John Lescroart - The Mercy Rule

And why not? He was a U.S. federal judge, appointed for life, and he lived in the best city in the world. A vibrant sixty-year-old, he kept his sparkplug of a body in terrific shape by either jogging or spending an hour a day at the workout room in the basement of the federal courthouse. With his steel-gray eyes, his unlined face, the prominent nose, he knew he cut a dignified figure.

Although just at this moment, he was struggling to control his expression. The judge’s wife was late. He was peeved with her and didn’t want to show it.

He hated to wait, always had. Fortunately, in his life nowadays, people most often waited for him, waited on him. He never had to stand in a line. He came into his courtroom and he had a staff that made damn sure that the day’s business was ready to proceed upon his entrance. But he still had to wait for his wife. Always had, probably always would.

As he looked down at the fishing boats, a sigh escaped him. He wasn’t even aware of it. Coming here to Stagnola’s – which he did at least once a week when he wasn’t traveling – wasn’t so much a nostalgic experience as it was a return to his roots.

That’s how he felt about the place. It was his true home, his psychic touchstone. For sixty-five years, over three generations, the building had been Giotti’s Grotto.

The judge’s great-grandfather had opened the first cioppino stand here in the middle of the Depression, and it had stayed within the family, adding onto itself, growing into a Fisherman’s Wharf landmark, until Joey Stagnola had bought it from Mario’s father, Bruno, in 1982.

Mario was the last male of the Giotti line. But he’d been a lawyer, with dreams of becoming a judge. He wasn’t going to run a dago restaurant on the Wharf. His father, Bruno, understood – if he himself were young again and college educated, if he’d had the same options as his son, he’d do the same thing.

But Mario knew that secretly it had broken the old man’s heart. He sold the restaurant to Stagnola and, six months later, sitting in a red booth by one of these back windows, had died here. (He had just finished an after-lunch Sambuca and the coroner found three coffee beans – good Italian restaurants served them floating in the aperitif for luck – in his mouth, unchewed.)

‘More iced tea, Your Honor?’

Mauritio, the maitre-d‘, had sent the youngster over to check the judge’s glass. Mauritio always took good care of him.

Giotti gave his practiced, friendly nod to the white-jacketed waiter and the young man poured. The boy could have been him, forty-five years before, earnest and efficient, making sure the patrons were happy. He moved on to the next table and the judge sighed again.

‘You don’t look very cheerful. Is something wrong?’

Giotti hadn’t even noticed his wife’s approach. Pat Giotti was still a fine-looking woman, with an unlined, ageless face, high cheekbones, a graceful figure. He raised his face and she kissed him, then seated herself across the table, immediately reaching over and taking his hand, squeezing it. ‘Sorry I’m late. Are you all right?’

His face animated itself. ‘Just feeling old for a minute.’

‘You’re not old.’

‘For a minute, I said.’ He squeezed her hand. They had made love the night before and he was telling her he remembered very well. She was right, he wasn’t old.

‘Are you thinking about Sal?’

He shook his head. ‘Actually, no. The waiter just reminded me of when I used to work here.’ The judge looked down at the boats for a second. ‘Maybe a little.’

She eyed him carefully, seemed satisfied, then reached for a roll and broke it. ‘I’m sure it was for the best,’ she said. ‘Sal, I mean.’

‘I’m sure it was,’ he agreed. ‘It’s just…’ His voice trailed off. ‘I look down there at the moorings, I can almost see the Signing Bonus , see Sal waving up at me. It’s hard to imagine him gone.’

‘He’d lived his life, hon.’

‘He was my age. I think that’s part of it.’

‘He was sick, remember? He was dying anyway. It just would have gotten worse. His suffering’s over now.’

‘I suppose so.’

‘It isn’t all bad. It’s much better this way.’

‘I know you’re right.’ He looked out the window. ‘This was probably just the wrong table for today, being able to see down there. It brings back those memories.’

‘But this is our table, Mario. They hold it for you, the judge’s table.’

He squeezed her hand again. ‘I’m just saying he was my friend. I miss him, that’s all.’

‘The idea of him, love, the idea. He wasn’t the same friend at the end, you know that, don’t you?’

‘Of course.’

She met his eyes again, squeezed his hand.

‘You must know that,’ she said.

‘I do know it, Pat. It’s better all around. It’s just not easy.’

The waiter came by and took their orders. Pat ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio to go with her scallops. The judge was having a crab Louis and his iced tea – of course, no wine. He was going back to court in the afternoon.

They sat in silence for a while, until her wine arrived. She took a taste, then put her glass down. ‘Did you read this morning’s paper? They’re saying maybe it wasn’t a suicide.’

‘Maybe? It wasn’t,’ the judge said flatly.

The wine seemed to stick in Pat Giotti’s throat. She took another sip to clear it. ‘Why do you say that?’

The judge shrugged. ‘It’s got all the earmarks of an assisted suicide. Look at the morphine vials, the labels removed. Some medical person was there, helped him along. I had Annie’ – his secretary – ‘stop by at the Hall of Justice and pick up a copy of the autopsy this morning.’

‘And?’

The judge thoughtfully tore a piece of his sourdough, then seemed to forget about it. ‘The morphine dose wasn’t that large. Acting alone, Sal would have probably done lots more to be sure. He had three more vials at his place he could have used. But whoever helped him put it right in the vein.’

‘Which would not have been enough in the muscle?’

Giotti nodded. ‘So it was a medical professional. At any rate, somebody who’d know that.’ In spite of the topic the judge had to smile in admiration. ‘You don’t forget anything, do you? What was that, Ellison ?’

His wife looked pleased at the compliment. Giotti was referring to a medical malpractice case he’d heard on appeal a few years back, U.S. v. Ellison Pharmaceuticals , where the doctor’s decision to administer one of Ellison’s drugs intravenously (IV), rather than intramuscularly (IM), had proved fatal to a patient. The doctor had tried to place the blame on the drug company, but the strategy hadn’t worked; drugs injected directly into a vein had a great deal more effective potency than drugs administered IM, and Giotti had ruled that every doctor on the planet knew that, or ought to.

Pat Giotti, whose life revolved around her husband’s, made it a point to read as many of his cases as she could. She didn’t have a profession hadn’t worked since the earliest days of their marriage. She harbored a lingering fear that she and her husband might someday have nothing to talk about, so she kept up on the law as well as the trivia that each case provided.

Giotti sat back, letting go of his wife’s hand as the waiter set their plates in front of them. ‘One thing I’m sure of,’ he said. ‘We haven’t heard the end of it, especially now they’re saying it might not be a suicide.’

Pat Giotti put her fork down. ‘They haven’t done that, have they?’

‘If it’s not a suicide, it’s some kind of murder. And murder means it gets investigated.’

‘That may be the law, but they shouldn’t do that. They ought to just leave it alone.’