“Pearl,” I said, calling my office. “I need a motion ASAP. I need to have a body exhumed.”
“I’m on it,” she said. “Who do you want to have exhumed and why?”
“Judge Sanders,” I said. “He had signs that he was poisoned before he died. Yet there wasn’t an autopsy performed on him. I need to find out if there was poisoning.”
“I’ll get right on that,” she said. “Who would be the judge who would rule on this?”
“Judge Graham,” I said. “She’s the trial judge for this murder case. She would be the one who would rule on it.”
“I’ll draw that up.”
“Thanks.” I closed my eyes. “Listen, I was going to come into the office, but I don’t feel like it right now. I don’t know, I feel weird. Antsy. Anxious. My thoughts are racing a mile a minute. I don’t think that I’ll be good right now. I think that I need to go to the federal courthouse and see Judge Sanders’ chambers. I hope that they haven’t cleaned it out yet.”
“That’s okay, Harper. I’ll see you when you get here, whenever that will be. You don’t have any new client intakes today, and you don’t have court, so do what you need to do.”
“Thanks, I will.” I hung up and shook my head. I have to see the judge’s chambers. Damn that Elmer, hurting me like that. Damn Michael doing what he did to me. I wonder what Axel is doing today? Maybe he can meet me downtown for lunch. I don’t get downtown all the time, except for court, so I hope that he can come and meet with me. God, I’m hungry. What’s up with those girls not having to go to school anymore? I think that I need to work on a legal brief for that appeal I got going. I need to find somebody who can do the research for me.
I blinked my eyes and shook my head. Stop, Harper. Just stop. You have to focus. Focus. Focus.
I saw the Federal Courthouse coming up ahead. It was a beautiful, stately building that was shaped like a giant horseshoe. It was fairly new, and it didn’t look at all like a traditional courthouse. There weren’t Roman columns or Roman architecture, but, rather, it was thoroughly modern. There were walls of glass in the back of the structure, and, in the front, it was all made of stone. I loved this courthouse and I missed coming to it. I sometimes got the chance to come down here when I had a federal criminal case, but, other than that, I never really got to see this place so much.
I walked into the enormous lobby of the courthouse and went up to the clerk who was behind the glass. “Hello,” I said. “I need to go to the chambers of Judge Sanders.”
The clerk looked at me and smiled. “Harper, I know that you’re on this case, but you can’t go back there. It’s been cordoned off by the police. They’ve been investigating in there all morning.”
I sighed. “Well, is there any of his colleagues around? I need to ask them some questions about Judge Sanders.”
“You’re going to have to make an appointment, of course. Which judge would you most like to speak with?”
I didn’t know who Judge Sanders was closest with. I really needed to find out if there was a liquor cabinet in his chambers somewhere - that would be the best place to put poison into. Considering that Michael told me that he thought that his father-in-law was a teetotaler, it would seem that, if Judge Sanders was a drinker, he wasn’t an obvious one. Therefore, it seemed that I was going to have to figure out who was his closest friend on the bench. Only his close friend would know if he drank on the job or not.
“Do you know who Judge Sanders hung out with the most? I mean, if he were to meet a colleague after work, who would he call first to go out?” I hoped that the clerk might know that. They were always up on all the gossip.
“You probably want to speak with Judge Johnson,” she said. “He and Judge Sanders were golfing and tennis buddies. He probably would have any answer you need to know.”
“Thanks. Can you contact his clerk and get something set up? I really need to speak with him. Also, I would like a list of pending cases that he had in front of him.” That was something that was going to be important – if he had a case in front of him that was something that he was going to rule on and the ruling was going to be adverse, I would imagine that somebody might want to bump him off for that reason alone.
“I can get that for you,” she said. “Just let me print it out for you.”
“Thanks.”
I looked around as I waited for the clerk to print out the list of cases. There were people everywhere heading to the elevators and talking on phones. Talking to each other. And, somehow, everything just became a giant jumble. It seemed like there was only a morass of people. I couldn’t hear individual conversations or even see individual people. They were only a conglomerate. I put my hands on my ears and squeezed my eyes shut tight.
“Here, Harper,” she said. “Here’s a printout of Judge Sanders pending cases.”
“Thanks.”
“I’ll get in touch with Judge Johnson’s clerk and let you know when would be a good time for you to meet with him,” she said.
“Thanks.”
She looked concerned. “Harper, are you okay?”
“I am. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know. You seem a little off. I hope you don’t mind my saying that.”
“I don’t feel well. Thank you for that printout, though.”
I walked out onto the street and the first thing I saw was a bar. A bar. I couldn’t possibly go to that bar, though. Yet I wanted to. I needed to.
I got into my car and decided to do something else.
I drove down to the Country Club Plaza, which was the high-end shopping area of Kansas City. It was a crisp day in November, and I knew that, on Thanksgiving night, there would be untold thousands of people who would head down here for the Plaza Lighting Ceremony. That was the biggest annual event for the Kansas City area. Where some cities attracted zillions of people to see the lighting of the Mayor’s Christmas Tree, in Kansas City, the masses of people came to the Plaza. It was an amazing thing to see the darkness of the beautiful buildings suddenly light up. Celebrities showed up to do the honors of pulling the lever that lit up the Plaza - real celebrities like Paul Rudd did the honors on occasion.
I parked the car. I always loved this shopping area. Kansas City was the sister city to Seville, Spain, and the buildings on the Plaza were designed in the Spanish style. Stucco facades, Spanish tile roofs and towers were the hallmarks of these buildings.
I walked into Talbot’s, which was the department store that was the most prominent in the area. I was itching to spend some money, which was weird for me. I was always so thrifty with my money, watching every penny. I knew that I needed to be thrifty, even though I made really good money, because I had so many expenses. I had a mortgage, I had to save for retirement, I had all my usual expenses, I had a nanny, and I also had to save up money for the girls to go to college. I also had to pay for their private school – I had to send them to private schools because the Kansas City school district was so terrible. I had to save as much money as I could, so I tended not to spend very much money on things like clothing and jewelry and things like that.
Yet, when I went into Talbot’s, I looked around and had the urge to spend a lot of money on things that I never thought about before.
I started at the Chanel makeup counter, and I got a makeover. I ended up buying all the products that the girl put on my face, including the skin care products, which was something that I never spent money on. I pretty much bought Noxema from Wal-Mart and put that on my face to take off my makeup. Yet, I bought everything that she put on me.
“You look beautiful,” she said. “This eyeshadow really makes your green eyes pop. You have such peaches and cream skin, and these colors are beautiful on you.”
I never thought of my complexion as being “peaches and cream.” I was pale and I knew it. Out of everyone in my family, I was the one who most resembled our distant Scottish ancestors. The curly red hair, the green eyes, the pale skin – I looked like my great-grandmother who was right
off the boat from Scotland. “Thanks,” I said, looking in the mirror. The makeup artist certainly did a great job of subtly bringing out the color of my eyes while toning down any redness in my face.
“I’ll take it,” I said. “All of it.”
After I moved through the makeup counter, I tried on clothes. Sweaters, pants, shoes, suits, hats, coats…Everything I tried on, I wanted, and I bought. I told myself that I earned this. I worked hard for this. I had to put up with people like Elmer and Michael and people like that. I had to have something for myself. I couldn’t continue to deny myself the things that I really wanted.
The only problem was, I never wanted these things before. I never cared about clothes and makeup and jewelry and things like that. Yet, the second I walked through this door, I knew that I had to have everything I got my hands on.
Next thing, I went in to get my hair worked on. It had been way too long since my last haircut, and it was time to finally get that done. I ended up with a big, curly bob, which was quite a bit shorter than the long curly mop I had on my head before. I liked it, though.
Nails were after that. A spa pedicure and gel manicure, both in dark red, the color of blood.
I ended up looking in a full-length mirror and, for the first time in a long time, I actually liked what I saw. I turned around and admired my butt, which I worked hard on with squats and spinning. I liked the way that my legs looked in the flared trousers that I changed into after my shopping spree at Talbot’s. I even liked the floppy brown hat on my head and my brand-new bright green peacoat, which was perfect for the chilly November evening that was falling.
“Axel,” I said, calling my boyfriend. He was my boyfriend finally. We decided that we were going to be exclusive. I was falling in love with him, and he told me the same. “Let’s meet for dinner. Here on the Plaza. Plaza III. My treat. I feel like splurging.”
Axel laughed. “You certainly are a spontaneous one. I was hoping that I could come over to your house and fix dinner for you and the girls. But if you would like to go to the Plaza III, that’s fine, too. But I can’t let you buy.”
“You have to let me buy. I just got a good murder case and I’m flush with cash.” That wasn’t actually true. I had a lot of murder cases and a lot of criminal cases, and I was never that flush with cash. I mean, I made a good living, but I was never one to blow any of it.
“I’ll meet you, but I can’t let you buy, lass. Sorry about that.”
“Lass.” I smiled. That was one of the things that I loved the most about Axel – he was from Australia and I loved his accent and his use of Aussie colloquialisms. “I’ll see you in about a half hour, huh?” Axel lived in the downtown area in a loft, so I knew that he could be down at the Plaza in a short period of time.
“I’ll see you.”
I went over to the restaurant and found a hostess. “I’m meeting somebody here,” I said. “Can I go ahead and wait at the bar?”
“This way,” she said, leading me into the bar area. She put a napkin in front of me. “The bartender will be right with you.”
I took a deep breath, wondering if I could resist the urge to drink. I was constantly white-knuckling it. Every day, every second, was another day, another second, that I had to make a choice. Either keep on my sobriety or go off the wagon yet again.
But, somehow, the spending spree that I just did at Talbot’s and the hair place and the nail salon took the edge off for me. I didn’t have the need to have a drink. I smiled as I realized that I didn’t want a shot of bourbon or whiskey or anything else on the alcohol menu. I put one of my packages on the bar and looked at the receipt. It was the bill from Talbot’s, and I added everything up and was shocked that it all came to around $5,000.
$5,000. I’ve never spent $5,000 in one day ever in my life. Except when I bought my Beemer. I rationalized it, though. I earned this money, dammit. My life was stressful and I was constantly having to put up with nonsense from my clients. I needed something to make me happy, and, today, spending money was that thing.
In the back of my mind, however, I knew that something was wrong. Something was off. My brain was going haywire. It was as if I had drunk 100 Red Bulls and…that was it! In college, I took speed. Just once, because I needed to stay up all night studying for an exam. I wasn’t used to stimulants, let alone a powerful stimulant like speed, and I ended up running up and down the six flights of stairs several times in a row. I couldn’t concentrate on what I was supposed to be studying – I kept reading the same paragraph, over and over over and over again, and I never absorbed any of it. I felt like I was flying high, yet, the next day, I completely crashed. Just totally crashed. I was eating lunch and, right there at the lunch table, I put my head down and fell right to sleep.
What is wrong with me? I haven’t taken speed. I haven’t even had a cup of coffee. I never drink coffee. I haven’t even had a glass of tea. What’s wrong with me?
CHAPTER EIGHT
Axel finally arrived and he kissed me on the cheek. “Oh, lass, your hair is beautiful. I really like it. You look different, too.” He stood back and looked at me. “You look like a model.”
I laughed. “A model. A supermodel, huh?” I brought my sparkling water up to my lips, and I noticed that my right hand was shaking wildly.
Axel noticed the same thing. He looked at my right hand and then looked at me. “Harper, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “I feel weird. I got this murder case, and I have this other murder case, and, well, one of my murderers put me into the hospital. He crushed me.”
“What?” Axel stood up. “What do you mean, he put you into the hospital?”
“Just what I said. He attacked me and put me into the hospital. Don’t worry, I’m not representing him anymore.”
“Harper, you have to be careful.” He put his arm around me. “Seriously. I don’t want to lose you.”
“You’re not going to lose me, silly. Listen, it comes with the territory. When you’re a criminal defense attorney and you’re defending capital cases, you’re going to get these violent people who get really irate when you tell them things that they’re in no mood to hear. That’s what happened with this guy. He told me that he wanted me to try his case, even though he told me, point blank, that he killed his drug partner with a telephone. He beat her to death with the phone as she was trying to call the authorities to turn him in. He told me it was self-defense.” I laughed. “Self-defense. What kind of nonsense is that?”
Axel wasn’t laughing along. He was sitting next to me at the bar looking worried. “Harper, I have to ask you something. I don’t want you be offended. But I need to know.” He looked down at his hands.
“Go ahead. Ask away. I’ll tell you. I don’t have anything to hide.”
He cleared his throat. “Are you drinking again?”
I shook my head. “No. Do you see this? It’s sparkling water. Here, taste it. Taste it, since you probably don’t believe me.” I was irritated, really irritated, and I had no idea why. Axel was only asking me an innocent question – why did I feel like he was giving me the third degree? Anybody would ask me the same question. I was acting weird, and I knew it.
He put up his hands. “That’s okay, I don’t need to taste it. I believe you.”
“Thanks.” I took a deep breath. “Let’s get a table. It’s not all that crowded yet, so I think that the hostess can seat us.”
He smiled, but I could tell that something was off with him, too.
“What?” I asked him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what, lass?”
“Like you think that I’m on something. I’m not. I’ve never in my life taken drugs. I’ve never even smoked pot in my life.”
“Let’s change the subject. Tell me about your new murder case.”
I took a deep breath. “I don’t want to change the subject. I want to know what is going through your head. You’re looking at me like you think that I’m high. I
’m not. I’m really not.”
“I don’t think you are. You’re acting weird, though. You seem like you’re on fast-forward.”
That was how I felt, actually – as if I was on fast-forward. Like everything around me, everything in my environment, was going faster and faster. I closed my eyes and I heard a voice – it was telling me that I was worthless, that I brought all my hardships onto myself, that everybody hated me. I put my hands over my ears. “Stop talking, just stop it.” I shook my head. “Stop it. Stop saying those things.” I suddenly felt like screaming.
I looked at Axel, who now was looking like he was really freaked out. “Harper, I think that we need to cut this evening short. I mean, I still want to be with you tonight, but maybe not here. Let’s go to your house. See your kids. For whatever reason, you seem a little…freaked out. I don’t know why, exactly.”
I nodded my head. “I think that maybe you’re right. I don’t feel well. Maybe things will stop spinning once I get home.”
“Stop spinning?”
“Yeah. I mean, this restaurant seems like it’s on some kind of a fast carousel right now.”
We left the restaurant after I took care of the bill. I only drank soda water, but I left the bartender a $20 bill. “Keep it,” I said to him. “You put up with me sitting here for an hour, so it’s worth it for me to give you a big tip.”
“Thank you,” he said with a smile. “That’s very generous.”
Axel put his arm around me. “Where did you park, Harper?”
I furrowed my brow. I really couldn’t remember. My car was somewhere on the Plaza, but where? “I don’t know,” I said. “I started out shopping at Talbot’s. I remember that. And then I went to get my nails done and my hair cut. But I really can’t remember where I parked my car.” Was it on a street? Was it in a garage? Was it in a parking lot? How was I going to figure out where it was? This wasn’t like me, either – I had never been one to completely forget where my car was.
Axel nodded his head. “That’s fine, lass. I can just drive you home, and then I’ll bring you back here tomorrow morning. Maybe you will remember where you parked your car by tomorrow.”
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