A Good Marriage(119)

“Oh!” a woman exclaimed. I’d slammed right into Gloria as I turned the corner, sending everything in her hands raining down to the floor.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, bending to help her retrieve the papers.

“Darn it,” she grumbled sourly. “Now everything is out of order.”

“I’m really sorry,” I said, hating that we were crouched there making a commotion in clear view of Paul’s door. “I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Well, that’s obvious.”

I clenched my jaw to keep myself from taking her head off. I gathered the papers as best I could and handed them back to her in what was, admittedly, a messy stack.

“Do you want me to help you?”

“No, I’m fine,” she snapped.

I heard Paul’s voice. I needed to get out of the hallway and behind my closed office door.

“Sorry, again,” I said as I began to edge past Gloria.

“Hey, how do you know Maude anyway?” she asked. It sounded like something of an accusation. “I couldn’t believe when she called up from the lobby—once she realized you worked here, too. She told me she wasn’t a client. But I didn’t want to pry.”

“Oh, do you know her? She’s involved in a case I’m handling. But she’s not a client, no.” And that was all I was saying.

“Hmm.” Gloria narrowed her eyes. She could tell I was being evasive. “Maude’s so beautiful and so nice, isn’t she? I only met her once, at a party—I knew all of one person there, and she was kind enough to spend half the night talking to me.”

A party? Presumably not the ones Maude threw. “That’s nice,” I said. “Okay, well, sorry again. I really have to be—”

“It was my old boss’s holiday party,” she went on. “He was a very senior partner. I don’t know if you know that. I was his secretary, for years. What a party that was, too. They threw one every year in Park Slope, but I was only able to go the one time, two years ago. Very glamorous. But no more, thanks to him.” She ticked her head toward Paul’s office. “Your hypocritical friend over there had my boss fired. You know, those legal assistants who cried wolf were just looking to make money. Hashtag MeToo my ass. Everyone is looking for a handout these days.”

I didn’t know you worked here, too. Maude had said that to me, hadn’t she? I felt light-headed, my hands ice cold as I stepped toward Gloria.

“Who was your old boss?”

“Kerry Tanner,” Gloria said with a nostalgic smile, shellacked with pride. Then her face darkened. “He was railroaded, pure and simple. I worked for him for eighteen years, and he never once did anything inappropriate. Ask Maude. She was absolutely flabbergasted when I told her he’d been fired. I thought she was going to pass out. And I didn’t even get the chance to tell her why he was let go.”

In my office, it only took a second to pull up an image of Kerry Tanner: a lawyer headshot, the kind of photo that had probably been on Young & Crane’s own website before Kerry was fired.

Sure enough, I’d seen him before, at the bottom of Sarah’s steps, pizza box in hand, six-pack tucked under his arm. Kerry Tanner was married to Sarah Novak and friends with Maude. Surely he’d also known Amanda. And Kerry Tanner had somehow known exactly who I was—probably because he stood to gain the most from Zach staying in jail.

I headed back toward Paul’s office, the image of Kerry Tanner on my phone. When I looked in the open door, Paul was muttering angrily as he squinted through his reading glasses at his computer screen. I inhaled sharply.

“Sorry to interrupt,” I began, “but I need to ask you something.”

“If you can sort out why the hell I can’t get back to the other case I was just reading in this damn Westlaw program, then I might answer you,” Paul said without taking his eyes off his computer. “It was here a second ago, and now I’m in this other case I have no goddamn interest in.”

Paul didn’t even like communicating via email. If he was surfing cases online, it was because some associate had screwed something up. I came up behind him, and within a few, very obvious keystrokes had him back on the original case he’d been reading.

“Be careful not to click on any of the cited cases,” I said. “Or it will bring you to them.”

“I did not click on anything,” Paul said, quietly defensive as he glared at his computer. “If this asshole’s summary judgment brief wasn’t all fucked up, I wouldn’t even have to be on this damn system in the first place.”

“Can you tell me if you recognize this man?” I asked as neutrally as possible—I didn’t want to prime the pump. I held out my phone to him.

Paul furrowed his brow and leaned over to look. “Of course,” he said, disgusted. “That’s Kerry Tanner. The partner I told you about. Defiant narcissistic asshole.” He looked up at me with an annoyed expression. “Is this the best use of your time? If I recall, you owe me several—”

“He knew Zach Grayson’s wife,” I said. “They were friends in Park Slope.”

Paul looked up at me. He pulled his chin back. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“He did live in Brooklyn,” Paul said, considering. Then he was quiet for a moment. “You think he …”