Free The Burden of Proof by Scott Turow Page B

you is wearing a tape recorder. It would not be surprising if one of them is."
    For the first time today, Dixon briefly sported a look of discomfort: he buttoned up his lips and shook his head Then he ground out the cigar and stood.
    "I'm sorry this comes up now, Stern," Dixon said. "I hate to be the thing that drags you back into the office."
    Stern raised a hand. "I suspect I shall be here a good deal." He said this somewhat heroically, but that lost feeling came over him again. He had no notion, really, of the immediate future, or even, for that matter, of what lay .further ahead. A few images had stirred themselves: figures of stillness and order. He would mind the office and his clients in a state of settled dotage.
    Dixon, of course, had different thoughts in mind.
    "Oh, you'll have other distractions eventually." He glanced down at his stubbed cigar with the most minute salaciousness. Stern recoiled a bit, but he knew that Dixon was merely crnude enough to say what others were thinking.
    Even in tear-stained eyes thick with grief and sympathy, Stern could see he was already differently regarded. A single man. Certain facts were elemental. In his present mood, Stern was persistently repelled by contemplation of this subject. More to the point, he knew that his circumstance was hardly ordinary. What woman of even modest sense would be eager for the company of a man with whom another female had literally found life not worth living?
    "I assume this will cost a fortune," Dixon said as he picked his sport coat off the sofa arm.
    "It will be expensive," said Stern, barely able to suppress a smile.
    Dixon was rich. His business was worth millions, and he paid himself a seven-figure salary each year, but he maintained the typical frugality of a man. who had snuggled. He groused unremittingly about the appalling level of his legal fees. But years ago, in Stern's salad days, during that period when Dixon was still attempting to win Stern back after. marrying Silvia, Dixon had obligingly urged Stern to bill him like any other client, and Stern had never forgotten the instruction. One more peculiar harmonic had been established between them. Dixon paid for Stern's tolerance, and Stern was willing to allow it to be purchased. And always the concern on either side about who was getting the better of the deal. "I can leave some of the documents to the younger lawyers to examine," Stern said, "but we know too little. I must do most of this myself. Ms. Klonsky will take priority over other matters."
    "Please," said Dixon. Once more, he looked around the room.
    The weight of things had begun to settle on him. He was unhappy. "I don't want to fuck around with this."
    Stern considered his brother-in-law with his manifold secrets. Clara's voice, as ever now, came into his mind.
    Little as she cared for Dixon, she had never seemed surprised by their alliance. Stern had complained often that he did not know Dixon, was not sure he had ever gotten through to him, found the man at times as elusive as smoke.
    'I imagine,' she had answered, 'that he says the same of you.
    In the mock-Chippendale reception room of Barstow Zahn and Hanks, .a huge law firm, Stern sat with his children, awaiting Cal Hopkinson, with whom they had an appointment to learn the details of Clara's will.
    Stern regarded this event with the same maelstrom of contradictory emotions that lingering concentration on Clara's wealth had always prompted, but for the moment most of that was lost in the strong feelingsregretful, fond, salutary--of having his children near at hand.
    Tomorrow, Marta would leave. She had stayed a week following the funeral. Work was slow, she said, and Kate and she had planned to sift through Clara's things.
    Irstead, Marta had spent hours alone, looking dreamily about her own room, poking through the house as if it were a new location. She had already mentioned that she would need to return soon to finish.
    With the departure of Marta--the child who