A Patent Lie by Paul Goldstein Page B

that, in Judy's mind right now, everything was connected to his death.
    “What do the police say?”
    “You don't look like a foolish man, Mr. Seeley, and if you're a trial lawyer, you've had experience with the police. The police don't know anything. Whatever they say is speculation. It's not factual and it's not based on anything they know about Bob.”
    The framed black-and-white photograph on the side table showed an erect, wide-shouldered man in corduroys and denim shirt. Binoculars were slung around his neck and he was smiling broadly. In the distance behind him, the face of a mountain was split by a waterfall of astonishing height. Pearsall looked like a grown-up Eagle Scout.
    “Did he seem different in any way?”
    “That's what the police asked.”
    “What did you tell them?”
    “He seemed to be distracted the last few days before he died.”
    “He was in the middle of preparing for a trial,” Seeley said. “That wouldn't be unusual.”
    “I've seen Bob through a lot of trials, and that was one of the things about him: he was totally devoted to his cases, but only in the office or the courtroom. He never brought any of that home.”
    “And you didn't ask what was bothering him.”
    “Just once. He said he couldn't tell me, and left it at that. I knew better than to ask him what he meant.”
    Judy didn't strike Seeley as a woman who could be dismissed so easily.
    She must have seen the skepticism in his expression. “You have to understand, Mr. Seeley, in our marriage there was nothing we couldn't talk about, unless it was something to do with one of Bob's cases. Bob would never betray a client's confidence.”
    “So you think that, whatever was bothering him, it was something a client wouldn't want anyone to know about.”
    “That would seem logical, wouldn't it?”
    Sure it would, Seeley thought, along with at least a dozen other possibilities, including a romance gone wrong, money problems, blackmail, drugs, or—he looked again at the good-humored face in the photograph—a despair so profound that living no longer made sense.
    “Is it possible that someone made a threat on his life?”
    “I don't know. The police asked me that. It's not the kind of thing Bob would talk about. Bob was old school. He thought his role was to protect his family, not worry us.”
    And, if Seeley's speculation about despair was right, to put on an upbeat front even though he was in the most excruciating pain.
    “And that's why you won't let your daughter wait for the school bus outside the building. To protect her.”
    For the first time, there was a break in Judy's composure. She pressed her hands against the arms of the chair, as if to steady herself. “A mother's instinct,” she said. “Bob and I didn't marry until late. He was already in his forties when Lucy was born. She's our only child.” She rose. “This isn't helping with why you're here. I'm sure you have a great deal to do. Let me show you Bob's study. It's where I had them put the boxes from the office.”
    There was a desk in Pearsall's study with a computer and what looked like a fax machine. Books filled the ceiling-high shelves and spilled over into piles on the floor. Seeley examined a precarious stack of hardcover and paperbound books next to a well-used leather recliner. Kant's
Critique of Practical Reason
was on top, works by Hume, Rawls, and Dworkin beneath it.
    “Moral philosophy,” Judy said. “It was one of Bob's hobbies. Like his bird pictures.”
    Seeley hadn't noticed the photographs of brilliantly colored birds lining the one wall where the bookshelves were only chest-high. The pictures were close-ups taken with a long lens and, Seeley imagined, a great deal of patience. They weren't snapshots, either. Each photograph was carefully composed and captured its subject in full light. Pearsall had an artist's eye.
    On the floor, at the foot of the shelves, were six corrugated bankers boxes with HEILBRUN, HARDY AND CROCKETT printed in