The only good Lawyer

Dufresne said Mantle wasn’t the kind of guy to betray a friend.
    Assuming I could get over that hurdle, who besides Spaeth would want to kill Woodrow Gant (and probably Michael Mantle, tipping the location of each body as a bonus)? Everybody at Epstein & Neely seemed to love Gant, or at least value his economic contribution to the firm, though the million-dollar policy on his life would go a long way toward salving that loss. And speaking of policies, Grover Gant needed money enough to talk with me when he thought I might be the paymaster on his insurance, and Jenifer Pollard (however well she acted with friend Thom Arneson) could also use some cash. The heat was probably higher tinder brother Grover, given the scene I witnessed at the coffee shop with Nguyen Trinh and Oscar Huong. And then you still had the connection between Trinh and Chan’s Met Mam restaurant, extending to Deborah Ling both professionally and romantically.
    “Romance” reminded me, however perversely, of Karen Herman’s afternoon with Woodrow Gant. Plenty of motive for husband Elliot, but she claims he didn’t know about it. As a former marine, Elliot Herman had the weaponry know-how to pull off the ambush and killing, but for that matter so did Frank Neely, the ex-Ranger. Which brought me back to everybody at the firm liking Gant.
    And, whoever did it, why let Nicole Spaeth live? After all, as Woodrow Gant’s passenger in the car that night, she could have heard or seen something incriminating. And why drop the murder weapon in her lap? Because the killer hoped Spaeth’s wife would be found in the car and blamed for the shooting?
    None of it made any sense, but at least I realized I was about to pass my building, so I crossed the street.

    “John Cuddy.”
    “Nancy Meagher.”
    My heart did a sit-up in my chest as I leaned forward in the desk chair. “Your voice sounds good, even just over the telephone.”
    “Yours, too.” A pause. “I heard about the scene in Southie with Michael Mantle’s body.”
    “Better to hear about some things than see them.”
    “No argument there.” Another pause. “Does this mean Rothenberg’s going to plead Spaeth out?”
    My turn to pause. “I guess that’s their decision more than mine, Nance.”
    “Sorry, of course it is,” she said, quickly. “I just thought... maybe you’d already spoken with them, and they’d already decided.”
    “So that we could get back together without you feeling... conflicted?”
    In a lower tone, Nancy said, “I miss you.”
    “Same. So much that it hurts.”
    “Then let’s hope we won’t be limited to the phone for much longer.”
    “Amen.”
    “However,” she said, “I think our next call is yours to make.”
    “I’ll try you at home, tomorrow night.”
    “I love you, John Cuddy.”
    “I’ll save mine for a later time.”
    “Strike my last comment,” said Nancy , but in a bantering way, before hanging up.

    * * *

    I sat in the office, breathing deeper and feeling better now that Nancy was genuinely communicating with me again. But talking together and being together were two different things, and the Spaeth case still stood between us.
    I decided to reduce to paper my mental list of the people who had the means of killing Woodrow Gant, with motive if I could see one. The list read:

    Grover Gant: money pressure
    Jenifer Pollard/Thom Arneson: greed
    Vincennes Dufresne/Michael Mantle: motive?
    Nguyen Trinh/Oscar Huong: revenge
    Elliot Herman: jealousy/rage?
    Frank Neely: motive?

    Writing down Neely’s name made me think of the other people in the law firm. I couldn’t see means, but I added Deborah Ling (motive: Trinh?) and Imogene Burbage (motive: unrequited love?) to the list, anyway. There was no reason to add Uta Radachowski— or for that matter, Helen Gant—on any theory.
    I looked back over the list, trying to decide what to do. Rattling cages was how I’d flushed out the identity of the woman in Woodrow Gant’s car that night. It didn’t make me happier, but that’s how it came about. And maybe rattling cages would work again.
    For this round, though, I opened the locked, bottom drawer of my desk and took out my five-shot Smith &c Wesson Chief’s Special.

Chapter 16

    A friend of mine in the state administration building was able to access the personnel databank for our welfare bureaucracy, but even he couldn’t penetrate the busy signal on the telephone number listed for Helen Gant. Getting out of the Prelude half an