'Did anyone try to stop you?'
'There was a man on the other side of the glass door, and he saw us and put his foot against it so it wouldn’t open. Jane didn’t stop. She let go of me and hit it with her shoulder and stuck her purse in it when it opened a little. The man put his arm there to push the purse out, but as soon as his arm was in there she jerked the purse out by the strap and shut the door on his arm. When he pulled the handle to get his arm out, she pushed the door into his face and we ran on.'
'Anybody else?'
'There were men right by the elevator, and they started coming toward us. We ran up the stairs. I counted four flights, but there was a door and it only had a two on it. We ran through it, and when we passed the elevator Jane pushed the button and ran to another staircase, and we got up to the third floor. We got to the fourth floor, and we heard a door below us slam open against the wall, and some men were running up after us. Mona was breathing hard and then she was crying too. She touched my arm at the top of the next landing and said, ’This is my stop. Keep going. I love you, Timmy.’ '
'What did Jane say?'
'Nothing. She just looked at her, and then we ran up to the fifth floor. Just when we got to the top, I looked back and saw Mona on the stairs. She was holding on to both railings and kicking at these men. I saw one of them reaching out like he was trying to hug her. But right then, the door that said five swung open right in front of us. It was one of the men that was by the elevator. He looked surprised, and Jane just punched him and kept going.'
'She hit him in the jaw?' The judge could sense Ambrose’s raised eyebrow again.
'No. In the neck. Then we were on the fifth floor, and we ran down this long hallway. When we got to the comer I could see ’TWENTY TO THIRTY’ painted on the wall with an arrow pointing to the left, but the door we had used to get there opened up again and three big men were running after us. Jane jerked me around the comer and said, ’Run to the room that says twenty-two. Don’t stop for anybody until you’re right in the front where the judge sits, and yell, 'I’m Timothy Phillips.'’ I tried to say something, but she said, ’Don’t talk, just run.’'
Judge Kramer pushed the STOP button and sat in his dark office. He had been on the bench when the little boy had burst through the doors and run up the aisle screaming. The bailiff had made a reasonably competent attempt to head him off, but he had actually touched the bench and yelled, 'I’m Tim Phillips.' What had happened in the hallway Judge Kramer had heard from one of the policemen who had piled out of the adjoining courtrooms to quell the disturbance.
Judge Kramer pressed the intercom button on his telephone.
'Yes, Judge?' came his assistant’s voice.
'Where are they holding this ’Jane’ woman?'
'I think they took her for medical treatment to County-USC. I’ll find out if she’s in the jail ward and let you know.'
'No,' Kramer said. 'Just call the precinct and tell them I want to see her.'
'Would you like a conference room at the jail?'
'Have them bring her here.'
The male police officer was tall and rangy, and the female was short and blond with her hair drawn up in the back and cinched in that way they all knew how to do. The department never had all-male teams transport a female prisoner anymore, so the judge should have been used to it, but the pairs still seemed to him like married couples from a planet where people wore uniforms. They ushered the prisoner into his chambers. When her face came into the light he felt his breath suck in. He had never gotten used to seeing a young woman’s face with bruises and cuts and blackened eyes. He tried to see past them.
She was not quite what he had heard described on the tape. She was tall, as tall as he was if he stood up, and this realization made him intuit that it was better not to, so he stayed down behind his big desk. Her hair was black and hung loose to a place below her shoulder blades, but that probably wasn’t the way she wore it; they had combed it out because they always searched women’s hair. He could see that Timmy’s description was not wrong, just uninformed. This woman had the strange, angular beauty he associated with fashion models: it was striking, but geometric and cold. The judge’s taste ran more to women like his late wife and the little policewoman, who looked round and soft and warm. The woman’s hands were cuffed in front of her instead of behind, which meant they weren’t taking all the precautions, but the police officers were wary: the policewoman kept a hand at her left elbow, and the man was a step behind and to her right, leaving just enough room to swing his club.
Judge Kramer said, 'Thank you very much, officers. We’ve got some coffee in the outer office, and I keep soft drinks in the little refrigerator under the water cooler. I’ll be finished with the prisoner in about fifteen minutes.'
The policewoman said, 'Your Honor, we should mention—'
He interrupted, 'I know. I spoke with the arresting officer. Has she hurt anyone since she’s been in custody?'
'No.'
'Then I’ll chance it.'
The prisoner held out her hands, and the male officer unlocked the cuffs, took them off, and said to no one in particular, 'We’ll be right outside.'
When they had closed the door, Judge Kramer said to her, 'Sit down, please.'
The woman sat in the chair in front of the desk.
Judge Kramer probed for a way to break the silence. 'I hear you’re one of those people who could kill me with a pencil.'
She said simply, 'If I am, then I wouldn’t need a pencil.' She looked at the tape recorder on his desk. 'Is that running?'
He said, 'I want to assure you that no record will be made of this conversation. I just listened to a deposition of Timothy Phillips, and I decided that the only person left who can answer the questions I have is you. Mona Turley and Dennis Morgan are dead.'
She nodded silently and watched him.
'What do you know about the child’s situation?'
'Who are you? Why are you the one who has questions?'
His eyes widened involuntarily, as though someone had thrown a glass of water in his face. 'I’m sorry,' he said. 'When you’ve been a judge for a few years, you’re used to being the only one in the room everyone takes at face value. My name is John Kramer. I’m the judge who was presiding in Courtroom 22. We hadn’t gotten to the petition to declare Timothy Phillips legally dead when he ran in and disrupted my court. For the moment, the matter is still undecided, and I’ve left it that way.'
'Why?'
'First I had to recess while the officers took you away. Then I had to adjourn for a few days to give time to the authorities who can verify Timothy’s claim. In a day or so, oddly enough, I have to set a date to give the petitioners the opportunity to refute the claim— fingerprints, blood tests, and all. Then I have to rule on it.'
'Will you be the one who decides what happens to him after that?'
He shook his head. 'Not directly. At the moment he’s in the care of a very protective woman from Children’s Services named Nina Coffey. After a time there will be criminal cases—probably several of them. There will be a family court case to decide who is granted guardianship of Timmy. There will be some sort of civil action to settle the disposition of the trust. I can influence the direction some of those cases take if I find out the truth and get it on the record so it can’t be ignored. I’m asking what you know because I don’t have much time and I need to know where to begin. Once I rule on the petition that’s before me, it’s out of my hands.'
'Is any of this legal?'
'What I’m doing is so contrary to legal procedure that it has no name.'
She sat erect in the chair and met his gaze steadily while she decided. 'He was a ward of his grandmother because his parents were killed in a car crash. She was old at the time—about eighty. Whoever she hired to watch him didn’t. Along came Raymond and Emily Decker, and he disappeared. I have no way of knowing what was going on in their minds at the time. They may have been kidnappers who stalked him from birth, or they may have been one of those half-crazy couples who create their own little world that doesn’t need to incorporate all of the facts in front of their eyes. If you read the old newspaper reports, it sounds as though maybe they just found him wandering
