'I don't understand why this case is so hard for you,' Laura said.
'He's a judge. Different rules apply when a judge breaks the law.'
'A judge is also a human being.'
'That's true, but he has to set his standards higher. When you put on the robe you separate yourself from the rest of humanity.'
'Nonsense. You don't become some kind of god as soon as you're sworn in. Gideon was under a lot of pressure. You might have done the same thing if you were in his place.'
'No, never,' Quinn answered firmly.
'How can you say that if you haven't been faced with Gideon's predicament?'
'Being a judge is more than just performing a job. Americans are brought up to respect the rule of law and they expect judges to administer the law fairly. When a judge takes a bribe, he undermines that faith.'
'I think you're getting a little dramatic. We're talking about one judge in Lane County, Oregon. I don't think the country is going to self-destruct because Fred Gideon took some money so he could pay his kids' college tuition.'
'So you'd go easy on Gideon?'
'I'd give him probation.'
'Why?'
'For Christ's sake, Dick,' Laura snapped, 'he's a father. Send him to jail and you're destroying a family. And for what? Some theory you learned in high school civics?'
Quinn looked amazed. 'How can you say that? You're a lawyer. Don't you respect the system you work in?'
'I work in the real world, not some ivory tower. Fred Gideon is a poor overworked and underpaid bastard who became desperate when he thought that his kids might have to drop out of college.'
'Gideon s kids could have gone to the U. of O.,' Quinn answered angrily. 'They don't have to go to Ivy League schools. You worked your way through. Lots of kids do.'
Laura's features tightened and Quinn was sorry the moment the words were out of his mouth. Until Laura was ten, she had lived in an upper-class suburb on the North Shore of Long Island, New York. Then her father had lost his job as an engineer. After a year of unemployment he became depressed. The family dropped the country club and beach club memberships, Laura's private tennis and piano lessons stopped and her mother started saving coupons and shopping for clothes at discount stores. Laura's father was forced to take a temporary job as a salesclerk, but he refused to let his wife work. His depression deepened and Laura's parents started fighting. By the time Laura was thirteen, her father had taken up with another woman, her parents were divorced and she was living with her mother in a tiny apartment in Queens.
Laura coped with her new situation by spending all of her time doing schoolwork and playing tennis. Although she had a partial athletic scholarship, she still had to work her way through college. She viewed her father's failure to contribute to her college education as more evidence of his betrayal.
'I'm sure you'll make the right decision,' Laura told Quinn coldly. She went into the bathroom without another word. Quinn knew that he had hurt Laura and he felt bad, but his wife's lack of respect for his work depressed and upset him.
Quinn tried to read, but his book no longer held his interest. A little while later, the bathroom door opened. Laura walked over to her dresser and slipped into her nightgown. She still looked upset. Quinn did not want Laura to go to bed mad. When she was under the covers Quinn remembered that he had some good news.
'I'm going to be speaking at that judicial conference at the Bay Reef Resort on St. Jerome. The organizers confirmed late this afternoon.'
Quinn's reading light was still on and he could see little interest on Laura's face.
'I thought maybe you'd come with me. We can go a few days early and make it a vacation. The only day I'm speaking is Thursday. We'd have the rest of the week free.'
'I'm busy, Dick,' she answered coldly. 'There's the Media Corp. litigation and the Hunter Air contract.'
'The conference is the last week in February. You have plenty of time to rearrange your work. Come on, Laura. It will be good for us. We haven't had a real vacation in two years.'
Quinn waited.
'I'd really like you to come with me,' Quinn said when he could stand the silence no more. 'I can use the break, too. We'd have a great time on St. Jerome. I checked around and the island is supposed to be beautiful. Sand, sun. We'd lie out by the pool and sip banana daiquiris until we were blotto. What do you say?'
Laura began to thaw. 'I can't promise right now,' she told Quinn.
'It won't be anything but work if you're not with me.'
'I'll talk to Mort Camden.'
Quinn brightened and that made Laura smile. Quinn moved against her.
'I'll be miserable if you're not there.'
Laura touched Quinn's cheek. 'You're like such a little boy sometimes.'
Quinn slid his hand under Laura's nightgown. She tensed for a moment, then relaxed and kissed him. Quinn made the kiss last. Laura stroked his neck. They had not made love for a week and a half. Her touch was like a live wire on his nerve endings and he was instantly erect. Quinn stroked down Laura's spine until he was cupping her backside. He enjoyed the tension in her muscles. Quinn felt Laura unsnapping his pajama bottoms. His mouth was dry with excitement. He longed to play with Laura so he could draw out their pleasure. His fingers found her nipples and he began stroking them to make them hard. Before he could finish, Laura was drawing him inside her and he was trapped in the rapid pull and push of her rhythm until, moments later, he exploded and collapsed, spent but not satisfied because of the rapidity of their intercourse.
Quinn felt the bed move as Laura left it for the bathroom. He replayed the quick sexual encounter in his mind and it occurred to him that sex with Laura had been less and less satisfying in the past year. Quinn stared at the ceiling and tried to remember when making love to Laura had stopped being fun. He knew he enjoyed sex with her tremendously before they were married and he was certain that the sex was still good when they lived in the old house in Portland Heights, but somewhere along the way he started suspecting that Laura was only going through the paces and he began to feel alone and lonely when they coupled.
Quinn was still excited by Laura and she never denied him sex. On the other hand, Laura rarely initiated the act the way she had when they were dating and she seemed to work hard at finishing quickly, as if sex was another chore, like dish washing, that she wanted to complete so she could move on to more important things.
Quinn wondered what would happen if he stopped having sex with Laura for a while, but he was afraid that her lack of interest was only in his imagination and that withdrawing from her would hurt her. Quinn could never do that to Laura. He was even more afraid that she would say nothing and that theirs would become a marriage of convenience.
The toilet flushed and Quinn heard the water running in the sink. He got out of bed and walked by Laura. It would have been so nice if she had touched him as they passed just to show that she was thinking of him. Quinn closed the bathroom door. All of a sudden he felt sad and defeated. He longed desperately to recapture the early days of their relationship when her passion matched his, sex left them both exhausted and fulfilled and he would drift off to sleep with a mind unclouded by doubt.
Chapter 3.
Lou Anthony went straight from the Hoyt estate to the Justice Center to dictate his initial report. The last section recounted the incident with Lamar Hoyt, Jr., whose behavior was partially explained by the alcohol he had been drinking and partially by his intense hatred of Ellen Crease.
Lamar Hoyt, Sr., had been sixty-two when he was murdered. He was a hard-nosed businessman who had turned his father's funeral parlors into a business empire. Junior was the sole issue of Hoyt's first marriage. He had barely made it through college, where he had paid far more attention to football than academics, and had floundered around, failing at various jobs, until his father put him in charge of his mortuaries. Junior had not exactly thrived in the family business, but he had managed to keep it turning a profit. He had also earned himself a reputation as a drunk, a womanizer and a brawler, and he resented his father's refusal to let him play a bigger part in Hoyt Industries, his father's conglomerate. Anthony had learned all this from Ellen Crease, after Junior was escorted off the estate grounds and driven home by a Portland Police officer. Crease despised Junior for being a
