Gallagher’s head swiveled like a turtle’s. “Ms. Martin?”
“Your Honor, we’ve just learned of new information that could-”
“Ms. Prosecutor, this is an arraignment. The purpose of an arraignment is to extract a plea from the defendant for the record of this court. Would it inconvenience you to let me accomplish that before you tell me whatever it is you wish to tell me?”
“Your Honor-”
“Or are you saying the prosecution wishes to withdraw felony charges of illegal entry, breaking and entering, conspiracy, and second-degree murder against the defendant?”
“Not at this moment, Your Honor,” she said.
“That is a relief. Thank you.”
Eileen sat, brushing a hair from her reddening forehead. She couldn’t have been surprised. As a judge, Horace Gallagher was as unpredictable as cell phone service north of Gaylord. He ran his courtroom the way he saw fit, standard legal procedure and state judicial commission be damned. Lawyers whispered that he was unstable, but time and again, appellate courts agreed that Pine County’s circuit judge, pushing seventy, had charted an improbable map to the correct destination. The judicial commission nannied him on occasion, most notably when he ordered a philandering husband in a divorce case to kneel before his soon-to-be-ex-wife and apologize. But the gripes from officialdom seemed only to encourage Gallagher’s unique ways of pursuing justice.
He sat back in his chair, knitting his hands behind his head. “Your plea, sir?”
“Not guilty,” he said. “But I would plead so first on behalf of my grandfather, Joseph Wayland.”
A murmur coursed through the gallery. “Order,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Breck, I will ask again, what-”
“For me, sir? Also not guilty. I’ve never been near the house that was broken into, and I dare the prosecution to produce a single piece of evidence that I have. But I will be heard by a community that has steadfastly refused, for five decades, to acknowledge the injustice it delivered upon my family.”
The din rose again and the judge slapped his gavel twice. “Your plea is noted,” he said. “As for your grandfather, no plea is possible, although I’m familiar with his case, being a bit of a history buff as well as a lifelong parishioner of St. Val’s.”
I recalled the photo of Mom and the other spelling-bee girls with the nerdy boy named Horace.
“May I speak, sir?”
“Proceed.”
Breck cleared his throat. The sound echoed up past the seven oil paintings of dead judges on the walls to the pressed tin ceiling.
I glanced around again for Darlene, didn’t find her.
“In 1950,” Breck said, “the Archdiocese of Detroit endeavored to build a new church at St. Valentine’s in Starvation Lake. The community was growing and the archdiocese desired a bigger building that would bring in more people and more money, most of which, incidentally, would wind up in Detroit.”
“Your Honor, forgive me, but now I must object.”
Every head turned to the man standing in the back of the gallery. I hadn’t noticed him before. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I whispered.
“Who is that?” Mom said.
“Listen.”
“Sir,” Judge Gallagher said. “Have you properly noticed the court?”
“Your Honor, my apologies, I am Regis Repelmaus, representing the law firm of Eagan, MacDonald and Browne, counsel for the Archdiocese of Detroit. We cannot allow-”
Gallagher smacked his gavel down. “Sit now, sir, or you will be representing the archdiocese in the Pine County Jail.”
Repelmaus frowned and sat.
“Mr. Breck.”
Breck continued with the tale he had told me at the jail. He’d begun to describe his furtive research on sexual abuse victims for Eagan, MacDonald amp; Browne when Repelmaus again stood.
“Your Honor, I must insist,” he said. “This is a slander against one of the most respected law firms in the state, against the Archdiocese of Detroit, against-”
“Are you deaf, sir?” Gallagher said.
The double doors at the back of the courtroom opened. Skip Catledge strode in and up the center aisle. He removed his earflap cap and stopped in front of the railing between the gallery and the bench. Dingus leaned over and whispered. Catledge nodded yes. Dingus’s eyebrows went up. He said something else, but Catledge moved to the railing while Dingus watched, incredulous.
Gallagher raised a finger for the deputy to wait.
“I beg your pardon, Your Honor,” Repelmaus said, “but Mr. Breck is seeking to use this court to engage in a smear campaign that has no basis in fact. The church, the archdiocese, and the law firm each have a right to counter these baseless charges before-”
“What would you have me do, Mr. Regis?”
“It’s Repelmaus, Your Honor. I-we would ask that the court adjourn until we’ve had an opportunity to depose Mr. Breck so that we may prepare a point-by-point rebuttal.”
“I understand your concern,” Gallagher said. “But this is not a civil matter, it’s-”
I jumped to my feet. “No, Judge. Don’t even think about dealing with this slimeball.”
I felt my mother’s alarmed face staring up at me.
“Excuse me?” Gallagher said.
Now every head turned to me.
“Mr. Carpenter,” the judge said, “I know you and your mother have had a difficult few days, but you are out of order. Please sit.”
“With all due respect, Your Honor, no,” I said. “If you want to put me in jail, fine, put me in with Repelmaus, who’s just as out of order as I am. But if you allow him and his clients the slightest opening, they will keep this case from being solved forever. They’ve kept it from being solved for nearly sixty years, and they will persist, Phyllis Bontrager be damned.”
“My God, Your Honor, this-” Repelmaus began, but Gallagher rapped his gavel three times and shouted, “Quiet! You will be quiet in my courtroom, Mr. Regis. And you, Mr. Carpenter, will sit down now.”
I’d said what I had to say. I sat. Gallagher turned to a uniformed officer standing to his right. “Bailiff,” he said, “please remove Mr. Regis to my chambers.”
Repelmaus flushed red. “Your Honor, this is unnecessary,” he said as the bailiff moved alongside him. “You will regret this.”
When the chambers door behind Gallagher’s bench closed, the judge addressed Catledge. “Deputy?”
“May I approach?” Catledge said.
Gallagher waved him up. Catledge whispered something. Gallagher replied, nodding. Catledge turned and left the courtroom.
“Mr. Breck,” the judge said, “I assume you still have the note your mother left in her will.”
“It’s in a safe-deposit box along with other documents, such as canceled checks from Eagan, MacDonald and Browne payable to my firm, for services rendered, right up to October of last year.”
“About the time you arrived here, is that right?”
“Approximately, yes.”
Gallagher took off his glasses, set them down, rubbed his eyes with both hands, put the glasses back on. “You have subsumed much of your life to this cause, Mr. Breck,” he said. “All for the sake of a dead man.”
“For the sake of a dead woman, Your Honor.”
The courtroom doors swung open again. The gallery turned as one to see. Standing on the threshold amid a small phalanx of officers, with an eye swollen shut and his hands cuffed behind him, was Luke Whistler.
Standing behind him was Darlene.
She was hatless. The top two buttons were missing from her uniform shirt, and the fabric was torn where her badge should have been. A wad of gauze was taped haphazardly beneath her left eye. I wanted her to look around the room for me, but she kept her gaze straight ahead. In her outstretched arms she held a plastic evidence bag containing what appeared to be a wooden box.
