Judging Time

LESLIE CLASS

JUDGING TIME

(l)

A SIGNET BOOK

SIGNET

Published by New American Library, a division of

Penguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street,

New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

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First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library, a division of Penguin Putnam Inc. Previously published in a Dutton edition.

First Signet Printing, February 1999 10 9 8 7

Copyright
©
Leslie Glass, 1998
AU
rights reserved

CD

REGISTERED TRADEMARK-MARCA REGISTRADA

Printed in the United States of America

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book
is
stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."

For my mother, Elinor Gordon, whose passion was justice

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

First I want to thank all the good people at NYPD who risk their lives around the clock to make New York City a safe place to visit and to live. My goal with this, as with all my books, was to create characters in realistic situations, who are true to life but do not resemble any real people in the precincts and other agencies I describe. This is a work of fiction.

I want to thank former commanding officer of Mid-town North, Inspector Diane Prizutti, for letting me visit, and commanding officer of the 30th Precinct, Inspector Jane Perlov, for letting me sit at her desk, metaphorically speaking. Thanks to Pam Delaney and all my friends at the Police Foundation, who do so much to help in so many ways. Thanks to the good people at New York University School of Law—Jim Jacobs, Steve Zeidman, Debra LaMorte, and of course, Dean John Sexton, who educated me relentlessly. Thanks to the Glass Institute Fellows and Dr. Wilma Bucci for dedication above and beyond. Thanks to Dr. Richard C. Friedman for the vital help in psychology that makes such a difference, and to my favorite cousin, Dr. Deborah Loeft, who brought me the murder weapon from Chicago and taught me how to kill.

Thanks to my agent, Nancy Yost, for deliverance and to Dutton Signet for everything else, especially good judgment and other editorial excellences, by Audrey LaFehr, and leadership, by Elaine Koster.

Last, kudos in order of their appearance to Edmund, Alex, Lindsey, and Peanut, my very best friends this and every year.

We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it—and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again—and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one any more.

—Mark Twain

Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar

1

A
t fifteen minutes after midnight on January sixth, when Merrill Liberty took a phone call at her table in Liberty's Restaurant, she had thirty minutes to live.

"It's the boss." Patrice, the cocoa-colored maitre d' from Haiti, smiled and handed her a mobile phone.

Merrill tensed and made a face before reaching for the phone. "Where are you?" she asked in a low voice.

"Just got in." Her husband's voice sounded as strained as hers.

She nodded at her companion—he's back—then leaned forward in her wicker chair with its high fan back. "What took so long, Rick?"

"Hey, don't start, baby. Haven't you noticed it stinks out there? My flight was canceled. I just squeaked in on another airline. I'm lucky to be here tonight at all."

"Same old story." Merrill's voice, so often sweet and silky in her TV roles, took on its less famous offstage sulk. "You didn't have to go," she muttered.

Frederick Douglass Liberty—known as Liberty in his football days—sighed his martyr sigh. "You know I had to go."

"No, I don't." Merrill glanced at Tor, who was shaking his head at her, smiling and pouring himself the last of the wine.

"Say I said hello," Tor murmured.

Merrill ignored him.

He shrugged.

"If the weather was so damned bad why risk your life?" Merrill demanded.

"For you, baby. I risked it for you."

"How's your head?"

"The head's all right, but I'm exhausted. How was your evening?"

Once again Merrill fixed her deep green eyes on Tor. He was sipping wine and smiling. "First rate."

"Time to come home, then."

Merrill drummed her fingers on the table. "You've been away all day. You in any particular hurry now?"

"Fine. Patrice said you just got your dessert, enjoy it."

His voice had taken on the bitter edge she hated, so she gave him a lighthearted laugh. "Nothing's secret here, I see."

"You better believe it."

Suddenly Merrill smiled at Tor. The lusty way he'd begun attacking almost at the same moment both her spiced apple cobbler and his fried bananas with crunchy toasted coconut was characteristic of his approach to life. It made her want to laugh again.

"Merril-?"

"Yes?"

"Just remember I love you." They were the last words Rick Liberty said to his wife.

"And I love you, too," were her last words to him.

Tor rolled his eyes as she punched the off button and handed the phone to Patrice, who had drifted over to the table to retrieve it. "You two."

"Thanks, Patrice," Merrill said. "Will you tell Jon everything was great?"

"I'll tell him, but he won't believe it from anyone but you. Anything else I can get you tonight?"

Tor raised his eyebrows, questioning. Did they want anything else? Merrill shook her head. No, they did not. Patrice smiled and drifted away.

"Rick's cool?" Tor asked.

Merrill frowned for a second because with Rick one could never be absolutely sure. "He's cool," she said.

Then her mood lightened. "Hey, Tor. Leave me a bite, will you."

"Go ahead, dig in."

After thirty-five years in America, Tor still had a bit of a Scandinavian accent, a feature Merrill found charming. She picked up her fork and tasted the spiced apple cobbler that was one of Rick's mother's recipes. "Amazing, as usual," Merrill pronounced it.

Tor gazed at her. "So are you."

"Well, thanks. But I know you say that to all the girls."

He laughed. "With you, though, it's the truth."

"Well, I think you're pretty terrific, too." Merrill's face shone with the wine, food, and other pleasures she'd enjoyed that evening. At that moment she did think Tor Petersen was terrific. For a second she wondered whether Tor had told his wife where he was going, and what the dizzy Daphne herself might be doing with the free time. But only for a second.

"I've always been crazy about you, you know that."

At six one, Tor was an inch shorter than Rick and had almost as sturdy a build. Fourteen years older, however, Tor now had to fight in earnest the spreading abdomen of middle age, affluence, and complacency. And where Rick had the mixed blood of African, American Indian, and Caucasian, Tor was pure Nordic, with an ample head of hair more flaxen than silver and eyes as blue as the Vikings of his ancestry. Tor's second wife had been the daughter of an Arabian princess, and when the two couples had gone out together, people were always confused because the two blonds were married to the two people of color and not each other.

"If I'd married you, we'd still be together."

Merrill considered the declaration with a twinkle. Tor was marching out onto a limb that couldn't hold him. "Which time?"

"Any time. How about this time?' '

"Well, maybe later this week after you've dumped this one."

"Oh, you know." He looked surprised.

"Darling, you're an open book." Merrill laughed and took a bite of the "fried 'nanas" with the drop-dead crunchy coconut. "I don't know how you get away with it. Let's go home."

Tor finished his last bite and looked up. "Okay, okay. Time for bed?"

Merrill nodded and pushed back her wicker chair. At 12:38
A.M.
on a cold January night, the stylish restaurant was not yet empty. There were still a few people drinking exotically flavored coffees at the bar and finishing their desserts at their tables. Suddenly she was sorry that Tor was always so solicitous of his driver, sending him home every time the man complained about the weather. Earlier, it had been no big deal to walk a block from the theater to the restaurant. Late at night though, when every street comer was a deceptive snow-covered slush pit that sucked the unwary into a frigid ankle-deep lake and it wasn't always so easy to get a cab, she didn't relish the possibility of having to walk home. Merrill grabbed her fur-lined black suede coat off the chair beside her, draping it over her arm as she headed for the dazzling stainless-steel kitchen to say good-night to Jon the chef. Then she shrugged on the coat, waved at Patrice, who was busy at a table, and went out the front door where Tor had preceded her some minutes before to get a cab.