The only good Lawyer

welcome to Harborview Realty. Can I help you?”
    “I’d like to speak to Ms. Baker, please.” I enunciated the syllables carefully, just so O’Shea wouldn’t think the punch-drunk in front of her had said “Barber.”
    “And your name, please?”
    “John Cuddy.”
    “One moment.” O’Shea lifted her receiver and hit two digits. I could see a fortyish woman who hadn’t been on the phone pick up her extension.
    The receptionist said, “Kim, a Mr. Cuddy is here to see you.”
    The woman at the rear desk smiled and beckoned to me while mouthing something into her line. O’Shea nodded, and they hung up in unison.
    I said, “Do you drill together often?”
    “Pardon me?” replied O’Shea.
    “Never mind. I can find my way.”
    I moved down the aisle between the desks, Kim Baker rising from behind hers. She stood about five-one and wore a stylish, green wool dress with a scarf artfully draped over a shoulder and part of her chest.
    When I got within greeting distance, she extended a hand, professionally oblivious to the damage my face showed. “Mr. Cuddy, Kim Baker. A pleasure.”
    “Same. But I do have kind of a threshold question.” A wariness crossed her features, as much from my voice, I think, as my words. She said, “A threshold question?”
    “Yes. Is there a reason you go by ‘Barber’ as well?” Wary graduated to stiff. “Who are you?”
    “The man who called a while ago.”
    “Show me some identification, or I’m calling the
    police.”
    “If you’d like, I can give you the separate line for Homicide.”
    “Oh, God. On television, you people always come in pairs.”
    I didn’t want to disabuse Baker of the notion I was a cop. “I’m afraid this is real life.”
    She looked around quickly, then said, “Let me get my coat.”

    “I like to eat lunch out here.” Kim Baker’s tone didn’t suggest much of an appetite right then. “This bower effect and the water, it’s really... soothing.”
    We were sitting on a bench in Christopher Columbus Park , about a three-block walk from her realty office if that area of town were measurable in blocks. The park is only a few acres of lawn and paths, but the sun shining through the latticework of the bower overhead created a pastoral pattern of shadows on the ground around us.
    “Ms. Baker, could we go back to my threshold question?”
    Both hands grappled nervously on her lap, feet flat on the ground, knees close together. Then Baker shivered a little, and I didn’t think it was from the air temperature.
    “I used the name ‘Barber’ for confidentiality. It’s easy to remember because it’s so close to the real one.”
    “Confidentiality because of your divorce case?”
    A blinking look. “My what?”
    “Woodrow Gant was a divorce attorney at Epstein & Neely. Somebody there said you were a client of his.”
    Baker squeezed her eyes shut briefly. “That makes sense, actually.”
    She’d lost me. “Maybe I should stop asking questions and have you just answer them.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Okay, let’s start with an easy one. What was your relationship with Mr. Gant?”
    “Professional and client.”
    “And how was he representing you?”
    “No,” with a shake of the head. “No, you’ve got it backwards.”
    “Backwards?”
    “Yes. Woodrow came to me—or called me, actually.”
    “Called you as a real estate broker?”
    “Right.”
    I was getting deeper and deeper into the woods, so I just said, “Go on.”
    “Well, he wanted me to start scouting properties, but naturally Woodrow didn’t want anyone to know, so I suggested we use the name ‘Barber’ with my direct-dial number at Harborview because I’d never used it before.”
    “Never used what before?”
    “The name ‘Barber.’ As a cover. You know, like in the spy stories?”
    Spy stories. “But why would you need any ‘cover’ at all?”
    Baker looked at me, a little more relaxed now that she believed I was a dunce. “So nobody at the firm would recognize me.”
    “Because?”
    “Because I was the one who’d helped the senior partners when they did the same thing.”
    “What same thing?”
    “Left their old firm, of course.”
    That stopped me. “Woodrow Gant was leaving Epstein & Neely?”
    Baker’s turn to stop. Then, “You didn’t know?” The penny finally dropped. “He hired you to find him new space for his own office.”
    “Their own office, actually.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Deborah Ling was leaving with him. They