Courting Death Page 10

  “Umm, where did you learn to talk so dirty?” he managed to say before he gasped again.

  * * *

  When they disengaged for the last time, dawn was streaming through the windows and the newspaper had already thumped upon the porch. Without speaking, she kissed him softly, slipped on her jeans and hurried to her room to shower before Mr. Bernson came down to breakfast. He dressed too, but then collapsed back on the sofa, basking in the afterglow like a green lizard sunning himself on a hot porch railing.

  Arthur’s ex-wife had insisted that women were very hard to please. To be merely adequate for her required Olympian stamina and Buddha-like patience. He had loved trying to satisfy her but had often fallen short of her exacting mark. She would have judged his performance very lazy indeed, yet Suzanne made him feel like some sort of slick international gigolo. After just one evening with her, he was suddenly rid of an extensive backlog of adolescent neuroses. Unable to stop smiling and very grateful that he did not have to work Sundays, he stumbled off to his room to take a long nap.

  XIII.

  GIRLS TALK

  Autumn, the Judge observed, was coming gently to Clarkeston. The tulip poplars had turned first, then lost their yellow leaves almost overnight when a cool wind gusted down from the Carolinas. Soon thereafter, the Bradford pears reddened and then turned gold. The dogwoods were almost as beautiful in the fall as in the spring, and the soft whispers of their russet leaves filled the morning air. When October melted into November, the brilliant colors of the sourwoods, elms, and red oaks carpeted the sidewalks and alleys, swishing and crunching underfoot, mixing with the perfectly formed banana-yellow gingkoes to lay a richly textured tapestry for the town.

  Autumn was a feast for the eyes, but the changes pricked at the Judge’s heart. For children, summer vacation was a faded memory and the promise of Christmas was unthinkably far away. Parents prepared for winter with prophylactic gardening and storm window washings, while birds and squirrels shared their obsession, flitting and scurrying as they repaired nests and hoarded food enough to the last the cold season. The whole community seemed unable to live in the moment, looking backwards or forward in a vain attempt to ignore its mortality. The presence of the ultimate artist rustling in the symphony of falling leaves alerted the Judge to the chasm between creator and created. The music of autumn was vast and wondrous, but its tonic chord sounded far in the distance.

  The Judge sat in the dim light of his desk lamp, elbows on his desk as his calloused fingertips massaged an incipient headache. Everything in chambers had been going pretty well. This year’s group of clerks seemed to be working out just fine. All three were intelligent and quick, and they seemed to get along, apart from the occasional spark between Arthur and Melanie. There were no new death cases on docket. Then, Sidney Dumont had called to say that someone was asking questions about Carolyn Bastaigne.

  “She said she was from an insurance company?”

  “Yes, sir,” the reporter affirmed. “From Aetna. Do they insure the building?”

  “No.” The Judge exhaled his exasperation. “The federal government doesn’t buy insurance, Sid. We self-insure. This was a bogus call.”

  “Do you know anyone who would care after all these years?”

  “Don’t pull that reporter crap on me.” He flicked a broken pencil tip from his desk and answered anyway. “Who the hell knows? It might be some attorney hired by her mother. Stillwater said that she called a while ago.” He paused for a moment and tried in vain to come up with a benign alternative theory. “Anyway, thanks for calling, Sid. I appreciate it.”

  He hung up and stared at the large flat calendar lying on his desk. Chinese people named their years. For him, 1984, five years earlier, would have been: The Year of Betrayal. But there had been much more than just a treacherous clerk. The habeas cases had rained like a firestorm that spring, and he had lost his wife to cancer in the summer. The fall had brought new love and loss, and in the middle of it all waltzed Carolyn Bastaigne, the laziest and most contemptible clerk who ever worked in his chambers. Whoever was poking around was stirring up more than just memories of an unfortunate fall.

  * * *

  “Nope, not today.” Arthur shook his head.

  Phil stood in the doorway of his friend’s office, unable to believe what he was hearing.

  “Suzanne’s gonna to show me how to make pizza dough this afternoon.”

  “Pizza dough?” Phil asked in amazement. “You realize that it’s Friday, right? The bartender at the Boar is gonna call missing persons if we don’t show up.”

  “I’m sorry.” Despite his apology, Arthur appeared to be looking forward to spending the evening in his landlady’s kitchen instead of at his favorite bar.

  “Come on,” Phil urged, “you’ve got time for a quick one before you go home.”

  “Next week, for sure.” Arthur nodded and then put his head down and started back to work.

  Phil shook his head in disgust and walked back toward his office. Going straight to his apartment after work on Friday was unthinkable, but the image of himself sitting alone with a beer in his hand was equally pathetic. He wished that Suzanne and Arthur had included him in their pizza-making scheme. Beer and pizza, even with a little kid running around, would be vastly better than the evening that now faced him.

  He had his hand on the door knob of his office, ready to admit defeat, when he remembered that Melanie had come drinking the Friday after Gottlieb’s execution. She was a poor substitute for Arthur, but a definite improvement on solitude. He turned back down the hall and knocked on her door.

  “Come in.” She was sitting in a leather chair in the corner of her office, pouring over a case that looked like a yellow peacock of sticky notes. She looked mildly surprised to see him. Although he and Arthur made regular trips to each other’s offices, most of his contact with Melanie came around the conference table in the library.

  “What’s up?”

  He looked around the room and saw no logical place to sit, so he walked over and leaned against her desk. The room looked like a Calcutta trash heap. Books, accordion files, and papers littered every square inch, including her two chairs.

  “Wanna have a beer after work?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Aren’t you and Arthur off to the Wild Boar again?”

  “Nope.”

  She raised her eyebrows at him, and he offered his theory. “I think he’s in love.” He stretched out the vowel in the L word and rolled his eyes. “I’ve been rejected in favor of a pizza-baking party with his landlady.”

  “Suzanne? Oh, now that’s juicy.” She scanned the various disasters surrounding her. “I’ll be done around six thirty. If you want to hang around that long, I wouldn’t mind trying out that Thai place on Court Street.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not a huge fan of the Wild Boar.”

  Phil looked at his watch. Two hours more work. Still it was better than the alternative. “You’re on.”

  * * *

  The restaurant was cheaply furnished in formica tables and mismatched chairs, but it was permeated with the scent of savory spices and offered a two-for-one Singha beer special that suggested to Phil that they had made the right choice. They took their time ordering, and the kitchen took its time with the food, so four beers were leisurely shared before dinner even arrived.

  “So, what’s the poop on Arthur?” Melanie leaned forward, apparently expecting Phil to dish like the hostess of television gossip show. “Are he and Suzanne officially an item?”

  “Promise not to say anything?”

  Melanie nodded her head eagerly.

  “A couple of weeks ago, he let slip that they’d slept together.”

  “No way!” She gasped. “She’s at least five years older than him.”

  “Yeah, so I figured it was just a one-night stand or a unique part of his rental agreement.” He gestured to her with the top of his beer bottle. “Now I’m thinking it’s something more serious. You don’t just blo
w off a standing Friday happy hour to make pizza unless there’s something more serious going on.”

  “Poor baby!” Melanie lisped mischieviously. “Did Awety weave you awe awone?”

  “No.” Phil grinned. “He left me with a catty bitch.”

  “Ouch!” She took a spring roll and donked it into the duck sauce. “I guess I touched a sore spot. I get it, though … I’m sorry it’s not working out with him.”

  Phil picked up his own roll and took a bite, the murky undertone of her comment gradually sinking in. “Not working out? What do you mean, not working out?”

  She appeared to study him for a long moment. “Promise not to take this the wrong way? … I sort of assumed that you were gay.”

  “What?”

  “Remember, I worked the pageant circuit for years—my antennae are pretty well-tuned.” She took another sip of beer. Her completely nonjudgmental attitude made the accusation even harder to take.

  He choked back his outrage. “I’m not … Why the hell would you even think that?”

  She shrugged. “Well, you’re really handsome, and you don’t have a girlfriend, and you never talk about women or your former girlfriends. I’ve seen those Barbara Streisand cassettes in your office, and you definitely prefer Arthur to me ….”

  “Now I see,” Phil proclaimed with satisfaction, “I’ve never come on to the beauty queen, so I must be gay. Well, maybe, you’re the one that needs the psychoanalyzing.”

  The main course arrived and elongated the pause in the conversation. Melanie picked at her noodles for a moment before speaking. “I’m really sorry if I offended you, but I sit with you guys a lot, and I guess I was just misinterpreting the vibe.”

  “I suppose,” he conceded sulkily. There was really nothing to be upset about, he told himself. His best friend in high school was gay; it was nothing to be ashamed of. He put himself in her position and smiled, “Well, I did grow up in San Francisco without a dad.”

  “And you do have a crush on Arthur.” She held her hands up, as if to fend him off, and then laughed. “Just kidding! I couldn’t resist.” She giggled again. “You’d make an awesome straight man. In a comedy routine! I mean in a comedy routine!”

  Phil sighed and gave up. There was nothing he could do at this point except change the subject. Making a pass at her might shut her up, but he just didn’t find her that alluring. “So, have you figured out yet who killed Carolyn Bastaigne?”

  “No”—she paused and speared a shrimp—“but I did call up the reporter who wrote the article.”

  “Are you kidding? What if he tells the Judge?”

  “I told him I was an insurance adjuster doing a background check.” She dipped the shrimp and popped it in her mouth. “He had no clue who I am.”

  “Man, you are cold-blooded. I could never do that.” He shook his head in admiration. “What’d you find out?”

  “Not too much … other than the fact that the Judge was the last one to see her alive.”

  Phil pulled a bone out of his fish and took a large bite. The sauce was rich and thick, flecked with dried chili peppers. “So, the Judge probably killed her … hmm … I never saw that coming.”

  “Of course the Judge didn’t kill her, you idiot. But I’ll bet he knows a lot more than he’s ever let on. I mean, why was he there at six thirty in the evening? Have you ever seen him work that late?”

  Phil took another bite and considered her remark. “No, but that doesn’t mean anything. Who knows what his work habits were five years ago?”

  “You’re right.” She nodded and squeezed a slice of lime over her noodles. “But thinking about this case is so much more fun than work! Don’t you ever get tired of writing bench memos in tax cases? I’m sick of working hard just to please other people. This job is too much like law school.” She pursed her lips and frowned. “Fuck … this job is too much like a pageant: too many judges.”

  Phil laughed.

  “I’m ready for the real world,” she continued, “and I’m dying to ask the Judge about Carolyn Bastaigne.”

  “That is the most horrible idea I’ve ever heard.” He could just imagine the explosion coming from the Judge’s office when he learned someone had been poking around in his private affairs.

  “I’m not going to do it … I’m just saying.”

  “And I’m just saying screwing around with him would not be a good idea.” The statement came out strong, as if it were a criticism of the Judge himself.

  “Whoa, I thought he was your hero.” She smiled and waved for the waitress to bring them two more beers. “Did I get that wrong too?”

  “No. He’s awesome. Shit, you know that better than me or Arthur. You’re the one who grew up down here.” He stabbed at his fish while he pondered what to say next. Arthur’s story about the Judge’s reasoning in the Gottlieb case had put a dent in his heroic image. Phil decided to tell Melanie how the Judge had found the law in Gottlieb’s favor, but had nonetheless sent him to die.

  “So?” Melanie shrugged and began working on the sugared watermelon slices served as dessert in the small restaurant. “He saved everyone a lot of time and trouble. Gottlieb was gonna fry anyway for the Buckhead murders. It’s not like he sent an innocent man to the chair.”

  “Yeah, but the way he did it really upset Arthur.” He spit a watermelon seed into his napkin. “Me too, for that fact.”

  She sucked her fingertips and wiped them on her napkin. He took the last melon slice while she stared at him.

  “You guys are upset about two different things,” she said.

  “How so?”

  “He’s pissed because the Judge took a shortcut, and you’re pissed because the Judge won’t take a stand against the death penalty.”

  “Fair enough,” Phil conceded as he finished the last drops of his beer, “but I’m worried about the next death case. What happens when someone’s hands get really dirty?”

  Melanie got up and laid a twenty-dollar bill on the table and Phil did the same. “You’re so melodramatic,” she sighed. “We’re law clerks. We write memos … I wish life were as exciting as you think it is.”

  “Well, you two have one thing in common.” He frowned. “Neither of you take death seriously enough.”

  XIV.

  MARGARITAVILLE

  Until Arthur moved south, he had never thought to spend Thanksgiving at the beach, but an interesting proposal took shape when one of the Judge’s clerks from the early sixties invited the whole chambers, plus spouses and significant others, to spend the long holiday weekend at his house on Saint George Island, Florida. When Ms. Stillwater passed the invitation around the chambers, she explained that Jack Ramsey was one of the Judge’s first clerks, working for two years under very difficult circumstances. He had long been a partner in a Tallahassee law firm and had a huge eight-bedroom house right on the Gulf of Mexico. His wife had died years earlier, and since then he had been generous with his invitations to the Judge and the chambers family to spend time on the island.

  “The poor dear. He was devastated when he lost his wife.” Ms. Stillwater cast a quick glance in Arthur’s direction. “Whom he met here in Clarkeston by the way.” She took her time explaining the situation. “He doesn’t seem to be interested in getting remarried and making something of that lovely house. It sits empty most of the time. You all really should go! You’ll get to meet some more of the Judge’s old clerks and see where you fit in.”

  Ms. Stillwater, whose children had long since grown, was clearly thrilled by the idea of gathering together past and current clerks. She raised a new family in chambers every year and clearly loved speculating how previous years’ broods would interact. She had already spoken excitedly about two intermarriages that had produced grandchildren with clerk lineage on both sides.

  “Do you think it would be okay if Suzanne and Maria came with me?” Arthur asked.

  “Of course!” she replied enthusiastically. “I’ll talk to Jack, but it won’t be a problem. He likes a big c
rowd … and if I remember right, he was clerking here the year Suzanne was born and christened.” Her eyes fairly twinkled as she spoke. “He won’t mind at all.”

  “I was more concerned about the Judge.”

  “It’s none of the Judge’s business whom you take,” she said tartly and then offered an inscrutable smile. “He hasn’t gone for years. You let me worry about him.”

  * * *

  Florida sounded good to Melanie too, but she had family in Atlanta who felt neglected by the grinding hours she put in for the Judge. After listening to her mother’s pitiful mewling, she figured she had little choice but to spend the four-day break with her parents, her sister, and two nieces. The visit would be nothing but a duty call. She no longer enjoyed playing the golden girl, performing for her family and providing the focus they lacked when she was away. Her parents barely spoke to each other most of the time, but when they played her old pageant tapes on the VCR, an observer would think that their marriage was Ozzie and Harriet solid.

  “You can’t miss out on this!” Phil pleaded as she walked down the hall to her office.

  “It sounds like fun, but I need to keep my parents happy.” She sighed as she leaned against a bookcase. “They did pay for law school after all.”

  “It’s gonna be awesome.”

  “Who’s coming?”

  “Me, Arthur, Suzanne and Maria, Jack Ramsey, Glenn Hatcher who clerked nine years ago, and April Duncan who clerked five years ago.”

  Phil looked meaningfully at her until she got the message.

  “April must have been a co-clerk of Carolyn Bastaigne.”

  “Bingo.”

  Melanie bit her lip and thought for a moment while Phil watched expectantly. “Okay, I’ll leave here on Wednesday and drive to my folks’ house. I’ll spend Thanksgiving Day with them and then drive down to the beach on Friday.”

  “I knew you couldn’t resist.” He chortled. “You’re such a little detective.”

  “Shut up! I’m just curious.”

  “I still don’t understand why.”