Mistress of Justice

would probably succeed much better in the new business climate than if they remained separate. The picture featured Burdick and his wife.
    An idea occurred to her.
    She wrote on the top, “Thom, FYI.” And signed her name.
    Using this as an excuse, she hurried to his office, propped the article on his chair and, with a glance into the deserted corridor, proceeded to search the room like an eager rookie cop on crime scene detail.
    In his desk she found: condoms, Bamboo paper, an unopened bottle of Chivas Regal, matches from the HarvardClub, the Palace Hotel and assorted late-night clubs around town, dozens of take-out menus from downtown restaurants, chatty letters from his brother and father and mother (all neatly organized, some with margin notes), brokerage house statements, checkbooks (Jesus, where’d he get all this
money?
), some popular spy and military paperbacks, a coffee-stained copy of the
Lawyer’s Code of Professional Responsibility
, assorted photographs from vacations, newspaper articles on bond issues and stock offerings, the
Pennystock News
, candy bars, crumbs and paper clips.
    Nothing about the note, no information linking him, Bosk or Callaghan to Hanover & Stiver.
    On Sebastian’s bookshelves were hundreds of huge books, bound in navy and burgundy and deep green. They’d contain copies of all the closing documents in a business transaction that Sebastian had worked on. They would be great places to hide stolen promissory notes and other incriminating evidence. But it would take several days to look through all of them. She saw Sebastian’s name embossed in gold at the bottom of each one.
    It was then that she noticed the corner of a piece of paper protruding from beneath Sebastian’s desk blotter. Another glance into the corridor—still no signs of life—and she pulled the paper out.
    The jottings were brief and to the point.
    Taylor Lockwood. 24 Fifth Avenue
.
    Her age, schools attended. Home address in Chevy Chase. Phone numbers at the firm and at home. The unlisted one too.
    Father: Samuel Lockwood. Mother: housewife. No siblings. Applied to law school. Employed by HWW for two years. Merit raises and bonuses at top levels
.
    “Musician. Every Tuesday. Miracles Pub.”
    The son of a bitch, she whispered. Then replaced the sheet exactly where she’d found it.
    She left his office and returned to the chilly corridor, hearing echoes of footsteps, hearing the click of guns being cocked and the hiss of knives being unsheathed.
    And hearing over and over Thom Sebastian’s words:
Well, don’t get too interested in her
.
     

     
    In the firm’s library she logged on to several of the computer databases that the firm subscribed to, including the Lexis/Nexis system, which contains copies of nearly all court decisions, statutes and regulations in the United States, as well as articles from hundreds of magazines and newspapers around the world.
    She spent hours trying to find information about Dennis Callaghan, Bosk and Sebastian.
    There wasn’t much that was helpful. Bradford Smith had been admitted to the New York and federal bars and currently practiced at a Midtown firm, which didn’t, however, seem to have any connection to Hanover & Stiver or New Amsterdam Bank.
    Dennis Callaghan wasn’t a lawyer but a businessman. He dabbled in dozens of different activities and had been under investigation for stock fraud and real estate scams though he’d never been indicted. He was currently connected with about twenty different companies, some of which were incorporated offshore and which, she guessed, were fronts.
    But still no connection between any of them and Hanover & Stiver.
    The information about Sebastian—found in alumni magazine archives and legal magazines he’d contributed articles to—wasn’t incriminating either, though she found, interestingly, that the Upper East Side preppy image was fake. Sebastian had grown up outside of Chicago, his father the manager of a Kroger grocery store (hence, she realized, another reason for the funny look when he’d heard her tell the youngsters at Ada’s that Dad managed a convenience store). Sebastian did have an undergrad degree from Harvard but it had taken him six years because he’d gone part-time—presumably while working to support himself.
    The Yale Law School certificates she’d noticed on hiswall must have been for continuing education courses; he’d gotten his law degree from Brooklyn Law at night while working as a