Friday, December 24
It’s not a dream, not a nightmare. I bolt upright, my heart racing. My adrenaline pump switches on, an instant cold sweat seeping from every pore in my body. I will my breath silent, my eyes open.
The darkness is complete but for the glowing red numbers of the alarm clock. It’s two A.M. And the noise-the one I thought I imagined in my sleep-it’s real.
Scratching. Something-or someone-is scratching, digging maybe. But not outside; it’s not a fox or a coyote. The sound is here. In this room.
I decide against the light, swing my legs out of bed, and grab the telephone from the nightstand. The scratching stops, though, abruptly, and I freeze. A split second later, something lands on my feet and I jump up. My heartbeat halts. The phone falls to the floor.
My attacker whimpers. It’s Charles. I forgot about him. He lifts a pudgy front paw and runs it down the shins of my red flannel pajamas until I pick him up. He licks my chin as I flip on the lamp. Dog breath.
It was after midnight by the time I got home. Luke had left the outside floodlight on for me, illuminating the back stairs and deck. And the aroma in the driveway told me the woodstove was still burning. Otherwise, though, the cottage was dark. Luke and Maggie were asleep. Half an hour later, I was too. Charles never crossed my mind.
I put the phone back in its spot on the nightstand and examine the leg of my headboard. Sure enough, little dog scratches at the base.
Charles’s tail wags against the inside of my arm when I scoop him up. He looks up at me hopefully, mouth open, long tongue hanging over one side again. He really does have dog breath. And he’s hungry.
Danny Boy snores in his bed, oblivious to his adopted son’s needs. Every mother hen deserves a helper, I believe, so Charles and I head for the kitchen. It’s been a long time since I’ve done a two A.M. feeding, but I remember the drill. Feed him till you’re wide awake, then he’ll fall sound asleep.
One heaping bowl of puppy chow later, Charles is tucked back in with Danny Boy and the cottage is quiet. I’m not, though. I’m on edge.
I stoke up the woodstove, then head upstairs to check on Luke. This is not something I normally do in the middle of the night. But tonight doesn’t feel normal. I crack open Luke’s bedroom door without making a sound and listen. He’s deep in the abyss of teenage slumber.
I head back down to the first floor, where Maggie’s steady breathing from the sofa bed tells me she’s out cold. I wish I were too. But I’m on edge, and the knot in my stomach is growing. It’s not every day that one happens upon a judge in his own chambers with a knife in his back. It’s the memory of finding Judge Leon Long that has me rattled, I tell myself as I climb back into bed. After all, it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.
But that’s not it. I’m up again in an instant, circling my bedroom on cold feet. We’re missing something-all of us. That suspicion grows steadily into a near-certainty as I pace. It nags at me as I force myself to sit, to use my brain instead of my stomach. My brain is cluttered, though. Minutes pass while I struggle to sort out my thoughts. If I’m right-if we are missing something-I can’t name it.
And then I can.
My cold sweat begins again as I reach for the phone. Geraldine’s number is unlisted, but I’ve called her a thousand times in the past decade; I know it by heart. I punch it in and listen to the rings. She’ll be furious with me for waking her-and I’ll never hear the end of it-if she’s all right.
But I’m afraid she might not be.
The surgeon told Geraldine that Judge Long’s attacker was interrupted, prevented from finishing the job. If he’s right, then the assailant would have stabbed the judge again if he could have. Maybe again after that. Maybe eleven agains.
A parole officer and a judge in the same week. Both on their jobs about two decades. Coincidence perhaps. But if not, then revenge is at work here. And the prosecutor is almost certainly on the short list.
There’s only one living person who’s prosecuted more cases in Barnstable County than I have. And she’s been on the job just shy of two decades.
I hold the receiver away from my ear as a loud screech follows the fourth ring and a recorded message kicks in: “The number you have dialed”-an automaton takes an excruciatingly long time to recite each digit-“is temporarily out of service.”