Blood Money (25 page)

Gusts of wind swept tiny, dry snowflakes across the frozen lawn. The leaded glass windows of the stone Tudor style Chestnut Hill home sparkled in the light of the wintry dawn. A limo driver paced nervously in the driveway, stamping his feet to keep warm as he waited for Judge Joseph Barnes. But the judge was taking his time. This was a big day—the opening of a high-profile trial where he would be prominently featured as the presiding trial judge. He carefully checked himself out in the long, antique mirror hanging over the entry hall table. He moved his face to and fro, checking his shave. It was clean. His skin was smooth and shiny. He patted his jowls with the back of his hand. He liked them. They made him look more distinguished, wiser and worthy of trust. He smoothed back his salt-and-pepper hair as he moved his head to the side to get a better view of the haircut he had recently gotten. It was fresh. It looked good, no stray hairs at the ears.

Next he donned a long, black, cashmere overcoat. It was almost as authoritative as his black robe. He adjusted his red silk tie so that it peeked ever so slightly out between the coat lapels. And then the last touch—the white silk scarf laid carefully around his neck so that the ends were absolutely even. He never tucked it inside his coat. He wanted the expensive, long, hand-knotted fringe to show.

Outside, the driver pulled up his collar against the cold. The blood seemed to leave his hands. He had rung the bell to alert the judge fifteen minutes ago. But he was made to wait outside until His Honor made his exit. He was not permitted to wait inside the limousine, which had to be kept running so that it would be just the right temperature for His Honor. Judge Barnes wanted his driver standing
outside,
ready to open the rear door for him when he decided that it was time. And it was not—at least not yet. He regretted accepting the assignment of being the driver for
the peacock of the Court of Common Pleas. At first he had been pleased as hell with the patronage job. But then after a few weeks of being spoken down to, or not being spoken to at all, he came to hate the judge, and the job. But what good would it do? Wasting energy on hatred. It was too cold. He blew hard into his cupped, black leather gloves.

Finally, the dark oak door opened and His Honor stepped briskly out, avoiding eye contact with the underling.

The driver opened the nearest rear passenger door for the man he disliked, and could possibly hate, although it wasn’t worth the effort. He didn’t expect a thank-you, or a nod, or anything. And he didn’t get it. Accepting his position, he simply closed the door, got into the driver’s seat and put the limo into gear. The heavy car carefully made its way toward Kelly Drive, humming softly past other stately stone mansions built around the turn of the last century.

Barnes was proud of his neighborhood. It was still within the city limits, as a judge’s home had to be by local law. The homes were large. Some were considered mansions by current standards—the palaces of nineteenth-century industrial tycoons. Some had been kept as single-family dwellings. Some had become schools for the children of the privileged. But the largest had been converted into small museums. He admired the ancient oaks and sycamores that he drove past each morning. He felt he had something in common with them—endurance, power, and timelessness. He was pleased with the high stone walls and ornate iron gates leading to meticulously maintained lawns.
Ah yes
, he thought,
this is living
. And when he was elected to Supreme Court, he’d move into one of the largest and the best—one with
ten
fireplaces. He liked fireplaces. They were traditional and enduring, like himself.

The limo phone rang softly. The driver picked it up on the first ring.

“Your Honor, it’s your clerk, sir. He would like to speak with you.”

Without responding to the driver, Judge Barnes continued his fix on his elegant surroundings as they quietly slid past his window.
He picked up the phone from the rear console, still staring out the window.

“Yes, Thomas. What is it?”

“Your Honor. It’s Nick Ceratto. He’s requesting an
ex parte
conference with you at eight a.m. He says it’s urgent…”

“I don’t care if it is urgent,” Barnes interrupted coldly. “Didn’t you tell him, Thomas, that I don’t conduct
any
pretrial matters without the presence of
all
attorneys involved? In this case, John Asher?”

“I did, Your Honor. But he was insistent that I call you to make the request. He said that there’s an ethical problem with the case and he’s going to request leave to withdraw based on this serious problem.”

“What? At this late date? Withdraw and postpone this case? Never! I won’t allow it.” Barnes’s face reddened, something he hated. It represented a loss of control when control was critical. His career depended on this case—on his presiding over this case. He had groomed himself for it for three years. He was not about to hear something which might be so important that he would have to postpone the trial or, even worse, have to recuse himself.

“I agree, Your Honor. I agree. But shouldn’t you meet with Ceratto to find out what he knows that you should be aware of before going public…?”

The U-word. His clerk hadn’t used it, but Barnes was terrified of it. He prided himself on his purity of character and pristine professionalism, his ability to never be affiliated with anything or anyone that smacked in the least of impropriety…of
unethical conduct
. And in this case? Never. He had seen to it that the attorneys conducted themselves impeccably, that scheduling had been done fairly, giving each side ample time to conduct its investigation. It had to be the work of Joe Maglio, he thought. That lying, scheming wop. And now the other guinea was going public—and it was going to cost him his life’s work. He wouldn’t have it.

“Tell Ceratto to meet me in my chambers at eight sharp. And I want my court reporter present and ready. Call Mary. Tell her
to be prepared to deal with this. And tell her to call John Asher. I want him waiting at my chambers while this meeting is going on. I want all staff on high alert and ready to go. Keep the jury happy. Get them doughnuts and coffee, comic books or something the simpletons understand. Ceratto’s not going to do this to me!”

“And to his clients, sir,” the clerk unwisely interjected.

“Fuck his clients. This is my trial and my courtroom and my reputation. Got that, Thomas?”

“Yes sir. Yes, Your Honor.”

“Good.” Barnes slammed the phone into its cradle. He had never taken his eyes from the window. His stare was as cold and icy as the half-frozen Schuylkill River, which had come into view as they turned onto Kelly Drive on their way toward the city’s center and its impressive skyline.

Cigarette smoke blew back into the detective’s face as he exhaled into the wind. He flipped the butt from his open car window into the slush-covered street and moved his aching bones from the filthy vehicle he had been assigned. Finally out of the driver’s seat, Ralph Kirby removed a few dangling threads from the sleeve of his frayed overcoat so that he could read his Timex. Eight o’clock.
Perfect
, he thought. He had fifteen or so minutes to talk to the Lopez girls before they went off to school. He rang the bell and waited on the freshly shoveled stoop. The exterior of the small, two-story, brick row house was immaculate. The trim was freshly painted. The brass doorknob was polished to a glimmer. A lighted statue of the Virgin Mary smiled kindly at him from the squeaky clean picture window. She was flanked by two small vases of plastic flowers. It was clear that the home was well kept and lovingly cared for by good, honest, hardworking people. It stood out like a jewel from the blight around it.

The detective rang the bell again, hoping for some relief from the relentless cold and wind. He squinted and pulled up his coat collar. He could feel a virus approaching, to which he would refuse to succumb as usual. Sometimes he won. Sometimes he didn’t. But what was important to him was to keep fighting. As with this case, which he needed to wrap up before Gates put it in limbo again. He smelled a rat for sure and wanted to find it before it went underground again.

He felt for the small glassine envelope in his coat pocket. It was there, safely tucked away in the only pocket not opened at the seams from the wear and tear of carrying many small significant, and insignificant, pieces of evidence over the years. The coat, like he himself, was tired and needed a well-deserved rest. He finally heard the dead bolt disengage with a hard click. A sliver of space
appeared at the edge of the door revealing part of a small face through the narrow opening protected by a chain lock. A brown eye framed by thick dark lashes appeared. Kirby bent down and put his face close to the door. He was hoping that his crouched position would minimize his largeness and make him more acceptable to the small person behind the partly opened door.

“Hello there,” he smiled awkwardly. “My name is Detective Ralph Kirby.”

The child said nothing. Her dark eye darted back and forth with caution as she surveyed the situation.

“I’d like to talk to you and your sister. Can I come in?”

Still no response.

Kirby desperately tried to think of something to say that would win her trust, but everything he thought of sounded as if it came from the mouth of a pederast:
Hello, little girl, I have something to show you.
But he did have something to show her. He decided to overcome his reluctance and just show it to her. “I have something that was your mother’s.” He reached hurriedly into his pocket, hoping that she wouldn’t smash his nose between door and the frame, fumbling with the slippery flap of the envelope, and took the tiny, brass key between his thumb and forefinger. “See,” he said, still feeling uncomfortable with the attempt to lure her to open the door.

Immediately the chain latch fell and the door swung open. Still crouching, Kirby found himself face-to-face with the second grader. The child stood under four feet tall. Her raven black hair was tightly pulled back into a pony tail and tied with a white ribbon. Her school uniform, a plaid jumper, was two sizes too large to allow for at least another two years of growth before another had to be bought. Either that, or it was a hand-me-down from her older sister. Although the hem almost reached to her ankles, she didn’t appear to mind. It was clean and she was proud to wear it.

“Lily,” a voice called angrily from behind her. Suddenly an older girl appeared, dressed in an identical uniform. She stepped protectively in front of the smaller child, obviously her sister.

“What do you want?” she asked in as husky and hostile a tone as she could muster. Her hand was on the door, ready to slam it shut in Kirby’s face.

Kirby was quick to anticipate the girl’s inevitable refusal to cooperate. And understanding it fully, he stood erect and gave her his most professional detective look. There was no conning this one, he thought. “I need to speak to you and your sister,” he said. He pulled out his badge and flashed at the older girl. “I’m Detective Ralph Kirby.”

“Can I see your badge again?” she said.

He opened the wallet and held it at her eye level. The girl studied it, looking back and forth between the ID and Kirby.

“You have another picture ID to match this—like a driver’s license or passport, or something?”

Kirby laughed silently to himself.
The kid’s savvy and got chutzpah
. He complied.
What’s good for the goose is good for the gander
, he thought, as he waited while she compared photos and signatures.

“You look a lot younger in these pictures, mister,” she said, suspiciously. “The job musta gotten to you. They say age kicks the shit outta ya.”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head.

“OK, step in.” She allowed him only as far as the tiny, tiled vestibule. “What’s this all about?”

“Do you have an adult who’s in charge here?” he asked, patronizingly. This was proper procedure when questioning children, and he liked to go by the book, especially with kids.

“I’m an adult and I’m in charge,” she said while pushing Lily back to allow Kirby room.

“No, I mean like a grandmother, an aunt, a neighbor, somebody in charge.”

“
I’m
in charge,” she insisted. “Can’t you hear right?”

“But,” he shook his head, “I can’t…”

“What? You can’t hear—or you can’t talk to a kid?” She started moving forward to push him out the door. “OK, then you can leave.”

“No. No, I can talk to you,” he stammered. Outmaneuvered by a kid—
Damn!
he thought. “Ever think of being a detective?”

“Nope. I wanna be on the other side. I’m going for a law degree—criminal law. I wanna be a constitutional lawyer.”

“You’d make a darn good one…ah…” he hesitated. “Your name?”–a standard question meant to break the ice.

“You gonna take out your pad and take notes?”

“No, I wasn’t thinking of…”

“You better, mister,” she warned, shaking her head. “A lotta bullshit’s been going on around here.”

“He wants to show us Mommy’s key,” Lily chimed in. “Mister, show her the key.”

“Let’s see it,” the older girl commanded, holding out her hand.