The Law And Lady Justice

The sergeant shook his head and gave Doug a strange look. “He’s dead, McGuire. Peterson’s on his way. Meet him there.”

Doug nodded and the sergeant retreated, still shaking his head. Doug sat at his desk and stared at the phone. Wouldn’t Judge Jessica just love to hear this? He couldn’t resist. He had to tell her, he thought, reaching for the phone.

Sounding rushed, Liz Alexander answered after several rings. “I’m sorry, Detective, you just caught me on my way out. Judge Kirkland isn’t here. She was so upset about what happened today that she left early. I suspect she wanted to take a walk before her dinner meeting so she could clear her head. She does that sometimes.”

“Dinner?”

“At Water Street Bistro. Do you know it?”

“Fancy. On the Riverwalk. Prime real estate.”

“That’s the one.” Doug could swear he heard a smile in Liz’s voice, although he couldn’t figure out what was so funny. “Would you like to leave a message?”

Doug grunted, annoyed that he’d given in to the impulse to call the judge. It had been childish. Even more childish was his irrational disappointment to find that the judge wasn’t waiting to talk to him.

“No. No message.”

“Detective?” Though Liz’s voice was unfailingly polite, he just knew she was smiling. He could see her grinning from ear to ear, and he gritted his teeth to keep from saying something he’d regret. Doug McGuire might be a smartass, but his mother never raised her son to be rude to a lady.

“Yes, Liz.”

“Jessica should be at the Bistro by six-thirty. She has dinner there every Thursday night.”

“Thanks, Liz.” He hung up.

Water Street Bistro would be her style, he thought. Candles and silver, white tablecloths and wineglasses on every table. Hovering waiters, a wine steward and a maître d’. He could see her in a black dress, single strand of pearls around that throat he’d love to taste, sipping champagne with some dude in a black tuxedo.

Doug growled and stood up. He had work to do. Places to go. Dead bodies to see. And it would have to snow in hell before he’d step foot in the Water Street Bistro.

Jessica always kept a pair of walking shoes beneath her desk. Often before work, and sometimes during the day, she would put on the shoes and walk off her frustration. Without her robes she was just another career woman in a suit and tennies, hoofing it down Wells Street.

By the time she returned to her office, changed into her low-heeled taupe pumps and grabbed her briefcase and purse, she had no time to go home and change. So it was that she ended up at Water Street Bistro for her weekly dinner with her father wearing the same mint-green business suit she’d put on that morning before leaving her condominium on Lake Drive. She would have preferred just to go home, but her father would be crushed if she missed their dinner date. Every Thursday night the two of them got together and shared their lives. And she had to admit their dinners together always made her feel calmer and saner for a little while—just knowing that there was someone who loved you always, no matter what, could get a person through the toughest of times.

Since her mother’s death ten years past, her father had thrown himself into his work, starting restaurants then selling them once they became well established. His latest venture, Water Street Bistro, was more successful than any of the others, and thus far he had given no indication he would sell. She hoped this meant he was beginning to get over her mother’s death, as much as it was possible to get over the death of the woman he had adored.

Because of the importance of their weekly ritual, Jessica was surprised to arrive and find their usual table deserted.

“Your Honor.” Bruno, the maître d’ from Austria, bowed. “Your papa, he will be here soon. Please to sit down and order the wine.”

Though Bruno was ever so serious, Jessica often had a hard time not laughing when he spoke. He sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger, though Bruno was only five foot five and weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet.

Jessica nodded her thanks as Bruno pulled out her chair. “Where is my father, Bruno?”

“I do not know. He is everywhere. Here, there, gone and back. And after he sees you today on the television, ach! The man he is a crazy person.” Bruno threw up his hands. “He marched out of here and he does not come back.”

Jessica frowned. She didn’t like the sound of that. She took the wine list Bruno pressed upon her.

“Do not worry, he will be back soon, Your Honor. He would not miss this night with you for all the tea in his coffee cup.”

Jessica blinked. Bruno had a way with a cliché. Sometimes it took her several minutes, or days, to figure out what he meant. This one was easy. “All the tea in China, Bruno.”

Bruno lifted his nose. “That is what I said.”

With great dignity he left her alone and went to greet the gathering dinner crowd.

Jessica stared at the wine list, but she did not see the choices. Instead she frowned, reflecting. Though her father had never been late for one of their dinners before, she had noticed an increasing absentmindedness on his part. Now that she thought about it she could name several times she’d called the restaurant, or the house, when he should have been at one place or the other, only to have to leave messages on an answering machine. She was embarrassed to admit her job consumed her so completely she thought of little else, and had not put the disturbing incidents about her father together until now.

Could something be wrong with Daddy?

“Hey, baby girl, sorry I’m late.”

The object of her concern kissed her cheek before slipping into the chair opposite her. Jessica’s smile felt stiff as she took in his disheveled state and flushed face. Ben Kirkland never looked unkempt. That would be bad for business. Yet here he sat with the top buttons of his shirt askew, his tie loose, and his salt-and-pepper hair looking as if he’d just come through a wind tunnel.

Jessica glanced through the wall-to-wall picture window that overlooked the river below them. Bright and shiny sunlight reflected off the still water. Not a breeze stirred. Her smile turned upside down as she narrowed her eyes upon her father. “Where have you been, Dad?”

He paused in the midst of tightening his tie. Was she wrong, or did he look just a bit guilty? What on earth could her father be hiding from her?

He smoothed his hair and raised an eyebrow in her direction. “Am I under oath, Your Honor?”

“Of course not. It’s just…” Jessica sighed. She did have an abrupt manner when she questioned people. She couldn’t help it, that was her way, her job. “You’ve just been different lately, Dad. I wondered if anything was wrong.”

“Wrong?” He reached for the wine list, and crooked a finger at the wine steward who hovered nearby. “Why would anything be wrong?”

Jessica frowned. His voice was too high, his color too pink despite the healthy summer tan of his face, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Dad?”

Her voice wavered in the middle, sounding like a child frightened by the bogey man in the middle of the night. Her father, who had heard her cry out in the dark often enough and had always come to her rescue, glanced up in surprise. Their gazes met and he hesitated just long enough for her to wonder if he told her the truth with his brusque words. “I’m fine, baby. Leave it be.”

He turned away to greet his steward, ordering wine with practiced ease. When he returned his attention to her, he was once again the man she knew, the man she loved more than any other. “So tell me about today.”

The words were not a request but a demand. Jessica had known she would have to discuss her day, but she’d dreaded it. When things happened that she could not control, she wanted to crawl into the sand, bury her head and never pull it out.

“You heard what happened. Bruno told me you were upset.”

Her father snorted. “Bruno! He doesn’t understand our legal system. As he always says, ‘I came to America for freedom, but sometimes your freedom is just too free.’”

“He’s right.” Jessica paused as her father performed the wine ritual with his steward, then she nodded her thanks as the accepted selection was poured into her glass. She picked up the crystal and swirled the ruby liquid about, tilting the glass just enough to catch the setting sun and turn the wine the color of blood. Then she put the wine down, untasted. “I had no choice, Dad.”

“Of course you didn’t. No one knows better than I how hard it was for you to let that creep go.”

Their eyes met, and they shared a moment of silence for the tragedy in their past. Once there had been four Kirklands living happily in a house in a Milwaukee suburb. Jessica’s sister, Karen, had been two years her senior, and though they had fought like sisters, they had loved like sisters, too. When Karen went away to college at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Jessica had visited her often, counting the days until she could join Karen and experience the swirl of life in Mad City, as it was known to Wisconsin Badgers.

“Jessica?” Her father’s voice brought her back to their table. He held his wineglass aloft, waiting for her to join him. She picked up her glass and tapped the rim to his. “Here’s to getting past the past and moving on,” he said.

Jessica took a sip, then set the glass down with deliberation. “I wish I could, Dad. But every time I have to let someone go whom I know is guilty, I remember Karen and…” She stopped and took a deep, ragged breath.

Her father’s hand covered hers where it rested on the table. “And you feel like your heart is being ripped out of your chest and stomped on.” She nodded. “What happened to Karen was unspeakable, honey.”

Jessica stared at his large, blunt, sun-browned hand covering her smaller, thinner, paler one. “Mom never got over it.”