The Mourning Sexton by Michael Baron Page A

his head under his left arm, and started pounding him with uppercuts. By the time several of them pulled him away, the guy was unconscious and bleeding from his nose and mouth and ears. McCormick would have killed him if they hadn't intervened.
    “Page one sixty-nine,” Mr. Kantor called out. “The psalm of the day.”
    Hirsch looked down at his
siddur
and turned to the correct page. He silently read the English translation:
    O God of vengeance, Hashem. O God of vengeance appear! Arise, O Judge of the earth, render recompense to the haughty. How long shall the wicked, O Hashem, how long shall the wicked exult? Your nation, Hashem, they crush and they afflict. Your heritage. The widow and the stranger they slay, and the orphans they murder. And they say, “God will not see and God will not understand.”
    The words blurred.
    He lifted his head. The men on either side of him continued chanting. He stared at the ark, his thoughts roiling.
    What in God's name had happened that night?
     
    Rosenbloom glared at him from behind his desk, his hands gripping the handles of his wheelchair. “Are you fucking insane?”
    Hirsch shrugged. “I don't know what else I can do.”
    “I'll tell you what else you can do, you crazy bastard. You can settle that goddamn case right now and walk the fuck away.”
    Hirsch shook his head.
    “What?” Rosenbloom demanded.
    “I can't do that. Not after what I've learned.”
    “After what you've learned? What exactly do you think you've learned? You got some guesswork from a retired Quincy. What's he call it? A working hypothesis. Guess what? His goddamn working hypothesis has already been refuted by the actual goddamn medical examiner who examined her body on the night of the goddamn accident. You don't have any
hard
evidence to contradict those findings. You got no autopsy. You got no body. All you got is
bupkes,
my friend.
Bupkes.
”
    “That's because I haven't started looking yet.”
    Rosenbloom rolled his eyes heavenward. “Oh, my God, Samson, listen to yourself. You're actually thinking about trying to build a three-year-old murder case against a federal district judge? And from scratch? Talk about insane. No, it's worse than insane. It's suicidal.”
    “If Dr. Granger is right, this really is a wrongful death case. I can't just walk away from that.”
    “Of course you can. This is a free country, pal. Start walking.”
    “It's not the right thing to do.”
    “What's right have to do with it? It's the smart thing to do.”
    “You sound like a lawyer.”
    “Because I am one. And so are you. We're talking about a lawsuit here, not an Elizabethan revenge play. This ain't Hamlet,
boychik,
and you ain't Prince Hal.”
    Rosenbloom paused and sighed.
    “Come on, Samson. Get real. You'll never prove he killed her. Never. And even if you could, which you can't, so what? That's not going to bring her back to life. She's dead, and no matter what you do she's going to stay dead. Forever.”
    Rosenbloom shook his head.
    “Listen to me, Samson. The old man wants to preserve her memory, right? You can do that, and you can do it now, before he loses the rest of his own goddamn memory. Squeeze a nice settlement out of that fat piece of shit, pocket our fee, and tell the old man to use the money to build her a memorial.”
    The receptionist buzzed on the speakerphone.
    “What is it?”
    “I have a call for Mr. Hirsch on line four.”
    Rosenbloom said, “Take a message, Lois. Tell them he's in a meeting.”
    “It's a judge, sir.”
    “Which one?”
    “Judge McCormick.”
    Hirsch and Rosenbloom stared at one another across the desk. After a moment, Rosenbloom pressed the intercom button. “He'll take it in here.”
    Rosenbloom looked at Hirsch and nodded toward the phone.
    Hirsch leaned over the desk, lifted the receiver, and depressed the blinking light. “Hello?”
    “Mr. Hirsch?”
    “Yes.”
    “Hold for Judge McCormick.”
    A short pause.
    “David?”
    “Yes.”
    “Bet you thought