The Last McKenzie

By Kirk Ross

The future...and the very survival...of one unborn child hang on the skill and courage of one young attorney in search of his own redemption...

The McKenzies are dead. All of them. And thus the fate of one of America’s largest fortunes is in limbo. Then the bank which controls the vast fortune suddenly produces a man it claims is the only surviving member of the family. Although no one had ever heard of this cousin before, his inheritance seems secure...
...until a McKenzie widow discovers she is pregnant with her dead husband’s child. Should the McKenzie fortune belong to the child...or is it already too late? Attorney Jack Mitchell will do whatever it takes to make sure his unborn client receives justice...even if it costs him everything.
In Kirk Ross’ just-completed breakout novel, the law is a battlefield, but it’s the war outside of the courtroom that will keep Jack and the last McKenzie just one step ahead of a dangerously final verdict.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kirk Ross
• Release date: Jun 24, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476348742

Book preview

THE LAST MCKENZIE

A Chicago Collection Novel

by

Kirk Ross

Published 2012 by Rössl International Press

The Last McKenzie. Copyright © 2012 by Kirk Ross. All rights reserved. No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place, brands, media and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

The Last McKenzie is the first installment of The Chicago Collection, a grouping – not a series – of related novels and short stories about the law.

Smashwords Edition June 2012

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Prologue

CHAPTERS

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11

12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23

EPILOGUE

Acknowledgements

I would be greatly remiss if I did not take a few lines here to thank the several people who graciously and patiently read various drafts of this book. Their comments and suggestions were enormously helpful and served to make this a much better book. All the novel’s remaining flaws are, of course, wholly my own.

I also need to thank Joe Bellfy, whose cover design is exactly what I was looking for.

But my greatest thanks goes, of course, to my wife, Katie. Her unflagging confidence and unrelenting encouragement to this effort are some of the greatest gifts she’s ever given me.

For Katie

Ein und Alles

Prologue

Connor McKenzie stared grimly at the smart phone gripped in his hand. He sat at a banged-up metal table inside a canvas army surplus tent somewhere deep in the uncharted backwoods of Suriname. A hot, humid breeze carried the evening purr of the jungle into the tent through the open window behind him. It was dusk.

He forced himself to read the new e-mail one more time. He couldn’t believe it.

His older brother was dead. Killed by some mugger a few days ago.

And just two weeks ago, his older sister had died in a car crash. Connor was suddenly the last McKenzie. He could barely breathe.

Connor stole a glance at his wife sleeping quietly on their cot in the corner. His eyes drifted slowly down her body, the curve of her hips taking his breath away, just like it always did. She had fallen right to sleep, drowsy from their love-making. He had been moments away from falling asleep beside her when he saw the small light blinking on his phone. The e-mail.

Connor tore his eyes away from his wife and forced his attention back to the phone. The Perseus Corporation was sending a helicopter for the two of them first thing in the morning. They had to go home. Decisions needed to be made. Big decisions. And he did not know if he was ready.

A soft twang outside. A sudden sting in the middle of Connor’s back, and his body jerked upright. Then he looked down and was vaguely surprised to see the bright point of a bloody arrowhead protruding from his chest, right below the sternum.

CHAPTER ONE

Five-thirty in the morning. Late July. It was already getting hot. Jack Mitchell sagged against the metal railing on the small balcony off his living room, struggling to catch his breath after another long night-time run.

The balcony faced east, cantilevered out over the Chicago River, just north of downtown Chicago’s Loop. A warm, gritty breeze from the city drifted past him, wrinkling his nose. Through tired, red-rimmed eyes, he watched the faint glow of early sunrise start to warm the crowded rows of skyscrapers across the river.

Jack stood 5’11" in his running shoes. He didn’t have the thin, lithe build of a natural runner, but years of trying to run away from the gnawing bile of guilt in his gut had left him in good shape, with lean shoulders and muscular legs. His thick, black hair was pulled back into the short ponytail he typically wore, and he had a small, heavy gold ring in his left ear. The bottom half of a black, tattooed Gothic cross stuck out of his T-shirt’s right sleeve.

Jack gripped the balcony railing in frustration and let the sweat drip from his chin onto the concrete floor. He was exhausted. Exhausted, but not sleepy. Just like always. Ever since Hannah died two years ago, real sleep had eluded him. His only escape from the guilt and loneliness that kept him awake night after night was the streets of Chicago. When he couldn’t sleep, which was most of the time, he ran through the city’s downtown neighborhoods, weaving in and out of Streeterville, the Gold Coast, Grant Park. Wherever his feet took him. Sometimes it worked, and he came home half-dead, asleep before his head hit the pillow. Other times, like today, the running did nothing but make him even more tired. But still not sleepy.

Jack turned and leaned back against the rail, filling his lungs as well as he could with the heavy, damp urban air. Looking through the balcony door into his living room, he felt the same grim satisfaction he always did when he thought about his small townhouse. It was the only revenge he had gotten against Hannah’s father, Mr. John H. Kensington, Esq., attorney extraordinaire. The house was part of the only funky row of townhomes anywhere on the river downtown, and Hannah had always loved it. She said it reminded her of a Caribbean island somewhere. So Kensington had made a surprise gift of one of the townhouses to Hannah and Jack when they got married four years ago. Years later, Jack realized that the gift had been a typical Kensington tactic to establish financial leverage over the new couple. But back then, Jack had naively thought his father-in-law was just being kind and generous. Hah.

When Hannah died, Kensington suddenly demanded the house back. At his own daughter’s funeral, Kensington had told Jack, in no uncertain terms, that he had no intention of supporting a shiftless loser like Jack who had just walked out on the best job he would ever have, so he told Jack he was taking the house back.

But somebody in Kensington’s law office had messed up the deed to the property, and Hannah’s death had left it solely in Jack’s name. So Jack kept the property and told Kensington to go to hell.

The bastard. Just one more reason to hate that man.

His breathing finally coming a little easier, Jack pushed off the railing with a soft grunt and walked back into the house, sliding the glass door shut behind him. He stepped past the kitchen table and winced at the sight of the legal paperwork he had tossed there the evening before. He had been too angry to do anything with it then and had just thrown the Settlement Agreement into a disordered pile. He had arrived home straight from court, where one of his clients, the beneficiary of a small trust, had accepted – against Jack’s vociferous, strenuous, and repeated legal advice – a settlement from a bank trustee who had been mismanaging the client’s trust for years. Jack had uncovered clear evidence of the bank’s legal liability, but his client could not afford to wait for a long legal process. He needed money right now. So the client had taken the pittance offered by the bank and signed away everything else he might have deserved. Another loss for the little guy. And Jack was not even sure he was going to get paid. He shook his head in barely suppressed irritation.

Kemo snuffled her wet nose into Jack’s hand.

Watch it! Jack snapped in distracted surprise, jerking his hand away from his two-year-old German Shepherd.

Kemo sat down, offended. Her big brown eyes looked mournfully up at Jack.

His shoulders dropped in immediate apology. Sorry about that, Kemo, he said. Come here.

Jack squatted down and gave his dog some well-deserved scratching behind the ears, just the way she liked it. Jack had bought Kemo for his wife shortly before she died. Now Kemo was his only housemate. The only family he had left.

Jack filled Kemo’s water dish and put on his morning pot of strong coffee. Another night of no sleep meant another day of a lot of caffeine. It was the only way he made it through.

Jack heard the soft thump of the newspaper thrown up against the front door a few minutes later. Kemo lifted her head off the floor and whoofed quietly, her ears at full attention. Jack opened the door and picked up the paper, all the time thinking how much he hated being awake to hear the paper be delivered so early. But it was his own fault. He had earned his guilt.

When the coffee was done, Jack sat down at the kitchen table and spread the Tuesday Chicago Tribune out in front of him. It was a little old-fashioned of him in the age of internet news, but Jack still liked reading the paper version of the news over his morning coffee.

As usual, he dug through the paper and pulled out the Business Section, where he liked to start. It took him a second to realize what he was looking at, but once it sank in, he was stunned by the words across the top of the page.

Listen to this, Jack muttered to Kemo who lay on the floor beside him. Now that Kemo was the only other person in the apartment, Jack often found himself talking to the dog, just to hear the sound of a voice.

McKenzie Family Wiped Out

By Sarah Martinez

Chicago Tribune Staff Reporter

In a shocking series of tragedies, the three remaining members of Chicago’s prominent McKenzie family all died unexpectedly in recent weeks. Ms. Jinny McKenzie, the oldest of the three siblings, was killed in a hit-and-run accident on Lower Wacker Drive in downtown Chicago in late June. Chicago Police say a delivery van crushed her small sports car into a concrete divider. She was found dead at the scene. The van’s driver is reported to have fled the scene and has not been identified.

Last week, Dr. Seaumus McKenzie, the second of the three McKenzie siblings, was killed while jogging in Lincoln Park, an upscale neighborhood north of downtown. Police say he was jogging through the popular park around sunset when an unknown person or persons attacked him. According to the Cook County Coroner’s Office, the victim died of multiple stab wounds, likely sustained during the attack. No suspect has as yet been identified by local officials. Police urge residents with any knowledge of the attack to contact authorities right away.

Then, the Caracas bureau of the Associated Press reported yesterday that Dr. Connor McKenzie, the last surviving member of the family and the youngest of the three siblings, was killed five days ago in the small nation of Suriname. Dr. McKenzie and his wife, Maggie Eskridge McKenzie, originally of Marinette, Wisconsin, were working as part of a medical team serving isolated villages in the jungles of that South American country. Maggie McKenzie told officials that she discovered her husband’s body Friday morning. According to the AP, the victim had been fatally shot in the back in what Surinamese authorities describe as a hunting accident. Local officials report that they have not identified the shooter. Given the remote location and the very limited police presence in the area, local officials do not anticipate successfully doing so.

The three McKenzie siblings, none of whom are survived by descendants, were the children of the late Kamron and Sarah McKenzie. Kamron McKenzie, an iconic figure in the Chicago business world, was founder of the well-known Perseus Corporation, currently the third largest producer of pharmaceutical products in the world. Kamron McKenzie and his wife died several years ago in a plane crash.

The fate of the Perseus Corporation is the subject of considerable speculation among investors. Its stock price has dropped almost twenty percent over the last two weeks, following the news of the McKenzie siblings’ deaths. Upon their parents’ deaths, the three McKenzie children had continued management of the company, and the family retained ownership of thirty-five percent of Perseus stock when the corporation went public in 1966, giving the family effective control of the company.

According to the company’s public legal filings, ever since the death of Kamron McKenzie, the family’s stock in the Perseus Corporation has been held by the Kamron and Sarah McKenzie Trust, currently administered by the Midwestern National Trust Company of Chicago (MNT). However, with the death of all of Kamron McKenzie’s descendants, it is unclear who will now acquire ownership of those shares. Charlotte Davison, a spokesman for MNT, declined to comment when asked about this issue. That information will be forthcoming at the appropriate time, said Davison. Until that time, we assure the investing community that Perseus is in good hands.

Funeral services for Jinny and Seamus McKenzie were held in recent weeks. A public visitation for Dr. Connor McKenzie will be held on Wednesday of next week at the Perseus Conference Center on Sheridan Rd. from 1:00-6:00 PM, followed by a funeral mass on Thursday at Holy Name Cathedral.

Connor’s dead, Jack muttered. Damn.

Connor McKenzie had been a friendly acquaintance of Jack’s for several years, ever since their undergrad years together at the University of Michigan. They had not really been close friends, but they saw each other at a lot of the same parties. Both were Chicago natives, and after college, they had both come back to the city, Jack to Northwestern Law and Connor to Northwestern Medical. Just for old times’ sake, they had gotten together with some of the other guys from college every once in a while. But Jack had not seen Connor in over a year.

And all of a sudden Connor was dead. Talk about unexpected. Jack said a short, silent prayer for his friend.

Then he glanced at the clock on the wall. The rest of the world was waking up, and he had clients waiting. With a sigh, he folded the paper and pushed Kemo’s head out of his lap. He drained the last of his coffee and headed for the shower.

CHAPTER TWO

Jack sat by himself on one of those white, wooden folding chairs that wobbled in the grass a little every time he moved. He sipped tepid coffee from a fancy cup that was way above his pay grade while a small plate of untouched hors d’oeuvres sat in the grass next to him. His friend’s wake did not exactly stir his appetite. Plus, he wasn’t sure he liked foie gras.

Jack did not know anyone else there, but he had thought it important to come since he had been friendly with Connor. The funeral service would be held tomorrow at St. Gertrude’s, a nearby Catholic parish, and then Connor would be buried next to the rest of his family in the St. Henry cemetery on Devon Ave. The funeral and the burial were by invitation only, and Jack was definitely not going to get an invitation. So this was his only chance to pay his respects.

The wake was held at the McKenzie family’s old estate. The home was in one of the old money neighborhoods north of the city, in that narrow strip of exclusivity between Sheridan Road and Lake Michigan. The McKenzies had built it when their kids were young. Then, when Kamron and Sarah died, the estate had been turned into a private conference center for the Perseus Corporation.

Jack watched one identical suit after another walk past him accompanied by some beautiful, expensive, predictable dress. No kids, no families, no emotion. Everyone was here for business, Jack thought to himself. The Perseus Corporation was one of the biggest companies in the country, and a lot of investors were nervous now. They all looked somber – but no one looked sad.

There was a small commotion on the far side of the property, and Jack watched a young woman break away from a pack of men in identical pinstripe suits. She was clumsily hurrying away in her heels, one hand over her mouth. Jack could not tell for sure from the distance, but he thought she might be crying. The suits all took a matching step, as if to stop her. But in the next instant, they quickly turned around and tried to act as if there had never been a woman crying there at all.

Jack shrugged at the crazy goings-on of these upper crust types. Years ago, he remembered regretfully, he had tried desperately to be just like them. Hannah had constantly encouraged him to drop those pretensions and to be himself, but he had brushed her off. It had taken his wife’s death for Jack to realize how very right she had been.

Jack stood with an inconspicuous stretch and handed his still-full plate to a passing waiter. Still sipping on his coffee, he turned back toward the house. He would pay his respects one last time at the casket and then get out of here. This was not his world anymore.

He walked down a gentle slope and around the back of the house to avoid the crowd. There was a back door on the house that would let him sneak discretely into the viewing area. At the bottom of the slope, he passed the head of a short trail that led from the house through a copse of trees toward the cliff overlooking Lake Michigan when he heard something.

I said I don’t know! shouted an exasperated female voice from down the trail. The voice was shrill and barely under control.

Jack stopped and listened.

For the hundredth time, just leave me alone! the voice shouted again, almost at the breaking point.

Jack turned and strode down the trail to see what was going on. It sounded like someone needed help. He went around a bend in the path and when he came out of the trees, he saw the same woman who had been hurrying across the lawn crying just a few minutes ago. She stood on a small overlook, backed into a corner of the short wall that ran along the edge of the cliff.

Three of those indistinguishable suits crowded around her, opportunistic desperation etched on their faces.

Do you realize how much money we’re talking about here? one of them hissed darkly.

Just a hint, and we’ll get out of here, begged the second one. This is the chance of a lifetime.

But I don’t know anything! the woman insisted hotly. She was quickly going from distraught to angry.

Look, said the third suit, if you’re worried about your cut, don’t be. He leaned in conspiratorially. We’ll make sure you get taken care of.

The woman recoiled in disgust. Get away from me!

Hey! Jack shouted.

The three suits spun around.

Lady, are these jerks bothering you? Jack asked, jumping down three stone steps to the overlook.

Yes, answered the woman with a gasp, pushing away from the wall. Absolutely.

The three suits stepped warily away from the woman, trying in vain to hide the manic greed in their eyes.

Just making some conversation, said the first suit, shooting an angry glare at Jack.

Our condolences on your loss, mumbled the second suit insincerely before all three turned and scurried back up the trail.

Jack watched them disappear, then turned back to the woman.

Are you okay?

The woman’s grief was plain to see. She had dark red hair that would have reached the middle of her back if it had not been pulled back in a ponytail. But the ponytail was starting to fall out a little, and there were a few loose hairs dangling around her face. Her bright, emerald green eyes were red and puffy from hours of crying. She wore a simple gray dress that was made for a small country church service rather than a high-end corporate funeral. The dress had not been pressed in quite a while.

Still, even in this state, there was no denying how pretty she was. She was a slender, curvy woman with smooth skin that had been richly colored by plenty of time in the outdoors. And on any other day, her face would have lit up a room. Jack had the distinct impression she was one of those beautiful women who never really realized how pretty she is.

She took a deep breath to steady herself. Yeah, she answered. I’m okay. Just a little shaken.

The woman sat down on the short wall with a tired sigh.

Can you I get you a glass of water or something? Jack asked.

No, thank you, she replied. I’m fine. She looked out over the wide expanse of Lake Michigan for a minute while Jack stood indecisively at the foot of the stairs.

Would you like to sit down? she finally asked, turning back to Jack.

Jack hesitated. Are you sure? he replied. I mean, if you’d rather be alone… He half-turned to go back up the path.

To tell you the truth, she answered in an exhausted voice, I could use a little pleasant company for a change.

Glad to hear that he somehow counted as pleasant company, Jack stepped across the overlook and sat on the wall a few feet down from the woman. I’m Jack Mitchell, he said.

Maggie McKenzie, she replied, shaking Jack’s hand. Thank you for getting rid of those guys, she added, tucking a couple of stray hairs behind her ear.

Jack shrugged inconsequentially. Don’t mention it, he said. You must be Connor’s wife.

Maggie nodded. Did you know him?

Actually, Connor was a friend of mine, Jack answered. We went to college together in Michigan. Since then, we used to get together here downtown with a few other guys once in a while. But what with busy schedules and everything, I haven’t seen Connor in about a year or so. Jack drained his last sip of cold coffee and set the empty cup down on the wall beside him. But if I remember right, he continued, the last time I saw Connor, he mentioned something about an amazing, beautiful girl he had just met.

Maggie smiled in spite of herself, and Jack had a brief glimpse of just how pretty she could be.

"And if I’m not mistaken, it wasn’t too long after that when I heard