To; DML
From: Ms. Barber
Tel #: (617) 513-1944
DATE/TIME; September 3rd, 9:51 A.M.
MESSAGE: Please call her ASAP
Then, under the acronym for "as soon as possible," there was scrawled a second message, in different, seemingly hurried handwriting and at a forty-five-degree angle to the vertical.
It read:
WWG,
Got a closing. Can you call her back?
DML
I went over the xeroxed image again. It was dated seven weeks before, or almost six weeks before Woodrow Gant died. "DWL" had to be Deborah Ling's initials, and "WWG" Gant's. But the exchange was the same as the law firm's, and the name "Barber" came up again. The temp Patricia had used it when she interrupted Ling and me the first time I'd visited Epstein & Neely. And the same name was repeated by Imogene Burbage at the reception desk the prior Friday. In her office, Ling had said Barber was just one of Woodrow Gant's divorce clients anxious to sell a marital home. Which made sense at the time.
If Ling had been telling me the truth, that is. Which she hadn't always.
Then I looked at the photocopied message as a whole and thought about who might have slipped the envelope through my mail slot. I came up with a pretty good candidate, but I used the telephone first.
After dialing the number on the message, I heard two rings and then "Kim Baker."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I thought this was Ms. Barber's number."
Some breathing on the other end before, "Who is this, please?"
"I'm returning Ms. Barber's call."
More breathing. "Call for whom?"
I said, "Woodrow Gant at Epstein & Neely."
More breathing still, then just a hang-up.
I dialed again, but nobody answered this time, and no tape machine or voice mail had kicked in after ten rings.
Opening the drawer of my desk that held the photo album, I took out my reverse phone directory and ran down the number.
* * *
The small office building on lower State Street was just a coin toss from Boston's elevated Central Artery that, once depressed, will no longer be a "pedestrian-flow barrier" between the Quincy Market area and our waterfront. I didn't have to look at the lobby directory for "Harborview Realty Company":
Its stenciled picture window constituted most of the visible ground floor.
I walked inside the door next to the window. A woman beaming a Pepsodent smile sat at the front desk to my left. It was removed from the dozen others in two rows behind her, at which three women and two men sat, several with telephones cradled at the shoulder while they scrolled information across computer screens. The reception desk seemed far less cluttered than the others. Just a pad and a telephone console.
"I'm Kelly O'Shea." The beaming woman beamed at me until I turned and she noticed my right eye. "Uh, welcome to Harborview Realty. Can I help you?"
"I'd like to speak to Ms. Baker, please." I enunciated the syllables carefully, just so O'Shea wouldn't think the punch-drunk in front of her had said "Barber."
"And your name, please?"
"John Cuddy."
"One moment." O'Shea lifted her receiver and hit two digits. I could see a fortyish woman who hadn't been on the phone pick up her extension.
The receptionist said, "Kim, a Mr. Cuddy is here to see you."
The woman at the rear desk smiled and beckoned to me while mouthing something into her line. O'Shea nodded, and they hung up in unison.
I said, "Do you drill together often?"
"Pardon me?" replied O'Shea.
"Never mind. I can find my way."
I moved down the aisle between the desks, Kim Baker rising from behind hers. She stood about five-one and wore a stylish, green wool dress with a scarf artfully draped over a shoulder and part of her chest.
When I got within greeting distance, she extended a hand, professionally oblivious to the damage my face showed. "Mr. Cuddy, Kim Baker. A pleasure."
"Same. But I do have kind of a threshold question."
A wariness crossed her features, as much from my voice, I think, as my words. She said, "A threshold question?"
"Yes. Is there a reason you go by 'Barber' as well?"
Wary graduated to stiff. "Who are you?"
“The man who called a while ago."
"Show me some identification, or I'm calling the police."
"If you'd like, I can give you the separate line for Homicide."
"Oh, God. On television, you people always come in pairs."
I didn't want to disabuse Baker of the notion I was a cop.
"I'm afraid this is real life."
She looked around quickly, then said, "Let me get my coat."
* * *
"I like to eat lunch out here." Kim Baker's tone didn't suggest much of an appetite right then. "This bower effect and the water, it's really . . . soothing?
We were sitting on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park, about a three-block walk from her realty office if that area of town were measurable in blocks. The park is only a few acres of lawn and paths, but the sun shining through the latticework of the bower overhead created a pastoral pattern of shadows on the ground around us.
"Ms. Baker, could we go back to my threshold question?"
Both hands grappled nervously on her lap, feet flat on the ground, knees close together. Then Baker shivered a little, and I didn't think it was from the air temperature.
"I used the name 'Barber' for confidentiality. It's easy to remember because it's so close to the real one."
"Confidentiality because of your divorce case?"
A blinking look. "My what?"
"Woodrow Gant was a divorce attorney at Epstein & Neely. Somebody there said you were a client of his."
Baker squeezed her eyes shut briefly. "That makes sense, actually."
She'd lost me. "Maybe I should stop asking questions and have you just answer them."
"I don't understand"
"Okay, let's start with an easy one. What was your relationship with Mr. Gant?"
"Professional and client."
"And how was he representing you?"
"No," with a shake of the head. "No, you've got it backwards."
"Backwards?"
"Yes. Woodrow came to me—or called me, actually."
"Called you as a real estate broker?"
"Right."
I was getting deeper and deeper into the woods, so I just said, "Go on."
"Well, he wanted me to start scouting properties, but naturally Woodrow didn't want anyone to know, so I suggested we use the name 'Barber' with my direct-dial number at Harborview because I'd never used it before"
"Never used what before?"
"The name 'Barber.' As a cover. You know, like in the spy stories?"
Spy stories. "But why would you need any 'cover' at all?"
Baker looked at me, a little more relaxed now that she believed I was a dunce. “So nobody at the firm would recognize me."
"Because?"
"Because I was the one who'd helped the senior partners when they did the same thing."
"What same thing?"
"Left their old firm, of course."
That stopped me. "Woodrow Gant was leaving Epstein & Neely?"
Baker's turn to stop. Then, "You didn't know?"
The penny finally dropped. "He hired you to find him new space for his own office."
"Their own office, actually."
"Meaning?"
"Deborah Ling was leaving with him. They were going to be partners together"
"But Ms. Ling was barely out of law school."
“Yes, but Woodrow said she was contributing half the capital to get things started."
"Why would he tell you that?"
A disdainful expression. "Any commercial lessor worth its salt would want a credit rating on a new tenant. The typical commercial lease is for five years, with an option to renew, and the lessor has to be sure the tenant is a goo
d risk."
I turned it over. "So Ms. Ling was putting up good-faith money from her end."
"Yes."
Meaning from Nguyen Trinh's end, probably. Another way he'd have gotten to control Woodrow Gant, to "watch him from the kitchen" at a higher level.
The penny also dropped on the photocopied phone message I'd received. "So that's why you called both Mr. Gant and Ms. Ling at the firm."
"Yes." Baker looked toward the water, a couple of gulls wheeling and diving for something on the surface. "But when Woodrow got killed, I was in Europe, so when I returned last week and called the firm, naturally I asked for him." She gnawed on her lower lip. "God, it was such a shock, but Deborah assured me she was still interested."
"Interested?"
"In setting up her own practice." Baker looked back to me. "In fact, that's why we were going to have lunch when . . ." She shook her head.
I said, “Do you mean last Friday?"
"Yes." Baker's eyes returned to the harbor. "When it got later and later without any word from Deborah, I called the law firm twice and left blind messages for her just to get back to me."
I'd heard one of them at Epstein & Neely's reception desk. Now Baker closed her eyes again. "Then that night, on the news . .
After a moment, I said, "Even without Mr. Gant as a partner, Ms. Ling was still thinking about leaving the firm?"
"Not just 'thinking' about it, either. She'd made up her mind." Baker came back to me. "I guess Deborah had major doubts."
"About what?"
Baker shrugged. "About the viability of Epstein & Neely for the future."
"Why?"
"Well, with Woodrow gone—dead, I mean—and the other partner being made a judge, there—"
"A judge?"
"Yes. I guess it wasn't public information yet, because Deborah insisted I had to keep that in strictest confidence."
I remembered Nancy telling me about the new slots being approved by the legislature. "Do you know which partner Ms. Ling was talking about?"
Another shrug. "She never said."
I remembered seeing somebody at the firm I didn't expect to be there. Then I thanked Kim Baker for her time.
After she left me, I spent a good hour on that bench, but I didn't pay much attention to the seagulls any more. Or anything else, for that matter. I was pretty much lost in thought. Then I got up to go see the person at Epstein & Neely who I figured pushed that photocopied message through the mail slot in my office door.
Chapter 22
I WAS ABOUT to press the button for the small elevator when I heard the car approaching the ground floor and saw the diamond window line up with the lobby door. Through the glass, Uta Radachowski was hiking the strap to a backpack higher on her shoulder. I stepped to the side before she looked up, letting her open the door.
When Radachowski came out, I said, "Knocking off early?"
She jumped, then turned around. "You scared me."
The eyes behind her distorting lenses confirmed the emotion.
"Why?" I said. "Trinh and Huong are both dead."
A different look now. "I caught it on the news. And can see it on your face."
"Bloodied, but unbowed."
Another hike at the shoulder strap. "Then what do you want here?"
"Maybe to know where you're heading."
"Not that it's any of your business, Mr. Cuddy, but I have a charity event I'm already late for. Now, is that all?"
"Except for an invitation to your swearing-in,"
Radachowski lips narrowed. "My what?"
"The ceremony when you put your hand on the Bible and promise to be a good judge."
"Mr. Cuddy, I don't know—"
"I do know, counselor, and bluffing's not going to work anymore."
Her eyes swam behind the distorting lenses. "Who?"
"Who told me, you mean?"
The eyes were steady now. And angry. "That's what I mean."
I couldn't see any reason not to protect Kim Baker. "Nobody. Not directly anyway."
"That's not possible."
"Sure it is. All those client files of yours being carried to Frank Neely's office. Transferred to him, really. The visit by Parris Jeppers to you last Friday."
"There was nothing inappropriate about that."
"Maybe not. A little odd, though, given that Jeppers had told me he wasn't investigating Woodrow Gant anymore."
Radachowski didn't say anything.
"But our man at the Board might have been keeping his ear to the ground for you. Making sure nothing came up to scotch your nomination."
She didn't bother to look around because the lobby was too small a place for someone to hide. "I'd be the first declared lesbian on the bench, Mr. Cuddy, It would be very embarrassing to the governor for this to leak before he's ready to make the formal announcement."
"It won't, at least not from me. I just needed to hear you confirm what I suspected."
Radachowski took a minute before saying, "I guess I have to take your word on that."
"I guess you do. Like you 'had' to recommend Woodrow Gant to Nicole Spaeth."
Radachowski blinked. "I don't . . . ?"
"You recommended Gant to her, even though you were aware of his 'reputation' with female clients."
"They were just rumors. Unsubstantiated allega—"
"You strike me as pretty street-sawy. I think you felt the rumors were more true than false, yet you still recommended your law partner to the woman. Why, Ms. Radachowski?"
"I already told—"
"Because you were a little worried about your old firm's 'future viability' without new business flowing into it?"
The jaw set. "Mr. Cuddy, it seems I'm doomed to be terminating conversations with you."
Despite that last line, Radachowski waited until I turned to open the elevator door before saying, "You're wasting your time."
"Sorry?"
"Frank wasn't in his office, and Elliot's been off at a meeting all afternoon."
"How about Ms. Burbage?"
"Imogene's still there," said Uta Radachowski, though even from the kindly judge-in-waiting, it came out more as, Imogene's always there.
* * *
"Me again."
Burbage hadn't been watching the elevator door, maybe assuming that Radachowski had forgotten something and was coming back to get it. My voice threw the woman behind the reception desk enough that she looked up with her mouth open.
"Mr. Cuddy, I'm . . . I'm afraid no one's available to see you."
"That's okay. You're the one I want to talk to."
Burbage looked back down at the message pad and began writing on it. "We have nothing to talk about."
"You should have used a carrier pigeon."
She raised her head again. "A what?"
"Carrier pigeon. Frank Neely told me that to send a message on one, you have to roll the paper and stick it into this little quiver on the bird's leg."
No response from Burbage.
I reached for the inside pocket of my suit jacket. "But since you sent this through the mail slot in an envelope," laying the photocopied phone message on her desk, "I could see how neatly creased it was. And when my name didn't appear on even the envelope itself, I realized that was probably because the handwriting would match yours on the slip, since the only other writing was Deborah Ling's, and she was well past being able to hand-deliver anything anymore."
Burbage gave up the game. "You're really a lot smarter than you like to show, aren't you?"
"If so, we're two of a kind."
"Flattery doesn't work with me, Mr. Cuddy."
"That's too bad. You've earned some."
A confused expression. "What do you mean?"
I moved my hand in a small arc. "Everything you do around here. Secretary, bookkeeper, functional office manager. I'm betting your IQ beats any lawyer's in the firm by twenty points?
A jaundiced look. "Now you're not just flattering me, you're buttering me up. For what?"
/>
"I want to know why you brought this message slip to my office."
"That's pretty obvious. I didn't want you to know who left it there."
"Not what I meant. Why did you think someone connected with the investigation into Woodrow Gant's death should know about Ms. Barber's call to Deborah Ling?"
Burbage looked back down at the sheet I'd laid in front of her. "Because I was his secretary, too."
"Mr. Gant's, you mean?"
"Yes."
Vague, but I thought I saw it. "Frank Neely became aware of this message, didn't he?"
A nod without looking back up. "I was covering the switch-board here that day. The voice mail was down again, so I wrote out Ms. Barber's message, leaving the pink copy for Ms. Ling in her slot." Burbage motioned to the plastic holder on the reception desk. "When Ms. Ling came out from her office to go to a closing, she picked it up. After reading the message, however, she scribbled a note on it, saying I should give it to Mr. Gant personally."
Now I pointed to the message holder. "As opposed to just leaving that pink copy in his own slot."
"Exactly. But I thought Ms. Ling just meant he needed to see it quickly."
"Not that no one else was to see it at all."
Another nod. "So, when I was relieved by a temp here at the board, I carried Ms. Barber's message back to my desk in order to give it to Mr. Gant as soon as I saw him."
"Only Frank Neely came out of his office first."
"Yes. He was asking me about a file, and I had what he wanted on the floor beside my desk. When I looked back up, Mr. Neely had the pink copy in his hand, glaring at it like he was going to tear it up. Then he set the message very carefully on my desk, and asked me to have Mr. Gant see him as soon as he got back." Burbage grew quieter. "I could tell Mr. Neely was seething, so I made a photocopy of the message, in case he wanted one later for some reason. But I couldn't see why Mr. Neely was so upset. I mean, I didn't recognize the name 'Barber,' but he obviously did."
"No, he didn't."
Burbage shook her head. "What?"
"Your boss didn't recognize the name." I pointed to the line underneath on the photocopy, the one that read 513-1944. "He recognized the number."
The Only Good Lawyer - Jeremiah Healy Page 26