Last Dance

The Last Dance

I thought it was time to close out this story line. I must admit I was swayed by those who said Kate got away Scott free.

While I do read all of the comments, I look for constructive info and ignore the bashing.

"Hi Justin, do you mind if I dance with your date?"

Kate frowned at Bill, and wondered not for the first time what he might be thinking. Really, asking Justin permission to dance with her - after all she was the mother of the bride, it was expected.

Kate took Bill's outstretched hand and let him lead her out onto the floor. AB and Jeremy were still dancing; it was tradition for the mother and father to join them for a dance. Kate had been worried about this, wondering how Bill would handle it.

"You're looking very nice tonight Kate, I'm so glad we were able to work together to make this perfect for the kids."

"You're right Bill, I have enjoyed this. I really do appreciate being included, although I must admit that I have been a bit jealous of Sheila taking most of the mother-daughter duties."

Yup, same old Kate, it always came back to what it meant to her, how things affected her. Such a narcissist.

"I was hoping we could have lunch Monday, just the two of us. We have a few things to discuss. I've made reservations at your favorite lunch spot for 1pm."

"Bill, I'm not sure I can adjust my schedule on such short notice."

"No need to fret Kate, your calendar has already been adjusted, and when you get back to your purse, check your phone and you'll see you have nothing else the rest of that afternoon."

"What the fuck are you talking about! How did you adjust my calendar!?"

"Please Kate, control yourself. We can't let your famous temper ruin this wonderful day. As for how it was all done, we'll that's really not very important. Our discussion is; the topics we need to chat about are critical."

"Why all the mystery, why don't you just tell me what this is all about now?"

"Because I don't want to spoil this wonderful day for the kids any more than I already have. I had to make sure you understood the importance of meeting with me, and didn't want you to find out about lunch by looking at your calendar and wondering how it got changed."

"You can't make me meet with you. I won't show up, you can't make me."

"We will literally be talking about life and death matters. So I should think you would be supremely interested in meeting with me."

"Are you sick Bill, are you dying? Is that what this is all about?"

"No Kate, we need to talk about your life and death."

-------

How she made it through the rest of the reception is beyond her. She and Justin stayed until the very end when AB and Jeremy made their exit. She had indulged in too much champagne, such that when she had sex with Justin that night she didn't really get as much enjoyment from it as she usually did. Bad enough that Bill had dropped a bombshell on her with all that life and death talk. But she had been feeling less than enthusiastic with Justin for some time.

She had fumed all day Sunday; it was just as well that Justin had made himself scarce. Bill had better not be a minute late she thought as her driver pulled up in front of Chez Antoine's, she was going to roast him to a crisp regardless.

"Ah Kate, there you are; punctual as usual" Bill was already at a table and rose as she came into the restaurant. He held her chair for her as she took a seat.

The owner was right there, but before she could speak, "Jeffry, please being Judge Morgan her favorite Martini. I'll have a Riesling, and we'll both have the salmon. Soup for me and a Caesar for the Judge."

So like Bill to try to get the upper hand in a difficult situation. How he knew Jeffry by name, her favorite drink, entre, and salad was his way of showing off. We'll she had some intel of her own to bring to the battle.

"Bill, two can play that spy game you know. I haven't detected any chatter from your people about this life and death stuff." There, let him stew on that.

"Of course not Kate. All your sources of information are honey pots designed to only feed you what I wanted you to know. They always have been, right from the beginning."

"But you promised me that you would not be spying on me anymore that day in my office!"

"That was all AB's doing. She put all the devices back almost right away. And all without either Sheila or I knowing. I only set up my honey pots such that when you got your own surveillance up and running it would give you nothing useful. I found out later what she'd done, but I have to admit I didn't make her dismantle any of it. In the ensuing 11 years since that day, you have been under our constant observation. You have literally no secrets from us. In fact, upgrading the surveillance on you has been the graduation exercise for field agents for some time. Again credit AB for orchestrating that. You should be flattered that only the state-of-the art spy stuff is good enough for you. Which brings us to our chat for today."

"Well Bill, it seems that you have outsmarted me yet again. What revelation are you going to surprise me with now?"

"Kate, you have at best nine months to live."

"What kind of sick joke is this?!"

"It's no joke. Justin has given you a particularly virulent strain of AIDS. I believe it's called the Brazilian variant. Which is fitting, he got it from a young woman from Brazil he has been boffing. You've probably noticed that you're starting to feel under the weather the last couple of weeks."

"You really must hate me to pull such an evil prank as this! I'm going to take all the information I have on you and get the DA to start an investigation." Kate was literally spitting fire.

"I told you Kate, none of that stuff you collected is of any value. Besides, as of last night all your data stores have been wiped. You literally have nothing in those offshore cloud servers or the drives in your wall safe at home. Zip, nada. We have been very thorough. And you'll find the portable recorder in your purse will have nothing on it when you press play later."

Kate glanced at her purse sitting on the table at her right elbow. Just then Jeffry came with their drinks and her salad.

"I suggest you enjoy your meal. As the disease progresses, you will lose your appetite and I understand eating becomes a chore." Bill took a sip of his wine and proceeded to enjoy his soup.

"Alright Bill, you've had your fun. What is this meeting really all about? Why this fantastic story? What do you hope to gain by putting me through this?" She needed to get control of this situation; Bill was starting to worry her.

"You have a keen mind Kate; I have always admired that about you. It really is too bad you have used all that intellect to do bad. You have fully embraced everything that Simpel wanted you to become."

"Les was a great man, cut down way too soon as you well know. I've done my best to follow in his footsteps."

"Yes you have, I can attest to that. As I said before, I know all of your secrets; the backroom deals, questionable convictions, railroading, and the graft. It's quite a list of sins; we have been quite thorough."

"I don't know what you're talking about. And stop saying you've been thorough, it's getting annoying."

"No worries, I didn't come here to get your confession. I came here to tell you about your being sick. And for justice."

"Justice, bah. How does your notion of justice compare to mine, I have been on the bench for 11 years. You have a lot of nerve! You're nothing but a glorified rent a cop." There, that should knock him back a bit.

"Simpel payed for his crimes, but you never have. I gave you a clean slate 11 years ago in your office. And you didn't take it. You didn't become a better version of yourself. Instead you became 'Simpel, the sequel'. I should have listened to AB back then and taken you out; instead you were emboldened."

"Taken me out! Taken me out! You were too weak to do anything, I had your number. Yes you gave me a clean slate, and I wrote my own story from then on."

"You may be right; maybe I was too weak to do what needed to be done. But that's all water under the bridge, you're going to die. And probably burn in hell for all the bad you've done."

"Bill, Bill, Bill. You somehow don't understand modern medicine. Even if I believed your story about Justin, there are protocols now that can mitigate the worst effects of HIV. And I can certainly afford the best doctors money can buy. Your horror story doesn't scare me."

Their entrees appeared and Kate tucked in. She felt she'd finally got this little dance back on firm footing.

"Actually, I do know quite a bit about modern medicine. At least enough about how it could be used in my professional setting. But enough about that, there's two other things you need to know about my justice. Your entire dossier of bad deeds is right now being delivered to the State Ethics Board, I'm afraid that you are about to be in some very hot water."

Kate's fork stopped halfway to her mouth and her eyes widened, "You wouldn't dare. If you tried a stunt like that I'd make sure you payed dearly, and my justice wouldn't come with a warning."

"Oh my, it seems I finally have your full attention. That's good; I want you to know what is going to happen to you before it even begins. Simpel got swift justice, which is my usual way of dealing with these kinds of things. But for you I wanted it to be drawn out, so you could savor the full measure of it."

"I swear Bill, if you make this kind of trouble for me there is no place you could hide."

"I am already mostly ghost, after this lunch I will be far out of reach of you and your cronies. Let's try to stay focused, shall we. And finally for the third thing I wanted you to know. Poor Justin ate a gun this morning after coming home from the doctor's appointment where he was told the news about his being infected. I'm afraid he left a note with some very incriminating comments about you. You should never have 'done business' in front of him."

"Noooo, poor Justin; what did he ever do to you. He was just a boy!"

"I'm afraid he couldn't handle the prospect of a slow painful death. I'm not so sure he took the coward's way, or if he was truly brave. Again, water under the bridge." Bill finished the last of his salmon and sat back with a satisfied sigh.

"I've come to chat with you today not only to deliver my three presents but to explain myself to you. Consider it a form of closure if you will. As for why Simpel, let me quote how I explained it many years ago, "

He had touched my woman, he needed to go. He needed to pay. Not only my sense of justice by my morals had been violated, this man was evil and had to be dealt with."

You see, I really am a simple man, my motives are not complex, nor hard to understand."

"As for why I'm handing out justice to you too, you betrayed me in the worst way a woman can betray her husband. You made a mockery of my love for you, you cuckolded me with that cretin and did it willingly, you bore his child and denied me children of my own blood. It's long past time I evened the score with you. What's worse you have completely unrepentant, never in all the years since have you asked my forgiveness for that betrayal. You're worse than Simpel ever was."

"I'm not going to sit around and watch you try to squirm your way out of the storm that's coming your way. Sheila and I are going to travel for a bit, visit some foreign lands; I deserve a long vacation. As the Ethics Board is roasting you over a very hot fire, you will be getting sicker and sicker. You won't be able to try to prolong the inevitable and try to save your reputation. In fact, I'm pretty sure you won't be leaving a very positive legacy behind. I chuckled when I realized that the good name of Ford won't be dragged into the seamy tale of Judge Morgan." Bill drained the last of his wine and placed two hundreds on under his now empty wine glass.

"Maybe you can try to see the humor in all of this, I certainly have. Kate you fucked your way into this mess, and your continued fucking has been your undoing."

While Bill was talking Kate had moved her purse onto her lap and had her hand in it as if searching for something.

"I'm going to kill you myself you son of a bitch. I'm not going down without a fight, and if it's true I only have a few months to live, I won't have to worry about getting locked up."

"It's not there."

"What, what's not there?"

"That little gun you're licensed to carry 'for your protection'. It's not in the bottom of your purse where it normally is. I'm afraid that's the gun Justin used this morning to paint the wall of your apartment with his brains."

Kate sat back and her shoulders slumped, "This can't be happening. How did orchestrate all this? And why now?"

"Justin was easy; his penchant for soft, pliable Latina's was his undoing. Once he was infected we could only hope that you'd soon have it too. The young lady is the daughter of an associate. Her two younger sisters have a trust to pay for a full ride to a stateside college in return for doing this service for me. Her father went along after we delivered a paper bag with the head of the bastard that had raped Stella. Her misfortune has paved the way for her family to heal; and for me to exact justice. Justin really did have a doctor's appointment this morning. Although, I have to admit that we helped him along with his dramatic exit and note. We have been thorough."

"As for why now, I'm retiring. AB is taking over the shop and she doesn't need the legacy of you still hanging about. Your justice has been delayed long enough. It's kinda my retirement gift to her. But the overriding reason is that I don't want you still on this side of the lawn if there's any possibility of your being in my grandbaby's life."

Kate's hand went to her mouth, AB was pregnant! She was going to be a grandmother. Somewhere deep inside her stirred some twisted maternal emotion.

"There, right there. I can see it in your eyes. You've just realized you're going to be a grandmother. Something just clicked in that putrid place you call your soul. I'm sorry Kate, I can't allow that. AB doesn't deserve whatever would come from your being suddenly interested in her baby. You gotta go. And as a matter of fact, I gotta go too. There is a plane idling on the tarmac waiting to whisk me away. I'm afraid this is good by Kate. I hope wherever you end up there is some mercy for you, I certainly don't have any to give you."

And with that Bill walked out of the restaurant to a waiting car. He was gone in an instant.

Kate sat fuming. He thought he was so clever, Bill thought he could bring her down. We'll she would go out fighting; she was Law and Order Morgan. She made the rules for others to follow. If Bill thought he'd defeated her he had another thing coming.

Epilog:

Marjorie Stefanick came into the world eight months later. Her mother Anabelle and father Jeremy were the typical ecstatic new parents.

Bill and Sheila Ford, the proud grandparents were over the moon.

Judge Kathrine Morgan succumbed to AIDS the next day. Early that morning she had received a birth announcement in her private hospital room. She was found clutching the card to her chest when the nurse came to check her vitals.