Until Proven Innocent Read Free Page A

neighborhood has a pooper-scooper law that says nobody should walk a dog on the public streets without having some scooping device to use. I have nothing against following the law, but there are some things that I just refuse to do, so we go to a dog park where he can run around and do things that I don’t know about, somewhere where I can’t see him.
    *****
    Now that the dog has taken care of his business, it’s time for me to take care of mine, so I call Stuart’s Van Nuys warehouse. Olive answers the phone. She recognizes my phone number on her caller ID display.
    “ Oh, Mister Sharp, I’m so glad you called.”
    Her voice becomes hushed, as if she’s whispering into the phone.
    “ Please, can I come and talk to you?”
    “ Olive, if this is about that prenuptial agreement you and Vinnie were talking about, I’ve already told you that I won’t advise either one of you about it.”
    “ No, no, this has nothing to do with that. It’s something else completely. I have a problem. Someone is threatening me.”
    “ Olive, are you in physical danger, because if you are, I can be there in less than thirty minutes. What about Stuart and Vinnie, are they around anywhere?”
    “ No, it’s not anything physical. Listen, Vinnie and Stuart will be back from lunch any minute now, and I don’t want them to know anything about this. Can I come to the boat? Please?”
    I’ve known Olive for almost a year now, and to the best of my knowledge, the only thing that freaks her out is dead bodies, so I’m really curious to find out what’s bothering her now.
    Stuart and his group have been to the boat many times, so Olive is quite familiar with these surroundings and makes herself comfortable on the couch in the boat’s main saloon. I used to call that area of the boat the ‘salon,’ but was corrected by several of our dock neighbors, who told me that if I want to fit in around here, I’ll have to call what the old sailors did: the ‘saloon.’ As I walk over to greet her, I notice that the forward stateroom door is slightly ajar, and just below the doorknob level I see an eye peering out. The kid never misses out on anything.
    Olive starts right out by swearing me to secrecy. I explain to her that anything she tells me is protected by lawyer-client privilege, even if it involves a matter that I decide not to represent her on. Once she feels confident that Vinnie won’t find out what she tells me, she starts her explanation.
    “ I’m being blackmailed.”
    “ C’mon Olive, you’re not a rich person. What could a blackmailer possibly expect to get out of you?”
    “ He wants me to sleep with him.”
    “ Okay Olive, suppose you start out right at the beginning, because it sounds like I have some catching up to do with the facts of this alleged blackmail. First of all, exactly what is it that this person has on you?”
    “ You’re sure that no one will know about this?”
    I nod affirmatively until she once again feels at ease.
    “ Okay here it is, Mister Sharp, and I hope you won’t think poorly of me for this, but a couple of years ago I was really having a tough time finding a job, so I answered an ad in some Hollywood magazine. They were looking for girls to work the telephones. At first I thought it would be like selling magazines or something like that, but when they told us that we could earn up to twenty dollars an hour with no selling involved, I got a little nervous. The guy went on to explain to us how lonely men wanted to talk to girls on the phone, and that they’d pay by the minute if someone would excite them.”
    “ Olive, if I understand you correctly, you’re describing what they call ‘phone sex.’ Is that right?”
    “ Well yeah, I guess you could call it that, but we never met anyone face to face, and there was definitely no touching or anything like that involved. All I did was follow the scripts they gave us, and talked to those lonely men on the phone. I had a trainer who taught me