“There’s a reason why it’s so lopsided,” Lorna said, picking up on my surprise. “He just took in a check for a hundred thousand dollars from Walter Elliot. He deposited it Friday.”

I nodded and tapped the makeshift calendar I had on the table in front of me. It was drawn on a legal pad. Lorna would have to go out and buy a real calendar when she got the chance. She would also input all of the court appointments on my computer and on an online calendar. Lastly, and as Jerry Vincent had not done, she would back it all up on an off-site data-storage account.

“The Elliot trial is scheduled to start Thursday next week,” I said. “He took the hundred up front.”

Saying the obvious prompted a sudden realization.

“As soon as we’re done here, call the bank,” I told Lorna. “See if the check has cleared. If not, try to push it through. As soon as Elliot hears that Vincent’s dead, he’ll probably try to put a stop-payment on it.”

“Got it.”

“What else on the money? If a hundred of it’s from Elliot, who’s the rest for?”

Lorna opened one of the accounting books she had on her lap. Each dollar in a trust fund must be accounted for with regard to which client it is being held for. At any time, an attorney must be able to determine how much of a client’s advance has been transferred to the operating fund and used and how much is still on reserve in trust. A hundred thousand of Vincent’s trust account was earmarked for the Walter Elliot trial. That left only twenty-nine thousand received for the rest of the active cases. That wasn’t a lot, considering the stack of files we had pulled together while going through the filing cabinets looking for live cases.

“That’s the bad news,” Lorna said. “It looks like there are only five or six other cases with trust deposits. With the rest of the active cases, the money’s already been moved into operating or been spent or the clients owe the firm.”

I nodded. It wasn’t good news. It was beginning to look like Jerry Vincent was running ahead of his cases, meaning he’d been on a treadmill, bringing in new cases to keep money flowing and paying for existing cases. Walter Elliot must have been the get-well client. As soon as his hundred thousand cleared, Vincent would have been able to turn the treadmill off and catch his breath — for a while, at least. But he never got the chance.

“How many clients with payment plans?” I asked.

Lorna once again referred to the records on her lap.

“He’s got two on pretrial payments. Both are well behind.”

“What are the names?”

It took her a moment to answer as she looked through the records.

“Uh, Samuels is one and Henson is the other. They’re both about five thousand behind.”

“And that’s why we take credit cards and don’t put out paper.”