Final judgment

EIGHTY-TWO

Kelly Holt had destroyed Ed Fiori’s tapes. Vanessa Carter had blackmailed Mason with a lie that she was being blackmailed. She didn’t want his money. Instead, she wanted to do to him what he had done to her, and he had obliged, ruining his career with a confession that shielded her from the fallout. He thought back over the last eight days. She had played him perfectly. Fish had taught him that a con worked best when the mark wanted to believe it. Mason not only had feared that he would one day pay the price for what he’d done, he knew that he should. He was low-hanging fruit and she had picked him clean.

The judge’s voice message said that she was filling in at the Jackson County Courthouse. Mason found her there, clothed in a black robe, sitting on the bench, dispensing justice.

The courtroom had the latest in technology. The judge’s bench and the counsel tables were equipped with computers. The court reporter used a computer to produce a real-time transcript that also fed into a computer in her office so she could monitor proceedings even if she wasn’t in the courtroom.

The county had just installed an experimental voice-activated system to back up the court reporter. The court reporter or the judge or the lawyers could turn it on when they argued matters at the judge’s bench outside the hearing of the jury. The system recorded what was said and instantly converted it to a transcript.

It was motion day, which meant that lawyers were lined up, taking their turns to be heard on various motions in their cases. The low hum of conversations among the lawyers waiting for their cases to be called disappeared when Mason walked in and took a seat at the rear of the courtroom. The other lawyers were all in uniform, wearing dark suits and starched shirts. He was dressed in jeans and a striped shirt. No one sat near him. No one talked to him. They looked away, resuming their conversations. He didn’t exist.

He waited until the last group filed out. Judge Carter nodded at the court reporter and her bailiff, telling them they were excused.

“Mr. Mason,” Judge Carter said.

Mason rose and approached the bench. She looked down on him from her perch, her face radiant, her black eye healed, not noticing when he pressed the button for the voice-activated court-reporting system.

“Your eye,” Mason said. “You told me the blackmailer confronted you in your garage and hit you.”

“That was more persuasive than telling you I had an allergic reaction that inflamed my eye,” she said with a wave of her hand. “I had to keep you motivated. That’s why I kept moving up the blackmailer’s deadline.”

“You lied about everything.”

“I lied? Were you lying when you told the police and that reporter what you did to me?”

“You weren’t being blackmailed. It was all a scam to get even with me.”

“I worked my entire life to be here, in this courtroom, and have the respect of the people who appear before me. Look at what I’ve missed because of you. The change in technology alone makes me feel like a child on her first day of school. I don’t understand how any of it works. But, this is my house,” she said, pounding her gavel, “and you took it from me because you weren’t a good enough lawyer to represent your client like everyone else does-according to the rules. Well, I took it back. Call it what you want, but I call it justice.”

“What made you think you could get me to turn myself in and cover for you at the same time?”

“You did. Look at you. Look at the people you represent. Look at the risks you take for them. You can’t wait to fall on your sword. All I did was sharpen the blade. You are excused, Counsel.”

The court reporter opened the rear door of the courtroom and raced to the computer at her desk. The bailiff followed close behind her, the two of them scrolling down the monitor, studying the transcript of the judge’s and Mason’s conversation.

“What’s the meaning of this?” Judge Carter demanded.

“There’s no mistake,” the court reporter told the bailiff. “It’s the same as on the computer in my office.”

“Judge Carter,” the bailiff said, one hand on the butt of his service revolver. “We have a problem.”