The only good Lawyer

and Elliot Herman with faces perhaps five years younger.
    “Very nice house,” I said as Herman pointed me toward one of the chairs. “Must be tough to maintain, though, with both you and your husband working.”
    “I don’t work.” She took the other chair, the length of the couch between us.
    I smiled at her until Herman said, “I’m waiting.”
    “I need some help with a problem I’m having.”
    She flicked at the mole again. “What problem?”
    “Woodrow Gant once prosecuted a couple of Amerasian gangsters who committed a home invasion.” A look of confusion. “I don’t know anything about that.”
    “It happened here in Weston Hills, about eight or nine years ago.”
    Relief flooded Herman’s features. “We only moved here three years ago, when Elliot began working at the firm.” A different tone. “Now that I’ve answered your—”
    “There’s another problem, I’m afraid.”
    The relief washed back out like a sudden tide. “What?”
    “The night Mr. Gant was killed, he had dinner with a woman in a Vietnamese restaurant.”
    Just a slight nod.
    I said, “I’m hoping you can tell me who she was.”
    “How... how would I know that?”
    I stopped smiling. “Mrs. Herman, Mr. Gant was very active socially. He rarely bragged about it, but ‘rarely’ doesn’t mean ‘never.’ ”
    “You bastard.”
    She said the words flatly, no anger or other emotion driving them.
    “Mrs. Herman—”
    “You absolute, son-of-a-bitch bastard.”
    Still no emotion. I waited her out.
    She hung her head. “Once.”
    “I’m sorry?”
    Karen Herman lifted her chin. “I had sex with Woodrow Gant once, and it was nothing for him to ‘brag’ about.”
    Slowly, I said, “If we talk it over now, there’s a chance nothing has to come out at Mr. Spaeth’s trial.”
    “But only a chance.”
    “Yes.”
    Herman seemed to settle into herself, taking a few breaths before saying, “Elliot and I wanted to have a baby. We tried very hard, but nothing seemed to... happen. I was about to consult a fertility expert, to see if that was the problem, when Elliot stood me up one day for lunch downtown because some client meeting was running over.”
    “About when was this?”
    “When? Last April.”
    Six months before Gant’s death. “You’re sure?”
    A lifeless expression on her face. “I have reason to be. That same day—the lunch date—I saw Woodrow in the lobby of the firm’s building as I was stepping off the elevator. He asked what brought me into the city, and I told him about Elliot not being able to keep our date. Woodrow said he’d just settled a custody case during trial, so he was unexpectedly free. Before I could reply, Woodrow suggested we have lunch instead. I didn’t know him that well, but he was kind of Elliot’s boss, so I didn’t want to offend him, either. And besides, he—you never met Woodrow, right?”
    “Right.”
    “Well, he was...” Herman’s right index finger went to the mole under her eye again. “Engaging. A very engaging man. And I was a little ticked off at Elliot—no, a lot ticked off. I’d gotten all dressed up, and gone all the way into Boston , and we were so frustrated over...”
    Herman ran down, then looked down, wringing her hands. “I had some wine while Woodrow got us a table, and more at lunch, and then some more still, until I was in no condition to drive home. So Woodrow said, ‘Let’s walk a little, huh?’ And it seemed like a good idea. Only somehow we ended up... in a hotel room.”
    Herman now looked away. I felt badly.
    “Anyway,” she said, “it turned out that... that I wasn’t the infertile one.”
    I felt worse, a lot worse.
    Herman came back to me. “I hadn’t taken any precautions, of course. Not for months. And Woodrow should have used a condom—no. No, I shouldn’t have been there in the first place. But I’d had too much to drink and too much to deal with, and it just happened. Not rape or anything. I was just so... stupid.” Quietly, I said, “You became pregnant.”
    She looked away again. “Briefly.”
    “Did your husband know?”
    Her head snapped back. “About the abortion? Of course not. I borrowed the money for the clinic from a girlfriend, and—”
    “Mrs. Herman, did your husband know about you and Mr. Gant at all?”
    “No. No, I wasn’t that—wait a minute. You said Woodrow bragged about me.”
    “I did, but—”
    “Who?”
    “Mrs.—”
    “Goddamnit! I need to know who told you, if Elliot