Mistress of Justice Read online

  Inside the woman's briefcase, in addition to sheet music, he found time sheets, key entry logs and other documents from Hubbard, White & Willis. He looked through them carefully and memorized exactly what they contained.

  He found and read through the woman's address book, her calendar and her phone bills. He listened to her answering machine tapes. His client had hoped that she'd have a diary but very few people kept diaries anymore and Taylor Lockwood was no exception.

  The drapery man continued his search, walking slowly through the apartment, taking his time. He knew his client would grill him at length about what he'd found here and he wanted to make sure he overlooked nothing.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Taylor dropped into the chair in her cubicle.

  It was six-thirty, Saturday morning. The gods of the furnace had decided that not even Type A attorneys would be in the office yet and so Hubbard, White & Willis was cold as Anchorage.

  She shivered both from the temperature and from exhaustion too. She and Thom Sebastian had arrived back in the city late last night. The lawyer had been subdued. She'd sensed that he was worried she'd ask about Callaghan and he wouldn't be able to come up with a credible story. But there was something else troubling him. His jokey self was gone. And once she caught him looking at her with an odd, troubled expression on his face.

  She had an image of herself as a condemned prisoner and him as a prison guard, distancing himself from someone about to die.

  Ridiculous, she thought. Still, she could hear his words in her head:

  Well, don't get too interested in her.

  What did that mean?

  And how the hell had he known she was a musician?

  She noticed a flashing light on her phone, indicating that she had a message. She picked up the receiver to check voice mail.

  Reece had called again to remind her about dinner at his place that night.

  There was one other message.

  Beep.

  "Hey, counselor, how you doing? Saw an article about your shop in the Law Journal. About the merger. You've probably seen it but I'm faxing it to you. Always stay on top of firm politics...."

  If you only knew, Dad, she thought.

  "We're planning Christmas dinner and we've got an RSVP from a Supreme Court justice; I'll let you guess who. I'm putting him next to you at the table. Just keep your more liberal views to yourself, counselor. I'm serious about that. Okay, I'll be in town week after next. Your mother says hi."

  Supreme Court? Samuel Lockwood never did anything without a purpose. What did he have in mind? Was the dinner table placement intended to help her career? she wondered.

  Or his? she appended cynically.

  Taylor found the fax her father had sent about the merger of the firms, scanned it quickly. It described the vicious infighting among the partners at Hubbard, White & Willis--Burdick v. Clayton--and how, despite the animosity, the merged firms would probably succeed much better in the new business climate than if they remained separate. The picture featured Burdick and his wife.

  An idea occurred to her.

  She wrote on the top, "Thom, FYI." And signed her name.

  Using this as an excuse, she hurried to his office, propped the article on his chair and, with a glance into the deserted corridor, proceeded to search the room like an eager rookie cop on crime scene detail.

  In his desk she found: condoms, Bamboo paper, an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal, matches from the Harvard Club, the Palace Hotel and assorted late-night clubs around town, dozens of take-out menus from downtown restaurants, chatty letters from his brother and father and mother (all neatly organized, some with margin notes), brokerage house statements, checkbooks (Jesus, where'd he get all this money?), some popular spy and military paperbacks, a coffee-stained copy of the Lawyer's Code of Professional Responsibility, assorted photographs from vacations, newspaper articles on bond issues and stock offerings, the Pennystock News, candy bars, crumbs and paper clips.

  Nothing about the note, no information linking him, Bosk or Callaghan to Hanover & Stiver.

  On Sebastian's bookshelves were hundreds of huge books, bound in navy and burgundy and deep green. They'd contain copies of all the closing documents in a business transaction that Sebastian had worked on. They would be great places to hide stolen promissory notes and other incriminating evidence. But it would take several days to look through all of them. She saw Sebastian's name embossed in gold at the bottom of each one.

  It was then that she noticed the corner of a piece of paper protruding from beneath Sebastian's desk blotter. Another glance into the corridor--still no signs of life--and she pulled the paper out.

  The jottings were brief and to the point.

  Taylor Lockwood. 24 Fifth Avenue.

  Her age, schools attended. Home address in Chevy Chase. Phone numbers at the firm and at home. The unlisted one too.

  Father: Samuel Lockwood. Mother: housewife. No siblings. Applied to law school. Employed by HWW for two years. Merit raises and bonuses at top levels.

  "Musician. Every Tuesday. Miracles Pub."

  The son of a bitch, she whispered. Then replaced the sheet exactly where she'd found it.

  She left his office and returned to the chilly corridor, hearing echoes of footsteps, hearing the click of guns being cocked and the hiss of knives being unsheathed.

  And hearing over and over Thom Sebastian's words:

  Well, don't get too interested in her.

  In the firm's library she logged on to several of the computer databases that the firm subscribed to, including the Lexis/Nexis system, which contains copies of nearly all court decisions, statutes and regulations in the United States, as well as articles from hundreds of magazines and newspapers around the world.

  She spent hours trying to find information about Dennis Callaghan, Bosk and Sebastian.

  There wasn't much that was helpful. Bradford Smith had been admitted to the New York and federal bars and currently practiced at a Midtown firm, which didn't, however, seem to have any connection to Hanover & Stiver or New Amsterdam Bank.

  Dennis Callaghan wasn't a lawyer but a businessman. He dabbled in dozens of different activities and had been under investigation for stock fraud and real estate scams though he'd never been indicted. He was currently connected with about twenty different companies, some of which were incorporated offshore and which, she guessed, were fronts.

  But still no connection between any of them and Hanover & Stiver.

  The information about Sebastian--found in alumni magazine archives and legal magazines he'd contributed articles to--wasn't incriminating either, though she found, interestingly, that the Upper East Side preppy image was fake. Sebastian had grown up outside of Chicago, his father the manager of a Kroger grocery store (hence, she realized, another reason for the funny look when he'd heard her tell the youngsters at Ada's that Dad managed a convenience store). Sebastian did have an undergrad degree from Harvard but it had taken him six years because he'd gone part-time--presumably while working to support himself.

  The Yale Law School certificates she'd noticed on his wall must have been for continuing education courses; he'd gotten his law degree from Brooklyn Law at night while working as a process server during the day--serving subpoenas in some of the toughest parts of the outer boroughs.

  So, there was a different Thom Sebastian beneath the jokey party animal. One who was driven, ambitious, tough. And, Taylor knew, recalling the conversation in Ada's downstairs den, also a thief--fucking the firm that fucked him.

  More associates were filing into the library now and she didn't want anybody to see what she was doing so she logged off the computer and went to the administrative floor.

  There she walked into the file room Carrie Mason had told her about, a large, dingy space filled with row upon row of cabinets. It was here that the billing department kept the original time sheets that lawyers filled out daily.

  Making certain the room was empty, Taylor opened the "D"
drawer--where Ralph Dudley's sheets would reside--and found the most recent ones. They were little blue slips of carbon paper filled with his imperial scrawl, describing every ten-minute period during working hours. She read through and replaced them and then did the same in the "L" drawer for Lillick and the "S" for Thom Sebastian.

  Taylor rose to leave but then paused.

  The "R" cabinet was right next to her.

  She rested her fingers on the handle and after a moment's hesitation, pulled it open and looked inside. She stared in astonishment at the booklets with Mitchell Reece's name on them. There were hundreds of them. Christ Almighty ... nearly twice as many as for most other lawyers.

  She pulled one out at random--September--and thumbed through it, looking at a typical day in the life of Mitchell Reece:

  New Client relations--1/2 hour.

  New Amsterdam Bank & Trust v. Hanover & Stiver--41/2 hours (depositions).

  Westron Electronic et al. v. Larson Associates--31/4 hours (motion to quash subpoena, J. Brietell).

  State of New York v. Kowalski--1/2 hour (conference with DA's office; pro bono).

  State of New York v. Hammond--1/2 hour (meeting with defendant; pro bono).

  In re Summers Publishing--21/2 hours (research, briefing Chapter 7 bankruptcy issue).

  She skimmed ahead.

  Lasky v. Allied Products ... Mutual Indemnity of New Jersey v. New Amsterdam Bank ... State of New York v. Williams.

  She totaled the hours: Sixteen were billed to clients. That was sixteen hours of productive work, not commuting time, lunch, trips to the rest rooms and the water fountain.

  Sixteen hours in one day!

  And every day was pretty much the same.

  Arguing motion, arguing motion, on trial, writing brief, on trial, on trial, settlement conference, arguing motion, on trial, pro bono meetings with criminal clients and prosecutors.

  On trial on trial on trial ...

  He never stopped.

  A thought occurred to her and she smiled to herself. Yes, no?

  Go for it, Alice.

  She opened the binder containing the most recent of his sheets. She flipped through them until she found the day that she'd followed him to Grand Central Station.

  For the three hours he was out of the office he'd marked the time Code 03.

  Which meant personal time.

  The time you spend at the dentist's office.

  The time you spend at PTA conferences.

  The time you spend in Westchester, with your girlfriend.

  Taylor felt her skin buzzing with embarrassment as she flipped through other lunch hours over the past several months. In September he'd done the same--taken long lunches--only usually it was two or three times a week. Recently, in the month of November, for instance, he'd done so only once a week.

  Three hours in the middle of the day for a workaholic like Reece?

  Well, Taylor Lockwood understood; she'd had lovers herself.

  She put the time sheets back and closed the drawer.

  Outside, the air was cold but the city was ablaze with Christmas decorations and she decided to walk home. She slipped her Walkman headset on, then her earmuffs, and began to walk briskly, thinking about the evening ahead, dinner with Mitchell Reece--at least until the hiss of the cassette grew silent, Miles Davis started into "Seven Steps to Heaven" and the rest of the world was lost to Taylor Lockwood.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Well, look at this.

  Mitchell Reece could've been a professional interior designer.

  Taylor would have thought he'd have no time for decor--or interest in the subject. So when he opened his door and ushered her into the huge loft, she exhaled a sharp, surprised laugh.

  She was looking at a single room, probably twenty-five hundred square feet. There was a separate elevated sleeping area with a brass railing around it, containing an oak armoire and a matching dresser--and a bed, which caught her attention immediately. It was dark mahogany, with a massive headboard that would have dwarfed any smaller space. The headboard was carved in a Gothic style and the characters cut into the wood were cracked and worn. She couldn't tell exactly what they were--perhaps gargoyles and dragons.

  She thought of the mythical creature in Through the Looking-Glass.

  Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

  Around the loft were plants, sculpture, antiques, tall bookshelves, tapestries. Pin spots shot focused streams of light onto small statues and paintings, many of which looked ugly enough to be very valuable. The walls were brick and plaster, painted mottled white and gray and pink. The floors were oak, stained white.

  If this boy cooks, she joked to herself, I may just reconsider my baby-by-mail plan and marry him.

  "You did this just to impress me, I know."

  He laughed. "Let me take your coat." Reece wore baggy pants and a blousy white shirt. Sockless slippers. His hair was still damp from a shower.

  Taylor had chosen noncommittal vamp. Black stockings but shoes with low, functional heels. A black Carolina Herrera dress, tight but high-necked. (Cleavage? A roommate had once bluntly assessed, Forget boobs, Taylor: Avoid low-cut. But the rest of your bod--it's to die for. Wear short and tight. Remember that. Short and tight.) Taylor noted the sweep of Reece's eyes all along her body. He was subtle, but not subtle enough; she caught him in reflection in one of the mirrors near the Jabberwock bed.

  Okay, Ms. Westchester, she thought to Reece's mysterious girlfriend, can you shoehorn into a dress like this?

  She followed him across an oriental rug. The dinner table had feet, and on the side, carved faces of the sun. They were solemn.

  "Your table looks unhappy."

  "He gets bored. I don't have much company. He'll be happy tonight."

  As Reece took the wine she'd brought she looked at him carefully and decided he wasn't very happy either. His eyes were still bloodshot and he seemed to be forcing himself to relax, to push the intruding distractions of the law firm away.

  He walked into the kitchen area and put the chardonnay into a refrigerator. She looked inside; it contained nothing but wine. "You should try groceries sometime," she said. "Lettuce, oranges. You can even get chicken, I'm told, ready to cook."

  "Wine cellar," Reece said, laughing. He pulled out a bottle of white, a Puligny-Montrachet. Her father's favorite Burgundy, Taylor recalled. Reece added, "The fridge's over there." He pointed to a tall Sub-Zero then took two crystal goblets in one hand and carried the wine and a ceramic cooler out into the living area.

  Man, she thought, he's really slick at this.

  He poured and they touched glasses. "To winning."

  Taylor held his eye for a moment and repeated the toast. The wine was rich and sour-sweet, more like a food than a drink. The goblet was heavy in her hand.

  They sat and he told her how he'd found the loft. It was raw space when he'd moved in and he'd had it finished himself. The project had taken nearly a year because he'd had three full-fledged trials that year and had been unable to meet with the contractors. "I slept in sawdust a lot," he explained. "But I won the cases."

  "Have you ever lost a trial?" she asked.

  "Of course. Everybody loses trials. I seem to win a few more than most people. But that's not magic. Or luck. Preparation is the key. And will to win."

  "Preparation and Will. That could be your motto."

  "Maybe I should get a crest. I wonder what it'd be in Latin."

  Taylor rose and walked toward a long wooden shelf. "My mother," she said, "would call this a knickknack shelf. I used to think 'knickknack' was French for 'small, ugly ceramic poodle.' " He laughed.

  She found herself looking at an army of metal soldiers.

  "I collect them," Reece said. "Winston Churchill probably had the biggest collection in the world and Malcolm Forbes's wasn't too shabby either. I've only been at it for twenty years or so."

  "What are they, tin?"

  "Lead." br />
  Taylor said, "One year my father got the idea that I should get soldiers, not dolls, for Christmas. I must've been eight or nine. He gave me bags and bags of these green plastic guys. He gave me a B-52 too so I nuked most of them and went back to Barbie and Pooh. You have other things, too? Like cannons and catapults?"

  "Everything. Soldiers, horses, cannons, and caissons ..."

  She sipped the wine and was thinking: Sometimes in life this craziness falls right on top of you and you find yourself almost floating up and away from your body like a guru or psychic, looking down at yourself, and all you can say is, Shit a brick, this is so weird. I mean, here I am, Alice in Wonderland, in a fab loft, next to a handsome man I'm playing detective with, drinking hundred-dollar wine and talking toy soldiers.

  Taylor told herself not, under any circumstances, to get drunk.

  Reece played with some of the figures. "I have a British Square. I made it when I was sixteen."

  "Like a park? Like Trafalgar Square?"

  Reece was laughing. "Taylor, British Square? A fighting formation? You know, Gunga Din."

  "Kipling," she said.

  He nodded. "The ranks divided into two lines. One stood and reloaded, the other knelt and fired. The fuzzy-wuzzies were the only warriors to break through the square."

  "The, uh ..."

  "Zulus. African tribal warriors."

  "Ah. Boer War."

  "That was twenty years later."

  "Oh, sure," she said seriously, nodding in recognition.

  "You're laughing at me, aren't you?"

  She shook her head but couldn't keep a straight face and said through the grin, "Definitely."

  He hit her playfully on the arm and let his hand pause on the thin cotton of her blouse for a moment.

  He put on some music jazz.

  "Any word about your demo tapes?"

  "The responses ain't been jim-dandy."

  "It only takes one record company."

  She shrugged. And glanced at an antique clock. Eight-thirty She could smell nothing simmering. Well, scratch one: He can't cook. Maybe they were going out. But--

  The door buzzer sounded.

  "Excuse me."

  He let a young man into the loft. He nodded politely to Taylor and, from a large shopping bag, took out plates wrapped in stippled foil. Reece set the table with bone china plates, silver and a candlestick.