“So you told him?”
She looks uncertain. “Not exactly.”
“Of course you didn’t. You didn’t care if Armen was hungry, Sarah, you knew I’d be working late with him, and you wanted to see if anything was happening that shouldn’t be. If he was cheating on Susan, your friend.”
“Are you kidding?” She laughs abruptly. “I knew their marriage was over.”
Part of it is true, leaving me dumbfounded. “How do you know that?”
“I practically ran her campaign, remember? I’ll be her chief aide after this job. She tells me everything.”
“Then why were you so worried about the tapes?”
“Because I knew I was on them.”
It doesn’t square. “So why is that a problem, if you have nothing to hide? A tape of you with a sandwich, so what?”
Her blue eyes freeze like ice. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. What are you accusing me of?”
I don’t even know, but she’s getting angrier, so I spin a plausible argument out of the meager facts I’ve been dealt, making something out of nothing, like any good lawyer. “All right, how’s this? You come to the office and see Armen and me on the couch. You’re so enraged you can’t sleep. You go to his house, and he lets you in. Even Bernice is happy to see you, so she doesn’t make a fuss.”
“Ridiculous.”
My hand inches over to the scissors. “You scream at him, lose control, like you did the other morning with Ben. He tells you he loves me and you go even crazier.”
“Why would I do all that?”
“Because you’re in love with him.”
Sarah’s mouth drops open, and before I can stop her she’s lunging right at me. I feel the sting of a hard slap across my cheek and stagger backward, the scissors slipping from my hand. She comes at me again, her face contorted with uncontrollable rage. I know that expression, have seen it before on someone else, and for the first time in my life I realize I’ve been slapped before, with that much force. I slide down against the bookshelf, then am caught by strong arms. My father’s. Sarah’s.
“Grace!” Sarah yells. “Oh, God, are you all right?”
The room is spinning, and fear runs cold in my stomach. “No, no,” I hear myself saying.
“God, Grace, I’m so sorry! Here, wait,” I hear Sarah saying, as if through a fog. The next thing I feel is a warm splash on my face. Wetness dribbles down my cheeks and onto my blouse. Sarah comes into hazy focus as a familiar odor brings me around. “Are you okay? Are you conscious?” she asks.
I wipe my face, then smell my wet hand. “Is this
“Yes. Here, sit up.” She helps me to a sitting position against the bookshelf and kneels on the rug opposite me.
“Why did you throw coffee at me?” Dazed, I watch as a full cup sets into a brown Rorschach blotch on my white blouse.
“I thought you were going to pass out. It was the only thing around. Not that you didn’t deserve it,” she adds, a trace of resentment wreathing her voice.
“I deserved it?”
“You shouldn’t have said I loved him.”
“You did, didn’t you?” I wipe my cheeks on my sleeve; the blouse is a goner anyway.
“Don’t say that, it would hurt Artie so much. And what you said, about me killing Armen, that was awful.”
“I didn’t say you killed him.”
“You were about to.” Her eyes well up as suddenly as Maddie’s. In all her bravado, inside she is a child. A sheltered, spoiled child. “I would never kill Armen. I would never kill anyone. It’s inconceivable.”
I consider this. “I do think Armen was murdered,” I say, hearing it out loud; it sounds right and horrible, at the same time.
“Do you really?” She blinks back her tears.
“You know Susan, right? If she came in from Washington and he told her about me, could she have killed him, in a jealous rage? A crime of passion?”
“Never. Never in a million years. She’s not like that, emotional like that.” She shakes her head.
“I want to talk to her.”
“She’s leaving for a fact-finding mission.”
“Fact-finding? When?”
“Any day now, she’s not sure.”
“Where?”
“Eastern Europe, Bosnia. Investigating the genocide there.”
A regular genocide hobbyist, that woman. “Don’t you think it’s odd for her to leave the country right now?”
“No. I think it’s good for her. She needs to get away.”
Suddenly I hear Bernice barking loudly, a fierce, threatening bark, one I haven’t heard before. Someone shouts in the hallway; then a louder voice, Eletha’s, screams, “No! No!”
“What’s that?” Sarah says, alarmed.
“Trouble.” I scramble to my feet. Sarah’s right behind me as we tear toward chambers.
11
“Bernice, no!” I shout, but she pays even less attention than usual. Driven by instinct, her brown eyes lock onto her quarry, whose pin-striped back is quite literally against the wall.
“Somebody get this animal!” Galanter bellows, jowls flapping, arms splayed out like the Antichrist. A half cigar smolders between his fingers.
“Bernice, no!” I shout again, but her glistening black lips retract to display a lethal set of canines, only three feet from Galanter’s belt buckle. She growls, and I feel a bolt of fear inside. She has the power to tear him to pieces and, apparently, good cause.
“Rossi, control this animal! Now!” Galanter sputters, his face a hot red.
“Just relax, Judge,” I say, approaching Bernice slowly from behind. I have no idea if she’ll bite me if I try to stop her.
I call to her softly, but she growls again and drops her head to crotch height. Galanter’s blue eyes flare open in fear, and Artie begins to laugh.
“Hold still, dude,” he says. “You got nothing to lose. She won’t even find it.”
“You’re out of a job, mister!” Galanter says.
“Tell me about it,” Artie says. “Grace, be careful now.”
“Bernice won’t hurt me. Will you, Bernice? You wouldn’t hurt your mommy.” I reach her glossy hindquarters with my fingertips and stroke my way up her back to her collar.
She growls again, baring more of her canines.
“She’s going to jump!” Galanter shouts.
“No, she won’t.” My hand inches up to Bernice’s neck and I grab the red leather collar securely in my hand. “Don’t move yet, Judge.”
“Hold her!” Galanter screams, slipping away from in front of Bernice.
“No, wait!” I yell, as Bernice lurches after the fleeing judge. My arms almost tear loose from their sockets and my heels skid along the carpet. Sarah throws her arms around my waist as Bernice thrashes in my grip, torquing her enormous body left and right in desperation. Her frantic barking reverberates in the tight corridor. I bury my face in a mountain of fur and hold on for dear life.
“SuperJew to the rescue!” Artie shouts. He tackles Bernice in midair, and she yelps in pain and frustration.
