occasionally a judge or two.
“No. Get off the reservation. Go to Jenkins Law Library. Take your laptop. Got it?”
“Sure,” Emily said, her young face worried. She finally rested her ballpoint. “Are you okay, Judge?”
“Of course.” Cate flashed a convincing smile and stood up. “Now, let’s go!” She got up and Emily followed, and they walked together to the clerks’ office, where Sam was bent over his computer keyboard, his back to the door.
“Sam?” Cate said. He turned in his swivel chair, his expression cowed, still. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. It was uncalled for, and I’m sorry.”
“That’s all right, Judge.” Sam’s lower lip trembled, and for a minute he looked like he might cry. “I know I’ve been kind of a…disappointment to you.”
“No, you haven’t, Sam. Not at all.” Cate felt a twinge for the kid, but she didn’t have time for this now. “You and I, we’ll have to talk about this when I get back. I have an errand to run. Okay, pal?”
“Okay.” Sam managed a shaky smile, and Cate ducked out of the clerks’ office and headed for Val’s desk.
“Hey, lady,” Cate called out on the fly. “Please tell me my calendar’s clear this morning.”
“Let me see, Judge.” Val turned to her computer, which set her long amber earrings swinging. A beige pashmina draped around her shoulders, on top of a brown patterned dress. She hit a key on her keyboard and slid her eyes upward while she typed. “You didn’t have to say you were sorry, you know. You gotta teach ’em.”
“Nah, it was right.” Cate grabbed her trench coat from the rack and slid into it as Val frowned at her monitor screen.
“You have a pretrial motion at eleven-thirty.
“Damn.” Cate had meant to read those papers, too. She’d never been so behind on her work. “Please call and cancel it. Tell the courtroom deputy and stenographer, too. I won’t be back until after lunch.” She leaned over the top of Val’s cubicle and lowered her voice. “Marz killed himself with the murder weapon.”
“So it’s over.”
“Yes.”
“Hallelujah. Where’re you going?”
“You don’t want to know.” Cate hurried for the door.
CHAPTER 18
Cate hustled down the sidewalk under the cold sun, holding her coat at her neck against a biting wind. Bundled-up people hurried this way and that, their breaths making cotton puffs in the frigid air. Morning traffic clogged the narrow street, stop-and-go, mostly business deliveries at this hour, and a white Liberty Fish van honked, stalled by a UPS truck making a delivery. Cate lived only six blocks east of this neighborhood, and if Society Hill were the residential side of colonial Philadelphia, Old City had been the commercial, characterized by large industrial spaces that later proved perfect for restaurants, art galleries, lofts, photography studios, and furniture-design showrooms. And evidently, the Philadelphia production offices of
Cate stopped when she reached the address, only a black-stenciled number 388 on a dented metal door wedged between a closed restaurant and a wholesale restaurant-supply outlet. She stepped back and looked up at the brick building, two stories above the restaurant-supply outlet. Fluorescent lights paneled the ceiling on the second floor; the storefront window bore no sign. The sign on the window of the third floor read TATE amp; SON, INDUSTRIAL DRAWING. The
Cate eyed the door frame, dirty and peeling gray paint, home to two black buzzers recessed in grimy brass, unlabeled. She hit the top button, assuming it was the third floor, and the door buzzed loudly. She slipped inside, into a tiny entrance room, then went upstairs and stopped at the second floor, at a security door that read ATTORNEYS@LAW. Cate knocked.
No answer. But she knew Micah was inside, from the phone call. She knocked again, then again, and was about to kick the door down when it flew open.
“The office is closed!” Micah said, flinging open the door. Then her expression changed to bewilderment. “Judge Fante?”
“Yes,” Cate answered, equally surprised. Micah had clearly been crying, her eyes wet and her nose swollen. The sight touched Cate, until she reminded herself that this girl had been following her every move. Or at least she knew who had.
“Whoa, this is so random.” Micah quickly wiped a tear away. Her hair fell loosely to her shoulders and she wore a black ribbed sweater, tight jeans, and red Converse sneakers. “You caught me at a bad time. I was just watching the press conference.”
“I’m sorry,” Cate said, pushing inside. “I was in the neighborhood and I wanted to talk to you about Mr. Simone, to tell you personally how very sorry I am.”
“Why…thanks.”
“It’s just so awful.” Cate scanned the cramped reception area, furnished with a funky black leather couch, a black coffee table, a one-cup coffee machine, and a dorm-size refrigerator. Slick posters of the cast of
“I don’t think so,” Micah answered, her voice thick.
“I heard some on the car radio. TV in there?” Cate darted for the office, sizing it up in a glance; a huge plasma flat-screen TV, a black contemporary desk, a black Aeron chair, and a white iBook surrounded by stacks of papers labeled PRODUCTION SCHEDULES, TRAVEL amp; EXPENSES, and HEAD SHOTS. Cate turned to Micah, who stood at the threshold, wiping her nose. “I was hoping to catch the end of the conference. What did they say, anything new?”
“I guess you heard that Marz committed suicide.”
“Yes. Poor man.”
“I don’t feel sorry for him. He brought it on himself. The police say he used the same gun that was the murder weapon. So that means he killed Art, which I could have told them.” Micah blew her nose loudly, and her pretty cheeks turned red from the pressure. “Maybe I’m not supposed to say this, but I really wish you hadn’t said what you said that day in court. I think Art would be alive today, if you hadn’t.”
Cate felt a stab of guilt. “I’m sorry.”
“He was a great man, a genius.” Micah dabbed at her eye with the Kleenex. “I know they say that about everyone in Hollywood, but he really was.”
“I’m so sorry. It’s upsetting.”
“It really is and it…” Micah’s sentence trailed off as she watched the TV, and Cate turned to the life-size screen. A woman with a model’s lovely features, long blond hair, and a tight-fitting black pantsuit stood behind a lectern topped with a bouquet of microphones. The panel caption under the picture read MRS. ERIKA SIMONE.
“Is that his wife?” Cate asked needlessly, eyeing Micah for a reaction.
“Yes. She’s Swedish.” Micah kept her gaze riveted to the screen, her eyes glistening. If she were jealous of Simone’s wife, it didn’t show, so either she wasn’t having an affair with her boss or she was a really good actress.
On the screen, Erika Simone was saying, in a sexy Nordic accent, “I wish to thank the Philadelphia Police department, and particularly Detectives Nesbitt and Roots, for their great work and the kindness they showed us. The City of Brotherly Love has truly been very good to my family, and I would like to donate one hundred thousand dollars, the reward money we had originally offered, to the Widow and Orphans Fund. Thank you very much.”
“That was nice,” Cate said, and Micah nodded, her lips tight. “Was that your idea?”
“I didn’t even know about it.” Micah switched off the TV with a black remote, and the room fell abruptly silent.
