The Vendetta Defense

win, shut up and get out of the courtroom.

She found herself in a hallway filled with Coluzzi mourners, talking, laughing, and filing outside for cigarette breaks. Judy wedged her way through the broad backs and thick necks and had almost made it through the entrance hall when she felt a pair of eyes on her, from a heavyset man beside her. She looked over, shielded by the big sunglasses.

She had seen him before. It was Jimmy Bello, John Coluzzi’s man, who had been on the corner watching the clubhouse the other day. He was surrounded by mourners, but he was looking right at her. Did he recognize her? Judy wasn’t waiting to see.

She hustled toward the open entrance and ran out the door.

Chapter 26

“You did what?” Bennie said, and Judy decided she was definitely ordering her boss that T-shirt. They were back at the firm, and the only difference between this and their last you did what conversation was that this time they were sitting in Judy’s office and the good guys were finally winning.

“So it was a little risky, Bennie. So what?”

“What do you mean, ‘so what’?” Bennie was shouting, but Judy felt too good to even be bothered.

“Look what we got out of it! The woman was McRea’s wife. I live right, don’t I?”

“Keep it up and you won’t be living long.” Bennie’s mouth was tight, her blue eyes washed out with fatigue, and her khaki suit rumpled from a long day. On the other side of the closed door, the business day was winding down. “Don’t ever do anything like that again, Carrier. Going to their viewing? It was insane.”

“I know, but—”

“You don’t go to somebody’s family viewing.”

Judy didn’t get this quirk of Bennie’s. She’d drag somebody out of bed to depose them. What was the difference with a viewing? “The FBI does it all the time. They were probably at this one, too.”

“You’re not the FBI. They have guns. Don’t antagonize the Coluzzis.”

Judy laughed abruptly. “We’re suing the shit out of them!”

“Suing them is one thing, crashing their viewing is another. These people are killers!”

“I had it in control. I was careful!”

Bennie leaned forward on Judy’s messy desk. “You say John Coluzzi may have seen you, and this Jimmy Bello.”

“I got out in time. I can take care of myself.”

“Oh, really. Tough talk. Can you take care of that woman, the one you liked so much? McRea’s wife?”

“What do you mean?”

Bennie cocked an eyebrow. “Coluzzi may figure out that it was you McRea was talking to in the lounge. He knows he’s exposed on the driveway. It’s in the complaint, and it’s the only example of a kickback we have the specifics on. So what do you think Coluzzi will do to the McReas, if he thinks they’re talking with you? At best, he’ll squeeze the shit out of them not to talk. That’s the best-case scenario. Can you guess the worst?”

Judy’s mouth went dry. The truth struck horribly home. She had placed the McReas in the line of fire. Having first sued them, Judy had just made it worse. She fell quiet. Her face went hot.

“I see I’ve made my point. Let’s hope the McReas call us before the Coluzzis call them.” Bennie sighed and stood up, crossing her arms. “Meantime, the GC in Huartzer really wants to talk to you. I’ll cut you some slack on the antitrust article, because we can make the next issue, but you have other cases. If you hadn’t been running around funeral homes, you could have been doing your job.”

Judy felt a headache coming on. She hadn’t eaten in hours. She hadn’t slept in days. She hadn’t had sex in a year. She’d never had sex with an Italian, and it was looking like she never would.

“Also. You have a preliminary hearing tomorrow in Lucia and you have to get ready for it. Did you call your parents?”

“No.”

“Do it now. And tell me if McRea calls you. I want to be in on it. And don’t forget your parents! They’re first!” Bennie barked, and left the office.

Judy flipped open her Filofax, found the number, and punched it in. It was the number her parents had left on their itinerary, which they had e-mailed to the kids before they left; Judy had a brother teaching law in Boston and a sister in the Sydney office of a brokerage house. If it weren’t for e-mail, they’d never see each other.

An answering machine picked up the call. As much as Judy wouldn’t have minded hearing her mother’s voice on the machine, even recorded, it was one of those mechanical samplings offered by the phone company. She waited for the beep. “It’s me, Judy. Just wanted to say hi and that everything’s fine. Take care. Love you.” That about covered it, she thought, and hung up the phone.

Judy’s second call was to the general counsel in Huartzer, and she got voicemail. “Rick, this is Judy Carrier. Sorry I haven’t returned your call, but I haven’t been in. Feel free to call anytime and I’ll get back to you right away.”

Her last call was the only one she wanted to make. She pressed the numbers with anticipation, envisioning Frank on the other end of the line, stacking stone in the sun with his shirt off, the long muscles of his back slick with sweat. His cell phone would be ringing in his pocket. He would feel its telltale vibration, a tingle that told him love was calling. Judy heard a click on the line. “Is that a cell phone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?” she said.

But it was only Bell Atlantic. “The cell phone customer you have called is unavailable. Please leave a message at the sound of the tone.”

Disappointed, Judy waited for the tone and thought of a good message. How about I filed our lawsuit, but I may have jeopardized our best witness? Or I’m sorry I turned you down last night, but at least it was in front of your friends? Or best yet, Everything’s fine except that your grandfather has to come to court tomorrow, exposing him to life-threatening danger?

Beep, went the tone, and Judy spoke from the heart:

“Call me. I think of you every minute,” she said, and hung up.

It was dark outside Judy’s office window, and the law firm was quiet. The receptionist and secretaries had gone home, as had all of the lawyers except Judy. Bennie had gone to give a speech to the local ACLU chapter, but said she’d be calling to check in. Judy knew she was worried about her safety, which was a nice feeling, since Judy was worried about her safety, too. She’d taken the scissors from her office drawer and set them conveniently on her desk, just in case she had to make paper dolls of a crazed contractor. Between makeup and her personal defense, Judy was finding whole new vistas for office supplies.

She slurped the last of her take-out lo mein out from a white carton and put out of her mind that nobody she was lusting after or suing had called her back. The phone hadn’t rung for hours, but she was going to stop thinking about it. That resolved, Judy scrutinized the thirty-two photos tacked to the corkboard on an easel in front of her.

It was an array of the photos she’d taken in front of the funeral home this afternoon, which she’d had one- hour-developed across the street. She’d posted them in the order in which she’d taken them, and they made a story in still pictures of the people arriving at the Coluzzi viewing. Judy finished eating as her gaze went from one shot to the next. It was dinner theater for lawyers.

She set down her pull-apart chopsticks and got up. The first shots were of the Coluzzis, John and Marco, and their wives, then, evidently, other family, then mourners arriving in cars and on foot. There were shots of mourners parking in the lot beside the funeral home and on the median on Broad Street. There were crowd scenes on the sidewalk, and many more of them mounting the long marble stairway to the entrance or gathering in groups out front or at the top of the stairs. Interestingly, the camera had recorded much more than Judy had realized she had seen. It was the power of the art, and it was working for her.

Judy scanned the dark images. She didn’t know the faces, but by the end of the case she would. She walked back and forth before the photos, trying to fix each image in her mind. She’d already had the full set scanned and e-mailed to Dan Roser, who would be able to identify many of them, hopefully subs on the Philly Court project.