The Mourning Sexton (11 page)

CHAPTER 16

W
hen Hirsch finished, Rosenbloom leaned back in his wheelchair and shook his head.

“You're nuts.”

“Maybe not,” Hirsch said.

“
Maybe
not?” Rosenbloom frowned in disbelief. “Maybe isn't enough. You two aren't exactly in the same weight class anymore, Samson. He's a federal district judge, invested with all the powers of article three of the U.S. Constitution. And you,
boychik
, are just a bankruptcy schlub standing there with nothing but your
putz
in your hand. Not”—he turned toward Dulcie, who had just returned to the dining room carrying a bottle of red wine, a corkscrew, and three wineglasses—“that I am suggesting that David's penis is anything less than imposing.” He placed his hand over his heart. “Heaven forfend. By all accounts, it is a most noteworthy appendage—a handsome and imposing instrument.”

“How nice for you, David.” She handed him the wine bottle and corkscrew. “Pour us some wine.”

“My point is,” Rosenbloom said to Hirsch, “that all you got is your noteworthy appendage. Brendan McCormick may be a knucklehead, but he's an article three knucklehead, and that means he's virtually untouchable. Worse yet, you don't have hard evidence of anything beyond the fact that he is a knucklehead.”

Hirsch twisted down the corkscrew. He looked up at Rosenbloom and smiled. “It's still early.”

They were having dinner at Dulcie's house, an arrangement Hirsch learned of just twenty minutes before they arrived. Rosenbloom had been waiting for him in front of Anshe Emes when the Saturday afternoon services ended. As Hirsch emerged from shul, he heard the familiar tap of a horn. He turned, surprised to see Rosenbloom seated in his Cadillac, engine idling. Rosenbloom gestured him over, lowering the driver's side window as he approached.

“Hop in, Samson. We got a dinner date.”

“With who?”

“Your professor pal.”

On the ride over, Rosenbloom explained that Dulcie had called him at the office that morning, anxious to hear about Hirsch's meeting with the judge.

“I told her she wasn't the only one, but that we'd have to wait till Saturday night to find out because the Reb Hirsch doesn't answer his phone until sundown.”

During Rosenbloom's telephone conversation with Dulcie that morning, he'd mentioned that Federal Express had just dropped off a delivery for Hirsch from someone in Florida named Shields. The package contained what appeared to be several dozen printed e-mails. Dulcie recognized Missy's name from her conversation with Hirsch. She asked if she could drop by his office that afternoon, explaining that she was curious to look at the e-mails. She didn't mention that she was also curious to finally meet Rosenbloom, whom she'd seen only in the photograph on the back cover of the metropolitan St. Louis telephone directory, staring into the camera under the caption “
THE ROSENBLOOM FIRM
:
TOUGH LAWYERS FOR TOUGH TIMES
.”

She arrived at his office shortly after noon and spent an hour reviewing the packet of materials from Missy Shields. On her way out, she suggested that Rosenbloom and Hirsch come by her house for dinner that night. That way she could hear what happened with Judge McCormick, too. Rosenbloom accepted the invitation with delight. As became apparent to Hirsch during the short drive from shul to her house, Rosenbloom's enthusiasm was less about Missy's documents and more about Dulcie's good looks.

Hirsch yanked the cork out of the wine bottle.

“Okay.” Rosenbloom held up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “Let's assume McCormick really did do something nasty to that poor girl. If so, what was the purpose in telling him about the time gap and the pathologist? All you're doing is poking a stick at a snake.”

“Exactly,” Hirsch said.

“Exactly what?” Rosenbloom frowned. “If he's actually guilty, what's the point of fucking with him?”

“An old litigation ploy.” Hirsch paused to fill each of their wineglasses. “When your case is stalled, you lob a hand grenade into the middle of the lawsuit and wait for people to scramble. If you watch carefully, sometimes you get an opportunity.”

“And sometimes you get blown up.”

Hirsch took a sip of wine. “But not often.”

“Not often.
Oy.
” Rosenbloom gave Dulcie an exasperated look and turned back to Hirsch. “This is no ordinary lawsuit. If he really killed her, now he knows you've discovered a hole in his story. A one-hour hole. He also knows you just might find a forensic pathologist who could raise a genuine issue about the cause of death. You get blown up here,
boychik,
it'll be no metaphor. They'll need a new
gabbai
to say
Kaddish
for the old one.”

Hirsch smiled and shook his head. “No one's getting blown up yet.” He turned to Dulcie. “What about Missy Shields's e-mails? What did you find?”

“Let me get our food ready and we can talk over dinner.”

Hirsch stood. “I'll help.”

The aromas of garlic and fresh tomatoes and basil and oregano and Parmesan cheese filled her kitchen. A savory tomato sauce bubbled in the pan. Garlic bread warmed in the oven. Spaghetti noodles were churning in the boiling water. She'd omitted the meat from her sauce in deference to his dietary restrictions. Not easy to find kosher Italian sausage, she explained as she chopped anchovies for the Caesar salad. He tested one of the spaghetti strands and then poured the pot of boiling water and noodles into the colander. Shaking out the extra water, he turned out the spaghetti into the serving bowl.

It felt good to be in a real house again, to be in a real kitchen helping prepare a real homemade dinner. He glanced over at Dulcie, who was scraping the chopped anchovies off the cutting board into the wooden salad bowl. She looked lovely tonight in a navy turtleneck and snug faded jeans.

From the den came the sound of a televised basketball game.

“Is your son in there?” he asked.

She glanced over and nodded. “His name is Ben.”

Ben was slouched on the couch facing the television. He was leaning against an oversized throw pillow, the remote in hand, staring at the screen, unaware of Hirsch watching from the doorway. The boy was maybe fourteen—slender, on the verge of puberty, still more child than man. Baggy cargo pants, oversized black-and-tan-checked shirt, orange T-shirt beneath, floppy white socks.

Hirsch glanced at the television screen long enough to take in the teams and game situation—Lakers and Celtics, early in the second quarter, Lakers up by eight. Now ten.

He waited for a commercial break.

“You a Celtics fan?”

Ben turned, surprised to see him standing there. He shrugged. “Not really.”

“They were good when I was your age.”

“You like them?”

“Not really, but I never liked the Lakers, so I guess that makes me a Celtics fan tonight.”

After a moment, the boy said, “I like Shaq.”

“Me, too. I'm just tired of them winning every year.”

The boy smiled. “Like the Yankees, huh?”

“Tired of them, too.”

“My mom likes the underdogs.”

“How 'bout you?”

“I like the Cardinals. And the Blues.”

The basketball game resumed. They watched in silence—Ben on the couch, Hirsch leaning against the doorjamb, arms crossed over his chest.

“Do you play basketball?” Hirsch asked during the next break in the action.

The boy shrugged. “Not very good.”

He was a cute a kid, this Ben. Big brown eyes, long eyelashes, his mother's strong nose, curly hair.

Hirsch came around the couch and sat alongside Ben.

“I'm David,” he said.

Ben glanced at him and nodded. “Hi.”

They watched the game side by side, their conversation consisting of random comments on the action:

“Nice shot.”

“Why isn't that traveling?”

“He called that a foul?”

Just two guys watching a game on the tube. Nothing forced.

He could hear Rosenbloom and Dulcie talking in the other room. He glanced over at the boy.

He loved his daughters. Adored them. Still, a boy would have been a nice addition. Someone to teach how to shoot a layup. How to hit a baseball to the opposite field.

Dulcie poked her head into the den. “Dinner's ready, boys.”

Ben looked over at Hirsch.

Hirsch said, “You'll be able to catch the fourth quarter after dinner.”

The boy pointed the remote at the TV and pressed the Power Off button.

They didn't talk about the case during dinner, or at least until Ben finished his dinner. Dulcie let him go back to watch the end of the basketball game and told him she'd call him for dessert.

She'd made a copy of the printed e-mails that Missy Shields had sent Hirsch. She retrieved the copies from her briefcase in the front closet. As she sorted through them she explained that they confirmed Missy's recollections, namely, that Judith had been focused on the names of the people who staffed the executive offices of Peterson Tire. For the most part, the e-mails were queries about the whereabouts of specific Peterson Tire employees mentioned in depositions or shown as recipients on interoffice memoranda. Several e-mails asked Missy's paralegal how to retrieve certain documents from the database. All of her queries seemed to tie back to the identities, job titles, and job descriptions of employees in the executive offices in Knoxville.

“Someone better start checking the rest of those Knoxville numbers,” Rosenbloom said. “Find out if she ever reached anyone important at headquarters. Find out what the hell she was looking for.”

“Speaking of telephone numbers,” Dulcie said to Hirsch, “I tried calling her classmates.”

“Classmates?” Rosenbloom asked.

Hirsch explained how Dulcie had matched several of the names in Judith's personal papers with actual students who were at Washington University during her undergraduate or law school years.

“I talked with some,” she said.

“And?” Rosenbloom asked.

“Not much. Judith mainly kept in touch by e-mail, usually by way of a short note at the holidays or on their birthdays. One or two remember a phone call on a happy occasion, but mostly it was e-mail. Occasionally she'd forward by e-mail something she thought they'd be interested in—maybe an article she'd found on the Internet, an opinion she'd worked on for McCormick, an essay from an online newspaper, a joke someone had sent. One of her classmates, a girl named Sharon Berger, saved an e-mail Judith sent her after the birth of her first child. I had her forward it to me.” She smiled. “It's classic Judith—warm and thoughtful.”

“Do you have it here?” Hirsch asked.

“Back in my study.” Dulcie stood. “I'll bring it out.”

Rosenbloom gazed at her rear end as she walked down the hall. “My goodness,” he said with appreciation. “You think the professor gives private tutorials?”

Hirsch flipped through the batch of Judith's e-mails that Missy Shields had sent. Most were brief questions:

p 58 of pierce depo. witness mentions someone in executive offices named eva. who is she? what else do u have on her? thanks!

remington depo 218—letter from korte, v/p marketing. typist's initials at bottom read “btr” do u know who that is?

is there a secretary in exec offices named ruth? last name? u have address?

And so on.

He noted her e-mail address: [email protected].

He flipped back through the other e-mails to make sure they all had that address.

Dulcie returned with the e-mail from Judith to her friend Sharon. She handed it to Hirsch. In it, Judith congratulated her friend on the birth of a little girl, wished her much joy, and ended with a poem Judith described as her favorite blessing for a new baby. The poem was “For the Child” by Fannie Stearns Davis and included the following stanza:

And you shall run and wander,
And you shall dream and sing,
Of brave things and bright things,
Beyond the swallow's wings.

He looked at the top of the page. Same e-mail address. The time on the e-mail showed that Judith had sent it at 6:52
P
.
M
.

“She only had the office computer,” Hirsch said.

“What do you mean?” Rosenbloom asked.

“There was no computer among her personal belongings. I've looked through her canceled checks and credit card bills. I didn't see any payments to an Internet service provider.” He held up the e-mail he'd just read. “This is clearly personal. She sent it at night from her office e-mail address.”

“So?” Rosenbloom said. “I only have one computer. So do you.”

Dulcie said, “What David means is that everything she wrote and every e-mail she sent and every e-mail she received was on that computer.”

Hirsch said, “And if she was as methodical as you say she was, then whatever she was looking for—”

“And whatever she found,” Dulcie added.

“Will be on that computer,” Hirsch said.

“Unless it was erased,” Rosenbloom said.

“It's hard to erase anything from a computer,” Dulcie said. “There are data recovery firms that specialize in retrieving deleted files. When it comes to hard drives, nothing's gone forever.”