speculate. It’s absolutely irrelevant to this lawsuit!”
“Did you keep the painting, Miss Sullivan?” I asked, louder. If her own lawyer could bully her, so could I.
“I… don’t know,” Patricia said. Her thin skin was tinged pink, her voice sounded jittery. “Stan?”
“Objection!” Julicher shouted, slamming the table so hard Patricia jumped. “You’re upsetting the witness!”
Time to raise him. “This is only the beginning, Stan. She’s suing my client for a fortune. She had better understand what that means.”
Julicher looked enraged. “It doesn’t mean she has to take this shit!”
“Sorry, pal. That’s exactly what it means!” I shot back, then heard a whimper. It was Patricia. Tears had sprung to her eyes and she was reaching into her jumper pocket for a Kleenex. Christ. The woman was either a perfect angel or a perfect actress. I decided to back off as she dabbed at her eyes. I’d made my point.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a hoarse voice. “I didn’t know-”
“It’s okay, Miss Sullivan. Let’s get back to the complaint,” I said, and took her through her allegations while she recovered. The deposition went on without further incident while everybody calmed down, and my thoughts clicked away.
So Patricia and Fiske had been lovers, although neither would admit the truth in court. My problem was I had a case to win, and the best way to do it would be to prove there was an affair. But Fiske would never permit that. He’d be asked to resign from the bench, and it would kill Kate. I’d been dealt a garbage hand but couldn’t fold.
I wondered if I could convince Fiske to settle. I wondered why I’d taken the damn case in the first place. And later, as I took Patricia through my final questions, I wondered about the silk dress Paul had loved so much.
Gone.
5
I ignored the stack of yellow slips on my desk, a pile of letters waiting to be signed, and the morning mail, still sitting in stiff thirds. Patricia’s deposition had taken the whole day and I had a million things to do, but the first order of business was to call my favorite presidential appointee-the cheating, lying, deceitful judge who had manipulated me into this mess. Everybody hates lawyers, but they don’t realize judges are just lawyers with a promotion. Think about it.
“Rita, how are you?” Fiske said calmly, when he picked up.
Pissed off. “Fine. Listen, we need to talk.”
“Did it go well?”
“For a fistfight.”
“What happened?”
“Her lawyer’s a bastard and she’s a liar. The whole lawsuit is a sham.”
“I told you, she’s fabricated the entire story.”
How to put this respectfully? “Not exactly. You weren’t forthcoming with me either, Fiske.” In other words, you lied through your caps.
“What do you mean?”
Where to begin. “Patricia testified about the flowers you sent. They were spider mums.”
“Oh?”
“So I know the truth.”
He paused. “I see.”
I almost laughed. This was how WASPs reacted to news that would trigger a Portabella mushroom cloud in Italians. “I can’t defend this case without telling the truth.”
“That’s not an alternative.”
“You’re a judge, Fiske. The truth should at least be an alternative.”
There was quiet on the other end of the line.
“I’m sorry,” I said, without meaning it.
“Understood. But that defense is untenable, Rita. Any victory won that way would be Pyrrhic. I have a reputation, a judicial career, and a marriage to consider.” His voice sounded tense but more honest than he had been. Finally, he was leveling with me.
“Then my advice is to make a settlement offer. She’d go for it, she doesn’t have the stomach for litigation. She even cried during the dep.”
“She did?”
Give me a break. “Let’s settle it. I bet Julicher will call tomorrow with an offer, and if he doesn’t I’ll call him and feel him out. He can’t be totally sure we won’t prove the affair and if we do, he loses his case. And his contingency fee.”
“No. No settlement. Out of the question. It’s the same as an admission.”
I rubbed my forehead. “No, it isn’t. You wouldn’t be admitting anything. You’d be making the case, and the girl, go away.”
“No.”
“You’re putting me in an impossible position, Fiske. There’s no solution.”
“I don’t agree. I’ll find a solution.”
Bastard. “Look, we need to discuss this later, in person.” So I can smack you upside your head.
“Certainly. Kate and I are going out to dinner tonight at Samuel’s. I think Paul will be joining us, but you won’t, right?”
“Right.” I had something better to do. As cranky as I felt, scratching my ass would be something better to do.
“Fine, then. I’ll be home by ten. You and I can chat upstairs in my study.”
Chat? “Good.”
“See you then,” he said, and hung up.
Paul, who called almost immediately afterward, sounded more concerned about Fiske than Fiske did. He phoned from his car, which he called his virtual office. “They’re crucifying my father in public, did you know that?” he said, angry. “I just heard it on the radio. They’re trying to get the deposition transcripts.”
“Don’t worry, they’re under seal.” Not a hard order to get, one judge protecting another. “They can’t.”
“What did she say? How does she justify what she’s doing?”
I couldn’t talk about this with him. Not yet, maybe not ever. “She doesn’t, really. How’d the job go, with the garage?”
“You want to talk about an underground parking garage on a day like this? Isn’t her deposition important?”
“Yes, but tell me what happened with the garage. We have a life, too, right?” Ha.
“The salt got through the paving asphalt over the garage and damaged the membrane below. That’s why it leaked.”
“So you were right.”
“It happens. Rita, give me the headline. How’d the deposition go?” The connection
