“Order,” the judge said. “Mr. Breck, you may sit.” Breck twisted around to see the back of the courtroom. His eyes went wide. Gallagher looked at Catledge. “Deputy?”
Dingus rose from his seat, looking as flabbergasted as I’d ever seen him. “Your Honor, I apologize,” he said as he glanced from Gallagher to Whistler and back again. “Deputy Esper was suspended as of last night and should not be here now.” I watched Darlene for a reaction, but her face remained a hard blank.
“Sheriff, can you please tell me what’s going on here?” Eileen Martin said.
He ignored her, directing himself to Catledge. “Deputy, your orders were to take the prisoners directly to the jail.”
“Yes sir, Sheriff.” He glanced back at Darlene. “This seemed relevant to the matter in court.”
“Deputy Esper is not even-”
“Never mind, Sheriff,” Judge Gallagher said. “Deputies, please approach the bench and bring whatever you have.”
Catledge prodded Whistler forward. Darlene followed. The box she carried looked to be about three feet long, two feet across, and twelve or thirteen inches deep. On the front was a hasp for a padlock, but no lock. The three of them stopped at the railing.
Darlene spoke. “Lucas Benjamin Whistler, Your Honor.”
Whistler stared at the floor. “I want a lawyer,” he muttered.
“He killed my mother.”
A collective gasp rose from the gallery. I handed Mom a tissue.
“Your Honor,” Eileen Martin said, “this is highly irregular.”
“We passed irregular about twenty minutes ago,” Gallagher said. “Mr. Whistler, you shall have a lawyer. But now, please approach.”
Catledge, Darlene, and Whistler walked to the bench. Darlene set the evidence bag in front of the judge. “What is this?” he said.
“Your honor,” Darlene replied, “I attempted to apprehend the defendant approximately twenty-five miles west of the border crossing at Port Huron. He disobeyed my instructions to pull his vehicle over, forcing me to-”
“She nearly killed me running me off the road,” Whistler said.
“-take more forceful steps.”
“Then she just broke into my car, clear illegal search and seizure. You’ll be throwing this one out, Judge.”
“Since when do we have jurisdiction in Port Huron?” Dingus called from his seat. “You didn’t notify the state police?” He jumped to his feet. “Judge, I must ask that you allow me to remove these people immediately.”
“I would concur,” Eileen Martin said.
“Noted,” Gallagher said. “Sit.”
Dingus started to say something else, stopped himself, and sat.
“Deputy Esper,” the judge said, “is it true that you arrested this man some-what? — two hundred miles from your jurisdiction?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” she said.
“And where did you get this box?”
“It was in the trunk of the suspect’s car. I believe it’s stolen property.”
Gallagher studied the box and the three people standing before him. In the gallery we waited, dumbstruck. I thought of Darlene chasing Whistler’s Toronado, forcing him to the shoulder in the dark middle of nowhere. They must have struggled, I thought. How else could she have sustained a cut or Whistler a black eye? I wanted to ask her what had happened, why she had decided to go alone, why she had left me behind. I wanted to know how she had restrained herself from taking even more drastic action against the man she believed had killed her mother. I thought I knew what was in the box on Gallagher’s bench, but I wanted to see it for myself, not hear about it days or even weeks on, when the state forensics guys finished with it.
I stood. “Your Honor,” I said. “We can end this now.”
Gallagher looked at me, his eyebrows high over his horn-rims. “Just whose courtroom do you imagine this is?”
“We can solve this case right now.”
“We can, can we? I’ll humor you-what do you propose before I have the bailiff roust you from this courtroom forevermore.”
I glanced past him at the door to his chambers. He followed my eyes. “As you say, Your Honor, it’s your courtroom,” I said. “But we can solve this case as well as the one that’s half a century old. But you will need me, and you will need my mother.”
I looked at her. Her head was bowed over her handbag.
Gallagher looked at Whistler and Breck and Darlene. He picked up his gavel and stood. “In my chambers,” he said. “Ms. Prosecutor, Sheriff Aho, Deputy Esper. All of you. Bring Mr. Breck and Whistler, please, and Medical Examiner Schriver.” He pointed his gavel at me. “Augustus Carpenter,” he said. “And Beatrice? You, too.” He rapped once more. “This court is in recess.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
The blotter on Judge Gallagher’s L-shaped mahogany desk was framed in leather the color of blackberries. Gallagher pointed at it and said, “Remove the box from the plastic and place it here, please.” Catledge did. The judge fluffed the back of his robe and descended into a leather-backed chair. “You may uncuff these men, Deputy.”
I tried to get Whistler’s attention as Catledge removed his cuffs, but he kept his eyes down, rubbing first his wrists and then his pinkie ring. I recalled picking the ring up off his desk, how heavy it seemed, and the initials engraved inside: EJPW. Elizabeth Josephine Pound Whistler. Bitsy. His mother.
He sat alongside Breck, facing the judge. Dingus stood behind them. Repelmaus stood with the bailiff. I sat with Mom on Gallagher’s left, while Eileen, Darlene, and Doc Joe sat in a semicircle across from us. I finally caught Darlene’s eye. She didn’t smile, but she winked, and I thought maybe I’d done something right.
The judge opened a desk drawer and produced a package of latex gloves. He unwrapped it and pulled the gloves on. “Now,” he said, looking around the room, “I plan to take a look at what is inside this box. Unless there’s an objection.”
“I must respectfully object, Your Honor,” Eileen Martin said. “This risks contaminating what could be vital evidence.”
“Really, Ms. Martin? How do you know what’s in here? It could be nothing.”
“But Your Honor, could we at least have some photographs-”
“Overruled.”
Dingus spoke. “Your Honor, don’t you think-that is, wouldn’t you prefer, that the police handle the investigation and we’ll come back to you-”
“With what? Yet another suspect?” Gallagher said. “You suspended the only deputy who’s actually gotten anything done on this case, is that right?”
“Your Honor, the deputy did not follow-”
“You came into my courtroom this morning to charge this man”-he pointed at Breck-“with some very serious crimes, and an hour later we’re sitting here with another man whom I would wager you plan to charge as well, am I right, Sheriff?”
Dingus shifted his bulk, folded his arms. “No objection, Your Honor.”
“Thank you. Now, Mr. Regis?” Gallagher said. “I’ll allow you to witness this, so long as you tell me you promise to behave, which is to say, keep your mouth shut.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Repelmaus cleared his throat and showed the judge a cell phone he’d pulled out of his jacket pocket. “Although it’s my duty to inform you that you may soon be getting a fax from Judge Wallace in Detroit.”
