Mistress of Justice

I'm here to give you my deepest sympathy.

I'm here to say I worked with your husband.

I'm here to say that even though he's dead don't feel too bad because he tried to seduce me.

Mrs. Clayton sat upright in an uncomfortable satin wingback, Taylor in a spongy armchair.

I'm here because I helped kill your husband.

The widow asked, "Tea? Coffee?"

"No, thank you," Taylor said. And then realized that the woman's dress was red and that this was hardly a household in mourning – the room was festooned with antique Christmas decorations and there was a faint but rich scent of pine in the air. Classical Christmas music played on the stereo. Taylor looked at the woman's cocked eyebrow and her expression, which wasn't one of bitterness or sorrow. It was closer to curiosity.

"I worked with your husband, Mrs. Clayton."

"Yes."

"I just came to tell you how sorry I was."

And Taylor understood then, only at that moment, that uttering those words was all she could do. Watching this stolid, lone woman (Taylor couldn't picture her as one half of the Claytons) light a cigarette, she understood that the spirits of Donald Burdick and Vera Burdick and Messrs Hubbard, White and Willis themselves had accompanied her here and were laying cold fingers on her lips. She could not, even here, in Clayton's home, do what she desperately wanted to do explain.

Explain that she'd been the one who'd uncovered the terrible secrets about her husband, that she was the cause – the proximate cause, the law would say – of his death. No, there'd be no confession. Taylor knew what bound her. In this joint venture Hubbard, White & Willis had secured her soul.

"That's very kind of you." After a pause the woman asked. "Did I see you at the funeral? There were so many people."

"I wasn't there, no." Taylor eased back in the chair, uncomfortable, and crossed her arms. Wished she'd asked for coffee to keep her hands busy.

Now she looked around the room, aware of its size. The ceilings were twenty feet high. It reminded her of National Trust mansions and palaces in England. Taylor said, "He was an excellent lawyer."

Clayton's widow said, "I suppose." She was examining a tabletop. It seemed to be a dust inspection. "But then we didn't talk much about his career."

Taylor was counting the squares in the carpet. Trying to figure out the designs. Finally St George and the dragon, she believed.

Beware the Jabberwock.

The widow paused. "The truth is, Ms. Lockwood, I'm a little bewildered. I don't know you – though we may have met before. But you seem genuinely upset by my husband's death and I can't quite figure out why. You're not like the little sycophants who've come by since he died – the associates at the firm. They thought they were covering it up but I could see through them – in their eyes you could tell that they were amused at his death. I know they'd chuckled about it over their beers when they were alone. Do you know why they were here?"

Taylor was silent.

"They came because they thought word would get back to the firm that they'd done their duty. They'd made an appearance that might earn them another point or two, get them a step closer to being partner." She pressed out her cigarette. "Which is so ironic, of course, because they didn't grasp the situation at all. They should've been avoiding this house as if it were a leper colony. If word gets back to Burdick that young Samuel and Frederick and Douglas were paying respects to me, well, then, my God, they're in Dutch. At worst, they'd had the bad judgment to pick the wrong side, at best, they were displaying an oblivion about law firm politics.

"So you see, Ms. Lockwood, I am a little perplexed by your sympathy call." A smile. "That sounds appropriately Victorian, doesn't it? Sympathy call. Well, you aren't here to toady. You aren't here to gloat. Your dress and demeanor tell me you couldn't care less about what the Donald Burdicks and Wendall Claytons of the world think of you. You're clearly not one of the little malleable things he picked for his, dare I use the euphemism, girlfriends. No, you're genuinely upset, I can see that. Well, you may have respected my husband as a lawyer and an ambitious businessman. But I doubt very much if you respected him as a human being. And I know without a doubt that you didn't like him."

"You had a loss in your life and I'm sorry," Taylor said evenly. "I didn't mean anything more or less than that." She fell silent, watching this shrewd woman light another cigarette with bony, red hands. It seemed as if the smoke that floated out of her nose and mouth had over the years taken with it her weight and softness.

Mrs. Clayton finally laughed. "Well, I appreciate that, Ms. Lockwood. Forgive my cynicism. I hope I haven't offended you. But don't feel sorry for me. Heavens, no. You're young. You don't have any experience with marriages of convenience."

Well, let's not go that far, Taylor thought, replaying many images her parents' twin beds, her mother with her glass of wine sitting alone in front of the television, her father calling at midnight saying he was staying at his club. Night after night after night.

Clayton's widow said, "I guess you'd say our relationship wasn't even a marriage. It was a merger. His assets and mine. A certain camaraderie. Love? Was there any love between Williams Computing and RFC Industries when they consolidated? To name just one of the deals that took so much of Wendall's time." She looked out over the park, spindly with branches, the residue of snow faintly surviving in shadows. "And that's the irony, you see."

"What?"

"Love – there was never any between us. And yet I'm the one he was most content with. Cold, scheming Wendall, the power broker. The master of control. But once outside of our life, he was at sea. Vulnerable. That's why he killed himself, of course. For love."

"What do you mean?" Taylor heard herself ask, her heart pounding fast.

"He killed himself for love," the widow repeated. "That's the one thing Wendall didn't understand and couldn't control. Love. Oh, how he wanted it. And as with so many beautiful, powerful people it was denied him. He was an alcoholic of love. He'd go off on his benders. With his chippies. His little sluts. And there were plenty of them – women would flock to him. A few of the men, too, I should tell you. How they all would want him."

"He'd spirit them away on carriage rides, buy them roses, have a breakfast tray put together at Le Pengord and sent to their apartments. Wendall goes a-courting. They were all disasters, of course. The girls never quite lived up to what he wanted. The older ones they turned out to be every bit as superficial and material and cold" – she laughed again, dropping a worm of ash in the ashtray – "as cold as I was. Or he'd pick a young puppy, some ingénue, who'd cling to him desperately, rearrange her life around him. Then he'd feel the arms around his neck, dragging him down. Someone relying on him. My Lord, we couldn't have that, could we? Then he'd dump them. And back he'd come to me. To nurse his wounds."

Taylor jumped in to steer the conversation back on course. "What do you mean about his suicide? Killing himself for love?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense. He must've fallen madly in love with somebody and he was sure she was the one. When she told him no it must've devastated him."

"But the note he left said he was under pressure at work, stress."

"Oh, he wrote that for my benefit. If he'd mentioned a girlfriend, well, it would have embarrassed me." She laughed. "The idea of Wendall killing himself because of pressure? Why, he lived for pressure. He wasn't happy unless he had ten projects going at once. I've never seen him happier than over the past few months working on the merger, doing deals for his clients and then pla