The Secret Hour (37 page)

 
Brainer, inside the bedroom with his owner, whimpered softly, nose snuffing the space under the door. The Judge shook his head—John wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire in the dating department, and the Judge thought Kate Harris would be a good person to start with.

 
But try to tell kids anything these days. Sometimes he felt like Maeve, lecturing her four sons Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They never listened, either.

 
“I’m sorry, Ms. Harris,” he said, hand on the banister as he descended the stairs. Reaching the vestibule, he gave her a half-smile. “My son is otherwise disposed.”

 
“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “Will you tell him I was here?”

 
At the sound of her voice, Brainer—now that he had IDed her via acute canine sensory perception—let out a friendly bark from upstairs.

 
“Is that Brainer?” she asked.

 
“The very same.”

 
“Please give him my regards—and Bonnie’s. Say hi to Maggie and Teddy, too. And Maeve. I have this note for Maggie…”

 
“Fine,” the Judge said, shaking her hand, accepting the note and placing it on the hall table, where Maggie would see it. “Where can I tell John to find you?”

 
“My home away from home,” she said. “The East Wind Inn.”

 
The Judge watched her walk down the steps to her car—obviously a rental; his legal mind was like a steel trap that had rusted only partially shut, and he kept a store of interesting facts, such as rental cars having lot stickers on the bumper and license plates beginning with the letters “CJ.”

 
She waved as she backed out of the driveway. The Judge waved back.

 
He had seen many human beings in all stages of life during his years on the bench. He had learned to recognize the acute and subtle signs of desperation, grief, sorrow, and…and this was the word that came to mind when he gazed into the lovely unusual gray-blue eyes of Kate Harris…hope.

 
The girl was flowing with hope.

 
And she’d come to see his son.

 
“Goddamn it, you picked a lulu of an afternoon to catch up on your shut-eye,” he said, looking up at the ceiling.

 
The Judge was used to people taking naps. Maeve, for example, would sleep the day away if he’d let her. The Judge himself liked to loosen his tie and put his feet up for an hour now and then. But his son—another story entirely.

 
John never sat still. Never. The boy was always trying cases, driving kids to some sport or other, seeing clients, interviewing witnesses, plotting trial strategy. John Xavier O’Rourke never sat still long enough to see the color of his eyes.

 
The Judge, having gazed into them upon John’s entry into this world, knew very well that they were light brown, the color of root beer. And he was damned well going to see them right now, if he had to pry them open himself.

 
She was here.

 
John had heard her voice. First elated, hearing her ask for him, then paralyzed by it all.

 
His father had come upstairs; John had lain still, pretending to be asleep. The irony was, drifting off earlier, he had started to dream of her. The eyes that looked straight into his soul…

 
What had she been trying to tell him in the dream? There had been no words, just a sort of understanding John had never experienced in his life.

 
Kate Harris is here
, his father had said.

 
John knew it, but he couldn’t move.

 
What could he do for her, after all? Dreams were one thing, but life was another.

 
For the second time in half an hour, creaking up the stairs, the Judge rapped softly, then loudly, on John’s bedroom door. Receiving no answer, he finally turned the knob.

 
Lying on his back, a pillow over his eyes, John pretended to be asleep. The Judge had watched this fellow fake sleep many a time. As a boy, John had put up a constant fight about bedtimes. He always wanted to finish reading a book—or at least a chapter. Or he wanted to stay up till midnight, to see a meteor shower. Or till three, when the hurricane was scheduled to hit. Or four, when Santa was slated to come down their chimney.

 
 
“You’re not fooling anyone,” the Judge said now.

 
John didn’t reply. His faking days had added up, and he really knew how to look asleep. Of course, the Judge knew, pretending—with John—didn’t stop with sleep. He’d been pretending his way through life for quite some time. Pretending to be happy, that everything was “fine,” “okay,” “great.” That last year with Theresa had been the most difficult to watch, but the Judge had no one to blame but himself: He hadn’t exactly been a role model for sharing feelings or opening his heart.

 
“Hey, there—Counselor,” the Judge said to his son, wiggling the bare toes of his right foot.

 
John rolled over, pillow pulled tighter over his face. As he moved, the pillow slid away, revealing tear tracks in the sun lines around John’s eyes, down his cheekbones.

 
“Leave me alone, Dad,” John whispered.

 
“She’s damn pretty,” the Judge said.

 
When John didn’t reply, the Judge breathed out, exasperated. “I’m talking about Kate Harris. Maybe you should go see what she wants.”

 
“I know what she wants,” John said dully. “To know about her missing sister. And I can’t help her with that.”

 
“Maybe it’s not your job to. The police can help her with her sister. Maybe you can just be her friend. Seems like that’s why she came here—she was looking pretty friendly to me.”

 
“She wants to know—never mind. But my work puts me in conflict with her,” John said.

 
“Puts you in conflict with half the town, if you’re doing your job!” the Judge chuckled. “But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a life and a friend…”

 
“Stop, Dad,” John said, rolling over. He shoved his face into the pillow again, as if he’d suddenly become too exhausted to stay awake. The Judge stared at him for a few long moments, then sighed. Because he knew what his son was going through.

 
“They have a name for this. Battle fatigue,” he said. “Or burnout—take your pick.”

 
John didn’t answer, didn’t even seem to hear, so the Judge went on.

 
“I used to get it myself. I don’t know many lawyers who don’t. And how could we not? We’re dealing with people’s lives, son. It’s not just a job where we go home at night and close the door. We have to live with the life-and-death aspect of what we do—and what others do.”

 
Although John didn’t reply, the Judge could see he had his attention: The pillow had slipped slightly, revealing his right ear.

 
“Before I became a judge,” he said, “I did what you do. Defended people. Some innocent, many not. Once I had a case—you might remember it. Jack Carsey. A man who kidnapped and murdered a girl in town. You saw the forensic photos, and you couldn’t sleep for a week.”

 
“I remember,” John said, his mouth in the pillow.

 
“Your mother was furious with me. Not just because you were so upset, or even for the fact that people hated me for it…but because I was defending a
bad man
. That’s what she said to me, and—I don’t know if you can remember your mother’s voice…”

 
“I can,” John said.

 
The Judge nodded. Leila had been an old-fashioned woman; like many in her day, in spite of her brains and talents, she had elected to stay home and be a wife and mother. But when she spoke, her voice had the resonance of Louis Brandeis addressing the court. “She said to me, ‘Patty…’” he coughed, trailing off. “And she was the only person in the world who could get away with calling me ‘Patty.’”

 
“I know,” John said, taking the pillow completely away from his face, looking up.

 
“‘Patty, I want you to stop defending Jack Carsey.’ That’s what she said.”

 
“Yeah,” John said. “I heard her.”

 
“She told me she wanted me to drop the case. Suggested I think about my life—our lives—and evaluate what was important to me. Reminded me of my Catholic upbringing, my sense of right and wrong. Told me—”

 
“To check your moral compass,” John said.

 
“Yes,” his father said, hearing Leila’s words. “And then she told me—are you ready? She said, ‘Patty—you’re helping this man get away with murder.’”

 
As the Judge spoke, he saw his son close his eyes. A wave passed over his face, something like seasickness mixed with despair of the soul.

 
“That ring a bell, son?” the Judge asked.

 
“It’s what we do,” John said. “Teddy says the same thing.”

 
“What do you say?”

 
“I tell myself I’m defending an individual’s Constitutional rights, that this is what Washington had in mind at Philadelphia…I tell myself it was Greg Merrill’s right to a fair hearing…and that it’s his right to counsel now…”

 
“…And?” the Judge asked.

 
“And then I see Amanda Martin’s hand. It was so white, Dad. Scratching at the sky…as if she was reaching for a lifeline.”

 
The Judge listened.

 
“And Kate Harris…that woman who came by?” John asked.

 
“Yes?”

 
“Her sister Willa’s missing. Kate’s the woman I met in Fairhaven. The one I breached lawyer-client privilege with.”

 
“I figured.”

 
John looked clearly at his father. Although still lying flat on his back, the spark was there in his eyes. “How?”

 
“She’s lovely,” the Judge said mildly. “I’d‘ve breached it for her, too.”

 
“It’s a big thing to do,” John said. “I could be disbarred for it. But the thing is…”

 
“You’d do it again,” the Judge said.

 
“How do you know?”

 
The Judge sighed. From the bedroom window, looking into the garden, he could just see Leila’s sculpture of Lady Justice. There she stood, eyes blindfolded, holding the scales high in her hand. Maeve had a habit of putting birdseed in the scales; sparrows and cardinals set upon them, eating the seed. Although the principle of Justice was one of dignity and grace, the human reality could be quite messy.

 
“Because you’re not made of stone,” the Judge said, staring at the statue. “You have a heart.”

 
“I have to recuse myself as Merrill’s attorney.”

 
“You think someone else would do a better job? Take on the case pro bono, weather the slings and arrows of friends and neighbors, face the difficult moral questions?”

 
“I can’t speak for them,” John said. “Only for myself.”

 
“You’re serious about this,” the Judge said, feeling stunned. His son was honestly pondering the issue of quitting as Merrill’s counsel.

 
“Yes. I have a meeting scheduled with Dr. Beckwith today, and I’m going to cancel. We’re supposed to meet with Merrill, go over Beckwith’s findings, come up with a strategy for this mental disorder defense. I can’t do it.”

 
“Because you don’t believe in it?”

 
“Because it makes me sick. Because I don’t want to live in Greg Merrill’s head anymore.”

 
The Judge sat down on the bed, by his son’s feet. The dog, lying on the floor, circled once and laid his head on the Judge’s knee, dirty gold fur sticking to the fine gabardine.

 
“I’ve seen this happen before,” the Judge mused. “And, as I said before, experienced it myself. Burnout—that moment of nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, right?”

 
“Yeah,” John said. “I can’t push the pictures of Merrill’s crimes out of my mind anymore. I know how he thinks, I know what his fantasies are…I know that Phil Beckwith thinks he’s a prize case, a pervert who almost deserves a category all his own. I want to just block the whole thing out.”

 
“Dive under the covers…”

 
“Or get rip-roaring obliterated.”

 
“It’s why we have so many drunks in our profession. Nothing like a little medicinal single-malt scotch after a long stretch at the courthouse to forget what we’re doing…Actually, sounds good,” the Judge said, chuckling. “What do you say?”