Final Judgment by Joel Goldman Read Free Book Online Page B

call to the judge, somebody else had to have told Rockley about the tape.”
    “It’s not just the tape of the call between Fiori and Judge Carter. That tape implicates me, but it doesn’t convict me. It’s the tape of the conversation between me and Fiori that we’ve got to find, if it exists.”
    “And the people who know about it.”
    “That too.”
    “There aren’t any small problems, are there?” Blues asked.
    “Nope. Just big opportunities,” Mason said.
    “Still gets back to Rockley for now.”
    “He’s the guy with the most to lose in the arbitration. Galaxy loses, they pay off and move on. Rockley will probably be out of a job.”
    “So we go pay Rockley a visit and help him redirect his life.”
    Mason shook his head. “It’s better if you go by yourself. Keeps me one step removed from Rockley.”
    Blues leaned back in the booth, his hands on the table, long fingers spread wide. “You can’t dodge this thing forever. You did what you did. You’re going to have to deal with that.”
    Mason drew a deep breath, letting it out. “I know. It’s just a little tricky to figure it all out at once. I can’t just step up to the plate, turn myself in to the cops and the state bar disciplinary office, without leaving Judge Carter hanging out again. She deserves better from me.”
    “That’s a pretty sharp sword to fall on, anyway.”
    “I’ll do it if I have to. A blackmailer is never satisfied. Maybe the only way to finish it is to go public. Take away the threat of being exposed. Besides, like you said, I did what I did.”
    “Don’t order your sackcloth and ashes yet,” Blues said. “There’s other ways to take care of this.”

TWELVE
    Mason rowed eight thousand meters Thursday morning while it was still dark. He kept his rowing machine in the dining room, taking advantage of the double windows to watch the hardy souls who jogged down his block. Yellow light from streetlamps caught the reflecting tape stuck to their running clothes as they passed, leaving puffs of frozen breath visible in their wake.
    His exercise routine alternated between running and rowing, not only because of the cross-training benefits, but to avoid boredom. He had played rugby until a few years ago when it became too hard to get out of bed the morning after a vicious scrum. Conceding that he was forty-three, he gave up the game, staying in shape with his current routine.
    His house was in a tony neighborhood nine blocks south of the Country Club Plaza, Kansas City’s answer to New York’s Fifth Avenue, and two blocks south of Loose Park, a micro-scale alternative to Central Park. Kansas City didn’t claim to be the Big Apple of the Midwest, but it had long ago shed its cow-town image.
    He lived in an area that was home to the upwardly mobile who were certain they’d arrived. Many of the people who lived there were fighting the same battle against time that he was, convinced that if they ran another mile they would live another day. Mason figured eight thousand meters was at least as good an investment.
    His Aunt Claire had given the house to him and his ex-wife, Kate, as a wedding present. He’d grown up there with Claire, but the house had worked better for him and his aunt than it did for him and his wife. When Kate moved out, Mason refurnished the dining room with the rowing machine. Abby banished it to the basement, Mason hauling it back up when she left town, his love life defined by its location.
    His dog Tuffy, a German shepherd–collie mixed-breed anti-watchdog, did three laps around the rowing machine before settling in front of the flywheel, enjoying the breeze from Mason’s labors.
    The sky was rounding out to a gunmetal gray by the time he got out of the shower, dressed, and started scavenging for something that would pass for breakfast in his kitchen. He spread the Kansas City Star on the kitchen table while he chewed a nutrition bar that promised him more than it could possibly deliver.
    There was a