“Six.” I don’t want to talk to him. I can’t think about Hightower now. I want to get inside.
“Does she like Barney?”
“No, she likes Madeline. The doll.”
The deep creases at his eyes soften into laugh lines. “My little one, Sally? She liked dolls. She had a Barbie, and Barbie’s sister, too. What was the name of that sister doll?” He looks down at a pair of shiny brown shoes and scratches his head between grayish slats of hair. “My wife would know,” he says, his voice trailing off.
“Skipper.”
“Right!” He laughs thickly, a smoker. “That’s right. Skipper. Skipper, that’s the one.”
I seize the moment. “Well, I should go.”
“Sure thing. You hafta get to work.” He thrusts the flyer into my hand. On it is a black-and-white photograph of two pretty girls sitting on a split wooden rail. The typed caption says SHERRI AND SALLY GILPIN. I glance at it, stunned for a second. I knew the way they died, but I didn’t know the way they lived. The younger one, Sally, has a meandering part in her hair like Maddie’s, a giveaway that she hated to have her hair brushed. I can’t take my eyes from the little girl; she was strangled, the life choked out of her. What did Armen say last night? We saved a life.
“You better go, we don’t want you to get fired on our account,” says the man. “God bless you now.”
I nod, rattled, and make my way through the crowd with difficulty. Several of the women in line look at me: solid, sturdy women, their faces plain, without makeup. I avoid them and push open the heavy glass doors to the bustling courthouse lobby. I slip the flyer into my purse and flash a laminated court ID at the marshals at the security desk in front of the elevator bank. Two minutes later, I plow through the heavy door to chambers.
Eletha is sitting at her desk, staring at a blue monitor with a stick-figure rendering of a courthouse made by one of the programmer’s kids. Underneath the picture it says: ORDER IN THE COURT! WELCOME TO THE THIRD CIRCUIT COURT WORD PROCESSING SYSTEM! The door closes behind me, but Eletha doesn’t seem to hear it.
“El?”
She swivels slowly in her chair. Her eyes are puffy, and she rises unsteadily when she sees me. “Grace.”
I go over to her, and she almost collapses into my arms, her bony frame caving in like a rickety house. “It’s okay, Eletha. It’s gonna be okay,” I say, feeling just the opposite.
I rub her back, and her body shakes with high-pitched, wrenching cries. “No, no, no,” is all she says, over and over, and I hold her steady through her weeping. I feel oddly remote in the face of her obvious grief, and realize with a chill I’m acting like my mother did when my father disappeared; nothing has changed, pass the salt.
I ease Eletha into her chair and snatch her some tissues from a flowered box. “Here you go.”
“This is terrible. Just terrible. Armen, God.” She presses the Kleenex into her watery eyes.
“I know.”
“I can’t believe it.”
Neither can I. I don’t say anything.
“I was going to call you when I came in, but I couldn’t.” Her eyes brim over again.
“It’s okay now.”
“Susan called me. This morning. Then the police. Then Galanter. God, how I hate that man!”
“It was Susan who found Armen, right?”
“She came in from Washington and there he was.”
“When did she come in, right before dawn?”
“I guess. I don’t know.” She blows her nose loudly.
“Who told Galanter?”
“I don’t know, why?”
“I don’t understand. I was with Armen until five.”
“So you two worked late.”
“Right.” I avoid her eye; Eletha left at two o’clock. Then I think of the noise I heard, or thought I heard. What time was that? “Eletha, last night after you left, did you come back to the office?”
“No, why?”
“When I was with Armen, I thought I heard somebody out here.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t they come into Armen’s office?”
“No. Not that I saw.”
She shakes her head; she’s not wearing any makeup today. “The clerk’s office, the staff attorneys, they got work to do on a death penalty case. Maybe it was one of them, dropping off papers.”
Just then the chambers door opens and in walk Sarah and Artie. They both look like they’ve been crying; I recognize Sarah’s anguished expression as the one I saw in the mirror this morning. She breaks away from Artie and storms into the room.
“Is Ben here?” she shouts, pounding past us to the law clerks’ office, her short cardigan flying. “Where the fuck is Ben?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Eletha, do you?”
“He hasn’t called.”
Sarah punches the doorjamb with a clenched fist. “Damn it! I want to see him, the little prick!”
“Sar, stop,” Artie says. He walks numbly over to Eletha and puts his arm around her. “It’s not going to bring Armen back.”
Sarah strides to the phone on Eletha’s desk and punches in seven numbers without looking at anyone. “I’ve been calling that asshole all morning. Pick it up, you little prick!”
“Relax, Sarah,” I say.
Her blue eyes turn cold. “What do you mean, relax?” She slams down the phone.
“Look, we’re all hurting.”
“Ben’s not, he caused it. He pressured Armen about Hightower so he could get that fucking clerkship. He even showed him that newspaper article, the one about victim’s rights. He knew it would bother Armen. He didn’t care how much.”
“You’re talkin’ crazy,” Eletha says, between sniffles.
Sarah looks from her to me. “Grace, you saw him last night. Was he upset?”
“No,” I say, wanting to change the subject. “I thought I heard a noise—”
“What?” Sarah says. “What kind of noise?”
“I don’t know, a noise. Like someone was here, outside his office. Maybe around three o’clock or later.”
“Did you see anyone?”
“No.”
“So what if you heard a noise?”
“Nothing,” I say. “Unless it was you or Artie. Was it?”
Artie snorts. “At three? We were asleep.” Then he catches himself. “Oh, shit.”
Sarah glares at him. “Nice move, Weiss.”
So it’s true about them. I don’t understand Sarah; sleeping with Artie, but crazy about Armen. And Artie and Armen are so close. Were so close.
“Oh, what’s the difference now?” Artie says. “I don’t care if everybody knows, it’s not like we’re doing anything wrong.” He looks at me and Eletha, his eyes full of pain. “I love her, okay? We fuck like bunnies, okay? Is that okay with you?”
“Sure,” I say. Eletha