“Anthony Amsterdam, when he argued before the Supreme Court in Gregg v. Georgia,” Eletha says. “‘Death is final. Death is irremediable. Death is unknowable; it goes beyond this world.’”
“How did you know that, Eletha?” Ben says with obvious surprise.
“Oh, I been workin’ in de big house for a while now, Mr. Ben.” She laughs naughtily. “It was in one of Armen’s articles. I typed it and I never forgot it.” Her smile fades and she returns to the box. “Hand those folders to me, Grace, the ones in front of you.”
I slide the case files and appendices along the smooth tabletop. “Ben, when are they going to hold this phone argument?”
“Tonight at seven.” He checks his watch. “An hour and a half.”
“After the close of business?” Curiouser and curiouser.
“They have to do it tonight, to leave time for the Supreme Court to decide the appeal. It’s Hightower’s fault. He caused it by waiting until the last minute.”
Now I understand. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the timing or the Supreme Court. Galanter doesn’t want argument during regular business hours because that would be public.”
“Not necessarily.”
“No? You think the newspapers would let the panel hold a closed argument in this case? The first death case here in decades? They’d be upstairs with motion papers before you could say First Amendment.”
“As is their wont, but—”
“Galanter won’t have that, so he calls a phone conference when the evening news is over. When the newspapers are sold out. Everybody will be watching Home Improvement.”
“You’ve become quite the cynic, Grace.” Ben unrolls a shirtsleeve and twists the cuff button closed expertly. “In fact, I heard the most outlandish thing about you today.”
“What?”
“It’s so absurd I can barely bring myself to repeat it.” He sets to work on the other shirtsleeve, unfolding one three-inch panel after the next. “I heard you think the chief was murdered.”
Eletha looks over at me in surprise.
“I do. Call me crazy.”
“You’re crazy,” Eletha says. She lets the file slip into the box, where it lands with a tick.
“I thought you had more sense than that.” Ben fastens the button at the cuff, then holds both arms out and inspects them. “Well, I have to go. I’ll leave you to your conspiracy theories.”
“I didn’t say it was a conspiracy.”
Ben gasps in a theatrical way. “Maybe it is. Maybe the entire federal judiciary is in on it. Maybe they all conspired to kill him because he was—tall!” He turns on his heels, laughing, and walks out of the room. I watch him head into the clerks’ office where he turns off his computer, then the lights. I listen for the sound of the door closing as he leaves. I know Eletha well enough to know she’s waiting too.
“What the fuck you doin’?” she says, as soon as the chambers door clicks shut.
“Don’t be shy, Eletha.”
“Are you serious about this?”
“Yes.”
“Is that what was goin’ on with those marshal tapes yesterday?”
“Yep.”
“They don’t tape, do they?”
“Nope.”
She shakes her head. “So what are you up to?”
“It doesn’t make sense that he would kill himself.”
“What are you sayin’?”
So I tell her, leaving out the most important part, the part about Armen and me. When I’m finished, she leans on the file box and looks directly at me. “Look, Grace, I knew he was in love with you. I knew about it before you did. He told me.”
I feel my face redden. “You did? He did?”
“Mm-hm.” She nods. “I have to admit, I told him not to get involved because you two work together. You know what he said? He told me he didn’t give a good goddamn.”
I smile. It warms me inside.
“So I know why you’re thinkin’ what you’re thinkin’.”
“Then why’d you tell me I was crazy?”
“Because Ben was here.”
“What a good liar you are. Jeez, Eletha.”
“Thank you, thank you.” She curtsies prettily, then straightens up, rubbing her lower back. “Ow. Damn, I’m gettin’ old.”
“So what do you think? You knew him longer than any of us. Would he commit suicide?”
She sighs. “I worked for Armen for thirteen years, but I can’t figure it out. It’s hard to believe I wouldn’t have seen something like that comin’. Like a sign.”
“But the police say you said—”
“How do you know what the police say?”
“I went there this morning. They’re sure it’s a suicide. The detective was quoting you, things you said.”
An angry frown contorts her features. “They didn’t listen to me. That white cop askin’ me those questions? He knew what he thought and he didn’t want to hear anything different.”
“I wanted to ask them about Susan. It was her gun.”
“I can’t get over what she did to Bernice. Dang, that woman’s cold!”
“Do you think she would’ve—”
“Possible. It’s possible. I wouldn’t put it past her.” She nods.
“And today with Galanter, that was wild.”
“You mean Bernice? She shoulda bit it off. I’d put it down the garbage disposal myself.”
I smile. “Has Bernice ever done that before?”
“Are you kidding? That dog is a doll baby.” She shakes her head. “So you workin’ with the police or something? They gonna reopen the case?”
“No. I’m on my own. Single Moms, Inc.”
“You’re talkin’ about murder? Accusing a senator? Galanter? Shit, Grace.”
“Not accusing, just asking questions. Developing theories. Being a lawyer.”
She sighs and stretches backward with a tiny grunt. “Oh, my back.”
“You all right?”
“It hurts. The lifting doesn’t help.”
I feel a pang of guilt. She’s been packing by herself since Armen died; the office is littered with boxes, some taped closed, some still open. A lifetime of paper stored away; his whole career. It makes me sad, and it has to be hard on her, too. “I should have helped you. I’m sorry.”
“Nah, s’all right. It’s a lot of stuff, though. He saved everything, I swear.” She points to the back of the office, to the long mahogany credenza behind Armen’s desk. “We got all the personal stuff back there, the articles and stuff. Then we got the academic stuff and old case files against the side wall.”
“Why don’t you go home? I’ll finish the box.”
“Why you pushin’ me out, girlfriend? You wanna look around?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that, but it’s a good idea.”
She picks her sweater off the back of the chair. “All right, don’t stay too late. Tomorrow, baby.” She knocks hard on the wood, and Bernice wakes up with a startled bark. We both laugh.
“Dog almost ate a judge,” I say.
“Smartest thing she ever did.”
“Second smartest.”
She pauses at the doorway and smiles softly. She knows the first: loving Armen. I suppress a stab of pain as I listen to her lock up her desk and gather her handbag and newspaper.
“By the way, El, have I got a man for you,” I call out to her.
“You know I’m seein’ Leon.”
“Time for a change,” I say, but she’s out the door. It closes harshly, accentuating the stillness of the suddenly empty office.
I look around at the boxes and files filling the room. The brocade throws are folded into neat squares and stacked on a chair for packing. I never asked Armen where he got them or even what they were. Most of the other Armenian artifacts have been wrapped in bubble paper. I step between the boxes to his desk and find myself running my finger along its surface, leaving a wake in the dust like a light snow. I laugh to myself. A wonderful man, but
not a neat man.
I look at Armen’s chair and try to imagine him sitting in it again. It’s so hard to believe he’s gone. Murdered. It tears at me inside. Maybe there are clues here. Something. Anything.
I look over from the chair to the credenza beyond. None of its doors are open; Eletha hasn’t started on it yet. What had she said was in there? The personal stuff. I walk around the desk and kneel on the carpet in front of the cabinet.
You were raised better, says my mother’s voice, stopping my hand on the gold-toned knob.
“No, I wasn’t,” I say. I slide open the thin door and take the first paper off the top of the stack. Its typeface is faded and old-fashioned, from the days of Smith-Coronas.
TOWARD AN ARMENIAN IDENTITY
by Armen Gregorian
I brush the dust away. He wasn’t a judge yet; it doesn’t say if it was published. I sit down and skim the short article. Well-written, heartfelt. I reach for the next paper in the cabinet, but as I slide it out, a pack of old check registers falls to the carpet, bound by a dirty rubber band. I slip one out, skimming the entries: Food Fare $33.00, Harvard Coop $11.27, Haig $6.00 (for Chinese food). Judging from the sums, it was a long time ago, though Armen didn’t bother to date the entries or keep a running tab of the balance.
Typical. It would have driven me crazy over time, but time is something we didn’t have. Time was taken from us. From him.
I feel a lump in my throat and slip the register hastily back under the rubber band. I shove it next to another checkbook. It looks newer than the other papers in the cabinet, so I pull that one out.
It’s a maroon plastic checkbook, fake alligator on the front and back. At the lower right corner it says PHILADELPHIA CASH RESERVE in gilt-stamped script. The checkbook looks brand new. I snap it open, anxious without knowing why.
The balance is staggering: $650,000. I had no idea. I look at the name and address and hear myself gasp.
Greg Armen. The address is an apartment in West Philadelphia.
What apartment is this? Armen lived in Society Hill, in a townhouse he owned with Susan. I look again at the name on the checks. Greg Armen. Obviously an alias. But why?
I hear my mother’s voice inside my head: Come on, kid. A judge with a secret bank account? A false address? An alias?
A bribe.
Impossible. I push the voice away and flip through the checkbook. There are no entries since the initial one, which is undated.
Was Armen involved in something? Does it have anything to do with his death?
I swallow hard and think twice before committing theft. Well, once maybe. Then I take the checkbook and close the cabinet.
12
Only an hour later I have crossed the threshold into another world. A scented, serene world, where the colors are chalky washes of pastels and the air carries the scent of primrose. Is it heaven? In a way. It’s the Laura Ashley shop at the King of Prussia mall. I called Ricki to discuss the checkbook and she agreed to meet me here. I trail in reluctantly behind her, holding her bags like a pack animal. “So what do you think?”
“I told you what I think. I think you should go straight to the police. Show them the note from Armen and the checkbook.” She plucks a frilly blouse off the rack and holds it against her chest. “You like?”
“For you or for me?”
“I don’t need blouses, you do. That coffee stain is so attractive.”
I tug my blazer over the brown blotch. “I have enough blouses.”
“No you don’t. You have the yellow one you wear over and and over, and the blue.” She slips the blouse back onto the rack. “But it is a lot of money.”
“The blouse or the bank account?”
“The blouse.”
“So’s the account.”
“I wonder if he declared it, the crook.”
“Don’t say that.” I look around the small store, but it’s empty. Nobody can afford this stuff, not even in King of Prussia. “He’s not a crook.”
“You sound like Richard Nixon.”
I set the bags down beside the rack. “I bet it has something to do with his murder.”
“Murder? You’re losing it, Grace. I told you. The checkbook doesn’t mean he was murdered. Maybe he committed suicide in regret over taking a bribe.” She snatches a blouse from the rack and her hazel eyes come alive; it’s off-white, with billowy sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. She hoists it proudly into the air. “This is perfect.”
“For what? Punting on the Thames?”
Ricki puts the blouse back onto the rack. “You have a bad attitude, you know that?”
“But we don’t know it’s a bribe, Rick. All we know is that it’s a checking account of some kind.”
“A boatload of money under an alias? Come on.” Her concentration refocuses, laserlike, on the next ruffled blouse on the rack. She picks it up and appraises it. “This is nice.”
“What about the note?”
“What about the blouse?”
“Where am I going to wear it, Rick? Tara?”
She slaps it back onto the rack. “Maybe we’ll have better luck with the dresses.” She turns smartly away and heads over to a lineup of dresses whose skirts are so voluminous they puff out like parachutes. Ricki extracts one with an expertise born of practice and waves it at me from across the store. “Very appropriate, don’t you think?” she says.
I pick up the bags and follow her. “No feathers? I want feathers. And a headpiece.”
A young saleswoman, more like a saleschild, perks up from behind a counter littered with fragrant notecards and stationery. She looks like Alice in Wonderland in a black velvet headband and a white pinafore. “That’s one of our most popular styles,” she says.
“I hate it,” I whisper.
Ricki looks daggers at me. “Give it a chance, Sherlock.”
“No.”
The saleschild’s face falls.
Ricki slaps the dress back in place. “You are so stubborn. So stubborn.”
“Rick, listen.”
“You said you wanted me to help you.”
“This isn’t what I meant.”
“Why do I bother? You call me up and I come. My one night without clients and here I am. I should have gone food shopping. There’s no milk in the house.” She puts her hands on her hips and glares at me.
There’s no milk in the house. The all-time low watermark of motherhood.
I put my hands on my hips and we face off at opposite ends of the dress rack, the High Noon of Mothers. No milk in the house, and Ricki is the most organized of women; it must gnaw at her conscience like an overdue library book. I feel the first pang of guilt, which means she’s quicker on the draw. “Give me the goddamn dress,” I say.
“Good.” She plucks it from the rack and pushes it at me.
“I’m not promising anything.”
“Fine.”
The saleschild comes over. “Can I help you?” she says brightly. Too brightly for minimum wage.
“Yes,” Ricki says. “My friend needs dresses. With her eyes, I think a royal blue would be nice.”
“Rick, I’m standing here. I can speak.”
The saleschild looks from Ricki to me.
“I don’t want anything fancy,” I say.
“Not fancy?” The saleschild looks puzzled; fancy is all they sell. They have a monopoly in fancy.
“She doesn’t mean fancy,” Ricki says, “she means fussy.”
“No, I mean fancy. Empire waistline, hem to the floor. I’m too old for puffed sleeves.”
“Fussy,” Ricki says again.
The saleschild looks at Ricki, then at me. The poor girl’s getting dizzy. I hand her the dress for balance.
“Where are the business-y dresses?” Ricki asks.
“I’m out of a job, Rick.”
“Then you need interview clothes.”
“Follow me,” says the saleschild. She pads in ballet slippers to a rack of dresses and takes three from the rack. Any one of
them would work at my coronation, but Ricki badgers me to try one on. We squeeze together into the flowered dressing room. Ricki always comes into dressing rooms with me; she doesn’t realize this was okay when we were in high school but now that we’re almost forty, is a bit odd.
“Are we having fun yet?” I mutter, stepping into the billowing dress.
“Let me zip it up for you,” Ricki says.
“It’s the least you can do.”
She zips the dress more roughly than necessary and I regard myself in the mirror. The style makes me look tall and thin, which must be some sort of optical illusion. Still, all I can see is that my eyes look too small and my nose looks too big; my father’s Sicilian blood, acid-etched into my features. I look terrible.
“You look stunning!” Ricki says from behind me.
“Uncanny. That’s just what I was thinking.”
“The neckline is so pretty.”
I look down at my chest and catch sight of the scalloped bra, barely covered by the dress. It reminds me of Armen, of that night. This is the beginning for us. I love you. “What about the note he wrote me, Rick?”
But she’s busy picking up a flowered scarf and tossing it around my neck. She’s caught brain fever from the shopping, like early man, blood-lusting after the kill. She found the right dress, now the whole village can eat. “Here, if you’re not in love with the neckline.”
“Rick, what do you think about the note?”
“What note?” She drapes the scarf to the left, then squinches up her nose.
“The one I found in my pocket.”
She rearranges the scarf over my shoulder. “Are we talking about that again?”
“Yes.”
“I’m trying to take your mind off your official police duties, but you’re not letting me.”
“Just tell me where the note fits in, huh? Is that the act of a man who would kill himself a few hours later? You’re a shrink, you tell me. You must have handled suicide in your practice.”
“Only one, thank God.” She crosses herself quickly even though she’s Jewish.
“But depressed people, right? You must see tons of depressed people.”
“Oh, they ship ’em in.”
Final Appeal raa-2 Page 8
