The Secret Hour (38 page)

 
“It’s the middle of the day,” John replied. But even so, he hiked himself up on his elbow and swung his legs off the bed.

 
“Better than sleeping,” the Judge said. “Save that till later, for when you’re retired.”

 
The two men went downstairs, into the Judge’s den. Brainer followed them, stopping by the tall windows facing the street, looking outside—as if to see if Kate Harris was still there. The Judge caught John looking too, and he hid a smile.

 
Going to the mahogany sideboard, the Judge removed two heavy crystal glasses and a hand-cut Waterford decanter. Removing the stopper, he smelled the whiskey with close-eyed appreciation.

 
“Don’t need ice with this,” he said, pouring.

 
“What is it?”

 
“Twenty-year-old Talisker.”

 
The Judge handed one glass to his son, and the two men clinked glasses.

 
“Here’s to lawyers,” the Judge said.

 
John hesitated, but then he drank. So did his father. They drained their glasses as if they were drinking shots. The Judge poured again.

 
“Careful,” his father said, replacing the stopper. “This is how fine lawyers become alkies.”

 
“I know,” John said, sipping. “When I was young, and I used to see those soused old guys floating around the courthouse…usually Irishmen like Brady and O’Neill…I used to have such contempt for them. Red-faced, bloodshot eyes, stinking of booze…”

 
The Judge nodded.

 
“Now I understand them.”

 
“How’s that, son?”

 
“It was the profession,” John said, sipping again. “They had their own Merrills to represent…”

 
Again, the Judge nodded, just listening.

 
“They were too sensitive to handle it. What did Mom used to say about Ireland? That it was ’a vale of tears.‘ That Irish lawyers were actually poets who’d gotten locked in the courthouse…She used to say that about you,” John said, raising his eyes to meet his father’s.

 
The Judge nodded, remembering, but his throat was too choked up to respond quite yet, so he topped off his glass. He could still hear Leila’s beautiful, gravelly voice, rich with heart, soul, and cigarettes…

 
“She’d probably say it about me now,” her son said.

 
“That she would.”

 
“She’d say I’m helping a bad man get away with murder.”

 
“But you didn’t, John. Merrill’s on death row. If you succeed in your efforts, the best he can hope for is life without parole. You and the good doctor will see to that. Regardless of what happens, Merrill’s away for good.”

 
“He inspired someone to kill Amanda Martin.”

 
“I know.”

 
“And Willa Harris is still missing.”

 
“I know that, too. I know something else…”

 
“What?”

 
“Don’t go romanticizing the Irish-poet sensitive-lawyer drinking thing. Those guys drank because they wanted to—this cold hard world just gave them an excuse to do it. They caused more damage in their own families than you’ll ever know.”

 
“You know, though?”

 
The Judge nodded gravely. “Yep. I do.”

 
“So,” John said, putting his glass down without finishing the scotch, walking over to the window and looking out. “What do I do, Dad?”

 
“Your job, Johnny. You put one foot in front of the other, and you carry out the mandate set down by James Madison. You represent your client to the best of your ability. You practice ‘principles before personalities’…”

 
“Where’d you hear that?” John asked, as if he liked the saying.

 
“A.A.,” his father said.

 
“How do you know what they say in A.A.?” John asked.

 
The Judge shrugged, and his smile faltered. “Way back when, one of those drunken Irish lawyers around the courthouse was your father. This stuff gets to me, too, Johnny. I was hitting the bottle a little too hard, and your mother dragged me to a few meetings.”

 
“I never knew.”

 
“Well, it didn’t last. I cleaned up my act. Saw what I was doing to your mother…and I’d seen how those other lawyers’ drinking wound up hurting their children. Jimmy Brady stood before my bench as often as any kid in this town. Anyway, I learned how to put the principles of law before specific clients, victims, families.”

 
“Hard to practice.”

 
“Yes,” the Judge said, staring out at Lady Justice, a starling perched on her head, several juncos pecking at seed in the scales. “But vitally important.”

 
“Yeah, I know,” John said. He looked at his watch—perhaps gauging whether he had enough time to drive back to Winterham Prison, meet up with his client and the psychiatrist.

 
Brainer, wanting affection, walked from father to son. The Judge watched John pet the loyal dog’s head, catch his fingers in tangles around the neck. Distracted at first, John seemed not to notice. But gradually, working his fingers through the mats, pulling out a briar and some twigs, the Judge watched John shake his head.

 
“This dog needs a bath,” John said, sounding mystified, frowning as he worked out a burr.

 
The Judge let the statement hang in the air. John looked to the window, as if a lightbulb had just gone on over his head, as if Kate Harris herself stood on the front porch.

 
One of the hallmarks of a great trial lawyer is the ability to ask questions with the cutting skill of a surgeon. Don’t go where you shouldn’t go, or you might kill your case; don’t ask any question you don’t know the answer to. With that in mind, watching his son extricate dead leaf bits from Brainer’s fur, the Judge cleared his throat.

 
“What,” the Judge asked, his tone stentorian, “are you going to do about it?”

 
Kate had unpacked everything and settled into her room at the East Wind Inn. Bonnie stood on a chair, the better to look out the window. She had been so patient, waiting for her walk, but seeing Kate take the leash down from the bureau, she let out a sharp, happy bark.

 
Pulling on her dark green wool coat and a cream-colored beret, Kate let the Scottie tug her downstairs. Thanksgiving was two days away, and the smell of baking pies filled the inn.

 
“Apple and pumpkin,” Felicity said as Kate emerged in the front hall. “Hope you’ll join us for dinner Thursday.”

 
“Thanks,” Kate said. “I’m not sure what my plans will be.”

 
Although what did she
think
they’d be? She reddened at the thought. Perhaps she’d been harboring hopes of being invited to the O’Rourkes’. She imagined their big table, groaning under turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and creamed onions; a centerpiece of dried flowers picked by Maggie; laughter and conversation.

 
“Well, when you decide, you’re welcome.”

 
“You’re open for dinner to the public that day?”

 
“No,” Felicity said, shaking her head. “Just family…Us, Caleb of course, my brother-in-law Hunt…if I can tear them away from their jobs, that is.”

 
“Hard workers,” Kate said, fighting Bonnie, who was straining at her leash. In the distance she heard the sound of hammering. “Is Caleb still fixing your barn?”

 
“What?” Felicity asked, tilting her head.

 
“That sound…” Kate said, pausing, so Felicity would hear. “Nails being hammered.” It was far-off, but the sound was metallic and steady. Perhaps Felicity, living here, was so used to it she’d stopped hearing. “Last time I was here…remember? Caleb was working on the barn.”

 
“Oh, yes,” Felicity said, laughing. “The endless project. We’re planning to add more guest rooms by next summer, but he’s been so busy at work with his father—on things off-property. Well, I don’t want to keep you from your walk. Looks like Bonnie’s dying to get out there…scare up some rabbits, or something. Better get back to my pies.”

 
“Thanks,” Kate said, but Felicity was already gone.

 
She opened the front door and was greeted by a blast of cold sea air as she followed Bonnie down the sandy lane. They walked through the dark allée of white pines and crossed the small brook that trickled through the apple orchard. The O’Rourkes’ house, unoccupied, sat on the headland jutting out into the Sound. Up ahead, the lighthouse stood, gleaming white against the cold November sky.

 
Waves crashed, sweeping the rocky shore. Kate tried to breathe deeply, but her chest was constricted. Here she was, back again—so soon, with no more answers than she’d had before. Her sister was still gone; Kate felt haunted by the things her brother and Andrew had said, the question of whether her anger had driven Willa away forever.

 
Gazing down the coast, she saw several breakwaters reaching out from shore. Which one of them was Point Heron? She shivered, thinking of the girl they had just found. The newspapers had run stories about her, about her lifelong love of boats, of how she had worked at her parents’ boatyard every summer vacation.

 
Walking toward the bluff with Bonnie, Kate thought of Willa, of the wonderful vacations they had taken together…

 
On many summer breaks, Kate had taken Willa on what they’d called their “Search for Amelia.” Over the years, they had visited many spots of importance in Amelia Earhart’s life: Atchison, Kansas, where she’d been born in her grandparents’ house; Des Moines, where she’d seen her first airplane at the Iowa State Fair; and their biggest, most ambitious trip, to French Polynesia, where Amelia’s plane was believed to have crashed. Andrew had wanted to go too, but Kate had talked him out of it, claiming the mission for the Harris sisters alone.

 
They had taken a boat across the clear, turquoise water. Mysterious and haunting, the atolls had risen, shimmering under the surface, beds of coral and rock. The water was so clean, they could see a hundred feet down. Fish swimming around the reefs, giant clams; it had seemed possible that they would look down and see Amelia’s plane.

 
“It’s so beautiful here,” Willa had said.

 
“I know,” Kate had said, not wanting her sister to know that her throat hurt too much to talk, that she was thinking of the pilot following her dream to the South Pacific, having her bright life end in this paradise.

 
The captain of their boat had been a native of French Polynesia. He had taken them on a tour, one spot more magical than the next, until the sun had set and the sky had turned to fire—purple, red, pink, colors Willa had never seen in nature or on a canvas before.

 
“I have to paint that!” she had exclaimed.

 
“When you do, will you dedicate it to me?” the captain had asked.

 
“You’d want a painting of mine?” Willa had asked. She was seventeen, beautiful, barely aware of her effect on men. Kate had watched protectively, amused at Willa’s naïveté.

 
“Of course I do. You must promise,” the captain had said, standing at the wheel, an insouciant grin on his tanned face. “And when the painting is done, send it to me at the marina.”

 
“If you tell me your name,” Willa had said helpfully. “I will.”

 
“Hervé Tourneau,” the man had said in a French accent. “Aboard Yacht
Chrysalis
, eh? It will get to me, don’t worry…”

 
Willa had laughed, delighted and flattered; Kate had just leaned against the rail, watching the sun break into bits of flame, twinkling cinders across the South Pacific, a trail of fire leading to an endless horizon, loving her sister, grateful for their togetherness.

 
Kate gazed across the moors, at the sea grasses blowing in the wind, the apple trees dark against the slate sky, the tall white lighthouse a beacon even in this thin November daylight. She heard the rhythmic wash of the breaking waves.

 
As she neared the lighthouse, she saw a chain across the road, then two sandy paths, one leading to the right, the other leading to the left. Kate hesitated, not sure which way to go. Bonnie scuffled ahead, low to the ground, the skirts of her coat picking up grass and bits of seaweed blown up from the beach. Calling her over, Kate pulled a bramble from her coat, hugging her close for a moment of comfort.

 
“Oh, Bonnie,” she said. “Good dog.”

 
Bonnie licked her face, and Kate noticed that her black fur was covered with white dust. Not quite sand, more like plaster, or chalk. Looking down, Kate noticed that the ground—especially on the, path leading right—was covered with it.