"I don't know how I can help you, Mr. Agos," John Patterson's assistant said. "John was a great boss. Everyone loved him. I can't imagine why anyone would want to kill him, including Karen. They seemed very happy."
Lily O'Donnell sat behind a nearly bare desk, laptop closed and phone silent, in front of John Patterson's darkened office. Her cheerful pleasantries when Cary and Kalinda introduced themselves seemed at odds with the lonely, deserted air of the suite of offices.
Cary glanced at Kalinda and continued. "We were led to believe John and Karen were having some sort of marital difficulties. Perhaps related to money, or financial problems here at the firm?"
The young woman shook her head. "I don't know anything about that. Karen didn't come up here much. She ran the design department, you know. It's downstairs. If John wanted to talk to her, he usually went down there. But he certainly never said anything that would make me believe they were having problems. Though," she added, reconsidering, "I suppose that doesn't mean much does it? That's not the sort of thing you share with your assistant."
"What about Arthur Eames?" Kalinda interjected. "Did you ever hear him and Mr. Patterson arguing? About money or the firm?"
"Heavens no!" For the first time, Lily lost her professional, executive assistant veneer, her voice rising an octave, insulted on Eames' behalf. "Arthur was, and is, very concerned about the business. He was bothered that he and John weren't as close as they used to be, but no, they didn't fight about the business, or anything else. Arthur loved John like a brother; he would never have hurt him!"
Cary and Kalinda exchanged puzzled John Patterson had not confided in his assistant regarding Eames' embezzlement. Nor did she seem to know that their partnership had been on the verge of being dissolved. Even so, her reaction seemed all out of proportion to what they had asked her.
"What will become of your position, Ms. O'Donnell?" Cary asked on a hunch. "Now that, pardon my directness, but now that your position has become irrelevant."
Lily looked distinctly uncomfortable at this. She glanced around and then leaned slightly forward and spoke more quietly. "You can't tell anyone, okay? No one here knows yet."
"Oh, we won't," Cary promised.
"I'm leaving anyway. I'm pregnant. Arthur and I are getting married."
"They were at an obstetrician's appointment when John Patterson was shot," Cary said, throwing up his arms. "Can you believe that?"
Diane really couldn't. Couldn't believe her entire case had fallen apart, and couldn't believe Eames suddenly had an alibi because he had been sleeping with his partner's executive assistant. The guy was a liar, a gambler, and an embezzler, but apparently not a murderer. And now they were back to square one. Damn it.
"I feel bad for Lily," Cary added. "She seemed so happy. Just wait until she finds out what her fiance's been up to."
Diane stifled a smile, but Kalinda didn't even attempt to hide her snort of disbelief.
"What?" he asked, looking over at the investigator. "What's so funny?"
"Cary, she's probably in on it," Kalinda told him. "Don't be so naive. Just because she's pretty and well-spoken doesn't mean she's innocent."
He turned to Diane, who shrugged. "Well, I wouldn't bet against it," she admitted. "But that will all shake out later when Karen or Daisy are ready to deal with it. We can't be concerned with it now."
What she was concerned about was breaking this news to Kurt. Kalinda would verify the obstetrician alibi, but barring anything unforeseen on that front, it seemed likely her ballistics expert would be declining to continue with her case. That was the last thing Karen Patterson needed, so they had to come up with another angle quickly.
"Okay," she said. "Regroup." Standing, she paced over to her window and looked out on the city for a moment before turning and leaning against the ledge. "Cary. This is your case. Now what?"
Cary looked flummoxed for a moment, but recovered quickly. "Start again," he said. "We know Karen is innocent, so someone else has to be guilty. We go over everything again until we find a viable possibility, someone we can throw enough mud at to create reasonable doubt. We got Patterson's calendar from Lily while we were there; Kalinda can go through it, and I'll talk to Karen and Daisy, get them to take me through the whole day of the murder again."
"Yes. Good." Diane pushed off from the window ledge and walked over to where the other two were sitting, leaning against the back of a chair. "And while you're at it, I think the time may have come to address the 'marital difficulties' issue head-on."
Cary's eyes narrowed. "Wait. Are you thinking there's a possibility she is guilty?"
"I'm thinking we need to keep an open mind and defend our client to the best of our ability," she said, frustrated to be going over this yet again. "To do that, we need the facts. Do you think Matan Brody won't find out about any problems between Karen and John? I'm here to tell you, he will. Now we left it alone so we could look into it ourselves first, but we've done that, and we still don't have a definitive answer. We're running out of time, Cary. Jury selection will be starting before we know it, and we have nothing upon which to base a defence. Nothing!"
Cary looked slightly startled by her outburst, and Diane herself wasn't quite sure why she was suddenly speaking so passionately. It must be some leftover emotional disturbance from the previous night. In any case, what she said was correct, if somewhat dramatic, and she stood by it.
"Call Karen," she instructed. "And set up an appointment at her house. Tell her we want Daisy there as well."
"Oh, Ms Lockhart, I wasn't expecting you," Daisy said when she answered the door. The young woman was dressed in jeans and a purple blouse, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, too precise in its messiness to be genuinely haphazard. "I thought Cary was going to be handling my mother's case himself."
"He is," Diane assured her. "But as a senior partner at Stern, Lockhart and Gardner, it's my responsibility to oversee all our cases. Cary is completely in charge. I'm just...back-up if you will."
Not entirely true, but if the client's family was more comfortable having someone they knew driving the bus, that is what they would have.
Cary arrived behind her on the doorstep an instant later, and Daisy ushered them both inside to a study at the back of the house, inviting them to sit down on a large leather sofa. A tray of tea and cookies sat on the coffee table in front of them.
The room overlooked the backyard, and Diane looked through the window with some unease, at the trailhead leading into the woods. She was still not entirely sure what to make of what she had seen the night before. Had it just been the product of an overactive imagination, fueled by the stress of the situation? She almost wished she could believe that her grip on reality had been somehow compromised; that seemed the lesser of the two evils when the alternative was that she had seen a ghost. She had never been one to believe in such things, had never been frightened, or even amused, by ghost stories told around campfires in her youth. It had always seemed like so much nonsense, entertainment for minds easily influenced. And despite her comment to Kurt about ghosts in books wanting to solve their own murders, that was far from her prefered genre of reading material.
"Diane?" Cary voice summoned her out of her musings.
"I'm sorry," she apologized. "I was wool-gathering. What did you say?"
"Daisy asked if we had any news on the case," her associate informed her.
"Yes, we do," she said turning to the young woman. "But where is your mother?"
"Upstairs. She'll be down shortly," Daisy said, taking a seat behind a large mahogany desk. "I have to confess I had my grandfather call her when I saw you pull in. I wanted to talk to you privately for a moment."
Cary looked to Diane for a moment and then back to Daisy. "Daisy, we can't talk to you about the case without your mother present," he explained gently. "She's the client. There are rules…"
"I know, I know, it's not that," Daisy interrupted, waving her hand. "I just wanted to tell you, Mother is acting very strangely, erratic almost. Some of the things she says... I think the stress is getting to her."
"How so?" Diane asked, but it was too late, the moment lost when Karen appeared in the doorway.
Daisy stood and allowed her mother to take the chair behind the desk, moving to stand by the french doors leading to the backyard.
"I'm sorry to keep you waiting," Karen said to Cary and Diane. "That was Roger on the phone," she added, looking to Daisy. "He just wanted to see how I was doing. Sweet of him." She smiled quickly, but it looked forced, as if she knew she should feel appreciation, but the actual emotion was escaping her.
Turning back to Diane, she asked, "How did it go last night? Did you find what you needed?"
"Last night?" Daisy asked, looking from her mother to Cary. "What happened last night?"
"Diane was out here with our ballistics guy," Cary told her.
"Diane was," she repeated, drawing out the name. Whatever the young woman's interest was in Cary, she was clearly more comfortable with him doing most of the work on her mother's defense. "Why not you?" she asked, moving from the french doors to sit in an armchair across from the two attorneys.
"Mr. McVeigh is a friend of mine," Diane explained, ignoring Cary's startled glance at that new information. She hoped it was at least on its way to becoming the truth. "But in any case, it's been an eventful twenty-four hours. I'll let Cary fill you in on the details.
Karen and Daisy stared quietly in disbelief after being brought up to date on both the latest ballistics findings, and Arthur Eames' alibi.
"So as you can see," Cary explained, "we're back to square one, plus we now have the added complication of the body possibly being moved. Which means, Mrs. Patterson, I have no choice but to ask you this question. I apologize in advance for my bluntness, but there's no way around it if we're going to be able to properly represent you."
He paused and glanced at Diane, who nodded. They had discussed this tactic in the car on the way there, and she was watching Karen closely for her reaction. "The fact is," he continued, "we've been led to believe by multiple people that you and John may have been having marital problems. Karen, I have to ask: did you do this? Did you shoot your husband?"