The Hanging Judge (15 page)

Claire paced slowly around the stone. On the far side, she called out, “No offense, David, but this is about the most ungainly effort at a memorial I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, their trial was a mess, too,” David said, mostly to himself. The visit wasn’t working out very well. What had he been thinking? He spoke more loudly. “The judges were the real villains. Shows what happens when you don’t do your job.”

“Ah,” Claire said, rounding the monument. “I see. A cautionary tale on a forbidden topic.”

The return trip was quiet at first, but things eventually picked up with an extended gab about Claire’s classes and David’s impossible brother, Raymond, and a more than friendly kiss when David dropped Claire off at her house in the center of Amherst.

David half hoped Claire would invite him inside, but she did not. As he watched her walking back, he took a deep breath, buzzed down his window, and asked, in a studiously offhand manner, if he might fix her dinner sometime.

Claire turned and made an uncertain noise that sounded like, “Hmmmrrr.” The monument thing had definitely been a mistake.

“I don’t know,” she said. “You’re pretty weird.”

“I’m only talking about dinner.”

“Uh-huh.” Her tone was skeptical. “That’s all you have in mind?”

“And I can introduce you to my family.”

“Your family?”

“Marlene has heard so much about you.”

“Ah.” She sucked on her lip for a few seconds. “Let me think about it.” But when David called a few days later, she agreed.

“I’ll try not to burn the swordfish,” he said, floating his idea for an easy entrée.

“Delicious.” She paused for a beat. “And how Freudian.”

When the day of the dinner arrived, David canceled court and took the afternoon off to shop and vacuum the house, feeling jumpier and more happy than he had been in a long while. Twice, while bustling around the kitchen, he stepped on Marlene’s tail. Everything was ready an hour and a half ahead of time.

Claire arrived holding a bottle of wine in each hand, and the bottles butted against his spine as she gave him a hug. Her cheek was cool from the wintry air. They immediately began talking with such eagerness that they were most the way through Claire’s first bottle before David even got dinner on the table. Everything they talked about, it seemed to him, was fascinating or funny or both. She praised his dog, his appetizers, and his home, a Victorian farmhouse well back in the trees. He complimented her earrings, her choice of plays for her Shakespeare class, and her theories of grading. She gobbled up his painfully simple meal with many a kind word. Then, as they were finishing dessert, she nodded over at David’s plate, where a sliver of strawberry-rhubarb pie from a local farm stand lingered.

“You’re not going to finish that? It’s very good.”

David looked down at the pie as though he’d been caught with a trout out of season. After a moment’s hesitation, he swallowed and said, “Faye … You know?”

Claire nodded.

“Well, she never ate dessert. At least, she
said
she never ate dessert. Instead, she always had some of mine. It got to be a thing with us.” He gestured at his plate, then looked up at Claire. “So I … I guess I’m still saving her a bite.” He looked down. “Tell the truth, I hadn’t noticed I still do that. I usually just chuck a napkin over the plate, and off I go.”

“Oh dear,” Claire said, blinking. “Wow.”

David cleared his throat. “Anyway. Why don’t we take our coffee back to the fire?”

At the sound of David’s chair being pushed out, Marlene scrambled up from under the table. She walked stiffly toward the front hallway and looked over her shoulder wagging her tail. She approved of the new friend.

Claire hadn’t budged. “David, I don’t know what to say. That is so sweet.”

“Well,” he said, standing up, “why don’t you go ahead. I’ll get us some more coffee.”

He slipped off to the kitchen, while Claire and Marlene made their way to the living room. An enormous moment was rolling toward him, and it was hoisting David’s innards like a swelling wave. The unplanned comment about Faye had knocked him off balance. As he arranged the creamer and the coffee cups on a tray, he reminded himself that the critical question, really, was where Claire would now choose to sit.

The Norcross living room featured a generous, espresso-brown suede sofa, positioned in front of the fireplace, with plenty of room for two people to sit at a civilized distance and at the same time lots of space for maneuvering, if there was to be any maneuvering. A leather recliner and a wingback chair with a hassock were also arranged around the hearth. In front of this grouping, the fire still glowed and occasionally popped; behind it, dark windows looked out into the night. Shadowy branches groping in the wind, and silver patches of snow back in the woods, were dimly visible beyond the glass. Winter had come early; it was a wet, gusty night.

The delay over the coffee had been designed by David to let Claire lead the way and make her choice about where to sit first. If he went ahead of her, he would either have to take one of the chairs, a pathetic move, or plop down on the sofa and look as though he had expectations. He did have expectations, sort of, but he did not want to look as though he did.

The tray rattled as David stepped through the hallway into the living room and discovered Claire seated on the sofa, with her shoes off and her bare feet up on the coffee table. The ocean swelled up beneath him, lifting his spirits, and his stomach, so forcefully that he felt for a moment lightheaded.

He took a deep breath and joined Claire on the couch, maintaining a distance that was respectful but within range. Claire picked up on the topic of nicknames, which they’d been discussing before the crisis with the pie.

“So Raymond called you Stick …”

“Right, because I was so tall and skinny. And your grandfather called you Kukla after the prehistoric TV show …”

“Because I was so round-faced and cute.” Claire draped her arm on the back of the couch; her fingers were only inches from his neck. “Maybe Ray called you Stick because he was afraid you’d beat him.” She stared into the fire thoughtfully, then turned to him. “Have you had any other nicknames, other than Your Honor?”

“My favorite, during my two years in Africa, was Twiga—that’s what my Kenyan students called me. It’s the Swahili word for giraffe.”

“Twee-gah,” Claire mouthed. “How sweet. I assume that was because you were even more of a beanpole back in your Peace Corps days?”

“Partly that. I think it was also because I was so dumb and innocent. You know how unworldly giraffes always look in
National Geographic
, staring around as though they just came out of a coma.” David did his giraffe imitation, gazing from side to side blankly, and felt a surge of happiness when Claire tipped her head back in a wide smile. “That was me,” he said. “Probably still is.”

He lifted his arm onto the back of the couch and placed his hand on Claire’s, trying to make it a companionable gesture rather than a come-on. She responded by interlacing their fingers. The fire was warm, and they were getting through their coffee. It would not be long.

“Twiga.” Claire looked at David and shook her head. “Man! Those Kenyan ladies must have thought you were God on ice cream. I wonder how they managed to keep their hands off you.”

David was remembering that they hadn’t, actually, when Marlene, who had been lying in front of the fire, got up and began staring in their direction, as though something was offending her. The fur on her neck stood out, and she barked sharply, twice, and began growling.

“Marlene, good grief! What’s the problem?”

“I thought she liked me,” Claire said, swinging her feet down off the coffee table.

“She does. She definitely does. Something cuckoo’s going on.”

Marlene, David suddenly realized, was not looking directly at them, but past them at the windows facing onto the darkened yard at the side of the house. As he turned, he saw something moving out there, a stealthy figure among the shadows. Claire saw it, too, and grabbed his arm. A person, holding something, was creeping toward the window.

“Claire,” David said. “Walk to the kitchen, please, and phone 911. Not too fast. I’m going to try to …”

But as Claire began slipping to one side, a witchlike face appeared in the middle pane of the window, pressed so close its nose was mashed against the glass. David leaped up from the couch with a short cry. Curled fingers cupped themselves around the eyes to peer inside. The creature’s long white hair was whipping around in the wind like scraps of tattered laundry.

Claire, catching sight of the specter, jerked upright. “Shit!”

It was crazy Mrs. Abercrombie, the Ginger Snap lady from the Pepe Rivera plea.

“Son of a beehive!” David exclaimed. “Oh brother, this is just way,
way
too much.”

Mrs. Abercombie tapped the glass and called out “Helloooo!” She drew out the second syllable in a kind of cackling yodel.

Claire took a deep breath and shook her head in relief. “Son of a beehive? David, do you ever …”

But he was already hurrying toward the front door. “Oh man. Oh
man
!” he said. “I can’t believe this. She’s figured out where I live and everything.”

Marlene followed, woofing more softly now that she had everyone’s attention.

David threw open the door.

“Mrs. Abercrombie!” he bellowed in the wet night air. “Mrs. Abercrombie! Darn it all! What are you doing here? For cryeye! This is too much.”

Claire and Mrs. Abercrombie arrived on opposite sides of the threshold more or less simultaneously. The old woman’s hair and clothing were spattered with freezing rain, but she had preserved her indomitable smile.

“I, I just wanted to clarify one thing,” she began. “About my case.” She pointed to a wad of soggy papers in her hand.

“Mrs. Abercrombie, this is really not a good time.”

“I know, Your Honor, it’s never the right time, but this …”

“David,” Claire said. “Ask her inside. It’s wet out there.”

He hesitated, then said, “You’re right, sorry. Of course. Mrs. Abercrombie. Come inside. Just for a minute.”

The old woman stepped back to the edge of the darkness. “Oh, I wouldn’t want to disturb you. There was only this one point …”

“Mrs. Abercrombie, come inside, please.” When she still held back, he added sharply, “Ma’am, if you don’t come inside immediately, I’m going to call the marshals and have them arrest you. They’ll lock you up in a nice dry cell in Ludlow, while I invent some felonies to charge you with. Please come in. Really. Professor Lindemann is getting all wet.”

“Oh dear, and you have guests.” She tottered forward, glancing up at Claire. The door closed, muffling the wind. Marlene’s nails clicked on the hardwood as she sniffed Mrs. Abercrombie’s boots and the hem of her faded coat.

“I didn’t want to be a bother. It’s just a quick question. What a nice dog.”

“You practically scared us to death, Mrs. Abercrombie.” David glanced over at Claire, whose hand was only half concealing a smile. “Or me anyway. Marlene, knock it off.”

He looked at Mrs. Abercrombie, sighed heavily, and wiped his hands over his face.

“You’re always so nice to me, Your Honor,” Mrs. Abercrombie began. “Nicer than the other judges.” She hesitated and looked down at her wet papers. “It’s just about …”

“Please don’t talk about your cases, Mrs. Abercrombie,” David interrupted. “Don’t say one blessed word about them, okay? Professor Lindemann, would you mind taking Mrs. Abercrombie into the living room while I go find her a towel?” He stalked off in the direction of the downstairs bathroom muttering to himself.

“It’s just about the page limit,” Mrs. Abercrombie whispered to Claire as they moved into the living room and stood in front of the fire.

“Excuse me?” Claire was pulling back the screen and stirring up the embers with a poker. Mrs. Abercrombie began speaking in a fervent monotone, as much to herself as to Claire.

“The Local Rules for the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts say that legal memoranda can be no more than twenty pages long.” She waved the papers. “Well, I’ve been working and working on my memo, and it’s already more than forty pages long, and there’s a lot more to say. A lot more. And since I live just around the corner, I thought I’d look in and see if he was busy, because I’m completely stuck.” She squinted down at the fire and shook her head. “I don’t know what to do. I just can’t say everything I need to say in twenty pages. I’ve tried and tried for days now, and I can’t. They’re going to throw my case out again, I just know it.”

She was starting to tremble.

“Do you have any children, Mrs. Abercrombie?” Claire asked. “Anyone who could help you?” The fire crackled as she dropped a chunk of split birch on the grate; it began to blaze lustily.

“It’s not fair.”

“Any brothers or sisters in the area?”

Mrs. Abercrombie looked up at Claire as though she had suddenly noticed her. She ran her fingers through her wet hair.

“I had a son, Charles, who went in the service. He gave me a tiny silver pistol, before he left, for protection.” She held up her hands to show the gun’s size. “He was a good boy, but he was killed at Khe Sanh.” She reached down to pat Marlene absently. “I can’t even find the pistol now. It must be somewhere. What a nice fire you’ve made.”

“Here we are!” David bustled into the room with an enormous, butter-colored beach towel. Mrs. Abercrombie obediently took it and began dabbing at her face and throat. The buoyancy seemed to have drained out of her. A wet curtain of white hair fell over one eye.

“Now, did you come in a car?” David asked.

“I left it at the bottom of the drive.” She tried to push her hair back over her ears. “I thought I’d just take a quick peek and see if you were busy. I guess I goofed up again.”

“Well,” David said, raising his voice toward its courtroom level, “you’re right that it was a mistake to come here, ma’am, and I’m sure you won’t do it again. But we all make mistakes. Done with the towel? Thanks. What we need to do now is get you home.”

David retrieved the towel, shook it at the fire, and began folding it into squares. He looked down at Mrs. Abercrombie and said more softly, “You won’t come here anymore, will you? Professor Lindemann is pretty cool under fire, but I darn near fainted.”