Final judgment

THIRTY-SEVEN

It was a measure of the way his weekend had gone that Mason was looking forward to having dinner on Sunday night at Avery Fish’s house. Fish would try to talk him out of resigning and Mason would have to smile, clean his plate, and quit even though it was the last thing he wanted to do.

Defending someone on a murder charge was unlike any other attorney-client relationship. All clients put their trust in their lawyers, but saving an innocent man’s life was the most sacred of trusts. No civil case could trump it, no matter the millions that might end up in his pocket. No mega-merger could match the stakes of life or death. There were times when Mason almost felt sorry for his legal brethren and their pedestrian practices. The burden of innocence and his duty to protect it sustained him as much as it weighed on him. Abandoning Avery Fish was contrary to everything Mason believed in, save one. He couldn’t allow his problems with Judge Carter to put Fish at greater risk.

Nothing that had happened since Friday changed Mason’s certainty that he had to withdraw as Fish’s lawyer. Though he couldn’t prove it, he was certain that the CD stolen from Lari Prillman’s safe contained the blackmail audio tapes. Its theft confirmed that he had no choice but to quit. The CD was like a virus. He had to destroy it before it spread, though he had no idea who might have stolen it or where to look for it.

Unlike Saturday, Sunday passed without him being overcome by lust and longing and forgetting a meeting with a critical witness. Nor had the woman he loved used him as a shield from a jealous wife. And, best of all, no one had shot at him since sunrise.

He started the day with a punishing run, during which he revisited his day with Abby. He refused to give women credit for the exclusive ability to read a relationship, no matter what caught their attention. It didn’t matter whether something was going on between Josh Seeley and Abby or whether the senator’s wife just believed they were having an affair. Well, it did matter. He was too in love with Abby to pretend otherwise. But it mattered just as much that Abby had used him.

When he got back there was a message from her asking him to call so she could explain. Her voice was laced with a mix of impatience and regret that ate at him. He erased it without returning her call.

He showered, paid bills, and watched a college basketball game as he ate lunch. It was an enforced normalcy that failed to take his mind off everything that had happened in the last week. When he realized that he had no idea which teams he was watching and didn’t care whether either team won, he turned off the television and gave up pretending that his life was normal.

He whistled to Tuffy and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride. She beat him to the car, paws on the door waiting to be let in. He lowered the front passenger window enough for the dog to stick her snout into the wind and turned up the heat to cut the chill from the cold air. He drove to Shawnee Mission Park, a vast expanse in western Johnson County.

Kansas City was more than the geopolitically correct unit of city government on the Missouri side of the state line it shared with Kansas. It was more than a sister to Kansas City, Kansas, a city that merged with Wyandotte County to form one governmental behemoth. It was an amalgam of cities and counties spread on either side of the state line in every direction, home to over a million and a half people of every clan and category ever imagined.

It was a place where people fought over who had the best barbecue and how much to spend on a new performing arts center. It was a place where people rooted for football Chiefs and baseball Royals and protested war in the name of peace. It was a place where some schools excelled and others struggled while too many kids got their education on the streets. It was a place like every other place-full of hopes and promises, some that soared and others that were crushed. It was Mason’s home and he wore it like a second skin.

Locals knew the difference between living in Raytown, Missouri, and Leawood, Kansas, but residents of both would probably tell out-of-towners that they lived in Kansas City. It was simpler than giving a lesson in geography or bragging rights. Johnson County was one of the Kansas-side pieces in the bi-state kaleidoscope with demographics that made high-end retailers slobber all over themselves.

Shawnee Mission Park took its name from the mission set up in the 1800s to help the Shawnee Indians find the white man’s religion. Blues rarely talked to Mason about being a full-blooded member of the Shawnee tribe, except to say that the Shawnee got the shaft and the white man got the mailing address. You could send mail to anyone in the twenty-plus cities located in Johnson County and address it to Shawnee Mission, KS, the one city that existed only in the minds of the Postal Service. There was no such place.

The park had miles of trails, a lake with a marina, and a leash-free haven where people turned their dogs loose for a wide-ranging romp, the occasional bump-and-run encounter with a good-looking dog-lover a side benefit for singles tired of the bar scene. Mason let Tuffy out of the car, interested in nothing more than a head-clearing walk while his dog wore herself out.

The cold was enough to discourage most people, pancake clouds layering an oppressive grayness on the day. Barren trees stood idly by, refusing to break the gusting wind. Frozen concrete ground hit back against his boots as he followed Tuffy up a slow rising hill, along the tree line and down toward a shallow inlet of the lake. He lost sight of the dog for a few minutes, picking up his pace until he saw her nose-to-butt with a golden retriever.

The golden’s owner, her blond hair sticking out from beneath a ski cap, stood with her back to Mason. She turned toward him as he made his way the last few yards to the water’s edge. He stopped for a moment, sucking in a cold breath when he realized that the woman was Judith Bartholomew. He’d only seen her a few times, always from a distance, but he’d thought often enough about the possibility that they shared the same father that he had no doubt it was her. He’d met her mother, Brenda Roth, just once. She wanted nothing to do with Mason, and he was confident that Brenda had never spoken to her daughter about him.

Mason was six feet tall, had dark hair, gray eyes, and a long, angular face. He’d broken his nose more than once, and his heavy beard cast a shadow on his cheeks and chin even if he shaved twice a day. Judith was no more than five-six, with a smooth, creamy complexion. Her eyes were hazel, her face more round than his. From a distance, he’d imagined, or wished for, more of a resemblance. Up close, he could see nothing that linked them, though he knew of many siblings who resembled one of their parents but not each other.

She smiled at him, though it was the kind of tentative smile reserved for strangers. There was no hint of recognition. His life was complicated enough at the moment without adding any new wrinkles.

“Your dog?” she asked, pointing to Tuffy.

“All mine.”

The dogs finished sniffing each other and started chasing along the rocky beach. Mason stuffed his hands in his pockets, avoiding introductions.

“I haven’t been here in ages. My kids were bouncing off the walls, the laundry was piled to the ceiling, and my husband was sleeping in front of the television. I had to get out of the house. Fortunately, my mother lives with us. I told her she was in charge and I kidnapped the dog.”

The explanation was hurried as if she felt guilty leaving her domestic duties behind and wanted to be certain Mason knew she was only there to walk the dog.

He nodded. “Good to get away for a little while.”

She gave him a closer look, her eyes wrinkling with concentration. “I’m Judith,” she said, extending her hand. “Do I know you?”

Mason took her hand, disappointed he didn’t feel some genetic connection. “I’m Lou,” he said, glad that she omitted last names. “I don’t think we’ve met. I just have one of those naturally familiar faces like the ones on the wall at the post office.”

The dogs came back to them, tongues and tails wagging. She patted the golden, looked at her watch, and sighed.

“If I don’t get back, my mother will send out a search party.”

“Take it easy,” Mason said.

“I’ll do that,” she said. “You know, you do have one of those familiar faces, but it’s not from the post office. It will come to me.”

“Let me know. I’ll wait here.”

“Funny and familiar. Not a bad combination,” she said. “Let’s go, dog.”