The only good Lawyer

woman would want to do that with Mr. Gant?”
    The glitter again. “In public, do you mean?”
    “Yes,” I said.
    Pollard returned her hand to Arneson’s shoulder, but now not like she was holding him back. More as though her mood had changed suddenly. “Thom?”
    “I’m not going to tell him,” said Arneson. “Hell, I shouldn’t have told you.”
    Pollard looked at me, that ray of sincerity finally shining through. “I think you’d want to know this, but I need a promise back from you first.”
    “What’s the promise?”
    “That you won’t tell anyone about Thom and me.”
    Arneson turned to her. “Jen, you actually think you can trust this guy?”
    “From the way he behaved the last time he was here, yes.” Pollard came back to me, still sincere. “I think Mr. Cuddy is a man who keeps his promises.”
    I said, “Odds are it would be more than a little embarrassing for a career prosecutor to be having an affair—”
    “Relationship,” said both of them, almost in unison. “—a ‘relationship’ with the ex-wife of a former colleague.”
    Arneson seemed to choose his words carefully. “It wouldn’t help anything.”
    Pollard gave him a moment to continue. When he didn’t, she said, “Mr. Cuddy?”
    “I’ll do my best to keep things confidential, but only if your relationship doesn’t impact Mr. Gant’s death any more than the way I see it now.”
    Arneson grunted. “Hell of a promise.”
    “The best I can do.”
    The two of them exchanged glances again.
    Pollard sighed and turned back to me. “During one of Woodrow’s cases at the District Attorney’s office, he became attracted to the victim. But we were still married, and so was she.”
    I was beginning to picture it.
    Pollard said, “Woodrow had the poor judgment to go out with her to a bar; and Thom happened to see them together.”
    I looked at Arneson. “And recognized the woman.”
    “Yes,” he said, biting off the word.
    I finished the memory for him. “Even though she was wearing a wig.”
    He nodded, not liking it.
    But if I had to guess, I’d say Thom Arneson liked it at least five times as much as I did.

    The street in West Roxbury was dark, nobody playing “Howla.” The Mazda stood in the driveway of number 396, though.
    Moving up the path, I realized how much slower than usual I was walking. Tired, yes, but more than that.
    I knocked, and ten seconds later; young Terry Spaeth opened the door, sans both baseball cap and eyebrow ring. He stared at me. “What do you want?”
    “I’d like to speak to your mother.”
    “Yeah, right. After the extreme trouble you already got me into?”
    From another room, Nicole Spaeth’s voice called out, “Terry, who is it?”
    He didn’t answer her. To me, he said, “Look, just go hassle somebody else, okay?”
    Terry started to push the door closed. I would have lodged my foot against it, but his mother’s voice stopped him. “Couldn’t you hear...”
    Her face fell when she saw me, those haunting hazel eyes windows on her emotions.
    I said, “Mrs. Spaeth, we need to talk.”
    Terry turned to her. “Mom, this dude’s got no—”
    “Go to your room, Terry.”
    “But, Mom—”
    “Now. Or we extend the grounding another week.” Terry muttered something that sounded like, “Thanks a lot, asshole,” but he moved off and out of view.
    When her son was gone, Nicole Spaeth said, “I suppose you’ll be wanting to sit down.”
    “I think we’d both better.”
    She considered that, my tone maybe more than my words, then led me into the living room, lowering herself onto the aging sofa while I took my third chair in the last three hours.
    Spaeth waited until I was settled before saying in a tired way, “All right, what is it now?”
    “You grounded Terry because he talked with me outside last night.”
    “How I discipline my son is no—”
    “Because he told me about the Board of Bar Overseers complaint?”
    She didn’t say anything.
    I said, “And because it’s true.”
    An attempt at a laugh. “Alan was dreaming, Mr. Cuddy. His jealousy was... warping him.”
    “It goes further than that, though.”
    “I don’t know—”
    “I do know, Mrs. Spaeth. But I wish I didn’t.”
    She managed a “Know what?”
    “Who the woman was with Woodrow Gant that night at the restaurant.”
    “Then you know more than—”
    “Since I saw you yesterday, I’ve spoken to a lot of people about Mr. Gant. One called him a ‘ladies’ man,’ another said he