I pushed open the double doors to Division 12 and walked right in. More often than not, family sessions are closed, witnesses kept out in the corridor, but this morning I got lucky. Judy was hearing motions from a pair of reasonable-sounding attorneys, scheduling hearings, bantering with her bailiff, a man named Leonard Stickney, who knew me.
I sat in the back row, the only spectator. Leonard Stickney noticed me first and gave a small salute.
A second later, Judy saw me and her eyes opened wide. Black-robed and regal behind the bench, she turned away, got businesslike, ordering the lawyers to do something within thirty days’ time.
I sat there and waited. Ten minutes later, she dismissed both attorneys, called for recess, and motioned Leonard over. Covering her mike with one hand, she whispered to him behind the other, stepped off the bench and exited through the door that led to her chambers.
Leonard marched up to me. “Doctor, Her Honor requests your presence.”
Soft lighting, carved desk and credenza, overstaffed chairs, certificates and award plaques on the walls, family photos in sterling silver frames.
I concentrated on one particular snapshot. Judy’s younger daughter, Becky. The girl who’d gotten too thin, needed therapy, tried to play therapist with Stacy.
Becky, who’d been tutored by Joanne. Whose grades had dropped after the tutoring had stopped.
Becky, who’d gotten too thin as Joanne grew obese. Had severed her relationship with Stacy.
Judy slipped out of her robe and hung it on a mahogany rack. Today’s suit was banana yellow, form-fitting, trimmed with sand-colored braiding. Big pearl earrings, small diamond brooch. Every blond hair in place.
Shiny hair.
She reclined in her desk chair. Glittery things occupied a good portion of the leather desktop. The picture frames, a crystal bud vase, an assortment of tiny bronze cats, millefleur paperweights, a walnut gavel with a bronze plate on the handle. Her bony hands found a weight and rubbed it.
“Alex. What a surprise. We don’t have any cases pending, do we?”
“No,” I said. “Don’t imagine we ever will.”
She squinted past me. “Now, why would you say that?”
“Because I know,” I said.
“Know what?”
I didn’t answer, not out of any psychological calculation. I’d thought about being here, rehearsed it mentally, had gotten the first words out.
I know.
But the rest of it choked in my chest.
“What is this, riddle time?” she said, trying to smile but managing only a peevish twist of her lipstick.
“You were there,” I said. “At the motel with Joanne. Someone saw you. They don’t know who you are, but they described you perfectly.”
What Maribel had really seen was hair. Short yellow hair.
A skinny woman, no butt on her. I only saw the back of her, she was getting into the car when I came out to fill the ice machine.
She had this hair—real light, real shiny, a really good color job. That hair was shiny from across the parking lot.
“Mate had nothing to do with it,” I said. “It was just you and Joanne.”
Judy reclined a bit more. “You’re talking nonsense, my dear.”
“One way to look at it,” I said, “was you were helping a friend. Joanne had made her decision, needed someone to be there with her at the end. You’d always been a good friend to her. The only problem is, that friendship had cooled. For good reason.”
I waited. She wasn’t moving. Then her right eyelid twitched. She pushed back from the desk another inch. “You’re starting to sound like one of those psychic idiots—talking obliquely in the hope someone will take it for wisdom. Have you been under strain, Alex? Working too hard? I always thought you pushed yourself—”
“So friendship would be the charitable interpretation of what brought you out to Lancaster with Joanne, but unfortunately that wasn’t it at all. Joanne’s motivation for destroying herself was crushing guilt—some sin she couldn’t forgive herself for. Richard never forgave her,
either. And neither did you. So when she asked you to be there, I don’t think you minded one bit about seeing her reach the end.”
Her lips folded inward. Her hand reached out among the objects on her desk and found one. Walnut gavel. Brass plaque on the handle. An award. The walls were paneled with tributes.