“This is absurd!” Meriden turned and stalked to the door, then stopped when he reached Sam. “If you worked for me, you’d be on the street, son.”
Sam shook in his penny loafers, Val gasped, and Cate’s emotions finally broke loose. “How dare you!” she shouted. “Get out of my chambers!”
Meriden spun around, his split coattails flying, one chasing the other. “What did you say?”
“I said, get out of my chambers. Now.”
“How distinctly uncollegial of you, Judge Fante.”
“You manage your clerks, I’ll manage mine.” Cate strode past him to her office door and held it open, even though it already was. “Good-bye.”
Meriden stormed out of the office, and Cate slammed the door behind him.
“That was fun,” she said, brightening. She felt better, even standing amid the debris. It was the same feeling as when she’d said “my courtroom” to Gina. She found herself grinning.
Val said, “You shouldn’t have done that. But, way to go!” She broke into a smile.
“Thanks, Judge.” Sam’s bassett-hound eyes looked wet, and Cate felt for him.
“Don’t worry, Sam. Now, let’s get back to the story. Russo was in the hallway.”
“You’re not gonna fire me?”
“No. Now tell me about letting Russo in. What did he say on the intercom?”
“Just who he was.” Sam wet his lips with a dry tongue, starting his story over. “Also, I let him in because the chief judge had sent around a court-mail this morning, saying that the security threat had been lifted, now that Marz was dead, and, thirdly, I remembered that this morning, when that other detective came here, Nesbitt I think his name was, that Val asked you if she could buzz him in, and you said, ‘Of course.’”
“You’re right, I said that.” Cate slid out of her coat and placed it on her desk chair.
“So I thought, of course, of course, Detective Russo can come in, too. I didn’t know he’d do anything like this. He’s law enforcement.” Sam threw up his matchstick arms, bewildered. “I mean, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”
“What?” Cate asked.
“He’s hysterical,” Val said.
“It’s Latin,” Sam answered, evidently feeling more himself. “The translation is, Who guards the guards? The Roman poet Juvenal famously posed the question in the first century.”
“But why did you let him wait in my office, Sam?” Cate asked, mystified. After all, Juvenal wouldn’t have.
“I didn’t. He said that he needed to see you, about your security. He said he’d only come back to chambers because you weren’t on the bench. That you were supposed to be in court at eleven-thirty.”
“Okay,” Cate said slowly. So Russo had checked the schedule downstairs.
“He said the security threat was from a man, an ex-convict, and he asked me if I’d ever seen the man in chambers or in your courtroom. He showed me a photo.”
“Of what?”
“Of the man.” Sam pumped his head, his movement jerky. “It was of the guy who fell off the balcony the other day. I remembered that story, from the news.”
Partridge, with the videotape. “He showed you a photo of him?”
Val asked, “Sam, if the man was dead, how could he be a threat to the judge?”
Sam turned to her. “The detective said the man worked with a gang and they were trying to kill her.”
Val’s mouth dropped open. “How could you believe that, Sam? That sounds crazy. And he shows up, all by himself, without the marshals?”
Cate raised a hand. “Wait, please, Val. We need to get the story. Sam, how did Russo get into my office from yours?”
“He said he had to search chambers for wiretaps. ‘Sweep for wiretaps,’ he called it. He said that the man and his gang used wiretaps to find out about judges they were going to kill.”
Oh, man. “Where did you go, while he searched?” Cate asked, trying to keep him on track.
“He said he had to search the clerks’ office, too, so he told me that I had to go out and come back in about half an hour. So I went down to the cafeteria and got lunch.”
Val’s brown eyes flared. “How could you leave him alone in chambers?”
“He was a detective!” Sam wailed, getting upset again. “I thought he was okay!”
“Okay, relax, Sam. Val, relax.”
“Judge, I’m really sorry,” Sam repeated. “Please don’t say anything, Judge. Word gets around, and I still don’t have an offer yet, for next year.”
“Don’t worry.” Cate walked to him, put a hand on his knobby shoulder, and looked at Val. “Did you call the marshals?”
“Not yet. I was about to, when you came in.”
Cate’s gaze traveled back to the law clerk. “Sam, don’t speak to anyone about this, please. Don’t tell any of your friends in the other chambers.”
“I don’t have any friends in the other—”
“Okay.” Cate couldn’t bear to hear it from him, too. “Don’t tell anyone.”
“What about Emily, when she comes back?”
“Val will tell her. You can talk to her, of course. But don’t either of you discuss it outside chambers.” Cate ran a hand through her hair. “Now, go back to your office and leave Mommy and Daddy alone, okay?”
“What?”
“Go.” Cate pointed at the door. “Out.”
“Sure, Judge.” Sam turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.
Cate said, “Somebody tried to break into my house this morning. I think it was Russo.”
Val’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you for real?”
“He’s angry that I ruled against him, best I can figure.” It was partly true, and Cate would die if Val knew about the videotape. “I already have a call in to Detective Nesbitt.”
“I can’t believe it. Your house, down Society Hill? He take anything?”
“No. He didn’t get in.”
“Praise God. Wait, that where you went this morning? How’d you know your house was gonna be broken into?”
Micah. “No, I had something else to do, then they called me in the car.”
“I see.” Val mulled it over. “Well. So, a detective did this? Trying to make your life miserable? Seems like he’s after you, or looking for something in here. He didn’t mess up my office, or the clerks’.”
“I have no idea what he’s looking for. I think he’s just plain mad.”
“Off his rocker?”
“Yep. He can’t want to be a detective anymore. He just killed his career.” Cate eyed the wreckage of her office. Russo had just broken the last barrier, and she didn’t know if he could ever get back. “He must have reacted strongly to Marz’s suicide. He must blame me for it.”
“I’m glad he didn’t kill you. Or me.”
“Or Sam.”
“Hmph! Save me the trouble of killin’ him my own self!” An unlikely grin spread slowly across Val’s face, and Cate burst into laughter, which felt unexpectedly good. Val said, “I tell you, I’ve seen clerks come and go, every year new ones. I’ve watched them get married, have babies, get divorced. But in all my years, I’ve never seen as strange a two as these. Each one’s crazier than the other. Sam, he takes the cake.”
“Nah, he just got scared.”
“He got scared? Now I’m scared. You scared?”
Cate felt it too, then. “Honest? Yes.”
“It’s not safe around here, all of a sudden.” Val pursed her lips. “I better tell the marshals and they’ll tell the FBI. And the chief should send out another court-mail, about Russo this time.”
“Oh, here we go.” Cate didn’t know how long she could keep a lid on that videotape. This was about to get public. There would be questions from the FBI. “I bet Meriden’s on the phone to the chief as we speak.”
“Probably on the cell on the way down the hall.” Val clucked. “That man is a jerk, and he does not like you at all.”
“All of a sudden, nobody does.?
??
“Can’t understand why. I like you.” Val smiled warmly, and Cate smiled back.
“I like you, too.”
Val turned on her heel, her dress swirling, then turned back. “Judge, I almost forgot. You have a plea hearing at two-thirty this afternoon and a sentencing at four-thirty. I should cancel both.”
Cate groaned. “No, I can’t keep canceling these court dates. It backs up my docket and I’m on trial next week, in that products case. Keep the four-thirty.”
Ring! went a phone, and Cate sprinted for her purse, which she’d left in the reception area.
That better be Nesbitt. Or Sorian. Or the cavalry.
CHAPTER 23
Cate froze, standing in her ruined office, her phone at her ear. When Nesbitt told her, she was facing the window, so she remained facing the window, though she suddenly saw none of the view.
Nesbitt had said: “Judge, Russo stole my case file, on Simone. He has the record, about you.”
“Judge? You there?”
“He really has the record?”
“Yes. I gave you a copy. I kept the original in the file.”
“The record of my”—what had Nesbitt called it, only hours ago—“personal whereabouts?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“What about the pictures?”
“Those too. Copies, not the originals.”
Cate tried to process it and couldn’t. “How did this happen?”
“Come down to the Roundhouse, Judge. We need to talk about it.”
“Be there in fifteen minutes.” Cate let the phone snap closed.
Cate had never been at the Roundhouse before and couldn’t ignore its seaminess. The lobby downstairs was a dark, empty space, reeking of cigarette smoke that blew in from the smokers in front of the building. Nesbitt met her there, clamping a strong arm on hers, and whisking her up a funny, podlike elevator to the Homicide Division. They passed a cramped waiting area with two black couches, arranged facing each other against a wall that read WANTED and was covered by rows of eight-by-ten glossies of scary, affectless faces. Then Cate was pressed through a swinging half-door she’d seen in only the cheapest bars.
“This way, Judge,” Nesbitt said, and led her through a large, dim squad room that contained about twenty institutional-gray desks, stacked with files and arranged in no apparent order. Water-stained curtains hung unevenly, and on the right side of the room sat a row of file cabinets of different colors and sizes, in grimy gray, black, tan, and even olive green, lined up like rotten teeth. Detectives in shirt-sleeves talked on the phone at the desks, and one read the Daily News, his shiny loafers crossed on his desk. All of them pointedly ignored Cate and Nesbitt.
“Come on in, Judge,” Nesbitt said, gesturing her into an office off the squad room, and at Cate’s entrance, a tall, thin detective in a houndstooth suit stood up, with a professional smile. Nesbitt stepped in behind her. “Judge, this is my sergeant, Marvin Shiller.”
“Hello, Sergeant.” Cate extended a hand across the desk, trying to act as dignified as possible. Both men knew her secret, and it felt lousy. She could only imagine the jokes they’d made before she got here, and she wondered how many of the other detectives in the squad room knew, too. She forced herself to meet Shiller’s eye as he shook her hand, and he almost crushed it in a large, rough palm. She said, “Quite a handshake.”
“It impresses the chicks.” Shiller grinned, showing unusually small teeth in a broad, fleshy face.
“And nobody else,” Nesbitt added, and both men laughed.
“Thanks for coming, Judge. Sorry about the inconvenience.” Shiller was about fifty-five years old, with wide-set blue eyes and bushy gray eyebrows that looked dyed to match his wavy gray hair, expensively layered. He had a large, doughy fighter’s nose, and redness tinged his flat cheeks, as if he’d just come in from outside. “Oh, yeah, of course, call me Mitty.”
“That’s the nicest thing he’s been called recently,” Nesbitt said, and they laughed again. “Can I get you some coffee, Judge? Ours is the worst.”
“No, thanks, and I already make the worst.”
“Please, sit down.” Shiller waved a large hand at the stiff chair across from his desk, and Cate took one seat while Nesbitt took the other. A synthetic American flag stood in the corner of the room, slightly askew in its gold stand, next to a three-drawer set of file cabinets. Degrees and framed certificates hung on the scuffed walls. Shiller eased into his chair, which squeaked. “Judge, I’ll get right to the point. We have a problem with Frank Russo.”
“Clearly.” Cate told them what Russo had done to her house and office. “So at this point I’m afraid for my safety, and that of my staff.”
“Before we begin, you didn’t call the FBI, did you?”
“The marshals will, if they haven’t already.” Cate had known it would be the first thing Shiller asked. Everything was jurisdiction with the locals, and nobody wanted the FBI involved, least of all Cate. “I’m not that happy about it either, for obvious reasons.”
“It makes our job harder.”
“Understood, and I would like to keep this as confined as possible. I assume everything we say in here is confidential.”
“Goes without saying.”
Cate shifted forward on her uncomfortable chair. “Now, I understand that Russo stole the Simone file from Detective Nesbitt, and I want to know how that happened and what we can do about it.”
Nesbitt raised a hand, his good mood gone. “I can explain, Judge. Most of the detectives keep the files in unlocked drawers, and it’s nothing to go in and look through somebody else’s cases. It happens all the time. I don’t do that, not for my high-profile cases, because I don’t want any leaks to the press. Your case file was under lock and key in my desk drawer. I keep the key on my key ring.”
“Then how did Russo get it?”
“At some point, he must have gotten a copy of the key or made one, and he took the file and walked out with it. The up man saw him go this morning.”
“‘Up man’?”
“The detective who answers the phones at the front desk. We rotate, and he’s up.”
“And the up man didn’t stop him?”
“Why would he? He didn’t know he had it and he didn’t know it wasn’t Russo’s file. All the files look the same.”
“Didn’t anyone see him get it from your drawer?”
“No, and if they did, they wouldn’t have thought it was all that strange. We used to be partners. That’s how he knew where I kept sensitive cases.”
Cate felt her cheeks flush with anger. “Why did you keep it there, if you knew Russo was interested and the case was so sensitive? I mean, he was a key witness. He had a stake in winning.”
“Judge, I’m sorry.” Nesbitt met her eye, with regret. “I made a mistake. I never thought Russo would go into that drawer without my permission, much less break in and take a file.”
“It’s unprecedented,” Shiller added, leaning forward. “Unheard of, for one detective to do that to another. For all our joking around, I respect Nesbitt more than I can say. He’s the best on the squad and the most discreet. To tell you the truth, he’s next in line for my job.” Shiller nodded at Nesbitt, and Cate could see he felt bad enough.
“But why did Russo do that? Why did he want that file so badly?”
Nesbitt and Shiller exchanged glances. Then Nesbitt said, “Our best guess is that he’s been checking on the Simone file all along, without my knowing. After hours. It would be a way to keep tabs on the investigation because he knew I wouldn’t tell him what was going on. Then when the case was cleared and we were all out at the press conference, he took the file.”
Cate was confused. “So then he’s known about the record, and me, for a few days.”
“No.” Nesbitt shook his head. “Those records about you weren’t in the file until today. I kept them at home because they weren’t a part of the investigation, like I told you. I knew I wanted to show them to you. I even
used my home copier to make the copies. This morning, after I left your office, I put the originals back in the file. Then I went to the press conference and when I came back, it was gone.”
Shiller cleared his throat, authoritatively. “Judge, you can rest assured that I’m having Internal Affairs investigate the matter completely. Russo will be put on immediate suspension, and he will be discharged, I can promise you that.”
Cate almost laughed. “What good will that do? He’s off the reservation, isn’t he? Breaking into my house, my chambers? Violating state and federal laws. He’s a Rottweiler off the leash.”
“We do have procedure—”
“Fire him if you want to, Sergeant, but I think he quit. I’m right, aren’t I?” Cate turned to Nesbitt because she knew he’d give her a straight answer, and his mustache tilted down at the corners.
“Frankly, yes.” Nesbitt looked at Shiller, then back at Cate.
“Did you talk to Russo about Marz’s suicide?”
“Yes, he called me after I left your chambers. He’d heard it on the news and he took it badly. He was upset. He really liked Marz.”
“Does he blame me for the death?”
“Yes.” Nesbitt checked with Shiller again. “I tried to reach him after I saw the file was gone, but he wasn’t answering his home or cell. I went to his apartment and he wasn’t there. His neighbor said he hasn’t been home for days. My guess it’s since the verdict.”
“What about Marz’s wife? Did you try her?”
“She hasn’t seen him. I went over. That’s where I was when you called this morning. I had turned the phone off because she’s in mourning. Shiva, and all.”
“Would she tell you, if she knew?”
“I think so.”
“Is Russo married?”
“They broke up, years ago.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“Not that I know of. A kid at Penn State, and he hasn’t heard from him in months. They were never that close. He lived with the mother.”
Cate felt her gut tense, still raw from this morning. “So where is he?”
“We’re looking for him. We put out an APB. He’s a fugitive.”
“We’ll find him,” Shiller added firmly. “We’ll have him by the end of business today, if I have to go out and drag him in myself.”