Final Appeal

The cudgel. It’s on the chair by the window. Eletha called it a baseball bat. How will I reach it? I need time to think. Stall him.

“You have a problem, Ben. I don’t have a gun like Armen did.”

He laughs abruptly. “He wasn’t very good with it, Grace. I had the letter opener, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot me. I grabbed his hand and pointed it at his own head. It was over in a minute.”

Poor Armen. I imagine the scene with horror. I can’t speak.

“Don’t think too badly of me. I did give him a last chance to come out the right way in Hightower, even brought him a draft opinion. We discussed the case law for some time, even the policy issues. It was sort of a final appeal. For him, and for me.”

He makes me sick, outraged. “How are you going to pull this off, Ben? You going to make me shoot myself, too? Your fingerprints are all over your gun.”

“Oh, you won’t use my new toy, Grace. You’ll jump.”

I feel my mouth fall open. My mind reels. “From where?”

“The window.” He gestures with the gun barrel.

I wheel around toward the window, petrified at the thought. Then I glimpse the cudgel right near the window, on the chair. Armen said it was used to kill. Can I kill? “Ben, you don’t mean this.”

“Yes, I do.”

My blood runs cold. “But the windows.”

“I’ll break them. They’re just a single layer of glass, not even thermapane. This building was built in the sixties.”

“But the marshals will hear it.”

“Not from inside. We’re eighteen floors up. Even if someone sees it, they’ll think it’s the wind from the storm and phone GSA. They should be here by tomorrow morning.” He cocks the trigger on the gun and it clicks smoothly into operation. “Sign the paper. Now.”

He’s thought of everything. I feel a stab of stone cold fear, then will myself to stay calm. Remember Maddie. Use the cudgel. It destroyed families, now it will protect one. “I’ll sign it,” I tell him, “but ease off the trigger. You want them to find me shot?”

“Now you’re thinking.” He relaxes on the trigger and I pick up the pen. My hand is trembling as I read the letter one last time. What if I can’t get to the cudgel. What if I blow it? “Hurry, Grace.”

I scribble my name, then lift the pen from the paper. Just in case, underneath I write, I love you, Mads. You are the best. I blink back the tears that seem to come.

“Get up,” Ben says. “Stand near the window.”

Good, you bastard. That’s just where I want to be. My whole body shivers. Get a grip. I’m not within arm’s length from the cudgel, not yet. It’s too close to the window.

Still aiming the gun at me, Ben crosses the room. He picks up a chair and swings it into the wall of windows. The huge panel shatters instantly into brittle shards; cracks race all over the pane like nerve endings, electrified. Breathing like a madman, Ben hurls the chair into the cracked window again, at full speed. It bounces off with a crashing sound. The glass explodes into a million pieces. Slivers fly in all directions. The window collapses and falls away, hurtling down the side of the courthouse, leaving a jagged opening like the mouth of a dark cave.

Wind and cold rain blast into the office, gusting hard off the Delaware. Glass particles and loose papers flutter wildly around the room in crazy currents. My hair whips around. The rain soaks my face and clothes. Glass stings my cheek, my forehead. The room seems to hang in the middle of the thunderstorm. Wind buffets my ears.

“Walk to the window!” Ben shouts against the wind.

I brace myself and step closer to the cudgel near the window. The wind howls. The rain drenches me.

“Now, Grace! Jump or I push you out! Your choice!”

I take another step to the window. The city glitters at my feet. The cudgel is at my right, and behind it is Independence Hall, lit up at night. I face the wind and take one deep breath, then another. One, two…three!

I grab the wrapped cudgel by its end and whip it full force into Ben’s face. It makes contact with a dense, awful thud. I drop the weapon, horrified.

Ben staggers backward, shrieking in pain and shock, blood pouring from his mouth and teeth. His jaw hangs grotesquely and his hands rush to it. His gun slips onto a pile of broken glass. I dive for it a second before Ben does and scramble to my feet, my own hands cut and slippery with blood.

I point the gun at him as he lies on the floor, in the whirling holocaust of splintered glass and paper. “Stay down!”

But he won’t. He staggers to his feet, moaning in agony. It’s a wild animal sound, as loud as the wind. Blood runs in rivulets between his fingers.

“Stay back! Stay away!” I can barely look, but he keeps coming toward me, backing me up against the conference table. I hold the gun up. I don’t want to shoot him, please don’t make me. “Ben, stop!”

Suddenly, he stops and shakes his head, still cupping his chin. His suit is heavy with rain and blood. His dark eyes brim with tears as they meet mine, and for an instant he looks like the Ben Safer I remember.

“Ben, I’m so sorry.” I start to sob. “You’ll go to a hospital, they’ll fix it.”

He shakes his head again, then turns toward the window. I feel a cold chill as soon as I understand what he’s going to do.

“Ben! No! Don’t!” I scream into the rain, but he won’t hear me.

He runs headlong toward the darkness, and when he reaches the edge of the carpet, he leaps mightily into nothingness and the thunderstorm.

The next sound I hear is a heartless clap of thunder, then the shrillness of Ben’s scream.

And my own.

31

I wake up in silence and semidarkness. There’s a bed table at my side and a boxy TV floating in the corner. Moonlight streams through the knit curtains, casting a slotted pattern on a narrow single bed. A hospital room. I lie there a minute, flat on my back, taking inventory.

I am alive. I am safe. I wiggle everything, and everything works.

I hold up my hands in the dark. There are bandages on some of my fingers. My face aches, the skin pinching like it doesn’t quite fit. I can only imagine what I look like. My fingers go instinctively to my cheeks. The surface is rough underneath, cottony. More bandages.

I hear myself moan, remembering slowly how I got to be here.

It comes back to me like a gruesome slide show, with hot white light blinding me between each freeze frame. Ben, entering with the gun. Click. The suicide note. Click. The cudgel at the window. Click. Independence Hall at my feet.

Oh, God.

Poor Ben. I hurt him, and he died a horrific, painful death. And Armen, dead too. Even Faber, beaten to death. It’s too awful to dwell on. I feel wretched and totally, miserably alone, until I turn over. There, asleep in a shadowy corner near the door, her silvery head dropped onto a heavy chest, is my mother.

Who else. She has been here for God knows how long. She probably arranged for Maddie to go to Sam’s.

I lie still and look at her sleeping in a hard plastic chair. Even in the dim light I can see she’s fully dressed. A matching sweater and slack set, cheap leather slip-ons, and stocking knee-highs, which she buys in gift packs. Her chest goes up and down; her shoulders rise and fall. In her hand is a paper cup, sitting upright on her knee, even though she’s sound asleep. On the cup I can make out a large blue circle.

I know that circle. Pennsylvania Hospital, at Eighth and Spruce.

My mother was born in this hospital in 1925, and it was here that she gave birth to me, and I, in turn, to Maddie. One after another, each picking up the thread and advancing it, like an unbroken line of stitching in a fabric’s seam. Three generations of us, each making her own way. Raising her daughter in her own way, without men. A tribe of three women only.

How curious.

Our blood, our very cells, must be constitutionally different from other families. Families of four, for example. Or families that go on camping vacations in minivans and watch their kids play Little League. Families that leave the city they were born in, to divide and scatter.

Normal American families.

We’re not like them, like on TV, with a mom and a dad. Nor are we ethnic Americans: happy-go-lucky Italians or the truly Irish, raucous on St. Patty’s Day. We are not of those tribes, of those races. We are something else entirely. We are our own invention. We are what we do.

And what we do, what one of us in particular is doing, is sleeping. In an inhospitable chair, clutching a full cup of water. The full cup of water is significant, an act unto itself, and my heart tells me who the water is for.

For me, when I wake up.

It will be the first thing she offers, because she cannot say I love you as easily as she can hold out something to drink. Because she cannot say I worry, she issues orders and commands. And when she felt pain and loss, she could not say that either, so she drank whiskey. And lashed out in rage.

I understand that now, watching her sleep in the chair. I understand, too, how blessed I am to have her wait while I sleep, with a cup of water on her knee. I don’t feel a need to confront her any longer. There’s no reason to shake my fist in her face, to call her to account. That much is past, not present.

That much is over.

Let it go.

The door opens and a nurse comes in, luminous in a white uniform that seems to catch and hold the moonlight. She walks directly over to the bed and looks at me with concern. She bends over and whispers, “Are you in pain?”

I am not in pain. I was in pain when my face looked fine. I shake my head.

“Are you hungry?” A single lustrous pearl dots each earlobe in the darkness. She smells like Dove soap and White Linen.

I shake my head, no.

“Do you need anything?” Her teeth are white and even. Her breath is fresh, like peppermint Life Savers.

“No. Thanks.”

She pats my shoulder and leaves.

I feel myself smile at her receding silhouette. This is her job and she does it well, but her shift will end soon. My real nurse, the one snoozing at the switch, stinks of cigarettes, but ten to one she’s been sitting there for a long, long time. Her shift never ends, as mine will not.

I should let her sleep, but I owe her a rather large apology.

“Ma,” I say, and she stirs.

“Honey?” she says hoarsely.

Her eyes aren’t even open before she offers me a cup of water.

32

“Will you look at that!” Artie says in amazement at the kitchen window. We all gather around and look out at my backyard. I’m so happy my face hurts.

“I can’t believe it,” Sarah says. “She never did that before, even for Armen.”

“She’s gonna do it again,” Eletha says, casual today in a sweater and jeans.

We all watch as Bernice rolls over like a champ and comes up smiling. Miss Waxman stands over the dog like the Ubersecretary and gives Bernice a treat, delivered professionally to the mouth. Bernice snarfs it up and sniffs the grass for left-overs.

I open the window and yell through the screen, “Way to go, Miss Waxman!” It stings my cheeks, but the woman is working miracles out there. “Isn’t she great, Maddie?”

Maddie rolls her eyes. Duh, Mom.

“Wish I had a dog like that!” Eletha says. “Boy are you lucky, Maddie!”

“Roarf!” Bernice sits and barks at Miss Waxman, who frowns at her charge.

“No!” Miss Waxman says, her voice resonant with authority. Her transformation is as radical as Bernice’s, and probably as ephemeral. “No talkie!”

Artie shakes his head. “Did she really say that?”

I elbow him in the basketball. “Give her a break, it’s working. What have you done for me lately?”

“I brought you a get-well present.”

“You did? Where?”

“It’s in the living room. Wait.” He runs heavily out of the kitchen and Sarah laughs.

“Wait’ll you see this.”

“What is it?”

“You’ll see.” She smiles as Artie lumbers in with a package wrapped in Reynolds Wrap.

“Nice paper, Weiss,” Eletha says.

Artie thrusts the present at me. “It was either this or the Hanukkah paper.”

“Thanks, Artie,” I say, peeling back the foil like a microwave dinner. Underneath is a shiny black plastic I’ve seen before. “A Magic Eight Ball all my own!” I’m actually touched, which shows how soft I’m getting in my dotage. I give him a hug.

“It’s mine, you know,” he says, smiling.

“Really? Yours?”

“Putting away childish things, Artie?” Sarah asks.

“You know me better than that, Sar. I got Etch-a-Sketch now.”

Sarah laughs, and so do I.

“What? It’s more fun than Legos, and it doesn’t hurt when you step on it.”

Sarah and I exchange looks. Her expression is unreadable as usual, but mine is full of deep and powerful significance. My eyes telegraph: You are crazy to let this wonderful man leave your life, because there are not that many wonderful men around. I’ll tell her later if she doesn’t read eyes.

“Of course, the Etch-a-Sketch is okay,” Artie says, “but it’s still not my favorite toy.” He grins at Eletha. “Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief.”

“Don’t you tell on me now,” she says, laughing evilly.

Sarah looks from one to the other. “What are you two talking about?”

It takes me a full minute to figure it out, but that’s because I’m such a stinky detective.

“Look, Grace!” Miss Waxman calls from the backyard.

We all look out the window. Bernice is heeling perfectly as Miss Waxman walks her back and forth. This is not what it looks like when Bernice walks me.

I wave to Miss Waxman. “Unbelievable. The dog is Rin Tin Tin.”

“Who’s that?” Sarah says.

“Forget it.”

“Tell her about the Edsel, Grace,” Eletha says.

“One more wisecrack and the dog is yours, El. And I know what you did,” I say, pointing my newly bejeweled fingernail at her. Eletha painted my nails while I was in the hospital, and each one is a masterpiece of turquoise polish with a sapphire in the center.

“Hey, girl, you owe me, from that fix-up with Ray.”

“You went out with him?”

“Lunch. Then he pounced.” She shudders.

“Oh, no.”

“Told you,” Artie says. “Man’s an animal.”

“I’m sorry, El. I thought he was nice.”

“He slobbered worse than Bernice.” She snaps her fingers. “Wait a minute. I just got an idea.”

“What?”

“Maddie hates Bernice?”

“Right.”

“Ask Miss Waxman to take her.”

I look at Eletha, astounded.

The perfect solution.

Tears pour from her eyes. Her face is flushed. She hiccups uncontrollably. I’m afraid she’s going to lose dessert, right there at the dining room table.

“Mads, I don’t understand. You hate Bernice.”

“I don’t hate Bernice!”

The dog looks over the plastic fence, forlorn as a child in a custody fight.

Miss Waxman, shaken, sets down her teacup. “I’d give her a good home, dear. She could play with my poodles.”

“She’d be happier, Mads,” I say. “She wouldn’t be so lonely during the day.” And I wouldn’t have to hurdle a fence every time the phone rings, or share my bed with the Alps.

“She’d have friends, Maddie,” Artie says.

“She doesn’t need friends!” Maddie cries.

“Everybody needs friends,” Sarah says.

Maddie only cries harder. They have no way of knowing it, but we’re not talking about the dog anymore. I hug Maddie close.

“Maybe we should keep Bernice,” I say.

Miss Waxman nods. “Of course, whatever you want. She’s a very fine animal.”

“A fine animal,” Eletha says. “If Bernice were my dog, I’d never give her up.”

Maddie’s sobbing slows down and she buries a tear-stained face in my neck. “I can be her friend,” she says.

“Now there’s an idea. You sure can.”

“Can I go upstairs now?” she whispers.

“Sure.” I pat her on the bottom and she runs out of the room. I plop into my chair and take a slug of frigid coffee.

Artie snorts. “Way to go, girls. Called that one right.”

“Sorry, Grace,” Eletha says sheepishly.

“It’s not your fault,” I say. “I should have known.”

“I’m so sorry,” Miss Waxman says. “It’s all my fault. It’s my inexperience with children.”

“No, it’s my fault.” I touch her hand. “My child, my fault.”

“Only women have conversations like this,” Artie says. He digs into the apple pie Eletha brought.

“Well, it’s all right now,” I say. I push my hair back and drink the icy coffee. “We have the dog. Someday she’ll get out of the kitchen.” I look over at Bernice, and her tongue rolls out. “Maybe.”

Miss Waxman looks at Bernice indulgently. “Maybe if you take it a step at a time.”

“How?”

“Move the animal into the dining room, let the child play near her when she’s in the living room so they get used to being around each other.”

I think of what Maddie said. Maybe I could be her friend. “Then what?”

“You might want to buy her some toys.”

“She has plenty of toys.”

“I think she means the dog,” Sarah says, smiling faintly. “Don’t you, Miss Waxman?”

Miss Waxman nods and sips her tea with delicacy.

Oh. I knew that. Add it to the bill.

“Of course,” Miss Waxman continues, “not everyone takes to animals, but it seems like Maddie will.”

“I’m sure,” I say. Just not in my lifetime.

“Like Judge Galanter,” Artie says ruefully. “Bernice almost ate him, did you know that, Miss Waxman?”

Miss Waxman shudders. “Judge Galanter was quite unhappy about that.”

“I bet he was. He almost lost his nuts.”

Miss Waxman clears her throat, and a frown crosses Sarah’s face. “Why was she after him, I wonder. Remember that, Grace?”

“Yeah. Odd.”

“Dogs don’t like Judge Galanter,” Miss Waxman says.

“Neither do people,” Artie says. “Does he have any friends, Miss Waxman?”

“Artie,” Sarah says, “don’t put Miss Waxman on the spot.”

“She can tell me to pound sand if she wants to.” He turns to Miss Waxman. “You can tell me to pound sand if you want to.”

“Tell him to pound sand,” Eletha says.

Miss Waxman’s mascara’d eyelashes flutter briefly. Ten to one, she’s never heard the term.

“Does he have a friend in the world?” Artie asks.

“Well, he doesn’t have…many friends.”

“I heard he eats alone. He doesn’t even meet anybody for lunch.”

“Like Ben,” Sarah says. Eletha winces and so do I, at the fresh memory of that horrible night. Artie blunders on, retriever puppy that he is.

“Name one for me, Miss Waxman. One friend.”

She thinks a minute. “He has an older brother, a banker.”

“Beep!” Artie says, like the buzzer in Jeopardy. “Doesn’t count, that’s family. Anyone else?”

She pauses. “There’s a Mr. Cavallaro. He met him for lunch, once or twice.”

I look up. I am hearing things. “What did you say, Miss Waxman?”

“A Mr. Cavallaro? Mr. James Cavallaro?”

But I’m already running for the kitchen drawer, where I keep the crossword puzzle.

I have a feeling it’s on its way to being solved.

33

I sit in the darkened back row of the courtroom, where Winn sat that first day. Susan will be speaking here in not too long, at yet another press conference, this one about the bribery scandal. Galanter has been indicted and will be impeached if he doesn’t resign. The entire Third Circuit feels the sting of disgrace collectively. Even the court crier is somber as he stands aside, watching TV technicians adjust the lights that will illuminate the dais; interlopers, spotlighting our shame.

Senator Susan Waterman leans on the back of the pew in front of me. She looks sophisticated in a checked Chanel suit, with her hair smoothed back into a classy French twist. Power hair. “How do you know about the money?” she asks.

“I found the checkbook. How do you know about the money?”

“You’re wondering where he got it.” She doesn’t answer my question, but I’m not the one in control of this meeting even though I asked for it.

“Yes, I’m wondering where he got it.”

“He got it from me.”

“Why?”

“For the child.” She glances at her preppy aide, the laconic Michael Robb of Bath, Maine, who’s discreetly guarding the courtroom door. “His child with Eletha. Did you know he fathered a child?”

“You know about Malcolm?”

“Of course.”

“Eletha thinks you don’t know.”

“I know that. Armen agreed not to tell me, and he never did. My campaign manager found out before I ran for office, during my vetting. He’s the one who told me. I kept it from Eletha—even from Sarah.”

“But not Armen.”

“Of course not.”

“Were you hurt?” She seems so cool, I can’t help but ask.

“No. It was before we met, how could I be? He always wanted children and I didn’t, so I couldn’t begrudge him.”

Eminently reasonable. “Why did you give him the money?”

“For the child’s education.”

“How much did you give him?”

She checks her new Rolex. “Six hundred thousand. The rest he saved.”

“Six hundred thousand dollars? That much?”

“He needed it for the child. I’ll make sure Malcolm gets it when the estate is settled.” She claps her hands together to end the meeting; I notice that her funky silver bangles have been replaced by a thick gold bracelet. Power jewelry.

“You gave him six hundred thousand dollars for the education of a child he had with another woman?”

“Yes.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Come on, Susan, let’s talk. It’s just us girls. What did Armen have that you wanted, that you paid him for?”

She checks her watch again. “I don’t have time for this.”

Which is when I finally figure it out. Remind me not to quit my day job. “That’s it, isn’t it? Time.”

“What?”

“Armen gave you a year. You wanted him to stay with you through the campaign, and you knew he needed money for Malcolm. So you paid him. You bought him for a year.”

“I needed him,” she says, and I see a glimmer of the lethal ambition that drove Ben.

It scares me. I say exactly what I’m thinking, unfiltered. “What did Armen see in you?”

“I’m an idealist and so was he.”

“An idealist? What are your ideals?”

“I am a liberal, freely admitted. I’m working for child care—”

She doesn’t want children.

“For the poor—”

That jacket is double my rent.

“I’m working for the American family.”

“You can’t buy a family.”

The courtroom door opens and the preppy aide lets Sarah slip through, but Susan doesn’t seem to notice. “You resent me,” Susan says.

I get up to go. “No. Mostly, I don’t understand you.”

“Do you know how important it is for women to get into government? Do you realize the effect we have, the role models we provide?”

“I think I do.”

Sarah comes over, looking vaguely senatorial herself. “Grace, how are you?”

I give her a warm hug. “Get out while you still can, Sar.”

She looks at me, puzzled, as I head for the swinging doors.

“Good-bye, Michael,” I say brightly, on the way out.

“Good-bye, Grace,” he says. “And have a nice day.”

I do a double-take.

* * *

His gaze is direct; eyes clear and intelligent, with a hint of crow’s feet at each corner. His mouth, now that I can see it without the underbrush, looks full, even sweet. His brown hair is trimmed, with longish sideburns. He’s not hard to look at as he sits at the conference table, next to the FBI bureau chief, the U.S. Attorney, Senator Susan Waterman, my favorite mayor, and the acting chief judge of the Third Circuit, Judge Morris Townsend, awake for the occasion.

“That’s Shake and Bake?” Sarah says, crossing her legs.

“Isn’t he awesome?” Artie says, with an admiring grin. “You oughta see him play. As fine as Earl the Pearl.”

“He does look…different,” Miss Waxman says.

Eletha cracks up. “Real different.”

Susan gets up and makes a speech, blah blah blah; the U.S. Attorney and the others all make speeches, blah blah blah. God knows what they say, and who cares. It all sounds the same, each one taking full credit for an investigation in which I heard it was Winn who ended up strapped to a body mike, pretending to be Nick the Fish. On a tip by a secretary who trains toy poodles.

Please.

The FBI bureau chief takes the podium again and a thousand flash units go off, motor drives whining like locusts. He sips his water and says, “I would like to introduce Special Agent Thaddeus Colwin, who has been investigating this matter in an undercover capacity. You’ll understand that we can’t give you the details, because every secret we divulge is one less weapon in our arsenal against crime. Suffice it to say that we are extremely pleased with the results of the investigation. Special Agent Colwin?”

Winn gets up, and the courtroom bursts into applause. He smooths down a pair of wool pants uncomfortably, and by the time he reaches the podium he’s blushing. “There’s something I have to say before you start shootin’.”

The crowd laughs.

Sarah recrosses her legs.

“I’m happy that this investigation turned out so well, but I can’t take the credit for it. The real credit should go to two other people.”

I feel nervous; they promised to keep me out of it. The FBI chief looks as worried as I am; Winn is supposed to hand the credit up, not down.

“One of these persons chooses to remain anonymous, and I keep promises to my confidential sources. However, I have made no such agreement with the other person, and she is one of the kindest and bravest ladies I ever met. She testified yesterday at the government’s probable cause hearing, so now her identity can be divulged. Her name, friends, is Miss Gilda Waxman.”

I look over at Miss Waxman. Her hands fly to her cheeks; her eyes brim with astonished tears.

“Please stand up, Miss Waxman,” Winn says. He claps for her, and so does everybody else.

“Oh, my. Oh. Oh,” she says, from her seat. The woman has never had a moment in the spotlight in her entire life. She looks as if she’s about to have a heart attack.

“Stand up, Miss Waxman!” I say, half rising to grab her soft arm and pull her to her feet.

“No, I couldn’t. Really.” She tries to sit back down, but Artie covers the seat cushion with his large hand, palm up.

“Come on, good-lookin’, sit down,” he says, wiggling his fingers. “I dare you.”

She swallows hard, then faces the courtroom and her fans. She looks uncertain for a minute, then breaks into a shy smile.

34

I turn the Magic Eight Ball over in my hands and read the bottom.

Yes, definitely, it says. Its white letters float eerily to the black surface. I’ll try again. There are only twenty possible answers; it shouldn’t take that long to get the answer I want, and I am a patient woman. I shake the ball and look at the bottom.

It is certain.

Where are all the negative answers? Must be defective. I listen to the stone silence coming from Maddie’s room. She’s boycotting me because I won’t let her invite her grandfather to her class play. Should I invite him? I shake the ball and turn it over.

Most likely.

Hmmm. I’ll rephrase the question; I didn’t go to law school for nothing. Should we never see Maddie’s grandfather again? I shake the ball harder, then rotate it.

My reply is no.

“Damn!” I say aloud, and Bernice raises her head. “Why don’t we take him, Bernice? He and Grandma could duke it out in the auditorium. You bring the camcorder. We’ll be on Funniest Home Videos.”

I set down the Eight Ball next to the card my father sent Maddie today, which started this whole thing. A short hello, then a list of Italian words, with their meaning. Girl: ragazza. Dog: cane. Cat: gatto. Seems that Emedio “Mimmy” Rossi and his grandaughter got to talking about languages at recess that day. Now Maddie is convinced she wants to learn Italian.

Love: amore. I have to admit, it’s a pretty language.

“Mom?” Maddie calls faintly from upstairs. Bernice looks toward the stairway at the sound.

“What?”

“Can you come up?”

“Sure.” I put down the card, and since Bernice is still cane non grata outside the kitchen, I climb over the gate. It catches me neatly in the crotch. Either Bernice goes free or I get taller.

I head up the stairs to Maddie’s door, which is plastered with stickers of butterflies, frogs, porcupines, and metallic spiders. Here and there is a much-valued “oily,” the goopy stickers that are all the rage with the younger set. Me, I had crayons, eight in all. “Did you want me, Mads?”

“You can come in,” she says grudgingly.

“Good.” I turn the knob, but the door doesn’t move much.

“Maddie, is something blocking the door?”

“Wait a minute.” I hear her dragging things around inside. She must have barricaded the door again with her Little Tikes chairs; they never show that particular use in the catalog. “Okay,” she says. “You can come in now.”

I open the door and it shoves aside the clutter behind it, including a chair, a white stuffed gorilla, and about three hundred multicolored wooden blocks. “So, how are we doing up here?”

She holds out her palm. “Look.”

In the center of her hand is an ivory nugget. I pick it up in wonder. The front edge is the bevel I recognize and the other end is a fragile circle tinged with blood. “Wow! Your first tooth, Maddie.”

“It didn’t even hurt.”

“How’d it come out?”

“I pulled it out.”

I recoil. “Really?”

She nods.

“Let me see your mouth. Smile.”

She snarls in compliance, and sure enough, there’s an arched window where her front tooth used to be. Then she snaps her mouth shut like a baby alligator. “I’m still mad, you know. This isn’t a make-up.”

“I understand. Let’s get the tooth ready for the Tooth Fairy.”

“I’ll take care of it. It’s mine. Give it back.” She holds out her hand.

“Don’t be fresh.” I put the tooth in her palm.

“Thank you,” she says, and walks over to her play table. It’s covered with play lipsticks, plastic jewelry, art supplies, and old scarves I’ve given her for dress-up. She plucks a blue paisley scarf from the pile and wraps the tooth up in it. Then she writes with a crayon on a scrap of pink construction paper.

“What are you doing, honey?”

“I have to write a note.”

“No, you don’t. You put the tooth under your pillow, and the Tooth Fairy leaves you some money.”

“I wasn’t talking to you.”

So cute. My daughter’s first tooth and we’re not on speaking terms. “That’s quite enough, miss. Would you like a time-out?”

“Well, I wasn’t talking to you. I was talking to myself.”

“Fine, but you may not be rude.”

She turns around in her bare feet and thrusts the paper at me. It says, in wobbly red letters: I DON WAN $. T R T G RD. THAN YU. “I don’t do lower case.”

“It’s very nice. What’s this part say?”

“It says, I don’t want money.” She points to the end. “Thank you.”

“Why don’t you want money?”

“I want her to bring my grandfather to the play.”

I sigh in the martyred way my mother taught me. “Why, Maddie? Why does it matter so much?”

“Because everybody else will have a daddy there and I won’t. Everybody else will have a grandpop there and I won’t. Everybody else has sisters and brothers and I don’t.” Her lower lip trembles. “All I have is stupid old red hair and freckles that everybody makes fun of.”

I look down at her blue eyes, on the verge of welling up. There’s nothing in the book about this.

Suddenly, I hear a rustling down in the kitchen, then the click-clack of nails on the stairs. I turn around just in time to catch Bernice before she plows into Maddie. She must have jumped the gate.

“She’s out!” Maddie screams, backing up against her play table.

“I got her. So you busted out, huh, Bernice?”

“Put her back in the kitchen!”

I hold Bernice by her new ten-dollar collar with its gold electroplate heart: G. ROSSI, it says. The dog wriggles with joy at her liberation from the kitchen. Her tail wags so hard that her hindquarters go with it, a living example of the tail wagging the dog.

“Aw, Maddie, let’s leave her out a little. She’s sick of the kitchen. She wants to be with us.”

The dog swings her head from me to Maddie. It may be my imagination, but Bernice’s expression is as close to hopeful as a draft horse can get.

“She’s staring at me again,” Maddie says. “Why does she have to stare?”

“She wants you to be her friend.”

“I can see her teeth.”

“So she has teeth, Maddie. You have teeth, she has teeth. Dogs lose baby teeth too. Did you know that? Just like you.”

“So what?”

A tough nut. “Why don’t you ask her to sit, like Miss Waxman taught her?”

“She won’t do it for me.”

“How do you know? You never tried. Give her a chance.”

Maddie looks at me, then at Bernice. “Now you sit!” she shouts.

Miraculously, Bernice sits. Right on the spot. Her tail goes thump thump thump on the hardwood floor.

“She did it!” Maddie says.

“She’s a good girl. Ask her to do something else. What else did Miss Waxman teach her, do you remember?”

Maddie locks eyes with an excited Bernice. “Roll over!”

Bernice drops heavily to the floor and rolls over an array of wooden blocks; she finishes lying flat on her belly and begging for more.

“Look at that!” I say. “Now tell her she’s good.”

“Good dog!” Maddie says sternly.

“Now see if she’ll give you her paw.”

“What do I say?”

“Say, ‘Give me your paw, Bernice.’”

“What a stupid name,” she says, but even her pseudo-cool can’t hide her excitement at Bernice’s response. “Bernice, give me your paw.”

Bernice looks blank but scrambles to a sitting position, panting. Her eyes remain on Maddie, rapt.

I rack my brain. What did Miss Waxman say? “Try ‘Shake.’”

Maddie straightens up like a toy soldier. “Shake! Now!”

I begin to wonder about the dark side of my little angel, but Bernice doesn’t seem to mind. On cue, the dog lifts a furry foreleg and paws at the air between her and Maddie.

Maddie’s eyes grow panicky. “What’s she doing?”

“She wants you to take her paw.”

Bernice puts down her paw, then raises it again.

Maddie looks at me, then back at Bernice. “Will she bite me?”

“Of course not. Come on, Maddie, just touch it. She won’t bite you. I promise.”

Bernice puts down her paw and raises it again in the air.

Maddie reaches out tentatively with her fingers, her child’s hand just inches from Bernice’s soft white paw. I flash on Michelangelo’s depiction of God creating Adam, which doesn’t seem half as significant for western civilization.

“Just touch her, Maddie. She wants to be your friend.”

Maddie bites her lip and reaches closer to Bernice’s paw.

Bernice whimpers and rakes at the air.

“Go ahead. Touch her, Maddie.”

“Can I?” she says worriedly.

“Yes, go ahead.”

And finally, she does.

35

We sit uncomfortably in the darkness, on the carpeted steps that serve as seats in the elementary school auditorium. To the left is my mother, her face carved from a solid stratum of granite, like the dead presidents hewn into Mount Rushmore. Her hair has been sculpted into curls and is as rigid as her gaze, which does not waver from the stage, much less look at me. I figure that we will speak again in the year 3000 or when she quits smoking, whichever comes first.

Making a cameo appearance to her left is Tyrannosaurus Ex, Sam, in a Burberry suit with a stiff white collar. I told him I would picket his law firm if he didn’t come today. He gives me a billable smile when I look over.

Next to him is Ricki, looking entirely entertained, and not only by the class play. She has brought along her three sons so the requisite brothers will be present, and has even offered me half price on the therapy I will need to recover from today. That’s what friends are for, she said with a smile. And she forgives me for lying to her, and even for returning the blue Laura Ashley dress.

To my right, of course, is a man who looks like Robert Goulet and smells like the perfume counter at Thrift Drug: my father. He’s the only one having fun at this thing. He guffaws at all the punch lines and claps heartily after all the songs. He nudges me in the ribs four times, whenever Maddie enters in her costume, knocking the camcorder into the back of the man in front of me. When I finally ask him to stop, he says out loud: “Wadja say, doll?”

So I don’t ask again. I put the rubber rectangle of the camcorder to my eye and watch my daughter take center stage. Dressed as a carrot, naturally, she joins hands with her new friend, Gretchen the tomato, and they take the hands of a bunch of broccoli and several tulips to sing about the things that sprout up in the spring, tall and proud in the warm sun.

Like children.

In no time at all I’m in tears, looking through the rubber eye of the camcorder, hating that it will record my sniffles with Japanese high fidelity. In the background will be a group of first graders warbling faintly about springtime.

I find myself thinking of Armen, then Sam and my father. And how sometimes it doesn’t turn out like it’s supposed to.

Love dies, people die. Mothers and fathers break apart, the ties that bind unraveling as freely as a ball of yarn, with one tie remaining: the microscopic skein of DNA that resurfaces in our children, in permutations never imagined. Maddie’s the only tie between Sam and me; I’m the only tie between my parents. We all relate to our children, but none of us to each other.

The tears wet the eyepiece of the costly camcorder, and I have to set it down in my lap. My father puts his aromatic arm around me, and then my mother does the same, which only makes me cry harder.

For all we lost.

For all we never had.

Sam passes me a monogrammed handkerchief and I try to recover, grateful for the darkness. Meanwhile Ricki looks like she wants me on Prozac, and the carrot is hugging the tomato. The house lights come up, threatening to expose my hysteria, but in the light I can see that everyone else is crying too. I’m just another hysterical mother in an audience of hysterical mothers applauding their baby vegetables.

Maddie finds me in the crowd and grins, gaptoothed.

I clap loudly for her, hands over my head. I look over and my father is doing the same thing. Scary.

My mother puts a note on my lap. On the front it says GRACE ROSSI. “What’s this?” I ask her.

“Sam passed it down to you.”

“Sam?” I look over at Sam, but he’s whistling for Maddie, doing his best impression of a real father. I pick up the note and something falls into my lap.

It’s a new photo of Tom Cruise. The note says:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Maddie’s adorable,

Wanna see my tattoo?

I look past Sam and over the parents, teachers, and kids. Underneath the EXIT sign, in the back row of the auditorium, is a handsome man in a black raincoat.

And no rain bonnet at all.

Acknowledgments

Kay Thompson’s wonderful character, Eloise, likes to make things up. So do I, which is important to keep in mind as you read this book. Even though I have worked for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, doing the very same job as my character Grace Rossi—indeed, in the very same courthouse—Final Appeal is fiction. None of the characters are real, although they are realistic, and the plot, though plausible, is entirely imagined.

The first thanks go, as always, to my agent, Linda Hayes, and to my editor extraordinaire at HarperPaperbacks, Carolyn Marino. I am blessed in knowing these terrific women and in becoming their friend, even if I never write another book. But since I intend to write other books, I’ll be the grateful recipient of their judgment in knowing what makes a book work, their insight into how to improve a manuscript, and their commitment to me and my writing. Not to mention their sensitivity to my care and feeding. The Old Testament would call what they have lovingkindness, which is proof that there is still some writing that cannot be improved upon.

Heartfelt thanks also go to my boss, Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, who is the absolute best the federal judiciary has to offer. Her dedication to public service is an example for me every day, and we are all lucky to have her. I mention her here especially because she has been more supportive of my part-time writing and full-time mothering than I could ever have hoped.

Thanks, too, for their support, to Martha Verna, Anne Szymkowski, Mary Lou Kanz, and the law clerks, Seth, Theresa, and the strikingly handsome Jim (and before them Alison, Larry, and Jessica). I am grateful as well to the other employees of Third Circuit—Bill Bradley being the ringleader of a conspiracy that includes Marisa Walsh and the staff attorneys; Toby Slawsky, Lynne Kosobucki, Pat Moore, and the Circuit Executive’s Office; Doug Sisk, Brad Baldus, and the clerk’s office; and the librarians, who have been so supportive.

Thank you very much to Alison Brown at HarperPaperbacks, a whiz of an editorial assistant who made some dead-on suggestions about an early draft, and who has helped in many other ways. Many thanks to Laura Baker at HarperPaperbacks and my local publicist, Laura Henrich, who are both wonderful. Janet Baker, my copy editor on all two occasions, is awesome; even from afar, she never forgets Philadelphia. A quick story: in Everywhere That Mary Went, Janet corrected me on exactly where along Route One you begin to smell the cow manure. This is a copy editor you can only dream about, and she is mine.

When Grace Rossi wandered out of my range of expertise, I sought help from United States Attorneys Joan Markman and Amy Kurland (who was kind enough to let me collar her on Fifth Street), Special Agent Linda Vizi of the FBI, Detective McGlinchey and others of the Philadelphia police, the federal marshals and court security officers (Mssrs. King and Devlin, as well as Tony “Hole-in-One” Fortunato and his cohorts), and the staff at the medical examiners office of Philadelphia. Not to mention Brian J. Buckelew, man of many talents, and my friend David Grunfeld. All errors and omissions, of course, are mine. By the way, needlepoint really does relieve stress, and you’re guaranteed one pillow for every life crisis. Ask Barbara Russell of Barbara Russell Designs in Chestnut Hill.

Special thanks, too, to Reverend Paree Metjian and his family, who taught me about Armenian pride and culture. I feel honored to have been even a fictional member of that community.

Finally, I am indebted to my friends, especially Rachel Kull and Franca Palumbo, who found the time to read an early draft of this book and to offer suggestions and encouragement. I owe them both a tankerful of milk, and much more.

As for my family, they are where it all started and where it all ends.

About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times best-selling author and former trial lawyer. She has won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in suspense fiction, and the Distinguished Author Award, from the Weinberg Library of the University of Scranton. She has served as the Leo Goodwin Senior Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School, and her novels are used by bar associations for the ethical issues they present. Her books are published in over twenty languages. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area and welcomes reader email at www.scottoline.com

Also by Lisa Scottoline

The Vendetta Defense

Moment of Truth

Mistaken Identity

Rough Justice

Legal Tender

Running from the Law

Final Appeal

Everywhere That Mary Went

Critical Acclaim for Lisa Scottoline

LEGAL TENDER

“Lisa Scottoline is one of the hot new writers of legal/crime fiction snapping at the heels of John Grisham and Scott Turow.”

—Cincinnati Post

“Still hot…Lisa Scottoline proves herself equal to the task of maintaining a winning formula that is both fresh and entertaining.…Scottoline’s heroine is a tough cookie with a marsh-mallow heart, and she talks like a cross between Mike Hammer and Erma Bombeck…[A] hard-edged, humorous sensibility defines the book’s mood and runs through it like a river of hope.…Legal Tender is a page-turning thriller festooned with red herrings and a comic sensibility that is quite rare in the cloak and dagger department.…Lisa Scottoline is a welcome breath of fresh—and funny—air.”

—Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“This smooth tale moves.”

—San Jose Mercury News

“Don’t miss former practicing attorney Lisa Scottoline’s latest.”

—American Woman

“Bright, funny, and fast-reading.”

—Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

“A perfect example of the way a mystery-thriller should be written: taut, lean, and moving at the speed of a bullet train.…Edgar Award-winning author Lisa Scottoline has dreamed up a legal nightmare in her latest novel, Legal Tender, honing and improving her storytelling with sharp, spare prose and snappy, often witty dialogue.”

—St. Petersburg Times

“Legal Tender’s pace is so brisk and riveting that you may find yourself, as I did, up most of the night, gobbling it up, straight through, cover to cover.”

—Newport News Press

“Ms. Scottoline’s writing style is modern, breezy.…The amazing conclusion takes place in an interrupted courtroom proceeding with all the excitement of the built-up suspense…a witty…tale of mayhem in the fast lane.”

—Richmond Times Dispatch

“Sometimes funny, sometimes action-packed, sometimes edge-of-the-seat suspenseful.…The book pictures the good, the bad, and the ugly in the legal profession from an insider’s view, and the tale is told in a brisk, entertaining way. Ms. Scottoline is a talented writer, keeping the reader’s interest from beginning to end.”

—Marietta Journal (GA)

RUNNING FROM THE LAW

“[A] fast-paced and witty crime thriller [that] features a smart-mouthed, poker-playing attorney.…Scottoline has produced a royal flush.”

—San Francisco Examiner

“Quick, witty, flavorful, and absorbing. Ms. Scottoline’s distinctive voice makes this book a pleasure to read, and I did so at warp speed.”

—Richard North Patterson

“A fast-paced funny courtroom thriller. It was a delight to follow Rita Morrone, Lisa Scottoline’s smart-mouthed, tough-as-nails heroine.”

—Phillip Margolin

“Scottoline is wickedly funny.…The outcome is Mary Higgins Clark meets Susan Isaacs meets John Grisham.”

—Philadelphia magazine

“Lisa Scottoline supplies a…fresh perspective and a sense of humor…with immensely pleasurable results.”

—Houston Chronicle

“May change the way readers think about lawyers…Scottline merits a big rounds of applause.”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“A lovely combination of high energy, imagination and nasty humor.”

—Chicago Tribune

“Philadelphia lawyer Scottline provides nonstop action, smart narration, and dozens of helpful tips on going underground in your own home town.”

—Kirkus Reviews