“Lucy’s still setting up shop, hasn’t been involved in many cases yet,” Benton said. “A couple in the Bronx and Queens. This will be the first in Manhattan, in other words, involving your office. Of course, at some point, she and Marino were going to find out about each other. I expected that to happen naturally and professionally.”

“You didn’t expect anything of the sort, Benton. You’ve been in complete denial. You’ve made flawed and desperate decisions and not logically thought through the inevitable consequences. And now your two degrees of separation have begun to converge. Must be an indescribable feeling, moving people around like pawns only to wake up one day and realize that because of a banal gossip column, your pawns are now destined to confront each other and possibly knock each other off your game board. Let me try to recap what’s happened.”

With a slight movement of her fingers, she said no to the waitress and her coffeepot.

“Your original plan didn’t include a residence in New York,” Berger said.

“I didn’t know John Jay was going to—”

“Ask both of you to be visiting lecturers, consultants? I bet you tried to talk Kay out of it.”

“I thought it was unwise.”

“Of course you did.”

“She’d just been hired as chief, relocated her entire existence. I advised against her taking on more work, more stress. I told her she shouldn’t do it.”

“Of course you did.”

“She was insistent. Said it would be good to help if we could. And she didn’t want to be limited.”

“That would be Kay,” Berger said. “Always one to help anywhere she can and position herself accordingly. The world is her stage. You couldn’t possibly coop her up in a corner of Massachusetts, and you couldn’t push too hard because then you’d have to tell her why you didn’t want her in New York. You found yourself with a problem on your hands. You’d already moved Marino to New York, and let’s be honest, talked me into hiring him. And now Kay’s going to be in and out of New York, and possibly end up helping in cases that will involve my office. Since both of you are going to be in and out of New York, why not? Lucy moves to the great city of opportunity, as well. What better place on the planet for her than the Village? How could you possibly have anticipated all this when you came up with your master design? And since you didn’t anticipate it, you also didn’t anticipate I’d find out the real reason you parked Marino in my office.”

“I’m not going to say I never worried about it,” Benton replied. “I simply hoped it wouldn’t happen anytime soon. And it wasn’t my place to discuss—”

She cut him off. “You’ve never told Marino, have you? About John Jay, about your apartment here?”

“I haven’t told him Kay’s in and out of New York. I haven’t told him about Lucy’s moving here.”