“Thursday?”

She nods. “Probably.”

“Did you speak about the reason your husband was in jail? Did you speak about his shooting Hector Monteros?”

She winces at the mention of the name. “Yes,” she says. “We did.”

“Did you ask your husband why he shot Monteros?”

Stanley gets to his feet.

Patty considers the question for a moment. “No,” she says. “I didn’t have to.”

“Your Honor…” Stanley wants to shut this down. The judge does too, apparently. She has her gavel in hand.

I nod at Patty, hoping she’ll finish her thought. She turns to the panel, her eyes wide, but says nothing.

“You didn’t have to?”

“No. Of course not. I knew why.” Patty’s expression changes while she looks at the jurors, as if she just realized something important. “My husband isn’t a murderer.”

“Your Honor!” Stanley’s forehead erupts.

The gavel descends, but I ignore it. Last time I checked, “Your Honor!” was not a valid evidentiary objection.

The jurors seem to ignore it too. They’re zeroed in on Patty. She stares back and speaks directly to them, as if no one else is in the room. “Buck had to do it. Don’t you see?”

More than a few heads shake in the box. Maybe they find it all too hard to take in. Or maybe they don’t see.

“Your Honor!” Stanley’s holding both hands up, palms toward Patty, like a traffic cop. He’s ordering her words to halt. She doesn’t look at him.

“He didn’t have a choice,” she says, speaking to the jurors as if Stanley doesn’t exist. “He had to help Billy. Had to try.”

The gavel descends again, on the edge of the bench closest to the witness box.

Patty jumps. Her eyes leave the jury and she turns to look up at the judge. The jurors do too.

Beatrice isn’t facing Patty or the jury, though. Her gavel pounds again, near the top of Patty’s head, but she’s glaring at me. “Ms. Nickerson,” she says, almost spitting the words, “this examination is over.”

She’s right, of course. We’re finished. I couldn’t have scripted better testimony to end the day. Better, though, to let Beatrice think it’s her idea. I force a resigned smile. “Whatever you say, Judge. You’re the boss.”

Chapter 32

The holiday shoppers, Luke and Maggie, were in the back row of the courtroom during all of Patty Hammond’s direct testimony. It wasn’t by design. When I asked them to be here at four o’clock-with the Thunderbird-I thought we’d all be ready to leave the courthouse by then. But that was this morning, when Judge Leon Long was in charge. Everything is different now.

Buck is gone, en route to his cell with the regular prison escorts. Harry and I will meet with him before we go home tonight, review his testimony one last time. We had planned to go back to our office first, to run through it a time or two without Buck. We wanted one last check for holes, one last search for an inconsistency Stanley might see before we do.

But Judge Nolan just left the bench and it’s almost six o’clock. Harry and I will have to do our consistency check while we prepare Buck. We’re running out of time.

Patty is at our table, seated in Buck’s chair between Harry and me. The shouting match at the end of the trial day left her flustered. She looks dazed now, exhausted. Her cheeks are flushed.

Luke and Maggie wait in their seats while the stragglers in the crowd move through the back door. When the center aisle clears, they head up front to join us. They leave their parkas and hats piled on the back bench. They both look damp and windblown. Maggie’s sweater droops down to her knees and the ends of her hair are wet. She’s still wearing her scarf and mittens.

Geraldine strides through the back door and follows Luke and Maggie down the wide aisle, her eyes following the tracks left on the worn carpeting by their boots. She has her own coat in hand, her briefcase too. She drapes the coat over one arm and sets the briefcase on the edge of our table. “Good news,” she says, “about the judge.”

“She’s stepping down?” Harry bolts from his chair, looking like he just won the lottery. “Early retirement?” He faces Geraldine and plasters an alarmed look on his face. “Not a health problem, I hope.”

She frowns at him. “Not that judge. No, she’s not stepping down. And no, there’s no health problem.” Geraldine’s frown flips into a wicked smile. “But Judge Nolan would be touched if she knew you were so concerned.”

Harry shrugs. “She’s touched, all right.”

Geraldine turns away from him and faces me, rolling her green eyes to the ceiling. Her expression says she hopes I, at least, will be reasonable.

“Judge Long,” I prompt. “He’s okay?”

“Looks like it. The surgeon says the procedure went as well as could be expected. They’re moving him to the intensive care unit now. He’ll be there for a few days, anyhow.”

Patty leaves her chair and moves in front of our table to hug Maggie. Maggie hugs her back, hard. I’d almost forgotten-they’re neighbors.

Geraldine watches them for a moment, then turns back toward Harry. She has his attention now. Harry has always thought highly of Judge Long; he’s been worried about him all day. Besides, we represent the accused.

“The judge is listed in serious condition,” she says.

Luke joins Patty and Maggie, all three of them facing our table, listening. Patty’s arm is still tight around Maggie’s skinny shoulders. Maggie leans into her, welcoming the support. The beleaguered consoling the beleaguered.

“But his vital signs are stable,” Geraldine continues. “The doctors expect to move him to a regular surgical unit sometime next week. He should make a full recovery.”

Maggie and Luke exchange puzzled glances. They don’t know what we’re talking about. Neither one asks, though. Patty leans over to whisper. They stare up at the bench while she talks, and their eyes grow wide. She’s filling them in.

“That’s great,” I tell Geraldine.

“He was stabbed twice,” Geraldine continues. “The first wound was deep-it missed a kidney by little more than an inch. The surgeon says it needed extensive repair. That’s what took so long in the operating room.”

She rests her coat on the briefcase on our table and stares down at me again, her eyes troubled. “The second cut wasn’t, though. It was superficial.”

Geraldine’s gaze moves to something behind me and her brows knit. I know that look. The information she’s giving us bothers her somehow. Something doesn’t add up.

“The surgeon says it looks like whoever attacked Judge Long was interrupted,” she says, resting her chin in one hand. “Prevented from finishing the job.”

Harry sits on the edge of the table and narrows his eyes at her.

“And it’s your theory that Nicky Patterson did it? That he stabbed the judge twice, stopped when Stanley arrived, then sat calmly in the front row until the rest of us found out?”

Geraldine doesn’t let on she hears Harry’s questions. “I’m headed to the hospital now,” she tells us, lifting her briefcase and coat from the table.

“Is he awake?” I can’t quite picture Geraldine keeping a silent vigil by Judge Leon Long’s bedside.

“Not yet,” she says. “But I want to ask him a few questions as soon as he is. Find out if he saw anything, heard anything.”

“The nurses might not let you in, though.”

Geraldine gives me her “Get a brain, Martha” look again. “The nurses and what army?”

She’s right, of course.

Luke and Maggie head out as soon as Geraldine leaves. Patty does too. She’ll follow them to Chatham, she says, in case Luke has trouble driving on the snowy highway. Or in case she does, she adds.

It will be at least a few hours before I can join Luke and Maggie at home. I plan to pay Sonia Baker another visit, see if we can’t have a calmer discussion about Prudence Nelson. After that I’ll meet with Harry and Buck to prepare for tomorrow’s testimony. It feels as if this day will never end.