Dirty Blonde

CHAPTER 22

Cate walked into her office, stunned at the sight. Debris lay everywhere. Case files had been opened and scattered over her conference table. Papers and bound briefs littered her floor. Casebooks had been pulled from the bookshelves, and cardboard boxes she had yet to unpack had been upended, their contents strewn onto the blue rug. Cate thanked God she had kept the chronology with her, in her purse.

“What happened here?” Meriden asked, aghast. He hovered over Cate’s shoulder, but she ignored him. She walked numbly to her desk and found all her drawers hanging open, as if they’d been searched. Even her blue mug had been knocked over, spilling coffee onto her papers. Cate stood by her desk, still in her coat.

“It’s my fault, Judge Fante.” Val stepped forward, her brown-patterned dress flowing around her. “I shouldn’t have gone to lunch.”

“You’re entitled to eat, Val.” Cate remembered that Emily would still be at Jenkins. She turned to Sam. “Were you here? Did you go out for lunch?”

“I’m really sorry, Judge,” Sam answered. He was almost hyperventilating, and his forehead had taken on an unhappy sheen. “I mean, I’m really, really sorry. I didn’t think this would happen. I’ve been trying so hard to do better and I’m so sorry-”

Meriden interrupted, “This is a major security breach.”

“Jonathan, I can handle it,” Cate said, stepping closer to Sam, but Meriden shook his head.

“We need to call the FBI, right now. This is an attack on a federal judge, on federal property.”

“Let me find out what happened first.” Cate turned to Sam, feeling Meriden’s stare boring into her back. “Sam, slow down, take a breath, and explain to me what happened.”

“No matter what I do I screw up!”

“Breathe, Sam,” Cate said, and the law clerk inhaled on command, his skinny chest heaving under his gray crewneck sweater.

“Okay, well. Everybody else was out and I was working in my office. I heard the buzzer, so I came out to see who it was, and there was a man there, on the monitor.” Sam breathed again, visibly. “He pressed the intercom and identified himself as Detective Russo, and I knew it was really him, because I recognized him from the trial. So I thought I could let him in. I was sure it was okay to let him in. I mean, he’s a detective.”

Russo. It had to have been him, breaking into the house.

Meriden scoffed. “Did Detective Russo have an appointment?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Never buzz anybody into chambers without an appointment, no matter who they are! That’s a hard and fast rule in my-”

Cate put a hand on the sleeve of Meriden’s cashmere coat. “I said, I can handle my clerks.”

“Then when will you start?” Meriden exploded. “They buzz anybody in. My chambers are on this floor, too. That detective could as easily have ransacked my office as yours!”

“How do you know he didn’t? Better go and check. I’ll try to handle this without your guidance.”

“This is absurd!” Meriden turned and stalked to the door, then stopped when he reached Sam. “If you worked for me, you’d be on the street, son.”

Sam shook in his penny loafers, Val gasped, and Cate’s emotions finally broke loose. “How dare you!” she shouted. “Get out of my chambers!”

Meriden spun around, his split coattails flying, one chasing the other. “What did you say?”

“I said, get out of my chambers. Now.”

“How distinctly uncollegial of you, Judge Fante.”

“You manage your clerks, I’ll manage mine.” Cate strode past him to her office door and held it open, even though it already was. “Good-bye.”

Meriden stormed out of the office, and Cate slammed the door behind him.

“That was fun,” she said, brightening. She felt better, even standing amid the debris. It was the same feeling as when she’d said “my courtroom” to Gina. She found herself grinning.

Val said, “You shouldn’t have done that. But, way to go!” She broke into a smile.

“Thanks, Judge.” Sam’s bassett-hound eyes looked wet, and Cate felt for him.

“Don’t worry, Sam. Now, let’s get back to the story. Russo was in the hallway.”

“You’re not gonna fire me?”

“No. Now tell me about letting Russo in. What did he say on the intercom?”

“Just who he was.” Sam wet his lips with a dry tongue, starting his story over. “Also, I let him in because the chief judge had sent around a court-mail this morning, saying that the security threat had been lifted, now that Marz was dead, and, thirdly, I remembered that this morning, when that other detective came here, Nesbitt I think his name was, that Val asked you if she could buzz him in, and you said, ‘Of course.’”

“You’re right, I said that.” Cate slid out of her coat and placed it on her desk chair.

“So I thought, of course, of course, Detective Russo can come in, too. I didn’t know he’d do anything like this. He’s law enforcement.” Sam threw up his matchstick arms, bewildered. “I mean, quis custodiet ipsos custodes?”

“What?” Cate asked.

“He’s hysterical,” Val said.

“It’s Latin,” Sam answered, evidently feeling more himself. “The translation is, Who guards the guards? The Roman poet Juvenal famously posed the question in the first century.”

“But why did you let him wait in my office, Sam?” Cate asked, mystified. After all, Juvenal wouldn’t have.

“I didn’t. He said that he needed to see you, about your security. He said he’d only come back to chambers because you weren’t on the bench. That you were supposed to be in court at eleven-thirty.”

“Okay,” Cate said slowly. So Russo had checked the schedule downstairs.

“He said the security threat was from a man, an ex-convict, and he asked me if I’d ever seen the man in chambers or in your courtroom. He showed me a photo.”

“Of what?”

“Of the man.” Sam pumped his head, his movement jerky. “It was of the guy who fell off the balcony the other day. I remembered that story, from the news.”

Partridge, with the videotape. “He showed you a photo of him?”

Val asked, “Sam, if the man was dead, how could he be a threat to the judge?”

Sam turned to her. “The detective said the man worked with a gang and they were trying to kill her.”

Val’s mouth dropped open. “How could you believe that, Sam? That sounds crazy. And he shows up, all by himself, without the marshals?”

Cate raised a hand. “Wait, please, Val. We need to get the story. Sam, how did Russo get into my office from yours?”

“He said he had to search chambers for wiretaps. ‘Sweep for wiretaps,’ he called it. He said that the man and his gang used wiretaps to find out about judges they were going to kill.”

Oh, man. “Where did you go, while he searched?” Cate asked, trying to keep him on track.

“He said he had to search the clerks’ office, too, so he told me that I had to go out and come back in about half an hour. So I went down to the cafeteria and got lunch.”

Val’s brown eyes flared. “How could you leave him alone in chambers?”

“He was a detective!” Sam wailed, getting upset again. “I thought he was okay!”

“Okay, relax, Sam. Val, relax.”

“Judge, I’m really sorry,” Sam repeated. “Please don’t say anything, Judge. Word gets around, and I still don’t have an offer yet, for next year.”

“Don’t worry.” Cate walked to him, put a hand on his knobby shoulder, and looked at Val. “Did you call the marshals?”

“Not yet. I was about to, when you came in.”

Cate’s gaze traveled back to the law clerk. “Sam, don’t speak to anyone about this, please. Don’t tell any of your friends in the other chambers.”

“I don’t have any friends in the other-”

“Okay.” Cate couldn’t bear to hear it from him, too. “Don’t tell anyone.”

“What about Emily, when she comes back?”

“Val will tell her. You can talk to her, of course. But don’t either of you discuss it outside chambers.” Cate ran a hand through her hair. “Now, go back to your office and leave Mommy and Daddy alone, okay?”

“What?”

“Go.” Cate pointed at the door. “Out.”

“Sure, Judge.” Sam turned and left the office, closing the door behind him.

Cate said, “Somebody tried to break into my house this morning. I think it was Russo.”

Val’s hand flew to her mouth. “Are you for real?”

“He’s angry that I ruled against him, best I can figure.” It was partly true, and Cate would die if Val knew about the videotape. “I already have a call in to Detective Nesbitt.”

“I can’t believe it. Your house, down Society Hill? He take anything?”

“No. He didn’t get in.”

“Praise God. Wait, that where you went this morning? How’d you know your house was gonna be broken into?”

Micah. “No, I had something else to do, then they called me in the car.”

“I see.” Val mulled it over. “Well. So, a detective did this? Trying to make your life miserable? Seems like he’s after you, or looking for something in here. He didn’t mess up my office, or the clerks’.”

“I have no idea what he’s looking for. I think he’s just plain mad.”

“Off his rocker?”

“Yep. He can’t want to be a detective anymore. He just killed his career.” Cate eyed the wreckage of her office. Russo had just broken the last barrier, and she didn’t know if he could ever get back. “He must have reacted strongly to Marz’s suicide. He must blame me for it.”

“I’m glad he didn’t kill you. Or me.”

“Or Sam.”

“Hmph! Save me the trouble of killin’ him my own self!” An unlikely grin spread slowly across Val’s face, and Cate burst into laughter, which felt unexpectedly good. Val said, “I tell you, I’ve seen clerks come and go, every year new ones. I’ve watched them get married, have babies, get divorced. But in all my years, I’ve never seen as strange a two as these. Each one’s crazier than the other. Sam, he takes the cake.”

“Nah, he just got scared.”

“He got scared? Now I’m scared. You scared?”

Cate felt it too, then. “Honest? Yes.”

“It’s not safe around here, all of a sudden.” Val pursed her lips. “I better tell the marshals and they’ll tell the FBI. And the chief should send out another court-mail, about Russo this time.”

“Oh, here we go.” Cate didn’t know how long she could keep a lid on that videotape. This was about to get public. There would be questions from the FBI. “I bet Meriden’s on the phone to the chief as we speak.”

“Probably on the cell on the way down the hall.” Val clucked. “That man is a jerk, and he does not like you at all.”

“All of a sudden, nobody does.”

“Can’t understand why. I like you.” Val smiled warmly, and Cate smiled back.

“I like you, too.”

Val turned on her heel, her dress swirling, then turned back. “Judge, I almost forgot. You have a plea hearing at two-thirty this afternoon and a sentencing at four-thirty. I should cancel both.”

Cate groaned. “No, I can’t keep canceling these court dates. It backs up my docket and I’m on trial next week, in that products case. Keep the four-thirty.”

Ring! went a phone, and Cate sprinted for her purse, which she’d left in the reception area.

That better be Nesbitt. Or Sorian. Or the cavalry.