Ladies' Night, Andrews, Kay [best time to read books .txt] 📗

her hand to her chest. “Did I really just see what I think I saw?”

“In living color,” Camryn said. “Merry Christmas to us.”

“What? I mean, how…” Grace sputtered. “What exactly did I just watch?”

“That, Gracie dear, was footage taken last night at a restaurant in Sarasota by an alert diner, who just happened to be talking to a friend on his cell phone, when Eileen Stackpole walked into the restaurant and caught her husband having a tête-à-tête with a pretty young thing.”

“I think I’ve seen her before,” Grace said. “The PYT, I mean.”

“Mm-hmm,” Camryn said. “We have all seen that girl. She’s a twenty-three-year-old bailiff assigned to Stackpole’s courtroom. Her name is Monique Massey. And I guarantee you the two of them were not discussing tort reform in a cozy little booth in a pricey French bistro at ten o’clock last night.”

Grace could hardly take it all in. “How did this end up on the news? What’s it all mean?”

“It got on the news because Stackpole flipped his shit when he realized the other diner was filming the whole thing. He knocked the cell phone out of the guy’s hand and took a swing at him. One of the waiters pulled the judge off the guy, but, in the meantime, the cell-phone guy’s dinner companion called the cops.”

“Tell me they arrested Stackpole,” Grace begged.

“No such luck,” Camryn said. “Stackpole paid his bill and hustled lil Monique outta there before the po-po arrived. And Eileen took a powder, too. The restaurant manager smoothed things over by offering everybody in the place a free drink and dessert. By the time the cops arrived, all was calm. But at some point, the waiter pulled the cell-phone guy aside and whispered to him the identity of his assailant. Apparently, Stackpole is a regular there—and a lousy tipper. Now the cell-phone guy says he’s going to sue Stackpole for assault and battery.”

“How do you happen to know so much about all this?” Grace asked. “And why isn’t this story on your station?”

Camryn sighed heavily. “The cell-phone guy e-mailed the footage to me first. But because of my, er, prior history with Stackpole, my news director doesn’t want anything to do with the story. I begged and pleaded and threatened, but he won’t budge. So I might have tipped off a friend at our rival station. Anonymously, of course. At least the story is out there, and it’s hugely embarrassing to Stackpole. So for once, I don’t even mind being scooped.”

“What else do you know?” Grace asked. “Did Mrs. Stackpole just happen to bump into the judge and this bailiff, or did she know they’d been seeing each other? And what happens now? Will she divorce him? And what about the guy with the camera?”

Before Camryn could answer her barrage of questions, Grace’s phone beeped to alert her that she had another incoming call. “Sorry,” Grace said. “I better take this. It’s my lawyer.”

“I’m thinking this calls for a celebration,” Camryn said hastily. “Tomorrow night, eight, at the Sandbox. I’ll call everybody else. You’re in, right?”

“Absolutely,” Grace said.

*   *   *

“Did you just see the news on channel eight?” Mitzi asked gleefully.

“Camryn, one of the girls in my divorce group, called to tell me about it,” Grace said. “I could just watch it over and over; it’s so delicious.”

“You totally can. It was on at six o’clock, too. They’ve already posted the footage on the station’s Web site,” Mitzi told her. “I’ve watched it four times, and it gets better with every viewing.”

“Better for us,” Grace said. “But how would you like to be Eileen Stackpole? Can you imagine the humiliation?”

“I can’t imagine marrying the man in the first place. Yeechhh. What a worm! Of course, there’s got to be a lot more to the story than what they put on the air tonight,” Mitzi speculated. “And the rumors are already flying all over town. Right before I called you, I heard from one of the other lawyers who’s tried divorces before Stackpole. She heard Eileen Stackpole didn’t just stumble into that restaurant last night. She’d supposedly hired a private investigator. He’s the one who let her know Stackpole was playing footsie with his bailiff.”

“A twenty-three-year-old!” Grace exclaimed. “And I definitely remember her being in the courtroom that first time we went before Stackpole. Remember, she shushed us?”

“So that’s where I’ve seen her,” Mitzi said. She laughed. “Oh, my. Cedric has been a very naughty boy, hasn’t he?”

“But is all of this anything that would get him in trouble with your JQC?” Grace asked. “I mean, is being a slimeball enough to get you kicked off the bench?”

“Good question,” Mitzi said. “Having your wife attack your girlfriend in a very public place might not be grounds for discipline by the JQC. Although the fact that he’s involved with an employee of the court seems unethical. But I wonder how it would sit with Paula? I wonder if she knows Stackpole has another other woman—besides her?”

“I guess I’ll have to ask her how she feels about it,” Grace said, wincing.

“You do that. And let me know what you find out,” Mitzi said.

63

Grace arrived at Paula Sinclair-Talbott’s office at eight o’clock on that already-steamy Monday morning, determined that she would be Paula’s first client of the day.

She watched idly as the strip shopping center slowly came to life. At nine, a woman wearing a brilliant orange silk sari unlocked the doors at the Diaper Depot. At 9:30 two middle-aged Hispanic women arrived together at the door to the hearing-aid center.

Twice, her phone rang. Both times it was Wyatt. The second time, she was tempted to answer, just to hear his voice, hear him tell her he missed her and wanted her back. She had to grip the steering wheel with both hands to keep from picking up. This was for the best, she told herself.

Finally, at ten ’til ten, she watched as the VW bug zipped into a parking space three cars away. Paula Talbott-Sinclair walked briskly to her