Rough Justice Page 9

  Judy flopped back in her swivel chair with a sigh. Her lower lip puckered with concern. She was sorry she’d started all this, with the color blindness. She worried Mary was seeing murder mysteries because of her past. “But how could the D.A. prove this?”

  “I don’t know, they’re a good office. Maybe they found some sort of after-discovered evidence. Your tax dollars.”

  Judy’s eyes narrowed. “You still have a motive problem, Mare. Why would Steere want to kill Darning?”

  “I don’t know.” Mary paused, then brightened. “Maybe there’s a motive and we just don’t know it yet. We don’t have enough information. If we find the connection between the two men, we find the motive.”

  “What connection? There is no connection. One is at the bottom of the food chain and the other is at the top.”

  Mary blinked as the answer struck her. “What is the connection between a rich man and a bank employee? Get a clue. It rhymes with money.”

  Judy considered it. Maybe it wasn’t completely nuts, or paranoid. “Wait a minute.” She got up and searched the Steere file again, checking each accordion. “What bank did Darning work in?”

  “PSFS. The Philadelphia Savings Fund Society. They’re out of business now, but they still have the neon sign on top of their old building. You know the sign.”

  “PSFS? Sign? No.”

  “It’s on the building, on the east side of town. It’s huge, you can’t miss it. It’s a historic landmark now. You know it.”

  “Didn’t we just have this conversation?”

  “Forget it.” Mary’s headache returned. It was too late to be working. What a job. Mary remembered the plastic PSFS passbook she had as a child, in trademark tartan. It had an inky little S that stood for Student Account. Where was that frigging passbook now? Maybe she was rich and didn’t know it. Then she could quit.

  “Here it is.” Judy had flipped to the back of a thick document and handed it to Mary. “Steere’s most recent tax return. It shows all his bank accounts, even under his corporate names. None of them are at PSFS.” Judy flipped through the other returns in the folder. “Even as long ago as five years, nothing says PSFS.”

  Mary read down the list on the tax form. Her heart stopped midway. “Steere has two accounts at Mellon Bank, for $100,000 combined. Now why would he leave that much money in an account that earns almost nothing?”

  “What’s the difference? Mellon Bank isn’t the one Darning worked in.”

  “Yes, it is. Mellon bought PSFS about five years ago.”

  Judy blinked. “For real?”

  “Mellon came out of Pittsburgh in the eighties and started buying up all the Philly banks, including Girard, which was a real Philadelphia thing. My mother won’t bank at Mellon because they had the nerve to buy Girard.”

  “Odd.”

  “My mother?”

  “No. I love your mother. I like your mother better than you do.”

  But Mary was thinking. “Maybe Darning rose up in the ranks at the bank, and there was some finagling with Steere’s accounts or something. Bribes. Embezzlement.”

  “You’re guessing.”

  “Can you blame me?” Mary asked, but that was all she said or needed to. She didn’t want to talk about the past, she didn’t even want to think about it. And she certainly didn’t want to relive it.

  Suddenly there was a commotion outside the conference room. The lawyers heard Marta talking to someone and sprang into action like Pavlov’s associates. “Yikes!” Judy yelped, snatching the papers and photos from the table and stuffing them in the nearest accordion. “How’d Erect get here so fast?”

  Mary punched a key to wake the laptop. “She took the broom.”

  14

  Judge Harry Calvin Rudolph brooded at his heavy, polished desk in his modern chambers at the Criminal Justice Center, fingering the handwritten note that threatened to put the kibosh on his judicial career. The promotion of a lifetime was in striking distance, and Judge Rudolph wasn’t about to let it slip away, not at his age. His hands had only recently begun to sprout liver spots and the strands of hair sneaking from under his French cuffs were just silvering to gray. Judge Rudolph was in his prime as a jurist. A scholar, a leader. He could make history.

  Before he presided over the Steere case, Judge Rudolph had spent fifteen years on the Common Pleas Court of Philadelphia County. He’d wanted to be a judge so much in the beginning, he’d left private practice when it was beginning to prosper. Money wasn’t everything, and young Harry was drawn to the scholarship, trappings, and prestige inherent in a judge’s station. A robe, a gavel, a dais. He imagined what his Bucknell classmates would think. The frats who ignored him at rush week. Now Harry Rudolph was not only in the frat, he was the frat.

  Judge Rudolph twisted the piece of yellow legal paper in his hands, remembering his idealism in the beginning. Leave it to others to fight for money; let his colleagues battle for the ephemeral power of partnership. Judge Rudolph’s power was real, lasting, reinforced by judicial might. In his tenure on the bench he caused fortunes to change hands, ordered criminals to jail, and even locked up a couple of reporters. Judge Rudolph administered justice. When you had that, who needed money?

  Fifteen years later, Judge Rudolph did. Fifteen years later, money was all he needed. The income of his peers had skyrocketed past his, even though he was making a hundred grand a year. He’d heard that Blumenfeld was taking home $450,000 at Dechert Price & Rhodes and Simonsburger was raking it in at Morgan, Lewis. Hell, everybody was raking it in at Morgan, Lewis. Judge Rudolph couldn’t stand to look at their faces at reunions, law review banquets, or those rare occasions when his classmates appeared before him in court. He knew they were having the last laugh on the way home. In the Jag.

  Judge Rudolph set the note down. If he held it in his hands any longer he’d tear it in two. He stared at it in contempt, there on his soft green blotter in the middle of his glistening desk. Just last week, Dave DeCaro came to court defending a CEO at Witmark. DeCaro was tanned from a vacation on Grand Cayman. A winter vacation to the Caymans, for God’s sake, with all six kids and his wife. Judge Rudolph couldn’t have done that in a pig’s eye and he was ten times the lawyer DeCaro was.

  The judge laced his fingers in front of him, studying the note. Christ Almighty. Not now. There was an opening coming up on the state Supreme Court, and Judge Rudolph was a shoo-in for the nomination. Justice Harry C. Rudolph. Chief Justice H. C. Rudolph. Superchief. He wasn’t about to let this note ruin everything. Not his last chance.

  The Steere case had gone so well and the judge had done everything right so far. No cameras in the courtroom; a gag order as soon as the lawyers started yapping. Only fifty spectators at a time; all press conferences after business hours. Two side-bars a day; arguments limited to five minutes a side. He’d even seen to it that the Steere jury could deliberate through the snowstorm and bound Steere over at the courthouse. They didn’t call him “Rocket Docket” Rudolph for nothing, and that was exactly the kind of thing that got the attention of the big boys. Keep the cases moving and don’t fuck up the felonies. Steere was the case that would make him a Supreme Court justice. If this note didn’t queer it.

  Judge Rudolph fumbled beside his blotter for his reading glasses. Maybe he had misread it, in anger. Then again, maybe not:

  YOUR HONOR, ONE OF THE JURORS HAS A MEDICAL EMERGENCY AND WANTS TO TALK TO YOU.

  SINCERELY,

  CHRISTOPHER GRAHAM YOUR FOREPERSON

  The judge snapped off his glasses and barked, “Send him in!”

  “You were a tailor, Mr. Tullio?” Judge Rudolph glared over his glasses at the juror, who couldn’t have been more than five feet tall. He wore a brown suit with a hand-stitched lapel, worn thin.

  “Yes, Your Honor. Until I retired. Your Honor. Sir.”

  “You live in South Philadelphia, near Second Street. Is that right?”

  “Yes, sir. Your Honor. Near the museum.”

  “But the art museum�
��s on the parkway.”

  “The Mummers’ museum, I mean.” Nick nodded with jittery vigor. “Got the Mummers costumes and all. In glass.”

  Judge Rudolph cleared his throat. “Mr. Tullio, I understand you have a medical emergency. Do you?”

  “Yes. No. Your Honor. Not an emergency. I’m not bleedin’ or nothin’.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I just heaved, is all.”

  Judge Rudolph sighed deeply. “Is that your medical problem, Mr. Tullio? You—”

  “Heaved.” Nick slipped in the red cushion in the chair across from the judge’s big desk. The seat was too wide and slippery for his heinie. He had to hold on to the armrests just to stay up. Nick kept looking around but not so it was obvious. It was just him against the judge and the clerk and the lady with the machine. Nick had never been in such an important place as a judge’s chambers, with the papers and books and paintings. Thank God he was wearing his good suit. It paid for a man to be well dressed.

  “Mr. Tullio? Your medical problem is that you … vomited?”

  “It’s my ulcer.”

  “You have an ulcer?” asked Judge Rudolph, correcting the man, who’d pronounced it “elcer.”

  “Yes, an elcer,” Nick said anyway. “In my stomach. I want to go home.”

  Judge Rudolph would be damned if he’d lose a juror now. He’d sent the alternates home already, and it would take hours to get one back in the snow. The judge skimmed his voir dire notes, then the juror’s questionnaire in front of him. “You didn’t mention an ulcer in voir dire, Mr. Tullio. You didn’t say anything about an ulcer.”

  Nick slipped sideways in his chair. “I wasn’t sure I had one then. I mean, my doc said I don’t have one, but I know I do. It’s acting up from my nerves. It’s burning.”

  “Your doctor examined you and he said you don’t have an ulcer, is that right?”

  “Well, yeah. But my stomach has a hole in it, I can tell. And I heaved, which is like, proof. Your Honor. Sir.”

  “Do you need to see a doctor now?” the judge asked, as his stenographer tapped away. He was asking only for the record. A doctor wouldn’t work on a night like this, doctors made too much money. Only judges had to work on a night like this. Trial judges.

  “No, I don’t need no doctor. I ate six Turns. Tropical flavor.”

  “Fine. You don’t need a doctor.”

  “But my stomach hurts. From my nerves.”

  “You have an upset stomach, is that what your problem is?”

  “Yeah.”

  Judge Rudolph leaned back in his chair and snapped off his glasses. He examined their tiny hinges while he thought about his record. He had handled this issue. Kept it from the press and anyone outside his chambers. Blocked the lawyers out of the action with the promise of a next-day transcript. Downgraded an ulcer to an upset tummy. Time to get the tailor back to the jury room. “Perhaps if you had something to drink, you’d feel better.”

  Nick’s throat caught with hope. “You got anisette?”

  “For an upset stomach?” Judge Rudolph pursed his lips. All my trials, Lord. No pun intended.

  “It relaxes me. My stomach.”

  “Forget it,” the judge said flatly. “You’re in deliberations. You can have any nonalcoholic beverage you want. Soda or hot tea, a beverage like that.”

  “Maybe a nice glass of milk?”

  Judge Rudolph waved at his law clerk. “Joey, go get Mr. Tullio some milk.”

  “Milk?” repeated the clerk. “We don’t have any milk.” He was a short kid who didn’t look Italian to Nick, even though his name was Joey.

  The judge frowned. “What do you mean, we don’t have any milk?”

  “There’s no milk in chambers, Your Honor.”

  “Not even in the fridge?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “You put milk in my tea, don’t you?”

  “No. I put cream.”

  “Christ, Joey. Get the cream then.”

  Nick raised his hand weakly. “Uh, I can’t drink cream. It’s too heavy.”

  “This is light cream,” the clerk countered.

  “It has to be milk,” Nick said, but the judge and the clerk stared at him together. Nick wondered if they could sue him. Maybe he shouldn’t have said anything. So what if he heaved? He wouldn’t die. Nick felt himself slipping deeper into the big chair. He felt like he was drowning, like the only thing keeping him above water was the armrests. “Listen, I don’t need no milk. You can forget I said anything about milk, Your Honor. Joey, forget it.”

  “Not at all, Mr. Tullio,” said Judge Rudolph. He was protecting a record, not a stomach lining. “If you need milk, we’ll get you milk.”

  “That’s okay. That’s all right.” Nick shook his head nervously. “I don’t even like milk. I hate milk. Never liked it from when I was a little kid. I only drink it ’cause Antoinetta says to. If I never saw no more milk, I’d die happy. You can’t die from heaving, can you? It was like, dry heaving.”

  Judge Rudolph slapped his glasses back on. “Mr. Tullio, if we had milk, would you drink it?”

  Nick blinked. He wasn’t sure if you could lie to a judge and if you did, would you go to jail. Maybe it was like being under oath when you came into a judge’s room. Maybe it was like you swore on a Bible. Nick was sorry he said anything about his stomach. He shoulda just voted innocent like the other white people. He wished Antoinetta was here.

  “Get Mr. Tullio his milk, Joey,” ordered Judge Rudolph.

  The clerk blanched. “Your Honor, I don’t know how I’d get milk in a snowstorm. I’m sure all the stores are—”

  “I don’t care which tit you have to squeeze, Joey. Just get him the goddamn milk.”

  “Yes, sir,” the clerk said and took off.

  Judge Rudolph’s gaze stayed pinned to the tailor. This conversation should have been over ten minutes ago. The juror should be deliberating, not sitting in chambers complaining about his tummy. For God’s sake. Judge Rudolph hated the trial level. He belonged in the appellate tier, where the talk was about the law, not elcers.

  “I hope Joey’s okay out there,” Nick said, just to make conversation because the judge looked so mad at him.

  “I’m sure he’s fine.”

  “Prolly.”

  “Probably,” the judge corrected him.

  “Okay. Good. He prolly is,” Nick said, just to agree, but Judge Rudolph only looked madder.

  “I’m not worried about my clerk, Mr. Tullio, I’m worried about you,” Judge Rudolph said, though he didn’t mean a word of it. He was worried about how that “tit” would play in the newspapers if it came out. Would women’s groups oppose his nomination? “Remember, Carol,” he said to the stenographer, “this transcript is sealed until I say further.”

  Carol nodded, understanding. She’d worked for Judge Rudolph since her divorce. If he went up to the Court, he’d take care of her. She’d skip a couple grade levels and the benefits were out of this world. “Yes, Your Honor.”

  “Thank you.” The judge turned to the tailor and tried to look sympathetic. “Mr. Tullio if you have no other problems and you’re not in need of medical care, you can return to the jury and resume your deliberations.”

  “Uh, what? You mean, uh, go back?”

  “Yes, of course. I’ll send the milk in as soon as it arrives. The jury has a job to do right now, a very important job. Dinner tonight is scheduled for seven-thirty, under extended hours. You can get some substantive deliberation in before then, I’m sure.”

  “I don’t know. My nerves. The stress.”

  Judge Rudolph leaned farther over his desk, almost in the tailor’s face. He’d be damned if he’d let this pipsqueak screw him over. “You’re not telling me you’re too sick to deliberate, are you?”

  “Well, no. I mean, yeah. Yes. In a way. Your Honor.”

  “But you don’t need a doctor.”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “All you need is milk.”


  “Yes, Your Honor. Sir.”

  “So why can’t you go back and discuss the case?”

  Carol cleared her throat noisily, warning the judge off. Judge Rudolph knew he was treading on dangerous ground, especially since he hadn’t called the lawyers in. How close was he to reversible error? Where was that goddamn law clerk? Damn!

  “I can’t go back because my nerves…” Panic seized Nick and strangled the life from his sentence. He felt too scared to talk and too scared not to. He couldn’t go back to the jury and he couldn’t stay here with the judge. It was like he was caught in the middle and something was squeezing him in a fist. “I just wish Antoinetta was here,” Nick croaked, near tears.

  Judge Rudolph scrutinized the tailor, scanning his working-class features and searching his wet and rheumy eyes. Suddenly, the judge felt as if he could see into the man’s shopworn little soul. He understood what was happening, comprehended it with a crystalline clarity he hadn’t experienced since his law review comment. “I know just what you need, Mr. Tullio,” the judge said.

  “You do?” Nick asked.

  “Yes.” Judge Rudolph breathed in deeply and his chest inflated. When he ascended to the bench of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, he would do great things for the citizens of the Commonwealth. But right now he wanted them out of his chambers.

  15

  “I’m comin’ into the conference room with you,” Bogosian said as he faced Marta in the hallway at Rosato & Associates.

  “No.” As threatened as she felt inside, Marta had to stand her ground.

  “I gotta hear what you’re sayin’.”

  “You can’t.” Marta watched him eye the two young associates through the glass wall of the conference room. They were cleaning up the file, and Marta didn’t want Bogosian anywhere near them. She felt bad enough leading him to them. She wouldn’t jeopardize them further. “You can’t come in. It’s a privileged conversation.”