morning, and the rising sun beamed through the window opposite the reception area, belying her mood. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had a good night’s sleep. After she’d gotten the e-mail alert, she’d taken calls from Chief Judge Sherman and Val, both telling her what she already knew. She hung her coat on the rack by the door while the law clerks filtered in and collected around Val’s desk.
Cate turned to the clerks, their faces unusually somber. “Hey, guys. Guess you heard the news.”
“This is so awful, Judge.” Emily’s black top and long black skirt seemed appropriate. Beside her, Sam had dressed in his casual sweater and khakis, which somehow bugged Cate.
“Not cool,” Sam said, and Cate turned on him.
“Sam, honestly. A man killed himself. Another man is murdered. That’s more than ‘not cool.’ ‘Not cool’ doesn’t even begin to cover what that is.” Cate felt her nerves unraveling like a suspension cable. “
Sam flushed with embarrassment, plain on his pale skin. “Sorry.”
“I am, too.” Cate felt blood pounding in her temples. “I’m sorry you have so little empathy for another human being. He had a wife, whom you saw in court. He had a mother, too. Can’t you feel that loss, Sam? Don’t you have any respect?”
Sam looked down.
“Damn it!” Cate added for emphasis, which was when she realized the only way she could get control was to leave. She turned to go back into her office just as the intercom buzzer sounded, and they all looked at the security monitor, on the file cabinets next to Val’s desk. Its gray screen showed a man in a dark suit standing at the intercom in the common hallway, and Cate recognized him, surprised.
“Detective Nesbitt, here to see Judge Fante,” he said over the intercom, and Val looked over.
“Judge, okay to buzz him in?”
“Of course,” Cate answered, ignoring the silent law clerks.
“Come in, Detective,” Val said into the intercom, hitting the button to open the door to the secured half of the floor. She turned to hand Cate her messages. “All the usual suspects, the
“No comment,” Cate said, and took the messages.
Five minutes later, she was sitting catty-corner to Nesbitt at her worktable, both of them behind hot coffee in Styrofoam cups. “Where’s your partner, Roots?” she asked.
“He’s back at base, getting ready for the press conference.” Nesbitt sipped his coffee, one hand against his tie, so as not to spill coffee on his camera-ready blue print tie and dark navy wool suit. His thick hair stood up at attention, and he smelled pleasantly of spicy after-shave. “This is an unofficial visit, Judge.”
“Oh, really?” Cate tried not to think of the last time she’d heard words like that, only last night, from a different detective.
“I spoke with Chief Judge Sherman about the Marz suicide. I presumed he called you at home.”
“Yes.”
“Obviously, you won’t have to worry about Marz anymore.”
“I guess not.” Cate thought of the opinion she’d finished last night, too late. Would it have changed Marz’s mind? If only she’d gotten to it sooner. “It’s a terrible shame.”
“Sure is. Anyway, we’ll be clearing the Simone case. We’re going to announce it at the press conference. Marz shot himself with the same gun he used on Simone. The ballistics tests verified it. So, bottom line, he killed Simone and then killed himself. It fits with some information we got from his wife, too. Depression and all.”
“How’s his wife?” Cate took another sip of coffee, then set her cup down on the conference table.
“As well as can be expected.” Nesbitt shifted in his seat. “But there’s something else I wanted to discuss with you, Judge. I’d like to keep this confidential. I’m here as a professional courtesy to you, now that the Simone case will be officially cleared.”
“Let me begin at the beginning. You got the Simone case when you first became a judge, right?”
“Yes, a little over six months ago.”
“Jury selection started, what, about a month ago?”
“Right, about then, yes. It took a long time to pick this jury because everyone had seen the TV show.” Cate didn’t get it. “Why do you ask?”
“When we caught the Simone murder, we went to his hotel suite that night, as part of the investigation. He was staying at the Four Seasons during the trial. He had a huge suite. We liked Marz for the doer, that is, we suspected him because of what had happened in court and because of the videotape. Also he’d taken off. But I thought it wouldn’t hurt to look around Simone’s hotel room and see what we could find out.”
Cate nodded, unsure where Russo fit in.
“I guess I was being a little nosy, because Simone was a Hollywood guy and all. I mean if you had a chance to peek in Steven Spielberg’s medicine chest, wouldn’t you?”
“No doubt.” Cate found herself liking Nesbitt. He wasn’t exactly handsome, but he had a nice, straightforward way about him.
“So I looked around on Simone’s desk and there were the usual items, a laptop, a PalmPilot, a coupla cell phones-he had five of ’em.” Nesbitt paused, pursing his lips. “He didn’t have a lot of business papers around except files from the lawsuit. We confiscated them, which is procedure, and I logged them in at the evidence room.”
“Okay.”
“I did see some loose papers in a fancy folder. The folder was leather and it had a yellow pad inside and a clipboard. Well, inside the folder was a record of your personal whereabouts, starting from about six months ago.”
“My personal whereabouts?” Cate didn’t understand.
“I found a record, a chronological record of everything you did, for about six months, up to now. From the looks of it, Simone was having you followed for some reason. Everywhere you went. To court, home, or well, out.”
Cate’s mouth went dry. “That’s impossible.”
“I thought you might say that, so I made a copy of the papers.” Nesbitt reached inside his jacket pocket, withdrew a packet of papers that had been folded in two, and handed them to Cate, who opened them up and read the first page:
September 7-Judge leaves work at 5:15 p.m. Drives to 263 Meadowbrook Lane, at 6:34 p.m. Leaves at 10:16 p.m. Drives home at 11:30 p.m.
September 8-Judge leaves work at 7:06 p.m. Goes to Warwick Hotel, 1822 Locust Street at 8:09 p.m. Keynote Speaker at Reception for Trial Lawyers of Philadelphia. Leaves hotel at 11:02 p.m. Arrives Mike’s Bar, 1003 Locust Street at 11:37 p.m. Leaves bar with unidentified man at 11:57 p.m. Goes to Holiday Inn with same man at 12:10 a.m. Leaves Holiday Inn at 1:35 a.m., alone. Goes home at 2:05 a.m.
Cate remembered that night. That speech. That man.
September 29-Judge leaves work at 6:23 p.m. Drives to Roosevelt Blvd Conference Center and receives award from woman lawyers association. Leaves Conference Center, 9:07 p.m. Arrives Mack’s Shack, 1030 Cottman Avenue at 10:02 p.m. Leaves with unidentified man at 10:32. Drives to…
Cate skimmed the record. Oct 30…Unidentified man; Nov 24…Unidentified man; Jan 10…Unidentified man…
Cate felt sickened. Her private life, exposed. There were ten pages in the packet, and she couldn’t bring herself to read the rest in front of Nesbitt. She was so ashamed she could barely look up and meet his eye. Somehow seeing her behavior in black and white made it look so much worse. Or maybe she’d just been in denial for too long.
“Why would he do this?” Cate asked, stunned, and if Nesbitt thought less of her, he didn’t let it show.
“Did you ever receive any unusual calls from him?”
“I’ve never spoken with him on the phone. That would be an ex parte communication, that is, a
