Mistress of Justice (41 page)

Then it was over. She brodied to a stop near the base of the run, her thighs in agony but her heart filled with a glorious rush of fear and victory.

She did four runs this way, until on the last one, on a big mogul, she lost control and had to windmill her arms to regain her balance.

It sobered her.

Okay, honey, one suicide a week is enough.

At the bottom of the mountain, she kicked out of her skis and loosened her boot clasps. A tall, thin man came up to her and said in a Germanic accent, “Hey, that was a, you know, pretty okay run. You feel maybe like another one?”

“Uh, no, not really.”

“Okay, okay. Hey, how about a drink?”

“Sorry.” She picked up her skis and walked toward the cabin. “I’m here with my boyfriend.”

And she realized suddenly that, by God, she was.

Taylor returned to find Reece in great spirits, the tiny room cluttered with papers and documents delivered by FedEx or DHL. He was on the phone but he motioned her to him and kissed her hard then resumed his conversation.

She sat on the bed, wincing as she pulled off her sweater
and stretch pants, and began massaging her thighs and calves.

It was around that time that Reece hung up the phone and stacked the files away in a corner.

When they awoke in mid-afternoon they went to several antique stores, which weren’t the precious collections of cheese dishes and brass surveying instruments you find in Connecticut or New York. These were barns packed with furniture. Rows of dusty chairs and tables and dressers and pickle jars and canopy beds and armoires. Very rustic and practical and well cared for.

None of the shopkeepers seemed to expect them to buy anything and they didn’t.

That night they ate in one of the half-dozen interchangeable inns in the area, their menus virtually the same, they’d found: veal chop, steak, chicken, duck à l’orange, salmon or trout. Afterward, they had a drink in the common room in front of a huge fireplace.

After they made love that night and Reece had fallen asleep, Taylor Lockwood lay under the garden patch quilt of a hundred hexagons of cotton and felt the reassuring pressure of a man’s thigh beside her. She smelled the cold air as it streamed through the inch-open window and gathered on the floor. She tried to forget about Wendall Clayton, about Hubbard, White & Willis, about life on the other side of the looking glass.

At 4
A.M
. she finally fell asleep.

On Thursday morning Taylor was first in the lift line.

She skied her first run fast, smelling the clean electric scent of snow, the biting perfume of fireplace smoke, hearing the sharp hiss of her turns in the granular snow.

Today, however, the speed had none of the cleansing effect that it’d had on her first day out. She felt alone, frightened, vulnerable. Like the first time her father made her ride her bike without training wheels. He’d put her on the tall Schwinn, aimed it down a hill and pushed. (She’d refused to
scream until the wobbly front wheel hit a curb and she’d gone over the handlebars onto the sidewalk.)

She made mistakes, skied too defensively and nearly wiped out bad.

At the bottom of the mountain she loaded her skis and boots into the rental car.

No, Dad, I’m
not
getting back on the fucking horse, she thought now.

She drove to their inn and went back to the room, where Reece was taking a shower. She poured coffee from the pot he’d ordered and dropped into the musty armchair.

Thinking:

Where and for a first cause of action, Taylor Lockwood did willfully …

Outside she could see other skiers heading down the mountain, some fast, some timidly.
 … and with full knowledge of the consequences, without a warrant or other license, enter the office of one Wendall Clayton, the decedent, and …

She sipped the coffee.

Where and for a first cause of action, Taylor Lockwood did willfully ascertain and make public certain facts about one Wendall Clayton, the decedent, that caused …

Taylor sat back in the chair, closed her eyes.

 … that caused said decedent to blow his fucking brains out
.

Mitchell Reece, wrapped in a towel, opened the bathroom door and, smiling with pleasant surprise, walked up to her. Kissed her on the mouth.

“Back early. You okay?”

“I don’t know. Wasn’t fun. Thumb still hurt?” she asked.

“A bit. I tell you I’m no good at this sort of thing.… I’m much better with simpleminded, safe sports.…” He seemed to be groping for a joke, something cute about sex probably, but he sensed that she was upset. He sat down on the bed opposite her.

“So what’s up, Taylor?”

She shook her head.

“What is it?” he persisted.

“Mitchell, you know history?”

He motioned with an open palm for her to continue.

She asked, “You know what the Star Chamber was?”

“Just that it was a medieval English court. Why?”

“We learned about it in my European history course in college. It came back to me last night. The Star Chamber was a court without a jury, run by the Crown. When the king thought the regular court might decide against him he’d bring a case in the Star Chamber. You got hauled up before these special judges—the king’s privy counselors. They’d pretend to have a trial but you can guess what happened. If the king wanted him guilty he was guilty. Very fast justice, very efficient.”

He looked at the coffee, swirled it. He set it down without drinking any more. His face was somber.

She blurted, “Christ, Mitchell, the man is dead.”

“And you think it’s your fault.”

A spasm of anger passed through her. Why can’t he understand? “I was so stupid.” Taylor looked at him briefly. Wondering how Clayton had felt lifting the gun. Had it been heavy? Had there been pain? How long had he lived after pulling the trigger? What had he seen? A burst of yellow light, a second of confusion, a wild eruption of thoughts, then nothing?

“Taylor,” Reece said with measured words, “Clayton was crazy. No sane man would’ve stolen the note in the first place and no sane man would’ve killed himself if he’d been caught. You can’t anticipate people like that.”

She gripped his arm firmly. “But that’s the point, Mitchell. You’re thinking the problem is that Wendall outflanked us—that our fault was we weren’t clever enough. But the
fault
was that we shouldn’t’ve been playing the game in the first place. That firm’s like Wonderland—it’s got its own set of rules, which don’t even make sense half the time but you never think about that because you’re so deep in the place. Topsy-turvy.… Everything’s topsy-turvy.”

“What’re you saying?”

“That we
should’ve
gone to the police. And we should’ve
let the chips fall wherever. So New Amsterdam would’ve left the firm. Well, so what? And you? You’re one of the best lawyers in New York. You would’ve landed on your feet.”

He rose and walked to the window.

Finally he said softly, “I know, I know.… You think I haven’t been living with exactly what you’re talking about?” He turned to face her. “But if I don’t lay part of the blame at Clayton’s feet, it undermines all my beliefs as a lawyer.” He touched his chest. “It undermines all that I am. You know, this is something I’m going to have to live with too. I mean, you did what I asked you to do. But ultimately it was my decision.”

So here was another aspect of Mitchell Reece—not all-powerful, not in control, not immune to pain.

She walked next to him, lowered her head onto his shoulder. His hand twined through her hair. “I’m sorry, Mitchell. This is very odd for me. It’s not the sort of thing
Ms
. or
Savvy
prepares the working girl for.”

He rubbed her shoulders.

“Can I ask a favor?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Can we go back?”

He was surprised. “You want to leave?”

“I’ve had a wonderful time. But I’m in such a funky mood. I don’t want to spoil our time together and I think I’d be a drag to be with.”

“But I haven’t learned to ski yet.”

“Are you kidding? You’re a graduate of the Taylor Lockwood School of Skiing Injury. You can go out now and break arms and legs all by yourself. With that kind of education there’s no telling how far you can go.”

“Let me see when I can get the jet.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Thursday afternoon, Taylor Lockwood stood in front of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, looking up at a brown brick apartment building across the street, about as far from the wilderness of New Hampshire as you could get, conceptually speaking.

She checked the address again and verified that she had found the right building. Inside, a solemn doorman regarded her carefully and then called upstairs to announce her.

She was approved and he nodded toward the elevator.

“Sixth floor,” he said.

“Which apartment?” she asked.

He looked confused for a moment then said, “It’s the whole floor.”

“Oh.”

She stepped into the leather-padded elevator and was slowly transported to a private entryway. She smoothed her hair, looking into a brass mirror, a huge thing. The foyer was in dark red and filled with Georgian yellow and white dovetail trim. The pictures were old English hunting scenes.
Plaster scrolls and cherubs and angels and columns were everywhere.

An ageless, unsmiling woman in a plain navy shift answered the door, asked her to wait then disappeared down the hallway. Taylor glanced through the doorway. The rooms were larger versions of the foyer. She looked back into the mirror and stared at herself, at a person who was thinner than she’d expected. Thinner and … what else? More drawn, gaunter, grimmer? She tried smiling; it didn’t take.

A shadow passed across her and Mrs. Wendall Clayton stood in the doorway: a middle-aged woman, wearing the stiff, straight-cut, big-patterned clothes that people who learned style in the sixties still sometimes favor. Her straight hair was swept back and sprayed perfectly into place. Her thin face was severe. The foundation makeup had been applied thickly but her skin wasn’t good and Taylor could see red patches beneath the pancake.