Lisa Scottoline - Dirty Blonde

“What if you didn’t? We’ve talked about how it’s kind of lonely, and you can’t see your old partners anymore. You loved the action in court. Aren’t you a little ambivalent about being on the bench?”

“How could I be? It’s the peak of the profession. Every trial lawyer wants to be a trial judge. There’s only seven hundred in the country, on the federal level. It’s the ultimate promotion.”

“That’s not my point.” Gina cocked her head. “You really wanted the promotion. But did you really want the job ?”

Oddly, Cate had never really thought about that. Being a judge was the best she could be, and she always wanted to be the best. “I don’t know.” She shook her head, too tired to think, and shaken, still. “I guess I should get some therapy.”

“Uh, hello, ya think ? And meds, lotsa meds!” Gina smiled, and then so did Cate, rising.

“Okay, enough. Want more coffee?” Cate crossed to the cabinet, retrieved a paper filter, and slotted it into the coffeemaker. “How’s the baby?”

“The neighbor’s there. He won’t even wake up.”

“Great. Thanks for coming over.” Cate dumped ground coffee into the filter and went to the sink to fill up the glass pot. “Hey, why’d you call me in the first place? Another tantrum?”

“No, it wasn’t about him. I heard on TV about the fight in court. I figured you might be upset.”

“Oh, that. Between the rape and the flat tire, I almost forgot.” Cate flicked on the coffee machine, thinking of Marz.

“Is that what set it off?”

“Set what off?”

“Your little frolic and detour tonight.”

“I’ll ask my new shrink.” Suddenly the phone rang, and they exchanged glances. Cate said, “I’m not getting it. It’s Graham, and I haven’t had my therapy yet.”

Ring ! “It could be the sitter. She knows I’m here, and I left my cell at home.”

“Sorry.” Cate picked up quickly. “Hello?”

“Judge? Did I wake you?”

“Invaluable.” Cate smiled with relief at Val’s voice. “What are you doing up so late on a school night?”

“Chief Judge Sherman needed to reach you, but he didn’t have your number. So he called me.”

“What’s up?”

“There’s bad news.”

The next morning, Cate drove up Market Street in heavy traffic, insulated by the car’s perfect seal from the media in front of the courthouse. Reporters held microphones at their sides, and cameramen drank coffee by enamel-white vans with cheery station logos. They were waiting for her, but she wouldn’t have answered their questions anyway. She couldn’t, because she didn’t have the answers. Art Simone had been shot to death last night. And the police were looking for Richard Marz, who was nowhere to be found.

Cate felt a wave of regret. She should have foreseen that it could happen. That if Marz couldn’t get justice in her courtroom, he’d get it on the street. She took a right onto Sixth Street. She still couldn’t believe that Simone had been murdered. She didn’t respect him, but she didn’t want him dead. She’d prayed her comments hadn’t put him there.

Cate aimed the car for the security booth that would admit her to the judges’ parking lot, where she’d take the keyed elevator up to her chambers in the secured half of the courthouse. As a federal judge, she could conceivably go through the entire day without meeting a single member of the public she served. She used to think this was unhealthy, but today she was loving the idea.

Upstairs, Cate opened the door to her chambers, and Val looked up from her desk, her brown eyes filled with empathy. Her full mouth tilted unhappily down at the corners and her smooth skin belied her age of sixty-five. She slipped off Dictaphone headphones covering her steely braids. “Judge, I’m so sorry.”

“Thanks.” Cate set her briefcase and bag on the navy couch in the reception room, a medium-sized square furnished with an inherited couch and matching leather side chairs. She slipped out of her sheepskin coat and hung it up on the rack.

“It’s such a shame. I prayed for him, and for you. Did you get any sleep?”

“Some.” Cate walked to the desk with her purse and briefcase. “How about you?”

“I’m fine.” Val handed Cate her message slips, over an array of graduation photos of her son and daughter. “The Inquirer keeps calling and said it’s important that you get back to them.”

“I’ll get right on that. Next year.”

“Graham Liss called twice and said it’s very important you call him back. The chief judge called and he wants to see you as soon as you get in.”

“Oh, great.”

Val frowned. “Hold your head up. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Cate had tried to convince herself of that, all last night. She gestured at the law clerks’ office, which had fallen suspiciously silent. “They’re eavesdropping, aren’t they?”

“They’re worried about mama.”

“How’s Emily taking this? It’s her case, too.”

“Fine, I made her tea. I’ll take care of your bags, too. Just go.”

“Invaluable,” Cate said, touched, and took off for Sherman’s chambers.

It was a short trip on the private elevator, and Cate used the time to collect her thoughts, square her shoulders, and check her makeup in the brass plate around the elevator buttons. She looked reasonably presentable with her hair loose to her shoulders, her standard pearls with a white silk T-shirt, and a black Escada suit with matching pumps. She stepped off the elevator, hurried down the hall, and entered the chief’s chambers.

“Hey, Mo,” Cate said, greeting Sherman’s secretary, Mavis Tidell. She knew the secretary’s nickname because she was also Val’s best friend. Mo looked up from her desk with a smile.

“Back at you, Judge. Go on in. They’re inside.”

“They?” Cate opened the office door, then was taken aback. The chief sat at the head of his mahogany conference table, but to his right sat Judge Meriden and two other men in business suits, one of whom looked familiar.

“Judge Fante, come in.” Sherman stood up in his distinguished, if stooped, way, somber behind his gold-framed reading glasses, and the others followed, smiling grimly, all around.

“Hello, Chief. Jonathan.” Cate nodded at Meriden and hoped her surprise at his presence didn’t show.

Chief Judge Sherman gestured. “Cate, our guests are homicide detectives with the Philadelphia Police Department.” As he spoke, a tall, fit detective in a boxy khaki suit and a maroon knit tie stepped forward and extended his hand.

“I’m Steve Nesbitt,” he said, his handshake firm. He looked about forty-five years old, with thick graying hair, a brushy brown-and-gray mustache above even teeth, and a proprietary manner that suggested an ease with himself. He said, “Pleased to meet you.”

“Thank you, hello.” Cate tried to get her bearings.

“I’m Paul Roots,” the other detective said. He was attractive and younger, in a dark suit with an expensive cut and a dark silk tie.

“Great to meet you,” Cate said, taking a seat at the opposite end of the table, which cued everybody to resettle themselves. She’d been in Sherman’s office only once before and it was everything a federal judge’s chambers should be. A thin Oriental area rug lay atop the thick navy carpet, and his large desk was very Ethan Allen mahogany, with matching chairs and end tables on either side of a tapestry couch in muted jewel tones. Antique maps of colonial Philadelphia and award certificates covered the paneled walls, and federal reporters, law reviews, and black binders of committee reports lined the bookshelves. Faint cigar smoke wreathed the air, for that quintessential old-boy touch.