'I got your message earlier. What's up?'
'You believe in coincidences, Kincaid?'
One of my favorite crime writers says there's no such thing, but I'd
never thought much about it. 'Sure,' I said, 'when I need to.'
'Honest answer. Well, I do too. They happen all the time, or at least
that's what I'm telling myself on this one. Your vie called me
Friday.'
'On what case?'
'The city judge, Clarissa Easterbrook. She called me Friday and left a
message.'
'About what?'
'I have no idea. I was in trial all last week. I took the message
down with the rest of them and have been working my way through the
list. The name meant nothing at the time I wrote it down, but when I
got to it this morning it gave me the heebie-jeebies.'
'What exactly did she say?'
'All I wrote in my call book was her name and number. If she had said
what she was calling about, I would have noted it.'
'You didn't realize this until today?'
'Watch it, Kincaid. That sanctimony's better spent on the rest of the
fuckups around here. All I had was a name and number. I don't think
she even said she was calling from the city hearings department.'
I could see how that could happen. 'Can you think of any reason she
might have been calling? Are you in any groups together? The Women's
Bar Association, maybe?'
'Sure, along with forty-three percent of all the other attorneys in
this town. Did she call you?'
'Good point. Whatever it means, thanks for telling me. I'll pass it
on to MCT and see if it connects up with anything else. Do you have
the number she left?'
On the way back to my office, Alice Gerstein stopped me in the hall and
announced that Clarissa Easterbrook s sister was waiting for me in the
corner we call the reception area.
'When did she get here?'
'Right before noon.'
I had checked my voice mail around then, but no one had left a message
about the pop-in.
'Did she say what she wanted?' I whispered.
'Just to talk to you about the case. I offered to have you call her to
set an appointment, but she insisted on waiting.'
Tara Carney had finished the crossword during her wait and moved on to
the jumble. I apologized for making her wait and explained that I was
out of the office and didn't know she was planning to come in.
'I really didn't mind. I've been running out of things that make me
feel useful, so waiting here to talk to you .. . well, at least it was
something.'
Apparently Susan Kerr wasn't the only one who was trying to stay busy.
I offered Tara the best we had around here, a Dixie cup of water. Don't
knock it. Until a few of us pooled our own funds for a cooler, the
only water we had was brown.
Once we were in my office with the door closed, I asked her why she'd
come in.
'There's something I haven't told the police yet, and it's been
weighing on me. If I tell you, can it remain confidential?'
People hear about the sacred attorney-client privilege on TV and assume
it's going to apply to me. It doesn't. I did my best to explain to
Tara that I represented the State, not her. I'd do my best to be
discreet, but if she told me something that related to the case, I'd
almost certainly tell the police, and I might have to disclose it
eventually to a defendant.
'That's the thing,' she said. 'I don't know if it relates to the
case.'
'If you have any reason to think it might, you really do need to tell
me, Tara. I can't promise to keep it confidential, but I will treat
the information with respect. We'll use it for the investigation, but
it's not like I'm going to issue a press release or gossip about your
sister.'
She looked into my face and must have decided to trust me. 'I think
Clarissa was cheating on Townsend.'
