Final Appeal

Galanter scrambles down the hall, pant legs flapping. He reaches his chambers and slams the door.

I release my grip on the dog, and so do Artie and Sarah. Bernice explodes out of the pileup and races to Galanter’s chambers. She leaps onto the closed door and barks wildly.

“Jesus.” I collapse next to Sarah and Artie, both flat on their backs on the carpet. I can’t catch my breath; the coffee stain heaves up and down. Bernice has never acted that way before, and you don’t have to be Oliver Wendell Holmes to figure out why.

“Can you believe that?” Eletha says.

“It’s his aftershave,” Artie says. “Or his personality.”

Sarah rolls over and looks at me grimly. “What do you think, Grace?”

What do I think? I think I may not be able to complete my fact-finding mission on Susan, but I know where to find Galanter. I think the new chief judge will be needing an assistant. With experience.

“How do you know all this?” I ask Ben at the end of the day, in Armen’s darkening office.

“That’s what I’ve been wonderin’ too,” Eletha says, without looking up from the folders she’s been filing. On the cardboard box it says DEAD FILES. “Why does Mr. Safer here know every damn thing before I do?”

“One of Judge Galanter’s clerks told me, the only one who’s still speaking to us after what Bernice did.” Ben casts a cold eye at the dog, sleeping soundly where Armen’s area rug used to be.

“But how can they hold phone argument in Hightower?” I ask. “You use the phone for status conferences, little things like that. Not for argument on a death case.”

“Why not?” He crosses his arms, his oxford shirt a crisp white.

“Death is different, that’s why not.”

He looks up at the ceiling, searching the recessed lights like other people gaze at the stars. “Where have I heard that before?”

“Anthony Amsterdam, when he argued before the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia,” Eletha says. “‘Death is final. Death is irremediable. Death is unknowable; it goes beyond this world.’”

“How did you know that, Eletha?” Ben says with obvious surprise.

“Oh, I been workin’ in de big house for a while now, Mr. Ben.” She laughs naughtily. “It was in one of Armen’s articles. I typed it and I never forgot it.” Her smile fades and she returns to the box. “Hand those folders to me, Grace, the ones in front of you.”

I slide the case files and appendices along the smooth tabletop. “Ben, when are they going to hold this phone argument?”

“Tonight at seven.” He checks his watch. “An hour and a half.”

“After the close of business?” Curiouser and curiouser.

“They have to do it tonight, to leave time for the Supreme Court to decide the appeal. It’s Hightower’s fault. He caused it by waiting until the last minute.”

Now I understand. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the timing or the Supreme Court. Galanter doesn’t want argument during regular business hours because that would be public.”

“Not necessarily.”

“No? You think the newspapers would let the panel hold a closed argument in this case? The first death case here in decades? They’d be upstairs with motion papers before you could say First Amendment.”

“As is their wont, but—”

“Galanter won’t have that, so he calls a phone conference when the evening news is over. When the newspapers are sold out. Everybody will be watching Home Improvement.”

“You’ve become quite the cynic, Grace.” Ben unrolls a shirtsleeve and twists the cuff button closed expertly. “In fact, I heard the most outlandish thing about you today.”

“What?”

“It’s so absurd I can barely bring myself to repeat it.” He sets to work on the other shirtsleeve, unfolding one three-inch panel after the next. “I heard you think the chief was murdered.”

Eletha looks over at me in surprise.

“I do. Call me crazy.”

“You’re crazy,” Eletha says. She lets the file slip into the box, where it lands with a tick.

“I thought you had more sense than that.” Ben fastens the button at the cuff, then holds both arms out and inspects them. “Well, I have to go. I’ll leave you to your conspiracy theories.”

“I didn’t say it was a conspiracy.”

Ben gasps in a theatrical way. “Maybe it is. Maybe the entire federal judiciary is in on it. Maybe they all conspired to kill him because he was—tall!” He turns on his heels, laughing, and walks out of the room. I watch him head into the clerks’ office where he turns off his computer, then the lights. I listen for the sound of the door closing as he leaves. I know Eletha well enough to know she’s waiting too.

“What the fuck you doin’?” she says, as soon as the chambers door clicks shut.

“Don’t be shy, Eletha.”

“Are you serious about this?”

“Yes.”

“Is that what was goin’ on with those marshal tapes yesterday?”

“Yep.”

“They don’t tape, do they?”

“Nope.”

She shakes her head. “So what are you up to?”

“It doesn’t make sense that he would kill himself.”

“What are you sayin’?”

So I tell her, leaving out the most important part, the part about Armen and me. When I’m finished, she leans on the file box and looks directly at me. “Look, Grace, I knew he was in love with you. I knew about it before you did. He told me.”

I feel my face redden. “You did? He did?”

“Mm-hm.” She nods. “I have to admit, I told him not to get involved because you two work together. You know what he said? He told me he didn’t give a good goddamn.”

I smile. It warms me inside.

“So I know why you’re thinkin’ what you’re thinkin’.”

“Then why’d you tell me I was crazy?”

“Because Ben was here.”

“What a good liar you are. Jeez, Eletha.”

“Thank you, thank you.” She curtsies prettily, then straightens up, rubbing her lower back. “Ow. Damn, I’m gettin’ old.”

“So what do you think? You knew him longer than any of us. Would he commit suicide?”

She sighs. “I worked for Armen for thirteen years, but I can’t figure it out. It’s hard to believe I wouldn’t have seen something like that comin’. Like a sign.”

“But the police say you said—”

“How do you know what the police say?”

“I went there this morning. They’re sure it’s a suicide. The detective was quoting you, things you said.”

An angry frown contorts her features. “They didn’t listen to me. That white cop askin’ me those questions? He knew what he thought and he didn’t want to hear anything different.”

“I wanted to ask them about Susan. It was her gun.”

“I can’t get over what she did to Bernice. Dang, that woman’s cold!”

“Do you think she would’ve—”

“Possible. It’s possible. I wouldn’t put it past her.” She nods.

“And today with Galanter, that was wild.”

“You mean Bernice? She shoulda bit it off. I’d put it down the garbage disposal myself.”

I smile. “Has Bernice ever done that before?”