Chapter 11 — Carolyn Marsh

Carolyn Marsh was fifty-six, a senior partner at a firm that had represented Conrad Vane for nineteen years, and she had the specific manner of a lawyer who had spent decades around difficult men and had decided that the way to handle difficult men was to be more difficult than them.She had not returned Nadia Vane's calls because she was managing the estate proceedings and Nadia was not, in the strict legal sense, her client — Conrad was, and Conrad was dead, and her obligations ran to the estate and its executor. This was technically correct and practically a form of avoidance, which Priya suspected Marsh knew.They met at Marsh's office, which was the kind of office that communicated that things had been established here over a long time and were not going to be quickly dislodged."I want to know about the meeting on the Tuesday before the gala," Priya said. "With Conrad Vane. The one that wasn't on the calendar."Marsh looked at her with the expression of someone calculating attorney-client privilege against the weight of a homicide investigation."Conrad Vane is deceased," Priya said. "The privilege question is complicated and you know it. What I can tell you is that this investigation is going to arrive at the answers I'm seeking regardless of this conversation. The question is whether this conversation helps us arrive more quickly and accurately."Marsh was quiet for a moment. Then: "He came to discuss the gallery's exposure in a potential fraud investigation. He was aware that certain practices over the past eight years were not going to withstand scrutiny if examined. He wanted to understand his personal liability.""And?""I told him his personal liability was significant. I told him that the structuring of the documentation, which he described to me, created an obvious problem with respect to his own culpability." She paused. "He told me he had arranged the documentation to protect himself by ensuring that any investigation would focus on Elise Hartwell.""What was your advice?""I told him that this strategy was legally sophisticated but morally indefensible, and that it also carried significant risk — specifically, that Elise Hartwell was not a passive party and that she would not accept this outcome.""What did he say?"Marsh looked at her desk. "He said she didn't have a choice."The room held this briefly."Did you express any concern for his safety?" Priya asked."I expressed concern for the overall situation. He was — Conrad was not a man who easily accepted that he might be misjudging something." Marsh looked at Priya. "I told him I thought he was underestimating Elise. He said he had known Elise Hartwell for twenty-two years and he was not underestimating her." A pause. "He was very certain about this.""He was wrong," Priya said."He was wrong," Marsh agreed. She said it with the flatness of someone who had suspected this and was not glad to have it confirmed."The partnership agreement," Priya said. "Nadia Vane's request. Her father told her, before the gala, to look at it if anything happened."Marsh nodded. "The agreement has a clause that Conrad had added in the renegotiation four years ago. It establishes that in the event of either partner's death, the surviving partner assumes full operational and financial responsibility for the gallery — including liability for any undisclosed legal issues."Priya looked at her. "Conrad added this clause.""Yes.""And if he died — Elise would inherit full liability for the fraud he'd arranged to blame on her.""That is one reading of the clause, yes. Conrad's intention, I believe, was to create leverage — to ensure Elise couldn't expose the fraud without accepting total responsibility for it. It was meant as a mutually assured destruction provision." Marsh paused. "What he did not anticipate was that she would find a third option."Priya thought about Conrad Vane telling Carolyn Marsh he was not underestimating Elise.He had been constructing a trap.Elise had simply left it.