Guilt By Degrees

45

The next morning dawned gray and brittle, a perfect accompaniment to the day’s planned festivities: a visit to Lilah’s law firm. Spending the day in a law firm-any law firm-was not my idea of fun. But I hoped someone could give us a line on where Lilah might be now, or at least tell us something more that would help us find this cipher of a woman. So far all I’d managed to do was add to the list of questions about her that’d been running through my mind on an endless loop. I put on my “lawyer clothes” and reluctantly left my firepower at home.

It was a typical white-shoe law firm, occupying the upper floors of a skyscraper in Century City. An elevator dedicated solely to the law office opened onto a glass-encased lobby with thick carpets and window treatments in earth tones. The obligatory modern art hung on the wall behind the predictably coiffed mannequin of a receptionist. She was seated at the epicenter of a semicircular marble counter. “May I help you?” she asked skeptically.

Neither Bailey nor I had the down-at-the-heels look (i.e., scuffed-up shoes and dull, boxy suits) of the stereotypical civil servants. I wore a gray cashmere turtleneck sweater and black blazer, and Bailey wore a black turtleneck and slacks under her camel-hair midcalf coat. Not bad, but not nearly luxe enough to be clients of this place. And the receptionist’s greeting showed she knew it.

“We’ve got an appointment with Lyle Monahan,” Bailey said, handing the woman her card. I handed her mine as well.

“Have a seat, please,” the receptionist said dismissively.

She waved her hand at the plush beige leather sofa that was as far away from her desk as you could get without falling through the floor-to-ceiling window.

“I feel banished,” I told Bailey after we’d crossed the ten feet to our destination. “Did you see that look she gave us?”

“I think Botox has something to do with her expression,” Bailey said. “Don’t take it personally.”

We cooled our heels for a good fifteen minutes before a baby-faced young man in an expensive navy-blue suit and wing-tip shoes ushered us into the sanctum sanctorum: a huge corner office with windows that spanned two walls, providing a commanding view of the city that stretched all the way to downtown. It was sparsely furnished with a high-tech glass table mounted on a steel sculpture at one end of the room; at the other was an ivory-colored leather sofa and matching barrel chairs. A putting green would’ve fit nicely between the two groupings. The young man planted us in the ergonomic ecru leather chairs that faced the desk, said that Mr. Monahan would be right with us, and left.

“Notice how he didn’t even ask us if we wanted anything to drink?” I remarked.

“You thirsty?” Bailey asked.

“No,” I admitted. “But it’s the principle. I think we should threaten to take him downtown for questioning.”

“We just got here. I don’t feel like going back downtown,” Bailey pointed out. “Besides, I don’t think that kid knows anything.”

“I meant Lyle Monahan,” I said with an exasperated sigh. “I think we should make him sweat.”

“You watch too many cop shows,” Bailey said as she took a leisurely look around the office.

“Tell me you don’t sweat people.”

“I don’t sweat people,” she replied, deadpan.

Clearly I’d have to do the sweating myself.

The desk was sparklingly free of anything that resembled work. However, there was a miniature Japanese Zen garden on the desk. The pretension of this tickled me, and I’d just picked up the tiny rake to draw a very un-Zenlike message in the sand when the man himself strode into the office.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said Lyle Monahan.

His tone told me the sentiment wasn’t entirely sincere.

He was a beefy Irishman with thinning reddish hair who was trying very hard to look like a Calvin Klein model in a black silk V-necked sweater, charcoal blazer, and slacks. Looking at him was like seeing Beverly Sills sing hip-hop.

He extended his hand, first to Bailey, then to me. It was a professional handshake: just enough squeeze and pause to make you feel noticed but not so much that you’d get the idea you were actually friends.

“I understand you want to talk to me about Lilah Bayer,” he said evenly as he rounded the desk and sat down in the ivory leather chair that I’d bet was custom-made for his very special derriere. “I’ve got a meeting in”-he glanced at his watch, a Patek Philippe, of course-“ten minutes, but that’ll probably be enough, because there isn’t much I can tell you. The extent of my knowledge of Lilah was that she did excellent work and was particularly good with the complex contract cases. A very bright young woman.”

“But bringing her into this firm was pretty unusual, wasn’t it?” I asked. “You only hire from the Ivy League schools.”

Lyle gave me a cold look.

“Actually, it wasn’t that unusual,” he replied. “We make it a point to integrate young lawyers of diverse backgrounds in this law firm in order to offer a more comprehensive breadth of life experience-providing they have the grades.”

“But your other non-Ivy League hires were all minorities,” I said. “Lilah was the only ‘white hire’ who didn’t come from an Ivy League school, wasn’t she?” Naturally I already knew the answer.

“I wasn’t aware of that, quite frankly.”

Bailey could see I was spoiling for an unproductive fight, so she stepped in. “When did you last have contact with Lilah?”

“I personally had my last contact with her some time before her arrest,” Monahan replied. “I can’t at this time remember exactly when that was. But once she was arrested, we let her go, and I had no further contact with her after that point. I doubt anyone else did either-”

“You didn’t personally fire her, then?” Bailey asked.

Monahan shook his head. “No, it was handled by one of the junior partners.”

“Do you have any idea how to contact Lilah now, or where she might be?” I asked.

“None,” Monahan said with finality.

His tone told me he was glad to give this answer. I had no reason to doubt the truth of it.

“Did you ever meet her husband, Zack?” I asked.

Monahan shifted back in his seat and put his hands on the armrests. “No,” he replied, his tone displeased. “In fact, I never even knew she was married.”

“It wasn’t indicated on her application?” I asked.

“As far as I can recall, she was single when she applied,” Monahan said.

I’d be willing to bet a month’s paycheck that when she was hired, he’d made it his business to find out.

“And she never updated her information to indicate she’d gotten married?” I asked, intrigued.

“She should have,” Monahan admitted. “But if she wasn’t trying to get him health-insurance coverage, it wouldn’t have been a pressing concern.”

“And she never brought him to any office functions?” I asked.

Monahan shook his head. “The firm has only one or two office-wide parties a year. There isn’t much opportunity for young associates to bring in their significant others. And they often choose not to. Office talk is boring.”

The explanations were plausible enough, I supposed. But for some reason I wasn’t convinced. Then something else occurred to me.

“Did you ever mention to the detective that you didn’t know Lilah was married?” I asked.

Monahan cleared his throat, the first sign of discomfort. I enjoyed the sight.

“It never came up as far as I can recall,” he said.

He was starting to sound like Oliver North. Memory failure, done right, can be the most effective way to avoid getting pinned with prior inconsistent statements. All lawyers know this.

“Really?” I asked skeptically. “It never occurred to you to tell the detective in charge of the case that you had no idea the suspect was married to the victim?”

Monahan looked down his beaked nose at me. “No, it didn’t, Counsel,” he said coolly. “I had very little interaction with Lilah, and even if I did, I’d have no reason to ask her about her marital status. So the fact that I didn’t know of her marriage was of no import whatsoever.”

Though I was itching to get into it further with this pompous ass, it was a waste of time. The fact that Lilah may have kept her marriage a secret was interesting and possibly germane. But the fact that Monahan had failed to tell the police about it was, at this point, irrelevant.

“Do you have a human-resources type who keeps track of personnel information?” I asked.

Monahan looked annoyed, but he nodded reluctantly. “We do,” he said. “I’ll have someone take you to Audrey’s office. I’ve got to get to my meeting.”