The Judgment Read Online Free Page A

so I waved goodbye to each wife and fortune, knowing a new wife and fortune would be just around the corner. But eventually alcoholism and near ruin had been waiting around that corner.
    My first marriage produced my daughter, Lisa, raised until recently by her mother. Lisa, a drunk like dear old Dad, is also a member of the double-A club now. I was proud of her. Having taken honors at the University of Pennsylvania, she is a student at Columbia Law School. Lisa was living with a fellow student, a boy whom I had yet to meet. A test marriage, I guess you’d call it. I never asked. She was an adult. It was her business.
    I wonder at my own reluctance about marrying again. Sue Gillis, a cop, had her own apartment. So did I. Most nights we slept together, either at her place or mine. She was in charge of sex crimes for the Kerry County Sheriff’s Department. Looking much younger than her forty-plus years, she had the pep of a blond and bouncy cheerleaderand was just as cute. Almost. Once, she had blown the brains out of a robber and that had earned her within the department the kind of respectful awe the people of Dodge City used to show Wyatt Earp.
    We had talked of marriage. Those talks seemed to be increasing in frequency lately. I was the one balking, although I wondered why. She had become a very important part of my life. We liked the same things and we enjoyed each other. Disagreements were rare. My resolve, I knew, was slowly crumbling. I think she sensed that, too.
    Our only real problem was my line of work. Cops work hard to take felons out of society. Sue had reservations about someone who worked equally hard, in her view, to put them back in business. Her idea was that I should run for county prosecutor. Fat chance.
    Other than that, we were especially at ease with each other.
    Tonight was my night for dinner. I could cook it or take her out. Since frozen dinners were my level of expertise, we always went out when it was my turn.
    I picked her up after work and we drove to Port Huron, the “big city” in these parts, and only ten minutes away. Port Huron wasn’t exactly the Left Bank, but it had more restaurants than Pickeral Point. We had come to favor an Italian place near the Blue Water Bridge, the big bridge over the St. Clair River to Canada.
    The food was Italian although the owner and cook was Hungarian. The place was decorated like a Hungarian’s idea of a Lake Como villa.
    We ordered our favorites, Sue favoring the veal and I, the spaghetti. The cook made spaghetti like my mother used to do, sloppy and spiced to the eyeballs.
    Sue ordered wine and I had my usual Diet Coke.
    “How was your day?” she asked. It was her standard opening when she really wanted to unload about what had happened to her.
    “Not bad,” I said right on cue, “and yours?”
    She had been the arresting officer of a retarded youngman who had raped his grandmother. It was a sordid case involving a sordid family. She described them as she might in court, formally and factually, but what came out was a story about animals. And definitely not the cuddly kind. Grandma had been badly hurt and if she didn’t make it, the charge would escalate to murder.
    Sue had another glass of wine when the food was served, and she seemed calmer, as if she had managed to purge herself of the sights and sounds of the day.
    “That was my day,” she said, sipping the wine. “Can you match it, Charley?”
    “I wouldn’t even try. I did, however, pick up a couple of clients. One of whom you’ll read about tomorrow.”
    “Who?”
    “Mark Conroy, Detroit’s deputy chief of police. He’s surrendering himself, in my company, for arrest on the charge he stole from a special police fund.”
    Her eyebrows raised in surprise. “I know Conroy, or at least I’ve heard him speak. He’s all cop. I doubt if he’d do such a thing.”
    “From what he tells me, they seem to have a pretty good case. It looks like it might be a tough one to win, maybe