Trophy Widow (15 page)

Tonight, though, down from his perch on the bench, stripped of his black robe, and lacking his supporting cast of courtroom bureaucrats, he nevertheless radiated more judicial authority than I'd seen before.

The dining room was silent, waiting.

A scowling Dick Carple sat across the table from Rashita and me. He hadn't been able to reach anyone from the city counselor's office until after he'd arrived at Judge Clausen's house. The judge was unwilling to delay the hearing another hour, which is how long it would take for someone from the city counselor's office to get here. That meant that Carple was the man tonight. He glared at me, his expression suggesting that our relationship was still somewhat short of professional bonhomie.

Judge Clausen studied the last page of my handwritten petition, his lips pursed thoughtfully. He fired up another Marlboro, exhaled twin streams through his nostrils, looked up at us, and rapped his knuckles on the table.

“Court's in session.” He turned toward Carple and removed his reading glasses. “Condemned the shelter without any notice, eh? A little extreme, counselor, wouldn't you say?”

“Hardly, Your Honor. Extremism in the defense of health is no vice.”

I groaned. “Thank you, Senator Goldwater.”

“It's the truth,” Carple snarled at me.

I ignored him and focused on Clausen. “Judge, the truth is that the city can't just condemn a property and close it down without any advance notice or an opportunity for the property owner to be heard. The city ignored its own notice requirements. While extremism in defense of my clients' health may not be a vice, a violation of my clients' due process rights is not only a vice but an unconstitutional one.”

“This was an emergency situation,” Carple said. “The health department has the authority to act without notice and close down a facility that presents a clear and present health hazard to its inhabitants.”

“Judge, as Mr. Carple surely knows, the health department's power to suspend due process is triggered only in the extraordinary situation of an imminent threat to life or health. Is the building about to collapse? No. Is there dangerous radiation or the presence of toxic chemicals? No. We're talking, at most, of some rats.”

“Some?” Carple said, outraged. “This isn't the suburbs, Miss Gold. We're talking city rats, not lab rats. You obviously know nothing about city rats.”

I nodded. “You're absolutely correct, Mr. Carple. That is why I've brought an expert on rats to this hearing.” I turned to the judge. “Your Honor, this is Ms. Rashita Jordan. She is a social worker at the Oasis Shelter. Through her profession and her own background, Ms. Jordan has extensive experience with rat infestations and is quite familiar with the buildings in question. She can assure the court that the health department has grossly exaggerated the rat problem at the Oasis Shelter. To her knowledge there is no rat problem.”

Judge Clausen gazed at Rashita, who was glowering across the table at Dick Carple, her arms crossed over her ample chest. Carple eyed her warily.

“Well, Mr. Carple,” the judge said, “do you have witnesses to counter that testimony?”

“I'm sure I could find plenty of experts, Judge, but not tonight. Not on such short notice.”

“Ah,” the judge said with the hint of a smile, “short notice. But at least you had some notice, eh? Unlike the women in that shelter.” He turned toward Rashita. “Ma'am, you've been a social worker at this shelter for a year?”

“One year and two weeks, Your Honor.”

He nodded. “You have female residents there?”

“Yes, sir. Women and children. Lots of little babies.”

“You know these women pretty well?”

“I do, Your Honor.”

He stubbed out the cigarette in the crystal ashtray. “You talk to these women?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“About intimate things—things that concern them?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The judge nodded and lit another cigarette. He exhaled the smoke and asked her, “What about their health concerns? Do these women ever talk to you about their health concerns?”

“Every day. That's a big topic with them.”

“How about their children? Do these women talk about health concerns for their children?”

“Yes, sir. That's one of my jobs—to make sure their little babies get the right medicines and see the doctors and keep healthy.”

“Been there a little over a year, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“During that time, ma'am, has any resident of that shelter told you she's been bitten by a rat?”

“No, sir, Your Honor,” she answered, smiling.

“During that time has any resident of that shelter told you that her child had been bitten by a rat?”

“No, sir, Your Honor.”

“During that time have you heard of any resident of that shelter being bitten by a rat?”

“No, sir, Your Honor.” She was beginning to get some rhythm into her answers.

“During that time has any resident of that shelter complained to you about rats?”

“No, sir, Your Honor.”

“During that time have you heard of any complaints about rats?”

“No, sir, Your Honor.”

Judge Clausen nodded. “Thank you, ma'am.” He turned to me. “Anything else you need to ask this lady, Miss Gold?”

“None, Your Honor. You've covered all my questions.”

He turned to Carple. “And you have no witness to counter this testimony, correct?”

“Well, not here.”

“Is that a
no
, Mr. Carple?”

“It is.”

Clausen put on his reading glasses and glanced down at my handwritten petition. After a moment he turned to Carple, peering at him over his reading glasses. “Mr. Carple, maybe the health department found a problem with rats at that shelter. Or maybe someone at City Hall found some other sort of problem with that shelter. But let's assume for tonight that we're talking about a genuine rat problem. Okay?”

Carple nodded uncertainly. “Okay.”

“Even so,” Clausen continued, “this rat problem hardly sounds to the court like the type of dire emergency that justines dispensing with the due process clause of our Constitution and throwing a bunch of women and children onto the street after dark. Whatever this so-called rat problem is, Mr. Carple, the residents of that shelter have been putting up with it without any complaint or injury for at least a year and”—he turned to Rashita—“how many weeks, ma'am?”

“Two weeks, Your Honor, sir.”

“At least a year and two weeks. Hearing no evidence to the contrary, Mr. Carple, I think we'll let the shelter and its residents struggle with this rat problem on their own for a little while longer while your client gets its act together and gives them a proper notice and a genuine opportunity to be heard.” He turned to me. “I'll grant your TRO, Miss Gold. Draft it up for me, but keep it short and to the point.” He looked at Carple. “You can use my phone, Mr. Carple.”

Carple looked puzzled. “For what, Your Honor?”

“To call whoever you need to call to let them know that I've entered a TRO and that the health department better have that shelter back in operation and those women and children and their belongings moved back inside it in exactly two hours.”

I called Sheila Trumble as soon as Judge Clausen signed the order. By the time Rashita and I drove back across town to the Oasis Shelter, the jumble of TV news vans had been joined by several official city of St. Louis cars and vans, some double-parked on the street, others parked along the sidewalks. The yellow hazard tape was gone from the doors, and two minicam crews were filming city workers, their arms loaded with belongings, following the women residents back into the buildings. I didn't see Sheila.

A little toddler in a diaper and T-shirt stood alone in the middle of the lawn crying. I went over and kneeled beside him. “It'll be okay,” I said gently as I stroked his hair.

Rashita reached down and picked him up. “Where's your momma, Darius?”

That made him cry harder. As I watched the two of them—Rashita trying to soothe Darius while he cried for his mother—I could feel my fury spike again over the misery that Nate the Great had inflicted through this nasty little gambit.

“Rachel?”

Still angry, I spun toward a familiar face holding a microphone. Sherry McCutchen. I recognized her from Channel Five news. Behind her the minicam nightlights went on, making me squint as my eyes adjusted. I could see the red light on the camera blink on.

“We're standing here live with Rachel Gold, the attorney for the shelter. I understand you just returned from an emergency hearing before Judge Clausen, Miss Gold.”

“That's true. The judge heard the facts and ordered the health department to reopen this shelter immediately.”

“Is there really a rat problem?”

“My client has seen no evidence of such a problem, which means the real question is location. Is the rat problem here or downtown?”

“What do you mean?”

“It's no secret that certain city officials want this shelter closed. For their sake, these better not turn out to be imaginary rats.”

“And if they are imaginary, then what?”

But by now the adult voice in my head was shouting,
Shut up, fool
. It snapped me back to reality.

“It's too early in the case for that kind of speculation,” I said. “We're pleased that Judge Clausen has allowed these women and children back in the shelter. Their comfort and safety is our first concern. We'll deal with the other matters in due time.”

I walked away from the camera, ignoring the shouted requests from the other reporters.

Chapter Sixteen

The hearing before Judge Clausen had been last Thursday night. This was Monday at noon. Last Thursday I'd hinted darkly that someone in City Hall might be behind the phony rat emergency. Four days later I was meeting that same someone for lunch at Faust's, one of the fanciest spots in town.

The tuxedoed maître d' responded with a dignified nod when I told him my name.

“This way, mademoiselle,” he said, gesturing toward the dining area. I followed him to a private booth near the back of the restaurant.

“The commissioner called from his car moments ago,” the maître d' said, handing me a heavy cloth napkin. “He appears to be running a few minutes late and offers his apologies. Can I bring Mademoiselle something to drink while she waits?”

“Some iced tea, please.”

“With pleasure,” he said with a slight bow.

I looked around the elegant dining room and recognized a few faces—a pair of corporate lawyers from Bryan Cave at one table, a paunchy alderman huddled in a booth with a redhead young enough to be his niece, sportscasters Bob Costas and Mike Shannon laughing at another booth. Other tables had what clearly were business lunches in progress—executive types talking terms or examining financial pro formas.

Although Faust's had been the scene of many unholy deals over the years, the legend behind its name was strictly local and mostly benign. More than a century ago, a Prussian immigrant named Tony Faust opened a restaurant downtown at Broadway and Elm. By 1890, Faust's had become
the
restaurant of St. Louis—the place to see and be seen, both for local luminaries and visiting celebrities, including the stars who performed at the nationally renowned Olympia Theatre next door. The long bar on the first floor accommodated more than a hundred men (plus spittoons), while the ornate dining room upstairs served meals of such distinction that Faust's was featured in newspapers across the country and throughout the world. By the turn of the century, Faust's was as much the signature restaurant of St. Louis as Lüchow's was of New York. Indeed, Tony Faust and August Lüchow teamed up for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis and opened the Lüchow-Faust restaurant in the Tyrolean Alps section of the fairground.

Tony Faust died a few years after the 1904 World's Fair. His children married into the Anheuser and the Busch families, and his restaurant closed for good on the eve of World War I. That last night the waiters passed out extra napkins to wipe the tears shed by the loyal patrons. Sixty years later, the Adam's Mark Hotel—constructed a few blocks from the site of the original Faust's—revived the name for its premier restaurant.

“Hello, counselor.”

I looked up to see Nathaniel Turner's beaming face.

I nodded politely. “Commissioner.”

He slid into the booth across from me, adjusted his gold cuff links, and gave me an appraising look and a wink. “You lookin' fine today.”

I gave him a sardonic wink in return. “You lookin' fine today, too.”

“Damn.” He chuckled. “I tell you, Rachel, I like a woman with spunk.”

A young waitress appeared with a filled highball glass on a tray. She gave him a perky smile. “Hello, Commissioner.”

“Belinda. Good to see you, darlin'. My, my, looks like you might have something special on that tray for me.”

She blushed. “Boodles and tonic, sir.” She set it on the table in front of him. “With a twist of lime.”

“You have read my innermost thoughts, young lady.” He gestured toward me. “Belinda, this is Rachel Gold, noted attorney and the only graduate of Harvard Law School who could pose for the
Sports Illustrated
swimsuit edition. You want Belinda to bring you something a little more exciting than that watered-down iced tea?”

“Tea is fine for me.”

We were still making Nate's version of small talk when Belinda came back to tell us the specials and take our orders. I'd decided to let Nate get to the point of our meeting at his own pace. After all, this was his idea. The call came in Friday afternoon from his secretary. When I learned who the caller was, I had assumed that her boss was waiting to get on the line and blast me for my comment to the TV reporter the night before about a rat downtown—a comment given prominent play in the lead story on the ten o'clock news. Instead, though, his secretary told me that Commissioner Turner would like me to be his guest at lunch on Monday. I was surprised. Was he planning to lecture me over grilled tuna and couscous? As much as I wasn't in the mood for lunch with Nate the Great, I accepted the invitation. Nate and I had only one thing in common: the Oasis Shelter. He posed the single greatest threat to its continued existence. Accordingly, my responsibilities to my client overrode any personal issues I might have with him.

I watched him go through an elaborate selection process with the waitress as he tried to decide between the catch of the day, the veal chops, and the pasta special. Maybe he still planned to give me an angry lecture, I thought. I'd learned early on that his flirtatious overtures at the beginning of a meeting meant absolutely nothing. But as I watched him banter with the waitress, I realized that my dark hint to the TV reporter probably was as threatening to Nathaniel Turner as an empty water pistol. By the following morning the TV stations had consigned my comment to the news morgue in the scramble to cover that day's stories. Although the print media was not as easily distracted, their resources were so limited that Nate and his henchman, Herman Borghoff, could easily deflect any effort to probe the health department action. Moreover, even if some persistent reporter found Nate's shadow behind the health department smokescreen, there was no guarantee the newspaper would go with the story. Nate the Great was a particularly unappealing target to the local media. Not only were their editors and publishers caught up in the booster hype over Renewal 2004—in which Nate's office occupied a pivotal role—but looming above Commissioner Turner was the ominous silhouette of Congressman Orion Sampson, who'd proven before that he was capable of bringing down a world of hurt on anyone foolish enough to mess with his sister's boy.

Which brought me back to this meeting. I knew that Nate was behind the health department's attempt to condemn the Oasis Shelter, and he knew I knew it, but I couldn't prove it, and he knew that as well. All of which made this meeting ever more mysterious.

After the waitress left with our orders, Nate leaned back and said, “Caught you on TV the other night.”

“Oh?”

“Sounded like you had a rough evening.”

“Not as rough as the one those women and children had.”

“But you got them all back inside. That was mighty fortunate.”

“It was.”

“A rat problem, right?”

“So they claimed. We had an exterminator inspect the buildings on Saturday.”

“And?”

I gazed at him a moment before replying. “He disagrees with the health department.”

“Rats can be tricky little devils.”

“So I've learned.”

He was grinning. “I did some checking around at City Hall. It's not really any of my business, of course, except that my people would like to get your shelter out of there, too. Sooner the better. But unlike the health department, we prefer to do our condemnations the old-fashioned way. I'm referring to the powers of eminent domain, with all the bells and whistles, due process for all concerned.”

“How nice, Commissioner. I am tingling with anticipation.”

“And while you're tingling, Rachel, you won't have to worry about getting blindsided by the health department.” He leaned forward, solemn now. “You have my word on that.”

As if his word meant anything to me. But no reason to pick a fight. “That's good to know. Thanks.”

“Herman tells me we should have our condemnation papers on file in a week or so.”

“Super. I can't tell you how thrilling that sounds.”

“We're prepared to go the whole nine yards if we have to, Rachel, but”—he paused, and then continued slowly—“we might still be able to work something out.”

Finally
, I thought.
Time to get down to business
.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“For starters,” he said, raising his fork and pointing it at me, “you have to understand that any deal we cut must include relocation of that shelter. No way that shelter stays put. No way, no how. But no reason that shelter can't house those women just as well in another part of town. As you know, my office has determined that your client's operation of a shelter in that particular neighborhood constitutes what's known under the statute as an ‘inharmonious use' within the redevelopment area. But a use deemed inharmonious there could be just fine and dandy on property outside the redevelopment area.” He smiled. “And we got plenty of that kind of property.”

“You're suggesting a property swap?”

“I'm suggesting we think about it. The city of St. Louis, through my office and through the collector of revenue, controls lots of property on the north side, including plenty of possible sites outside the redevelopment area, including some buildings bigger than the ones your client is squeezed into now.”

The waitress arrived with our meals. Grilled tuna for me, veal chops and a second gin and tonic for Nate. As he flirted with her, I mulled over his settlement concept. The Oasis Shelter was in a marginal area of town, but at least the neighborhood seemed to be rebounding, and property values were on the rise. By contrast, the properties the city controlled outside the redevelopment area were, for the most part, buildings condemned by the health department, seized by the city for nonpayment of taxes, or abandoned by the owners—in short, properties in lousy shape in bad neighborhoods. That meant any swap would be a big step down in quality and surroundings. Nevertheless, a swap would also buy peace with Nate and, just as important, more room. Space was growing tight in the current facility—there were two bunk beds in every bedroom, and some of those rooms housed two mothers and three or four children. Even if we ultimately prevailed in the condemnation fight and even if the city approved the addition of another building to the shelter—an approval that would never happen under Nate the Great's regime—there was no way we'd have enough money to expand the current facility. But the value of the existing facility, if honored in a property swap, would result in the acquisition of significantly more space. And if I could convince the city to help fund the renovation of the buildings as part of the settlement, maybe there was a deal in there somewhere.

“Well?” Nate said after the waitress left.

“I'll talk to my client and see if there's any interest in a swap.”

“You do that, Rachel, and I'll see if I can hold off those condemnation papers for a while. See if we can't work this out to everyone's satisfaction.” He gave me a playful smile. “Like I always say, no need for us to make war if we can make love.”

Nate reverted to meaningless small talk. After the waitress laid the bill at his side and went off to get us more coffee, he said, “I hear you're putting together an exhibit of paintings by Sebastian Curry.”

I looked over, surprised. He was studying the bill.

“How did you hear?” I asked.

“Herman mentioned it to me the other day.”

“How did he find out?”

Nate looked up with a frown as he tried to remember. “Not sure. Someone must have mentioned it to him.”

“Does he know Curry?”

“I guess so. He knew I might be interested in the exhibit, though.”

“Why's that?”

“I have one of Curry's paintings.”

“Really?”

“Never thought it was worth much before, but maybe I got myself a lost treasure. Where's the exhibit going to be?”

“We're not sure. We're still in the concept stage.”

“Who's the
we
you're talking about?”

My mind went blank. I couldn't remember the name of my imaginary organization. “It's a new group of artists,” I said, trying to sound matter-of-fact. “I'm helping them on the legal end. Curry is one of the local artists they have under consideration, but nothing's final. How long have you owned yours?”

“Long time. Think it's worth much money?”

“Hard to say. How much did you pay?”

“Somewhere around a grand, I think.”

“Did you buy it at a gallery?”

“Think I bought it at one of those art fairs. Does that matter?”

“No, just curious. Do you know Curry?”

“I might have met him. Maybe at that art fair. He's a brother, I believe.” He paused and then grinned. “Maybe I ought to put that picture of mine in your show, eh? Might increase its value. Who do I talk to?”

“I'm a good one to start with. I'll pass it along. If they decide to go ahead with the show, I'm sure someone will call.”

“Who?”

“Maybe me.” I paused as the waitress refilled our coffee cups, grateful for her interruption. When she left, I said, “I'll let you know who.”

“Good. You do that.”