Dirty Blonde (31 page)

“I did that, too. There wasn’t much, but I took it. We’re all packed.”

“Wow.” Cate managed a smile, and they left.

The trip home went quickly, the sun clear and cold outside the car window. Brady opened up about his feelings, the way people tend to do on long car rides, except that his only feelings concerned the Eagles. He was so annoyed by Terrell Owens that he almost drove over the divider and he believed that Donovan McNabb was “too damn happy” to win a Superbowl. Cate listened idly, making the appropriate noises and watching the RV dealers whiz past the window. By the time Brady had established that Andy Reid “totally deserved” Coach of the Year, they were pulling into her driveway, where not a single member of the press stood watch.

“Amazing,” Cate said, at the sight. “What a difference from the other day, remember?” Her house, peaceful and undisturbed. The street, quiet, and the neighbors, evidently all at work. The snow that had fallen so hard upstate was nowhere to be seen here. It was all back to normal, and she was home.

“I know. Even the Philly press is gone.” Brady leaned over and shut the ignition. “He’s from Doylestown, I hear, that movie star guy. The reporters moved up in there. Stalking his high school principal. Finding his prom date. You know, who went to the prom with Mark Martinez.”

“Melendez.”
Don’t you read
Cosmo
?
Cate grabbed her bag and got out of the car, in her dumb outfit. She thanked Brady with an awkward hug good-bye and went up her sidewalk, feeling separation anxiety for her federal babysitter.

She climbed the steps to the front door and remembered that she’d lost her house keys in the snow, so she went into the secret lockbox hidden behind a bush out front, pressed in the code, and retrieved the extra key. She unlocked the door with Nesbitt in the back of her mind, with his yin/yang of magazine subscriptions. She wondered if she’d see him again, now that the murders were solved and nobody was trying to kill her.

Not that it mattered.

Cate stood at the granite island in her kitchen, talking to Gina on the phone and sorting her mail. There had been a stack of it, slid through the mail slot in the front door and spilling in a messy heap when she got inside.

“Of course you’ll see him again!” Gina said, on the other end of the line. “Only you could find a bad side to the fact that you’re finally safe.”

“I’m not sure I want to, anyway.” Cate had thrown away the newspapers that came in while she was gone. She didn’t need to see those headlines. At least she was yesterday’s news. “Is he my type?”

“He’s your
new
type. Strong, reliable, and out of jail.”

Cate smiled. “This is silly, this whole conversation. I mean, nothing’s going on. He was a detective assigned to the case, and that’s that.”

“He’s a man, and you’re an Italian. Enough said.”

“He’s not attracted to me. If he liked me, he would have found a way to drive me home.”

“He got busy, catching murderers. Give the guy a break. He called here to tell me not to worry about you and
he
sounded worried about you. That reminds me, did you see a shrink yet?”

“I’ve been a little busy, dodging bullets.” Cate set aside for disposal the catalogs for Nordstrom’s, Ann Taylor, Strawbridge’s, Bloomingdale’s, and Neiman Marcus. Then she retrieved the Neiman’s.

“Call. Soon. Now tell me what happened in Centralia. What a nut job! Russo tried to run you over?”

“It’s a long story. I don’t want to tell you while you’re driving around. I’ll tell you tonight. It’s Monday. Our date night.”

“I can’t tonight. Uh, Justin’s bringing over a DVD he wants me to see,
The Godfather
. I never saw it.”

“Are you serious?”

“Lots of people have never seen it.”

“No, that you’re ditching me for Justin!”

Gina giggled. “Yo. Suburban moms need bodyguards.”

“Is it a love connection?”

“I just like the guy. His brother has cerebral palsy, and he lives at Elwyn. So Justin understands, at least some things.”

“He’s thirty!”

“Younger works for me. Nesbitt’s older, right?”

“Older works for me.” They both laughed, and Cate warmed at the excitement in her friend’s voice. She hadn’t heard her that happy in years. “Good. Great. Go for it. I bought him through next week. Consider him a late Christmas present.”

Gina laughed. “I’m not above paying for it, especially when you are.”

Cate smiled, stacking a PECO bill on top of a Verizon Wireless bill. Then Comcast. “How’s the baby?”

“Fine. He likes Justin.”

“He does?” Cate came upon a bill for a
Cosmopolitan
subscription and thought of Nesbitt. “I’m jealous. He’s not allowed to like anybody except me.”

“Way to be possessive of a kid I’m trying to socialize.”

“Hey, maybe we can go on an imaginary double-date. You bring your imaginary law-enforcement hunk, and I’ll bring mine.”

“I have a bone to pick with you. It said in the newspaper that you were stepping down indefinitely. Chief Judge Sherman is quoted. What does that mean? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Gulp.
“It means I’m fired, unless I sue the bastards. And first I need to find a lawyer willing to bite the hand that feeds him.” Cate came upon a yellow envelope forwarded from her chambers, according to the return address. The name on the front was in Val’s handwriting, and she felt a twinge of loss.

“I can’t believe this. They can’t fire you. District judges are appointed for life.”

“We’ll see what they can do. For now, I’m going to decompress and figure out my next move.” Cate opened the envelope and out slid a small white letter and a Sephora catalog bearing a Post-it from Val that read, “Miss you.” Cate thought,
Miss
y
ou, too.

“You should get away. Take a vacation. Get some sun.”

“Nah.” Cate eyed the letter, feeling a draft from her back door, still boarded up from Russo’s break-in. The front of the envelope showed feminine handwriting, and it had been marked PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL, which was why Val had forwarded it unopened. Cate didn’t recognize the letter’s return address. “I have to do some things around the house. Things I’ve been wanting to do, to make it nice.”

“Who is this? You? Wanting to putter around the house?”

“Yes.” Cate opened the letter with a fingernail and pulled out a few leaves of white notepaper, folded in two. She skimmed the first few lines. “
Dear Judge Fante, Please forgive me for writing to you, but you are my last resort and…”

Gina was saying, “Are you nuts? Miami’s perfect this time of year. Go to South Beach. Walk around Lincoln Road and buy shoes you don’t need, like we did last year.”

“I have enough shoes I don’t need.” Cate read, “
I could tell by your compassion during our trial…”

“Then how about the Caribbean? Get away before the papers remember who you are.”

“…are the only person I could turn to and…”
Cate set the letter aside to read later. Since she’d become a judge, she’d gotten so many letters from girlfriends, wives, mothers, and even children of inmates, asking for her help. They all believed their loved ones were innocent, and even if Cate agreed, there was nothing she could do except send a form reply. But something about this letter made her pick it up again. Then she realized who it was from.

“Or go to a spa. That’s the new thing. Cate, you there?”

“I know that you will feel the same way once you…”

“Hello?”

“I have to go, okay?” Cate folded the letter into thirds. “Talk to you later.”

“Where you going in such a hurry?”

Uh
. “The bathroom? Give the baby a kiss for me.”

Cate felt a surge of renewed energy and ran upstairs to change.

CHAPTER 39

Cate left her heavy coat in the rental car, feeling warm enough in the black wool suit, and walked up the front path to a modest gray stone twin house, much like the others on this winding street in Wynnefield, about half an hour outside Center City. Her black pumps clicked on the frozen flagstone, the cadence slowing as she approached the front door.

She was beginning to regret coming here, though she’d been asked. The timing couldn’t have been worse. Cate didn’t know what she’d face inside. What if people recognized her? At the rent-a-car, the young clerk had made her instantly, his eyes lighting up the moment she’d walked in. He’d offered her a free upgrade from the Acura, which she didn’t accept, but she still didn’t relish the notoriety. What if she caused a fuss inside? How would everybody react to her after she’d introduced herself? She wouldn’t find any friends here and wouldn’t expect any.

She reached the front door, noting the silvery bowlful of water beside the doorjamb, and followed the instructions, plunging her fingertips into the water, though the surface had almost frozen over. The thin ice shattered like red syrup on a candied apple, and the frigid water chilled Cate’s hands to the bone. She wiped her hands on her coat, whether or not that was permissible, and followed the rest of the directions, opening the front door without knocking and finally slipping off her pumps, revealing her stocking feet. She looked around the room, hoping that reinforced toes were in order at a shiva.

But the living room was completely empty. The house was quiet. Cate had been told the door would be left open, so that mourners wouldn’t be disturbed, but there were no mourners. Odd, low benches ringed the small living room in front of a beige sectional couch and chairs, but they were all unoccupied, like empty chairs at a canceled show. A cushioned stool sat at the fireplace, vacant.

“Hello?” Cate called out, wondering if she was in the wrong house.

“Judge Fante?” Mrs. Marz came hurrying in from another room, walking toward Cate with a nervous smile, her hand extended. “Thank you so much for coming,” she said in a soft voice.

Cate relaxed and shook her hand. “I’m very sorry about your loss, Mrs. Marz.”

“Please, call me Sarah.” Richard Marz’s young wife looked prettier up close than she had in the front row of the courtroom gallery, though her eyes were a bloodshot blue, ringed by weary gray circles. She wore no eye makeup, and her small mouth was unlipsticked, her lips tilted down, her grief undisguised. Her brown hair had been styled into a bob that seemed overly coiffed until Cate realized it was a wig, and she wore a black knit suit that was too old for her, draping in a way that hid her compact form. “Judge, come, would you like something to eat? It’s lunchtime.”

“Yes, thank you.” Cate realized how hungry she was when she was led into a dining room filled with the aromas of seasoned roast beef, a fresh spinach salad dotted with tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, and three baked chickens. The delicious feast looked untouched next to a stack of glistening dinner plates and clean silverware. “This is amazing. You must have food for fifty people here, easily.”

“I didn’t make it, we’re not permitted to. My family brought most of it, but they went back last night.” Sarah’s face fell, and her voice grew soft. “My mother passed away when I was little, and my father is from California and he had to get back to his business. He couldn’t sit the entire week. He’s not as observant as we are—as I am. Richard was Orthodox, and his family came for the
sedat havra’ah
, the meal of consolation after the funeral, and they’ll be here later.”

“That’ll be nice.”

“My friends from temple choir, they came, and some of our friends from the congregation, but they’re all so uncomfortable, with the circumstances. I can tell.” Sarah shook her head unhappily. “They seem distant. And there are many people I thought were friends who didn’t come.”

“Why not?”

“I can only guess that I’m the wife of a murderer now. The wife of a suicide.”

Cate fell silent, watching hurt etch lines into Sarah’s young face, as surely as a drawing pen filled with ink.

“Maybe I’m wrong, but I think there would have been more people here, everyone, if Richard had been killed in a car accident. But a suicide, and a murderer? People don’t know how to react. Maybe out of respect for me, or because of their own discomfort, I don’t know. I feel like a social pariah, overnight.” Sarah picked up a plate and filled it with the choicest slices of medium-rare roast beef, a few florets of broccoli, and a scoop of golden noodle pudding, replacing a heavy silver ladle on a spoon rest so as not to drip on the lace tablecloth. “I know this will sound terrible, but a woman down the street, her husband was killed in a car crash. She had cars around the block, from all the shiva calls. Evidently all widows are not created equal. But enough. Would you like salad?” she asked, which was when Cate realized the food plate was for her.

“Yes, thanks. And I could have done that myself.”

“It’s the least I can do, for your coming, for your kindness. Have you made a shiva call before?”

“No. I’ve been to plenty of bar mitzvahs, but not a shiva.”

Sarah lifted a pair of silver tongs and plucked some fresh greens from the huge salad bowl, then set a slice of hard-boiled egg on top. “The round food served at shiva reminds us of the circle of life. Dressing?”

“Yes, thanks.”

“It’s Italian.”

“Works out perfect.”

“Yes.” Sarah laughed, a surprisingly girlish sound, and spooned some oil and balsamic vinegar carefully onto the salad. Between the wig and the heavy, mature pantsuit, she gave the appearance of a little girl playing dress-up in her mother’s clothes, which Cate found endearing.

“You’re handling all of this very well, in the circumstances. I don’t know if I could bear up with such style.”

“It’s all an act,” Sarah shot back, then laughed.

“Tell me about it.” Cate nodded, laughing with her.

Sarah shook her head, seeming finally to relax. “This has been so terrible, as I said in the letter. The family, torn apart, in an uproar. Everybody hurting, in pain.” Sarah sighed. “As a suicide, Richard couldn’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery, but his father was an Orthodox rabbi and he passed away two years ago. It was out of respect to him and my mother-in-law that they admitted Richard and gave him a proper burial.”