His palpable bullying made me shudder, and I glanced back.
Donnettelli shoved Wade into the breakroom and slammed the door. The young woman with him was Zena Royale, Laurel Briggs’ Law Clerk, and Zena had turned various shades of plum from her pointed collar up to the tips of her ears. For a second, I thought she was going to go after Donnettelli, and I didn’t want to see that, so I called out to her, shot her the be-careful look, and—as soon as she walked away—I hurried on to the peace of my chambers.
But I only made it as far as my door when Margo, my judicial assistant, appeared with news from the jail. Mr. Felony Non-support had paid the twenty-five-thousand dollars on his arrearage and was being released. He must have had cash in a mattress or a girlfriend in the same vicinity. Good. That young mom would get caught up. Despite the Curse of Donnettelli, we did important work here.
Margo and I chatted for a few minutes before I escaped into my chambers to be briefed by my Law Clerk Violet about the rest of the day.
By the time I was reseated at my bench in the Courtroom, my stomach grumbled. I never got to eat.
It was going to be a long Wednesday.
Chapter Four
Just after five-thirty that afternoon, we finished up the day’s work.
Tired of Donnettelli’s threats over the past eight years, and still feeling him tapping my temple, I thought about reporting him to Judicial Tenure again, but so far, they hadn’t done anything—no matter how often I reported him. I loved fighting for justice, but Donnettelli had been making threats and throwing tantrums at judge’s meetings for years, and he aimed his venom at the three female judges he couldn’t control: Palene, Laurel, and me. Assaulting me in the breakroom—where staff and passersby could hear—was taking bullying to new and extreme heights.
It signposted time for a change. In neon. In giant blinking letters. But I had no desire to reopen my law office. Helping people had always been important to me, but there had to be other ways to do it.
I was tired of all the drama and ready to relax at home. I’d left my winter coat in the car, so I dragged myself to the elevator, which was—happily—empty. Once inside, I pressed G to the underground parking, and when the elevator began to drop, I started to relax. But when it bumped to a stop at the second floor, and the door slid open, every nerve I had complained.
Judge Donnettelli lumbered in. “You,” he said with all the personality of freshly deposited cow excrement.
Fear zinged up the bones at the base of my skull then ricocheted to every aggravated nerve. I glanced around. No cameras in the elevators. Damn. My confidence crawled under my armpits. My scare stare would have to work. “Back at you, bub.” I crinkled my eyes with enough force to repel the creep for two floors.
I was grateful to hear his phone ring. Only he would have a turbo-boost range that could ring inside the elevator.
“Sweetums,” he purred. (I swear, he’d mastered a friendly tom-cat voice for his wife.) “I’m seven minutes away.”
Just two floors. Just two floors. My new mantra.
But the maniac pulled the red STOP knob, the elevator shuddered to an abrupt standstill between floors, I backed into the corner of the elevator, and my arm hairs stood on end like danger-detecting antennae.
“Hold on, doll-baby, I’ve got another call,” he said. He pressed something on his phone and barked, “What?”
Mr. Charm. I stepped into fighting stance and held my corner terrain while I figured out an exit strategy and a distraction. At first I could only hear his end of the conversation—using the term loosely.
“Not yet, but she will,” he said.
Within seconds, I distinctly heard the shrill shriek of Judge Jurisa Haddes—who I was convinced was Donnettelli’s private groupie. She was demanding he take care of it and don’t make her tell him again. Yikes.
He clicked her off and reengaged with his wife, but he looked like last summer’s dollar-store beachball.
“Wear the short blue dress,” he told the missus.
My kingdom for a set of earplugs. I didn’t need to know anything about his doings with Mrs. Donnettelli Number Five.
When he’d finished dressing his wife, he clicked off, gripped his phone tightly and pointed it close to my skull. “Nicoletta, you need to understand something about the asbestos cases I assigned you.”
Assigned me illegally. “Slid right off your docket, did they?” I cocked my head sideways to avoid his knuckles.
He dropped the phone into his pocket then balled both fists so close to my face I could see part of his bulging lifeline. “Listen good, and hear it this time,” Donnettelli said in deep low tones through clenched teeth. “Like I said before, the ruling you’re going to make and artfully articulate in the final Order on the Manville case, is—”
I interrupted. “—is my decision to make. I filed it this morning before I took the bench.” I grinned even larger and watched the red in his neck turn into burgundy.
“I’m so much smarter than you. Don’t ever try to go around me. Your downstairs file clerk pulled your Order for me,” Donnettelli said. “She respects my title.” He tapped his chest. “Me, Chief Judge.”
“Manipulating the legal system is beneath even you.” I felt a sudden urge to punch something judicial and obnoxious. Instead, I gave him my deadly you’re-going-to-prison-for-life pointing finger. But afraid he’d grab it and break it, I made a fist, which I’ll admit wasn’t all that impressive. I felt a little silly and shoved it into my pocket.
“I’ve got the sealed mailroom copies of your decision, too.” He waggled ridiculous jazz hands in my face. “I’ve got them all.”
For a moment, I was dumbstruck. With nothing officially recorded, it was as if my judgment never happened. Donnettelli could do whatever he wanted with my decision. “You might want to reconsider.” I spoke quietly. “When I realized you dumped all those asbestos cases on me, I asked the Court Administrator for a computer count to verify that all the judges in our division were assigned the same number of cases. Even as Chief Judge, you can’t just decide to overload my docket. Cases are divided equally and randomly among us, something even you can’t change.”
He just stood there and grinned at me.
The Judge and lawyer in me wanted to report him. The common sense in me wanted to ignore him. And the woman in me wanted to deck him.
“Your incompetent ruling would have bankrupted Manville Corporation.” He sounded so superior, I almost believed him.
What did the damn brute have to gain? “I’m a wild woman. I base my decisions on the law. The people they have killed and injured deserve restitution, and if that means Manville closes or files bankruptcy that is not my concern. I ruled on the evidence, evidence and a record you can’t undo or manipulate.”
“But the law is subject to interpretation,” he said. And there was a tone. “Yours is an unjust, wrong, incompetent interpretation.” He evil laughed.
I shivered. I heard the unspoken change your decision or else, loud and stupid. “If you wanted to rule on asbestos cases, you should have kept them. If you wanted to rule on them, why did you push them onto my docket?”
He looked off into the distance (which was a feat in a closed elevator). “You know what? Don’t comply,” he said. “And we’ll see what happens—” He shot me a cockroach glare, “—to you.”
“Don’t threaten me.” I wished I had bug-spray: slower than punching his gut; more fun to watch. “Don’t swear at me. Don’t talk to me.” My voice stayed quiet for a second, but my brain shouted if you don’t get away from me this instant, you’re going to meet the business end of my cowboy boot. “Don’t come near me ever again, for any reason.”
“It would be a shame,” he said, “if the public learned about Judge Briggs’s dalliance with securities fraud.” He wore his inner altar-boy so well, I thought I saw a halo appear.
“Laurel Briggs has done nothing wrong.” My voice remained firm, but my insides refused to back me up. Judge Laurel Briggs, Judge Palene Field, and I were close personally and professionally. We were also bound together by being long-term Donnettelli targets. But if anyone could wield Liar’s Blackmail, it was Chief Judge Donnettelli, and I had to be careful. Hell, we had to be careful.
He wore a grin he’d swiped from Jack Nicholson. “When Laurel was Chief Judge Pro Tem, in my absence, she signed my Opinions and Orders on several big asbestos cases.”
Donnettelli always sounded as if he were orating before the nation.
“That was her job.” Sweat dripped down my spine. “She had to sign them for you.”
“She didn’t have to sign a thing. She chose to sign,” Donnettelli whispered.
It was apparent to me he’d timed things so that Laurel would sign documents he wanted to be arm’s length from. Would it be evident to others? Had Laurel realized what he’d done? “And then you shifted the rest of those open cases—and any new asbestos cases—to me,” I said.
He’d been playing with our dockets, getting Laurel to sign her name on Orders that would make him look bad. When questioned, he could say he’d left her in charge, and she’d abused it, maybe used it for personal gain or to place him in a false light. Damn. He had it all covered, and now he wanted to manipulate me.
He said, “It’s not my fault Laurel Briggs shared the information with her husband before the public was aware of the final decision. I believe there’s a nasty term associated with that sleazy behavior.”
The lack of oxygen in this suspended cubicle suddenly got serious.
He exuded evilness and leaned forward with a grimace, his nose almost touching mine.
I fought to keep my voice from quivering. “I change my ruling in favor of Manville Corporation, or you’ll accuse my best friend and her husband of insider trading?”
He tapped one finger on his red-veined nose. “I knew you weren’t totally stupid. Think of the bedtime stories. His-and-Hers. All over Lansing. Hell, all over the country.”
Laurel would never, and if she did, Michael would never. But I couldn’t let Donnettelli castrate the justice system. “Manville Corporation recklessly ruined thousands of lives. They forced people to work with asbestos long after they knew it would kill them. They have to pay. My ruling stands. You and your threats can take a nosedive to hell.”
Giant-toddler shrug. “Tell Laurel to ask Martha Stewart what to pack.”
He released the emergency-hold, and the elevator dropped to the next floor, and the doors slid open. “Your decision will be made by eight o’clock tonight.”
“My decision is already made.” Chin high, I pushed in front of him to head out fast.
But something snagged a strand of hair right out of my updo, jerked my head back, and the quick jab of what felt like a metal cylinder connected with my ribcage. Donnettelli was pulling a gun on me in the Courthouse? He was two-hundred pounds of crazy. But I knew crazy. I’d seen enough of it in the Courtroom. This was dumb, desperate, and despicable.
I half turned and slapped the gun away, and damn if he didn’t scratch me again with his freaking long fingernails. As I lunged at the open elevator doorway, he jabbed the gun harder into my spine.
Enough. I shot a hard back-kick to his shin and exited into the eerily empty hall.
“Nicoletta, wait!” he called to my retreating back. But my boots clicked like silver lightning to the nearest stairwell. “Have you got a problem, dear?” he yelled.
“Damn straight!” I shouted and wheeled around, forefinger pointed straight at him, thumb hitching an invisible trigger. “Pack your bags to meet the devil. I’ll be seeing to your final arrangements personally.”
Donnettelli held up both hands as if posing for news cameras, no gun in sight except the imaginary one I trained on him. Then I noticed Peter Dune, Donnettelli’s Law Clerk, at the other end of the hallway. Peter handed something to Judge Jurisa Haddes; she hurried away, and Peter mumbled into his phone, hand over mouth. Out of the elevator into a Grisham conspiracy scene.
I opened the stairwell door, unzipped my robe, and fled downstairs to the judges’ underground-parking garage. At the bottom, I punched my keycard, ran to Elvis, my classic Lincoln Continental (named for Elvis, the-good-years), slid inside, and locked the doors.
From the passenger seat, I grabbed my coat and placed it over me like a comforting blanket. Shaking all over, I realized my finger was bleeding again. Damn goon. And I was still wearing my robe. After a few minutes of calm breathing, I shimmied out of it, flung it into the backseat, and inserted the key.
Now what? Where to go, who to call? I didn’t want to go home to a big empty house with only my cat for company. All three of my sons were in Colorado thanks to Dex my ex. He thought a semester off would be good for them to apprentice at his ridiculously upscale resort in Aspen. I was still mad at him for that. My career had always kept me busy, but I’d tried to do my best for my boys. Now in their early twenties, this could be my last chance to be there for them. No, I wasn’t calling Dex. His brawny-self and his exaggerated-ego could stay on the slope, where he’d transplanted himself.
Sebastian? I could definitely use a hug from my lawyer boyfriend. Unfortunately, the hunk with a killer accent was visiting his family in Australia. Fortunately, he was due back in a week. Even if it was worth the ticket to see him, I wasn’t going anywhere with this Donnettelli mess on my hands.
My fingers weren’t shaking quite as bad when I hit the auto-dial on my phone.
“Meet me at Victoria’s Secret. Six-thirty,” I told Laurel. I needed a quick talk with my best friend. I dug around in my purse for the one thing that would put the world right, and I sprayed.
“Something wrong?” she asked. She must have heard me spritzing myself with the other best friend a girl could have: Hairspray. It had been a damn long Wednesday.
Chapter Five
Promptly at six-thirty, Laurel caught up with me in the silky teddy section near the dressing rooms. She was bearing an armful of Victoria’s Secret lingerie in designs reflective of our rebelliousness—various shades of burgundy, pink, gray, and white—her type of wild. I was anxious to warn Laurel that our long-predicted disaster wasn’t only headed our way, but he’d rounded the bend, and zeroed in with loaded weaponry. Being feisty all-under wasn’t going to resolve this problem. But talking with her would help me decide what to do. We had to talk privately, and we had to talk fast.
“I love Victoria’s Secret,” Laurel said. “Pink champagne will pair nicely with these goodies.”
“Jumbo sized wedding-day hairspray pairs with everything.” I needed a few more spritzes and a clear head to tell Laurel that Donnettelli had put a red laser dot on her forehead.
Laurel cocked her head sideways; she could always sense when I had a problem. “Out with it.”
I gestured her into the largest dressing room, checked the other rooms. We were alone. While we undressed, I reported Donnettelli’s threats.
“Michael and I did no such thing.” She foot-flicked her heels off.
“I’m not accusing either of you.” I shimmied into pink-and-gray sweats with matching lacey undergarments. “I wanted you to know: he’s an arrogant, pompous blowhard on the attack.”
“So ‘on the attack’ is the news?” Laurel slipped into her high heels.
I laughed. Laurel always did that for me.
She admired her reflection in a fuchsia underwire teddy. “If we weren’t here being underwear-distracted, I might cry.”
“Exactly why I couldn’t discuss this with you in the Courthouse. But, I have to ask,” I paused, and she gazed back at me in the mirror. We needed to find a way to protect her. “Did you sign Orders for Donnettelli? Orders that maybe you didn’t read very closely?”
Laurel’s eyes held a tinge of hurt, her voice an und
ertone of surprise. “Same as all the trial judges. Signing piles of my own Orders, along with signing Orders for vacationing judges, including those Donnettelli gave me when I was Chief Judge Pro Tem when he wasn’t immediately available, how can I recall specific Orders? I bet you don’t recall everything you sign weeks later.” Laurel’s voice grew more hushed in tone with each syllable.
She sounded a little upset but more thoughtful. And she was right; I didn’t recall everything I signed. I doubted any Judge did until it was handed to them again.
I gave her my I’m-on-your-side look. “Donnettelli could’ve switched out pages, pulled pages or attachments he didn’t want you to see, or set you up some other way for a criminal fall.”
“He’s capable of anything.” Laurel sat on the dressing-room bench and tried to hide her shaking. “His ego barely fits in the Courthouse.”
I wanted to see the fire in her blaze. I wanted her to say she’d fight. I wanted Donnettelli to take a flying leap into the middle of I-96 at rush hour. “Donnettelli gave me an eight o’clock deadline. I’m almost out of time.”
“The only one who has run out of time is Donnettelli.” Laurel solemnly hung her selection on the hook and dressed.
I checked my watch. I didn’t have time to return to the Courthouse by eight. My return wouldn’t change anything anyway. “Agreed.” I hugged her, slipped on my cowboy boots, grabbed my pile of clothing, and we headed for the register. I’d somehow make sure Laurel was all right, but I still felt like I had one foot in a rusty bear trap. Maybe both feet.
We paid and left. I climbed into Elvis and leaned back on the headrest, while I watched Laurel pull out of the lot in the direction of home. I had less than half an hour before Donnettelli would—what would he do? Hunt me down. Expose non-crimes to humiliate Laurel. Mess with my docket, my friends, my life. The list of heinous things he could get away with was endless. I was thoroughly tired of all things Donnettelli.
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