Lisa Scottoline - Final Appeal

“No. I wanted to ask about Hightower.”

He purses his thin lips. “I’ve reassigned it. The death warrant expires Monday, but we’ll have it decided well in advance.”

“Who was it reassigned to?”

“That information is strictly need-to-know. Did I mention the memorial service?” He shoots a questioning look at Ben, who’s standing against the bookshelves. Ben shakes his head discreetly.

“Not a high priority,” Artie says.

Galanter points at Artie with his pen. “Don’t test me, young man. I’ve just about had it with your lack of respect.”

“Respect?” Artie explodes. “Who are you to talk about respect? Armen just died and you can’t wait to take his office. Can’t wait!”

“Artie,” Sarah says nervously.

“Listen, you,” Galanter says, raising his voice. “This court has to maintain operations. We have a public trust.”

“Fuck you!” Artie shouts, almost in tears. He storms out of the room into his office and slams the door.

“I’ve never seen such conduct in a law clerk! Ever!” Galanter says.

“Judge Galanter.” I start talking, almost reflexively. “Artie and Armen were close. This is hard for him. For us all.” I hear an involuntary catch in my voice, but Galanter’s gaze is fixed in the direction of the clerks’ office. I feel a shiver of fear inside, from somewhere deep, but press it away. “You were saying, Judge, about the memorial service?”

Galanter looks down at me, still lost in his own anger. “What did you say?”

“The memorial service.”

“The memorial service? Oh, yes.” He exhales sharply, regaining control, and returns the pen to his breast pocket. “Memorial service. The day after tomorrow, Thursday. In the ceremonial courtroom. The time’s not fixed yet.”

“Have you heard about the funeral arrangements?”

“No idea. Senator Waterman said she’d call about that. Eletha, get me that memo I sent you.”

Eletha doesn’t move a muscle. “Memo? What memo, Judge?”

Galanter hasn’t drunk enough to miss the challenge in her manner. He tilts his head ever so slightly. “The one about the new sitting schedule. I sent it this morning, on E-mail.”

“I was busy this morning.”

“So was I. Get it now,” he says, staccato.

Eletha leaves the room. In a second she’s slamming her desk drawers unnecessarily.

Galanter hands me some papers from his book. “Xerox these for me and come right back.”

I take the papers and leave the office. When I open the door to the hallway, Eletha’s giving the finger to the wall.

I read the papers on the way to the Xerox machine. It’s a complete sitting schedule, with Armen’s initials crossed out next to his cases and a new judge’s written in. All of Armen’s cases, reassigned so fast it’d make your head spin.

READY TO COPY, the photocopier says. I open the heavy lid, slap the paper onto the glass, and hit the button. The light from the machine rolls calcium white across my face.

Suicide? I don’t understand. They were going to file for divorce, if what Armen said was true. I feel a pang of doubt; would Armen lie? Of course not. Afterward we talked for a long time, holding each other on the couch. He was an honest man, a wonderful man.

READY TO COPY. I hit the button. You don’t kill yourself just because you’re Armenian. Armen was a survivor. And he hated guns, was against keeping them in the house. Where did he get the gun?

READY TO COPY, says the machine again, but I’m not ready to copy. So much has happened. We found and lost each other in one night. I stare at the glass over the shadowy innards of the machine; all I see is my own confused reflection. What was that noise last night, and does it matter?

I turn around and look down the hall, but it’s empty. There are only two occupied judges’ chambers on this whole floor, ours and Galanter’s; the rest are vacant, the chambers of judges who sit nearer their homes in Wilmington and northern New Jersey. Only eleven people work on the entire floor.

Now it’s ten.

A boxy file cabinet sits against the wall next to the judges’ elevator. A few paces to the left is the door to the law clerks’ office. To the right, down the hall, are Galanter’s chambers.

Everything looks perfectly normal.

I step away from the machine and peer at the government-spec brown carpet. There’s nothing on the rug, no trace of anything. I straighten up, feeling stupid. What am I looking for, muddy footprints? Clothing fibers? What am I thinking? I shake my head and turn back to the Xerox machine.

ADD PAPER, it says. The words blink red, like the old pinball machines that go tilt.

Damn it. Why am I the only one who refills this thing? I look in the cabinet next to the machine for a ream of paper, but it’s empty except for the torn wrapper. The law clerks never pick up after themselves. I slam the cabinet door and walk down the hallway back to chambers.

Bbbzzzzzz goes the security camera, as I tramp angrily by.

Then it hits me. I do an about-face and look up at the camera. It’s black and boxy, and looks back at me like a mechanical vulture perched above the judges’ elevator.

The camera’s on all the time, monitored by the federal marshals. It saw everything that happened in the hall last night and probably recorded it, like at ATM machines.

It knows if anyone came into chambers and saw Armen and me together. And it knows who they are.

His breast pocket bears a plastic plate that says R. ARRINGTON over the shiny five-star badge of the marshal service. His frame is brawny in its official blue blazer, and his dark skin is slightly pitted up close. “Lunchtime!” I say to him, making an overstuffed tuna hoagie do the cha-cha with a chilly bottle of Snapple lemonade. “All this can be yours.”

He does not look impressed. “No can do, Grace.”

The hoagie and the lemonade jump up and down in frustration. “All I want is two minutes. I look at the monitors, then I’m outta there.”

“There’s twenty monitors, Grace,” he says, sighing deeply. Maryellen, the cashier in the building’s snack shop, cocks her head in our direction. She may be blind, but she’s not deaf. I decide to be more quiet.

“Come on, Ray. You said only one monitor shows our hallway. How long can it take to look at a monitor?”

He folds his thick arms. “Maybe if you tell me why this matters.”

I glance at the jurors behind us buying newspapers, gum, and fountain soda. The ice machine spits chunks into a tall paper cup, and a juror plays mix-and-match to find the right size lid. He’ll never find it; I never can, and I have a J.D. “Let’s just say I want to check security.”

“Come clean, Rossi.”

I consider this. Ray is one of the few marshals who liked Armen; he’s also one of the few African Americans, which I suspect is no coincidence. “Tell you what. Get me in. If it pays off, I’ll tell you why.”

“What am I supposed to tell the marshals?”

“What marshals? You’re the marshal.”

“I’m a CSO, technically. A court security officer. I mean the marshals watching the monitors.”

“Tell ’em I’m checking security, that I’m the administrative law clerk to the chief judge.”

“Grace.” His somber expression reminds me of something I’d rather not dwell on. Armen is gone.

“Forget it, I’ll tell them something. I’ll handle it. Just get me in, I’ll owe you. Big-time.”

Suddenly he snaps his fingers. “I know what you can do for me.”

“Anything.”

“You can introduce me to your fine friend, the lovely Eletha Staples.”

“Eletha? Don’t you know her?”

“I’ve been workin’ here as long as she has, but she won’t give me the time of day. She seein’ anybody?”