The Last Good Day

CHAPTER
4

When she’d been a seminar leader for the Political Science 100 class I taught, Anne Millar had been a plump, quietly pretty girl who wore no-name jeans and baggy sweaters and eschewed makeup as a political statement. Since then, she’d graduated from law school and landed a job with our city’s oldest and most prestigious law firm. Apparently, success had caused her to revisit both her philosophy and her wardrobe. With her shoulder-length blond hair, black miniskirted power suit, and strappy stilettos, she was now the epitome of courtroom chic – a woman to be reckoned with. From the set of her jaw and the tension in her body that afternoon, it was also clear that she had an agenda.

“If there’s something wrong at Falconer Shreve, you should talk to one of the partners,” I said.

Anne’s gaze was withering. “Those are the last people I’d talk to about this,” she said.

An old woman smelling of mothballs and piety joined us and gazed with rheumy, loving eyes at the stained-glass portrait of Our Lady. When Anne spotted the old woman, she clamped my elbow and steered me to the next window: Mary, Comforter of the Afflicted. Anne apparently was not in need of comfort. Without giving Mary even the most cursory of glances, Anne began her story. “Chris Altieri left a message on my machine the night he died. He said he had to talk to me.” She raised an eyebrow. “He said he had to atone.”

My mind jumped to the first and most obvious possibility: Anne had been the woman with whom Chris had been involved, the lover he had forced to seek an abortion. “Maybe you should start at the beginning,” I said.

“There is no beginning,” she said. “I was away for the long weekend and I didn’t get back till after midnight, so I didn’t pick up the message till Tuesday morning. By then, of course, it was too late.”

Anne’s eyes darted around the cathedral. A few people had lingered to pray. Others were staying behind to take in the famous windows of Holy Rosary.

“This isn’t a good place to talk,” she said.

“No,” I agreed, “it isn’t.”

“Then let’s get out of here. I live at the Balfour. It’s five minutes away and air-conditioned.”

Hot and sick at heart, I was an easy sell. “Let’s go,” I said.

I didn’t manage a clean getaway. As I walked down 13th Avenue to my car, I heard Zack Shreve behind me.

“Hey,” he said. “You can’t blow off the reception. I promised to pour.”

“You’ll have to show me your technique another time,” I said. “I’ve decided just to drive straight back to the lake.”

He looked at me hard. “That’s a lie,” he said pleasantly.

I flushed. “Why would I lie?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Why would you?” He shrugged and smiled. “You’re a woman of mystery,” he said, and he wheeled away.

On a day when the world seemed an increasingly uncertain place, the solid bulk of the apartments that had become the Balfour Condominiums was reassuring. Sturdily built and handsome, the Balfour had anchored the corner of Victoria Avenue and Lorne Street for generations. Once the preserve of lifelong bachelors with ascots and ladies with mauve-tinted hair, the Balfour had been discovered by the young and affluent, people willing to pay a good chunk of change for a central location, classic lines, and the chance to do a serious reno.

Anne Millar had apparently decided against knocking down walls and installing stainless-steel appliances. Her apartment had the antique charm of a carefully preserved dowager: floors covered with the boundless richness of Persian carpets; walls hung with lush landscapes by long-dead Victorians; massive ornate furniture that glowed with the patina of age.

Anne was a distracted but efficient hostess. She filled a silver bucket and placed it on a tray with gin, tonic, two heavy monogrammed glasses, and two ecru linen napkins, also monogrammed. We sat at a round breakfast table that looked out on Victoria Park. Anne poured the drinks, handed me mine, and took a large sip from hers.

“This could get to be a habit very easily,” she said.

“Luckily, we don’t bury a good man every day,” I said.

Anne eyed the condensation on her glass. “I’m not sure Chris Altieri was such a good man,” she said.

She walked over to a side table and touched the button on her answering machine. Chris Altieri’s voice, nervous and tentative, filled the room. “I need to atone,” he said. “There are a lot of people I have to talk to, but I thought I’d start with you. Name the time and place and I’ll be there.” His laugh was nervous. “And make it soon, please. I’m losing my courage.”

I felt a pang. The last time I’d seen Chris Altieri, I told him nothing was unforgiveable. Apparently, he’d been listening.

Anne held out her hands, palms up, in a gesture of frustration. “What do you make of that?”

I was still operating from the script in which she and Chris had been lovers. “It must at least give you some kind of comfort,” I said.

She looked genuinely surprised. “Why would it give me comfort?”

“Obviously you two had differences,” I said. “It must be a relief to know that he wanted to reconcile them.”

Anne leaned across the table and locked eyes with mine. “Joanne, I barely knew Christopher Altieri. I went to him because I was apprehensive about what had happened to a friend who’d worked for Falconer Shreve and left abruptly. I’d met Chris a couple of times at parties, and he’d always seemed like a pretty decent guy.”

“But he wasn’t decent to you.”

“No,” Anne said. “When I asked him for reassurance that all was well with my friend, he was evasive. He promised to look into things and get back to me, but he never did. And he never returned my calls. I think the night he died, he’d decided to tell the truth.”

“And you think there’s some connection between Chris’s death and what happened to your friend.”

Anne picked up her napkin and folded it carefully into the smallest possible square. “I don’t even know if anything did happen to her. She may have simply decided to move on and not look back. That’s what everyone keeps telling me.”

“But you don’t believe them.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “She didn’t strike me as the kind of person who would leave without saying goodbye, but people surprise us all the time, don’t they?”

I looked out the window. Across the street in the park, lovers were strolling hand in hand and children were fighting over swings. Their sunny world was seductive. If I were to agree with Anne Millar that people were unpredictable, finish my drink, and thank her for her hospitality, I could be part of that sunny world in five minutes.

The temptation was real, but so was the evidence that the universe was not unfolding as it should. A man I was certain cared for me had been unfaithful with the wife of a Falconer Shreve partner, a Falconer Shreve partner who seemed to be finding his way back from despair had committed suicide, and now a young lawyer at Falconer Shreve had left under unsettling circumstances. I turned to Anne Millar. “Tell me about your friend,” I said.

The day’s events had clearly rattled Anne, but she didn’t allow emotion to distort her narrative. She told her story well, without digression or unnecessary detail.

“Her name was Clare Mackey,” Anne began. Neither of us responded to the fact that she referred to Clare in the past tense. “We ran together,” Anne continued. “It started out casually enough – we both had the same route in the mornings, down Lorne, into the park, and around the lake.”

“That’s my route, too,” I said. “At least the lake part.”

“Six-thirty in the summer, seven in the winter,” Anne said. “Are you earlier or later?”

“Earlier,” I said.

Anne sighed. “And we thought we were virtuous.”

“I have a virtuous dog,” I said.

The comment earned me a smile. “Anyway,” Anne said, “Clare and I started running together. You know how informal those things are. We’d just meet up, do a few stretches, and start. We discovered early on that we were both lawyers. Every so often one of us would have a breakfast meeting, and we agreed to let the other know by e-mail so nobody had to hang around.” Anne’s face clouded. “Last November 11, Clare didn’t show up. It was a holiday; I thought maybe she’d decided to sleep in. I waited for a few minutes, but it looked like rain, so I got in my run, came back here, and checked my e-mail. There was no message.

“That night we had an ice storm, so the next morning I ran at the Y. Same thing the next day, but before I left home I e-mailed Clare asking if she wanted to join me. She didn’t show up, and she didn’t respond to my note. The third day the streets were clear, so I waited for her at the corner of Lorne and Victoria. Another no-show. When I got home, I e-mailed her and asked if she was okay.” Anne took a small sip of her drink. “She answered right away. Clare’s e-mail name was ‘roadrunner.’ I was so relieved to see it pop up on my screen. Her note said that she was in Vancouver. She’d flown out for an interview with an all-female law firm there – her dream. She said she’d let me know if she got the job. A couple of days later she e-mailed to say everything had worked out. The new firm had liked her, she’d liked them, and she was going to start immediately. I sent congratulations and asked her to stay in touch.”

“But Clare didn’t stay in touch,” I said.

“No.” Anne’s eyes were troubled. “To be honest, there was no particular reason why she should have. I hope I haven’t misrepresented our relationship, Joanne. We were just friendly acquaintances. Clare and I ran together, but we didn’t chat a lot. We were both pretty internal people. I think we both saw running as a good way to get centred for the day.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked. “The way you’ve explained the situation, everything sounds perfectly normal.”

Anne clenched her fists in frustration. “I know it does. It just doesn’t ring true – at least not to me. Clare wasn’t impulsive. She was methodical. She saw things through. No matter how good the job at the law firm in Vancouver was, she wouldn’t have walked away from Falconer Shreve without clearing off her files.”

“You think something happened at Falconer Shreve to make her want to leave?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that nothing adds up. A few weeks before she moved away, Clare asked me about vacancies here at the Balfour – she was interested in buying a condo, ‘putting down roots,’ to use her term. If anything went wrong at Falconer Shreve, it must have been very sudden and very serious.”

I felt a chill. “And you went to Chris Altieri to ask if he knew why Clare had left so abruptly.”

“Yes. And he was ready with an answer. He corroborated all the information in the e-mail. He said Falconer Shreve had been sorry to lose Clare, but she’d been offered her dream job, so they let her go. He also said the partners found it easier to make the decision because they knew they wouldn’t have any trouble replacing Clare.”

“At least that part is true,” I said. “Falconer Shreve is a hot ticket. Any young lawyer with an ounce of ambition would give her eye teeth to work there.”

“Chris pointed that out, too, and I bought his explanation. We were quite matey. Then just as I was leaving I asked Chris if he could give me the name of the firm Clare was working for. He became flustered. He said he couldn’t remember the name, but if I left him my card, he’d send me the information. He was so anxious to get me out of the office he almost pushed me out the door.”

“And he never got in touch.”

“No, so I started looking elsewhere for information.”

“You were that concerned.”

“Concerned and, to be honest, pissed off. I don’t like being stonewalled. At any rate, I started asking around. The legal community here is a pretty small one, so it wasn’t hard to find people who’d had some contact with Clare. As it turned out, she’d moved to Regina only last spring.”

“And she left Falconer Shreve in November.”

Anne’s nod was emphatic. “The timing is all wrong, isn’t it? How could she move here in April, be happy enough to consider settling permanently in September, and then just leave?”

“I don’t know,” I said, but I felt my nerve ends tingle.

“It didn’t make sense to me either,” Anne said. “And then, towards the end of November, I got an electronic card from Clare, thanking me for being such a good friend.”

“And that didn’t reassure you?”

“It made me even more anxious. None of the women I know would dream of sending an e-card thanking another woman for her friendship, but I went along with the charade. I replied, thanking Clare for the card, but I also asked a question only Clare could answer.”

“You suspected someone other than Clare was using her e-mail address,” I said.

Anne’s eyes met mine. “I knew it,” she said simply. “But I decided before I went to the police to test my theory one more time. Coming up with a question that required intimate knowledge was difficult. Clare and I hadn’t exchanged confidences. Then I remembered that she’d teased me about the laces on my running shoes. They’re Strawberry Shortcake laces.” Anne coloured. “There were these dolls in the early eighties…”

“I remember them,” I said. “My daughter Mieka was a fan.”

Anne’s smile was wan. “Anyway, I e-mailed Clare a note asking her to describe my shoelaces. The e-mail program I use lets me know when my messages have been read, so I know someone opened the e-mail, but there was no response. That’s when I went to the police.”

“And the police didn’t investigate?”

“They said they did.” Anne bit off the words.

“But you didn’t believe them.”

“I believe they went through the motions. The kindest construction is that the detective they sent to investigate was simply out-manoeuvred by the partners at Falconer Shreve. According to the detective I spoke to, events unfolded exactly as Clare’s first note to me said they had. She received the Vancouver offer out of the blue – it was everything she’d ever wanted, so she went for it. Falconer Shreve accepted her resignation reluctantly, but they didn’t want to stand in the way of a woman’s chance at her ‘dream job.’ ” Anne peered at me closely. “The detective used that phrase, too, Joanne. They were all reading from the same script.”

“And you let the matter drop?”

“I was advised to…”

“By whom?”

“By the detective. He said I should drop the case, that people are complex and that sometimes their behaviour is inexplicable.”

“Sounds condescending,” I said.

“The words do,” Anne said. “But if you could have seen his face…” She shook her head, as if to clear the memory. “He seemed to be wrestling with something. At the time I thought his superiors had told him to put a lid on the case, so I tried to psych him out. I told him if the police weren’t going to find Clare Mackey, I would.”

“Did he try to stop you?”

“No. His response was quite bizarre. For the longest time he just stared at me. Finally, he said, ‘Sometimes when the pressures get to be too much, people walk away.’ You know, Joanne, I don’t think he was talking about Clare at all. I think he was talking about himself.”

“It sounds as if he should be reported. Do you remember his name?”

“It was a hard one to forget. He was aboriginal. His name was Alex Kequahtooway.”

I tried to keep my voice steady. “I don’t suppose you remember exactly when you talked to him.”

“Oh, but I do,” Anne said. “It was my birthday. November 30.”

I looked down at my hands. They were trembling as if they belonged to a very old lady or a very sick one. November 30 was the date on which Alex had ended our three-year relationship.

I’d planned to drive straight back to the lake, but my conversation with Anne Millar had been a stunner, so I drove home instead. The story of Clare Mackey had been deeply unsettling; it had also opened a Pandora’s box that I’d hoped I’d finally managed to nail shut. I needed time to absorb Anne’s story, but I also needed time to regroup.

My breakup with Alex had been, as these things often are, both a shock and a relief. We had never lived together, but we had created a life together that I thought had fulfilled us both. Unmarried, Alex had a nephew, Eli, who was the same age as Angus, and after a few false starts our families had blended seamlessly. Our pleasures were domestic: crosscountry skiing, watching videos, going to Roughrider games or the symphony, being together. At our best, we stretched one another’s spirits, and even at our worst, we had been passionate.

Our relationship was not ideal. The fact that I was ten years older than he had never been an issue; the fact that I was white and Alex was aboriginal had been a wound that never healed. Alex was one of the gentlest human beings I’d ever known; he was also one of the angriest, and the rage never left him. For long periods we would be happy, but just when I believed the anger had been quenched, it would flare up in a blaze that consumed us both. Alex would wall himself off and become, in one of the buzzwords of our day, emotionally unavailable.

In the months before our breakup, the walls never seemed to come down. Nothing I did or said could dent his armour of anger. When he told me we were through, I was relieved but I was also bewildered. I genuinely didn’t understand what had gone wrong. Anne’s portrait of Alex’s state of mind on the day we broke up offered a flash of insight, but it also raised questions far too vexing for a hot summer afternoon. What was the source of the pressures Alex had been experiencing? He was a man who believed in the value of police work, yet he had blown off Anne Millar, dismissed her very real concerns as if they were less than nothing. He had also dismissed me. Tempting as it was to blame Lily Falconer for everything that had gone wrong, I couldn’t convince myself that Alex’s attraction for her could change the man he was.

It was a relief to peel off my funeral clothes and put on a sundress and sandals. In a perfect world, changing clothes would have transformed my mood, but even the summery lightness of a cotton dress and bare legs didn’t raise my spirits. I wasn’t surprised. This was not shaping up to be a summer of easy solutions.

Angus had asked me to bring back some of his CDS. When I went into the family room to get them, I noticed my laptop, still in its carrying case, propped against the bookshelf. I’d promised myself I wouldn’t take a computer to the lake, that this summer I would recreate the innocence of the pre-information-technology world at the pristine beach and sparkling water known as Lawyers’ Bay. But now isolation was no longer an option – I needed to be connected to the world that lay beyond our privileged half-moon of lakefront cottages. I picked up the laptop, slung the strap over my shoulder, and headed for Paradise Lost.

My radio was tuned to a community-station show that featured up-and-coming young artists. As I turned off the highway onto the road that wound through the Qu’Appelle Valley to the lake, the twenty-something deejay announced that the next selection was by a group called the nancy ray-guns. The name of the song was “Windigo,” and the deejay said it was the tale of a giant stone shape-changer who fed on human flesh. Perfect drive-home music.

When I stopped at the Point Store to pick up Taylor, everything was reassuringly ordinary. The old men of Coffee Row were sitting under the cottonwood trees spinning tales, and the store was bustling. It was six o’clock on a hot Saturday evening in July, and wieners, potato chips, hot-dog buns, and mosquito coils were at a premium. Leah was in the front of the store at the till, and Taylor was beside her, bagging groceries.

My younger daughter trumpeted her joy the moment she spotted me. “This has been the best day,” she said. “I got to do everything, and Mr. Gardiner showed Angus how to work the meat grinder and he let me hand him the raw meat.”

Leah raked a hand through her blond bob. “The fun never ends,” she said.

“Had enough?” I asked.

“Actually it is kind of neat,” Leah said. “And as my Aunt Slava would say, ‘That Taylor – she must have been sent by God.’ ”

“Nice to know God has his eye on the Point Store,” I said. “So, T, are you ready to come back to the cottage and have dinner?”

Taylor gave Leah a sidelong glance. “Is it okay if I go?”

“Absolutely,” Leah said. “The store closes at six-thirty sharp.”

“Six-thirty on a Saturday night?” I said. “That surprises me. I would have thought there’d be a lot of last-minute business.”

“Not for us,” Leah said. “Stan Gardiner says if people don’t have what they need by six-thirty, they can’t have needed it very much.”

“Very sensible perspective,” I said.

“Sensible and enlightened,” my son yelled from behind the meat counter. “Leah and I have a barbecue to go to.”

I walked back and checked out the meat cooler. “Anything you can recommend for Taylor and me?”

“There’s one last piece of beef tenderloin,” Angus said thoughtfully. “High-end stuff, but just before you came, Stan told me to sell it for what I could get. He doesn’t believe in keeping meat too long, and he says you ruin meat when you freeze it.”

Taylor and I dined elegantly that night. Beef tenderloin, tiny carrots, fresh peas, and fried bannock, a treat from Rose. After dinner, we took Willie for a walk along the beach. The sun smouldered against the horizon. We were, in that most poetic of phrases, in the gloaming. For years, I’d loved this time of day when the half-light signalled that the passions and frets of a day with kids had burned themselves out and that it was time to indulge in private thoughts. But that night the prospect of being alone with my private thoughts had little appeal.

Chris Altieri’s cottage was in darkness and we hurried past it, but piano music drifted through the open windows at Zack Shreve’s. Tonight, he was playing one of my favourites, Johnny Mercer’s “I Remember You.” The setting sun made a path of light across the silent lake. It was a night for memories, and as we walked along the horseshoe I found myself wondering whether the people inside the cottages were cherishing their memories or wrestling with them.

Taylor had been uncharacteristically quiet on our walk, and she’d been watching me carefully. “You’re not having a good time at the cottage, are you?” she asked.

“It’s been a rough week, Taylor.”

“Isobel says her mum never stops crying.”

“Mrs. Wainberg and Mr. Altieri were good friends,” I said.

“But he was friends with Mrs. Falconer, too, and Gracie says her mother hasn’t cried at all.”

“People react differently,” I said.

Taylor stopped to shake a pebble out of her sandal. “Gracie says her mum and dad fight every night.”

“That’s not good,” I said.

“I wouldn’t want people fighting at our house every night,” Taylor said.

“Neither would I.” I read the worry on her face. “You know what I’m in the mood for?” I asked.

“What?”

“Crazy eights,” I said. “Are you feeling lucky?”

Taylor grinned. “I wasn’t, but I am now.”

Our card game was raucous and diverting. When I tucked Taylor in, she’d lost her careworn look and was planning the next morning’s agenda. I was less keen about seizing the day. Even the prospect of enduring the next few hours was daunting. As far as I could see, my options had narrowed to a classic example of Hobson’s choice: go to bed, stare at the ceiling, and brood about the events of the afternoon, or stay awake, stare at the wall, and brood. The knock at the door was a relief.

Delia Wainberg’s hair was wet and curly, as if she’d just come from a swim or a shower, and she was wearing navy shorts and a white T-shirt. She looked like the kid sister of the haggard, urbane lawyer who strode up the aisle at the funeral Mass.

“Too late for a visit?” she asked.

“Not from you,” I said.

Delia followed me inside, then gestured towards the back porch. “Mind if we play through?”

The silver-dollar ashtray was in the dish drainer beside the sink. I picked it up and handed it to Delia.

“Thanks,” she said. She walked onto the porch, collapsed into the nearest chair, and lit up. “I’m supposed to find out why you blew off the reception today.”

“I ran into an ex-student of mine.”

“I said it was probably something like that.” Delia shrugged. “Anyway, you didn’t miss anything – my face is stiff from being stoic. What kind of sadist invented the post-funeral party anyway?”

“The theory is that the reception gives the bereaved a chance to connect with the living again.”

“Even if that’s the last thing the bereaved want to do?”

“Especially if that’s the last thing the bereaved want to do,” I said.

“I guess I see some logic there,” she said. “Enough chitchat. I’ve been sent to extend an invitation you can’t refuse.”

“Go for it.”

“We’re taking what remains of Chris out on the lake tomorrow morning.” She drew deeply on her cigarette. “His last boat ride, and the consensus is that you should come along.”

“I take it you didn’t lead the march to the consensus.”

“No, I think it’s a stupid idea.”

“I agree. You did your duty. Just report back that I said no.”

“It’s not that simple.” Delia extended a leg and wiggled her foot. She was wearing flip-flops with daisies. Frivolous footwear for a woman on a serious mission. “Anyway, you probably should say yes. Kevin wants you to come.”

“You got in touch with Kevin?”

“Lily did.” Delia arched an eyebrow. “According to her, Kevin would like you to go in his stead.”

“That doesn’t make sense either,” I said. “Kevin and I are friends, but we’re not…”

“You’re not lovers,” she crowed. “I knew it. The others all thought you were – that Kevin had sent you up here this summer to try you out – see how well you fit in with us.”

“That’s bizarre,” I said. “Delia, Kevin walked away from Falconer Shreve because he wanted something else. He’s hardly going to wander all over Tibet so that his ex-partners can check out his new girlfriend.”

“Thanks for the reminder.” Delia’s eyes glittered. “You’re right, of course. Kevin stopped caring about what we thought a long time ago. As far as he’s concerned the Winners’ Circle is dead and Falconer Shreve is just another shitty law firm.”

Delia’s face was grey. It seemed unconscionable to add to her burden. “I’ll be there tomorrow morning,” I said.

Delia slumped with relief. “I owe you,” she said, crushing out her cigarette.

“It’s the least I can do,” I said. “You’ve all been kind to us, and Kevin may not be a lover but he is a friend.”

“Sometimes that’s better,” Delia said. “Less wear and tear on the heart.” She stood, removed a fresh cigarette from her pack, and gave me a small smile. “So I’ll see you at the dock at five? Early, I know, but we wanted to get out on the water before the invasion of the Jet Skis.”

“Five is fine,” I said. “Delia, can I ask you something?”

She tensed. Her fingers still rested on the handle of the screen door, but her voice went unexpectedly hard. “If it’s about the rumour that Chris’s death wasn’t an accident, forget about it. I refuse to give headspace to that theory.”

“No, it’s something else,” I said. “Can you tell me about Clare Mackey?”

I was watching Delia carefully for a reaction. What I got wasn’t subtle. She shuddered as if she’d touched something loathsome. “If you know someone who’s thinking of hiring her, tell them to forget it.”

“She didn’t work out at Falconer Shreve?”

“Au contraire. She worked out fine – quite the rising star – then she just took off, leaving her files in an absolute mess.”

“Disorganized?”

“Oh, they were beautifully organized. They were also incomplete. A lot of lawyers, me included, carry information about cases around in their head. Sometimes it’s just safer that way. But if circumstances change, and you know you’re not going to be handling a particular file, you have a duty to your clients and to your colleagues to make sure somebody knows what you know. Little Clare must have been absent the day they covered that particular obligation in ethics class. When she got that job offer in Victoria, she just took off.”

“I thought she went to Vancouver.”

“Somewhere on the left coast, I don’t know. All I know is she skipped off and took a lot of essential information with her.” Her face clouded at the memory. “It still makes me furious. Clare wasn’t a novice. She knew someone would have to pick up the slack, go over ground she’d already covered. She also knew that, unless you had specialized knowledge, it would be tough sledding. Clare does corporate work. She also has a commerce degree with a specialty in forensic accounting -”

“Accounting analysis,” I said.

“With enough precision to make the results stick in a courtroom. Forensic accountants offer a lot of litigation support, quantifying economic damages – the economic loss involved in a breach of contract or the loss of future earnings. I guess when Clare was playing second fiddle to the litigators she got the hots for the law – I used to nod off in corporate law, but some lawyers love it, and of course, with corporate clients, the money’s good. Anyway, to give Clare her due, she was a whiz.”

“But she left her clients and her colleagues in a mess,” I said.

“Oh boy, did she ever. There was one particular case – I still get the shivers when I think about it. It was so complicated and we were working against the clock. None of us had pulled that many all-nighters since law school.”

“Why didn’t you just get in touch with her? Surely she had an obligation to her clients to tell you what she knew.”

“Lily tried. Clare clammed up, said there were numbers she simply didn’t remember and didn’t feel comfortable estimating. Which was bullshit. We didn’t need her to give us the numbers; we needed her to give us the information she’d used to arrive at the numbers.”

“And she refused?”

“Apparently. And if she ever shows that sweet little heart-shaped face around here again, I will personally punch out her lights.” Delia struck a match and touched the end of her cigarette. “Do you know I’d quit this for ten whole days before Clare left? But as soon as I saw that mountain of work she’d left behind I bummed a smoke from one of our clerks, and I was back to square one.”

“I understand Clare left on Remembrance Day,” I said.

Delia exhaled slowly. “You’d have to ask Lily, but considering all the memories little Clare left behind, Remembrance Day would have a certain resonance, wouldn’t it?”