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ORDER IN THE COURT! WELCOME TO THE THIRD CIRCUIT COURT WORD PROCESSING SYSTEM ! The door closes behind me, but Eletha doesn’t seem to hear it.
    “El?”
    She swivels slowly in her chair. Her eyes are puffy, and she rises unsteadily when she sees me. “Grace.”
    I go over to her, and she almost collapses into my arms, her bony frame caving in like a rickety house. “It’s okay, Eletha. It’s gonna be okay,” I say, feeling just the opposite.
    I rub her back, and her body shakes with highpitched, wrenching cries. “No, no, no,” is all she says, over and over, and I hold her steady through her weeping. I feel oddly remote in the face of her obvious grief, and realize with a chill I’m acting like my mother did when my father disappeared; nothing has changed, pass the salt.
    I ease Eletha into her chair and snatch her some tissues from a flowered box. “Here you go.”
    “This is terrible. Just terrible. Armen, God.” She presses the Kleenex into her watery eyes.
    “I know.”
    “I can’t believe it.”
    Neither can I. I don’t say anything.
    “I was going to call you when I came in, but I couldn’t.” Her eyes brim over again.
    “It’s okay now.”
    “Susan called me. This morning. Then the police. Then Galanter. God, how I hate that man!”
    “It was Susan who found Armen, right?”
    “She came in from Washington and there he was.”
    “When did she come in, right before dawn?”
    “I guess. I don’t know.” She blows her nose loudly.
    “Who told Galanter?”
    “I don’t know, why?”
    “I don’t understand. I was with Armen until five.”
    “So you two worked late.”
    “Right.” I avoid her eye; Eletha left at two o’clock. Then I think of the noise I heard, or thought I heard. What time was that? “Eletha, last night after you left, did you come back to the office?”
    “No, why?”
    “When I was with Armen, I thought I heard somebody out here.”
    “Who?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Didn’t they come into Armen’s office?”
    “No. Not that I saw.”
    She shakes her head; she’s not wearing any makeup today. “The clerk’s office, the staff attorneys, they got work to do on a death penalty case. Maybe it was one of them, dropping off papers.”
    Just then the chambers door opens and in walk Sarah and Artie. They both look like they’ve been crying; I recognize Sarah’s anguished expression as the one I saw in the mirror this morning. She breaks away from Artie and storms into the room.
    “Is Ben here?” she shouts, pounding past us to the law clerks’ office, her short cardigan flying. “Where the fuck is Ben?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “Eletha, do you?”
    “He hasn’t called.”
    Sarah punches the doorjamb with a clenched fist. “Damn it! I want to see him, the little prick!”
    “Sar, stop,” Artie says. He walks numbly over to Eletha and puts his arm around her. “It’s not going to bring Armen back.”
    Sarah strides to the phone on Eletha’s desk and punches in seven numbers without looking at anyone. “I’ve been calling that asshole all morning. Pick it up, you little prick!”
    “Relax, Sarah,” I say.
    Her blue eyes turn cold. “What do you mean, relax?” She slams down the phone.
    “Look, we’re all hurting.”
    “Ben’s not, he caused it. He pressured Armen about Hightower so he could get that fucking clerkship. He even showed him that newspaper article, the one about victim’s rights. He knew it would bother Armen. He didn’t care how much.”
    “You’re talkin’ crazy,” Eletha says, between sniffles.
    Sarah looks from her to me. “Grace, you saw him last night. Was he upset?”
    “No,” I say, wanting to change the subject. “I thought I heard a noise—”
    “What?” Sarah says. “What kind of noise?”
    “I don’t know, a noise. Like someone was here, outside his office. Maybe around three o’clock or later.”
    “Did you see anyone?”
    “No.”
    “So what if you heard a noise?”
    “Nothing,” I say.