“Right.”
“But the car got there a little late, in the rain. Simone was waiting out there alone when he was killed.”
“Right, the traffic held up the driver.”
Cate made a mental note to double check. “Who made the dinner reservations?”
“George did, or probably he had his associate or his secretary do it. He picked the restaurant, too.”
Cate considered it. She couldn’t see immediately what George Hartford would gain by killing his own client, unless George was messing around with the jury consultant and Simone had found out. Still, would Simone tell George’s wife? No. And did it matter anyway, in one of those crusty upper-crust marriages? Cate thought of Prince Charles and Camilla, her only reference point for upper-crust marriages, since there weren’t many in Centralia.
“So you actually think Marz didn’t kill Art? But then why would Marz kill himself?”
“Maybe he didn’t.” Cate readied herself to watch Micah’s reaction, since she was about to tell her everything. “Maybe somebody did it for him and made it look like a suicide.”
Micah gasped. “You’re kidding!” she yelped, then covered her mouth.
Ten out of ten on the Shock-O-Meter. “It’s possible.”
“Who would do that?”
“Whoever killed Simone.”
“Why?”
“To set up Marz as the shooter. After all, Marz was easy to frame. He had attacked Simone in open court and lost a lot of money to him. He had motive and opportunity aplenty. Marz makes the perfect killer, except that I’m not sure he did it.”
“You’re like a real detective! That’s incredible!”
“Tell me about it.” Cate leaned over. “I’m asking you if you knew if George was having an affair with the jury consultant, Courtney. I mean, I’m not stupid.”
“Honestly, yes,” Micah answered, her tone ringing true. She leaned forward, only too happy to dish now that she’d been excluded from the funeral. Or perhaps because she could cast suspicion on someone else.
“Really?” Cate tried not to get excited. It only raised more questions. “How do you know?”
“It was obvious, from the day she was hired.” Micah’s eyes glittered. “Lots of touching, pats on shoulders, like that. And joking around. I think it’s been going on a long time.”
“Really. Where was she hired from?”
“The Flavert Agency, her own business. Courtney sells common sense for a hundred thousand dollars a pop.”
Cate laughed.
“I told Art we shouldn’t pay it, that I knew more about Philly than she ever could. But he didn’t want to take any chances, and George insisted she was the best.”
“Maybe she was,” Cate shot back, and they both laughed like girlfriends. Then Cate asked suddenly, “Do you think she was sleeping with them both?”
“What? Who?”
“Courtney. The jury consultant.”
“She was sleeping with George,” Micah said testily.
“But was she sleeping with Art, too?”
“Of course not! What makes you say that?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? Art Simone was a very attractive man, with a lot of power and money. And Courtney was the one they both wanted at dinner.” Cate paused, letting it sink in. “Remember the threesome plotline for the first episode of the new TV series? The one you told me about? The two judges and a law clerk, in a ménage à trois?”
“Right, the pilot,” Micah answered, her face reddening in a way that told Cate she’d struck a chord, however accidentally.
“Yes, the pilot. Two men and a woman. Whose idea was it for the threesome plotline? Yours or Art’s?”
“Art’s.”
“So is life imitating Art, or is Art imitating life? No pun intended.” Cate managed another fake laugh, but Micah looked stricken.
“But…Art would never cheat like that.”
On you. “On his wife, you mean.”
“Right. On his wife.”
Bingo. “We’ll never know, will we? And we know Art got his ideas from his life. Isn’t that what he testified to, on the stand? Remember?”
Micah reached for her water glass with a hand that trembled. Cate knew that Micah and Simone were having an affair. The girl’s reaction to the threesome clinched it—and the incredible Mercedes. Micah had thought she was Simone’s mistress; she never figured he’d cheat on his mistress with another mistress. Which left Cate with yet another question.
And a thought about someone who might know the answer.
CHAPTER 42
Cate could hardly wait for Micah to go before she called information on her cell phone, got the number, and waited for the call to connect as she ran to her car in the cold.
“Flavert Associates,” said a woman’s voice.
“Yes, is Courtney in?”
“She’s on vacation this week. May I ask who’s calling?”
“No, thanks.” Cate flipped her phone closed, in frustration. She would have loved to have cornered Courtney and gotten confirmation of her theory. She had learned so much. She felt like she was getting close to something. She reached her car, dug in her bag for the keys, and got in, eventually finding her way out of the parking lot and onto the street, where she stopped.
Commuters flooded the street in front of her car, moving en masse toward buses, parking lots, and the train station, wrapped in heavy mufflers and ski hats like wool envelopes. Night had fallen, the rush-hour traffic tangled into lanes of red taillights, and plumes of white exhaust rose above the cars, an urban version of the toxic fumes of Centralia. Smoke obscured everything lately, and suddenly nothing was clear. Marz. Marz’s wife. Micah. Cate flipped open her phone, pressed in the number, and the call connected.
“Homicide,” said a man’s deep voice, which Cate recognized with an undeniable thrill.
“Nesbitt?”
“Judge, what’re you doing? You didn’t return my calls. I’ve been wondering.”
Aww. “Sorry.” Cate was kicking herself.
“You’re stirring up a hornets’ nest about the Simone case. I’m getting calls about you. Where are you?”
Have to do something about that “Judge” part. “Back in the city.”
“Listen, a girlfriend of Marz’s wife called, from the temple choir. She’s asking me to reopen the case. How did the alto section of Beth Hillel get in on this act?”
Oops. “Maybe from Sarah Marz? She was making a lot of sense today.”
“You spoke with her?”
“We sat shiva.” Cate waited for her turn to leave the lot, but the traffic was unending.
“Judge, I’m not gonna reopen this case.”
“Maybe I’ll change your mind.”
“No, you won’t. George Hartford called, too, from whatever law firm. He also called my sergeant, on top of it. He doesn’t want you nosing around in Simone’s murder, and I don’t blame him.”
“How’s Russo?”
“Out of the woods. They moved him to HUP.”
“He’s at Penn?” Cate felt a tingle of excitement. Penn’s hospital was twenty blocks west. It was too good to be true.
“Wait a minute. Don’t even think about going. He’s dangerous, and it’s not procedure.”
“I’d never go see him. He tried to kill me.” Cate flicked on the turn signal to make a left turn, then finally saw her opening in traffic and seized it, heading west toward the hospital. “Where are you?”
“I’m in the northeast, on a job. A double homicide.”
“Sounds grim.” And an hour away.
“I should go. Call you later, Cate.”
“Great.”
Cate.
It took her half an hour in rush-hour traffic to travel the five miles to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in West Philly, and another twenty minutes to find a parking space in one of the clogged-to-capacity lots. Cate hustled from the Acura, her thoughts churning and her emotions racing ahead. Hard to believe she
was visiting the man who had tried to kill her only the night before, but he had to have some valuable information on Marz. Cate kept an image of Sarah Marz in mind to motivate her. She prayed that Russo could answer some of her questions.
And also that she was mature enough not to pull his plug.
An impossibly young uniformed cop sat outside the door to Russo’s hospital room, reading the sports page, which he lowered when Cate presented herself, apparently not recognizing her. “Can I help you?”
“How’s the patient?”
“Fine, sleeps mostly.”
“Is Steve Nesbitt here?”
“Detective Nesbitt? He was here earlier but got beeped and left.”
“Oh, right, that job in the northeast.” Cate kept her tone even, so she could sound in the know and vaguely masculine. “I’m Cate Fante, to see Detective Russo.”
“Fante? I know that name, from somewhere,” the cop said, thinking aloud. “You’re the judge—”
Eek. “Ex-judge. I’m acting as Russo’s lawyer now. Nesbitt said he’d put me on the list, in case he didn’t get back in time.”
“List?” The cop smiled uncertainly, his teeth perfectly white and even, as if his braces had just come off. “I don’t have a list.”
“You’re supposed to.” Cate scowled. “Russo has a right to counsel, Officer. You can’t deprive the man of his constitutional rights just because you lost the list Nesbitt gave you.”
“He didn’t give me a list.”
“He told me he did. You calling Nesbitt a liar?”
“No, never, Nesbitt is—”
“Here.” Cate fished in her purse for her cell, flipped it open, and pressed DIALED CALLS. “That’s his cell number, right there. Don’t make me call him. He’s on a double homicide and very busy. You don’t want to interfere with him, do you?”
“No.”
“Quick. Pat me down. Russo pays by the hour.” Cate dropped her purse and raised her arms, and after a minute, the cop rose, folded the sports page, and set it down on his hard-plastic bucket chair.
“Well, okay, seeing as how he said it’s okay.” The cop ran his hands lightly over Cate’s coat and in her pockets, then slipped his hands underneath and patted down her body.
“Wanna check my purse?”
“Sure, thanks.” The cop turned around and dug inside the bag, then handed it back.
“Thank you,” Cate said, slipping inside the wide wooden door.
And letting it close behind her.
CHAPTER 43
Cate eyed Russo as he slept, taking evil satisfaction in the extent of his injuries. An ugly Frankenstein gash ran down his left cheek, which was covered with skin-toned butterfly things, and a large pink-red egg swelled in the middle of his Cro-Magnon forehead, like a third eye. His greasy black hair had been shaved in a reverse Mohawk; a scalp-deep strip improvised to accommodate a white gauze bandage that wound sideways around his head, completely covering his left ear. His left arm lay in a light blue cotton sling, his right hand in a gauze bandage like a ping-pong paddle, and his knee, lying outside the blanket, was held rigid by a steel brace with navy blue padding. All told, Russo formed a bandaged, if brawny, mound in the white cotton sheet, and an overgrown thicket of dark chest hair sprang from the collar of his gown, like the Black Forest come to Philly.
Cate approached the sleeping man and put her face close to his good ear. “FIRE! FIRE! WAKE UP! EMERGENCY!”
“Ah!” Russo’s puffy eyes flew open in alarm. He tried to get up, grimacing. “Oww!”
“Just kidding!”
“Wha?” Russo blinked in pain, propped lopsided on his good arm.
“Recognize me, Detective? Or should I run away and scream?”
“Ahh. Owww.” Russo blinked a few more times, then sank back into the thin pillow. His voice sounded hoarse, hopefully from a tube they’d stuck down his throat. Dry.
“It’s me, Judge Fante.”
“The killer judge.”
“Once again, you’re half right. I must say, you got what you deserved, and I do excellent work.” Cate clucked over his ugly wounds. “You’re single, right? Better get used to it.”
“What’re you doin’ here?”
“Came to say hi.” Cate plunked herself down next to his swaddled form, bumping him roughly aside. “Make room, would you?”
Russo moaned. “Ow, stop it.”
“Oops. Sorry. Did I hurt you?” Cate give him another bump. “Yikes! I got crazy hips tonight!”
“Keep it up and I’ll call the uniform.”
“Do that. Tell on me.” Cate flashed on the swing of his car headlights, aimed right at her. “Doesn’t it itch like crazy under those casts, or are you in too much pain to feel it? They say, first comes the pain, then comes the itching. Maybe bedsores. Boils, too. Barnacles. Carbuncles. Pestilence. Maybe your nose will fall off.”
“Bitch.”
“Feeling’s mutual.” Cate bounced on the bed until he grimaced again. “Get well soon, would you? So we can lock your ass in jail.”
“You killed Rich.”
“No, I didn’t, you idiot, but I don’t think it was suicide, either. Look how much we have in common. I’m so glad you asked me out.”
“If I could move, I’d kill you with my bare hands.”
“If you could move, I wouldn’t have done my job.”
Suddenly there was a rattling in the hall, and they both looked over. The door was being opened by the uniformed cop, holding it ajar for a short attractive woman in a white uniform with a nameplate that read, JULIE WILLIAMSON. She was pushing a tall metal cart with shelves for dinner trays. She grabbed a tray from the cart and scooted into the room with it. “Hello, you two!” the woman sang out, carrying a green plastic tray on which sat a plate of roasted chicken beside a spreading pool of mashed potatoes and olive green peas, puckering as they cooled.
“It’s about time,” Russo grumbled, and Cate stood up.
“Here, let me help.”
“Thanks a lot,” the woman said gratefully, handing off the tray and hurrying back out to her cart. The uniformed cop nodded, then let the door close.
Cate turned to Russo with the tray. “Hungry?”
“Yeah.”
“Me, too. Another thing we have in common. We’re made for each other. You complete me.”
“Gimme my dinner.”
“In a minute.”
“What the hell is your problem?”
“I need information. Tell me why you think Marz didn’t kill himself, and don’t give me all the soft stuff, like that he wasn’t that kind of guy. Give me hard evidence. Make your best argument. Sell me.”
“Who’re you kidding? This some game you’re playing? You hired the scum to kill him and Simone.”
“Like I said, I don’t think Marz killed himself. I met his wife and she convinced me, but that’s not evidence. You oughta help me out, since only one of us is mobile enough to catch the bad guy. Now answer my question and I’ll give you your dinner.”
“Not enough blowback for a suicide,” Russo answered gruffly. “I don’t get you, lady.”
“What’s blowback? I’ve heard the term, but I don’t really know what it means.”
“Blowback’s the blood and tissue that gets on your hand when you shoot yourself. The explosion blows it back on your hand.” Russo shifted in bed, wincing. “Rich shoulda had a lot of blowback. He had some, but not as much as I woulda thought. Or other suicides have.”
“So?”
“So that means somebody else got the blowback. It’s proof that your man put his hand over Rich’s and pulled the trigger. The hand on top blocks the blowback.”
Cate visualized the gruesome scene. “Like a stencil. How do you know how much blowback to expect?”
“Judgment call. Rich had stippling, so I would expect more blowback.”
“What’s stippling?”
Russo sighed theatrically. “Why you playing this game? You’re a freak, you know that?”
> “What’s stippling? Your chicken’s getting cold.”
“Tattooing from the gunpowder, against the temple. Looks like a starburst. Shows that the gun was fired at close range. Gun fired that close should produce a lot of blowback. This didn’t. So your guy tripped up.” Russo’s injured face twisted. “He fooled them but he can’t fool me.”
“Right. You’re a genius, that’s why you drove off a cliff. Now tell me this, Einstein. Why would Marz let somebody put their hand over his and shoot him?”
“He was drunk. Anybody coulda done it.”
“He was drunk?” Cate asked, surprised. “I hadn’t heard that.”
“We smelled it on him. We found booze in the car. The test’ll come back with levels, if it’s not back already.”
Cate considered it. “Still, it’s consistent with suicide.”
“That’s what Nesbitt says, but I know Rich. He drank on the sly. His liver would show it. I guarantee the autopsy shows it.” Russo tried to lift his head but couldn’t. “Gimme my dinner!”
“He drank?”
“Hid it real well, but I know the signs. I used to be a drunk myself. He popped Altoids and got lost for a stretch now and then.”
Cate thought of what Sarah had said. Richard frequently went off alone, to think. “Did you ever confirm this with him?”
“Huh?” Russo seemed to grow suddenly tired and almost cooperative.
“Did you ever ask Marz if he drank?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“He’s an Orthodox Jew. What do you think he’s gonna say? I want my dinner!” Russo raised his head, then gave up and put it back down again. “Why you askin’ these questions? Why’d you come anyway? Get outta here.” Russo shouted, “Yo, rookie! Rookie!”
The door opened, and the young cop stuck his head inside. “Yes, Detective?”
Russo pointed at Cate. “Get her outta here. She’s got my dinner.”
“He’s delusional, he’ll be fine,” Cate said, getting up, shooing the cop out, and closing the door behind him. She rolled the tray to Russo and folded her arms. “Here’s your dinner, you big baby. Buon appetito.”