He frowns and bends down, bringing his face too close to mine. “Today,” he says. “I need to speak with her while she’s here in the courtroom.”
“Can’t happen,” I tell him. “Louisa isn’t allowed to have contact with anyone in this room except her lawyers. If you want to communicate with her today, you’ll have to do it through one of us.”
He stares at the floor and shakes his head emphatically. It seems my response is unsatisfactory. Again. He walks away and takes a seat on the front bench next to Anastasia and Lance. He fires an icy stare my way and then fixes his gaze on the judge. He’s through with me.
Harry has joined Geraldine in front of the bench. “The guy came at him from behind,” he says.
“Nobody came at him,” Geraldine replies. “Mr. Palmer tapped him on the shoulder to ask for directions.”
Rinky Snow would fare much better, it seems, if people would just stop asking him for directions. “No knives,” he calls out from his chair. The judge looks up and Rinky wags a finger at him. “No knives,” he repeats, as if he’s been having a hell of a time keeping this judge in line.
“Rinky didn’t know that,” Harry says. “All he knew was that Palmer came at him from behind.”
Judge Long’s eyes move from Rinky to Harry, his expression unchanged. “So he belted the guy,” the judge says.
“One punch,” Harry answers, shrugging, as if we’re all entitled to dole out that much in the course of a day. “In self-defense.”
“No knives,” Rinky announces again, his finger still wagging.
“Oh, please.” Geraldine looks at Harry as if he’s loonier than his client. “It was not self-defense.”
“Knocked him out cold,” Judge Long notes, reading from the report again.
“For a minute or two.” Harry waves one hand in the air to emphasize the insignificance of it all. “The guy was awake and oriented by the time the rescue squad got there.”
Judge Long looks like he isn’t buying Harry’s argument this time. He leans on his elbows, folds his hands together, and rests his chin on top of them. “Mr. Madigan,” he says after taking a deep breath, “I’m sorry. I appreciate what you’re trying to do here. And I realize there are extenuating circumstances. But I think we need to spell the people of Chatham, take Mr. Snow off their hands for a little while.” He looks down at the police report again and sighs. “Particularly the tourists,” he adds, “if any are still standing.”
“But, Judge,” Harry tries again, “it was nothing more than an honest mistake. You or I might have made the same mistake if someone came at one of us from behind.”
The judge removes his glasses and closes his eyes. He almost smiles when he opens them again and looks at Harry. “I don’t think so, Mr. Madigan.”
Harry doesn’t think so either, of course. Too often in this business we have to swallow our pride and advocate the absurd.
“Mr. Snow,” the judge says, turning his attention back to Rinky.
“No knives,” Rinky, standing up, warns the judge yet again with a wagging finger.
“I can’t let you go with a slap on the wrist this time, sir. No knives is right. But no fists either. You’re going to spend a little time up on the hill”—Judge Long nods in the direction of the House of Correction—“so you can think about it.” He faces Geraldine and Harry again and sighs. “Come back tomorrow,” he says, looking at each of them in turn, “and tell me you’ve worked this out.”
Geraldine exhales loudly, her expression suggesting she’d rather work out a business plan with the mob. Harry smiles and winks at her, as if he’s reveling in their earlier intimacy.
“We have the necessary paperwork, Your Honor.” Clarence Wexler pops up from his table and scurries to the bench, delivering photocopies to Harry, the originals to the judge.
“Hey, who’s the whippersnapper?” Rinky puts his question to the room at large. “Where’d that little fella come from?” It seems Rinky hadn’t noticed Clarence until now.
Judge Long all but swallows his lips in his attempt to avoid laughing, but his eyes give him away. He reads through Clarence’s documents, fills in a few blanks, and signs off. He’s still struggling for composure when he looks back up at Harry. “If it makes you feel any better,” the judge says, “the forecast calls for a cold snap.”
The matron delivers Louisa to the defense table and I join her, though technically we don’t belong here. We’re not parties to this particular proceeding. Geraldine was right: the issues raised in the petition are between Anastasia Rawlings and the Commonwealth. We have no standing to address them. But we do want to be heard on a related matter.
The gallery is noisy again, the benches full. Anyone who checked the schedule probably assumed that the Rawlings case docketed for one o’clock is Louisa’s. And apparently the press thinks so too. They’re back in force, hurling scores of questions at Louisa in anything-but-subdued voices. She doesn’t answer, but she does smile and flashbulbs bombard her.
Harry and Geraldine are at one side of the bench, finishing up Rinky Snow’s paperwork. Rinky’s prison escorts lean against the wall by the side door, their charge centered between them. The Kydd is in a seat at the bar, so there’s a chair available at the table for Anastasia Rawlings if she wants it. She doesn’t.
She marches past, shielding her profile with a stiff, flattened hand, a dramatic blinder against the sight of her father’s widow. Steven Collier follows and pauses to give Louisa a solemn nod before he passes. Anastasia steps to the side when they reach the bench and Collier plants himself squarely in front of the judge. He intends to do the talking, it seems. I might enjoy this.
Judge Long checks in with Harry and Geraldine and then nods at the uniforms, telling them it’s time to escort Rinky to his all-too-familiar digs. Rinky’s not quite ready to leave the courtroom, though. He does a double-take in Anastasia’s direction and then elbows the guard nearest the door. “Would ya lookit that?” Rinky says. “Ever seen anything like that before?”
Anastasia tosses her hair over her shoulder and snarls at him. The guards look somewhat alarmed by her performance, but Rinky doesn’t. He seems delighted. He encircles his eyes with his hands as if he’s holding binoculars, then bounces up and down and starts to walk toward her, as if he’s spotted a rare bird and wants a better view.
The uniforms have a different plan in mind, of course. Each of them takes one of Rinky’s elbows and they move him toward the side door. Both guards stare at the floor—eyes averted from Anastasia—as they move out of the courtroom. Rinky doesn’t. He walks backward, smiling and still bouncing a little. And he gives Anastasia raccoon eyes until the heavy door slams shut between them.
Judge Long massages his temples as he watches them leave, then sighs and closes his eyes. When he opens them, he seems a bit startled to find Steven Collier smack-dab in front of him. “I’m sorry,” the judge says, looking down at the mountain of paperwork on the bench, “but I’m afraid I don’t know who you are, sir.”
“I’m Steven Collier.” He gives the judge a slight bow and an indulgent smile, as if that says it all.
Judge Long looks confused, rifling through his papers now. “Are you an attorney?”
Collier’s laugh is inordinately hearty. He slaps his thigh and shakes his head; that Judge Long is a real kidder. “Oh no, Your Honor. Me? No, I’m not an attorney.”
The judge checks the paperwork again. “You’re not a party to this proceeding, are you?”
“No, Judge. No. I’m not a party.”
“Well, then who are you?” the judge asks.
“I’m Mrs. Rawlings’s financial advisor,” Collier says, sweeping one arm back toward Louisa. He looks over his shoulder and then leans toward the judge, as if he’s about to share government-classified information. “And I’m an extremely close friend of the entire family.”