Fortunately, the partners never locked their offices. I walked noiselessly down the hall, past doors opening onto rooms as varied as the people themselves. The firm’s premier tax attorney, Dora Green, surrounded her delicate French Provincial desk with so many stacks of paper she should have been number one on Earth First’s hit list. Across the hall, Simon Bartels’s (Italian walnut) work surface was so clean and empty you would never have guessed that he accounted for more billable hours than anyone else in the firm. My one fear was that Barclay had switched offices since I had last visited, boosted into a coveted corner with its two sets of windows and a view no one had time to look at anyway, although presumably the clients enjoyed it. The fights for corner offices were ugly, almost as bad as the ones over who got into the firm name.
Barclay was a heavy hitter, but he had yet to make the starting lineup: His office was still in the same place. I looked at my watch. Fifteen minutes. I opened the door, closed it behind me, and felt for the light switch.
Tricia had been hard at work. Barclay’s office looked like the members’ room of a men’s club in London. A Regency hero, one of the powerful-thighs set, would have felt right at home. The green leather couch was finished with visible stitching and little brass nails. A cut-glass decanter stood on the credenza, doubtless full of single-malt Scotch whisky. A painting of a horse, school of George Stubbs, graced one of the dark-paneled walls. The background looked like the Del Mar Racetrack, but otherwise it was pure Epsom Downs. I wondered if Barclay and Tricia had acquired shares in a racehorse. I wondered if the fox and hounds would come running through any minute.
I wondered if Barclay’s desk drawers were unlocked. My bravado nearly vanished then. This was worse than my historical attempts at snooping—reading someone’s letters while baby-sitting, or opening Steve’s mail from his mother to see what crimes I had committed before I passed it on. I fortified myself with the knowledge that my motives for going through his files, unlike Eleanor’s, were pure: She wanted to blackmail him; I only wanted to see him tried for murder.
The file drawer slid open with so little effort I knew it was almost empty before I looked into it. There were a few manila files, most of them with client names printed on the tabs. I virtuously ignored everything but the Naturcare file, which contained only one disappointing memo. I glanced at it, but although it was intriguing, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. “Please destroy the earlier memo with regard to the way Naturcare does business,” it read. “It should be removed from any client files or document files.” It was dated several weeks earlier.
There was nothing too remarkable in this; lawyers have been known to purge a client’s files before the regulators get a shot at them, though nobody admits it. I imagined it was more unusual to purge a memo from your own files. It was too big a risk to go down the hall and copy it, so I had to leave it or take it with me. With more than a few qualms, I folded the paper up and put it into my wallet. Even the most amateur detective had to know it wouldn’t be admissible as evidence, but I just couldn’t leave it.
Almost of its own accord, my hand drifted up to the top drawer of the desk. It was filled with Mont Blanc pens in enough different styles to write out the whole Encyclopaedia Britannica without running out of ink. There were breath mints and a travel-size vial of Ralph Lauren men’s cologne. Best of all, there was a pocket calendar, the kind lawyers can’t live without. Steve always carried his inside his suit pocket, so that if he had to schedule an appointment while he was at a board meeting, for example, he wouldn’t have to phone his secretary to find out if he was free.
I flipped through the blue calendar pages. The handwriting was execrable, but as near as I could make out there were business meetings and lunches two or three times a week along with the odd appointment with his doctor and hairstylist. There were play dates for Torrey Pines golf course and twice weekly notations for the gym. I hurried through until I reached the day of Eleanor’s death.
I don’t know what I expected—tearstains or bloodstains would have been nice—but there was only a smudge and a single perfect “E.” I couldn’t exactly exclaim “Eureka,” and I would have felt better if the smudge, which might have been another letter, hadn’t preceded it, but that “E” cheered me no end. True, it might have been Elke, his personal Swedish masseuse, but I felt sure it was Eleanor he had planned to meet, covering his tracks by billing Naturcare for the entire afternoon and evening. And if it was, I had the goods on him.
I turned over a few more pages. “E Funeral” was scrawled across the page for the Saturday following her death. I wondered what kind of man had to remind himself of the date and time of his ex-wife’s funeral. What had he felt when he wrote that entry? If I knew the answer to that for sure, I wouldn’t have to ask any more questions.
I ripped out the calendar page and stuffed it in next to the memo. It was another big risk, but I had already taken so many that it seemed pointless to worry.
I looked at my watch again. I had six minutes left on the hour. I could stop now, and unless Barclay was compulsive about the contents of his calendar, I was pretty sure I was safe. I closed the door, turned off the light and stepped into the lighted hall again. Five minutes.
I’m a little ashamed of this next part. There was no excuse for it, at least none I’d care to admit to. I walked a few paces farther down the hall and went into Steve’s office. I’m not sure what I hoped to find—a life-sized boudoir portrait of Linda Williams, evidence of orgies on the desk—but I just had to see it again.
It looked just the same, professionally bland and eminently tasteful—no discarded champagne bottles or gargantuan piles of American Express charge slips detailing lustful encounters in elegant beachfront hotels. The only thing I could see that was different was that the small sterling frame was missing from the desktop. I’d given it to him for our tenth anniversary, with a picture of the two of us on top of a Mayan pyramid in Tikal. Some fellow tourist had taken it, and it wasn’t perfectly level, but we had looked very happy and pleased with our adventure. I wondered what he had done with it—if he had thrown it away or just put it in a box somewhere, like my wedding ring.
I stood there gripping the side of the desk, feeling immeasurably sad over what we had lost. I couldn’t resurrect that feeling of happiness, even though I remembered we had had it. I thought of how naive I had been, how unprepared. I should have known better. The world was full of middle-aged women looking over their old photographs and anxiously wondering, “Did he love me then?” That was the worst thing about it—it made you doubt your own experiences.
I can’t say for sure whether lack of scruples would have led me to go through Steve’s desk as well as Barclay’s. Before I had a chance to decide, the door to the office opened. Henry Eastman, the senior partner of Eastman, Bartels, and Steed, was regarding me with an expression of evident surprise. Behind him, in varying states of amazement and disgust, stood Jeff Grayson and Barclay Hampton.
18
It was a few moments before I could get breath enough to speak.
“Jesus God,” said Jeff Grayson. “What are you doing here, Caroline? You scared us half to death.” He was holding a large sheaf of papers in his hands.
Barclay stared at me wordlessly. It was worse than facing a firing squad. The saliva evaporated from my mouth, and my throat felt epoxied shut.
“We saw the light on, under the door,” Henry said courteously, but in a tone that nonetheless demanded an explanation.
“I’m sorry, Henry,” I said, when I could find my voice. I focused on his face because I couldn’t bring myself to look at the others. “I was looking for the bathroom and I just…came in here.” As a matter of fact, I was clamping my legs together to keep from adding an embarrassing accident to my other sins.
“The ladies’ room is in the other direction,” Jeff said with satisfaction. His voice held a note of amusement. Christ, what a sadist. How could I ever have thought him attractive?
“Thank you,”
I said and started to move toward the door.
“Henry—” Barclay began, but Henry silenced him with a wave of his hand.
“Wait, Caroline,” said Henry. “Please sit down for a moment.” He gestured toward Steve’s overstuffed client chair. Henry was a gentleman, and his demeanor with the firm wives had always been avuncular, or fatherly. He was still gentlemanly, but for the first time I saw him as a young associate might—as a thoroughly formidable figure.
I sat. He took the chair behind the desk, facing me. Jeff stood in the doorway, and Barclay took up a position behind me. I could feel his eyes boring into my back. “I really think you should tell us what you’re doing here,” Henry said in his cultured voice.
“It’s difficult to explain,” I began.
Jeff gave a soft laugh from the door. “I’d love to stay and hear this, but I’m outta here,” he said gleefully. “I’ve got an early tennis match tomorrow. Nice to see you again, Caroline. We’ll tell Steve you stopped by.”
He would, too. I didn’t answer him.
“You were saying, Caroline?” Henry prompted.
“Susan and I were at a play, and—”
“Susan Goldman?”
“Yes.” Susan would kill me. “And she remembered something she’d left undone here. You know she’s going on vacation?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know what it was,” I said truthfully. “But I was waiting in her office, and I needed to find the ladies’ room, and I got turned around. Then I saw Steve’s office.” I sighed. If they wanted to see me squirm, I would do it. It was a small price to pay to extricate Susan from the mess I had gotten us into. Mentally I retraced all my steps, praying that I had left everything as I had found it. If Barclay caught a whiff that I had been in his office, he would know for sure that I was onto him, whatever I might have told Steve about throwing away the contents of the box. It was bad enough as it was.
I looked at Henry in what I hoped was a wistful fashion. “I don’t expect you believe this, Henry, but all I wanted to do was come in and look around. I expected things would have changed somehow, but they haven’t. I can’t come here anymore in ordinary circumstances. But the firm was a big part of my life, too, for a long time, and I just had to see it again.”
I had told him something not so very far from the truth after all. I saw at once that I had taken the right tack, appealing to the paternalistic loyalty—no, love, more likely—he felt for the firm he had founded.
He reached across the desk and patted my hand. “I understand it must be difficult,” he said kindly, “but you really mustn’t wander around in here at night.”
“I know that,” I told him. “I promise it won’t happen again.”
“Excuse me, Henry, but that is unadulterated bullshit,” said Barclay explosively from behind me. “You know what she’s here for. It’s just like Eleanor,” he said hoarsely. “Ten to one she’s been looking through Steve’s files, trying to find leverage for the divorce.”
I almost breathed a sigh of relief. Bad as it was, it was better that he believed that than the truth. I continued to look at Henry as I spoke. “Henry, I swear to you I never so much as opened a drawer in here. I was just standing here, remembering.” Thank God it was the truth. A few more minutes and I might have been caught with my hands in the filing cabinet.
“Christ, Henry, you’re aren’t going to believe that, are you?” inquired Barclay in a desperate tone.
I turned to face him. “What do you want, Barclay? A body search?”
“I’ll leave that to Jeff,” he said nastily. “Henry—”
“Leave this to me, Barclay,” Henry interrupted him. “I’ll take care of it.”
Barclay made a choking sound. His hand was at his chest. “Do you want to start all this up again, Henry? Do you?” He was as pale as I was flushed. I could almost have felt sorry for him, if I didn’t know what he had done.
“I said I would take care of it, Barclay,” Henry told him in a quiet tone that nonetheless might have excited envy in General Patton. “Why don’t you go on home and get some rest?”
Barclay turned wordlessly and left the room. If he threw me a last withering look, I didn’t see it. I kept my eyes demurely on the desk.
“I’m afraid Barclay’s not himself these days,” Henry said regretfully. He said it lovingly but with exasperation, like the Prodigal Son’s father. “Not since Eleanor died.”
I wondered if Henry, too, had wondered about Barclay’s involvement in Eleanor’s death and how much he knew about what had gone on at Naturcare. “Maybe he was fonder of her than he realized,” I suggested.
He put his hand lightly on my wrist. His skin was dry and papery, and his nails were manicured. “She came here, too, one night,” he said, looking away. “She said it was the only time, but I’m sure she wasn’t telling the truth.”
“Who?” I asked him. I thought it best to seem ignorant of other office-breakers.
“Eleanor.” He uttered it with a little shudder of distaste. “She had it in her head that Barclay was hiding the true amount of his bonus from her, and I believe she crept in with the idea of looking through his files.”
“Was he?” I couldn’t help asking.
His eyes traveled back to my face. To his credit, he made no rash protestation. “Not to my knowledge,” he said calmly. “In the ordinary way, of course, the firm doesn’t get involved in such things, but I imagine I would have heard about it if that had been the case.” He sighed. “I’m very old-fashioned, you know. I think people nowadays divorce too easily. But whatever happens, I believe a man should stand by his obligations.”
“I know you do, Henry,” I told him sincerely. “That’s what I’ve always admired about you.”
He smiled. “Yes, well, I’m afraid the trouble is that poor Eleanor was really quite mad. I tried to assure her that the firm would have no part in any kind of fraud against her and that she was putting herself in a very grave position by breaking into the firm’s files. She wouldn’t listen to reason.” He shook his head sadly. “In the end I had to threaten her with prosecution.”
I hoped this wasn’t a parable, that he didn’t realize how uncomfortable he was making me. “Did she listen then?” I asked him, swallowing a lump in my throat.
“As a matter of fact, she died before the issue was entirely resolved. I can’t tell you how relieved I was not to have to go through with it. Barclay was livid, of course, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her no matter how dreadfully she acted. It must be terribly hard for a woman when her husband gets bored with her and wants to leave.”
“Yes,” I said neutrally, “it is.”
His grip on my wrist tightened. “Oh, my dear, I’m so sorry. I didn’t think.”
He looked so sincerely worried that I wanted to reassure him. “It’s okay, Henry. Really. I’m doing fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” He let me go and picked up a pen off Steve’s desk. It was a gold-filled Cross; he hadn’t graduated to Mont Blanc. “Still, I’d like you to know I meant what I said about standing by our obligations. I’ll be happy to be of service in any way I can. I’m particularly interested in seeing that your children—there are two of them, aren’t there?—don’t suffer.”
“Thank you, Henry.”
“I tried to tell her the same thing,” he said, gazing off into space again with an injured look, as if he found it hard to believe anyone could have doubted his good intentions, “but she simply wouldn’t listen.” He sounded so sincere that I couldn’t believe he had been a party to Barclay’s fraud. He sighed. “I’m sure you’re a great deal more reasonable.”
“I hope so,” I said.
He folded his hands together on the desktop and regarded me seriously. “Good. And you’d tell me, wouldn’t you, if there were something bothering you?”
My heart thumped. “Something bothering me?” I squeaked.
“Something to do with the firm. If there were something, I’d do everything I
could to help; I hope you know that.”
I wondered if he had some sort of uncanny lawyer’s instinct about ferreting out what hadn’t been said. “Would you really want to know, if there were something awful about someone in the firm? Something you couldn’t do anything about?”
He gave me a searching look. “Are you speaking about your husband?”
It was a natural assumption. “I’m speaking hypothetically,” I told him.
“Of course.” He chuckled. “Is there anything you want to tell me?” I had heard the way he spoke about Barclay, and I thought that he could never be convinced that one of his flock would do anything so dastardly as murder. Besides, there was the business of Naturcare and all the resulting ramifications. Still, I looked at him with his gentlemanly composure, his perfect stillness, his fatherly compassion, and I was tempted to tell him the whole story.
He looked at me expectantly.
“I—” I’m not sure I would have lost my head and told him anything, but in any event I never got the chance to find out. For the second time that evening, the door opened suddenly, startling us both.
Susan had a stricken expression on her face, but her voice was firm. “Here you are, Caroline,” she said, her hands clenching a file and her purse with equal ferocity. “I’ve been waiting for you in my office.” I could see her swallow. “Hello, Henry.”
“Good evening, Susan,” said Henry pleasantly. “Working late?”
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