“Yes,” he said, a pleasant, if formal, smile on his face.
“Could we meet in chambers, your honor?” she asked, including me in her glance. “I have a matter for the court.”
Judge Bingham’s chambers consisted of a single narrow room.
Two large windows took up most of the space on the wall behind his blond wood desk. There were no curtains and the venetian blinds were pulled all the way up. Light-colored bookshelves held the full collection of all the state court cases that had been the subject of an appellate opinion. On the opposite wall, next to the door that led to the clerk’s office, a small, three-shelf credenza held a picture of his wife and pictures of the young families of his grown children. On the bottom shelf, out of view in the corner, was a tarnished bronze statue of a tennis player, racket raised overhead, a trophy from some long-forgotten country club tournament. In the corner behind his desk, where he could reach it without getting up, was a pewter-colored putter. Old and often used, the tape around the handle had begun to unravel.
Bingham removed his robe, hung it carefully on a hook behind the door, and put on his suit coat. He was not five foot nine, but he was of slight build, trim and fit, with a spring to his step, and looked taller. His hair was short and brushed close to his scalp. His face and hands had a clean, scrubbed look, and his teeth were straight and white. He was one of those people who could have slept in his suit and still looked neat and pressed the next morning.
He sat down and pulled first one and then the other shirt cuff into its proper position below his suit coat sleeve. He looked at Loescher and raised his eyebrows, waiting for what she had to say. Then, suddenly, he glanced across at me.
“Congratulations,” he said with a slight inclination of his smooth forehead. “I only just heard about it.” He turned to Loescher. “Mr. Antonelli is engaged to be married,” he explained.
“When is the wedding?” the judge asked pleasantly.
“In a few weeks,” I replied. “As soon as the trial is over.”
We barely knew each other, but Cassandra Loescher put her hand on my arm and with a huge grin immediately added her congratulations. Then, almost in the same breath, she went back to the business of trying to destroy me.
“Your honor,” she said, the outlines of a smile still traceable on her mouth, “Mr. Antonelli has raised some issues during his opening statement that, quite frankly, the state did not anticipate. For that reason, we find it necessary to ask leave to amend our witness list. Specifically, I want permission to call someone from the police department to testify regarding the results of their investigation into the murder of Judge Jeffries.” She paused, and sat back in her chair. “We didn’t intend to do this, your honor.
It will certainly lengthen the time required to try this case. But after what happened in there today, I don’t see that we have any choice.”
Bingham nodded, and then turned to me. “I’m prepared to agree with that-unless you want to try and convince me otherwise.”
“Who are you going to call?” I asked her.
She shrugged her shoulders. “One of the lead investigators. I don’t know which one yet.”
“It’s fine with me, your honor,” I said, trying to sound as indifferent as I could.
He looked at Loescher, then he looked at me. “Well,” he said, standing up, “it seems like we’re going to have an interesting few weeks.”
The courtroom was empty. Danny had been taken back to his cell. I gathered up the notepads and the documents scattered over the table and slipped them into my briefcase. Gingerly, I lifted it up, hoping the restitched leather handle would hold. In the hallway outside, Howard Flynn was leaning against the wall, reading a section of the paper. When he saw me, he folded it up, shoved it into his coat pocket, and walked beside me toward the elevator.
“That was quite a performance. You think you can prove Elliott committed both murders?”
“Prove it? Of course not! All I want to do is get them to think he might have done it. Prove it? I wouldn’t know where to start.”
We rode the elevator to the first floor. As we went around the area where everyone who entered passed through metal detectors, a scuffle broke out. A gaunt, broad-shouldered man, with long dirty hair and a scraggly beard, dressed in the filthy clothes of the homeless, flailed away with his arm as two uniformed officers wrestled him to the ground.
“Let me in, let me in,” he shouted hysterically, as they locked his arms together behind his back and managed to handcuff his wrists.
Outside, at the bottom of the courthouse steps, a grocery cart loaded with plastic bags and metal junk was lying on its side, the wheels still spinning. Someone said he had tried to get in, had been thrown out, and had then come crashing back through the door. No one seemed to know why. Flynn and I exchanged a look.
“Nothing,” he said, twisting his mouth around. “Just a crazy.”
I nodded halfheartedly. “Are you going to a meeting tonight?”
I asked as we walked away.
“Yeah,” he replied. A sly grin spread over his face. “Unless you’d rather go out and get drunk.”
“Will Stewart be there?”
“He always is.”
“You going to be at the bar afterward?”
“We always are.” He looked at me out of the corner of his eye.
“You going to be there?”
“You never know. I might.”
Twenty-four
Jennifer was waiting for me when I got back to the office. Sitting in the chair opposite my desk, staring out the window, she did not hear me when I came in. I could see her lips barely moving, like the silent motions of a child beginning to grasp the meaning of an unfamiliar word. In the still half-light of the room I bent down and kissed her forehead just below the line made by the sweep of her soft fine hair. Her eyes stayed where they were, concentrating on something only she could see. Her mouth stopped moving, and she took my hand and pressed it against her cheek.
“Where’s Helen?” I asked as I dropped my briefcase on top of the desk and fell into my chair. Exhausted, I put my hands behind my neck and slouched farther down.
Jennifer gave me a quizzical look, and then, as if she had only just understood, nodded quickly. “She had to run an errand. She’ll be back in a minute. I answered the phone while she was gone,”
she said, her voice becoming more lively. She leaned forward, resting her hands on a large package she held in her lap. “Law offices of Joseph Antonelli,” she said with marked formality. Alert and playful, she lifted her head. “Law offices of the soon to be married Joseph Antonelli,” she said with a sly grin. “That was for anyone who called who was female and sounded young.”
She was about to say something else, something she was already laughing about, when her hand shot to her temple, her eyes slammed shut, and a violent tremor shook her head. Before I had time to react, she raised her hand, forced a feeble smile, and carefully opened her eyes.
“I’m all right,” she insisted. “It’s just a headache. I get them once in a while,” she explained. “It’s okay now.” She bit on her lip and her eyes opened wide, sorry she had made me worry.
“I bought you a present,” she exclaimed excitedly, as if she had only just now remembered. She removed a gift-wrapped box from the large package she had been holding on her lap and handed it to me. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said as she watched me struggle with the ribbon. Her voice was quiet and subdued, but throbbing underneath it was the eager certainty that she had done exactly the right thing.
I think I knew what it was before I opened it, but I did not know how much it was going to mean to me until I saw it: a gleaming leather attache case, my name inscribed on a small brass plate below the handle.