beautiful views. San Mateo lies to the south of San Francisco, on the bay-side, not the ocean side, about fifteen miles south of the city limits. It’s prosperous, but strictly suburbia. It’s full of people whose life and work revolve around computers. There are people who live on the peninsula who seem to get very rich, very young, very fast. I’m not one of those either.

But I do all right. I have a pretty decent practice, I think. Naturally, I don’t represent any billionaires. Still, I can’t complain. I make a living. I have a good life. I’m in my forties—that’s not so bad—I’m healthy, I have a little bit of a paunch, but who doesn’t? It isn’t scandalously large, or obscenely obtrusive. My hairline is receding, but it hasn’t reached a dangerous stage as yet. I have athlete’s foot, but that’s as far as it goes. Decent blood pressure. Cholesterol within normal limits. I don’t need Viagra, thank you, and I have no serious aches and pains. I’m married, to a good woman, Celia. She’s a school teacher. We have a good marriage. That seems to be the exception in California. We have two teenaged daughters. That’s a problem in itself, of course; but I’m told that eventually they do grow up. I have a two-story house with a yard, a two-car garage, a small garden that I leave entirely to Celia, and a pet cat, to which I also pay no attention whatsoever. The house is fifteen years old and is worth ten times what we paid for it. That also is California.

My life is OK. Yet... there’s one funny thing: one hitch, or blemish, or whatever you want to call it. Or luck, fate, karma, whatever. It’s as if... as if some sort of nemesis is pursuing me. Or pursuing my clients, to be more accurate. The damnedest things happen to them. Just recently—that’s what this story is all about—one of my clients was murdered, in cold blood. That’s bad enough; it’s tragic, and it’s scary. The joke is, this wasn’t the first time. It seems to happen again and again. Either the client gets murdered or gets involved in somebody else’s murder. Somehow I get dragged into the mess.

Why does this happen? Is it something about me? I don’t think so. After all, I’m not the one who’s killing my clients. That would be very bad for business. Could it be one of my competitors? A hungry young lawyer trying to pick off my clients, out of sheer malice? But I’m not big enough or important enough for this to matter. It’s just... my nemesis. Or maybe I should say my clients’ nemesis. I’m alive and well. Some of them aren’t.

I suppose if my clients were drug kingpins or mafiosi or serial killers, this murder thing would be entirely normal. I suppose a lawyer for the mob expects to lose an occasional client, who turns up dead, in a dark alley, perforated with bullet holes, or weighed down with concrete at the bottom of the bay.

But my law practice has nothing to do with crime and punishment. I do some real estate work. I do some minor corporate work, for small businesses—car wash companies, restaurants, people who own tanning salons. I do a little personal injury work, but rarely; mostly I farm this out. Once in a while I handle a divorce. I dislike divorces. Too much hatred and vituperation. The bulk of what I do concerns wills, trusts, and estates. Probate matters: it’s my bread and butter. I also do a few guardianships. Lately I’ve gone in for conservatorships. Those are for elderly people, somebody’s Uncle Charley, who may have quite a bit of money on hand, but who, unfortunately, can’t tell Monday from Tuesday. The eager relatives, on the other hand, are very much aware not only what day of the week it is, but also the size of poor Uncle Charley’s bank account.

I had this client once, Estelle Wong, a remarkable woman in every way. She inherited money from an aunt who died. Anyway, Estelle and I got to be quite friendly. Celia, my wife, was quite taken with Estelle. Estelle had just gotten her third divorce, and we had her over to the house for dinner. Estelle was shrewd and business-like; she knew everything there was to know about the stock market. She knew about derivatives and hedge funds and other mysterious affairs. I handled her aunt’s estate, along with a few other small matters.

But that’s not the point. At dinner, I couldn’t help it, I started telling my troubles to Estelle, I don’t know why I was so frank, maybe it was the two glasses of zinfandel I drank. I told her that more of my clients died mysteriously than a lawyer like me has any right to expect. She thought about it for a while, and then she introduced me to feng shui. I never really believed in it, to be honest, but I thought, why not give it a try? I couldn’t believe the source of the trouble was the way I positioned my desk. It was in line with the door, in the path of a lot of negative energy. She also recommended shifting the computer, so that it faced southeast, and she warned me against having mirrors in the office. I thought, what’s the harm in following her advice? I shifted the furniture around, and took down the mirror. The next week my client, Peter Prosser, was murdered. So much for feng shui.

Of course, maybe my skepticism ruined the whole thing. Also, she did recommend an aquarium, with blue or black fish; she said this was an excellent idea. I never did this. I have no luck with fish or aquariums. The fish invariably die—quickly, too. That may have been the problem. As if the fish were my clients, too.

But I’ve gotten ahead of the story. I have to back up a bit, and introduce you to the victim, Peter Prosser. Prosser was a man in his early 50’s, handsome in a way, tall, somewhat thin and cadaverous, with a bit of gray hair at the temples. I have a feeling he touched up his hair, but I can’t prove it. Not that it’s relevant. Prosser was a professor at Stanford Law School, which is of course part of Stanford University. Stanford is located down the peninsula from San Mateo; and it’s a world-class university. I never went there myself, but I know all about it. Nobel prize winners are a dime a dozen. Quite a few of my clients have been connected, in one way or another, with Stanford. One of them in fact recommended me to Peter, and that’s how he came to see me.

It’s always exciting to have a new client—that’s what pays for food on my table, which now faces East—and I welcomed him eagerly into my office. If I had known what was going to happen, I would have slammed the door in his face. But of course I had no idea what was coming.

The law school at Stanford is one of the top-rated schools in the country. There’s always Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago; and they all have their claims to excellence; but if you threw in some extra points for weather, palm trees, tennis in January, and perfect days all summer—no mosquitoes to speak of, and very low humidity—you’d have to give Stanford the edge. I’ve lived in the Bay Area for over twenty years, and I have never seen a cockroach. I’m sure Peter had never seen one either. Anyway, Peter had tenure, which is a good thing to have, and a very nice salary, as he explained. They pay law professors very well indeed.

His field was torts. Torts is the area of law that covers such things as scalding coffee spilled in your lap, doctors who amputate the wrong leg, and people who fall off defective Ferris wheels. Peter taught the basic course to first year law students, but his specialty had nothing to do with scalding coffee. He was an expert on invasion of privacy—of which more later.

After we exchanged a few pleasantries, and he told me where he had heard my name, we got down to business. I said: What can I do for you, Peter?

He said: I’ve been thinking... basically, I need a new will.

OK, I said. Do you have a will right now?

Well, sort of.

What does that mean?

It’s a million years old, he said. I left money to my mother, for instance; and she died twelve years ago. A college classmate of mine, guy who went to law school with me, he drafted this will. Anyway, he doesn’t practice anymore, and he lives in New Zealand. So here I am.

Fine, I said. I’m happy to help. I have a checklist that I follow, and we launched right into it. First, I asked him about his family situation. Peter was divorced, and had two children. Tessa—that was my wife—was older than I was when we got married. Not that it mattered. Tessa Soames. She had a rich dad, Ezra Soames, and oddly enough, Ezra and I, we’re pretty close, even though I divorced his daughter. He’s got a crazy family, though. Every last one of them is crazy. Anyway, the marriage wasn’t exactly a success. The kids, they’re college age, and they live with Tessa, in Atlanta, Georgia. I’ve been divorced for a number of years. Tessa’s in her late fifties now. We’ve got two children: a son, Andrew, and a daughter, Marissa. Right after my daughter was born, Tessa... I guess she got restless. Who knows? I read some place that when you give birth, it screws up your hormones. She started seeing this guy, he was a soccer coach at some high school. A big galoot. She had known him forever. Maybe they were sweethearts in high school, I don’t know. Anyway, she dumped me, then she married him, and he got a coaching job in Atlanta so off she went. I don’t see my kids very often, but... well, they’re mine, aren’t they?

I guess they are, I said lamely.

Well, I think they’re mine. They look like me, if that’s any proof. Anyway, to be perfectly honest, I don’t really have much of a relationship. With my kids. Living in Atlanta and all that. They were little when they moved there. I guess I could have had them stay with me more often, but I didn’t. Maybe I’m just not into kids. Anyway, this guy, Tessa’s husband, Hugh, they see him every day, he said. Me, I’m a virtual stranger. They call him Dad. I suppose it’s natural. They’ve got a half-sister, too. She’s twelve. Tiffany, that’s her name. Ridiculous name. But who cares.

He went on: Other than those two, I don’t have much of a family. I have a sister, she lives in Minneapolis, we don’t really like each other. Our parents are dead. I have cousins. But I never see them. I’m not exactly alone, though. I’ve living with a woman, have been for about five years now. Her name is Barbara. We get along, most of the time anyway.... I’m not unhappy. But I don’t want to get married, it’s too complicated, he said.

I nodded, as if I agreed. I’ve been married twenty years, and it doesn’t seem all that complicated to me. Of course, living with anybody is complicated; but why does getting married make it more so? But you never argue with clients. I want to set up a trust, he said. I’ve got money, I’ve made some good investments. I bought real estate, and it’s worth four times what I paid for it—I own part of a building in San Francisco. I’ve got a condo here, in the Bay Area; that’s where I live. I also have a piece of real estate, in Idaho. Somebody told me to buy property in Idaho, so I went ahead and bought it. Well, that’s worth a lot of money, too. God knows why. I’ve never been to Idaho, myself. It’s rented out. The property, I mean. I guess there are people who want to live in Idaho. I have no idea why.

It’s supposed to be beautiful, I said. Mountains....

Whatever. Anyway, I thought, do I need a trust? The guy who teaches tax at my school, he’s a real creep, but he knows his stuff; anyway, he told me you can save money if you set up a trust. I want to take care of Barbara. We have our ups and downs, but this isn’t one of those fly-by-night relationships, I want her to have half of my stuff. I want to let the kids have the rest. They don’t deserve it, but... as I said, they’re mine.

I was writing all this down. Patiently, I explained some aspects of estate planning. He might have been an expert on tort law, but he seemed amazingly ignorant about wills, trusts, and probate. He seemed confused about the difference between wills and trusts. I told him, if he wanted to set up a trust, here and now, that was fine, and he could transfer his assets into the trust, but still keep control. Or he could set up a trust in his will, so that it would spring into life only when he died.

Yeah, that’s what I want, he said. I mean, no reason to give stuff away now, is there? I mean, Barbara’s got a job, and I don’t charge her rent or anything like that. And the kids, they get whatever they want from Hugh, don’t they? Why should I bother?

It’s not like you’re actually giving your money away, I said. I talked for a while, about living trusts, but he seemed unconvinced. Fine, I said. We’ll just do a will. First let me ask you something: your old will—where is it?

Home. In a drawer. But I told you, it’s no good. It’s obsolete.

Granted. But legally, it’s still your will, I said. If you don’t like what’s in it, maybe you should just tear it up; meanwhile, we’ll make you a new one.

I took notes carefully. I asked him about the size of his estate. He was extremely reluctant to tell me. Most clients are. But in the end, they do. Peter had a couple of million dollars in a retirement account, plus the various bits of real estate, some stocks and bonds—a tidy sum, and he was clearly quite comfortable. But certainly not super-rich. Is there anything else I should know about? Other assets, for instance?

He said: Well, I should mention a couple of things. I could inherit something from my ex-father-in-law. He’s almost ninety, and his health is pretty rotten. I know, this is not the usual thing: me and Tessa are divorced, after all. Usually, that’s the end of it, the in-laws treat you as if you had leprosy. But believe it or not, I think he always preferred me to his daughter, he never got along with her, and right now, they’re not even on speaking terms. He thought she was nuts to go off with the soccer guy. The old guy and I, we’re pretty thick. I see him a lot, go over to his house, have dinner, talk to him—that sort of thing. He’s a weird old guy, crusty, hard to take. But somehow I like him.

You say, you might inherit something. ‘Something’ is pretty vague.

He’s rich. I don’t know how rich. Pretty rich. He’s tight, he doesn’t talk about his money, he doesn’t let on; but I know he’s loaded. How much would I get? Maybe half a million, maybe. Maybe not. I could be wrong.... But still, that’s something to think about. Also, I want to know something else. This isn’t about me. It’s about somebody I know. Is there any way for this somebody to protect himself against, well, people who might want to get some of his money?

This vague sentence puzzled me. Not the part about somebody I know. Clients who say they want to talk about somebody else often are really talking about themselves; but they don’t want to admit it, for some reason. People? I asked, What sort of people?

Well, suppose somebody said they were a relative, you know... long-lost relative, you know what I mean. Somebody pops us, says, I’m just back from Australia, here I am.

"Long-lost relative? What kind of a relative? If you make out a will, and you don’t provide for them, they haven’t got a claim. You don’t have to leave money to relatives. Except for a wife. Even children...."

No, it’s not a child....

Then you’re in the clear. No problem.

Are you sure of that?

Absolutely. And, well, there are ways of making sure. There’s something we call a no-contest clause. Pretty standard. You just add a sentence to your will, anybody who claims to be a relative and so on, I leave them $1. Also, anybody who contests this will, you know, tries to break the will, I leave them $1 too.

And that works?

Well, pretty much. If somebody contests your will, and they win, then they knock out the whole will, and that knocks out the no-contest clause too. But... that doesn’t happen very often. It’s not easy, knocking out a will.

I’m less worried about that than about, uh, well, this situation. Somebody suddenly claims to be a relative.

Obviously, he had something in mind; but just as obviously he had no intention of telling me what it was. He said he was just curious, it had nothing to do with him personally. As I said, I was skeptical.  But I don’t argue with a client. I dropped the subject.

He went on: "There’s something else. I think I have a chance of making money, from my writings. It hasn’t happened yet, but still, it might. I’ve published a lot of articles about torts. In some areas, I’m just about the biggest expert there is. I’m not bragging. It’s just true. I even published a couple of pieces in the Harvard Law Review, they get about a thousand manuscripts a year, it’s a miracle if they accept you. Either I’m pretty lucky, or, maybe I’m just plain good, how’s that for a theory?"

Good theory, I said.

"Anyway, in my spare time, I wrote a book; I call it ‘The Romance of Torts,’ that’s a pretty good title, don’t you think? It’s not for lawyers; you know; they never read books. It’s for the intelligent lay reader, if there is such a thing. So far, nobody seems to want to publish it, I’ll be honest with you. Publishers, they’re a bunch of jerks, if you ask me. I’ve got an agent, Stuart Brimstone. You never heard of him, but he’s the best. He does academic books, exclusively—textbooks, mostly. He’s got two guys in his stable who did a textbook on calculus together. Made millions. Everybody and his brother takes calculus."

I was one of the exceptions, I suppose. I never got past trigonometry.

Peter went on: "So. Brimstone, he’s trying to get me a publisher. Trade publisher, hopefully. You go with a university press, you never make it into the bookstores.