Where Nobody Dies (35 page)

“I guess I'll take care of Dawn on my own,” he replied, sounding less than certain. Straightening up, he began to think out loud. “I can get a job and an apartment. We'll be fine. We don't need—”

“Who'll stay with Dawn while you're at work?” I confronted him. “Who'll take her to her tennis matches, Brad? Hell, who'll
pay
for her tennis matches?”

“Cass”—Mickey's voice was no longer soothing—“this isn't an adversary proceeding.”

I shot Mickey a look one partner should never give another. Then I glanced at Dawn. The look of relaxed anticipation had left her face and was beginning to be replaced by the tense, pinched look she'd always worn in court. I felt bad for her, but I knew the fantasy world the Ritchies lived in was no place she could really call home.

“Mickey, I have to …”

My partner held up a restraining hand, then turned to Brad. “Mr. Ritchie,” she said firmly, “your daughter's future is too important to rest on a wish or a hope. Are you sure you can handle having Dawn with you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week? Being totally responsible for all the decisions that have to be made in a twelve-year-old's life?”

While Mickey talked, her questioning calm but relentless, I flashed back to all those Family Court appearances. To the first day I'd seen Brad and Linda do their “Come to Daddy, Dawnie”/“No, stay here by Mommy” routine. To the innumerable motions Brad and his lawyers had filed, litigating and relitigating every detail of Brad's visitation. To the final day, when Brad had threatened to do what it turned out he hadn't done after all—kill the wife who'd withheld his child from him. After all that, I thought, how could he say no to Dawn now?

Brad looked at his daughter. The love, the plea in her eyes were painful to see. Finally Brad dropped his eyes. “I'm sorry, honey,” he said, his attempt at a smile a twisted grimace. “I guess I'm just not a very good father.”

Dawn swallowed hard, then reached out her hand and touched his strong arm. “It's okay, Daddy,” she whispered. “I understand. And you
are
a good father,” she added passionately, looking around the room as if daring anyone to contradict her.

I was stunned. Brad's frank admission was the last thing in the world I'd expected. It was so different from the position he'd taken when Linda was alive. When Linda was alive … was that, I wondered, the key? Had the constant custody battle been a way of maintaining a link with Linda as much as a real fight over Dawn? Now, with Linda dead, that game was over. And Marcy, unlike her sister, had no plans to take Dawn out of the city.

Sheepishly, yet with clear relief, Brad shook his head. “I love her,” he told Mickey. “I want to be with her as much as I can. But,” he added with a touch of sadness, “I know my limits. I know there's things I can't give her.”

“That's why you need your mother, Brad,” Viola Ritchie cried. “Let me help you!”

“You know it won't work, Ma,” Brad pleaded for understanding. “Me and you never could live together for too long. You know that.”

“That was in the past,” his mother countered. “This time it'll all be different.”

The age-old cry, I thought. This time will be different. Brad shook his head. “No, it won't, Ma.”

Ma Ritchie was down but not out. “What makes you think,” she asked, turning toward Mickey and me, “that I can't take care of my granddaughter by myself? So what if my only son doesn't want to live with his own mother?”

“Ma!” Brad protested.

“Mrs. Ritchie,” Mickey began.

Viola Ritchie rose in her chair. “We'll see what the judge has to say,” she promised. Picking up her pocketbook, she fired a parting shot. “I'm going to get custody with or without my son's help and that's that.”

Her departure left a palpable, uncomfortable silence. It was Dawn who broke that silence. In a small voice, she asked, “Will I have to live with her?”

It was a good question. I opened my mouth to give my best legal analysis of our chances in court, but Brad Ritchie beat me to the punch. “Don't worry, honey,” he said firmly. “You won't have to live anywhere you don't want to.”

The anxious frown left Dawn's face, replaced by a grateful smile. For once, I thought, Dawn had found in her father the strength she'd been looking for. “Then if I can't live with you,” she announced, “I'd like to stay with Aunt Marcy.”

If Marcy Sheldon had any feelings about being second best, she covered them with a broad smile. I answered the unspoken question in her eyes.

“I always thought,” I explained, “that Mrs. Ritchie's best hope was for both Brad and Dawn to live with her. Since that's not going to happen, and since Brad will support Dawn's decision, our chances look pretty good. Bettinger's one judge who pays a lot of attention to the wishes of the child.”

Marcy nodded, then stood and took the coat Mickey handed her. Dawn pulled on the new fawn-colored ski jacket, so different from the tattered pink one she'd worn that day in Family Court when Linda had walked out the winner. “I'm hungry,” she said with childish directness. “Can we get something to eat before practice?”

“Sure,” Marcy replied. Looking at me, she asked, “Is there a place around here you'd recommend?”

Even as I extolled the virtues of the Morning Glory, I was aware that something was missing. The big issues had been settled, even better than I'd hoped, and yet I felt no elation.

Then I noticed Brad Ritchie. He stood in the doorway, his leather jacket open, his face a study in indecisiveness. His eyes were fixed on Dawn. He looked forlorn, like the kid nobody wants to play with watching the others run and laugh.

I had a sudden idea. “Marcy,” I began, “did Dawn say she was practicing later?”

Marcy nodded, stopping her progress toward the door.

“How do you think she'd feel about an audience?”

“She'd probably love it,” Marcy replied, an indulgent smile on her face. “The truth is, she's a little show-off.”

Dawn blushed and ducked her head, but she wasn't displeased by the description. “Would you and Mickey like to come?” Marcy asked.

“We both have clients to see this afternoon,” I said smoothly. “But maybe Brad would like—”

“Daddy, yes!” Dawn gave an excited squeal. “Please come. I made a big improvement in my backhand since you saw me last. You won't believe it.”

“If it's okay with your aunt,” Brad mumbled, scarcely daring to look at the tiny woman.

I'd boxed Marcy Sheldon in as neatly as I had Brad Ritchie that day in Family Court. I had the same guilt level: practically none. It was true that Marcy couldn't say no without putting out Dawn's smile like a candle. And yet, Mickey had been right. All the adults in Dawn's life were going to have to stop acting like kids and start working together. They might as well, I decided, start now.

Marcy rose to the occasion, inviting Brad to lunch with a gracious social lie. “I'd have asked you before,” she explained, “but I thought you had other plans.”

“Dawn's tennis must take an awful lot of your time, Marcy,” Mickey Dechter said in a thoughtful tone.

“The understatement of the year,” Marcy laughed. “But it's worth it.”

“Wouldn't it be nice if there was someone who could help you with all that? Someone who'd take Dawn where she has to go, and talk to her coach, and do all the little things that must be hard for someone as busy as you?”

It was a nice try, I thought wryly, giving my partner a grateful glance. But it didn't look as though Marcy was going to buy it. There was a doubtful frown on her forehead; Dawn's tennis had been so important to her for so long that it was hard for her to think of letting go. And yet, the hopeful look on Brad Ritchie's face showed that he too could see where Mickey's thoughts were taking her.

“It
would
make things easier,” I remarked. “Be honest.” Then I lowered my voice so that only Marcy could hear. “And be generous,” I urged.

Marcy Sheldon's Cheshire-cat smile appeared, and this time it stayed for a while. “I think it's a great idea,” she said warmly. “I can use the help, and it will give Brad and Dawn time together.”

The hug Dawn gave her tiny aunt nearly knocked her over, but it didn't look as though Marcy minded very much. Brad Ritchie, too excited to stand still, walked over and put his arms around his daughter. “Let's go eat,” he suggested. As they left the office, Dawn regaled her father with a ball-by-ball account of a match she'd won in Westchester the week before.

It took me a minute to realize that the sick feeling I'd had since Art Lucenti put the gun in his mouth was gone. The sun had finally broken through the clouds that enveloped me. I had done for Dawn what I'd set out to do; I'd given her back her father.

I smiled as I recalled the truth I'd learned at the Friday's Child Day-Care Center: It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Cass Jameson Mysteries

C
HAPTER
O
NE

I was number eighty-four on the calendar, a one-case lawyer with nothing to do but wait. If I'd been in Criminal, I'd have had other courtrooms to cover, clients to greet, calendars to answer. But here on the Civil side, I was a stranger, as out of place as a Wall Street corporado in Brooklyn night court.

Other lawyers milled around, calling out names, looking for clients or opponents. “Anyone here on
Thompson v. Powell
?” a stoop-shouldered man with a bald spot asked everyone who came through the door.

“Who's here for the Transit Authority?” a woman in a size-four black suit asked in a tiny voice.

“Who'd admit working for the Transit Authority?” the lawyer sitting next to me said under his breath. He was a young, upwardly mobile type with a Land's End briefcase and a supercilious smile. Clearly the Brooklyn Supreme Court motion part was a comedown in his professional career.

It was oddly soothing, the lazily expectant atmosphere of the motion part. There was bustle; there were brisk clerks hauling tons of official paper; there were the Service “girls” who answered motions for absent attorneys. There were deals in the hallways, slaps on the back. Typical lawyer stuff. With one difference from my daily fare in criminal court. No one was here because she'd drowned her children in three feet of scalding water.

“Anyone here a notary?” The voice was unmistakable, though it had been a while since I'd heard it. East Bronx Irish, loud enough to cut through the din of legal chitchat but not so loud as to render the speaker unladylike.

Marla Hennessey. Sometime friend, sometime rival, sometime bitch. Which of her multiple personalities would be out today?

Before Marla got her answer, the bailiff called out, “All rise,” and the judge took the bench. Sixty lawyers stood, then flopped back down on the benches. Somehow, during the thirty seconds we were up, Marla substituted herself for the Land's End briefcase.

“No, I'm not a notary,” I whispered, as the calendar call began. “How are you? Haven't seen you in ages,” I went on, doing the Greeting Old Law School Friend number as though there had never been any bad blood between us.

“Can you come out in the hall for a minute?” Marla's green eyes had a calculating look I knew all too well.

“I don't dare miss the first call,” I whispered back. “I'll be in this damned courtroom for the rest of my natural life as it is.”

As the clerk droned out the names on the calendar, lawyers jumped up and said, “Ready For,” “Ready in Op,” or as an occasional variation on a theme, “For the Motion.”

“Cass, don't bullshit me.” Marla was one of the few people I knew who could shout in a whisper. “I checked the calendar. You're number eighty-four. It'll take two minutes to explain, you say yes or no. The worst thing that happens is you're second-called.”

Second call is the civil court equivalent of the Chinese water torture. It meant waiting until at least noon. But such was the force of Marla's personality—or the depth of my curiosity—that I followed her into the hall.

Once there, she lit a cigarette and began waving it in her hand, her huge hammered-silver bracelet riding up and down on her wrist.

She'd put on weight. She'd colored and cut her hair, wearing it in a platinum pageboy that fitted her head like a cap. Her clothes were silver and mauve, flowing garments that gave an illusion of soft femininity. As I listened, I reminded myself that it was only an illusion. Marla was as armored as if her clothes and hair were made of stainless steel.

I was so busy studying her that it took me a minute to realize she was talking about adoptions. About me handling an adoption, to be exact. I shook my head and started to protest.

“I don't know anything about—”