Steve Martini - The Arraignment

I have looked for Margaret, Nick’s first wife, but if she is present I don’t see her. It is one of those things you think about, even with all the acrimony of the divorce, would she make an appearance? If she has, she has burrowed into the crowd quietly.

The wheels of the gurney, one of them squeaking as if in protest, rumble over the ancient Spanish tiles, as the pallbearers slowly roll the coffin down the aisle toward the door and the waiting hearse. Interment is to be at Eternal Hills a few miles away, a private affair for family and close friends.

The casket rolls by, followed by Dana, her face covered by the veil. By her side is the tall gentleman I had seen on the television news driving her to and from the house-austere and slender, dark hair with just enough gray around the temples to offer the image of authority. He steadies her, a hand on her elbow, the other around her shoulder. An older blond woman is on the other side, probably a sister as there is a clear family resemblance.

The mourners file out behind them from the front of the church, so Harry and I are almost the last to leave. As we make our way to the great plaza in front of the mission, the hearse is already loaded. The undertaker’s staff scurries about trying to get the family into the limos and the floral arrangements back onto the trucks for the ride to the cemetery.

The limo carrying Dana is pulled up tight behind the last gleaming black truck, its windows darkened, its rear door on the other side open.

“Mr. Madriani.” I hear my name before I can see where the voice is coming from. When I turn, standing in front of me is the man who had been holding up Dana as she walked down the aisle.

“We’ve not met,” he says and extends a hand. “I’m Nathan Fittipaldi, a friend of Mrs. Rush.”

We shake.

He wears a dark striped Italian suit and silk tie, an expensive linen shirt, and hand-burnished calf-leather black loafers with tassels poking from beneath pant legs pressed to the sharpness of a knife’s edge. Everything has the sartorial pedigree of being worn once and discarded.

“She’s asked me if I would talk to you. She’s not really in any shape right now.”

“I understand.”

“She would like you to stop by her house. She would like to talk with you. I told her I was sure you wouldn’t mind.”

“Of course not. When?”

“Whenever it’s convenient. I wouldn’t do it today,” he says.

“Sure.”

“You might call before you drive out, just to make sure she’s in. I’ll give you the number.”

I tell him I have it. He tells me it’s been changed. It seems Dana has been getting phone calls from the press.

“Mr. Rush had given it out to some clients,” says Fittipaldi. “We suspect one of them was probably the source for the press. These people have no sense of respect for those in grief.” It is unclear whether Fittipaldi is talking about Nick’s criminal clients or the fourth estate, though I suspect he would lump them both in the same social set. I suspect that Dana was not alone in her low opinion of Nick’s clientele.

He jots the new unlisted number on the back of a business card and hands it to me.

“Good to meet you,” he says. “Dana tells me you are a good friend. She will need us all in the weeks and months ahead.”

I smile but say nothing.

Then before I can ask why she wants to see me, he is gone, around the back of the limo. He disappears into the open door on the other side, it closes, and the procession pulls away.

“What’s that all about?” says Harry.

“I don’t know.” I look at the business card in my hand, expensive velum with a watermark no less. I turn it over to the printed side. It reads:

FITTIPALDI ART and ANTIQUITIES

Nathan Fittipaldi, Owner

Agents for Acquisition by the Discreet Collector

London, New York, Beverly Hills, San Diego

There is no phone number, only a fax and a web address, “Discretion. com”.

Home at night with Sarah is not always a quiet time. She does her homework, one leg folded under the other in one of the sofa-style armchairs in our living room, with the television going full bore, watching Star Trek. With this she gets straight As. How she does it, I don’t know.

Her hair, thick as a pony’s tail, brunette with flashes of auburn like spun copper whenever sunlight hits it, is put up in cornrows tonight, something new. She says it makes it easier to handle in the morning.

She is becoming a young woman, not only in the way she dresses and cares for her appearance, but in matters of judgment as well. Sarah is her own person. When peer group pressures seem to slay other kids, my daughter has demonstrated a maturity that at times embarrasses me in my more exuberant and rash moments. We have played board games of conquest in which she has demonstrated a kind of strategic thinking I would never have credited to someone her age, with an element of compassion for those lesser competitors, protecting them from my native male aggressions, until she crushed me. This, at fifteen. I shudder to consider the heights to which this may take her, but feel more confidence in that generation knowing there are people like her in it.

Tonight we are left to our own thoughts. Sarah to her science and history, and me to the little Palm device that belonged to Nick. So far I’ve figured out the screen and the little green button at the bottom that turns it on. But I’ve been afraid to do much beyond this without instructions, afraid that given my ten thumbs for all things computer, I will lose the data stored inside. It is one thing to walk off with possible evidence in a capital case. It’s another to lose it.

At the top of the screen, each time I turn it on, is an image of a battery. It appears to be draining slowly. The black shaded area of energy sliding a little more to the left each day. When it disappears, I suspect I will lose whatever information is stored inside.

I lift the tiny battery cover in the back. Two AAAs are housed inside. I study these for a moment.

“Sarah?”

“Emm?” She doesn’t look up from her schoolwork, her focus riveted on the book cradled in her lap.

“Do we have any batteries, triple As?”

“The small ones?”

“Yes.”

“I think so.” She goes to the refrigerator where she keeps these, mostly for the walkman she listens to constantly in the car.

“Like this?” She holds one up.

“That’s it.”

“How many do you need?”

“Two.”

She brings them over to me. “What’s that?”

“I think they call it a handheld device.”

“Shuur. I know that. But what’s the little thing on top?”

“It’s a cell phone.”

“Cool. Where’d you get it?”

“It belonged to a friend.”

“He let you borrow it?”

“Sort of,” I tell her. “Do you know anything about them?”

“Some of the kids at school have them. Theirs aren’t that nice.” Sarah’s looking over my shoulder, big brown eyes checking out the device. “What do you want to know?”

“How to change the batteries.”

“Oh, Dad. Here, give it to me.” She reaches for it, but I hold it away.

“I can’t take a chance on losing the information stored inside.”

“Maybe it has a bubble memory,” she says.

I’ve heard of bubble gum and bubblehead. But bubble memory is a new one.

“If it does, then everything’s stored inside, on a chip or something. We learned about it in technology. Even if you disconnect the power it stays there.”

“How do I find out if it has one of these memories?”

“You could look online. Something that cool must have a site. How much does it cost?”

“I don’t know.”

“My birthday’s coming up,” she says.