I found myself trying to make my entrance as casual as possible in the hope that Arlene wouldn’t notice me. She was busy thumbing through a client’s file, trying to find something, so it looked promising; my timing seemed good. I set the latte I had bought her as a subconscious peace-offering on her desk, wished her a cheerful good morning and breezed into my office, clutching mine. For a few moments, as I took my seat behind my desk and fired up my computer, I actually thought I had got away with it. It was all so silly.
Even if I had got away with it, how long would that last? I would have to deal with Arlene in a matter of minutes. I don’t know what I thought I was achieving by sneaking into my own office like an indoor cat that’s been out chasing mice all night when he shouldn’t have been. But there has always been a part of me that believes that I can solve any problem, regardless of how long I have been puzzling over it, if I can just have a little more time. One more hour, one more coffee, one more night’s sleep is bound to bring about enlightenment. It’s a fallacy, of course. An hour, or a coffee, or a night’s sleep later, the problem is still the same, and I solve it exactly as I always knew I would. But still I cling to the illusion.
Arlene opened the door and stood tall in the frame.
‘Miss Kiah, I swear you are as ornery as a rattler stuck in a storm drain. You’re fixin’ to take Lily Langtry’s case, ain’t you?’
I looked over to the conference table. The papers had not miraculously disappeared overnight. They remained in place on my table. And Arya was still playing in my head. It was a moment I had waited for and dreaded and rehearsed in my mind a hundred times during my drive from Arya’s house to the office, and now it had arrived. My heart was beating quickly, and I felt slightly faint, almost detached from my body.
‘Yes,’ I heard myself reply. ‘Yes, I am.’
Speaking the words aloud had an immediate effect on me. While they were trapped inside me, they had produced only anxiety and indecision. But now that they were out there in the ether, their power was released. I was jolted back into my body to find that there were butterflies in my stomach, but now, it wasn’t just anxiety. It felt scary, yes. Had I really said that? Was this really what I was going to do? But at the same time it felt exhilarating. For a few moments, I felt as I sometimes had before the Week: confident, in control, light-hearted, optimistic, feelings I’d thought the Week had robbed me of forever. I calmed down after a few seconds, as the immediate rush subsided. The feelings lessened, but to my delight they did not leave me altogether. It was so good to have them back, to rediscover that part of myself again, that I cried. I couldn’t help it.
Arlene watched me, and I had the sense that she was ditching the lecture she had planned to deliver about the behaviour of rattlers stuck in storm drains. I realised then that I had tried to avoid her because I had been afraid of losing her, afraid that this would be a bridge too far after the ravages of the Week and the reopening of the office. But that wasn’t Arlene. I should have known that by then. She had had her say; I had decided; and whether she agreed with my decision or not, she was going to stay and help to keep her crazy boss afloat for as long as she could. She allowed me time to recover, waited for the tears to stop.
‘We’re gonna need some help,’ she said eventually.
I took a deep breath. ‘I know.’
‘I’ll need someone in the office.’
‘I’ll get you someone. I promise.’
‘And you’re gonna need someone to run around for you, talking to people, finding documents, digging dirt. Y’all are gonna be way too busy acting like a lawyer to do that kind of shit y’all’s self.’
I nodded. She was right. I would need legal support at some stage. I had no doubt about that. I’d originally thought I would have to hire an associate. That would have been a major expense, and I was baulking at the idea. But Arya had pointed out the obvious solution. Among the dispersed branches of the van Eyck family, there would have to be a good number of attorneys. Some wouldn’t be able to help: those who worked in government or a big law firm; those who had retired or had some arcane specialty like international trade. But there had to be some who would be willing and able to help me if I needed some legal research done, or some document drafted. Even two or three would do if I could depend on them.
But that wouldn’t be enough. Someone would need to work with Sam: interviewing family members; following up leads; building up a picture about what we knew, and didn’t know, about Jacob’s loans; finding out what evidence we had, or could hope to have. Because without evidence, there was no lawsuit. There was no way I was going to have time to do all that myself, and in any case it didn’t need a lawyer. A paralegal, perhaps, or…
‘What about Powalski?’ Arlene asked.
‘Powalski?’
‘Sure. He has other work, so you wouldn’t have to hire him. You could do a deal with him for so many hours a month.’
‘Do you think he would do it?’
‘Hun, he’d jump at it like a stallion jumping into a corral full of mares.’
It was a great idea. Powalski was a private investigator I’d used almost as long as I’d been in practice. He had come highly recommended by a lawyer I knew well and trusted. He was discreet and reliable, and he got things done without charging an arm and a leg for fees and expenses. I’m sure he has a first name. In fact, I’m sure he told me what it was one day, but I can’t remember and no one ever calls him anything except Powalski.
When he got to know me better and we adjourned to a wine bar one evening on the eve of some national holiday and we were swapping life stories, he confided to me that his earlier career history had been with the CIA. It was something he wouldn’t talk about in detail, and I had the impression that it wasn’t just a matter of the usual professional discretion. It seemed to me that he was very glad to have left that world behind him. But we were likely to make enemies in high places with this case, and some insight into the darker side of Washington would serve us well at some point down the road. Powalski would know how to talk to the kind of people we would need to talk to without rubbing them up the wrong way, and that was going to be important.
‘Arlene,’ I said, ‘I think you may just have come up with the perfect solution. Way to go, girl.’
She smiled modestly.
‘Aw, shucks, hun. Even a blind squirrel stumbles over an acorn now and then.’