Final Appeal (5 page)

“El?”

She swivels slowly in her chair. Her eyes are puffy, and she rises unsteadily when she sees me. “Grace.”

I go over to her, and she almost collapses into my arms, her bony frame caving in like a rickety house. “It’s okay, Eletha. It’s gonna be okay,” I say, feeling just the opposite.

I rub her back, and her body shakes with highpitched, wrenching cries. “No, no, no,” is all she says, over and over, and I hold her steady through her weeping. I feel oddly remote in the face of her obvious grief, and realize with a chill I’m acting like my mother did when my father disappeared; nothing has changed, pass the salt.

I ease Eletha into her chair and snatch her some tissues from a flowered box. “Here you go.”

“This is terrible. Just terrible. Armen, God.” She presses the Kleenex into her watery eyes.

“I know.”

“I can’t believe it.”

Neither can I. I don’t say anything.

“I was going to call you when I came in, but I couldn’t.” Her eyes brim over again.

“It’s okay now.”

“Susan called me. This morning. Then the police. Then Galanter. God, how I hate that man!”

“It was Susan who found Armen, right?”

“She came in from Washington and there he was.”

“When did she come in, right before dawn?”

“I guess. I don’t know.” She blows her nose loudly.

“Who told Galanter?”

“I don’t know, why?”

“I don’t understand. I was with Armen until five.”

“So you two worked late.”

“Right.” I avoid her eye; Eletha left at two o’clock. Then I think of the noise I heard, or thought I heard. What time was that? “Eletha, last night after you left, did you come back to the office?”

“No, why?”

“When I was with Armen, I thought I heard somebody out here.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t they come into Armen’s office?”

“No. Not that I saw.”

She shakes her head; she’s not wearing any makeup today. “The clerk’s office, the staff attorneys, they got work to do on a death penalty case. Maybe it was one of them, dropping off papers.”

Just then the chambers door opens and in walk Sarah and Artie. They both look like they’ve been crying; I recognize Sarah’s anguished expression as the one I saw in the mirror this morning. She breaks away from Artie and storms into the room.

“Is Ben here?” she shouts, pounding past us to the law clerks’ office, her short cardigan flying. “Where the fuck is Ben?”

“I don’t know,” I say. “Eletha, do you?”

“He hasn’t called.”

Sarah punches the doorjamb with a clenched fist. “Damn it! I want to see him, the little prick!”

“Sar, stop,” Artie says. He walks numbly over to Eletha and puts his arm around her. “It’s not going to bring Armen back.”

Sarah strides to the phone on Eletha’s desk and punches in seven numbers without looking at anyone. “I’ve been calling that asshole all morning. Pick it up, you little prick!”

“Relax, Sarah,” I say.

Her blue eyes turn cold. “What do you mean, relax?” She slams down the phone.

“Look, we’re all hurting.”

“Ben’s not, he caused it. He pressured Armen about
Hightower
so he could get that fucking clerkship. He even showed him that newspaper article, the one about victim’s rights. He knew it would bother Armen. He didn’t care how much.”

“You’re talkin’ crazy,” Eletha says, between sniffles.

Sarah looks from her to me. “Grace, you saw him last night. Was he upset?”

“No,” I say, wanting to change the subject. “I thought I heard a noise—”

“What?” Sarah says. “What kind of noise?”

“I don’t know, a noise. Like someone was here, outside his office. Maybe around three o’clock or later.”

“Did you see anyone?”

“No.”

“So what if you heard a noise?”

“Nothing,” I say. “Unless it was you or Artie. Was it?”

Artie snorts. “At three? We were asleep.” Then he catches himself. “Oh, shit.”

Sarah glares at him. “Nice move, Weiss.”

So it’s true about them. I don’t understand Sarah; sleeping with Artie, but crazy about Armen. And Artie and Armen are so close.
Were
so close.

“Oh, what’s the difference now?” Artie says. “I don’t care if everybody knows, it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.” He looks at me and Eletha, his eyes full of pain. “I love her, okay? We fuck like bunnies, okay? Is that okay with you?”

“Sure,” I say. Eletha nods uncertainly.

“See, Sar, the world didn’t end.”

Sarah ignores him and presses
REDIAL
. “The important thing is to find Ben.”

I walk away from the tense group. I want to see Armen’s office before they do. Alone. I stop in the doorway, bracing myself. Still, I feel a sharp pang at the sight. My gaze wanders over the exotic brocade, the strange-looking documents, and the Armenian books in their paper dust jackets, frayed at the top. The place smells of him still; I can almost feel his presence. I can’t believe he would kill himself. Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t I see it coming?

I enter the room and finger the papers on the conference table. Everything is the way I remember it, except that some of the
Hightower
papers are gone, the ones he was working on at home. The cases are scattered over the table; the laptop is at the edge. Even the dog hairs on the prayer rug are the same. It reminds me of Bernice. Where was she last night when he killed himself? Where was I, sound asleep?

Suddenly I hear a commotion in the outer office, then shouting. I rush to the door and see Artie shove Ben up against the wall, rattling a group portrait of the appeals court.

“Artie, stop it!” I shout, but Eletha’s already on the spot. She steps in front of Ben, shielding him with her body.

“He deserves it!” Artie says, his chest heaving in a thick sweatshirt. He stands over Ben, who begins to
kack-kack-kack
in his old man cough, rubbing his head where it hit the wall.

“Back off!” Eletha says, in a voice resonant with authority. A sense of order returns for a moment; Eletha is in charge and we are in chambers. The king is dead, long live the queen. Then it passes.

“Where have you been?” Sarah shouts at Ben, who struggles to his feet, hiding almost comically behind Eletha.

“Go to hell, Sarah. I pulled an all-nighter, so I slept in. Do I need your permission?”

“You worked all night? On what?”

“
Germantown Savings
. I wanted to finish it.”

“You didn’t hear the phone?”

“No.”

“The fuck you didn’t!” Sarah looks like she’s about to pick up where Artie left off and Eletha wilts between them, her strength spent.

“Okay, Sarah,” I say, “cool it. You want to talk to Ben, do it when you’re calmer.”

Her eyes flash with anger. “Playing Mommy again?”

“Yes, it comes naturally. Now go to your room. Time out until the press conference.” I point to the clerk’s office.

“Press conference?” Eletha says. “Who’s givin’ a press conference?”

I check the clock above the chambers door. “Susan is, in fifteen minutes.”

Eletha’s eyes threaten to tear up again. “How can she? Before Armen’s body is even cold.”

“It’s not like it’s so easy for her,” Sarah says defensively, “but she feels the need to explain. The public has the right to know.”

I feel my heart beat faster. “She’s going to explain why he committed suicide?”

“That’s what she told me on the phone.”

“It’s his business, not the public’s,” Ben says, smoothing his tie.

Eletha looks as surprised as I do. “But how does she know? There was no note.”

“She’s his
wife
, Eletha,” Sarah says.

His wife. The word digs at me inside. If he hadn’t died, they’d have filed for divorce. Today.

We gather around the old plastic television in the law clerks’ office, watching Senator Susan Waterman take her place at the podium. I suppress a twinge of jealousy and scan her face for a clue about what she’s going to say. Her stoic expression reveals nothing. She looks like a wan version of her academic image; her straight dark-blond hair, unfashionably long, is swept into a loose topknot, and her small, even features are pale, a telegenic contrast to the inky blackness of a knit suit.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says. She glances up from the podium, unaffected by the barrage of electronic flashes. “My husband, Chief Judge Armen Gregorian of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, died this morning by his own hand, here in Philadelphia. He loved this city, even though it had not always been kind to him. Even though the press had not always been kind to him, and especially of late.” She glares collectively at the press, which dubbed the fierce expression “Susan’s stare” during her campaign.

“They’re all pricks,” Sarah says, but even she sounds spent.

Susan takes a sip of water. “My husband did not leave a note to explain his actions, but it is no mystery to me. Some are already saying he did it because of the press’s criticism of his liberal views, but I assure you that was not the reason. Armen was made of sterner stuff.” She manages a tight smile at the crowded room, having reprimanded and absolved them in one blow.

“I’ve heard others say it was because of the death penalty case he had to decide, and the stress and strain it may have caused him. It would break anyone, but not Armen Gregorian. He
was
made of sterner stuff.” She lifts her head higher, in tacit tribute. Eletha, in the chair next to me, squeezes my hand.

“On the surface, my husband had everything to live for,” Susan says. “He was the chief judge, and we had a wonderful, happy marriage that was a solid source of comfort and support to us both.”

What is she saying? They were on the brink of divorce.

“But my husband was Armenian. The genocide of the Armenian people is called the forgotten genocide. Most of his family was murdered. His mother survived, only to commit suicide herself. This month—April—is when Armenians remember their tragic history.” She looks around the room. “Like the Holocaust survivors who later died by their own hand, my husband was a victim of hate. Let us pause for a moment of silence to remember Armen Gregorian and to remember that the power of hate can destroy us if we do not fight against it.” The camera lingers on her bowed head.

Sarah begins to sob, and Artie hugs her close.

I lean back in my chair, as if pressed there by a gigantic weight. Armen told me about the genocide, though he didn’t tell me about his mother. But still, would he commit suicide because of it? That night? The genocide was on his mind, but so was
Hightower
. And me. I feel like crying, but the tears won’t come.

Neither will Ben’s. He looks knowingly at Sarah and Artie, cuddled together.

His dark eyes are bone dry.

6

J
udge Galanter’s breath carries the harsh tang of Binaca. Cigar smoke clings to the fine wool of his double-breasted suit. His movements are deliberate and his speech formal, as if he were trying to control each syllable. I know as sure as he’s standing before us, flushed slightly in front of Armen’s desk, that Galanter has been drinking. It evokes another memory of my father, flitting like a ghost across my mind.

“You law clerks can stay on for a week or two,” he says.

“We hadn’t even thought about it,” Artie snaps from the doorway.

“I’ll attribute that crack to your extreme emotional distress, Mr. Weiss.”

Artie looks away from Galanter, out the window. The courthouse flag flies at half mast, flapping in the wind that gusts off the Delaware River.

“Finish up the cases you’re working on. Draft the bench memos as before and hand them in to me. Argued cases will have to be reargued.” Galanter slides a gleaming Mont Blanc from his breast pocket and makes a check in a leather Filofax he’s holding like a missal. I can imagine what it says.

Things to do: Take over. Before noon
.

“Next order of business. The office will have to be packed up. How much time will you need, Eletha?”

Eletha sits at the end of the conference table, fuming. “I would have to talk to Susan about that,” she says, crossing her slender arms across her chest.

“Senator Waterman? Already spoke with her. She said it’s up to you. Box the stuff and ship it to the house, she’ll go through it there. How long will it take you? I have to plan my own move.”

“You mean you’re takin’ this office?” Eletha asks.

Galanter jerks his chin upward, as if the folds of his turkey neck were pinched in his collar. “Of course, it’s the chief judge’s. I’d like to be in in two weeks. By the way, I understand the staff attorneys need an extra secretary, so there’s room for you there. Talk to Peter about that.” He makes another check in his Filofax, and Eletha breathes in and out, in and out.

“Judge,” I say. “I was wondering—”

“Of course. I forgot about you. They may need an extra staff attorney downstairs. You should apply. Part-time will be a problem, you’ll have to step up to a normal work week.”

“No. I wanted to ask about
Hightower
.”

He purses his thin lips. “I’ve reassigned it. The death warrant expires Monday, but we’ll have it decided well in advance.”

“Who was it reassigned to?”

“That information is strictly need-to-know. Did I mention the memorial service?” He shoots a questioning look at Ben, who’s standing against the bookshelves. Ben shakes his head discreetly.

“Not a high priority,” Artie says.

Galanter points at Artie with his pen. “Don’t test me, young man. I’ve just about had it with your lack of respect.”

“Respect?” Artie explodes. “Who are you to talk about respect? Armen just died and you can’t wait to take his office. Can’t wait!”

“Artie,” Sarah says nervously.

“Listen, you,” Galanter says, raising his voice. “This court has to maintain operations. We have a public trust.”

“Fuck you!” Artie shouts, almost in tears. He storms out of the room into his office and slams the door.

“I’ve never seen such conduct in a law clerk! Ever!” Galanter says.