I enter the room and finger the papers on the conference table. Everything is the way I remember it, except that some of the Hightower papers are gone, the ones he was working on at home. The cases are scattered over the table; the laptop is at the edge. Even the dog hairs on the prayer rug are the same. It reminds me of Bernice. Where was she last night when he killed himself? Where was I, sound asleep?
Suddenly I hear a commotion in the outer office, then shouting. I rush to the door and see Artie shove Ben up against the wall, rattling a group portrait of the appeals court.
“Artie, stop it!” I shout, but Eletha’s already on the spot. She steps in front of Ben, shielding him with her body.
“He deserves it!” Artie says, his chest heaving in a thick sweatshirt. He stands over Ben, who begins to kack-kack-kack in his old man cough, rubbing his head where it hit the wall.
“Back off!” Eletha says, in a voice resonant with authority. A sense of order returns for a moment; Eletha is in charge and we are in chambers. The king is dead, long live the queen. Then it passes.
“Where have you been?” Sarah shouts at Ben, who struggles to his feet, hiding almost comically behind Eletha.
“Go to hell, Sarah. I pulled an all-nighter, so I slept in. Do I need your permission?”
“You worked all night? On what?”
“Germantown Savings. I wanted to finish it.”
“You didn’t hear the phone?”
“No.”
“The fuck you didn’t!” Sarah looks like she’s about to pick up where Artie left off and Eletha wilts between them, her strength spent.
“Okay, Sarah,” I say, “cool it. You want to talk to Ben, do it when you’re calmer.”
Her eyes flash with anger. “Playing Mommy again?”
“Yes, it comes naturally. Now go to your room. Time out until the press conference.” I point to the clerk’s office.
“Press conference?” Eletha says. “Who’s givin’ a press conference?”
I check the clock above the chambers door. “Susan is, in fifteen minutes.”
Eletha’s eyes threaten to tear up again. “How can she? Before Armen’s body is even cold.”
“It’s not like it’s so easy for her,” Sarah says defensively, “but she feels the need to explain. The public has the right to know.”
I feel my heart beat faster. “She’s going to explain why he committed suicide?”
“That’s what she told me on the phone.”
“It’s his business, not the public’s,” Ben says, smoothing his tie.
Eletha looks as surprised as I do. “But how does she know? There was no note.”
“She’s his wife, Eletha,” Sarah says.
His wife. The word digs at me inside. If he hadn’t died, they’d have filed for divorce. Today.
We gather around the old plastic television in the law clerks’ office, watching Senator Susan Waterman take her place at the podium. I suppress a twinge of jealousy and scan her face for a clue about what she’s going to say. Her stoic expression reveals nothing. She looks like a wan version of her academic image; her straight dark-blond hair, unfashionably long, is swept into a loose topknot, and her small, even features are pale, a telegenic contrast to the inky blackness of a knit suit.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she says. She glances up from the podium, unaffected by the barrage of electronic flashes. “My husband, Chief Judge Armen Gregorian of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, died this morning by his own hand, here in Philadelphia. He loved this city, even though it had not always been kind to him. Even though the press had not always been kind to him, and especially of late.” She glares collectively at the press, which dubbed the fierce expression “Susan’s stare” during her campaign.
“They’re all pricks,” Sarah says, but even she sounds spent.
Susan takes a sip of water. “My husband did not leave a note to explain his actions, but it is no mystery to me. Some are already saying he did it because of the press’s criticism of his liberal views, but I assure you that was not the reason. Armen was made of sterner stuff.” She manages a tight smile at the crowded room, having reprimanded and absolved them in one blow.
“I’ve heard others say it was because of the death penalty case he had to decide, and the stress and strain it may have caused him. It would break anyone, but not Armen Gregorian. He was made of sterner stuff.” She lifts her head higher, in tacit tribute. Eletha, in the chair next to me, squeezes my hand.
“On the surface, my husband had everything to live for,” Susan says. “He was the chief judge, and we had a wonderful, happy marriage that was a solid source of comfort and support to us both.”
What is she saying? They were on the brink of divorce.
“But my husband was Armenian. The genocide of the Armenian people is called the forgotten genocide. Most of his family was murdered. His mother survived, only to commit suicide herself. This month—April—is when Armenians remember their tragic history.” She looks around the room. “Like the Holocaust survivors who later died by their own hand, my husband was a victim of hate. Let us pause for a moment of silence to remember Armen Gregorian and to remember that the power of hate can destroy us if we do not fight against it.” The camera lingers on her bowed head.
Sarah begins to sob, and Artie hugs her close.
I lean back in my chair, as if pressed there by a gigantic weight. Armen told me about the genocide, though he didn’t tell me about his mother. But still, would he commit suicide because of it? That night? The genocide was on his mind, but so was Hightower. And me. I feel like crying, but the tears won’t come.
Neither will Ben’s. He looks knowingly at Sarah and Artie, cuddled together.
His dark eyes are bone dry.
Judge Galanter’s breath carries the harsh tang of Binaca. Cigar smoke clings to the fine wool of his double-breasted suit. His movements are deliberate and his speech formal, as if he were trying to control each syllable. I know as sure as he’s standing before us, flushed slightly in front of Armen’s desk, that Galanter has been drinking. It evokes another memory of my father, flitting like a ghost across my mind.
“You law clerks can stay on for a week or two,” he says.
“We hadn’t even thought about it,” Artie snaps from the doorway.
“I’ll attribute that crack to your extreme emotional distress, Mr. Weiss.”
Artie looks away from Galanter, out the window. The courthouse flag flies at half mast, flapping in the wind that gusts off the Delaware River.
“Finish up the cases you’re working on. Draft the bench memos as before and hand them in to me. Argued cases will have to be reargued.” Galanter slides a gleaming Mont Blanc from his breast pocket and makes a check in a leather Filofax he’s holding like a missal. I can imagine what it says.
Things to do: Take over. Before noon.
“Next