The only good Lawyer

off the elevator. She wore a conservative blue suit and a determined gray frown.
    “Mr. Cuddy, we are a law firm—one which had a temp call in sick this morning—and I think we’ve already granted you more than enough of our time.”
    “Maybe Frank Neely would give me an extension?” Frown to sneer. “Mr. Neely isn’t in.”
    “How about—”
    I stopped, cold, because I heard a familiar voice accompany footsteps from the direction of Uta Radachowski’s office. A voice with a little of the South in it, but also one a little out of context.
    “...and so I really don’t see any problem.”
    “Good,” said Radachowski as she and Parris Jeppers came into view around the corner.
    Both of them seemed surprised to see me.
    “Mr. Jeppers,” I said, nodding neutrally.
    The lawyer from the Board of Bar Overseers backpedaled. Verbally, if not physically, his hand coming up to the bow tie du jour and then his goatee. “Ah, yes. Mr....?”
    “John Cuddy,” said Radachowski, staring daggers through her thick lenses at me. “He’s a detective representing Alan Spaeth.”
    “Of course.” Jeppers extended his hand. “Sorry not to have remembered.”
    I shook with him. “Mine’s an easy name to forget.”
    “Well,” he said, “I must be off. Have a nice day, now.”
    Radachowski and I stayed silent until the elevator door closed and the light through the diamond window dropped away. I let her speak next.
    “Mr. Cuddy—”
    “I thought it was ‘John’ and ‘Uta’?”
    Radachowski bit back something before saying, “I’m afraid we can’t give you any more of our time.” From the desk, Burbage said, “I told him the same thing.”
    I stayed with Radachowski. “This might be my last visit, and after all the cooperation Frank Neely’s provided me, I’d hate to have to tell Steve Rothenberg that it’s subpoena time.”
    “I don’t like threats, Mr. Cuddy.”
    “And I’m not making one. But you’re still a partner here, and therefore—”
    This time I stopped because of the look on Radachowski’s face, as though she’d just heard me use a four-letter word over Thanksgiving dinner.
    I said, “Is something wrong?”
    “No.” Radachowski waved at the air. “No, you’re right. I can order you out, and call the police if that doesn’t work, but I’d rather everything remained on professional, if not friendly, terms, too. What do you want to see me about?”
    First Jeppers’s overly casual reaction to me, now Radachowski assuming I’d come to see her. Instinct said to go with it. “Just a few minutes’ worth, maybe in your office.”

    Even sitting behind her desk, Radachowski looked ill-at-ease for the first time. “Your questions, please.”
    “Alan Spaeth’s alibi witness was found dead this morning.”
    She seemed to relax a bit, like the worst was over. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
    “ ‘Any man’s death.’ ”
    “What?”
    “It’s a quote, I’m not sure from where. ‘Any man’s death makes us all the poorer,’ or something like that.”
    Radachowski looked down at her desk for a moment, then back up at me. “Are you making jokes now?”
    “No, I’m definitely not doing that. Two men are dead. One was your partner, and the other was a hard-luck guy whose major flaw seems to have been loyalty to a friend, though he can’t testify to that anymore.”
    A shake of the head. “Mr. Cuddy, I don’t see how I fit into this line of questioning.”
    “Would Mr. Jeppers fit into it any better?”
    “Parris?” A grunted laugh, that patronizing sound lawyers make in court when a witness’s answer hits them like an arrow through the heart. “What in the world could he have to do with your dead witness?”
    “I’m not sure. I visit Jeppers yesterday morning at the Board of Bar Overseers, and we talk some about Woodrow Gant and Alan Spaeth. Then I come over here again, and he’s visiting with you, a partner of the victim. I guess I have to wonder why.”
    Radachowski closed her eyes briefly, then pointed to one of the plaques on the wall above her head. “Parris and I are both trustees for a charitable organization. We confer from time to time on matters of policy regarding it.”
    When you ask a lawyer a question, you also have to listen carefully to the answer, sometimes as much for what’s not said as for what is. “And that’s why he was here today, to talk about ‘policy’?”
    A very measured stare this time. “I’m afraid that’s