The only good Lawyer

Deborah? Or Woodrow?”
    I tried to engage each person at the table except for Burbage, who’d gone back to communing with her steno pad. “Ms. Ling was involved in a relationship with a pretty vicious man, an Amerasian named Nguyen Trinh. I’m guessing that’s who was calling her this morning here at the firm.”
    Burbage started to look up at me, then broke it off and just kept writing.
    I said, “Trinh and his henchman, another Amerasian named Oscar Huong, had a strong motive to kill Woodrow Gant, though for a whole host of reasons, I don’t see them actually having done it.” Both Herman and Neely seemed about to say something, but each held back.
    “However, I’m going to describe Trinh and Huong for you, and I’ll ask the police to send over photos of both. If you see either man—or even if you’ve ever seen them—call Lieutenant Robert Murphy at Boston Homicide or ask to speak to someone from his squad.”
    Neely said, “I remember Murphy. And that other detective who was here earlier today left me his card.” Radachowski cleared her throat. “Mr. Cuddy, what you’re saying is that each of us could in fact be in some danger.”
    “Honestly, I don’t know.”
    Herman slammed his palm on the teak surface. “Which is exactly where we were twenty fucking minutes ago.” He stood up and strode for the doorway. “Elliot?” said Neely.
    “I’m calling Karen at home, Frank. Warn her not to answer the phone or the door till I get there.”
    As Elliot Herman reached the reception area, he said, “What a fucking nightmare.”
    The atmosphere in the room felt like he was speaking for everybody.

Chapter 20

    D ownstairs, i waited inside the lobby doors, watching Commercial Street to make sure I couldn’t see the green Mercedes or its usual occupants. Outside, I hailed a taxi and told the driver to take me to the intersection of Beacon Street and Gloucester , a block past my condo building at Fairfield . I didn’t see anything threatening as we drove by. The cabbie probably thought I was crazy, but he followed my instructions to functionally circle the block before dropping me off at the corner of Marlborough and Fairfield . I stood for a while, eyes now on the parking lot behind my building. Still nothing.
    I can’t say, though, that the two minutes it took me to walk around to the stoop outside the front door were the shortest in memory.

    When I got upstairs to the condo, Nancy was on my telephone machine, with a “Call me at home” message. After dialing her number, I got the outgoing tape, but as I started to talk after the beep, she picked up.
    “John?”
    “Screening your calls?”
    “Yes, but you’re the one crank I wanted to hear from.”
    The bantering tone again. “That sounds hopeful.”
    “Thanks for letting me know you were all right.”
    “I wasn’t sure what you’d think was going on.”
    “It sounds pretty... bizarre?”
    I didn’t want to worry her with the Trinh/Huong factor. “What’s beyond ‘bizarre’?”
    Nancy ’s tone changed. “John, for obvious reasons, I can’t ask at the office how the case against Spaeth is going, but I thought maybe you’d have heard.”
    “Nothing definite.”
    “Oh.” A little breath over the phone. “That’s too bad.”
    I took a chance. “What’s beyond ‘too bad’?”
    Her throaty laugh. “I had some white wine chilled.”
    “And a fire stoked?”
    “My apartment doesn’t have a fireplace.”
    “I know.”
    Another laugh. “We’ll just have to wait on that, too.”
    “Nance, this is torture.”
    “Then just think how good you’ll feel when it stops.”
    I heard the click before my next line occurred to me.

    The ten o’clock television news covered Deborah Ling’s killing in the usual, tasteful manner.
    Video captured the removal via gurney of the bagged body from the dumpster area to the M.E.’s van. A solemn voiceover by the reporter at the scene lamented another “murder by mugging” and the “tragic irony” of a second attorney from the same small firm meeting a “violent death” in two weeks. All of Ling’s coworkers were “deep in their own grieving” and therefore “unavailable for comment.”
    I watched a different station at eleven, but the news didn’t get any better. I went to bed right after that, laying my gun on the night table next to the telephone.

    I woke up Saturday morning without the clock radio. When I turned on the all-news station, the weather forecaster said the