Final Appeal (30 page)

Maddie straightens up like a toy soldier. “
Shake! Now
!”

I begin to wonder about the dark side of my little angel, but Bernice doesn’t seem to mind. On cue, the dog lifts a furry foreleg and paws at the air between her and Maddie.

Maddie’s eyes grow panicky. “What’s she doing?”

“She wants you to take her paw.”

Bernice puts down her paw, then raises it again.

Maddie looks at me, then back at Bernice. “Will she bite me?”

“Of course not. Come on, Maddie, just touch it. She won’t bite you. I promise.”

Bernice puts down her paw and raises it again in the air.

Maddie reaches out tentatively with her fingers, her child’s hand just inches from Bernice’s soft white paw. I flash on Michelangelo’s depiction of God creating Adam, which doesn’t seem half as significant for western civilization.

“Just touch her, Maddie. She wants to be your friend.”

Maddie bites her lip and reaches closer to Bernice’s paw.

Bernice whimpers and rakes at the air.

“Go ahead.
Touch
her, Maddie.”

“Can I?” she says worriedly.

“Yes, go ahead.”

And finally, she does.

35

W
e sit uncomfortably in the darkness, on the carpeted steps that serve as seats in the elementary school auditorium. To the left is my mother, her face carved from a solid stratum of granite, like the dead presidents hewn into Mount Rushmore. Her hair has been sculpted into curls and is as rigid as her gaze, which does not waver from the stage, much less look at me. I figure that we will speak again in the year 3000 or when she quits smoking, whichever comes first.

Making a cameo appearance to her left is Tyrannosaurus Ex, Sam, in a Burberry suit with a stiff white collar. I told him I would picket his law firm if he didn’t come today. He gives me a billable smile when I look over.

Next to him is Ricki, looking entirely entertained, and not only by the class play. She has brought along her three sons so the requisite brothers will be present, and has even offered me half price on the therapy I will need to recover from today. That’s what friends are for, she said with a smile. And she forgives me for lying to her, and even for returning the blue Laura Ashley dress.

To my right, of course, is a man who looks like Robert Goulet and smells like the perfume counter at Thrift Drug: my father. He’s the only one having fun at this thing. He guffaws at all the punch lines and claps heartily after all the songs. He nudges me in the ribs four times, whenever Maddie enters in her costume, knocking the camcorder into the back of the man in front of me. When I finally ask him to stop, he says out loud: “Wadja say, doll?”

So I don’t ask again. I put the rubber rectangle of the camcorder to my eye and watch my daughter take center stage. Dressed as a carrot, naturally, she joins hands with her new friend, Gretchen the tomato, and they take the hands of a bunch of broccoli and several tulips to sing about the things that sprout up in the spring, tall and proud in the warm sun.

Like children.

In no time at all I’m in tears, looking through the rubber eye of the camcorder, hating that it will record my sniffles with Japanese high fidelity. In the background will be a group of first graders warbling faintly about springtime.

I find myself thinking of Armen, then Sam and my father. And how sometimes it doesn’t turn out like it’s supposed to.

Love dies, people die. Mothers and fathers break apart, the ties that bind unraveling as freely as a ball of yarn, with one tie remaining: the microscopic skein of DNA that resurfaces in our children, in permutations never imagined. Maddie’s the only tie between Sam and me; I’m the only tie between my parents. We all relate to our children, but none of us to each other.

The tears wet the eyepiece of the costly camcorder, and I have to set it down in my lap. My father puts his aromatic arm around me, and then my mother does the same, which only makes me cry harder.

For all we lost.

For all we never had.

Sam passes me a monogrammed handkerchief and I try to recover, grateful for the darkness. Meanwhile Ricki looks like she wants me on Prozac, and the carrot is hugging the tomato. The house lights come up, threatening to expose my hysteria, but in the light I can see that everyone else is crying too. I’m just another hysterical mother in an audience of hysterical mothers applauding their baby vegetables.

Maddie finds me in the crowd and grins, gaptoothed.

I clap loudly for her, hands over my head. I look over and my father is doing the same thing. Scary.

My mother puts a note on my lap. On the front it says
GRACE ROSSI
. “What’s this?” I ask her.

“Sam passed it down to you.”

“Sam?” I look over at Sam, but he’s whistling for Maddie, doing his best impression of a real father. I pick up the note and something falls into my lap.

It’s a new photo of Tom Cruise. The note says:

Roses are red,

Violets are blue,

Maddie’s adorable,

Wanna see my tattoo?

I look past Sam and over the parents, teachers, and kids. Underneath the
EXIT
sign, in the back row of the auditorium, is a handsome man in a black raincoat.

And no rain bonnet at all.

Acknowledgments

Kay Thompson’s wonderful character, Eloise, likes to make things up. So do I, which is important to keep in mind as you read this book. Even though I have worked for the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, doing the very same job as my character Grace Rossi—indeed, in the very same courthouse—
Final Appeal
is fiction. None of the characters are real, although they are realistic, and the plot, though plausible, is entirely imagined.

The first thanks go, as always, to my agent, Linda Hayes, and to my editor extraordinaire at HarperPaperbacks, Carolyn Marino. I am blessed in knowing these terrific women and in becoming their friend, even if I never write another book. But since I intend to write other books, I’ll be the grateful recipient of their judgment in knowing what makes a book work, their insight into how to improve a manuscript, and their commitment to me and my writing. Not to mention their sensitivity to my care and feeding. The Old Testament would call what they have lovingkindness, which is proof that there is still some writing that cannot be improved upon.

Heartfelt thanks also go to my boss, Chief Judge Dolores K. Sloviter, who is the absolute best the federal judiciary has to offer. Her dedication to public service is an example for me every day, and we are all lucky to have her. I mention her here especially because she has been more supportive of my part-time writing and full-time mothering than I could ever have hoped.

Thanks, too, for their support, to Martha Verna, Anne Szymkowski, Mary Lou Kanz, and the law clerks, Seth, Theresa, and the strikingly handsome Jim (and before them Alison, Larry, and Jessica). I am grateful as well to the other employees of Third Circuit—Bill Bradley being the ringleader of a conspiracy that includes Marisa Walsh and the staff attorneys; Toby Slawsky, Lynne Kosobucki, Pat Moore, and the Circuit Executive’s Office; Doug Sisk, Brad Baldus, and the clerk’s office; and the librarians, who have been so supportive.

Thank you very much to Alison Brown at HarperPaperbacks, a whiz of an editorial assistant who made some dead-on suggestions about an early draft, and who has helped in many other ways. Many thanks to Laura Baker at HarperPaperbacks and my local publicist, Laura Henrich, who are both wonderful. Janet Baker, my copy editor on all two occasions, is awesome; even from afar, she never forgets Philadelphia. A quick story: in
Everywhere That Mary Went
, Janet corrected me on exactly where along Route One you begin to smell the cow manure. This is a copy editor you can only dream about, and she is mine.

When Grace Rossi wandered out of my range of expertise, I sought help from United States Attorneys Joan Markman and Amy Kurland (who was kind enough to let me collar her on Fifth Street), Special Agent Linda Vizi of the FBI, Detective McGlinchey and others of the Philadelphia police, the federal marshals and court security officers (Mssrs. King and Devlin, as well as Tony “Hole-in-One” Fortunato and his cohorts), and the staff at the medical examiners office of Philadelphia. Not to mention Brian J. Buckelew, man of many talents, and my friend David Grunfeld. All errors and omissions, of course, are mine. By the way, needlepoint really does relieve stress, and you’re guaranteed one pillow for every life crisis. Ask Barbara Russell of Barbara Russell Designs in Chestnut Hill.

Special thanks, too, to Reverend Paree Metjian and his family, who taught me about Armenian pride and culture. I feel honored to have been even a fictional member of that community.

Finally, I am indebted to my friends, especially Rachel Kull and Franca Palumbo, who found the time to read an early draft of this book and to offer suggestions and encouragement. I owe them both a tankerful of milk, and much more.

As for my family, they are where it all started and where it all ends.

About the Author

Lisa Scottoline is a
New York Times
best-selling author and former trial lawyer. She has won the Edgar Award, the highest prize in suspense fiction, and the Distinguished Author Award, from the Weinberg Library of the University of Scranton. She has served as the Leo Goodwin Senior Professor of Law and Popular Culture at Nova Southeastern Law School, and her novels are used by bar associations for the ethical issues they present. Her books are published in over twenty languages. She lives with her family in the Philadelphia area and welcomes reader email at www.scottoline.com

Also by Lisa Scottoline

The Vendetta Defense

Moment of Truth

Mistaken Identity

Rough Justice

Legal Tender

Running from the Law

Final Appeal

Everywhere That Mary Went

Critical Acclaim for Lisa Scottoline

LEGAL TENDER

“Lisa Scottoline is one of the hot new writers of legal/crime fiction snapping at the heels of John Grisham and Scott Turow.”

—
Cincinnati Post

“Still hot…Lisa Scottoline proves herself equal to the task of maintaining a winning formula that is both fresh and entertaining.…Scottoline’s heroine is a tough cookie with a marsh-mallow heart, and she talks like a cross between Mike Hammer and Erma Bombeck…[A] hard-edged, humorous sensibility defines the book’s mood and runs through it like a river of hope.…
Legal Tender
is a page-turning thriller festooned with red herrings and a comic sensibility that is quite rare in the cloak and dagger department.…Lisa Scottoline is a welcome breath of fresh—and funny—air.”

—
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

“This smooth tale moves.”

—
San Jose Mercury News

“Don’t miss former practicing attorney Lisa Scottoline’s latest.”

—
American Woman

“Bright, funny, and fast-reading.”

—
Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine

“A perfect example of the way a mystery-thriller should be written: taut, lean, and moving at the speed of a bullet train.…Edgar Award-winning author Lisa Scottoline has dreamed up a legal nightmare in her latest novel,
Legal Tender
, honing and improving her storytelling with sharp, spare prose and snappy, often witty dialogue.”

—
St. Petersburg Times

“
Legal Tender
’s pace is so brisk and riveting that you may find yourself, as I did, up most of the night, gobbling it up, straight through, cover to cover.”

—
Newport News Press

“Ms. Scottoline’s writing style is modern, breezy.…The amazing conclusion takes place in an interrupted courtroom proceeding with all the excitement of the built-up suspense…a witty…tale of mayhem in the fast lane.”

—
Richmond Times Dispatch

“Sometimes funny, sometimes action-packed, sometimes edge-of-the-seat suspenseful.…The book pictures the good, the bad, and the ugly in the legal profession from an insider’s view, and the tale is told in a brisk, entertaining way. Ms. Scottoline is a talented writer, keeping the reader’s interest from beginning to end.”

—
Marietta Journal
(GA)

RUNNING FROM THE LAW

“[A] fast-paced and witty crime thriller [that] features a smart-mouthed, poker-playing attorney.…Scottoline has produced a royal flush.”

—
San Francisco Examiner

“Quick, witty, flavorful, and absorbing. Ms. Scottoline’s distinctive voice makes this book a pleasure to read, and I did so at warp speed.”

—Richard North Patterson

“A fast-paced funny courtroom thriller. It was a delight to follow Rita Morrone, Lisa Scottoline’s smart-mouthed, tough-as-nails heroine.”

—Phillip Margolin

“Scottoline is wickedly funny.…The outcome is Mary Higgins Clark meets Susan Isaacs meets John Grisham.”

—
Philadelphia
magazine