The Missing Piece (27 page)

“Does Wheatley understand this?” said Foxx.

“You mean, did I tell him what I just told you? No. Why should I? I paid him to find people to carry signs and chant slogans and live in tents. I didn't share my legal strategies with him. Did he attack the judge? I don't know. But if he did, it wasn't because of me. And I never would have wanted, never even hinted that something should happen to her. Scaring her off the case would just delay the whole process.”

 

CHAPTER 30

In chambers, time moved slowly for Mark. Darius had promised to bring the motion to disqualify by order to show cause. He implied that Mr. Braman himself would present it at the conference. But then the conference was cancelled, and here it was, past two o'clock, and there was no sign of the motion to disqualify. Mark's thoughts on what this meant flipped back and forth. Arthur Braman thought the affidavit was too weak, which was good, or maybe it was bad. Arthur Braman had decided not to disqualify the judge, which was bad, or maybe it was good.

Mark read a motion while Karen wheeled a cart with two dozen signed decisions down to the clerk's office for filing. The door to the judge's office was closed, but the light on Mark's phone console showed she was on the phone and occasionally her voice rose high enough for Mark to hear. He could not make out the actual words, but he recognized the machine-gun cadence. She was peppering someone with questions, Bernadette most likely. Well, that was one thing he wouldn't miss.

Karen returned from the clerk's office and parked the cart alongside her desk. The phone rang.

“Sure,” Karen said. “Someone will be right out.” She hung up and turned to Mark. “Two orders to show cause at the security desk. Wasn't there something you wanted to tell me?”

Too late to confide in her now, Mark thought. His heart began to race, but he managed to fake a weary sigh.

“I'll get the orders,” he said.

An order to show cause was a procedural method for bringing a motion before a judge. A lawyer drafted the order, which usually scheduled a quick court date and could grant immediate relief like the stay of a trial or the postponement of a deposition. The order was supported by affidavits, affirmations, and exhibits and then was submitted to the judge for signature. Judge Conover signed several orders to show cause each week, and Mark's role was to screen each one. The judge trusted Mark enough to sign the routine orders without reading a word of the supporting papers. But an order to show cause that asked for immediate relief needed to be handled with care. Mark usually read through the papers first and either jotted notes or attached yellow stickies to the important points. Then he discussed the issues with the judge. Sometimes she might quickly stroke her name on the signature line. Other times she might muse on her options aloud before deciding aye or nay. And occasionally, less now than at the start of her term, she would ask Mark to leave her office and then call her husband for advice.

The officer at the security desk handed Mark two folders. The folders were thin, which meant the orders were likely routine. Mark wandered slowly away from the desk and looked into the first folder. A lawyer wanted to be relieved from representing a client who had stopped paying his fee. It was a relatively common order to show cause, as routine as routine got. The other one, despite its slim feel, was anything but routine, and Mark settled on a nearby bench to read.

It was from Arthur Braman's firm and asked that the judge stay all proceedings in the Roman silver case until she determined Lord Leinster's motion that she disqualify herself from the trial. The papers had all the production values typical of a large midtown firm. Impeccable typing, a crisp format, perfectly aligned papers that stayed open when you flipped them. Darius supplied the affirmation, which gave the legal rationale for disqualification. Beneath that was Mark's affidavit, which gave the factual basis. Mark read through it quickly; it was word for word what he remembered.

He got up from the bench and took the long way around the hexagon. There was no way he could fake this. As soon as the judge saw an order to show cause in the Roman silver case, there would be no discussion, no stickies, no verbal musing. She would take it onto her lap and read every word. And when she saw his name at the top of the affidavit …

Mark looked at his watch, fixing in his mind the date and time of his anticipated demise.

The long route took him past the library and, without thinking, he ducked inside. The library usually was unoccupied now that each chambers had several computers with subscriptions to legal research sites. But even devoid of the law clerks and their buzzing intellectual undertone, it maintained a tired grandeur. Heavy wooden tables with built-in bankers' lamps butted up against large, drafty windows that looked out over Foley Square. Light fixtures made of brass and marbled glass hung on thick chains from the high ceiling. Hard-bound books, rarely disturbed anymore, crammed the bookcases and exuded the comforting smell of old paper.

Mark sat at one of the tables. He pushed the two folders against the divider, planted his elbows, and covered his face with his hands. He needed just one more day. One more day would get him to the weekend. He would handle the order to show cause on Monday, when the judge would be distracted by the onset of the trial. Hopefully too distracted to focus, or too invested to give the long shot of an order to show cause a minute of her time. He could be flip about it.
Hey, Judge, get this. Lord Leinster wants you to disqualify yourself
. And the judge would summarily scratch a big X across the order to show cause and scribble “Rejected, LC” at the top.

Yes, he could see that scene clearly on the backs of his eyelids. But that would be Monday, not today.

He opened his eyes and focused on the mezzanine above the bookcases. In the old days before computers, law clerks staked out work spaces at the tiny desks on the mezzanine. Now, after carefully climbing the metal stairs that would ring with too heavy a footfall, he found the desks abandoned. He walked the length of the mezzanine, then retraced his steps to a four-shelf bookcase jammed with heavy volumes of a dusty
Decennial Digest
. The space between the bookcase and the wall was just wide enough for the order to show cause to fit.

Back in chambers, the judge's door was open and the judge herself sat working at her desk.

“There was only one,” Mark told Karen, then went into the judge's office.

The judge sensed his presence and seemed to notch a thought in her head before looking up. The Redweld lay near a corner of the desk, wrapped up tight with two thick rubber bands.

“Routine order to show cause,” said Mark. He flipped back the front page, and Linda scratched her initials on the signature line. She absently muttered “Thank you,” then returned to her work.

“All right if I leave early?” he said.

“Fine with me,” said Linda. “Big weekend plans?”

“Maybe,” he said, then added, “actually, yes.”

 

CHAPTER 31

Mark's early departure allowed Linda to work one on one with Bernadette in chambers and not bruise his fragile ego. They accomplished much in the space of two concentrated hours, not only arriving at the rulings Linda would issue on Monday, but also talking out the problems Bernadette encountered in drafting the decision on the homeless stipend case.

“Drink?” Linda said after they packed up.

“What do you have?” said Bernadette.

Linda opened the minifridge and looked inside.

“Seltzer,” she said.

“Anything else?” said Bernadette.

“Flavored seltzer.”

“I'll go with the straight stuff.”

Linda popped open a can and divided it between two plastic cups.

“You know,” she said, “Judge Johnstone and I sat together just like this on the Friday before the trial. He kept a bottle of sherry in his desk. Sorry to be such a Puritan.” She lifted her plastic cup. Bernadette lifted her, and they both mumbled
salud
.

“That was the afternoon he blathered about what the trial meant to him.”

“I'm not as invested as you were,” said Bernadette.

“I don't plan to change my mind, if that's what you mean. Anyway, Hugh will be home, and we have a lot of ground to cover. Some good, some bad. Luckily, more good than bad.”

*   *   *

Mark pulled to the curb and leaned on the horn of the rental car. His apartment was a fourth-floor walk-up, and it took some time for his wife to realize that the horn was meant for her and was not part of the general Lower East Side din. Finally, the curtains of the front window parted. Mark popped out and waved his arms.

“What are you doing home?” Rita yelled down after lifting the window.

“Pack your bags,” he yelled back.

There wasn't much discussion. There never was much discussion when Mark came up with a plan. They just set about executing the plan, which here meant packing for a weekend away with a six-month-old.

“Mystic?” Rita asked. “What's there to do?”

“There's a seaport with old whaling ships, a great aquarium, neat places to eat.”

“But why are we doing this? I mean, now.”

“Because it's a nice thing to do and the kind of thing we should do.”

Soon they were on the FDR Drive, fighting their way uptown in the madhouse of a weekend exodus.

“And how are we doing this?” said Rita.

They talked about money often. Money, and the lack thereof, hovered like an unwelcome guest over every discussion. They made a practice of never mentioning the guest by name. Mark couldn't say he had it covered because that would imply he had money stashed away, and the implication would lead to an argument because Rita would ask why he always seemed to have money when he wanted to spend but cried poverty whenever she complained about the things that she needed. Anyway, it wasn't true. He had no more money in his pocket than he had yesterday or last week or last month. Instead, he had quietly activated a credit card that had been buried in the back of his sock drawer for weeks, still gummed to the welcome letter announcing its promotional APR.

“I'm trading on the future,” he said.

Rita slumped in her seat. She knew the code.

“No, no,” said Mark. “This is a good thing. A different future.”

“A new job?”

“Let's say serious headway toward a new job. I'll know soon.”

They peeled off the FDR and tracked New England signs through the Bronx. Traffic was stop and go.

“Still leaf season,” said Mark.

Rita stared silently out the window. Silence was a sign that she didn't believe him. He needed her to believe him, at least long enough to get through the weekend.

They were clear of the city, cruising toward the Connecticut line, when Mark's cell phone sliced off another thick slab of silence. He plucked the phone from his pocket. Darius. The sixth call since he departed chambers.

“That about the job?” said Rita.

“Nah.” Mark silenced the phone and dropped it into his pocket. “Someone else.”

*   *   *

Foxx steered Linda across Worth Street to hail a cab out of sight from the protestors. As soon as they climbed inside, Linda got on her cell phone. She ordered a nonalcoholic bottle of Champagne, a bottle each of Bordeaux and Sauvignon blanc, and an assortment of French cheeses for delivery.

At the brownstone, Foxx followed Linda under the stoop.

“You don't need to come in,” she said.

“Yes, I do,” he replied.

There was no further discussion. Foxx swept the entire house and then, after Linda closed herself in the bath, he took up his position at the front window. The delivery arrived, and he answered the door. By the time he stuck the Champagne and the Sauvignon blanc and the cheese in the refrigerator, he could hear the whoosh of water filling the bathtub.

*   *   *

Linda sank to her neck in the bathwater and watched the soap bar bob among the wavelets. She was glad now that Foxx had insisted on coming inside and glad that he planned to stay. She had not been fearful at all during the day. She worked without last night's demons barking on the periphery of her consciousness. But now that night was here, the demons slipped their leashes. At least with Foxx downstairs she could bathe without every creak sounding like a footstep and every car horn sounding like a scream.

And she needed to bathe. She needed to soothe herself, but more importantly she needed to transition from work life to home life, from judge to wife, from wife to expectant mother. Things happen for a reason, and she understood now that the identity and motive of the muggers were not that important. She had promised herself ever since her professional debacle with Judge Johnstone that she never would back down. The mugging would not scare her off the trial or stop her from defying the protestors. The court system could not function on fear or intimidation, and if the court system could not function—if society could not rely on a civilized way of resolving disputes—then society was one more step down the road to hell.

She got out of the tub and wrapped herself in a thick towel. Steam clouded the mirror, and as she stared at her blurry reflection she thought of her father. He was an even-tempered man who sought to achieve a measured joy in his life. He believed that a well-lived life was a combination of effort and luck and that, unfortunately, luck usually trumped effort. She would get mad at him, especially during her high school and college years, for the way he always seemed to focus on the dark side of a good thing. The “yes, but” she had called it. Now she realized the dark side wasn't dark. It was reality.

She wanted to be happy tonight. She wanted to welcome Hugh home and celebrate the news she now needed to share with him. The mugging had accelerated the timeline of her plans, and they needed to start rearranging the furniture of their lives. Yes, eventually, she would be able to look back and realize that she had the good marriage, the happy family, the satisfying career. Just not all at once.