Читать книгу Final Appeal - Lisa Scottoline - Страница 8

The ringing of a telephone shatters a deep, lovely slumber. I hear it, half in and half out of sleep, not sure whether it’s real.

PPPRRRRRRINNNGGG!

I open my eyes a crack and peer at the clock. Its digital numbers read 7:26 A.M.; I’ve been asleep for two hours. I have four whole minutes left. The phone call is a bad dream.

PPPRRRINNNGGG!

It’s real, not a dream. Who the hell could be calling at this hour? Then I remember: Armen. I feel a rush of warmth and stumble to my bureau, cursing the fact that I don’t have an extension close to the bed like everybody else in America. I wish I could just roll over and hear his voice.

“Honey?” says the voice on the line. It’s not Armen, it’s my mother. “Are you up?”

“Of course not. You know how late I got in, you were baby-sitting. What do you want?”

“I’ve been watching the TV news.” I picture her parked in front of her ancient Zenith, with a glass mug of coffee in one hand and a skinny cigarette in the other.

“Mom, it’s seven-thirty. Did you call to chat?” I flop backward onto my quilt.

“I have news.”

I’m sure. You would not believe the things my mother considers news. Liz Taylor gained weight. Liz Taylor lost weight. “What, Ma?”

“Your boss, Judge Gregorian? He committed suicide this morning.”

I sit bolt upright, as if I’ve been electrocuted. I can’t speak.

“They found him at his townhouse in Society Hill. I didn’t know he lived in Society Hill. They said his house is on the National Register of Historic Places.”

I’m stunned.

“He was at his desk, reading papers in that death penalty case.”

“How—”

“He shot himself.”

No. I close my eyes to the mental picture forming like cancer in my brain.

“There was no suicide note,” she continues. “They called somebody named Judge Galanter, who lives in Rosemont. This Galanter gets to be chief judge now, eh?”

I shake my head. There must be some mistake. “My God,” is all I can say.

“Judge Galanter says the court will continue with its operations as before.”

I think of Galanter, taking over. Then Armen, dead. This can’t be happening.

“Galanter said the Hightower case will be reassigned to another judge. Wasn’t that the case you stayed late on?”

“Who found him?”

“His wife, when she got in from Washington. She’s the one who called the police.”

“Susan found him? Did she say anything? Did they interview her?”

Her response is an abrupt laugh; I imagine a puff of smoke erupting from her mouth. “She’s holding a press conference this morning.”

Susan. A press conference. What is going on? Why would Armen do such a thing? I close my eyes, breathing him in, feeling him still. Just hours ago, he was with me. Inside me.

“Are you there?” my mother asks.

I want to say, I’m not sure.

I’m not sure where I am at all.