CHAPTER 1The fact that I’d seen Karen Lunt tripping gaily out of the polished granite façade of the Commonwealth Trust Building in K Street meant absolutely nothing to me at the time. Everybody one knows in Alexandria spends most of the time in Washington anyway, at a job or shopping or going to parties. It certainly never crossed my mind that she might be coming out of Philander Doyle’s imposing suite of walnut-panelled offices that occupy the entire rear end of the second floor. For one thing, it’s commonly assumed that Philander Doyle’s clients never use the K Street entrance. People who don’t approve of him say they come and go through the alley, and that’s why the back stairs of the Commonwealth Trust Building are full of recesses and so dark that only a mole—or something used to prow
