“Who told you such a thing about a trial in my courtroom?” he demanded.
“Someone in the neighborhood,” I said vaguely. “As I said, I grew up there, I know a lot of people, a lot of them have been talking.”
MY LAST DUCHESS
Before Grigsby said anything else, the swinging door to the back of the apartment opened and a woman came in. Marjorie Grigsby was short and plump, her gray hair a thick bubble around her head. Her daytime makeup was carefully applied, but her smile was warm and genuine.
“Elgin, you need to get over to the Architecture Foundation.”
She turned the same warm smile onto me. “I’m sorry to interrupt you, dear, but Elgin was a judge for so many years he stopped wearing a watch: his clerk always got him where he needed to be and now I do it.”
The judge preened some more—apparently he thought this was a tribute to his status, not a criticism. Marjorie straightened his lapels, took his coffee cup, told him to enjoy himself.
“Although he always does,” she added to me. “Presiding over an architecture tour, Elgin has the same chance to lay down the law as he did at Twenty-sixth and California, except he gets to rule on the whole city.”
It was hard to tell from her voice if she was mocking him or praising him. She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek and held the outer door open for us.
The judge and I stood in a strained silence until the elevator arrived. The engraved brass doors slid open, a whisper of noise, not the clanging they used to make. The pulleys didn’t groan on the way down, either. The judge stood in front, right next to the doors, pretending I wasn’t there. We stopped on the ninth floor to let in a woman with two Harlequin Great Danes. She was dressed for running, her phone in an arm sleeve, the music from the earphones tinnily audible.
“You’re supposed to take those down in the service elevator, young woman,” Grigsby said sternly.
She paid no attention to the judge, but patted her dogs’ shoulders until they sat. Grigsby yanked out her earbuds and shouted that she needed to use the service elevator. The dogs began to curl their lips, not a good sign.
“My dogs don’t like it when people cross into my personal space,” the woman said. “We don’t use the service elevator because we don’t like the alley. Get used to us.”
I moved between the dogs and Grigsby, forcing him to the far corner of the car. The dogs continued to stare at him until we reached the lobby. Grigsby flung the woman’s earbuds to the floor and marched over to the doorman. He was pointing at the woman and the dogs, gesticulating, while she sailed out the front door, a dog on either side.
I slipped into the coffee bar, watching the doorman soothe Grigsby. When they’re in their courtrooms, judges have great power over the people in front of them. They can fine insolent parties or lawyers, lock them up for contempt, rule against them. Grigsby obviously had come to expect so much deference to his rulings that he thought it carried over into daily life. But would he have been as angry about the dogs if I hadn’t rattled his cage first?
The indie bar had a shiny Simonelli machine and advertised organic small-batch beans that were probably hand massaged, but the baristas were sloppy and the espresso had a sour edge. Too short an extraction time. I was going to demand a repour when I saw Marjorie Grigsby in the lobby, wearing a lilac-colored trench coat against the edge in the April air. She chatted briefly with the doorman, giving him the same smile she’d turned on her husband and on me.
I put the cortado back on the counter and followed Ms. Grigsby, catching up with her in front of the Art Institute. I wondered if she volunteered there while her husband pontificated on architecture for tourists, but she was holding out her arm for a cab.
She put her hand down when she saw me. “Were you looking for me, dear?”
“Just catching a cab back to my office, ma’am,” I said.
“Is your office north? You can ride with me as far as Division.”
When a cab pulled up, I helped her into the backseat.
“I heard Elgin shouting at you, dear. Why?”
When I didn’t say anything, she patted my hand. “My husband has a sensitive skin, but I don’t. Does this have something to do with the hockey player named Warshawski who was in the news last week?”
“Right you are, ma’am.” I gave her an abbreviated version of the Guzzo soap opera. “I learned on Friday that someone told Stella Guzzo she wouldn’t have to serve her full sentence, that she’d be out in three years. I wondered if it was your husband who’d made that promise.”
I braced myself for an outburst, but she merely said, “I see, dear: you wanted to know if someone paid Elgin to overturn the sentence. I don’t think my husband has shoeboxes filled with cash in the Cayman Islands—of course, I’d know if he were keeping them in the apartment.”