Steve Martini - The Judge

Lenore arrived last evening, only to be corralled by Sarah, and the three of us ended up playing board games until Sarah went to bed. Then Lenore and I turned to the wine and some soft music.

“She’s supposed to be cleaning up. You want to go up for an inspection?”

“I think I’ll pass,” she says.

Lenore’s two children are off this week with their father, who lives in the southern part of the state and comes up only infrequently for visitation.

For several weeks Sarah has been pleading to ask a little girlfriend from school to the house to play. I have insisted that she wait but not told her the reason.

For a single father with a little girl these are dangerous times. I have a friend, a career prosecutor whose life was savaged by accusations that he fondled a child at his daughter’s slumber party. Despite the fact that his accuser later recanted and that he was acquitted after a three-month trial, he is now bankrupt and wears his own version of the scarlet letter.

It is for this reason that Lenore has agreed to spend the day. She is my alibi against paranoia, my own and that of others.

We sit talking in the kitchen while Sarah supposedly straightens her room. The doorbell rings and I look at my watch.

“A little early for her friend,” I tell Lenore.

“Mom’s probably looking for some free day care,” she says.

I excuse myself for a second and head down the hall for the door; I hear the patter of Sarah’s feet on the stairs.

“I’ll get it,” I tell her.

She makes it a race to the front door and of course gets there ahead of me, only to shrink in the shadow of the man through the screen, who fills the frame as she opens it.

“Is your daddy home?”

“I told you I would get it,” I tell Sarah.

By now she is pressing herself back into me, retreating in the way children do when confronted by a strange adult.

The guy’s wearing a khaki work uniform, a patch with his name-“Mike”-over the left breast pocket.

“Mr. Madriani?”

“Yes.”

“Capital Cable,” he says.

I give him a dense look. This means nothing to me.

“Your cable television service. We have some repairs we have to make to your system.”

“I didn’t call anybody.”

“Our office should have called you. They didn’t?”

“No.”

“Darn,” he says. “Somebody screwed up. We have to install a booster where the cable comes into your set. We’ve been getting a lot of complaints about weak signal in this area. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. And there’s no charge.”

He can tell by my look that I’m not happy with the interruption.

“Of course if it’s inconvenient I can come back another time.”

“That might be best,” I tell him. “I’m expecting company in a few minutes.” The fact is that Lenore and I were planning to take the girls out for a picnic to a local park.

“Maybe we can reschedule.” He’s looking at a clipboard in his hand, some coaxial cable in his hand still encased in its plastic wrapper.

“I should warn you that you’ll probably lose service without the booster. We’ll be adjusting the signal once they’re installed in the area here. Without the booster all you’re gonna be seeing for a while is a lot of snow.”

He studies his clipboard for a couple of seconds. “It doesn’t look good. I doubt if I’m gonna be able to get back here for at least a week, maybe ten days.”

I give him a look that is not kind.

“Sorry,” he says.

“How long will it take, if you do it today?”

“Ten minutes, in and out,” he says. “It’s very quick.”

“Do it.” I open the screen door and let him in.

He steps through the door and takes off his hat, just as Lenore is coming down the hall.

“Sorry for the interruption,” he tells her.

“Cable service,” I tell her.

“What do you need?” I ask the guy.

“Just your set,” he says.

“Over there.” I point to the cabinet against the far wall in the living room.

I offer him help moving it away from the wall. He tells me he can handle it, but he needs his tools first.

“Fine. We’ll be in the kitchen if you need anything else.”

He gives me a smile, puts his hat back on, and is out the door, leaving it open just an inch so that it does not lock behind him.

Sarah turns back down the hallway, her body filled with disappointment. “I thought it was Mindy.”

“How’s your room coming?” I ask her.

With this she is curving her little body into Lenore’s side, seeking sanctuary.

“Fine,” she tells me.

“You want me to come up and look at it?”

“No. I want her.”

“A court of higher appeal,” I tell Lenore.

“What’s wrong with our television set?” asks Sarah. To my daughter the thought of a broken TV is a tragedy on the order of a terminal illness. No more Disney.

“Whatever it is, the man will fix it. Not that it’s going to do you any good. Not until after you finish your room. Now get up there.”

To this I get a lot of moaning, and evasive body language. She bats her eyes at Lenore in hopes of intervention. When this doesn’t work she’s back to me. Your average manipulative child.

“Do I have to, Daddy?”

“Yes, you have to. Now go do it.”

She slumps her shoulders and trudges up the steps.

“I have a lot of authority with dogs and little children,” I tell Lenore.

“Wait until she gets a little older,” she says.

“You mean it doesn’t get any better?”

Lenore just laughs.

We settle in the kitchen again. I warm up her coffee. We talk just a little around the edges of Acosta’s case. Lenore wants me to bring her current, though I am careful what I tell her. There is no privilege for communications with Lenore out of the case. Anything Acosta has told me is protected information, attorney-client. Should I disclose this to Lenore, however, now that she is no longer of counsel, the state may be able to force her to reveal it on the stand.

I mention my bout with Tony on the street in front of the courthouse.

“With him it is very personal,” I say.

“I have to apologize,” she says. “It was a mistake to refer him to you in the first place.” She calls it a clash of personalities, and tells me that Arguillo has a warm heart, but a hot head.

I’m having trouble rationalizing Lenore’s actions in removing the note from Hall’s calendar, and she knows it.

She apologizes and says that sometimes you do stupid things for friends. “I wasn’t thinking very clearly,” she says. “I’d been fired and I was drinking.” She tells me that if she’d been thinking more clearly she would never have done it.

“Have the cops gotten into it with you?” I ask.

“I did what you suggested. Told them nothing and took the Fifth,” she says.

“Is Kline still threatening to call you to the stand?”

She tells me that she thinks he is satisfied that she is out of the case. “I’d love to see you kick his butt,” she says. It is clear that she has not buried this hatchet.

“I’ll have to find some other way to get to Tony,” I say.

She calls this a dead end.

“You still don’t think he is capable,” I say.

“Forget what I think. The investigators would never have taken it seriously, even if they saw the note that I took.”

I can’t tell how much of this is rationalizing, trying to play down her interference with the evidence.

She tells me that Tony had a perfectly good explanation.

“You have two people, the same age, who worked together, they had a lot in common, both attractive. Why wouldn’t they date? It was simply that they canceled that night. Nothing odd in that.”