“I didn’t.”

“I’m not surprised. I live in a mighty big shadow. I worked for the U.S. attorney in Atlanta as well, on a federal task force.”

Her revelation amazes me. “Why have you never told me?”

“You never asked. You just assumed I was the trophy wife. Which I am, to a degree.”

“But Quentin—”

“He never told you either, right? There are good and bad reasons for that. I do a lot of work for my husband, but sometimes it suits his purposes for juries to see him struggling alone against a battery of corporate sharks. David and Goliath, right? That’s why I sit behind his table, and sometimes even behind the bar. He lets them think I’m his trophy wife, and I let him let them think that.”

These revelations have scrambled my assumption that Doris is an essentially powerless bystander to what’s been going on. “Well . . . Jesus. As a lawyer privy to the defense, can you tell me what the hell Quentin was doing in court today?”

She sighs heavily. “What people saw in court today was a horse with hobbles on. You ever seen that?”

“I’ve always heard the term. I’ve never seen it, though.”

“Hobbles are like handcuffs for a horse. Keeps them from walking away.”

“Who’s handcuffing Quentin?”

She shrugs her shoulders, and in her eyes I see pain. “I don’t know. But that’s what’s wrong. I usually know everything about his cases. Quentin bounces ideas off me all the time. Every case. I’ve won more than a couple for him, I can tell you.”

“But this one’s different?”

Doris blows out a stream of smoke as she nods. “He’s walled me out completely.”

A worm of fear begins gnawing at my heart. “Just like my father and me.”

She nods with the weariness of someone who is far ahead of me in her fears. “They’re like two old lions who’ve crawled into a thicket to lick their wounds.”

“And Quentin hasn’t told you why.”

Doris goes rigid; then I see she’s pointing into the shadows beneath the crape myrtles on Washington Street. A deep, man-shaped umbra is just discernible against the dark background.

“He’s with me,” I tell her, laying a hand on her arm. “Protection.”

The tension drains out of her as if from an uncoiling spring.

“Surely you have some theory about what’s behind Quentin’s reticence?”

“All I know for sure is that he’s scared. And if he’s scared, it’s because your father’s scared.”

“What are they scared of?”

Doris shakes her head like someone who’s been trying to answer this question for months. “Your father wouldn’t act out of fear for his own life. That I know. Quentin wouldn’t, either. Sometimes he doesn’t want to go on living anyway.”

“Has he said that to you?”