“Why… yes?” She found herself flustered for a second; how could he have known who she was?
She got her answer. “Mister Shelton said you’d be here. He described you. We have your table ready.”
Sylvia followed him past the crowded tables and booths until they reached an alcove marked “Judicial Chambers.” It was quieter in here, the conversation was muted, and although every booth was occupied, the room didn’t seem nearly as crowded as the main section. Over in the corner, Sylvia saw the detective deep in conversation with a gray-haired man who had his back to her. She felt a strong tug of disappointment; Shelton had not told her there would be someone else.
Then as she came closer, she became aware of a change in Shelton. He was so different! His clothes looked as if they had been tailored for him. He seemed completely at ease in these surroundings… as if he belonged! It was almost as if he were a completely different man than that dreary little creature who had brought the photographs… and then she remembered that he had seemed changed when he came out of the bathroom that day and had… had… obeyed her instructions. She was blushing when she reached the table.
She saw Tod look in her direction. A broad smile of welcome and something else lit up his face as he stood. The older man stood also and Sylvia gasped in recognition. “Judge Morse?” she stammered.
“Sylvia? Good Lord! What a pleasant surprise!” He looked from the private detective back to her. He opened his mouth as if to say something, but then obviously thought better of it.
Shelton’s thick eyebrows had raised quizzically. “You two know each other?”
Sylvia merely nodded, feeling some embarrassment. Judge Morse had been a friend of her father’s family for over fifty years; he had performed the marriage ceremonies for her and Bruce’s wedding… even though she had overheard him telling her mother that he was sure Sylvia was making a mistake.
Shelton moved to her rescue. “Please sit down, Mrs. Akron. Judge Morse and I were just shooting the breeze.”
Sylvia moved into the designated seat and Shelton sat down beside her. She looked up, almost guiltily, toward the magistrate who continued to gaze speculatively at her.
Shelton said, without too much sincerity in his voice, “Tom, why don’t you join us for lunch?”
“No, Tod. I’ve other plans.” The judge stared at both of them and then asked the question he had obviously been holding back. “Sylvia, I’m dumbfounded. Have you two known each other very long?”
She didn’t get a chance to answer, for Shelton interrupted, “This is strictly business, Tom.”
Judge Morse peered at her and said slowly, “I see. You and Bruce… a… thinking about…?”
“I’m leaving him,” she said simply, feeling that honesty was probably the better policy. Then she added rapidly, “Mother doesn’t know about it yet. No one knows. Not even Bruce.”
The Judge nodded. “I shall say nothing.” He gazed at the two of them then smiled paternally. “For a moment there I thought that perhaps the two of you…” he shrugged, then grinned. “Hell, I’ve known the two of you for about thirty years. When an almost old man sees two of his favorite young people together, he obviously begins to hope that… that maybe… “ He said nothing else, but Sylvia could feel herself blushing. She looked over toward Shelton and saw his face was colored as well. The magistrate patted her hand paternally. “Well, Sylvia, I must say that if you need assistance in a divorce matter you’ve certainly come to the right man. Tod, here, is the most honest, the most capable… He’s in the wrong business, of course. I keep telling him that he should go back to school and get his law degree, but he’s really quite stubborn.”
Sylvia sat through it all, listening with amazement at the good-natured and obviously affectionate banter between the two men. It was not until the Judge left them alone that the detective turned his full attention on her. She felt a jolt of pleasure shoot through her. He was a goddamned handsome man, she thought… handsome and virile, too. He had come up in her estimation considerably. Judge Morse had called the detective one of his “favorite” people; that meant Shelton was o.k. all the way down the line.
“What will you have to drink?” he asked.
Shelton merely held his hand up about shoulder height, and a waiter almost immediately appeared carrying two Tarnquerays with a lemon twist.
Sylvia knew her earlier pose of snobbish superiority had been shattered; even so, she tried to regain her composure and command of the situation… after all, he was working for her. She toyed with her drink, refusing to look directly at him. “How did you and Judge Morse come to know each other?” she asked.
“I used to deliver papers to his office. He was just a struggling attorney at the time. Horribly poor. Near starving. We used to share cheese crackers together.” Shelton laughed in remembrance, and Sylvia suddenly realized she liked his laugh. “It was the Depression then. He didn’t have any money, so I gave him credit. I was only nine years old, living with an uncle. My folks died when I was six, I guess I felt sort of protective toward Tom. He couldn’t pay his bill for almost nine months, then he finally won a case, his first big one. When he paid me, he tried to give me ten bucks extra. I refused to take it.”
Sylvia looked at him then, and he turned his eyes away as if he were ashamed of his own emotions. “It seems kind of stupid now, but I was just a kid. I remember that I got mad at him and started bawling. He asked me what was wrong and I answered something like I had given credit because I thought he was a friend who needed help, and you can’t pay friends for helping you. I ran out of his office, blubbering. He chased and caught up with me three blocks away. Funny thing… I remember… he had tears in his eyes, too, when he asked me to forgive him. World War II came and he went… wrote to me regularly every week’ about Africa, Italy, Germany… wherever he happened to be, just like an older brother… or a father. He helped me get a scholarship at Pomona College, then sponsored me in my first two years at Boalt. I was going to be a lawyer, too… but the Korean War came along.” He shrugged. “When I came back I discovered that all these punks who had gotten deferments had crawled out of the woodwork from as far away as New York to get into Boalt, and now the school had a waiting list of two years. I got married, went to work as a cop, then got involved in a shooting beef one night with a joker who hit me in the left arm with a.44 slug. They gave me a forty percent disability and told me I wasn’t suitable for active police work any longer.” He laughed and for a moment his bitterness showed. “They offered me a job inside as a record clerk. I told them what they could do with that job. Then I used my disability pay to start my own investigation agency. So here I am.”
“And your wife?” It was said casually, too casually. “We couldn’t hack it together. We’d been married about seven months and she was constantly bitching about my working nights as a policeman; she took off with a boyfriend… sent me divorce papers from Mexico. She wiped herself out about ten years ago in an automobile accident in Germany.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. Not for me. Or for her! She went out the way she would have wanted to go… taking an internationally famous movie star with her. It made headlines throughout Europe. They’d been living together while she was trying to get her fifth divorce.”
Sylvia listened to him talk. Odd, she thought, I’ve been married to Bruce for ten years and I never understood or felt one damned thing about him. Yet, here I am sitting with almost a stranger, and I’ve gotten more insight into this man’s character in fifteen minutes than I’ll ever have about Bruce… even if we were married for another ten years. She found herself in empathy with the detective. When he had been talking about the newspaper delivery episode she’d actually found herself reaching impulsively for his hand to show him she understood. Fortunately he hadn’t noticed her abortive movement.