Mistress of Justice

  "Exactly. Stealing the note? He'd be disbarred if he got caught. And he'd probably be prosecuted." Taylor held up a finger. "Another thing. Think about the gun."

  "The gun he used?"

  "Right. I called my detective, my private eye, and he talked to some buddies of his at the police department. The gun he used was a .38 Smith & Wesson knockoff, made in Italy. No serial number. It's one of the most popular street guns there is. 'It's like your McDonald's of firearms' is what John said. But if you're going to kill yourself why buy an untraceable gun? You go to a sporting goods store, show a driver's license and buy a twelve-gauge shotgun."

  "Or," Reece said, sitting forward, "why even shoot yourself? It's messy, unpleasant for your loved ones. I'd think you'd park your car in the garage with the engine running."

  She nodded her agreement. "What I think is that somebody else stole the note and planted it in Clayton's office. Then when we found it he murdered Clayton to make it look like suicide."

  "Who's the 'he'?" Reece asked.

  "At first, I wondered if his widow might've done it. I mean here she was hosting a bridge party right after he died. She knew about the affairs he'd had. So she certainly had a motive."

  "And she must have inherited some bucks from him."

  "True. But then I got to thinking and it seems that the killer'd need to know about the firm and have access to it. Clayton's widow isn't like Vera Burdick, who's there all the time. Besides, Mrs. Clayton didn't seem that upset with all his affairs."

  "Well," Reece suggested, "what about one of them? A lover? Somebody Clayton dumped?"

  "Sure. That's a possibility. Or the husband or wife of somebody he'd had an affair with. But," Taylor added, smiling, "what about some of the people we thought were suspects: Ralph Dudley. Clayton had found out about Junie and was blackmailing him."

  "And Thom Sebastian. Clayton was the main reason he didn't make partner."

  "He occurred to me, too.... And one other possibility."

  Reece frowned, shaking his head.

  Taylor pointed upward. "Go to the top."

  "Donald Burdick?" Reece laughed. "Look, I know the motive's there. But Donald? I can't believe it. Whoever stole the note risked not only my career but risked losing a client as well--if we lost the case. There's no way Donald would've put New Amsterdam at risk."

  Taylor countered, "But there was no risk. At the very worst, if we hadn't found the note, Donald would've sent his thief to get the note back from Clayton's office and it would've shown up on the file room floor or someplace in time for you to introduce it at trial."

  Reece nodded, considering this. "And look how well Burdick covered everything up. The medical examiner, the prosecutor, the press ... Nobody knows about the promissory note theft. And everything else--the evidence we found in Clayton's office, the real suicide note--I'm sure Burdick's shredded it by now." But then Reece shook his head. "Let's think about this. If it is Burdick remember that he's real tight with City Hall and Albany. We can't trust the police. We'll go to the U.S. attorney's office; I've still got friends there. I'll call them--"

  "But didn't Donald call somebody in the Justice Department?" she asked. "After they found the body?"

  Reece paused. "I don't remember. Yeah, I think he did."

  Taylor said, "You're going to Boston tomorrow for the settlement closing. Do you know anybody in Justice up there?"

  "Yeah, I do. I haven't talked to him for a while. Let's see if he's still there." He walked to his desk and found his address book and picked up the phone. But he looked at it warily.

  "Bugs?" Taylor asked.

  "Let's not take any chances--we'll go downstairs."

  On the street they found a pay phone and Reece made a credit card call.

  "Sam Latham, please.... Hey, Sam, Mitchell Reece."

  The men apparently knew each other well and Taylor deduced from the conversation that they'd both been prosecutors in New York some years ago. After a few whatever-happened-to's, Reece told him their suspicions about Clayton's death. They made plans to meet at the U.S. attorney's office in Boston the next day, after the Hanover settlement closing. He hung up.

  "He's getting his boss and an FBI agent to meet with me."

  Taylor felt a huge weight lifted from her. At last the authorities were involved. This was the way the system was supposed to work.

  They returned upstairs. Reece closed the front door and latched it then walked up behind her, enfolded her in his arms. She leaned her head back and slowly turned so that they were face-to-face.

  He glanced at the table, where the meal sat unfinished: the exceptionally good tortellini salad, the cold wine, the sagging bread. She smiled and, with her fingertips, turned his head back to face her.

  She kissed him hard.

  Without a word they walked to Reece's bed.

  So far, not so good ...

  Thom Sebastian sat back in his office chair, pushing aside the documents he'd been working on all morning, a revolving credit agreement for New Amsterdam Bank.

  He should have been comfortable, should have been content. But he was troubled.

  Wendall Clayton, the man who'd destroyed his chances for partnership at Hubbard, White, was gone--as dead as a shot pheasant in one of the hunting prints hanging in the partner's office.

  Good.

  But his life didn't really feel good. He had a brooding sense that his entire world was about to be torn apart. And this terrified him.

  Three times he reached for the phone, hesitated, put his hands flat on his thick thighs and remained where he was.

  He peeked under his blotter and saw the notes he'd gathered on Taylor Lockwood over the past ten days or so.

  Taylor Lockwood ... the sole reason that things weren't so good.

  Come on, Mr. Fucking Negotiator, make a decision.

  But ultimately, he knew, there was no decision at all. Because there was only one thing to do.

  The problem was finding the courage to do it.

  The next morning Reece called Taylor from Boston.

  She was at her apartment; she'd decided it was safest to stay away from the firm. He called to report that the settlement had gone well. The money from the Hanover settlement had been safely wired into a New Amsterdam account and he'd endured Lloyd Hanover's relentless glare and potshots at lawyers throughout the closing.

  Reece was on his way to meet with his friend in the U.S. attorney's office.

  "I miss you," he said.

  "Hurry home," she told him. "Let's get this behind us and go back and ski for real."

  "Or," he joked, "go back and shop and eat dinner at the inns."

  "I'll get you on black diamond slopes sooner or later."

  "What the hell? I've still got one thumb and eight fingers left."

  After some Christmas shopping Taylor stopped at a coffee shop on Sixth Avenue, around the corner from her apartment, for some lunch.

  Sitting at the counter, she wondered what to get Reece for Christmas. He had all the clothes he needed. Wine was too impersonal.

  Then she recalled his collection of lead soldiers.

  She'd find one that was perfect for him--just one. A special one, antique, expensive. But where? Well, this was New York, the city that boasted neighborhoods devoted to special interests: the garment district, the flower district, even the sewing machine district. There was probably a cluster of stores somewhere in Midtown selling antique toys.

  A man sat down next to her, a large workman in gray coveralls, wearing a baseball cap. There was something vaguely familiar about him and she wondered if he worked in her apartment building; the structure was old and there were always people renovating and repairing.

  He pulled out a book and began reading.

  Taylor's chicken soup came and as she was sprinkling Tabasco on it the man next to her took a sip of coffee. When he replaced the cup his elbow knocked his book to the floor. It dropped at her feet.

  "Oh, sorry," he said, blushing.

&nbs
p; "No problem," she said and bent down to retrieve the book. When she handed it to him he smiled his thanks and said, "I like this place. You come here a lot?" A trace of some accent from one of the outer boroughs.

  "Some."

  "With your boyfriend?" he asked, smiling, ruefully.

  She nodded, and let the small lie do double duty: let him know she wasn't interested and save his ego from a flat-out rejection.

  "Ah, well," he sighed and returned to his book.

  When she left he was working on a double cheeseburger. He waved to her and called, "Merry Christmas."

  "You too," she said.

  Back at home, she pulled the phone book out from under her bed and looked up toy stores.

  Well, let's start at the beginning.

  As she stood to get the phone she realized she felt achy, as if a cold were coming on. Her head was hurting a bit too. She went into the bathroom to get some aspirin, swallowed them down and returned to the bedroom to start calling the stores in search of Reece's Christmas present.

  Feeling tired ...

  She reclined on the bed and picked up the cordless phone.

  She'd dialed the first digit when she gasped and sat up fast. A churning pain struck somewhere deep within her abdomen. Her face burst out in sweat.

  "Oh, man," she whispered. Not the flu, not now....

  Recalling that she often got sick around Christmas when she was young. A therapist she'd seen for a while had wondered if it wasn't her dread of a holiday presided over by a domineering father.

  "Oh ..." She moaned again, pressing the skin above the pang hard with both her hands. It ceased for a moment then exploded in another eruption of agony.

  Taylor stood up, adding nausea to the sensation. The room began to spin and she tried to control her fall to the parquet floor. Her head hit the dressing table and she blacked out.

  When she opened her eyes she saw claws.

  The Jabberwock's claws, disemboweling her, tearing her stomach, throat, the back of her mouth, shredding her flesh ...

  She squinted. No, no, they were just the claws on the legs of her bed. She--

  The pain stunned her again and she moaned, a low, animal sound.

  Sweat filled her eyes and ran down her nose. She wrapped her arms around herself and drew her legs up, trying to stop the pain. Every muscle hard as rubber, she tried to will the pain away but this had no effect. Then the nausea overwhelmed her and Taylor crawled to the toilet, opened the seat and held herself up on one arm while she vomited and retched for what seemed like hours.

  Her hands shook, her skin was inflamed. She stared at the tiny hexagonal tiles in front of her until she fainted again. Consciousness returned and she struggled for the phone. But her muscles gave out and she dropped again to the floor. From a distant dimension she heard a thunk--the sound of her head hitting the tiles.

  She understood now that she'd been poisoned.... The man at the restaurant. The workman in the coveralls and baseball cap. He was the one who'd stolen the note, the one who'd run them off the road, the one who'd killed Wendall Clayton.

  That was why he'd seemed familiar--because she must've seen him in the firm or following her and Reece earlier. Maybe he'd overheard her conversation with John Silbert Hemming. Maybe he'd put a tap on her phone at the office or even in her apartment.

  She--

  Then the poison began to churn again and she started to retch in earnest, unable to breathe, trying to scream for help, slamming her hand on the dresser so that somebody might hear and come to her aid. Perfume bottles fell, makeup, an Alice in Wonderland snowball crashed to the floor and broke, the water and sparkles spattering her.

  She began to pummel the floor--until she realized she had no feeling in her hand; it was completely numb. Taylor Lockwood began to cry.

  She crawled to the phone, dialed 911.

  "Police and fire emergency."

  She couldn't speak. Her tongue had turned to wood. The air was becoming thinner and thinner, sucked from the room.

  The voice said, "Is anyone there? Hello? Hello? ..."

  Taylor's hands stopped working. She dropped the phone. She closed her eyes.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  "What happened?" Carrie Mason asked.

  The doctor was a woman in her mid-thirties. She had straight blond hair and wore no makeup except for bright blue eye shadow. The medico's badge said Dr. V. Sarravich.

  The woman said, "Botulism."

  "Botulism? Food poisoning?"

  "I'm afraid she ate some severely tainted food."

  "Is she going to be okay?"

  "Botulism's much more serious than other types of food poisoning. She's unconscious, in shock. Severely dehydrated. The prognosis isn't good. We should get in touch with her family, if she has any. She lived alone and apparently the police couldn't find her address book or any next-of-kin information. We found your name and number on a card in her purse."

  "I don't know where her parents live. I'll give you the name of someone who can get in touch with them. Can I see her?"

  "She's in the Critical Care Unit. You can't visit now," Dr.Sarravich said. Medical people were all so serious, the girl thought.

  Carrie asked, "Is it really bad?"

  She hesitated--a concession to delicacy--and said, "I'm afraid it may be fatal and even if it isn't there could be some permanent damage."

  "What kind of damage?"

  "Neuromuscular."

  "To her hands?" Carrie asked.

  "Possibly."

  "But she's a musician," the paralegal said, alarmed. "A pianist."

  "It's too early to tell anything at this point." A pen and paper appeared, and the doctor asked, "Now, whom should I contact?"

  Carrie wrote a name and phone number. The doctor looked at the pad. "Donald Burdick. Who is he?"

  "The head of the firm she works at. He can tell you everything you want to know."

  Taylor's eyes opened slowly. Her skin stung from the sandblasting of fever. Her vision was blurred. Her head was in a vise of fiery pressure. Her legs and arms were useless, like blocks of wood grafted to her torso. The nausea and cramps were still rampaging through her abdomen and her throat was dry as paper.

  There was a young woman in a pale blue uniform making the bed next to hers.

  Taylor had never been in such pain. Every breath brought pain. Every twitch was a throb of pain. She assumed that the nerves in her hands and legs had short-circuited--she couldn't move her limbs.

  Taylor whispered.

  No reaction from the young woman.

  She screamed.

  The attendant cocked her head.

  She screamed again.

  No reaction. Taylor closed her eyes and rested after the agonizing effort.

  Several minutes later the bed was made. As the attendant walked toward the door, she glanced at Taylor.

  Taylor screamed, "Poison!"

  The aide leaned down. "Did you say something, honey?" Taylor smelled fruity gum on her breath and felt like gagging.

  "Poison," she managed to say. "I was poisoned."

  "Yes, food poisoning," the girl said and started to leave.

  Taylor screamed, "I want Mitchell!"

  The girl held up the watch on her pudgy wrist. "It's not midnight. It's about six."

  "I want Mitchell. Please ..."

  Taylor tried fiercely to hold on to consciousness but it spilled away like a handful of sugar. She had an impression of struggling to leap out of bed and calling Mitchell in Boston but then she realized that her legs and arms had started to spasm. Then a nurse was standing over her, staring in alarm and reaching for the call button, pushing it fiercely over and over.

  And then the room went black.

  At 7:30 P.M. the telephone in Donald Burdick's co-op rang.

  He was in the living room. He heard Vera answer it then mentally followed her footsteps as they completed a circuit that ended in the arched entrance near him. Her calm face appeared.

  "Phone, D
on," Vera said. "It's the doctor."

  The Wall Street Journal crumpled in his hand. He rose and together they walked to the den.

  "Yes?" he asked.

  "Mr. Burdick?" a woman's matter-of-fact voice asked. "This is Dr. Vivian Sarravich again. From Manhattan General Hospital? I'm calling about Ms. Lockwood."

  "Yes?"

  "I'm afraid I have bad news, sir. Miss Taylor has gone into a coma. Our neurologist's opinion is that she won't be coming out of it in the near future ... if at all. And if she does she's certain to have permanent brain and neuromuscular damage."

  Burdick shook his head to Vera. He held the phone out a ways so that she too could hear. "It's that bad?"

  "This is the most severe case of botulism I've ever seen. The infection was much greater than usual. She's had two respiratory failures. We had to put her on a ventilator. And a feeding tube, of course."

  "Her family?"

  "We've told them. Her parents on on their way here."

  "Yes, well, thank you, Doctor. You'll keep me posted?"

  "Of course. I am sorry. We did everything we could."

  "I'm sure you did."

  Burdick hung up and said to his wife, "She probably won't make it."

  Vera gave a neutral nod and then glanced at the maid who'd silently appeared beside them. "They're here, Mrs. Burdick."

  "Show them into the den, 'Nita."

  Donald Burdick poured port into Waterford glasses. His hands left fingerprints in a slight coating of dust on the bottle, which, he noticed, had been put up in 1963.

  The year that a Democratic President had been killed.

  The year he made his first million dollars.

  The year that happened to be a very good one for vintage port.

  He carried the glasses to the guests: Bill Stanley, Lamar Fredericks, Woody Crenshaw--all old fogies, his granddaughter might say, if kids still used that word, which of course they didn't--and three other members of the executive committee. Three young partners to whom Burdick was making a point of being kind and deferential.

  Three partners who were in absolute terror at the moment--because they had been picked and polished by Wendall Clayton and then leveraged by him onto the executive committee.

  The men were in Burdick's study. Outside, wet snow slapped on the leaded glass windows.

  "To Hubbard, White & Willis," Burdick said. Glasses were raised but not rung together.

  The Reconstruction had began swiftly. Only one of Clayton's lackeys had been fired outright--tall, young Randy Simms III, a fair-to-middlin' lawyer but one hell of a scheming nazi sycophant, Vera Burdick had observed. It had been her delightful task to transmit, through her own social network, rumors of various types of illegal scams the young partner was guilty of. By the time she was through he'd been thoroughly blackballed and was a pariah in the world of New York law and Upper East Side society.