Victoria started to object, but Steve placed a hand on her arm. “Let it go,” he whispered.
“Why?”
Steve gave her his innocent shrug, but she looked at him with cold suspicion.
“Hearing no objection,” Judge Rolle said, “I assume the Petitioner is as curious as the Court to hear the next exchange. Proceed.”
Zinkavich lowered his voice into what he must have considered his profound tone. “Just what did Mr. Thigpen say to you, as he lay there, bleeding like a stuck pig?”
“Rufe looked up at me and said, ‘You stupid cunt. You locked the kid in the dog cage but never padlocked the shed.'”
Zinkavich's mouth dropped open wide enough to inhale a Krispy Kreme. Judge Rolle cocked her head toward Janice as if listening a second time to something she didn't believe she'd heard the first time. The only sound in the courtroom was the whir of the ventilation system.
No one moved.
Not Victoria.
Or Zinkavich.
Or Judge Rolle.
Steve shot glances at each of them. People with their own lives. Bills to pay, cars to service, doctors to visit. The whole mundane routine of daily life. But in this moment-frozen in time, like a fossil preserved in amber-their minds focused on the same image. An image, he was sure, that would come back to them, as it had to him, time and again.
An innocent child locked in a dog cage in a shed.
Finally, the judge said: “You say there was sleet that day?”
“Turned the yard into a skating rink,” Janice said.
The judge chewed on the eraser of her pencil. “How was your son dressed?”
“Underpants and a sweatshirt. I guess.” When the judge stared hard at her, Janice added: “I was pretty messed up those days.”
“That shed have any heat?”
Janice shook her head.
“Judge, I object to your taking over my questioning,” Zinkavich said.
“Sit down and stay down. You're done.”
Steve knew that the judge had heard tales of children disciplined with lighted cigarettes, starved in homes with full pantries, and subjected to sexual torture. Judges, cops, medical examiners see horrific wrongs, and after a while, he supposed, their minds create buffers to protect them from psychic pain. But do you ever really lose the ability to be shocked and sickened by cruelty to children?
“Now, cutting through the bullshit,” the judge continued, “your brother came to this farm where you were high on drugs and your son was confined like an animal, unclothed and freezing. There was an altercation with Mr. Thigpen, who is also a drug abuser, after which your brother took your son to his home, where he's raising him in apparent comfort and safety.”
“Yeah. That's about right.”
“Your Honor, I must protest,” Zinkavich said.
“Then do it somewhere else.” The judge leaned toward Janice. “Ms. Solomon, I want you to put yourself in my place for a moment.”
“Not if I have to wear that blue schmatte you got on.”
“Between making your son a ward of the state or giving your brother guardianship rights, what would you do?”
The question of the day, Steve thought.
The hundred-thousand-dollar question.
Victoria got to her feet. “Your Honor, may we have a brief recess before the witness answers?”
“What?” Steve couldn't believe it. “Let her answer.”
“Shut up,” Victoria said.
“What seems to be the problem?” the judge asked.
“We just need five minutes, Your Honor.”
The judge shrugged and said: “No jive. Back in five.”
When they reached the corridor, Victoria grabbed Steve by the tie, kicked open the door to the women's rest room, and dragged him inside.
“Hey,” he protested.
The harsh, astringent smell of ammonia was in the air.
“You think you can get away with this?” she said.
“With what?” He put on an innocent face that didn't fool her for an instant.
“You tell me. What'd you do, kidnap Thigpen and extort your sister?”
“You're nuts. Let's get back in there. We're one answer away from my winning custody.”
“No, we're one answer away from my reporting you to the Bar.”
“For what?”
“Whatever you've done is going to backfire. The next time Janice gets arrested, she'll go screaming to Zinkavich. She'll turn on you to save her ass.”
“She's got nothing on me.”
For someone so shifty, he was a lousy liar. “You're not stealing home on me, Solomon, no matter how fast you think you are.”
“Jesus, lighten up.”
“I'm giving you ten seconds to come clean.”
“Or what?”
“Or I go back inside that courtroom and ask to withdraw as your lawyer and stay the trial until the state investigates your sister's conduct.”
“C'mon, Vic. This is the truth: When Janice walked into the courtroom, I didn't know what she was going to say.”
“Sure you did. And you knew Thigpen wasn't going to show up. That's why you told me to wing it. You knew exactly what was going to happen.”
“I just have good instincts.”
“Not that good. What'd you do, bribe them?”
All of Steve's famed instincts told him to keep quiet. He knew how many criminals were tripped up, not by the police, but by their own big mouths. He also knew how self-righteously upright Victoria could be. So he would never understand why, in that moment, he told her. Did he hope that her feelings for him would outweigh her rigid sense of propriety? Was it some test, one she was bound to fail?
“Dammit, Steve,” she prodded. “What turned Janice around?”
He blurted it out. “A hundred thousand dollars.”
“Oh, no. Oh, no.” She was shaking her head. “How could you?”
“I borrowed it.”
“Damn you! You know what I mean. How could you suborn perjury?”
“I suborned the truth! I paid her not to lie. Every word she said in there was true.”
“That's a rationalization.”
“Yeah, but it's a good one. I was extorted. I'm the victim here.”
“Tell that to the disbarment judge. It doesn't matter if Janice told the truth. Paying her is an illegal inducement under the Ethical Rules.”
“Then the rules are wrong,” Steve argued.
“Damn you!” Her look was anguished and angry. “You're as dirty as Pincher.”
“I'm doing justice here. That's a pretty big difference.”
“I could have won playing straight.”
“I couldn't be sure of that,” he said, softly. He moved closer to her, placed his hands on her shoulders, felt her tremble. Any second, she could burst into a rainstorm of tears. Or she could kiss him. Or she could-
Smack. She slapped him hard across the face.
“Ow! What the hell…?”
“I'm required to tell Judge Rolle.”
“No way. You ever hear of attorney-client privilege?”
“Doesn't cover fraud on the court. Read Kneale vs. Williams.”
“Haven't I taught you anything? When the law doesn't work-”
“There's no wiggle room here. The Ethical Rules are mandatory.”
“I'll lose Bobby and go to jail. They'll pull my license.”
“I don't have a choice.”
“You have the choice to do justice or blindly follow a bad law.”
“I warned you when I took the case. I do it strictly by the book.”
He slammed his hand into the tile wall. The tile didn't break. He wasn't so sure about his hand. “This makes it easier for you, doesn't it?”
“Makes what easier?”
His hand swelled with pain, and he felt a throbbing in his temples. “My being disbarred, disgraced, out of the picture. It's the proof you needed that you made the right choice.”
“I'm marrying Bruce because I love him.”
“You haven't changed since that day in the jail cell. You're still the same robot, the same automaton.”
“And you're the same unethical lowlife.”
“You're bloodless and soulless, Lord. Sin alma o corazon.”
“I can't believe I considered being with you for even a second.”