“I didn’t see it. I haven’t seen a newspaper since Richard died. We suspend our normal activities to sit shiva, and it lasts seven days.”
Maybe I should convert. Maybe everybody should.
“What happened?” Sarah asked, and Cate told her, making attempted murder as entertaining as possible. This girl didn’t need more tsuris. “So I’m not sure Russo is your best argument. Did he know Richard well?”
“Well enough to know Richard wasn’t the type to commit suicide. Don’t you see?” Sarah leaned forward on the tiny stool. “Russo’s instincts told him that my husband wasn’t the killer, but he was just wrong about who was. I don’t know who did it, either. I just know that Richard didn’t. And I think that that person killed Richard and made it look like a suicide.”
“Let me ask you something,” Cate said, against her better judgment. She set the plate of food down on the glass coffee table. “What happened after that day in court, after I ruled from the bench?”
Sarah thought a minute. “You made your ruling, and Richard got into that fight in the courtroom, then you left the bench and they separated Richard and Simone. Simone left with his lawyer, and Richard hugged me and said he wanted to be alone and asked would I please take Mom home, because she was upset, too. So I did.”
“And he disappeared after that?” Cate frowned, and Sarah raised a hand, as if to stave off the thought.
“It’s not as weird as it sounds. Richard frequently went off alone, to think. He was a scholar, a philosophy major at Swarthmore. He thought about things.” Sarah’s eyes came alive with love. “He was internal, always pondering. That’s why he liked computers so much. He was an intellectual. Not a man of action, or violence.”
“He attacked somebody in open court, Sarah.”
“Attacking isn’t shooting to kill, Judge.”
Cate smiled. True, that. “Where did he go, to think?”
“To temple, to the library, or sometimes the park. Off by himself. That’s where I think he was when whoever it was killed Simone, outside the restaurant.” Sarah raised her voice, vehement. “Richard would never do that! We didn’t own a gun. Where did he get it?”
“Where everybody does. Bought it or got it off the street from somebody.”
“We didn’t know anybody who could get him a gun ‘off the street’.”
“But he was an assistant DA. Didn’t he meet criminal types there?”
“No, he handled computer crime. He met geeks. And when did he buy this gun, supposedly? He rushed right out after court and bought it?”
“Why not?”
“He wouldn’t even know how to fire a gun.”
“It can’t be hard,” Cate said, though she had never fired one, either. “Too many dumb people are good at it.”
“Judge, don’t you see what I’m saying?” Sarah asked, newly urgent. “Don’t you agree with me?”
“I don’t know.” Cate shook her head. “I see your point, I do. And even if I was agreeing, I don’t know what I could do about it.”
“Ask the police to reopen the case. I’ve already written them, and they refused. Maybe they would do it, if you asked. A federal judge, who heard the case.”
An ex-federal judge, but you don’t read the papers. “Forget the police, they won’t do anything officially. They reopen cases for newly discovered evidence, not supposition.”
“But Richard didn’t do it, and the killer is still out there. Free.”
“Tell you what, I’ve come to know Detective Nesbitt, who worked on the case. I’ll bring it up with him and see what he thinks, unofficially. I’m sure I’ll be talking with him later.” At least I hope I will be.
“Thank you! Thank you!” Sarah jumped up and impulsively threw her arms around Cate, giving her a heartfelt hug. “I knew you would help.”
“Please don’t have any false hopes, though.” Cate rose and hugged her back, then held her off, steadying her. “Hear me? You have to be realistic. Nesbitt believed his original theory and he has hard evidence to support it. I’m not sure your pregnancy changes anything for him, or anybody else.”
“I know, I know, but I think it will. I pray it will.”
“Chillax,” Cate said, using as motherly a tone as she could muster, borrowing Nesbitt’s expression, and Sarah laughed, her tone lighter than before.
“I can’t, I’m so pleased.” Sarah clapped her smallish hands with delight, and Cate started to worry she was getting carried away.
“You know, even if we manage to get them to reopen the case, which I swear we won’t, it wouldn’t bring Richard back.”
“I know that,” Sarah said, her expression growing suddenly serious. “That’s not what I’m hoping for.”
“What are you hoping for?”
“That his name is cleared. That the world knows he’s not a killer, and that justice is done. I know it will never bring Richard back, but it will bring back my friends. My community. Look around you.” Sarah gestured at the empty room. “I don’t want to raise a baby like this, apart from community. I don’t want people whispering about our family, or her father. Can you imagine what that does to a little girl?”
Uh, as a matter of fact, I can.
“People will whisper about him, about us, and it’s unnecessary. Her father was a great man, and I don’t want her raised knowing only lies about him, even if it protects her.”
“Good girl!” Cate said, her heart speaking for her.
“Thank you. I don’t want my baby to grow up thinking that her father was a murderer. Or that he committed suicide. I want her to know the truth about her father, that’s the only way to truly know him. If you don’t know your own father, how can you know yourself?”
Yikes. “How did you get to be so smart?” Cate asked, swallowing the lump in her throat.
And she couldn’t help but think ahead.
CHAPTER 40
Cate turned up the heat on the well-behaved Acura and wound her way back through the neighborhood to City Line Avenue. She didn’t want to be persuaded by sympathy for Sarah or by any resonance in her own life, but she had to admit that she was beginning to doubt that Marz had killed Simone, then himself. She opened her cell phone and pressed in the number, warming to the familiar voice, smooth as syrup on the end of the line.
“Judge Fante’s chambers,” Val said, and Cate wanted to hug her for her loyalty.
“Keeping my name alive. Thank you, Val.”
“Judge, that you? I was so worried, after what I heard. We called the hospital up there but they said you were discharged. Aw, you okay? They said you were treated for smoke inhalation or some such.”
“I’m fine. It was nothing.”
“We’re all thinking of you. The clerks are right here, breathin’ down my neck, as usual.” Val chuckled, and the clerks shouted, “Judge, Judge!” like little kids.
Cate smiled. “Tell them I said hi.”
“She says hi, and settle down so I can hear,” Val told them. “Judge, if you’re so fine, why’d they keep you overnight? Where’re you now?”
“Coming back to the city.” The traffic light changed to green, and Cate fed the car some gas. “And how are you? How many job offers you get today?” In the background, Cate could hear the clerks yelling, “We miss you, Judge!”
Val laughed. “I don’t want to work for another judge. It’s so boring here, without you. Judge, one good thing, we only got two calls from the press, one from the Daily News and the other from the AP.”
“They’re forgetting me. Yay! Anything else I need to know?”
“No, I got it all in control.”
“What happened to Ickles v. Schrader?”
“Sherman reassigned it to Meriden.”
“Doesn’t he have a trial this week, the case pig?” Cate traveled City Line, four lanes of stop-and-go traffic.
“You got that right, but he’s trying to change his image. Today’s his birthday, and he’s taking everybody on the floor to lunch. Including me and the cle
rks.”
“You?” Cate almost ran a red light. “My clerks? What’s up with that?”
“I don’t want to go, but I feel like we have to, to keep up appearances.”
“You do. Go. Just don’t have fun.”
In the background, the clerks were shouting, “We’re not going!”
Cate smiled. “Tell them to go. And don’t embarrass the family.”
“Done deal. By the way, you get that mail I sent you?”
“Yes, thanks.”
“I got more here. All official, nothing personal. What was that little pink one, another prisoner letter?”
“No, from Richard Marz’s wife. She doesn’t think her husband killed Art Simone. You know what? Neither do I. I swear, the case against him stinks. Something’s very fishy.”
Val clucked. “Judge, don’t you get involved. You’re already in too deep, with that crazy cop trying to run you down like a dog.”
“It’s because he knows Marz didn’t do it.”
“Yes, he did. Marz did it. The man killed Simone and then himself. Judge, you listen to me, leave the investigating to the police. They got the right man, and it’s over.”
“Okay, Mom.” Cate heard the clerks chirping, “What? What investigation?”
“Hush, you two!”
“Tell them I said good-bye and to be good at lunch. Call if you need anything.”
“You better listen,” Val said, and Cate switched lanes into the turn lane.
Heading for the expressway.
Cate introduced herself to the young receptionist, who snapped her moussed head up from her paperback, so wide-eyed that her liquid eyeliner disappeared.
“Judge Fante, well, please have a seat in the waiting area,” the receptionist said, too genuine to hide her surprise.
“Thanks.” Cate entered the faux-hip reception room. Two businessmen in suits occupied separate chairs, pointedly avoiding her eye. One talked too loudly on a cell phone, and the other read the Inquirer. Cate caught a glimpse of her own photo, staring back at her. Her face grew red, but she seated herself as if she weren’t the town slut.
Green & Wachtel had undergone an extreme makeover since the old days, when it looked like the law firm where Ralph Lauren went to die. Its old mint-hued maps of colonial Philadelphia and scenes of fox-hunting in Chester County had been replaced by vast canvases of Self-Important Modern Art, abstract washes that made Cate think somebody had too much water in his tin of Crayola watercolors. Also gone were the burgundy-leather wing chairs with the shiny bullet tacks, and in their place stood massive sectional seats of black suede. Their color reminded Cate of coal slag, but she had Centralia on the brain.
“He’ll see you now, Judge,” the receptionist said, turning from her desk and motioning. “His office is that way, the last door on the hall.”
“Thanks.” Cate got up, squared her shoulders, and tried not to hear the receptionist pick up the phone as soon as she was out of earshot. She walked down the well-appointed hallway, completely aware that every secretary was staring as she passed. She had a lifetime of people whispering, and at the end of the hall, George Hartford was standing to meet her. His smile looked plastic, but it always did.
“Judge Fante, great to see you again,” George said, at the door to his office, and Cate shook his hand. “Come in, come in. Can we get you some coffee?”
“Great. Cream and sugar.”
“Easy, peasy.” George signaled to one of the secretaries. “Jen, two with everything.”
“Say ‘please’.” Cate paused as she entered the lawyer’s immense office. “My mother was a secretary.”
“Please?” George called after the secretary, who undoubtedly flipped his preppy ass the finger. “Please, sit down. Please.”
“Thanks.” Cate took a seat in the leather club chair opposite a supremely uncluttered mahogany desk. Ralph Lauren Home was still alive here; in fact, it was a knock-off compared to this office, which reeked of old Bryn Mawr. Real silver frames gleamed from retro black-and-white photos, and mahogany end tables shone with hand-rubbed finishes. Sunlight filtered through sheer muslin curtains in the windows, and even the dust mites wore penny loafers.
“Here we go!” George said brightly as a young secretary hurried in with china cups and saucers of aromatic coffee, which she placed on the end of the desk, on coasters. “Thanks so much, Jennifer,” George said pointedly.
“You’re welcome,” the secretary said, stealing a glance at Cate before she left.
“See, I’m educable,” George said with a stiff smile. “Old dog that I am.” He wore a gray pinstriped suit and an Hermès tie of the palest blue. His dark blue shirt, of British birth, sported a white cutaway collar. But something about him was different.
“Don’t you wear glasses, George?”
“Not anymore. I had my eyes lasered.”
Can you say midlife crisis? Radial keratotomy is the new red Porsche.
“I lost only a few hours of work, and the procedure is remarkable. And I was made managing partner last week, did you hear?”
“Congratulations, and I hadn’t heard. I’ve been too self-involved.”
“So we do have something in common,” George said with a sly smile, and Cate caught a lechy note in his voice.
“Then you are too old.”
“Ha! Some would say I’m in my prime.”
“You’re not.” In other words, back off.
George laughed, and Cate joined him so she could pretend she was kidding.
“George, I need a lawyer. A very good lawyer. You did a great job before me at trial, and after Beecker, this is the second-best law firm in the city.”
“But still the most expensive.”
Cate laughed, and George joined her, so they could pretend he was kidding. Lawyers were easy to get along with, once you knew how.
Cate said, “You’ve been following my troubles in the news, I’m sure.”
“Yes, and after last night, I’m surprised to see you looking so well.” George let his gaze run over her silk blouse. “What happened? Detective Russo tried to run you over? Is he a lunatic or what?”
“In short, he doesn’t think that Richard Marz killed your client, Art Simone. He thinks I did.”
George’s new eyes widened. “That’s absurd.”
“Of course I didn’t kill anybody. But what if he’s half right, and Richard Marz didn’t kill your client?”
“Impossible.” George reared back, and his neck wattle chafed his white collar, with its edge stiff enough to cut hard cheese. “The police said they had videotape of Marz shooting him.”
“It’s not clear that it’s Marz on the tape.” Cate sipped her coffee and set it back down. “Take a second to tell me what happened that day, at dinner with Simone. You were with Simone at that dinner that night, right?”
“Yes. I told the police, in detail.”
“So now tell me, your new favorite client.”
George smiled, relaxing. “Well, after you ruled from the bench, we went to an early dinner at Le Jardin, on the riverfront. I knew that Art liked French restaurants and it was the only one we hadn’t been to. I told him we were saving it for our victory dinner.”
“Sure of yourself, huh?”
“I was right on the law. I know you weren’t happy with the equities, but the legal principle was sound. I represented the principle.”
“Let’s not go there. Who was at the dinner?”
“Art, the jury consultant, and me.”
“The jury consultant was the pretty redhead, with my taste in clothes?”
George chuckled. “Courtney Flavert.”
“What about your associate, from the trial? She wasn’t at dinner?”
“No. Let’s put it this way, she has a brilliant legal mind.” George laughed.
Nice. “What time did you get there?”
“Around four, as I recall. Early. We went straight from court.”
“You took a cab or had a driver?”
> “Cab. We couldn’t all fit in one, so Courtney and I took one, and Micah and Art took the other.”
A double date. “But Micah didn’t go to the dinner.”
“No, I think Art dropped her off, and took the cab on to the restaurant.”
Cate made a mental note. “Do Courtney and Art know each other?”
“Yes, from working together. Art was very interested in the jury-selection process.” George pursed his lips but still managed a smile. “Nothing untoward took place, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
“Of course not. I wonder why Micah didn’t go to the dinner celebration. She was in court every day. Why wasn’t she included?”
“Art didn’t think of her that way. She was a glorified secretary.”
Ouch. Cate let it go, but it still didn’t square. “By the way, did you know that Simone was going to do a TV series based on me?”
“I had no idea, and I’m sorry about that.” George frowned suddenly. “Hold on, Judge. It’s not Art’s estate or his production company that you want to sue, is it? Because of course, I’d be conflicted out of that. Though one of my partners might not be, if—”
“No, that’s not who I want to sue. But back to the dinner, for a minute. Why did Art leave alone?”
“He had to catch an early plane back to the Coast.”
“He flew commercial?”
“No, but he wanted to get back early, so he didn’t stick around. He said he needed to be out by six, to catch his plane from the airport at seven-fifteen.” George thought a minute. “We were having dessert, but he passed. He was on low-carb.”
“Did you walk him out?”
“No. He went out alone.”
Cate tried to picture the night of the murder. “Why didn’t you walk him out, after dinner? He’s a client.”
“No reason to.”
“He was a client. You met me at the door.”
“You’re a woman.” George shrugged. “There was no reason to. He didn’t invite that sort of friendship, nor did I. I didn’t waste his time, and he didn’t waste mine. We shook, we congratulated each other, he said ‘Send me a bill,’ and I said I would.”