Page 58 of Fish in a Barrel
“Gentlemen,” Ellery said, smiling with his teeth only, “this is Jade Cameron, the world’s best paralegal and office manager, and my private investigator’s sister.”
“Charmed,” Cartman said, taking Jade’s hand and raising it to his lips. “Is this a private investigator I haven’t met yet? Or are we still talking about the ubiquitous Mr. Rivers?”
“Oh no,” Jade said. “It’s Jackson. We were raised together.”
“Ah.” Cartman’s razor-thin smile indicated he was unappreciative of being made to feel off-balance. “I didn’t know Mr. Rivers had been in foster care.”
“He wasn’t,” Jade said, looking amused. She turned toward Judge Brentwood. “Good to see you again, Your Honor.”
Brentwood gave her a pleased smile. “I wasn’t sure if you remembered.”
“Oh no, of course I did!” At the other men’s bemused looks—including Ellery’s own—she said, “Gentleman, back when I first got my license, I was working for Pfeist, Langdon, Harrelson and Cooper. Lyle Langdon had given me thishumongousfile box to cart by my lonesome to the courthouse, where he was trying a case, and there I was in the elevator when some jackass behind me decided to practically shove me over and knock my file box out of my hands as he dashed for the door.”
“He was an unconscionable prick,” Brentwood confirmed. “Used to work for my firm when I was still in private practice. Anyway, the lovely Ms. Cameron here actuallycalledhim a prick to his retreating back, and he whirled around in complete surprise, and while she was on her hands and knees picking up files, she managed to give him an, er….”
“Double-barreled salute,” Jade said with a smug little smile.
“It was something to behold.” Brentwood laughed at the memory. “I helped her pick up the files, and together we put her box in order, and then we realized we were headed to the same courtroom. Her firm and I were on opposite sides of a civil suit, as it were.”
Jade laughed. “Yes! We were! And Lyle Langdon wassosurprised when you offered to take me out to lunch afterward. It was brilliant!” After a moment of sharing the memory, she sobered. “I never did tell you this, but my brother, Jackson, was in the hospital about then, fighting for his life. I was so stressed. That lunch really saved me. It was so damned decent of you.”
“You were fearless, my dear,” Brentwood said fondly. He smiled at Ellery then. “And so it’s no surprise she and Mr. Rivers have ended up working with you, Mr. Cramer. You three are a force to be reckoned with.”
“A big storm?” Cartman interrupted, apparently annoyed by the surprising bond between Jade and Judge Brentwood. “I’m not afraid of storms. They tend to be—what’s the term? Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
“I thought that quote referred to the life of a corrupt man,” Ellery said politely, knowing hisMacbethverywell.
Cartman’s eyes flashed, and Ellery thought with clinical detachment that he was used to being the smartest man in the room. “Well, one of the reasons that play hasn’t become obsolete is because its meaning is flexible,” he said.
“Flexible and universal are two different things, I should think. Corruption and abuse of power are timeless themes—there’s no reason to distort the meaning of the words associated with them. The clearer the language, the more easily the reader can see directly to the truth.”
Another flash of anger, this one bright enough to make the others in their group step back. Cartman opened his mouth as though to say something and then took a breath before smiling brightly. “Enough time debating the words of a dead man. Have you all met my wife? She’s floating around here somewhere, dressed as a butterfly of all things. You should say hello. She’d be pleased.”
It was a clumsy segue, and Ellery wondered if he’d gotten to the man. “I’ll be sure to look for her,” he said with a polite smile. He turned to Brentwood, remembering the photos in his office. “What about you, Your Honor. Did your lovely wife come tonight?”
Brentwood gave an almost sweet smile. “Indeed not. About ten years ago we came to an agreement. She wouldn’t drag me to the craft store on my day off, and I wouldn’t drag her to these things on hers.”
Ellery laughed, thinking that sounded very much like the agreement he and Jackson had. “She sounds like a wise woman. What’s her craft?” His sister had taken up crocheting as stress relief from her job as a doctor, and he’d heard from her in detail that all crafts had their special niches.
“Quilting,” he said promptly and held out his luxurious velvet-lined cape. “With a side hustle for sewing her husband costumes for affairs like this one.”
Ellery laughed again, finding himself surprised to like Judge Brentwood. He remembered the man’s growing dismay that day and realized that a judge trying to be impartial must have a very hard job indeed.
“That’s beautiful!” Jade exclaimed.
“You should give her my compliments,” Ellery told him. “She did a lovely job.”
“So, Cramer,” Cartman interposed, and Ellery realized that he seemed to resent having the conversation pulled away from himself. “Where’s your wife? Not that the lovely Ms. Cameron doesn’t make a fine date,” he added with a thin smile.
“He should be so lucky,” Jade jibed, and when Brentwood and even Boehner, who had mostly been gaping at them like a fish, burst into laughter, Ellery was grateful for her. She was trying to deflect the question so he wasn’t obligated to discuss his personal life.
He very much wanted to discuss his personal life.
“Well, my date was planning to attend,” he fibbed, “but at present he’s dealing with a course of antibiotics and ninety-three stitches in his back, so dancing in costume was off the table.”
And the absolute truth of the last part smacked them all in the face.
Brentwood was the first to recover, possibly because Ellery had already told him about the relationship. “How’s he doing, by the way?”