Judging Time by Leslie Glass Page B

skirt.
    "A lawyer?" Rick was taken aback.
    Rick had been watching Mel's eyes follow Patrice as he went into the kitchen for more desserts and coffee and didn't like what he saw. But he knew he was particularly sensitive to nuance at the moment. His whole body hurt as if he had been in a rough game and just had a ton of linebackers use him for a playing field. His flesh felt bruised in places he hadn't known existed.
    But maybe the bruises didn't exist. Rick couldn't tell. All day he had had trouble identifying the sources of his pain. This was new. As an athlete, he had had to know where it hurt so he could compensate and go around the end zone of his physical weak spots. Now he couldn't tell whether the pain he felt came from his body or his mind, which made it difficult to know how to handle it. He had that queasy feeling that came after a really crippling migraine, when his clarity of thinking had returned but he was aware that some crucial period of consciousness was missing. At such times, he wasn't exactly sure what had occurred when the system broke down, and he was afraid nausea might make him vomit without warning, or crash out again.
    He kept turning to Merrill, wanting to tell her how awful it was without her. He couldn't believe she wasn't coming back in a minute, breathless and apologetic for taking so long. But she wasn't coming back. Someone had killed her. Someone had reached into the very center of his life and ripped his heart out. The police said Merrill had been stabbed in the neck. It was inconceivable. It made him sick to think about it. He couldn't imagine how such a thing could happen. He just couldn't envision a situation in which Tor was not in control. Tor had been in control of everything. Rick had seen him in tight spots more than once. The threat of a mugger, even one with a gun, would not have caused Tor to lie down and die. There had been no mention of a gun, or a struggle. Why not? Something was wrong, and they weren't telling him the real story. But why not? Rick didn't get it. He felt dead, destroyed—and yet he was alive—dazed and puzzled at the same time.
    Jokingly, Merrill used to tell him that dazed and puzzled were the two reactions actors had when stinking reviews came in. He and she had received some pretty stinking reviews when they got married, but the hate was never murderous, never struck at the heart.
    Snide remarks on either side of the color line were like graffiti on city walls. It was everywhere. They saw it, they didn't like it, but it wasn't going away. So they'd had to get used to it.
    They had told each other having to defend their reasons for being together made them stronger. What had made them vulnerable was the inability to have children, for which no doctor could find a medical reason. That flaw in their life was what had kept them from feeling normal, from feeling right as a couple. Rick had believed it was his fault; Merrill had believed it was hers. Now they would never see their love mirrored in other faces. Al Merrill's battles were over. Rick thought about that as his partners stared at him with disbelief.
    "Don't you know what's going on? Haven't you seen the news?" Mel echoed incredulously.
    Rick shook his head. Two cops had given him the news at four in the morning. He didn't need to hear the uninformed versions.
    Chris Richardson, a man who had his suits and everything else including his underwear made at Sulka and who trained in a gym for three hours every day after the market closed, was still slim enough to bend at the waist. He leaned forward and put a hand on Rick's knee. "This is going to get ugly," he said ominously. "Really ugly."
    Dan Rothhaus was a small wiry man with intense blue eyes, curly white hair, and a long thin nose the nostrils of which he constantly teased with a pinkie. Rothhaus radiated anxiety. Rick shot him an inquiring look, then stared at his other two partners as if he had never seen them before. Both were wealthy, well-fed men