Final Appeal

by Lisa Scottoline

  “Yes.”

  “Because he wanted to be chief judge. He would never have been chief if Armen hadn’t died.” Artie straightens up, rallying. “And remember how Bernice went after him?”

  “Do you think becoming chief judge is enough of a motive?”

  He snorts. “What are you, funny? It’s the same as Battleship. It’s winning.”

  “People don’t kill to win.”

  “Sure they do. Plenty of people—mostly men, I admit—would kill to win. It’s ambition. Raw, naked, blind, cold. Ambition.”

  I think of Galanter taking a bribe in Canavan and killing Armen to guarantee the result. That makes sense to me, in a perverse way. “I don’t agree. I think people kill for money—or love.”

  “Love? Not Galanter, what does he know from love? He’s not even married, he lives for the frigging job. He has an Indian headdress, Grace. The man is not fucking kidding.”

  “True.”

  “As chief judge, he’ll get on all the Judicial Conference committees. Get to go to D.C., hobnob with the Supremes. It even positions him for the next appointment to the Court. Look at Breyer, he was chief.”

  The Supreme Court. I hadn’t thought of that. Combined with Canavan, that’s one hell of a motive.

  “It’s a place in history, Grace.”

  I remember that Galanter has a collection of first editions in his office. “He would love that.”

  “He sure would. It’s the top of the profession. They ain’t final because they’re right, they’re right because they’re final.”

  “But Galanter’s a Republican appointee.”

  “The Dems won’t be in forever, babe.” He looks down, then shakes his head. “Justice Galanter. That’s so beat. Can’t you just hurl?”

  I consider this, and he’s right. I could just hurl.

  25

  I slip my master key into the doorknob. It turns with a satisfying click, admitting me to the darkened chambers. No one’s there, as I expected; it’s too late even for geeks. I told my mother I had to work late, killing two birds with one stone: avoiding her and poking around. I enter the reception area and close the door quietly behind me.

  The computer monitors are on, standing out like vivid squares of hot color in the dark, wasteful but helpful. ORDER IN THE COURT! WELCOME TO THE THIRD CIRCUIT COURT WORD PROCESSING SYSTEM! guides me through the reception area, where the blinds are down.

  The chambers are laid out like ours, with the judge’s office to the left. I walk into Galanter’s office; even at the threshold it stinks of cigar smoke. The far wall is entirely of glass, like Armen’s, overlooking the Delaware. The lights from the Camden side make bright wiggly lines on the black water.

  In the light from the wall of windows I can make out Galanter’s glistening desk, also of glass. I walk to it with more nervousness than I want to acknowledge and whip out the flashlight I keep in the car; it says WALT DISNEY WORLD. Official burglary tool, patent pending.

  I flick on the flashlight with an amateurish thrill and flash it around the room. Next to Galanter’s desk are the same shelves we have, where Armen used to keep the current cases. Galanter does it the same way. I look over the shelves. The circle of light falls on each stack of red, blue, and gray briefs, the colors regulated by the Third Circuit’s local rules. Attached to the briefs with a rubber band is the appendix in each case and the record. That’s what I’m looking for.

  I sort through a bunch of criminal cases, all sentencing appeals, and a commercial contract case; the Uniform Commercial Code seems less interesting to me than it used to. Underneath the stack, at the very bottom, is Canavan and its record. I tug the Canavan papers off the shelf and settle down on the floor.

  I pull off the briefs and appendix to get to the record. I expect to find a stack of blue-backed pleadings bound at the top, but the papers are stuffed in a yellow envelope. SEALED COURT DOCUMENTS, says a forbidding red stamp on the envelope. A court order is taped underneath.

  Why would a district court seal this record? In any event, it doesn’t apply to me, at least not tonight.

  I plunge into the envelope, pulling out the first part of the record. On top is the complaint, which alleges that Canavan Flowers was driven out of business by a group of local flower retailers. The defendants listed Bob Canavan on their FTD-like telephone network but never sent him any orders to fill. The complaint is a poorly drafted litany of the ways Canavan was starved out, but never explains why. The young lawyer couldn’t flesh out the Mob connection. Neither can I.

  A ring of florists? Galanter laughed.

  I flip past the complaint and skim the appendix until I come to the names of the wholesalers. I take the crumpled crossword puzzle Winn gave me from my pocket and compare it with the papers, sticking the flashlight in my armpit. None of the names are the same. The list of wholesalers’ names reads like white bread, the list of mobsters’ names like Amoroso’s hoagie rolls. I put the pleadings aside in favor of the depositions. If there’s gold to be found, it’ll be here. Something that isn’t what it seems.

  I read the first deposition, then the second and the third, fighting off a sinking feeling. None of the names are the ones on the crossword; none of the allegations amount to anything other than common law fraud by a bunch of rather hard-assed florists. Isn’t that what Townsend said? How is it different from a case of garden variety fraud? Was he speaking from the casebook or the checkbook?

  I start the next deposition, given by one of the vendors. An inadvertent reference to a delivery-man sounds familiar. Jim Cavallaro. I look down at the short list on the crossword puzzle:

  James Cavallaro.

  It must be the same man. I think a minute.

  Of course.

  The Mob couldn’t care less about the carnations; it’s in the delivery. In the trucks and the truck drivers. In an operation that runs by phone orders, the delivery is where the money is to be made. It doesn’t matter what’s being delivered, even something that smells like roses.

  I leaf back to the other depositions, looking for references to the truckers. I scribble down the names, but there’s only a few. My next step is to check Galanter’s phone log to see if any of them made calls to chambers, or if there’s any other connection to Galanter.

  Suddenly I hear the jiggling of the doorknob in the reception area to Galanter’s office. I freeze, listening for another sound, but by then it’s almost too late.

  The door opens, casting a wedge of light into the reception area. I flick off the flashlight and shove the record back onto the shelf. If this is Winn, I’ll bludgeon him with my Pluto flashlight.

  Where can I hide? I look around the room.

  Galanter’s private bathroom. Right where Armen’s was, off a tiny hall leading from the office. I scoot into the bathroom and slip behind the door, willing myself into stillness.

  Whoever’s coming in has a flashlight of his own.

  He strides into Galanter’s office as if he doesn’t have any time to lose. He casts the flashlight this way and that, throwing a jittery spotlight at the bookshelves, then at the couch and back again. All I can see of him is that he’s big-shouldered, an ominous outline above the blaze of the flashlight. Too heavyset to be Winn. I withdraw behind the bathroom door, afraid.

  The figure strides to Galanter’s desk. His back is to me as he aims the flashlight on the papers piled neatly on the glass surface. He touches each pile; his hand is hammy as it falls within the flashlight’s beam. He seems to be looking for something, rapidly but with confidence. He’s been in this office before, it seems. He had a key, unless he picked the lock.

  His hand moves over the desk like a blind man reading Braille. He finds something and picks it up. I squint in the darkness. He holds a wrinkled piece of yellow paper in the beam of the flashlight. It must be a phone message; we use the same ones. They’re printed on thin paper so they’ll make a carbon copy. They tear constantly.

  “Fuckin’ A,” the man says, in a voice I almost recognize.
He takes the paper and slips it into a pocket.

  Who is this man?

  I get my answer when he turns around. In one terrifying instant he passes in front of the bathroom on the way out. I don’t see his face clearly, but the mustache is a giveaway, as is the glint of an official marshal badge.

  Al McLean.

  My mouth goes dry. I hold my breath as I hear the outer door to chambers open, then close behind him. He jiggles the doorknob to make sure it’s locked.

  McLean. Christ. And he was the one on duty the night Armen was killed. I wait in the bathroom a minute, not surprised to be perspiring. I wipe my forehead and tiptoe into the office. I want to know what McLean was looking at, and what he took.

  I walk over to the polished desk, stand in the same position he did, and flick on the flashlight. Everything is upside down, all the papers and correspondence that tie a circuit judge to the outside world. In a stack on the middle pile is a group of yellow message slips, written in the careful script of Galanter’s secretary, Miss Waxman. The first two messages are from Judge Foudy and Judge Townsend. PLEASE CALL BACK, the secretary has checked. But the three messages after those are from Sandy Faber.

  The reporter. The same one who’s been phoning me and everyone in our chambers. The latest message, recorded at 4:58, says IMPORTANT! in letters so perfect they could be printed.

  What did Faber find out? And whose message did McLean take?

  It could be Faber’s, since the three preceding it were from him. But it ain’t necessarily so; the odds are worse than a flip of the coin. I decide to check the phone log tomorrow; it will have copies of each message. It’s too risky to stay tonight.

  I set the messages down the way I found them. Underneath is a small squarish envelope, its address the tiny Gothic typescript characteristic of only one institution: the Supreme Court of the United States. Hobnob with the Supreme Court, Artie said. Position himself for the next appointment. I open the stiff envelope.

  What’s inside is a surprise.

  A note from Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, thanking Galanter for his recommendation letter on behalf of Ben Safer. Incredible. Ben doesn’t even clerk for Galanter. I read it again, then slip it back in the envelope. I stack everything up the way it was, three-inch messages on top, small cards under that, letters next, then briefs. Strict size order, calibrated to telegraph CONTROL.

  Boy, am I going to hate working for Big Chief Galanter.

  26

  Galanter’s office gleams in the morning light, all sparkling surfaces with sharp edges. Glass glistens in front of the many photos of him with other judges; his collection of rare books rots behind locked glass doors. Even the furniture is shiny, covered with a polished cotton in navy stripes. It’s more the domain of a corporate CEO than a judge with a public-record income of $130,000. I always thought Galanter had family money; I never knew it was money from the Family.

  The problem is, he isn’t hiring.

  “I have my own clerks,” he says, looking down at me from behind his desk chair. His cigar sits in a Waterford ashtray on the desk. “They’re all full-time.”

  “But you get a part-time assistant as chief judge. It’s in the budget already, for the administrative work.”

  “My law clerks can handle it until I hire one. Judge Gregorian waited several months to hire you, as I recall.”

  “The Judicial Conference meets soon. You’ll need to be briefed.”

  “I can read.” He thrusts my memo at me, a heavy hint to scram. I rise from the stiff-backed chair.

  “I’d recommend that they get to the misconduct complaints first, then. There are eight backed up, and Washington likes us to stay on top of them.”

  “Washington?”

  “They monitor the complaints, even keep a report on their disposition by all the chief judges. You don’t want to make that list, it’s a black mark. In Washington.” I turn to go, hoping he’ll call me back. I get as far as the door, ten feet farther than I predicted.

  “You say there are eight, eh?”

  “Last time I looked. We set them aside to do Hightower, and they just kept on coming.”

  “How long do they take?”

  “The research, a while. Then we get the record and review it. That takes time too. At least a week per complaint.”

  He puts his hands in his pockets, rocking slightly on his heels. “I don’t have the space for you. I’m gutting your office when I move. It needs redoing.”

  Fuck you very much. “I can work in your law clerks’ office.”

  “No.”

  Good thing I have a strong ego. “I can work in the library on the first floor.”

  He examines his nails. “Of course, I would hire my own assistant eventually.”

  “I want to get back to practice anyway.”

  “I’d have no time to supervise you.”

  “I don’t need supervision, just a paycheck.” A sympathetic note, to make him feel like the regent he thinks he is.

  “Miss Waxman?” he calls out the door. His oppressed secretary materializes at the other entrance to his office; she’s probably been hovering there, waiting for him to bark. A civil service retirement is the only reason this sweet-faced soul would stay with such a tyrant. “You two have met, haven’t you?” Galanter says.

  “Sure. Hello, Miss Waxman.”

  Built like a medium swirl of soft ice cream, she nods at me but says nothing.

  “Give her the drafts as you finish them, then I’ll take it from there. If I need you, I’ll call.”

  “Fine.” I start to go, then do Peter Falk as Columbo. “Where should I put the drafts so I don’t have to bother you? I used to put them in a box on our secretary’s desk.”

  He looks at Miss Waxman. “Miss Waxman, make a place on your desk for a bin.”

  She nods.

  “I could show you what I mean, Miss Waxman,” I say to her.

  She glances at Galanter for permission, and he dismisses us with a wave that says: Women, so concerned with the details! Then he picks up the phone. “Close the door,” he says.

  I close the heavy door and meet Miss Waxman at her desk in front of the door to the law clerks’ office. Next to her computer keyboard is the phone log I need to see, with the standard four message slips to a page. Galanter couldn’t have gotten too many calls this morning, so the copy of the message McLean took should be on the top page.

  “I thought it would help if I knew where to put the papers,” I say, moving closer to the open log book. “I don’t know how you do things here.”

  She nods slightly. Her bangs are arranged in tiny spit curls around her face; an aging Betty Boop, down to the spidery eyelashes. “We do them the way the judge wants them,” she says in a soft voice.

  I look at the log. The top four messages are: Judge Richter at 9:00, Judge Townsend at 9:15, Chief Judge Wasserman of the Second Circuit at 9:16, and one at 9:20 from Carter at the Union League. Damn; a busy morning. It’s not on the top page; it must be on the page underneath. I touch the spot next to the log. “Do you think it should go here? It just might fit.”

  “If you think that’s okay, Miss Rossi.”

  “Please, call me Grace.”

  “I wouldn’t feel comfortable.”

  “Please. We’ll be working together.”

  She nods deferentially; the master-slave relationship, she understands it perfectly. This I can’t abide. “Where would you like to put the box, Miss Waxman? It’s your desk, after all.”

  “I don’t know.” Her brow knits with worry, cracking her pancake makeup into tectonic plates. Sometimes free will is not freeing. “I just don’t know. Whatever you think, Miss Rossi. Grace.”

  I pat the surface near the log again and spot a photograph of a wicker basket full of silver toy poodle puppies, with frizzy gray pompadours. “Maybe here?”

  “No!” she blurts out. “But, I mean, if you want to.”

  “No, that’s all right. Whatever you want.”

  She to
uches her cheek. “It’s just that…my dogs are there. Their picture. I like to see them when I work.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t want to hide the picture.”

  “But still, if you—”

  “Please, I understand. I have a dog too.” And now I have an idea. A wonderful, nasty, awful idea. I feel like the Grinch. “It’s a big dog, though.”

  “I like big dogs too,” she says. Interest flickers in her pale gray eyes.

  “Actually, I adopted Judge Gregorian’s dog, Bernice.”

  “You did? I heard she was given to the Girl Scouts.”

  “No. She was at the Morris Animal Refuge.”

  A horrified gasp escapes her lips. “Why, that’s a dog pound.”

  “I know.”

  She gazes at me with an awe better directed at Madame Curie. “Well, aren’t you kind!”

  I look away guiltily and pick up the dog picture. Its frame is flimsy, from a card shop. The puppies look at me with abject trust, like their mistress. “They’re so cute, Miss Waxman.”

  She beams with a mother’s pride. “They do all sorts of tricks. I taught them. They’re smart as whips.”

  “They look it.” Coal-black eyes, little button noses.

  “This one grew up to be a champion.” She points at the one in the center, but how she can tell them apart I’ll never know; each one looks as yappy as the next. “That’s Rosie, my baby. My champion.”

  “A champ? Really?” I take an invisible deep breath and let the picture slip from my fingers. It hits the carpet and the frame self-destructs on impact. I feel like shit on toast, but it had to be done.

  “Oh! Oh!” Miss Waxman exclaims, hands fluttering to her rouged cheeks. She bends over instantly to rescue the picture, and I flip the top page of the phone log over.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say, reading the four preceding telephone messages, recorded in carbon copies. All four are from Sandy Faber. I counted only three messages from Faber on Galanter’s desk, so that means the one McLean took was from Faber too. “I hope it’s not broken.”

  “It came apart,” she wails.