And Taylor Lockwood thought. What the hell had she been doing all along? What did she think would happen when she fingered the thief? Had she ever considered the consequences?
Never once.
Renowned virtue
Burdick hung up the receiver and nodded with satisfaction. "I think we'll get away with it."
Taylor tried to figure out what he meant.
"The Medical Examiner's office is going to rale the death suicide. The AG agrees. And we can keep our other suicide note private."
Reece blurted an astonished laugh. "The ME ruled already?"
Burdick nodded then looked at Taylor and Reece with a vaguely ominous gaze, which she interpreted as Don't be too curious about this.
The partner looked at his watch. He held out his hand to Reece, then to Taylor, who first wanted to wipe her palm. It was damp as a washcloth, Burdick's was completely dry.
"You two get some rest. You've been through a hellish week. If you want any personal time I'll arrange it. Won't come out of your vacation or sick leave. Are you busy now?"
Reece walked toward the door. "I've got the Hanover settlement closing in Boston next week. That's the only thing on the front burner."
"You, Ms. Lockwood?"
"No, nothing," she replied, still numb.
"Then take some time off. In fact, I'd urge you to. Might be best."
Taylor nodded and began to speak but hesitated. She was waiting for some significant thought to arrive, some phrase that neatly summarized what had just happened.
Nothing occurred, her mind had jammed.
Get away with it?
"Oh, Mitchell," Burdick said, smiling, as if the suicide no longer occupied even a portion of his thoughts.
Reece turned.
"Congratulations on the Hanover settlement," the partner said. "I myself would have settled for seventy cents on the dollar. That's why you're a litigator and I'm not."
He rose and walked to the small conference room, where his wife awaited him. Burdick didn't open the door right away, though. He waited, Taylor noticed, until she and Reece had left the office.
They walked in silence to the paralegal pen.
Everyone in the corridors seemed to be staring at her. As if they knew the part she'd played in the partner's death.
Near her cubicle, in a place where the hall was empty, Reece took her by the arm. He bent down and whispered, "I know how you feel, Taylor. I know how I feel. But this wasn't our fault. There's no way we could've anticipated this."
She said nothing.
He continued, "Even if the police'd been involved the same thing would've happened."
"I know," she said in a soft voice. But it sounded lame, terribly lame. Because, of course, she didn't know anything of the kind.
Reece asked, "Come over for dinner tonight."
She nodded. "Okay, sure."
"How's eight?" Then he frowned. "Wait, it's Tuesday you're playing piano at your club, right?"
Was it Tuesday? The thought of the leches in the audience and Dimitri's reference to her satin touch suddenly repulsed her. "Think I'll cancel for tonight."
Reece gave a wan smile. "I'll see you later." He seemed to be looking for something to add but said nothing more. He looked up and down the hallway to make sure it was empty then hugged her hard and walked away.
Taylor called Ms. Strickland and told her she was taking the rest of the day off. She couldn't get the supervisor off the line, though, all the woman wanted to do was talk about Clayton's suicide. Finally she managed to hang up. Taylor avoided Carrie Mason and Sean Lillick and a half dozen of the other paralegals and snuck out the back door of the firm.
At home she loaded dirty clothes into the basket but got only as far as the front door. She stopped and set the laundry down. She turned on her Yamaha keyboard and played music for a few hours then took a nap.
At six that night she called Reece at home.
"Look," she said. "I'm sorry, I can't come over tonight."
"Sure," he said uncertainly Then he asked, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. I've got the fatigues. Bad."
"I understand." But he sounded edgy. "Is this. Come on, tell me, is what happened going to affect us?"
Oh, brother you can hardly ever get men to talk seriously. And then, at the worst possible time, you can't stop them. "No, Mitch. It's not that. I just need some R &R time."
"Whatever you want," he said. "That's fine I'll be here. It's just I guess I miss you."
"'Night."
"Sleep well. Call me tomorrow."
She took a long bath then called home. Taylor was troubled to hear her father answer.
"Jesus, Taylie, what the hell happened at your shop?"
No "counselor" now. They were regressing to her grade-school nickname.
"I just heard," her father continued. "Was that somebody you worked for, this Clayton fellow?"
"I knew him, yeah. Not too well."
"Well, take some advice. You keep a low profile, young lady."
"What?" she asked, put off by his professorial tone.
"You keep your head down. The firm's going to have some scars from a suicide. We don't want any of it to rub off on you."
How can scars rub off? Taylor thought cynically. But of course she said nothing other than. "I'm just a paralegal, Dad. Reporters from the Times aren't going to be writing me up."
Although, she added to herself, if they'd told the whole story by rights they should.
"Killed himself?" Samuel Lockwood mused. "If you can't stand the heat stay out of the kitchen."
"Maybe there was more to it than standing the heat, Dad."
"He took the coward's way out and he hurt your shop."
"Not mine," Taylor said. But her voice was soft and Samuel Lockwood didn't hear.
"You want to talk to your mother?" he asked.
"Please."
"I'll get her. Just remember what I said, Taylie."
"Sure, Dad."
Her mother, who'd clearly had a glass of wine too many, was happy to hear from her daughter and, to Taylor's relief, wasn't the least alarmist about what had happened at the firm. Taylor slipped into a very different mode with her – far less defensive and tense – and the women began chatting about soap operas and distant relatives and Taylor's Christmas trip home to Maryland.
The woman was so cheerful and comforting in fact that Taylor, on a whim, upped the length of her stay from three days to seven. Hell, Donald Burdick wants me to take some time off? Okay, I'll take some time off.
Her mother was delighted and they talked for a few minutes longer but then Taylor said she had to go, she was afraid her father would come back on the line.
She put a frozen pouch of spaghetti into a pot of water. That and an apple were dinner. Then she lay on her couch, watching a Cheers rerun.
Mitchell Reece called once but she let her answering machine do the talking for her. He left a short message, saying only that he was thinking of her. The words shored her up a bit.
But still, she didn't call back.
Taylor Lockwood, curled on the old sofa, the TV yammering mindlessly in front of her, thought about when she was a teenager and her Labrador retriever would pile into bed next to her and lie against an adjacent pillow until she scooted him off. She'd then he still, waiting for sleep, while she felt, in the warmth radiating from the empty pillow, the first glimmerings of understanding that the pain that solitude conjures within us is a false pain and has nothing to do with solitude at all.
Indeed, being alone was curative, she believed.
She thought about Reece and wondered if he was different, if he was like her father, who sought company when he was troubled – though it was not the presence of his family Samuel Lockwood had ever needed but that of business associates, politicians, fellow partners and clients.