“This is an impromptu visit. Judge Guthrie wasn’t in his courtroom, so I assume he’s in chambers.”
“Why, yes, but one can’t simply visit Judge Guthrie.”
“Oh, he’ll be thrilled to see me.” Bennie winked, and the secretary rose to her feet, waving a hand.
“Please, no. You can’t go in there. The judge is working.”
“So am I,” Bennie said. She strode to the office door, knocked briefly, and opened it. The judge’s chambers were decorated in Shaker style, and antique cherry furniture circled an elegant silk Oriental in front of a large mahogany desk. Certificates blanketed the paneled walls, and ginger lamps lent an understated glow to casebooks and legal treatises that filled cherry bookcases. Judge Guthrie stood across the carpet reading a chubby United States reporter; its stiff, ivory pages open in a fan. He peered over his tortoiseshell reading glasses at the intrusion.
“Ms. Rosato,” he said, turning from the bank of cream-colored volumes. The judge made a frail, stooped figure without his judicial robes. “Please accept my condolences in the death of your mother.”
“I got them this morning. ‘It is hereby ordered,’ I think it said.”
“Ah, quite. I thought you might be disappointed.”
“That, too. Puzzled is more apt, Your Honor.”
“Ms. Rosato, please call me Judge. Lawyers who barge into my office always call me Judge.”
Bennie couldn’t find her smile. “I need to know why you didn’t grant my motion, Judge. I should have been able to withdraw, especially in these circumstances. I can’t represent the defendant anymore. I’m too close to her, too emotionally involved, and with my mother—”
“I can understand your predicament,” Judge Guthrie said, his voice calm even as the door behind Bennie opened and his secretary peeked in worriedly, with a male law clerk cowering behind her.
“Judge,” the secretary interrupted, in a tremulous voice, “I telephoned the sheriffs, and they’re on their way.” She glanced at Bennie, who thought she read a twinge of regret behind her bifocals, but the judge only laughed.
“Call off the dogs, Millie. Get back to work, Ronald. I can handle Ms. Rosato on my own. She’s not the first lawyer unhappy with one of my rulings and she’s not quite so terrifying as she thinks.”
“Yes, Judge.” The secretary nodded, withdrawing and closing the door after her.
Judge Guthrie cleared his throat. “I anticipated your displeasure with my order. It wasn’t an easy decision, given my sympathy for your recent loss, and we do have history, you and I, don’t we?”
“Yes, we do.”
“I’m fond of you, Ms. Rosato. I tell you that directly. However, I had to deny your motion to withdraw. Recall that I granted your earlier motion to step in as defendant’s counsel. Less than a week later, you move to step out. I can’t sanction that sort of conduct. It would create havoc, not only with my calendar but with the rights of criminal defendants.”
“But, Judge, you read the papers. Surely you’ve seen that there are extenuating circumstances in this case. I admit it, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have gotten involved in the first place.”
“You mean the ‘twin murder case.’ I would prefer to avoid tabloid journalism, though it’s impossible these days.” Judge Guthrie shook his head, his wispy white hair bright in the light of chambers. “No, it was imprudent of you to become involved in the Connolly matter. But you did, and that’s where we find ourselves. I don’t recall your asserting in your brief that the defendant wishes you to withdraw, do I?”
“No. She wants me to remain her counsel.”
“I assumed as much.” Judge Guthrie nodded. “I couldn’t very well grant that withdrawal motion then, now could I?”
Bennie swallowed. Ever since this case began, she’d been arguing the wrong side. Still. “But why no extension, Judge? It’s routine in the case of death in the immediate family. The trial hasn’t started yet. You know I’m right on the extension.”
Judge Guthrie stiffened. “I’m not in the habit of scheduling my cases around counsel’s availability. That’s the cart before the horse, my dear. I told you in open court we couldn’t have further delays in this matter, and we cannot. I have a breach-of-contracts matter scheduled for the following week with out-of-town counsel and that should take a full month. Now. You have my order.” Judge Guthrie snapped the casebook closed, and the soft thunk punctuated his sentence.
“I don’t believe that’s the real reason, Judge.”
“The real reason? My then, what’s the real reason, Ms. Rosato?”
Bennie hesitated. She was accustomed to busting cops, but judges were another matter entirely. “I believe there’s a police conspiracy against Alice Connolly and I think you’re a part of it. I think you’re protecting the police, in return for the old favor of getting you this judgeship. I think that’s why you gave Connolly’s defense to Henry Burden in the first place, so he’d sit on it. And how convenient that Burden is out of the country so nobody can question him.”
“My, that’s quite a theory.” Judge Guthrie smiled faintly and replaced the book. Only when it was completely ensconced did he turn and face Bennie. “Corrupt judges, corrupt police, corrupt lawyers. Who is behind all this, and why?”
Bennie found his reaction odd and noted he hadn’t denied her charge, even reflexively. “I don’t know yet, but it’s not who, it’s what, and the answer has to be money. It always is. I think a lot of people stand to make a lot of money if Connolly gets railroaded. They want Connolly to have a lawyer so preoccupied she can’t think straight or work hard. Which only makes me want to work harder, by the way.”
“I see. Well. If you suspect these terrible things, why don’t you go ahead and file a charge?” Judge Guthrie eased his glasses off his nose and cleaned them by blowing softly in one lens then the other, two shallow puffs of breath. “Why storm in here like gangbusters, to no result?”
Bennie paused. Strange. Was he making a suggestion? “I came to give you the benefit of the doubt.”
“Ah.” The judge held up a bony hand, from which his tortoiseshell glasses dangled. “You mean you have no proof. You have only your suspicion, unsubstantiated, and that’s what motivates you. You disagree with my order, so you charge into my office. You come without opposing counsel. You make scurrilous allegations. Lawyers lose their licenses for such conduct, you know.”
“They tried that already. It didn’t work.”
“You are in quite a state, aren’t you?” Judge Guthrie rolled out his leather desk chair and eased into it. His desk was dotted with gift gavels in malachite and crystal, anchored by a large porcelain lamp. Its light glinted on a lacquered set of brass scales, an award from the bar association. “I remember how I felt when my mother passed away. It fell to me to make the arrangements for my mother’s funeral. Yet I worked throughout, at the firm, for I had clients depending on me. It wasn’t a responsibility I took lightly, nor was the responsibility I bore my family. I never take my responsibilities lightly, whether they be to my clients or to my family.”
Bennie struggled to read between the lines. Was someone threatening him or his family? “I am looking out for my client, Judge. I believe she’s being set up for a crime she didn’t commit. I’m not about to let that happen. Neither should you.”
“My, my.” Judge Guthrie replaced his glasses as he gazed out his office window. The Criminal Justice Center was located on a side street in a city struggling to keep business from escaping to the suburbs. There was no view except for the shadowy windows of the vacant office building across the way. The judge seemed momentarily lost to Bennie, and she sensed that if he was involved in a conspiracy, he was being coerced.
“Who are you protecting, Judge? What do they have on you?”
“My, my, my,” Judge Guthrie said, tenting his fingers as he focused outside the window. “Grief is a funny thing. It plays tricks with the brain. It’s an emotional time for you, but you will have to set your emotions to t
he side. You’re at sixes and sevens, in a tizzy, owing to your terrible loss, but it is time for you to get along now. You have lots of work to do, Ms. Rosato, and very little time to do it in.”
Bennie sighed, torn. “Your Honor, if I’m going to try this case, I’m going to take your friends down. Don’t make me take you down with them.”
“I do hope you feel better, Ms. Rosato. I did send your mother some lovely flowers, you know. Lest you think me a wicked man.” Judge Guthrie swiveled to face Bennie and opened his hands slowly. “I am not a wicked man,” he repeated.
“We are what we do,” she said, and left the judge hiding behind his awards.
“Bennie, any comment on the ruling?” “Bennie, what do you think about Judge Guthrie’s decision?” “Will you appeal the judge’s decision, Ms. Rosato?”
Bennie barreled through the reporters at the courthouse and later outside her office building. They followed her from one place to the next, plaguing her with questions, jostling her, sticking videocams and tape machines in her face. She realized how much her world, at least her inner world, had slowed down since her mother died. She felt oddly like an invalid forced outside, into light and movement, and it disoriented her. She fended the press off with a jittery hand and prayed the cameras wouldn’t broadcast her anxiety.
“No comment,” she murmured as she pushed through the revolving door into her lobby and crossed to the elevator bank. The doors opened, and Bennie took the elevator to her floor. The reception area was as quiet as an oasis, except that everyone was staring at her. Bennie avoided all eyes but Marshall’s, sitting at the reception desk. “Any messages?” Bennie asked simply.
“Yes, sure,” Marshall said. She slipped a strand of hair behind a pierced ear, gathered the mail, and handed it over. “I’m so sorry—”
“Thanks,” Bennie said, accepting the work, if not the expression of sympathy. She had to block it out if she was going to be effective and she’d meant what she told Judge Guthrie. If somebody wanted her paralyzed, then her only response was to move faster. She tucked the papers under her arm and hurried to the conference room.
“Bennie, I’m sorry,” Judy said, her young face soft with sorrow, and Mary looked positively teary.
“I’m really—”
“Sorry,” Bennie supplied, then added, “I know. Thanks. But we’re all up shit’s creek if we don’t get back to work.” She tossed her papers on the conference room table, where they landed with a slap. “Tell me where we are in this case. I got your notes. Mary, you start with the details.”
Mary filled Bennie in on the dismal results of their neighborhood canvassing. When she finished she added, “And Lou’s still out there, so maybe he’ll find out something.”
“Maybe,” Bennie said, and turned to Judy. “Tell me about this drug thing. I got your message about Valencia. Connolly says she doesn’t know her and denies selling drugs.”
“I’m not surprised,” Judy said, and reiterated the details of what Ronnie Morales had told her. “I can go back to the gym to learn more, if you want. I’d like to try to meet some of the other wives, see what I can find out.”
“No, we’re in high gear now. You have to get the paperwork done. Jury instructions, motions in limine, questions for voir dire. It all has to be done right away, and whatever has to be filed has to get filed.” Bennie grabbed her papers. “I’m going to get my copy of the file and work at home for an hour or two before the viewing.”
“Tonight is the viewing?” Mary asked. “We’d like to go.”
“Thanks, but neither of you can come. We’ve got a defense to stage.”
Judy frowned. “But we’d like to. We can work afterwards.”
“No.” Bennie headed for the door. “If you’re there, you’re fired. Don’t file anything without my seeing it first. Fax it to me at home or send it by messenger. Call if you have any questions or need anything.”
“Sure,” Judy said, mystified, and Mary nodded as Bennie slipped out the door and hustled to her office to pack her briefcase.
45
Fleur-de-lis of ersatz gilt flocked the wallpaper and the room was long and narrow, almost a coffin itself. Sound from another wake traveled through the thin walls and the cheap nap of the rug betrayed that it was indoor-outdoor carpeting. Covella’s Funeral Home wasn’t the first tier of Italian funeral homes, where the mob wakes were held, but Bennie thought it suited. It was unpretentious and small, like her mother, and if it had bowling trophies displayed on a shelf in the back of the room, so be it. It didn’t matter to Bennie where she mourned her mother. She’d be mourning her the rest of her life.
Bennie sagged in an overstuffed chair in the front row between Hattie and Grady. Her head throbbed dully and her eyes were sore and dry. She was all cried out and hollow inside. The press thronged outside, but they’d been kept at bay by a ring of streetwise morticians. At least it remained quiet inside the funeral home.
Grady squeezed her hand, and Hattie sat on Bennie’s other side. Her yellow hair was the only bright spot on her; the dark skin around her eyes was swollen, and she wore a black pantsuit with short sleeves and a pointed collar that she kept tugging into place. The three of them — Grady, Bennie, and Hattie — constituted the sum total of her mother’s mourners, but Bennie shrugged off any shame about it. She’d been to political wakes, business wakes, and school-reunion wakes, all jam-packed with people who cared little for the body lying amid the flowers. This loss was greater, somehow undiluted, because it was just the three of them huddled together, their heads bent.
Bennie’s thoughts turned to Connolly and she felt pleased that Connolly wasn’t there. Even if Connolly was a blood relative, her presence would have been an insult to her mother’s memory, considering how little the death had affected her. Bennie shifted in the armchair and wondered if she should have tried to notify her father. Winslow wasn’t her mother’s husband, but he might have wanted to be here, if the saved note was any indication. Still, he could read the obituaries as well as anyone. Maybe he’d come, suddenly appear out of nowhere. How many times had Bennie wished that as a child? And how many times did it happen?
She didn’t bother to look for him and realized that she felt about him the way Connolly felt about her mother. He had missed her life, and whether or not it was his decision at the outset, he hadn’t tried to correct it. Hadn’t once tried to contact Bennie, so why should she bend over backward to contact him? How would she feel at his passing? Would she care as little as Connolly did at her mother’s?
Bennie’s feelings were jumbled, her thoughts disoriented. She sank into the chair, with Grady’s arm at her back. She felt so distant from him, from everyone, in willed isolation. She hadn’t invited anyone from the office to the wake or even her oldest friend, Sam Freminet. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this, or know her this way.
“Father Teobaldo is here,” said the funeral director, who materialized from nowhere. Behind him stood a slight Catholic priest, with a damp forehead, a long bony nose, and a face too gaunt for a young man.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Rosato,” he said, extending a slim hand and shaking hers. He eased into the seat beside Hattie, who introduced herself and shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, too,” he said, and sounded to Bennie like he actually meant it.
“S’nice you took the time to come,” Hattie said, a hoarse lilt to her voice. She grew up in Georgia and like Grady, had an accent that surfaced when she was tired or upset. This evening she was both. “I know you didn’t know Missus Rosato. She wasn’t a well woman. She couldn’t get out to church.”
“That’s all right. I’m not here to judge her. God won’t judge her. He’ll welcome her.”
“I know he will, Father,” Hattie said, her voice sonorous. “Jesus loves all of us.”
Bennie looked away. She never had much use for religion and wasn’t about to start with the thought of her mother’s death being welcome to anyone, even God. Her gaze fell on the front of the room and she realized
that she hadn’t once looked at the bier where her mother lay. It had been hard enough to see her, back at the hospital. Bennie made herself look at the front of the room and try to absorb it. An act of will, almost against her will.
It was easier to look first around the casket, rather than at the casket itself. White wrought iron sconces flanked her mother’s coffin, their light insignificant. Tacky flower arrangements ringed the front: pink-sprayed chrysanthemums and paint-covered daisies wrenched into the shape of hearts, banners, and, improbably, a horseshoe. Bennie had ordered dozens of long-stemmed white roses, but elegance and simplicity were apparently unheard of at a South Philly funeral. White satin sashes spanned the flower hearts, one reading Beloved Mother in handscript of Elmer’s glue and glitter, and the other saying Mom in crimson. Bennie decided to let it go. The flowers mattered as little as the bowling trophies. Her mother was gone.
She made herself look at the coffin and the vision wrenched her heart. A rose-colored light had been mounted inside the satin upholstery of the casket, bathing her mother’s face in a pink glow. Brownish foundation had been sponged onto her mother’s skin and her lips sealed in a matching pink lipstick. That bothered Bennie more than anything, the unnatural closing to her mother’s lips, and she wondered uneasily how it had been accomplished. She swallowed hard and bit back her tears. Her gaze traveled down her mother’s side. In one rigid hand had been placed a pair of wire-rimmed reading glasses. Bennie had no idea how the mortician had gotten the glasses; she’d forgotten that her mother had even worn glasses. Her mother had been so ill the past few months, she hadn’t been able to read.
“Excuse me,” said the funeral director, returning and leaning down to Bennie. His moussed hair was by now familiar, though he smelled tonight of lemon-lime Barbasol. “Should we begin, or wait for the other mourners?” he asked.
“Begin, please,” Bennie answered, testy. She had explained it to the man twice. Just the three of us, she had said, but still he’d set up the room with ten rows of folding chairs, as if the lack of mourners was somehow shameful. Coming from a tradition that actually paid mourners, it probably was.