CHAPTER TWELVE
Twenty minutes after sneaking out of the Willow police department, May arrived at Fairshore. She and Owen had decided to do their research at their local police department, a place where the territory was familiar, they had their own desks and everything they needed. With space and resources at their fingertips, May felt confident there would be something to find.
A criminal lawyer who had a career history of eight years with the firm must have handled many controversial and difficult cases. May was determined to learn who had threatened her, and what the landscape of Sheila's job had really looked like. She was certain it would be different from what her husband had described.
They headed straight through to the back office, which at this late hour, was unoccupied. Checking her watch, she saw it was nearly seven in the evening. And there was still so much to do.
"I hope someone is still at the law firm," May said, quickly looking up their number.
"It's a law firm. Bound to be someone there working late, especially if they handle criminal cases," Owen reassured her.
"Let me get onto it immediately. Will you contact the police?" May asked.
Owen nodded, and May dialed the number straight away for Baden Harris Criminal Law.
She held her breath as it rang, but Owen was right. After three rings, a stressed sounding woman picked up.
"Baden Harris, can I help you?"
"It's Deputy Moore here, calling from Fairshore police department," May introduced herself. "We're seeking information on a series of crimes. One of them involved Sheila Craig."
"Oh, yes, I can't tell you how terrible that has been for us," the woman shared. "I was her assistant for a while, and it has just been so traumatic to deal with this."
"I'm so sorry that you had to go through it," May sympathized. "We are obviously looking for as much background information as we can find. And we were wondering if Sheila Craig had ever had any threats made against her in the course of her work. Would you know about that?"
The assistant sighed. "Threats? Yes, lots of threats. We're a criminal law firm. It comes with the territory, sadly. All the lawyers are threatened, very regularly. Sometimes anonymously, sometimes by clients, or relatives of clients, or the opposition parties in the lawsuit. Lots of it is just nonsense, but sometimes, there are people who take things to extremes, and we do take those threats seriously."
May frowned. "What do you mean? How do they take things to extremes?"
"They issue personal, explicit threats targeting the lawyers, or even their partners and children, their families, their friends. It’s shocking what people can find out and how they can use personal information like a weapon. And as I said, it’s unfortunately impossible to stop.We try to take steps against the worst ones, but otherwise, we all just have to live with it."
"Is there a record of the threats against Sheila?"
"Yes. We keep a complete dossier of all the threats made against all the individuals in this firm, no matter how minor."
"Would you be able to send me the information? It could be very helpful in taking this investigation further," May said, hoping that the assistant would agree.
She paused. "Let me check. I don't want to do anything without the correct go-ahead."
May was put on hold and waited, mentally crossing her fingers that the answer would be positive.
While she waited, she heard Owen conversing with an official from the local police department. From what she could hear, that was not going well, and May felt her stomach twist with anxiety.
It sounded to her as if the police department wanted to help, but couldn't work out how to make all the information quickly available. From what Owen was saying, it was sounding as if compiling all those reports and pulling together the information would take weeks, time that nobody there had.
One of the two ways forward must surely pan out. Now everything was resting on the lawyers’ side.
With a click, the hold music ended and the assistant was back on the line.
"Yes, I do have permission from the senior partner to share anything that could help with the case. It's very distressing and as you can imagine, everyone is nervous they might be targeted next. Please do keep in mind that some of the information related to the threats may be privileged and may not be shared beyond what is necessary for you to identify any suspects."
May felt a rush of relief.
"That will be so helpful. I'll give you my email address. Can you send it as soon as possible?" She read it out to her.
"I'll need a few minutes to prepare it, and then I'll send it. I hope it helps you," the assistant said.
"Thank you."