“Yes?”
“Judge,” I said, “it’s Brady Coyne. I—”
“Attorney Coyne,” she said. “This is most inappropriate. You should know better.”
“I don’t have any business before your court,” I said. “This isn’t a professional issue. It’s a family matter.”
“Hm,” she said. “A family matter, you say? Your family or mine?”
“Yours, Judge. I’m wondering if I can see you this morning.”
“This morning? Can’t it wait?”
“No, ma’am, it really can’t.”
“It’s that urgent, is it?”
“I think it might be. Yes.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “Very well, Mr. Coyne. I shall have to trust your judgment. You may come here to my house. You know where I live?”
“I do, yes.”
“You’ll find me around back pruning my roses.”
“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” I said.
Seven
D URING THE TWENTY-ODD years since Frederick Billings Lancaster, Dalt’s father, died, his mother, Judge Adrienne Lancaster, had been living alone in their big half-timbered Tudor on Belmont Hill near the Lexington line. It took me about twenty minutes in the sparse Saturday-morning traffic to drive there from my own house on Beacon Hill. You had to know where it was located, because it was screened from the road by a stand of hemlocks, and it was unmarked by a sign or even a mailbox.
A long peastone drive wound through flower gardens and rectangles of lawn and grape arbors and fruit trees and terminated in a circular driveway in front. I parked there and walked around to the back.
I found Judge Lancaster sitting in a wicker chair and reading a newspaper at a glass-topped picnic table on the fieldstone patio behind the house. She was wearing black high-topped sneakers, baggy blue jeans, and a long-sleeved white shirt with the tails flapping. A wide-brimmed straw hat and a pair of cotton work gloves sat on the table by her elbow.
She was about seventy and had sat on the Superior Court bench for more than twenty years. Among lawyers, she had the best reputation a judge could have: She was tough but fair, and she ran a tight ship. I’d been a Massachusetts lawyer almost as long as she’d been a Massachusetts judge, and I’d never once heard a whisper of scandal about Judge Lancaster. Not everybody agreed with her decisions, of course, and I’d never heard anybody accuse her of being warm and cuddly or of having a bawdy sense of humor. But nobody questioned Judge Adrienne Lancaster’s integrity, or her commitment, or her intelligence, or her mastery of the law.
Over the years I’d argued a few cases before her. If Judge Lancaster believed that the lawyers—defenders or prosecutors, it didn’t matter—were slacking, she didn’t hesitate to chide them from the bench right there in the courtroom. She had a sharp tongue. It tended to keep you on your toes.
She looked up from her newspaper, poked at her glasses, and waved at me.
I went over. A pitcher and a couple of glasses sat on the table.
She held out her hand, and I took it. She shook hands like a man. She didn’t smile. “Sit down, Mr. Coyne. Pour us some tea, why don’t you.”
I poured two glasses of iced tea, handed one to her, then sat and gazed out at the formal gardens and lawns of her vast backyard, which sloped away behind the house and disappeared down the hillside. It was June, and everything seemed to be blooming. The mingled scent of dozens of varieties of flowers and the almost subsonic drone of bees filled the air. From her spot on top of Belmont Hill, the Prudential Building and the John Hancock Tower, the tallest buildings in Boston, loomed side by side through the thin city smog on the horizon.
“You’ve got quite a view, Judge,” I said.
“After a while you don’t notice it,” she said. She peered at me. Her eyes were the color of ice. “Well? What did you want, Attorney Coyne, that you had to come here to see me on a Saturday morning?”
During the drive over, I’d thought
“Judge,” I said, “it’s Brady Coyne. I—”
“Attorney Coyne,” she said. “This is most inappropriate. You should know better.”
“I don’t have any business before your court,” I said. “This isn’t a professional issue. It’s a family matter.”
“Hm,” she said. “A family matter, you say? Your family or mine?”
“Yours, Judge. I’m wondering if I can see you this morning.”
“This morning? Can’t it wait?”
“No, ma’am, it really can’t.”
“It’s that urgent, is it?”
“I think it might be. Yes.”
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, “Very well, Mr. Coyne. I shall have to trust your judgment. You may come here to my house. You know where I live?”
“I do, yes.”
“You’ll find me around back pruning my roses.”
“I’ll be there in less than an hour,” I said.
Seven
D URING THE TWENTY-ODD years since Frederick Billings Lancaster, Dalt’s father, died, his mother, Judge Adrienne Lancaster, had been living alone in their big half-timbered Tudor on Belmont Hill near the Lexington line. It took me about twenty minutes in the sparse Saturday-morning traffic to drive there from my own house on Beacon Hill. You had to know where it was located, because it was screened from the road by a stand of hemlocks, and it was unmarked by a sign or even a mailbox.
A long peastone drive wound through flower gardens and rectangles of lawn and grape arbors and fruit trees and terminated in a circular driveway in front. I parked there and walked around to the back.
I found Judge Lancaster sitting in a wicker chair and reading a newspaper at a glass-topped picnic table on the fieldstone patio behind the house. She was wearing black high-topped sneakers, baggy blue jeans, and a long-sleeved white shirt with the tails flapping. A wide-brimmed straw hat and a pair of cotton work gloves sat on the table by her elbow.
She was about seventy and had sat on the Superior Court bench for more than twenty years. Among lawyers, she had the best reputation a judge could have: She was tough but fair, and she ran a tight ship. I’d been a Massachusetts lawyer almost as long as she’d been a Massachusetts judge, and I’d never once heard a whisper of scandal about Judge Lancaster. Not everybody agreed with her decisions, of course, and I’d never heard anybody accuse her of being warm and cuddly or of having a bawdy sense of humor. But nobody questioned Judge Adrienne Lancaster’s integrity, or her commitment, or her intelligence, or her mastery of the law.
Over the years I’d argued a few cases before her. If Judge Lancaster believed that the lawyers—defenders or prosecutors, it didn’t matter—were slacking, she didn’t hesitate to chide them from the bench right there in the courtroom. She had a sharp tongue. It tended to keep you on your toes.
She looked up from her newspaper, poked at her glasses, and waved at me.
I went over. A pitcher and a couple of glasses sat on the table.
She held out her hand, and I took it. She shook hands like a man. She didn’t smile. “Sit down, Mr. Coyne. Pour us some tea, why don’t you.”
I poured two glasses of iced tea, handed one to her, then sat and gazed out at the formal gardens and lawns of her vast backyard, which sloped away behind the house and disappeared down the hillside. It was June, and everything seemed to be blooming. The mingled scent of dozens of varieties of flowers and the almost subsonic drone of bees filled the air. From her spot on top of Belmont Hill, the Prudential Building and the John Hancock Tower, the tallest buildings in Boston, loomed side by side through the thin city smog on the horizon.
“You’ve got quite a view, Judge,” I said.
“After a while you don’t notice it,” she said. She peered at me. Her eyes were the color of ice. “Well? What did you want, Attorney Coyne, that you had to come here to see me on a Saturday morning?”
During the drive over, I’d thought
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