“Do they know the timing on all of this?”
Marina’s little notebook is in the pocket of her khaki sport coat.
“Sent 9:42 A.M. And then it gets deleted from both files a little before four.”
“So there are definitely other people around chambers both times?”
“Seems likely. Does anybody besides you know the password on your computer?”
“Dineesha.”
“Just Dineesha?”
The truth lands on him like something from the sky. Zeke. Zeke after all. It’s a proven fact that he freely rifles his mother’s things. She has the password written somewhere, and Zeke found it. The judge speaks his name.
“Great minds,” says Marina. “That was what hit me when I heard from the Bureau. But that first message, that was sent on a Friday. When Zeke was supposed to be down in St. Louis. And we just called the company to confirm he was there. He’s clear.”
Clear, but also unemployed, George thinks. Zeke’s employer in St. Louis won’t keep him a day after receiving questions from the FBI. So it goes for Zeke. This is the other side of his story. But, as always, it’s Zeke’s mother George feels for the most.
“All right,” he says. “Where were we?”
“Password on your computer? Only Dineesha has it.”
“Right.” He thinks. “But if I’d been using the computer and went down the hall for a minute, the security screen wouldn’t cycle back on for what, fifteen minutes?”
“Should be ten,” Marina says. “So let’s say it’s somebody who walked in at that point and typed for just a second. Who could that be?”
“Anybody on my staff.”
“Okay. That’s got to be our priority group. Because of the timing. Who else could just go cruising in there?”
“Sometimes another judge comes by to drop off a draft. These days we usually e-mail, but now and then there’s an issue to talk over, and one of my brethren will hand-carry his or her opinion to me. I suppose if I was out the first time, she or he would have an excuse to come back.”
“And can we figure out which judges you were working with?”
“It’s end of term, Marina. In the last month, I’ve probably exchanged drafts with every member of the court from the Chief on down.”
“Okay. So we rule in your staff. The judges. And?”
“Maybe their clerks. It’s possible. But if we’re talking about somebody who could just walk past Dineesha, then we’d have to include people from your shop. Murph and you.”
“We’ll put me on the suspect list right behind you. Who else?”
“IS. Maintenance. That’s about it.”
“Okay. So where do we start?”
“Start what?”
“Well, I’d like to question your staff.”
George knows what that will be like. Bare-knuckles interrogation. Dineesha, John, Cassie, Marcus. They’ll be hot-boxed, accused. He doesn’t like the idea at all and says so.
“Do you have a best guess, Judge? Somebody who should be first?”
“Can I think about it overnight?”
Marina agrees. Abel will drive George back to the courthouse, then home. They have reached the van when George snaps his fingers and trots back into the station to see Grissom.
“I forgot,” he says. “Where’s my car?”
It’s at the pound, in the hands of the evidence techs. Even expediting everything-lifts, vacuuming, photographs-it will be a few days before the P.A.’s office signs off on the release.
Grissom gives him a little smile. “Besides, you’re not thinking of driving now, Judge, are you? Not before you get that arm out of a sling.”
“Law enforcement,” George says to Abel when he climbs into the van.
In chambers, he finds that Banion, ever faithful, has left papers on his chair, printouts from a periodical database. It’s a moment before George fathoms the point. It’s a listing of articles by authors named Lolly or Viccino. On the bottom of page one, there are four entries from quilting journals by somebody named Lolly Viccino Gardner. John has used another search engine to find a phone and an address in Livermore, California, which he’s written in the margin in his tidy hand.
George checks his watch. Two hours earlier there.
“I’ll be a few minutes, Abel,” he calls. Lounged on the green sofa and engrossed in a paperback novel about cops, Abel merely waves as George closes the door.
Why? he asks himself. But he’s already dialing. It rings four times, and whoever says hello sounds a bit breathless, as if she ran.
“My name is George Mason. Judge George Mason. I’m hoping to speak to a woman named Lolly Viccino-or who used to go by that name.”
Time passes. “Speaking.”
“And are you the Lolly Viccino who attended Columa College in 1964?” he asks, although he knows he’s found her from the little wrinkle of a Tidewater accent in the lone word she’s uttered.
Lolly Viccino, in the meantime, is engaged in calculations of her own.
“Is this about money? Are you raising money for that place? Because, brother, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”
“No, ma’am,” he answers, realizing that he himself sounds a little as he might have forty years ago. “Hardly that. No.”
“And you say you’re a judge?”
He repeats his title. “In DuSable.”
“DuSable. I’ve never been there. Are you sure you’ve got the right person?”
“No, no,” he says. “This isn’t official business.”
“Oh,” she says. “I hoped you were calling to tell me I’d inherited a fortune from a long-lost relative.” She laughs then, a little trick of sound raveled by bitterness.
“Afraid not,” he says.
“Well, why then?”
He finally says he’d been an undergrad at Charlottesville.
“And did I know you?” she asks.
“I think so.”
“Did we go out? I’m not sure I dated anybody there.”
“No,” he agrees.
“How was it we met?”
So here he is. There’s no way he can get the words out of his mouth. And it would be cruel to remind her of something she’s stored away, whether conveniently or with some measure of pain. Even the day after the event, he wasn’t sure how much she’d retained. He never answers.
“Because I don’t think about any of that,” she adds then. “I never go back to that part of the world. Do you?”
He doesn’t actually. Not since his parents died. Both his sisters are in Connecticut. He has surrendered his Virginia citizenship, as it were. And so has Lolly Viccino.
“It’s all so old there,” she says. “I’m just happy to be gone. I don’t talk to any of them from home, to tell you the truth. And how did you say I know you?”
“I just have a memory,” he says, “of bumping into you. During Party Weekend in the fall. And I’ve been thinking about some things that happened back then.”
“Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t remember. I can’t even picture anything from that time. I hated all of it.”
“Oh,” he says.
“So I’m afraid I can’t help you, Judge. Mason?”
“Yes.”
She lingers then. Of course, she thinks she knows the name. Which she does. You can’t grow up in Virginia without hearing of George Mason. They named a university for him, and roads. Saving that, George is certain she would have hung up moments ago.
“I suppose,” he says, “I suppose I’ve been curious about how your life turned out.”
“Really? And why is that? How did your life turn out?”
“Pretty well,” he responds instantly. “Very well.” That, in fact, has been the unvoiced question of the last few months, and this, he realizes, is his answer. He has most of what he ever wanted. He’s been able to say that for quite some time, especially since he reached the Court of Appeals. His family’s always been A minus to A plus, depending on the moment. Judge Mason gets up most mornings knowing that life worked out better for him than for most people.
“I can’t say that,” she says. “I get by. I’ve gotten by. But I’m here, you know? One day at a time. That’s how it is for everybody, right? It’s not easy for anybody, Judge, is it?”