"I'd like to begin there, yes."

Margaret Barnes did not bat an eye. She leaned back and her eyes shifted around the room, bringing transparency to why she had chosen to meet us here, in the back study, instead of the living room, or the front parlor, which probably was her custom.

Large and expansive walls surrounded us, and upon them hung the full and impressive regalia of Calhoun Barnes's long career and many accomplishments: his undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Virginia, framed documents ordaining him a city magistrate and then as a federal judge, an array of local awards, and a huge menagerie of photographs of the judge with famous personages.

I immediately ruled out self-esteem issues, frustrated narcissism, or excessive modesty as motives for Calhoun's suicide.

From the rogues' gallery, I picked out three former United States Presidents, a slew of Virginia governors and senators, and in the middle of this menagerie, where it could not be overlooked, a younger Judge Barnes sharing brandy and cigars with Saint J. Edgar Hoover, in this very same room, actually on the very same couch upon which Jennie and I sat. So there we were, so to speak, cheek-to-cheek with greatness.

Also, in the far left upper corner was an old black-and-white photograph of a very young Calhoun Barnes in fishing waders and a plaid shirt, with his arm around an equally young and considerably tinier Justice Phillip Fineberg, also in fishing gear. Interesting.

I met Margaret Barnes's eyes. I noted the obvious. "Your husband was very… successful."

"I suppose he was." She added, "I believe all men should have their private enclaves where they can view their triumphs. Don't you think that's so, Mr. Drummond?"

I nodded. "My many accomplishments hang on the wall over my toilet."

She forced a smile. I think my northern charm was wearing thin.

We were supposed to recognize, and we did recognize, that Calhoun Barnes had formed powerful alliances and connections, that his widow wasn't without resources, and that a federal power dance was out of the question. Jennie commented, "Your husband obviously had an extraordinarily successful career. Why did he… well-"

"Kill himself? I know what Calhoun did, Jennifer. He put a gun in his mouth, and he slipped a noose around his neck."

"All right. Why?"

But she appeared not to want to address this question yet. It was her intention to control this session, and she suggested, "Would I bore you if I went back a bit in time, to when Calhoun and I met?"

Beyond words. I replied, "Not at all, ma'am."

She took a long sip of sherry. She said, "I think it's important for you to know the Barneses are a venerable name in this city. Calhoun's great-grandfather owned a large and prosperous plantation in the tidewater area. His grandfather was an officer under Stonewall Jackson and was not without accomplishment on the battlefield. He turned to law after the war, moved the family here, and lawyering became their family vocation. In fact, Calhoun's daddy was also an attorney and became a highly regarded judge himself. There was even talk of his daddy ending up on the Supreme Court. I think, had not the Negro issue become so divisive and inflammatory, it likely would have happened."

Nobody spoke for a few moments as we sat and absorbed this tale. With southern aristocracy, family histories are like shadowboxing in a darkroom; you have to fine-tune a bit. In a nutshell, I understood her to say, Caihoun's family once owned a huge spread, big bucks, and mucho slaves, the Civil War came, the slaves hightailed it, the money dried up, the carpetbaggers elbowed in, the Barneses fled, became city folk, became professional, became successful, remained bigots, and history caught up with them. No wonder Faulkner had such a ball with these people.

That's the problem with the whole southern notion of family tradition and lineage; if the past is lily-white, it's okay, I guess-otherwise it's like being born with ten tons of shit on your back. The past is never the past with these people. Somehow this shaped Calhoun Barnes, and somehow this also shaped Jason Barnes.

Mrs. Barnes continued, "My family had a fine pedigree as well. Many thought Calhoun and I would make a good match."

Jennie commented, "He was a handsome man."

"Yes. Calhoun was many things, Jennifer. He played football at the University… Later, he became quite accomplished at tennis and golf. And brainy? At law school, he received a slew of offers from prestigious judges and firms from Atlanta to New York." She looked at Jennie and asked, "Are you a lawyer? I know many FBI agents are."

"No. I trained in psychiatry."

She sort of shrugged dismissively "An interesting field also, I suppose."

Jennie nodded, and I wondered what was going through her mind.

Mrs. Barnes said, "A week after Calhoun passed the bar, he and I walked together down the aisle in the chapel at St. Christopher's, his prep school. This was 1965. He was regarded as quite the catch, and I was regarded as a very lucky woman. But Calhoun didn't want to work for an important judge, or at a big firm."

I asked, "Why not?"

"Well, I suppose we weren't inclined to depart this city for any amount of money"

It sounded like a lovely sentiment, and we both nodded in acknowledgment. Of course, all the money they wanted was in the city.

She added, "But I think Calhoun didn't want to go through the clerking or associate phase of law. He was a hungry man, ambitious and quite impatient. He decided that if he opened his own practice, he could jump ahead of everybody."

Hoping to get us out of this pit of nostalgia, I commented, "I would think he needed partners."

She looked at me a moment. "You're right, Mr. Drummond. And he knew just the right man… the top man of his law class, in fact."

I pointed in the direction of the framed picture. "Phillip Fineberg."

"Yes… Phillip."

"Good choice."

She did not acknowledge that judgment, and instead sipped from her sherry and studied the ceiling.

She remarked, "It was… well, an uneven relationship at first."

"Because Fineberg was Jewish?"

She nodded. "We were always more progressive than Selma, but it was… in those days, in this city, complicated to be Sephardic. A lot of business occurs on golf courses and at social events, and Phillip didn't- You understand, don't you?"

We understood. I also understood that a man with Calhoun's background and conservative leanings didn't partner with a social pariah to correct a racial injustice, or as an act of generosity

Anyway, we listened as she prattled on about how Calhoun carried Fineberg on his strong back, the local boy with all the right stuff, schmoozing and boozing, roping in clients by the boatload. And it worked-Barnes and Fine, the title the partners delicately chose for their firm, became highly regarded, successful, and prosperous, in that order.

The chemistry between the founding partners was flawed, and often strained, but greed was the aphrodisiac. Calhoun hauled home the fish, and Fineberg gutted and filleted them, from the backroom, hidden behind his truncated name. The footwork, the research, the briefs, and court preparation fell on Fineberg's brilliant shoulders, and Calhoun was the courtroom shark, racking up victories, hammering witnesses, earning quite the local name as a brainy brawler. Interestingly, Fineberg never once set foot in a courtroom except to deliver a late filing or to help Calhoun haul his thick briefcases back and forth.

It was an intriguing tale with all the makings of a good tragedy, and you sensed where this might be going, but Mrs. Barnes suddenly looked up and said, slightly surprised, "Your glass appears empty, Mr. Drummond. Would you be so kind as to refill both our containers?"

So I did.