Dirty Blonde (12 page)

Then he passed in front of the lens, a short shadow, and the scene showed an empty bed. Cate pressed REWIND and watched again, confirming what she had seen. The man must have come in to turn on the camera. Maybe while she’d been waiting in her car, the motel owner had run upstairs.
No
. Partridge had called him from his car, alerting him that he was coming ahead, with a girl.

Ugh.

Cate returned to the TV screen. The slats from the louvers on the top and bottom made a black border, giving the impression of peeking through a keyhole, spying on an empty bed. She didn’t even want to think about how many women had been on tape without knowing. She could have been one. As Gina would have said,
serves you right.

Cate checked the bottom of the screen. The time read 10:05, in white numbers. She thought a minute. That would be about when she and Partridge got to the room.

Against the door.

Cate remembered her own words, sickened now by them. He had wanted to have sex on the bed, and now she knew why. In the end he’d given up on the bed and acceded to her request; he wanted the play more than the tape. Or maybe he figured he’d get her there, sooner or later. Next she heard voices on the tape, indistinct but sounding like a man and a woman. Cate played it back with the volume higher, to try to make out the words, but she couldn’t.

On TV, the scene showed the empty bed, with talking in the background interspersed with silences. She figured they were kissing at the door in the hallway, out of the shot. Then she heard the word
wait
distinctly. She rewound to make sure. “Wait!” Cate heard herself say it, unclear, but she knew it was her. She must have been struggling with the Tiffany bracelet, trying to get it off at this point.

Then she heard her voice louder, but she couldn’t understand what she’d been saying. It must have been when he’d been walking her backwards toward the bed. He’d wanted to get her in camera range, but she’d been fussing with the bracelet. Then Partridge walked backwards into the TV picture, his back to the camera, and fell onto the bed, throwing up his arms. The view was upside down, with the top of Partridge’s head to the camera and his legs stretched out on the bed, hanging over it at the knee.

Cate rewound to watch it again and hear what he’d said. He was laughing, and she caught “Damn” and then “Hurry!” Suddenly he sat bolt upright, and Cate knew he must have been listening to her say she wasn’t staying.

She watched herself walk into the frame—almost. She recognized her legs and the black Blahniks she’d worn yesterday, and the edge of her trench coat showed. In the next second she stepped closer, and the following frames showed her upper body in her raincoat, a flash of white silk blouse, and then her chin. But no more of her face.

Cate held her breath, then exhaled in relief. She had stopped there in the motel room, just out of camera range. She hadn’t walked far enough into the room to get her whole face.
Thank God!
Still her gut tensed, watching. She knew what would happen next. On the TV screen, Partridge was still sitting up with his back to the camera, and Cate could see her hand offer him a wad of bills, which he slapped aside, sending the cash flying. Next came words, indistinct until he shouted, “You can’t pay me!”

Cate played it again, and it came through almost understandably.
Had he said that?
She couldn’t remember.

On the TV, Partridge leapt off the bed and ran out of frame. He was coming after her. He’d shoved her against the door now. She tried not to think about his rough hand or the raw terror she felt. Then the screen went still, and there was a shot of the empty bed again, the bedcovers wrinkled slightly.

Cate watched the bottom of the screen. 10:13, 10:14, 10:15. Partridge would have been outside on the balcony now.

Cate edged forward in the seat. She didn’t know when he’d fallen. The tape could tell her something about his death. She watched, engrossed, the empty bed, and then Partridge came back into the room, staggering slightly. He stopped, faced the camera, then gave it the finger and burst into laughter. Then he fell face forward on the bed.

10:42, 10:43, 10:44.

Partridge didn’t move and he appeared to have fallen asleep. She kept watching, then the tape went black. She got up, went to the VCR, and slid out the tape. It was at its end. So either the section that Russo had given her was over or the camera had run out of tape. Maxell, a two-hour tape. They must have used it, filming the different girls, saving on tape by turning the camera on and off after each girl. She could verify by watching the porn, but she wasn’t up to that.

Cate looked up at the screen, gray with static snow. At some point, Partridge must have gotten up, groggy and drunk, gone outside in the rain and fallen off the balcony. She sank onto the padded arm of the chair. Partridge: a jerk, a pig. What had Russo said:
Ag assault, extortion, attempted rape.
It was still sad. He was dead.

Cate set the tape on the edge of the entertainment center, wondering how she had gotten herself into such a mess, then knowing exactly how she had gotten herself into this mess. Her sex life on tape, and now a detective believed she was a crooked judge.

She got up and went to the phone.

CHAPTER 14

Cate reached Gina after Warren had gone to bed. She told the story, start to finish, going back from morning until night. Afterwards there was complete silence on the end of the line. “Geen?”

“I’m here, trying to figure out when your life got so exciting. Sex videotapes? What is this world coming to?”

“No good.”

Gina sighed. “But you know what I don’t get? How did Russo know it was you on the tape?”

“It
is
me.”

“You said you couldn’t see your whole face, just the lower half. How does he know for sure that it’s you?”

“He does. He sounded like he did.”

“How was the audio? Could you tell it was your voice?”

“No, not really.” Cate thought about it. She’d been too panicked to analyze it before. “What if he remembered my outfit from court that day, or my shoes?”

“Is he gay?”

“He’s Italian.”

“Mutually exclusive.”

Cate laughed, feeling her body relax into the soft chair. But it was a puzzle. How
did
Russo know it was her? Then she realized something. “Wait a minute. He doesn’t know it’s me. Rather, he does, but he can’t prove it.”

“To who?”

“Oh no.” The answer struck Cate like a blow. “Hear me out. First Russo comes over and softens me up with his sob story. Then he surprises me with the tape and Partridge’s criminal record. Then he tells me things that I know are on the tape, like that he saw me throw the money.”

“Okay.”

“Then he confronts me with the porny part of the tape, knowing I won’t watch it with him there. He knew the tape wouldn’t show me, so he was tricking me with the
fact
of the tape itself. He wanted to scare me into admitting it was me. It’s Cross-Examination 101, isn’t it?” Cate straightened up, convinced. “He even said as much to me, at the door. He said, ‘Admit it. It was you.’”

“But so what if you admit it? He goes and tells somebody?”

Cate drew the only conclusion possible. “He must have been wearing a wire.”

Gina yelped. “Yo, that’s evil.”

“But smart. I bet he wired himself. He needed me to say it was me, on tape. Why? To prove it to his friend, his old partner, the detective on the Simone murder. Nesbitt.”

“I get it! He finds this juicy videotape in the motel, plugs it into the VCR and sees you, then he runs over to his old partner, whatever his name is—”

“Nesbitt. He tells Nesbitt it’s me on the tape, but Nesbitt watches it and isn’t buying it.”

“Inattentive blindness strikes again. His brain won’t let him see you because you’re not supposed to be there.”

“Ta-da!” Cate smiled. “Thank God that supposedly normal people can be in denial.”

“So Russo has to prove it to Nesbitt.” Gina paused. “But you think Nesbitt would tell him to wear a wire?”

“Hell, no. Nesbitt seemed like a straight arrow to me. I don’t think he’d sanction Russo threading a federal judge with a porn tape. To what end? I think Russo is losing it. He’s on his own.”

“So what are you gonna do? Tell Nesbitt?”

“No. Right now, I have deniability. It’s not me on that tape.” Cate flushed, embarrassed. “The last thing I want is them knowing about, well, you know. My dates. I started lying and I have to stick with it. And please don’t tell me about tangled webs.”

“I wouldn’t.” Gina’s tone warmed. “I feel terrible for you.”

“My own fault.” Cate shook her head. “And you know what? This morning I told Nesbitt that I went home after my date last night. He must have been surprised when his pal came up with the greatest-hits tape.”

“You’re still in the clear. Maybe he’ll think that was your date.”

“Or he’ll pretend he does for political purposes. There’s no margin in knowing dumb secrets about a federal judge.”

“Right. I’d let it lie. It’s bad enough you have this Russo gunning for you.”

“If I were the bitch he thinks I am, I’d get him fired. I’ll tell you one thing, he’d better not show up in my courtroom again.” Then Cate heard herself.
My
courtroom? She never thought she’d say that. If that was the silver lining to this cloud, it wasn’t silver enough.

“Russo can’t do anything to you, Cate. You’re not crooked, so he can’t prove that you are.”

“But he can make my life miserable. And it looks like he’s about to.”

“We won’t let him.”

“Right!” Cate said, cheering up.

“So meanwhile, did you say
two dozen roses
?”

Cate laughed. “Uh, yeah. Is that important right now?”

“You’re damn right it is. You wanna talk about what you’re going to do about The Tiffany Guy?”

“I already know,” Cate answered, and told her.

CHAPTER 15

Cate checked her watch: 1:32 a.m.
Argh
. She was sitting in front of her computer, working in her home office. She couldn’t sleep after Russo’s visit and she had work to do. Books on built-in shelves wrapped around the cozy study on two sides, mostly novels she couldn’t bring herself to give away, and a low, metal file cabinet sat against the far wall, containing pleadings and forms accumulated during practice. None of those forms would help her tonight.

A porcelain mug of tea grew cold on her left and multicolored M&M’s lay scattered to her right. Stacks of printed cases covered her desk, but she’d read them so many times in the past week she’d practically memorized them. She’d felt too paranoid to turn on the lights in the office, so the room was completely dark except for the square of monitor light that shone on the front of her body, illuminating a face scrubbed clean of makeup, a red cashmere bathrobe, and a high ponytail that made her feel too much the rookie for the task at hand.

Cate wrote, Marz premises this argument on his view that Pennsylvania should disregard the well-established precedent of definiteness

She skimmed the line and shook her head. It still wasn’t right. It had to be perfect. It felt so strange, issuing an opinion after Simone’s murder, but it was the court’s obligation. She deleted the sentence and wrote another.

Plaintiff premises this argument on his view that Pennsylvania should disregard the well-established precedent of definiteness

She paused, her hands on the keyboard. She’d been given a rough draft of the opinion by Emily, but it needed work, and in any event, Cate wanted every line of this opinion to be completely her own. She knew the press and her colleagues on the court would parse every sentence. She had to prove herself rock-solid on the law, especially because it had cost a man his life.

The precedent of definiteness of contract is well-established in Pennsylvania law and

It had hurt Cate to read the transcripts and to remember Marz on the stand. And Russo. But it had to get done, and the sooner, the better, so the press could quote from an opinion and get the facts right. Her stomach rumbled, but she hadn’t felt like eating, except for the M&M’s, which were medicinal.

Pennsylvania courts have always insisted that a contract be definite in its terms, especially where, as here,

Cate fussed with the sentence, trying to keep Russo and Simone in the back of her mind, in their proper compartment. But nobody was staying put in her head tonight, least of all Graham. She had called him after she hung up with Gina, but he wasn’t home, so she’d left him a message thanking him for the flowers and asking him to call her, no matter how late he got in.

It’s easier to avoid commitment than to sit around and wait for a man to call back.

Cate was kicking herself. She checked the clock again: 1:35. Graham must be in by now, right? Unless he had a date. And if he had a date, he should be home by now. Unless he was sleeping with someone. How many frigging bracelets did the man give out?

I hate Graham Liss. Unless he e-mailed me, which counts.

Cate brightened. She hadn’t thought of e-mail. It was late, and maybe he didn’t want to call and wake her. She moved the mouse to minimize the draft opinion and clicked onto Outlook Express for her e-mail, skimming the list of senders: The New York Times Direct, the Ritz-Carlton Reservations, Astrologers, USAToday.com, and the Benjamin Franklin Society. No e-mail from Graham.

Cate didn’t get it. He was the one with the full-court press. He was the one who called all day and sent the stupid flowers. He’d better have a good excuse for not calling, like a car accident. If he didn’t have an accident, she could run him over. She clicked to minimize Outlook, then thought better of it. She didn’t want to keep checking the little white envelope like an obsessive-compulsive, so she went into Options and checked the box that said, “Play sound when new messages arrive.” Then she minimized Outlook and got back to work.

It is axiomatic in Pennsylvania law that contracts must be

Cate kept going, finally producing a reasonably respectable discussion of contract law, writing and rewriting as she went, fueled by M&M’s and her drive to perfect the opinion. At some point, she realized that the process of writing was proving cathartic, and as it got later and later, and the world grew ever more still, she forgot about Graham, Simone, and even Russo, and worked efficiently and well, realizing that her truest reader wasn’t the press or even her colleagues on the court. She was writing for Marz, wherever he was, in order to explain to him, somehow, some way, as best as she could, that there was a good reason that he lost his dream in her courtroom. That there was a principle, which applied to him and all of us, and abided for all time. The principle embodied the law.