Mistress of Justice Read online

  Shocked, Taylor said, "That's what was stolen? The note?"

  Reece said in a low voice, "Somebody took it right out of my fucking safe. Just walked right in and walked out with it."

  "You need the original? Can't you use a copy?"

  "We could still win the case but not having the note'll delay the trial for months. I managed to finagle a postponement till next week but the judge won't grant any more extensions."

  She nodded at the file cabinet. "But when ... how was it stolen?"

  "I was here until about three on Sunday morning. I went home to get some sleep and was back here by nine-thirty that morning. I almost thought of camping out." He gestured toward a sleeping bag in the corner. "I should have."

  "What'd the police say?"

  He laughed. "No, no. No police. Burdick'd find out that the note's missing, the client too. The newspapers ..." He held her eyes. "So I guess you know why I asked you here."

  "You want me to find out who took it?"

  "Actually, I'd like you to find the note itself. I don't really care who did it."

  She laughed. The whole idea was ridiculous. "But why me?"

  "I can't do it by myself." Reece leaned back in his chair; the singing metal rang again. He looked at ease, as if she had already accepted his offer--a bit of haughtiness that irritated her some. "Whoever took it'll know I can't go to the cops and he'll be anticipating me. I need somebody else to help me. I need you."

  "I just--"

  "I know about your ski trip. I'm sorry. You'd have to postpone it."

  Well, so much for the negotiations, Ms. Strickland....

  "Mitchell, I don't know. I'm flattered you called me but I don't have a clue how to go about it."

  "Well, let me just say one thing. We work with a lot of, you know, private eyes--"

  "Sam Spade, sure."

  "Actually, no, not Sam Spade at all. This's what I'm saying: The best detectives're women. They listen better than men. They're more empathic. They observe more carefully. You're smart, popular at the firm and--if we can mix our gender metaphor for a minute--the grapevine here says you've got balls."

  "Does it now?" Taylor asked, frowning and feeling immensely pleased.

  "And if you want another reason: I trust you."

  Trust me? she wondered. He doesn't even know me. He--But then she understood. She smiled. "And you know I didn't steal it. I've got an alibi."

  Reece nodded unabashedly. "Yep, you were out of town."

  She'd gone to Maryland to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with her parents.

  Taylor said, "I could've hired somebody."

  "I think whoever was behind the theft did hire somebody." A nod toward the cabinet. "It's a professional break-in--the burglar picked the lock and, whatever you see in the movies, that ain't easy. But the point is that you don't have a motive, and motive is the number one reason somebody becomes a suspect in a crime. Why would you steal it? You have a good relationship with everybody at the firm. You don't need money. You've applied to law school--three of the best in the country. Besides, I just can't imagine Samuel Lockwood's daughter stealing a note."

  She felt a troubled jolt that he'd peered so far into her life. "Well, I suspect Ted Bundy had upright parents too. It's just that this is out of my depth, Mitchell. You need a pro--one of those private eyes you've hired before."

  "That wouldn't work," he said bluntly, as if it were obvious. "I need somebody with a reason to be here, who won't raise eyebrows. You'll have to poke into a lot of different places at the firm."

  Like Alice on the other side of the looking glass.

  Still seeing the hesitancy in her face, he added, "It could work out well for you too." He toyed with his coffee cup. She lifted an enquiring eyebrow and he continued, "I'm a trial lawyer and I lost my delicacy the first time I ever stood up in court. The fact is if that note doesn't turn up and I lose the case then I'm not going to make partner this year and that just isn't acceptable. I might even get fired. But if we can find it and nobody learns about the theft then it's pretty likely I'll make partner here or, if I don't want to stay at Hubbard, White, at some other firm."

  "And?" she asked, still not certain where his comments were headed.

  "I'll be in a position to make sure you get into whatever law school you want and get you a job when you graduate. I've got contacts everywhere--corporate firms, the government, public welfare law, environmental law firms."

  As a paralegal Taylor Lockwood had learned that the engine of law ran on many fuels and that it would seize and burn without the delicate web of contacts and networks and unspoken obligations that Reece was not so subtly referring to.

  But she also knew that you could always take a higher path and, with luck, sweat and smarts make your own way in this world. She said stiffly, "I appreciate that, Mitchell, but my undergrad professors're writing me all the letters of recommendation I need."

  He blinked and held up a hand. "Look, I'm sorry. That was out of line. I'm used to dealing with clients who're either crooks or greedy bastards." A sour laugh. "And I'm not sure which are my pro bono criminal clients and which are the white-shoe folks we wine and dine at the Downtown Athletic Club."

  She nodded, accepting his apology but glad certain ground rules were clear.

  Reece looked her over for a moment, as if he suddenly saw her differently. A faint smile bloomed on his face. "I'm kind of like you."

  "How do you mean?" she asked.

  "I get the sense that you never ask for help."

  She shrugged.

  "I don't either. Never. But now I need help and it's hard for me to ask. I don't even know how to.... So, let me try again." A boyish laugh. "Will you help me?" he asked in a voice filled with what seemed to be uncharacteristic emotion.

  Taylor looked out the window. The pale sun went behind thick clouds and the sky became as dark as its reflection in the choppy harbor. "I love views," she said. "In my apartment, you can see the Empire State Building. Provided you lean out the bathroom window."

  Silence. Reece brushed his hair aside then rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. The brass clock on his desk ticked softly.

  Taylor mentally asked the opinion of Alice, the young girl in the English countryside who decided out of summer boredom to follow a talking white rabbit down its hole to a world very different from her own. Finally Taylor said to the lawyer, "All right. I frankly don't have a clue what to do but I'll help you."

  Reece smiled and leaned forward suddenly then stopped fast. There's a code of chastity within law firms. Whatever liaisons occurred in hotel rooms or attorneys' beds at home, when you were within the labyrinth of the office, cheeks were not kissed and lip never met lip. Even embracing was suspect. Reece's concession to gratitude was taking Taylor's hand in both of his. She smelled a mix of expensive aftershave and sweat in his wake as he sat back.

  "So, first of all," she said, "what does it look like? The note."

  "Nothing fancy. One piece of eight-and-a-half-by-eleven paper." He showed her a binder containing a copy of it.

  She looked over the undistinguished document then asked, "Tell me what happened and when."

  "The bank messengered the note to me at five in the afternoon on Saturday--they were closed on Sunday and since the trial started at nine on Monday I needed it early to make copies for pleadings. Well, I locked it in my file cabinet as soon as it came in. I made the copies about ten or eleven that night, put it back in the cabinet, locked it. I left at three on Sunday morning. I got some sleep, came back around nine-thirty. I noticed some scratch marks on the lock and opened it up. The note was gone. I spent the rest of Sunday looking for it. I appeared in court yesterday, got the continuance for a week from today and then came back here to find somebody to help me."

  "Did you see anybody at the firm that night?"

  "Not after five or six. Not a soul. But I was at my desk practically the whole time."

  "Well." She sat back, reflecting. "You mentioned motive. Who has a motive
to steal it? You said it was negotiable. Could somebody cash it in?"

  "No, nobody in the world'd take paper like that. Too big and too easily traced. I'm sure it was just to delay the case--to give Lloyd Hanover a chance to hide his assets." "Who knew you had it?"

  "The messenger didn't know what was in the bag but it was an armed courier service so they'd know it was valuable. At the bank, as far as I know, the only one who knew I took delivery was the vice president who worked on the deal." "Could he have been bribed by Hanover?" Reece said, "Anything's possible, but he's a career officer. Been with the bank for twenty years. I know him personally. He and his wife live in Locust Valley and they've got plenty of money on their own. Anyway, he's the point man on the deal. If the bank doesn't collect on this note, he'll be fired."

  "Who here knew you were working on the case?"

  Reece laughed. He slid a memo across to her.

  From: M. A. Reece

  To: Attorneys of Hubbard, White & Willis

  Re: Conflicts of Interest

  I am representing our client New Amsterdam Bank & Trust in a lawsuit against Hanover & Stiver, Inc. Please advise if you have ever represented Hanover & Stiver or have any other conflicts of interest involving these companies of which the firm should be aware.

  "This is the standard conflicts of interest memo. To let everybody know who we're suing. If any lawyers here have ever represented Hanover we have to drop the case or do a Chinese wall to make sure there was no appearance that we were compromising either client.... So, in answer to your question, everybody here knew what I was doing. And by checking copies of my correspondence in the file room they could figure out when I'd be receiving the note."

  Taylor prodded the conflicts memo with the fork of her fingers.

  "What do you know about the executives at Hanover?"

  "I've had murderers in the pro bono program who're more upright than the CEO--Lloyd Hanover. He's unadulterated scum. He thinks he's some kind of smooth operator. You know the kind--late fifties, crew-cut, tanned. Has three mistresses. Wears so much gold jewelry he'd never get through a metal detector."

  "That's not a crime," Taylor said.

  "No, but his three SEC violations and two RICO and one IRS convictions were."

  "Ah."

  Taylor glanced out the window: across the street was a wall of office windows, a hundred of them. And beyond that building were others with more office windows, and still more beyond that. Taylor Lockwood was, momentarily, overwhelmed by the challenges they faced. Needles and haystacks ... She asked, "Are you sure we're looking for something that still exists?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "If nobody's going to cash the note why wouldn't they just burn it?"

  "Good question. I've thought about that. When I was an assistant U.S. prosecutor--and when I do my criminal defense work now--I always put myself in the mind of the perp. In this case, if the note disappears forever that implies a crime. If it's just misplaced until Hanover's hidden his assets and then it resurfaces, well, that suggests, just legal malpractice on Hubbard, White's part; nobody looks any farther for a bad guy than us. That's why I think the note's still in the firm. Maybe in the file room, maybe stuck in a magazine in a partner's office, maybe behind a copier--wherever the thief hid it.

  Thief.... Lockwood felt her first uneasy twinge--not only at the impossibility of the task but that there was potential danger too.

  In Wonderland the Queen of Hearts' favorite slogan was "Off with their heads."

  She sat back. "I don't know, Mitchell. It seems hopeless. There're a million places the note could be."

  "We don't have the facts yet. There's a huge amount of information at the firm about where people have been at various times and what they've been doing. Billing department, payroll, things like that. I guess the first thing I'd do is check the door key entry logs and time sheets to find out who was in the firm on Saturday."

  She nodded at the lock. "But we think it was a pro, don't we? Not a lawyer or employee?"

  "Still, somebody had to let him in. Either that or they lent him their key card--or one they'd stolen." Reece then took out his wallet and handed her a thousand dollars in hundreds.

  She looked at the cash with a funny smile, embarrassed, curious.

  "For expenses."

  "Expenses." Did he mean bribes? She wasn't going to ask. Taylor held the bills awkwardly for a moment then slipped them into her purse. She noticed a sheet of paper on Reece's desk. It was legal-sized and pale green--the color of corridors in old hospitals and government buildings. She recognized it as the court calendar the managing attorney of Hubbard, White circulated throughout the firm daily. It contained a grid of thirty days beginning with today. Filling these squares were the times and locations of all court appearances scheduled for the firm's litigators. She leaned forward. In the square indicating one week from today were the words:

  New Amsterdam Bank & Trust v. Hanover & Stiver. Jury trial. Ten a.m. No continuance.

  He looked at his watch. "Let's talk again tomorrow. But we should keep our distance when we're at the firm. If anybody asks tell them you're helping me with some year-end billing problems."

  "But who'd ask? Who'd even know?"

  He laughed and seemed to consider this a naive comment. "How's the Vista Hotel at nine-thirty?"

  "Sure."

  "If I call you at home I can leave a message, can't I?"

  "I've got an answering machine."

  "No, I mean, there won't be anybody else there to pick it up, right? I heard you lived alone."

  She hesitated momentarily and said only, "You can leave messages there."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "I have a breakfast meeting in half an hour then the partnership meeting for the rest of the morning," Wendall Clayton said into the phone. "Get me the details as soon as possible."

  "I'll do what I can, Wendall," Sean Lillick, a young paralegal who worked for Clayton regularly, replied uneasily. "But it's, like, pretty confidential."

  " 'Like' confidential. It is confidential or not?"

  A sigh from the other end of the phone line. "You know what I mean."

  The partner muttered, "You meant it is confidential. Well, find out who has the information and aristocratize them. I want the particulars. Which you might just have found out before you called. You'd know I'd want them."

  "Sure, Wendall," Lillick said.

  The partner dropped the phone into the cradle.

  Wendall Clayton was a handsome man. Not big--under six feet--but solid from running (he didn't jog; he ran) and tennis and skippering the forty-two-foot Ginny May around Newport every other weekend from April through September. He had a thick bundle of professorial hair and he wore European suits, slitless in the back, forgoing the burdened sacks of dark pinstripe that cloaked most of the pear-shaped men of the firm. Killer looks, the women in the firm said. Another three inches and he could have been a model. Clayton worked hard at his image, the way nobility worked hard. A duke had to be handsome. A duke enjoyed dusting his suits with pig-bristle brushes and getting a radiant glow on his burgundy-colored Bally's.

  A duke took great pleasures in the small rituals of fastidiousness.

  Aristocratize them....

  Sometimes Clayton would write the word in the margin of a memo one of his associates had written. Then watch the girl or boy, flustered, trying to pronounce it. Ar-is-TOC-ra-tize ... he'd made up the term himself. It had to do with attitude mostly. Much of it was knowing the law, of course, and much was circumstance.

  But mostly it was attitude.

  Clayton practiced often and he was very good at it.

  He hoped Sean Lillick would, in turn, be good at aristocratizing some underling in the steno department to get the information he wanted.

  By searching through the correspondence files, time sheets and limousine and telephone logs the young paralegal had learned that Donald Burdick had recently attended several very secretive meetings and made a large number of
phone calls during firm hours that had not been billed to any clients. This suggested to Clayton that Burdick was plotting something that could jeopardize the merger. That might not be the case, of course; his dealings could be related to some private business plans that Burdick or his Lucrezia Borgia of a wife, Vera, were involved in. But Clayton hadn't gotten to his present station in life by assuming that unknown maneuverings of his rivals were benign.

  Hence, his sending Lillick off on the new mission to find out the details.

  The Tuesday morning light filtered into his office, the corner office, located on the firm's executive row, the seventeenth floor. The room measured twenty-seven by twenty--a size that by rights should have gone to a partner more senior than Clayton. When it fell vacant, however, the room was assigned to him. Even Donald Burdick never found out why.

  Clayton glanced at the Tiffany nautical clock on his desk. Nearly time. He rocked back in his chair, his throne, a huge construction of oak and red leather he had bought in England for two thousand pounds.

  Aristocratize.

  He ordered his secretary to have his car brought around. He rose, donned his suit jacket and left the office. The breakfast get-together he was about to attend was perhaps the most important of any meeting he'd been to in the past year. But Clayton didn't go immediately to the waiting car. Rather, he decided he'd been a bit harsh on the young man and wandered down to Lillick's cubicle in the paralegal department to personally thank the young man and tell him a generous bonus would be forthcoming.

  "You ever been here, Wendall?" the man across the burnished copper table asked.

  When Clayton spoke, however, it was to the captain of the Carleton Hotel on Fifty-ninth Street, off Fifth Avenue. "The nova, Frederick?"

  "No, Mr. Clayton." The captain shook his head. "Not today."

  "Thanks. I'll have my usual."

  "Very good, Mr. Clayton."

  "Well, that answers my question," John Perelli said with an explosive laugh. "How's the yogurt today, Freddie?"

  "It's--"

  "That's a joke," Perelli barked. "Gimme a bowl. Dry wheat toast and a fruit cup."