The Great Divide (16 page)

The response was so quiet he almost missed it. “That’s terrible.”

“It was the best thing that ever happened to me.” The words were stripped of all pain by the night, and emerged so matter-of-fact that Marcus did not even question why he was speaking at all. “My grandpa had suffered a stroke a year or so earlier. He couldn’t get around anymore, so I started helping out the day I arrived. He’d built this house for my grandmother back when times were good. She loved this place. Wouldn’t ever think of selling it, not even when we were down to living off my grandpa’s Social Security check and what we could raise in our backyard garden. But my grandmother was one of those women who just made everything all right. I don’t know how else to describe her.”

He climbed the front stairs, lost in the memory of how good it had been to come home and find on the other side of that screen door an old woman who always cared. Quiet and loving and strong and always there for him.

Only when he dropped his case on top of the first box did he realize Kirsten had not climbed the steps. Marcus turned back, and quietly asked, “What happened to your family, Kirsten?”

“My parents were killed in an automobile accident.” She managed the first step, did not give any notice to his coming down and taking the box from her arms. Just stood there holding the night. “I’d met Gloria about four months earlier. She helped me. So much.”

He dropped the box by the others and returned to her. “And now you’re trying to help her.”

Kirsten reacted as though slapped, wheeling about, eyes focused now and flashing. She opened her mouth, shut it hard, said simply, “I have to go.”

Marcus watched her turn and vanish into the night, wondering about the sounds filling the air. His heart seemed to hum a silver chord he had not heard in so long he could not even think of what it meant.

B
UT THE NIGHT
was not done with him yet.

Marcus wrestled over the information Kirsten had deposited until almost dawn. With every passing hour his mood shifted, from astonishment to outrage to morbid curiosity. At half past four he had done all he could, save for one final call. He looked through his personal directory, came up with the name of a process server he had used in the past, a former federal agent based in Washington, D.C. He did not bother about the time. Process servers were known to live without the regular habits that governed the rest of mankind.

The man answered as always. “What now.”

“This is Marcus Glenwood.”

“So?”

“I want to serve interrogatories on officers at New Horizons.”

“There’s been work on them before.”

“By you?”

“No. But somebody who attracts that many flies, word gets around.”

Marcus glanced at the evidence now strewn about his office. It carried on into the next room, draping the floor with silky outfits the color of overripe rainbows. “Does the word say anything about how hard it was to track these people down?”

“Close on impossible. They’ve got a lot of practice at running. You looking at something big?”

“Very.”

“Then my advice to you is go for everybody right down to the night janitor. Because that’s about the only one you’ll get into court.”

T
HE NEXT MORNING Randall Walker listened on his mobile phone as Hamper Caisse reported in. “I did what you requested and entered the Stanstead woman’s house on P Street.” The voice was as laconic as ever, as gray as the man. “There are no further files.”

“You’re sure?”

“I searched the house for over three hours. I copied everything she had on the computer—hard drive and floppies. Spent another seven hours going through those. You’ll see it on my bill.”

Randall had his office swept weekly for bugs, but still never spoke to this man except on the mobile phone listed in a paralegal’s name. The paralegal had no idea she was the owner of a digital satellite line. Even so, talking to this man left Randall apprehensive. “You found the Hall girl’s thesis?”

“Exactly the same as before. Drafts of three chapters. Utterly innocuous material. She knows nothing of any interest to us.”

“I want a hard copy.”

“You’re wasting your time. And mine.”

Randall hesitated, then admitted, “You’re probably right.” Hamper Caisse usually was.

“It’s what you pay me for. To be right about these things.”

But the worries would not be denied. “Then why does my gut tell me otherwise?”

There was a brief pause. “You’re still worried?”

Randall found mild pleasure in having the gray man show any reaction whatsoever, even if it was only mild surprise. “I am.”

“I suppose I could go back and bug her apartment. But you’d just be wasting more money.”

“Do it anyway. And her car.”

He hung up the phone, stared through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the forested view beyond the parking lot, and wondered why he continued to be so afraid.

S
UZIE RIKKERS had not slept well in three days, not since she learned from Logan that they were going to fry Marcus Glenwood in front of the federal magistrate judge. Every time she shut her eyes and drifted off, the thought of what was coming down struck her like an electric current. Wham. She’d jerk awake and lie there staring at the ceiling. Staring up into the dark and smiling.

Suzie Rikkers paced the sidewalk in front of the federal courthouse and smoked and chafed at the wait. She was very big on payback. As a little kid she’d watched her dad knock her mom and her older brother and sister around. A lot. She’d learned to hide whenever the rough voice and the boozy odor announced that her daddy was home. He hadn’t hit her much, mostly because by the time she grew too big to hide under the bathroom sink her sister had taken an apartment of her own. Left home and taken her brother and sister with her. Tried to take their mom too, but the woman wouldn’t come. Suzie had been very glad about that. As far as her eight-year-old mind was concerned, her mom was as much to blame as her dad, since she’d never managed to stop the bad times herself.

Suzie carried that load of early hate with her always. She had earned it. It was hers to wield. Anybody who stood in her way got chopped off at the knees. Especially men. Suzie Rikkers loved nothing better than taking down some smug self-righteous pea-brain who assumed because she was small and fine-boned she was an easy target. Apply the scalpel judiciously, that was her motto. Teach them to sing in a higher key.

The unquenchable lust for vengeance served her well in court. Suzie Rikkers entered the courtroom as she would a battlefield. There
was nothing she liked more than legal assault. But her attitude created difficulties elsewhere. Especially inside the firm. The secretaries and paralegals were terrified of her. No problem there. They couldn’t do a thing except refuse to work with her. The problem area was the partners. They expected a little bowing and scraping. Even the two women partners. But the only partner who had ever dared attack her directly was Marcus Glenwood. The name alone was enough to frame her vision with fire. Marcus Glenwood had twice used the semiannual partners’ meeting to lodge official requests to have her fired. Marcus Glenwood had called her an affront to the legal establishment, a walking time bomb who someday would explode and splatter them all with neurotic garbage. Logan had shown her the minutes of those meetings.

Today was payback. She was so excited that she arrived at the courthouse two hours before their scheduled hearing. Suzie Rikkers paced the sidewalk and smoked so many cigarettes she felt like she had eaten an ashtray for breakfast. Her only regret was that Logan had insisted on handling the argument himself. Which was not good, but not too bad. Logan had his own reasons for hating Marcus. She glanced at her watch, sighed with relief that the hands had finally crawled into place, tossed her last cigarette into the gutter, and headed inside. Maybe hers wouldn’t be the hand wielding the knife, but at least she’d be there to watch the blood flow.

M
ARCUS WALKED
to the end of the seventh-floor corridor and pressed the buzzer. When the latch clicked, he pushed through and entered the new chambers of Federal District Judge Gladys Nicols. The outer office was large and well-appointed. The receptionist’s desk was staffed by a compact man in a gray suit and silver-white beard. Most federal judges used retired highway patrolmen for receptionist-guards. All were armed.

“Marcus Glenwood to see Jenny Hail. She’s expecting me.”

“Marcus, hi, good of you to stop by.” The judge’s chief clerk was just as he remembered, a petite bundle of intelligent energy. “How are you?”

“Fine.”

“You look, well, better.”

“I am.”

“Come on, I’ll give you the ten-cent tour.” Her stride was as
quick as her talk, and in three minutes they had completed a circuit through the conference room, library, secretary’s space, a smaller conference area, and two back offices for aides. The federal judge’s private chambers sported thick-pile carpet, the latest journals and books, new desks, finely framed prints, fresh wallpaper.

“Quite a change.”

“Tell me about it,” she said, leading him past the closed door to the judge’s inner sanctum. “Her new second aide is a Yalie.”

Federal judges tended to attract the cream of new lawyers. “Don’t worry about it. Judge Nicols would be a fool to let you go. Which she most definitely is not.”

Jenny led him back to the reception chamber. Eyes bright as a robin’s egg and almost as blue examined him. “How about you, are you ready for today’s hearing?”

He was not certain why this conversation was taking place in front of the receptionist, but he was the visitor here, and she was definitely calling the shots. “I think so. It’s just the filing of preliminary motions.”

Jenny glanced at the guard, who was observing all with a careful calm. She said, “That’s not what I hear.”

“Which is?”

“You know who’s handling this case for New Horizons?”

“I haven’t received official notice, but I assumed it would be one of Randall Walker’s lackeys.”

She shook her head. “Guess again.”

“So tell me.”

“Your old firm.” Another glance at the patrolman. “Your old nemesis.”

“Logan Kendall?” His heart squeezed. “You’re joking.”

“If you go look out the window, the black widow herself might still be wearing a furrow in the sidewalk.”

“Logan’s brought Suzie Rikkers with him?” Marcus hoped his smile looked more genuine than it felt. “What a pair.”

“Word has it they have filed just one pretrial motion.”

“I was wondering why the magistrate’s hearing was arranged for just two days after I filed.” But there was something he was missing here. He stared at the patrolman, was met with an utterly blank gaze. Then it hit him. “They’re going for immediate dismissal.”

“We think so.”

His thoughts spun while this retired patrolman watched him like a hawk. Marcus went over and offered his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Marcus Glenwood.”

“Jim Bell. Nice to meet you, sir. The judge and Jenny here have had some good things to say about you.”

Marcus glanced back at Jenny, caught the tiny nod. Wondered what it meant. “That’s nice.”

Jenny said, “They’re also going to request sanctions be leveled against you. They want to bury you.” She waited, and when he did not react, she demanded, “Are you ready for this?”

His thoughts turned to the three boxes Kirsten had delivered two evenings ago. He had been halfway down the drive this morning before turning back and dumping them in the trunk. At the time he could not figure out why. “I think so.”

“Marcus,” Jenny hesitated, then chose her way forward with great care. “You could make an unofficial request for postponement. Give yourself more time to prepare.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“Are you certain? You really can’t afford—”

“We have to do what we can for Gloria Hall. You know the name?”

Jenny glanced at the patrolman before replying, “I’m not sure.”

“She’s gone missing. We are accusing New Horizons of being involved. The case is our only hope of pressuring them to give her up. It’s that simple. I can’t wait. Not a single day.”

When Jenny said nothing more, he started for the door. “I have to get some things from the trunk.”

The judge’s new chambers were at the end of a long hall, the only door along its entire length. Marcus resisted the urge to sprint down the corridor. He still had time. Everything was fine. He took the elevator to the lower level, and went out the back exit. He walked to the car and leaned upon the trunk. Somewhere overhead a bird chirped. Even that sounded calamitous.

He was not ready for this. None of it. Not for the pressures of a high-stakes court case, nor going up against his old nemesis, nor Suzie Rikkers. And especially not for having people as good and fine as the Halls depend on him. Marcus took a couple of hard breaths and resisted the urge to pound the trunk in helpless rage. The gift of sympathy from someone he admired as much as Judge Gladys Nicols
made it even worse. Jenny Hail would never have brought up this matter except at the request of her boss. The evident pity behind Nicols’ move hit hard.

Marcus used his fists to push himself upright. He stared into a sky of impossible blue, wishing there were some way to dive straight up. Lose himself in that endless depth, just swim away from this world and all its impossible woes.

J
ENNY AND THE PATROLMAN
stood together by the window at the back of the reception area, engrossed in the scene below. Jenny said, “You were right.”

“The judge was the one who said Marcus would refuse to postpone,” Jim Bell responded. “I just agreed with her.”

“Okay, you were both right.”

Jim Bell shrugged his unconcern. “But you were right to ask.”

Jenny stared down at the man leaning over the trunk of his car. “Is he ill?”

“Absolutely.” The patrolman had the ability to claim any place he chose as his own, sturdy and rooted as a mountain. “Fellow’s got a heart torn right in two. If he wasn’t the kind of man the judge says he is, what he’s been through would have killed him stone dead.”