Chapter 7

After four months, the office of Sarah Hollister, attorney-at-law, had begun to feel like home to Isobel. Her temp agent, James Cooke, had placed her there in May as Sarah's semi-permanent assistant - primarily, Isobel thought, so he wouldn't have to deal with her anymore. She and James had been on dodgy terms since the winter, when an ill-timed romantic overture had derailed their cautiously developing friendship. What was left of their relationship had taken a further hit when James left Temp Zone in August to matriculate as a second-semester sophomore at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He was finally finishing the undergraduate degree he'd been forced to abandon a decade earlier, when Columbia had booted him because of his problems with alcohol.

As Isobel waited in front of the grand, polished-brass elevator doors, she wondered how James was doing. She liked to think she'd had something to do with his return to higher education and was sorry they'd parted on such frosty terms. Without ongoing professional contact, there seemed little chance of reconciliation. Although, she thought, on her way up, he couldn't hate her too much. He had done her a good turn placing her with Sarah. A long-term assignment with flexible hours was the brass ring of temp jobs for an actress with an unpredictable schedule.

Isobel greeted the receptionist on the twenty-third floor and started down the long hall, which was lined on either side with offices for solo practitioners engaged in an array of legal specialties. Their assistants were tucked in the center of the floor in clusters of four cubicles that reminded Isobel of the folded paper fortune-tellers she used to make as a kid. Sarah was all the way at the end of the hall, where there was only one other office and one other cubicle, both currently empty. Isobel was glad of the privacy. When Sarah was in court, Isobel could spend her time researching auditions without another lawyer's harried assistant appropriating her.

Sarah's door was ajar, so after Isobel dropped her bag at her desk and switched on her computer, she announced herself with a gentle knock.

"Come on in," Sarah said. Isobel could just see the top of Sarah's head from behind the pillar of books in the center of her desk. "Sorry, I'm trying to rearrange..."

Sarah moved the books to the floor, where they wobbled for a moment before resting against another slightly less precarious stack. Like most attorneys on the floor, Sarah had not yet worked out a storage system for her cramped office, so she inhabited a veritable forest of paper. Isobel wasn't exactly a neat freak, but she wished Sarah would take a Saturday and install more shelving or at least scan some of the documents into her computer. Whenever Isobel suggested it, Sarah would laugh in her firm, resonant alto and say, "If I clean up, I'll never find anything again."

Thirty-nine, single, and unhappy about it, Sarah was the first to admit that her intense dedication to her work was to blame. She had an attractive face, with hazel eyes set in apple cheeks and a perfect little nose, but Isobel had noticed that she only bothered with her appearance on days she had to appear in court. Today, Sarah was outfitted in a boxy charcoal suit with a red silk blouse, and she was wearing what she referred to as her ugly glasses. They were round and outdated but gave her better vision than the new, chic progressives she couldn't get used to.

Having settled her pile on the floor, Sarah sat up and pushed the New York Times across her desk to Isobel. "You made the front page of the Metro section."

Isobel blinked. "I did?"

"Well, your murder mystery troupe did. Isn't this the gig you did over the weekend?"

Isobel took the paper and scanned the article.

Judge Harrison was allegedly shot at the precise moment when two actors, part of a murder mystery troupe hired to provide entertainment, were enacting a fictional murder. Initial reports that Delphi Kramer, the actor firing the gun, had accidentally shot the judge were dispelled when police confirmed that her prop gun had not gone off. Director Peter Catanzaro said, "I am as stunned and saddened as everyone else that a real murder took place during our show. Our sympathies go out to Judge Harrison's family and friends."

Isobel set the paper down. "Looks like Delphi's getting her fifteen minutes of fame."

"Notoriety is more like it. You have no idea how lucky she is that they were able to clear her so quickly." Sarah pushed her glasses onto her head, sweeping her frizzy, black hair off her forehead. "Pull up a chair and tell me what happened. Then I'll tell you what I know."

Isobel gave her a curious look and moved a pile of documents from the visitor's chair. When Isobel had finished relating the events from Saturday night, Sarah hopped over the stacks of files with remarkable agility and opened the top drawer of her lone filing cabinet.

"I represented Candy Harrison in the divorce," she said over her shoulder.

Isobel's breath caught sharply. "You did?"

"Yup. Here we go." Sarah removed a file and returned to her desk, where she riffled the pages with expert fingers. "I wouldn't have described their split as amicable. Frankly, I'm surprised she was there."

"She was sitting next to a lawyer named Gordon. Didn't get his last name."

"Gordon Lang." Sarah made a face. "Harrison's lawyer. He's corporate, which gave me a nice advantage in the settlement. He hadn't quite done his homework." She paused and looked up. "I always wondered why Harrison didn't hire a divorce lawyer, but whatever. It was better for Candy. Ah, here we go." Sarah pulled out a stapled document and handed it to Isobel. "Candy did very well. She got half of Harrison's assets, plus the house on Block Island, and a $500,000 annuity for five years."

"Which looks like it just ran out," Isobel observed, skimming the page. "Why did they split?"

"He was having an affair, which is pretty much par for the course for a man in that kind of power position. I see it all the time. Candy was willing to look the other way and entertain herself elsewhere for a while."

"What changed?"

"Some wannabe paparazzo snapped Harrison kissing another woman on the grand staircase at the Metropolitan Opera House. It showed up in several places: the society column of the Times, New York Magazine, Gotham... It was very embarrassing for Candy, and that was the last straw."

Isobel fanned herself with the document. "Is that really why she pulled the plug?"

"I pressed her, but she insisted that was the reason." Sarah gave a little shrug. "You never know what's going to make someone draw the line. I've seen marriages implode over a toothbrush in the wrong holder."

"Who was the woman?"

"Nobody anyone recognized, and he refused to name her. Probably some high-end escort. It apparently was not the woman he was having an affair with. Essentially, he was cheating on his wife and his mistress."

"Nice."

"In Harrison's defense, Candy hates opera and never went with him. Don't know about the other woman. A little hard to blame him for rustling up an appreciative date."

Isobel flipped to the next page of the agreement and whistled. "He was worth sixteen million dollars? That's a lot of money for a judge."

Sarah nodded. "He must have invested wisely. All fair game in the settlement."

Isobel sat back and regarded her boss. "Could Candy have killed him?"

Sarah clicked open a pen, scribbled with it, then tossed it in the garbage and took another. "From what you've told me, I don't see how she could have shot him from across the table. Besides, she did very well in the divorce. Why kill him five years later?"

"Her annuity was ending."

"But that was expected. Not much of a motive by itself. And it's unlikely he left her anything in his will."

Isobel chewed her lip. "I still can't get past her moving me out of the way."

"She was stuck at a table in enemy territory. You were a life raft." Sarah took the settlement letter from Isobel and returned Candy's file to the cabinet. "Willard Harrison was a hard, implacable man. I'm sure there were all kinds of extravagant speeches about his skills as a jurist, his Solomonic wisdom, his success in ridding the streets of the criminal element - "

"We never got to the speeches. They were supposed to be after the shoot-out." Sarah gave her a look, and Isobel quickly added, "The shoot-out in the play. The finale. The speeches were supposed to be during dessert."

Sarah pulled her glasses off her head and waved them in front of her face. "My point is, anything you heard would have been bullshit. He was a coldhearted, power-hungry son of a bitch, and even if everyone there respected him, I'll bet you Candy's divorce settlement that not a single person in that room had any genuine affection for him. Even with their history, Candy was probably one of the few candidates for seating at the judge's table. Sad, really, if you think about it."

"Did she love him when she married him?"

Sarah sucked thoughtfully on the earpiece of her glasses. "She certainly didn't need him socially or financially. She's a Wall Street hotshot with quite a reputation of her own. I guess it must have been love. Or something masquerading as love." Sarah frowned, as if at this point she too would settle for a stand-in.

"It looked like there was a pretty big age difference."

"She's forty-eight, and he was a good twenty years older."

Isobel tipped her chair back. "So what do you think was in it for her?"

Sarah shook her head vigorously. "I learned early on that there is absolutely no rhyme or reason for why two people wind up together. Believe me, in the annals of unlikely couples, Candy and Willard Harrison are a footnote." Sarah returned her glasses to her face, opened a folder, and extracted a lengthy legal document. "Listen, fascinating as all this is, I've got to get cracking. I need you to call United Messenger for a pickup, and then I have some correspondence for you to type. We're getting close to a settlement in the Whitman case. She finally wore him down on sole custody. Thank God, since he's a complete psycho."

Isobel took the correspondence from Sarah. "I might be able to help them," she mused aloud.

"The Whitmans?"

"No, the police."

"I thought you already talked to them."

"Yes, but..." A little warning bell went off in Isobel's head. "No, you're right. I told them everything I know."

Returning to her desk, Isobel was glad that she'd once again stifled the impulse to blurt out her thoughts. Her newly acquired information about Candy Harrison might well be worth something to the police, but they would have to find their way to the details of the divorce on their own. Sarah had made her sign a general confidentiality agreement on her first day. She couldn't share what she'd just learned with anyone.

But there was nothing to stop her from using the information herself.