“Are you kidding? That dog is a doll baby.” She shakes her head. “So you workin’ with the police or something? They gonna reopen the case?”
“No. I’m on my own. Single Moms, Inc.”
“You’re talkin’ about murder? Accusing a senator? Galanter? Shit, Grace.”
“Not accusing, just asking questions. Developing theories. Being a lawyer.”
She sighs and stretches backward with a tiny grunt. “Oh, my back.”
“You all right?”
“It hurts. The lifting doesn’t help.”
I feel a pang of guilt. She’s been packing by herself since Armen died; the office is littered with boxes, some taped closed, some still open. A lifetime of paper stored away; his whole career. It makes me sad, and it has to be hard on her, too. “I should have helped you. I’m sorry.”
“Nah, s’all right. It’s a lot of stuff, though. He saved everything, I swear.” She points to the back of the office, to the long mahogany credenza behind Armen’s desk. “We got all the personal stuff back there, the articles and stuff. Then we got the academic stuff and old case files against the side wall.”
“Why don’t you go home? I’ll finish the box.”
“Why you pushin’ me out, girlfriend? You wanna look around?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that, but it’s a good idea.”
She picks her sweater off the back of the chair. “All right, don’t stay too late. Tomorrow, baby.” She knocks hard on the wood, and Bernice wakes up with a startled bark. We both laugh.
“Dog almost ate a judge,” I say.
“Smartest thing she ever did.”
“Second smartest.”
She pauses at the doorway and smiles softly. She knows the first: loving Armen. I suppress a stab of pain as I listen to her lock up her desk and gather her handbag and newspaper.
“By the way, El, have I got a man for you,” I call out to her.
“You know I’m seein’ Leon.”
“Time for a change,” I say, but she’s out the door. It closes harshly, accentuating the stillness of the suddenly empty office.
I look around at the boxes and files filling the room. The brocade throws are folded into neat squares and stacked on a chair for packing. I never asked Armen where he got them or even what they were. Most of the other Armenian artifacts have been wrapped in bubble paper. I step between the boxes to his desk and find myself running my finger along its surface, leaving a wake in the dust like a light snow. I laugh to myself. A wonderful man, but not a neat man.
I look at Armen’s chair and try to imagine him sitting in it again. It’s so hard to believe he’s gone. Murdered. It tears at me inside. Maybe there are clues here. Something. Anything.
I look over from the chair to the credenza beyond. None of its doors are open; Eletha hasn’t started on it yet. What had she said was in there? The personal stuff. I walk around the desk and kneel on the carpet in front of the cabinet.
You were raised better, says my mother’s voice, stopping my hand on the gold-toned knob.
“No, I wasn’t,” I say. I slide open the thin door and take the first paper off the top of the stack. Its typeface is faded and old-fashioned, from the days of Smith-Coronas.
TOWARD AN ARMENIAN IDENTITY
by Armen Gregorian
I brush the dust away. He wasn’t a judge yet; it doesn’t say if it was published. I sit down and skim the short article. Well-written, heartfelt. I reach for the next paper in the cabinet, but as I slide it out, a pack of old check registers falls to the carpet, bound by a dirty rubber band. I slip one out, skimming the entries: Food Fare $33.00, Harvard Coop $11.27, Haig $6.00 (for Chinese food). Judging from the sums, it was a long time ago, though Armen didn’t bother to date the entries or keep a running tab of the balance.
Typical. It would have driven me crazy over time, but time is something we didn’t have. Time was taken from us. From him.
I feel a lump in my throat and slip the register hastily back under the rubber band. I shove it next to another checkbook. It looks newer than the other papers in the cabinet, so I pull that one out.
It’s a maroon plastic checkbook, fake alligator on the front and back. At the lower right corner it says PHILADELPHIA CASH RESERVE in gilt-stamped script. The checkbook looks brand new. I snap it open, anxious without knowing why.
The balance is staggering: $650,000. I had no idea. I look at the name and address and hear myself gasp.
Greg Armen. The address is an apartment in West Philadelphia.
What apartment is this? Armen lived in Society Hill, in a townhouse he owned with Susan. I look again at the name on the checks. Greg Armen. Obviously an alias. But why?
I hear my mother’s voice inside my head: Come on, kid. A judge with a secret bank account? A false address? An alias?
Impossible. I push the voice away and flip through the checkbook. There are no entries since the initial one, which is undated.
Was Armen involved in something? Does it have anything to do with his death?
I swallow hard and think twice before committing theft. Well, once maybe. Then I take the checkbook and close the cabinet.
12
Only an hour later I have crossed the threshold into another world. A scented, serene world, where the colors are chalky washes of pastels and the air carries the scent of primrose. Is it heaven? In a way. It’s the Laura Ashley shop at the King of Prussia mall. I called Ricki to discuss the checkbook and she agreed to meet me here. I trail in reluctantly behind her, holding her bags like a pack animal. “So what do you think?”
“I told you what I think. I think you should go straight to the police. Show them the note from Armen and the checkbook.” She plucks a frilly blouse off the rack and holds it against her chest. “You like?”
“For you or for me?”
“I don’t need blouses, you do. That coffee stain is so attractive.”
I tug my blazer over the brown blotch. “I have enough blouses.”
“No you don’t. You have the yellow one you wear over and and over, and the blue.” She slips the blouse back onto the rack. “But it is a lot of money.”
“The blouse or the bank account?”
“The blouse.”
“So’s the account.”
“I wonder if he declared it, the crook.”
“Don’t say that.” I look around the small store, but it’s empty. Nobody can afford this stuff, not even in King of Prussia. “He’s not a crook.”
“You sound like Richard Nixon.”
I set the bags down beside the rack. “I bet it has something to do with his murder.”
“Murder? You’re losing it, Grace. I told you. The checkbook doesn’t mean he was murdered. Maybe he committed suicide in regret over taking a bribe.” She snatches a blouse from the rack and her hazel eyes come alive; it’s off-white, with billowy sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. She hoists it proudly into the air. “This is perfect.”
“For what? Punting on the Thames?”
Ricki puts the blouse back onto the rack. “You have a bad attitude, you know that?”
