“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 clerks.”
“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 amp; 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.”