Free Look Again by Lisa Scottoline Page B

been running out of steam but the sight revitalized her, and she took off the first lid, which read Top Drawer. She felt nosy to be going through Karen's desk, but she wasn't about to hesitate. She started digging, and inside were a slew of Bic pens, pencils, Post-it pads, a ruler, loose change, a pink leather Filofax, and a stray lipstick. She found a few legal pads with notes and recognized the neat handwriting, with its detached capitals, as Karen's. She flashed on the lawyer, who had joked that her penmanship was so parochial school.
    Odd.
    Ellen was a lapsed Catholic, but even she knew that suicide was one of the bigger no-no's. She wondered fleetingly what would have driven Karen to such an act, and she dug further in the first box. She reached the bottom, but there were no files inside. She closed the lid and moved to the second box, whose lid read Second Drawer. She dug through more legal pads, then checkbooks, piles of bills from
    Comcast, PECO, a web hosting site, old Filofax sheets with rubber bands, and dues invoices for various bar associations. Still no client files, and Ellen started to worry. She closed the lid and moved to the last box, which reminded her of a joke her father used to tell:
    Why is the thing you're looking for always in the last place you look? Because after you find it, you stop looking.
    She opened the box and looked inside. It was a hodgepodge of bills, stray invoices, reminders for continuing legal-education courses, and more legal pads. She started rummaging, then all of a sudden, spotted a letter from Karen to her, notifying her about Will's adoption hearing.
    Bingo!
    She felt her heart start to pound and kept searching, shuffling papers aside until she came across a printed email from her to Karen, asking questions about adoption procedures. She rummaged further, spotted some newsprint, and pulled it out excitedly. It was the front page of the Features section, and on the bottom right was Ellen's piece on Will's adoption. The headline read, HAPPY ENDING, and on the right was the photo of Will, looking so sick. She dug back into the box, and at the very bottom lay a manila folder. She grabbed it and read the label.
    Gleeson, Ellen.
    "Yay!" She tore it open, but it was empty, which is when she realized that the contents of her file folder were mixed up with the other papers.
    "Did you get lucky?" asked a voice from the door, and she looked up to see Musko in the threshold. His jacket was off, his tie gone, and he'd pushed up his shirtsleeves. He entered the study and sat down tiredly in the leather chair across from his desk.
    "Sort of." Ellen held up the empty folder. "This is my file, but the papers are scattered all over the box."
    "That's Karen. She wasn't the most organized person in the world. In fact, she was messy."
    Don't speak ill. "The files in the garage were neat."
    "That was her secretary's doing. They were made for each other." Musko leaned over and plucked Ellen's article from her hand, eyeing it. "You know, it wasn't too long after this article appeared that she was dead."
    "When was it that she died, if I can ask?"
    "July 13." Musko's smile vanished, and his crow's-feet deepened. He handed the article back. "Her secretary found her at her desk when she came in that morning."
    "That was about a month after Will's adoption was final, on June 15. The article ran about two weeks after that." Ellen paused, puzzled. "I'm surprised I didn't hear. I paid my final bill, and the office didn't send me a letter that she was dead. I didn't even see an obit."
    "I didn't run one. I kept it quiet, for the kids' sake. The funeral was just family. The neighbors know from the gossip mill, but I never told them." Musko gestured down the hall. "I still haven't told the boys how she really died, just that she got sick."
    "Didn't they ask questions?" Ellen asked, surprised. She was thinking of Will, the question machine.
    "Yes, but I just said she was sick and we didn't know it, then she