“If I told the truth,” Janice said.
Steve tried to relax but could not. Any second, she could torpedo him.
Zinkavich pointed a chubby finger at him: “Does your brother, Stephen Solomon, have a history of violence?”
“A long history,” Janice said.
Oh, shit. Here it comes.
She had taken his money. Now she was going to bury him with it.
“Please elaborate, Ms. Solomon,” Zinkavich said.
“When I was fourteen, Arnie Lipschitz called me a ‘fat whore,' and Stevie kicked the living piss out of him.”
“Not quite what I meant.”
“I wasn't fat then.”
“Forget Arnie Lipschitz. Did your brother ever strike you?”
“He wouldn't have the balls.”
Zinkavich seemed surprised. “He never beat you up?”
“I've carried a blade since I was twelve. I woulda circumcised him a second time.”
Zinkavich stared a long moment at Janice. This couldn't have been the way they had practiced it. Steve eased out a breath, but just a bit. With Janice, you never knew when the blade would come out.
“What about drug use?” Zinkavich asked. “Did you ever see your brother use illicit drugs?”
“Yeah, sure.”
Zinkavich smiled. Back on script. “When was that?”
“About the same time as the deal with Lipschitz. I gave Stevie some pot, and afterward he ate like half a gallon of pistachio ice cream and threw his guts up.”
“Anything more recent?”
“Nah. That cured him. He never even smoked a cigarette after that.”
Zinkavich's tongue flicked over his upper lip. Something had happened between rehearsal and opening night. “Drawing your attention to last January, Ms. Solomon, were you living on a farm in the Panhandle?”
“A farm?” Her smile displayed stained teeth. “Yeah, me and my friends were growing a cash crop there.”
“Did there come a time when your brother removed your son from your care and custody?”
“You mean, did Stevie take Bobby? Yeah.”
“And did your brother do so by force and violence?”
Janice shrugged, her fleshy chin jiggling. “I was like totally wasted that night.”
Though his feet were planted on the floor, Zinkavich swayed back and forth, like a rabbi praying at the Wailing Wall. “Come now, Ms. Solomon. Are you saying you don't remember that night?”
“I remember it was sleeting that day, froze my ass off.”
“And that night, what happened when your brother showed up?”
“I don't know, man. I was in the house doing Ecstasy. You'll have to ask Rufe.”
“That would be Rufus Thigpen?”
“Yeah, Rufus the Doofus.”
“Where is Mr. Thigpen today?”
“I think he went up to Delray to score some Special K. You know, ketamine.”
Zinkavich forced a smile, as if all state witnesses skip court to indulge in illegal activities. “What did Mr. Thigpen tell you about his encounter with your brother that fateful night?”
“Objection, hearsay,” Victoria said.
“Sustained,” the judge said.
“Your Honor, if I could voir dire the witness,” Zinkavich said, “I believe the evidence can come in under the excited utterance exception.”
“Knock yourself out,” the judge said.
“Ms. Solomon, without telling us what Mr. Thigpen said, what was his condition when you spoke to him that night?”
“Rufe's skull was split open.”
“Aha,” Zinkavich said. An opening.
“Hasn't made him any smarter, I can tell you that,” she continued.
“And you saw Mr. Thigpen in this injured state after his encounter with your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“Did Mr. Thigpen speak to you?”
“Yeah.”
“And when he spoke, was he excited, agitated, or angry?”
“He was pissed.”
“Did he raise his voice?”
“As much as he could. He was bleeding like a stuck pig.”
Zinkavich turned toward the judge. “I believe we've met the threshold for the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule.”
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
