Duarte jumped to his feet.
“Good morning, Your Honor.”
“I doubt that. It will be the turn of Mr. Duarte to present his reply to Mr. Smoles’ arguments, to provide counterfactual evidence if he has such, and, if Rainey is brought in—which remains my decision alone, be aware—I won’t have the boy dragged into a messy squabble—I intend to question Rainey myself and to—”
Smoles, who could not help it, stood up to object and got promptly gaveled down again.
“Mr. Smoles, I will remind you that this is an informal hearing and that I will tolerate none of your usual courthouse theatrics. I run a court of law here, not a goddamned carnival. Are we clear?”
Apparently he was, since Smoles seemed to shrink into himself under Judge Monroe’s incandescent glare.
“Fine. We’re all on the same page. Ruth, are you ready? All in order?”
“Yes, Your Honor,” said the clerk.
“Good. All right, Mr. Smoles. How about you fire up your calliope and play us a tune.”
Smoles stood, said nothing for a moment, staring down at the papers on his desk. The court waited in silence. The minute hand at the rear of the court ticked off ten seconds.
“Your Honor, and my esteemed colleagues here assembled—”
“Mr. Smoles. Skip the lapidary crap.”
Smoles stiffened at that, made a show out of marking something down on his yellow pad.
“Thank you, Judge. Look, this is as difficult for me to do as it will be for Miss Walker—”
“Mrs. Kavanaugh,” said the judge.
“For Mrs. Kavanaugh and her husband to hear. And I wish the record to show that I did suggest that, since they are in a sense being judged here, that they not be subjected to the ordeal directly.”
“My clients are staying,” said Duarte. “They’re not witnesses. They’re respondents.”
“We’ve dealt with this, Mr. Smoles.”
Smoles smoothed back his hair and patted the lapel of his charcoal gray Brioni.
“Very well. The essentials are these. Friday afternoon I received a call from Rainey. He was in a McDonald’s on Kingsbane, and he was in a very agitated state. He wished to hire me—to retain me—to help him deal with a very unhappy home life. We spoke awhile and I made the decision to consult with him in person. I sent my driver to pick him up at two thirty that same afternoon. When the boy arrived at my office a number of details were immediately obvious. He was distraught, sobbing uncontrollably. I decided to videotape our meeting.”
“Just move it along, Counselor. Summarize.”
“Yes. Of course, Your Honor. To summarize the events as Rainey laid them out, it seems that Rainey had been skipping school and of course Kate, as his guardian, was upset at that. A kind of confrontation ensued when he came home on last Thursday night, during which Rainey became very frightened at the anger in her demeanor. He tried to explain that he just wanted some time to think, that he was being bullied at school, and that he was very upset by the loss of his parents. According to Rainey, Kate got very cold then. She informed him that she was worried about his mental state and that she and Nick had decided to get him checked out to see that he was okay. Make sure that there wasn’t anything wrong with him. Mentally. Rainey expressed the fear—to me, I mean—that his guardian was planning to have him committed to what Rainey called ‘a crazy house.’ ”
He paused, pretended to consult his notes.
“You will see from the video that I stopped him there, because I felt we might be getting into … actionable … territory and I didn’t want to prejudice any subsequent discovery process—”
“You were anticipating criminal proceedings?”
“Well, Your Honor, I was trying to be—”
“I’m sure you were. Move it along, Mr. Smoles.”
“Certainly. I asked him why he thought that his guardian would want to have him sent into a mental facility. He had trouble formulating an answer and I waited while he did so. There was no coaching of any kind. I assure the court of that. Finally he told me that his family was worth a lot of money and that since his parents were dead, maybe Mrs. Kavanaugh wanted to get control of the money herself.”
Duarte was on his feet.
“Your Honor, even in an informal hearing, this amounts to slander, to libel if it’s written—”
“Mr. Duarte, I suspect we haven’t heard the worst of this yet. And I remind you that an assertion is not a fact, and accusations or implications made in an informal hearing are not public statements, spoken or written, and therefore do not fall under the libel and slander laws. I understand your position, but you must rely upon me to run my own hearing, Counselor. Mr. Smoles, I think we can dispense with the blow-by-blow. How about you cut to the chase here. What’s on the table?”
Duarte sat down, put his hand out, and rested it on the desktop, lightly touching Kate’s. She had gone very still. Her face was bone white. Beside her sat Nick with an expression like a stony mask.
Smoles put his head down, examined the papers on his desk.
“Your Honor, what I am about to say is very … volatile … and may carry implications that go far beyond the matter of Rainey’s custody and the guardianship of his family fortune, which amounts to over ten million dollars.”
“Say your say, Mr. Smoles. I’ll deal with the fallout.”
“Yes, Your Honor. After talking to Rainey for quite a while, and then doing due diligence into past events, I think we must take very seriously the possibility that a conspiracy exists between a known felon named Lemon Featherlight and Mrs. Kavanaugh here to gain control of the Teague estate by having Rainey committed to a mental facility on charges of having murdered a Regiopolis school attendance officer named Alice Bayer—”
Nick was on his feet and moving.
Duarte got to him before he got to Smoles. Smoles, a nimble fellow when properly motivated, was already halfway out of the courtroom.
The walls echoed with Judge Monroe’s gavel blows. He restored order at the top of his lungs, and when he had it he went on in a low but vibrating voice.
“Do go on, Mr. Smoles.”
Smoles looked uncertain, as if surprised that he was being allowed to continue. He wondered if he might have been overlooking something vital here.
“Well, of course, this is just one interpretation of the facts on the ground. But it seems that a Lieutenant Tyree Sutter of the CID has already contacted Detective Kavanaugh to arrange for Rainey to give testimony concerning the discovery of Alice Bayer’s body in the Tulip River. Close to the scene were items belonging to Rainey, and his young friend Axel Deitz. The fact that Rainey was skipping school and that Alice Bayer was the attendance officer became the basis for Lieutenant Sutter’s suspicions. I have questioned Rainey in this regard and he maintains that he has no idea how his books and papers got to Patton’s Hard. He knows nothing at all about what happened to Alice Bayer. He thinks that Mrs. Kavanaugh and someone else—probably Lemon Featherlight—may have taken his belongings down there and set the scene. Perhaps Miss Bayer was lured to Patton’s Hard by information that Rainey was there. Miss Bayer was known for her willingness to go out and retrieve boys who were absent from school. It is possible that the conspirators made that call, overpowered her when she arrived, pushed her into the river, and then planted incriminating evidence that would suggest that Rainey himself was responsible.”
Duarte was on his feet again, partly because he was afraid that if he didn’t break Smoles’ oration Nick, who was armed this morning, would shoot him.
“Your Honor, this is the grossest kind of—”
“Mr. Smoles is entitled to the grossest kind of distortion. The court is required to hear it. The serial exchange of lying distortions and the deceptive cherry-picking of competing facts is the essential nature of our justice system. Go on, Mr. Smoles. Please. Consider me utterly rapt.”
“Thank you, Your Honor. To be alleging such things about a colleague for whom I have the greatest e
steem is as painful for me as it must be for Mrs. Kavanaugh to hear.”
“I’m sure it is. You must endeavor to carry on regardless.”
“Well, as unlikely as this scenario may seem, there are corroborative elements that lend it credence. For instance, the people who first reported the presence of Alice Bayer’s Toyota to the police were Mrs. Kavanaugh and Mr. Featherlight. One might wonder why a respected official of the court, and a married woman, would be keeping company with a person of such dubious character as Mr. Featherlight, who received a Dishonorable Discharge from the Marine Corps after assaulting two military police officers so severely that they were hospitalized, and whose subsequent income sources came from his work as an “escort” for various wealthy married women who frequent the cafés along the Pavilion.”
He’s a dead man, Nick was thinking, as soon as Lemon hears about this. No, wait. He’s a dead man anyway.
“And a further cause for concern is the fact that, according to Rainey, Mr. Featherlight was a frequent visitor to the Teague household when his mother and father were alive. At all hours, Rainey says, and often when Miles, his mother’s husband, was not at home. I do not go so far as to suggest a link between Featherlight and the death of Sylvia Teague, not without further investigation, but it’s a fact that Sylvia Teague disappeared shortly before Rainey’s return from his abduction, that Miles Teague was found dead of a shotgun wound a few days later—allegedly a suicide—and that while Rainey was lying in a coma in Lady Grace Hospital, Lemon Featherlight was a frequent visitor. I contend that Lemon Featherlight is the linking factor between all these different events.”
He paused here, mainly for effect, and also to take a sip from a bottle of Perrier. He glanced across at the opposition table and made accidental eye contact with Nick Kavanaugh, flinched away from that, and busied himself with a sheaf of papers before taking a breath and starting up again.
“So, to be clear, I contend that there are reasonable grounds to suspect that Lemon Featherlight insinuated himself into the Teague household and once there began to formulate a plan to eliminate Rainey’s father and mother and then seek to establish an unnatural relationship with Rainey in order to have access to his wealth. Rainey, a mere child, had already reached this conclusion, as he explained to me over the weekend.”
He paused to let all this percolate. Kate was dimly aware of the sound of his voice. She was in a private hell, and Nick was down there with her, but in a different room.
Nick was thinking that no matter how this turned out that kid was never setting foot inside his house or coming within twenty yards of Kate again for the rest of his life.
“Finally, I have obtained information that as recently as last Friday evening, Mrs. Kavanaugh and Lemon Featherlight were seen dining together in a cozy bistro on Bluebottle Way known as Placido’s. I do not intend to suggest anything improper about this, only to support the argument that a close relationship exists between the two of them. Perhaps, in the beginning, it was not Mrs. Kavanaugh’s intention to conspire with Featherlight to gain control of Rainey’s wealth. One might say she has been seduced by a practiced manipulator of women. It is with profound regret that I present these disturbing facts to the court—”
“Implications and innuendo do not amount to facts,” said Duarte, his face white with shock and anger. “Your Honor, I ask that this offensive display be brought to a halt. Mr. Smoles’ allegations—”
“Are total horseshit,” said the judge. “And allow me to say that I agree completely—”
“Your Honor—”
“Sit down, Mr. Smoles. I think we have had enough of you for the nonce. Mrs. Kavanaugh, I wish to compliment you on your poise and control throughout this thuggish display on the part of Mr. Smoles. Mr. Smoles, I salute you. You have managed to slither lower in my regard than you ever have before, and believe me, there are creatures lying on their backs at the bottom of ponds that I hold in higher esteem than I do you.”
Smoles was on his feet again, but Judge Monroe snarled him down.
“I have heard you out, Mr. Smoles, because I wished to have your verbal statement made a matter of record so that I might forward the transcript to the State Bar Association. I apologize to the Kavanaughs for requiring them to endure it. It was, I will admit, a far more vicious and loathsome display than I expected, even from you. Listening to you today was an education in the depths to which a person such as yourself can sink. If you’ll permit me to express myself in a colorful way, I hereby anoint you the Sultan of Slime. You are a hog happily rolling in his own filth—”
“Your Honor, I can verify—”
“It has not been my experience that lies and deliberate distortions of the existing evidence are all that easy to verify. Please sit down and shut up. I have a few things to say and then I will listen to whatever Mr. Duarte has to say and then I will render my judgment in this matter. Ruth, do you wish to take a break?”
“No thank you, Your Honor.”
“Anyone else? No? Well, then, I’ll begin. As a member of the legal edifice in Niceville I am often apprised of information that would not normally fall across my desk. I heard through the grapevine that Lieutenant Sutter was contemplating an investigation into the suspicious death of Alice Bayer. I was also apprised of the reasons why the name of Rainey Teague had arisen. I anticipated the line Mr. Smoles might take if he were in possession of similar information, so I made a few inquiries on my own, mainly by calling on Lieutenant Sutter personally at his offices on Powder River Road, something you could easily have done, Mr. Smoles. You are—or were—an officer of this court as well as the instigating party in this action. Lieutenant Sutter would have been required to provide information relevant to your petition. You neglected to do so. I did not. We met on Saturday afternoon, and I asked him to walk me through the elements of Miss Bayer’s death insofar as he had been able to reconstruct them.”
“That’s a breach of—”
“Not another word, Mr. Smoles. Not one. This is an informal hearing. I can set fire to a bobcat and stuff it down your pants if it amuses me. How about you just sit down and take this like a man? I’ll make it short. The estimated time of death for poor Miss Bayer was inferred from the electric wristwatch she was wearing, a time-and-date affair made by a firm called Fossil. The watch ceased to function at seventeen minutes after two on a Tuesday afternoon more than fourteen days ago. Naturally Lieutenant Sutter looked into the whereabouts of everyone connected to the case, starting, as is usual, with the people who discovered the body, since it often happens that they turn out to be the killers. He established that, at that time and on that day, Mrs. Kavanaugh was standing before Mr. Justice Horn in Part Four Room Three of this very building in a matter related to a plea bargain for a juvenile client of hers. The court records reflect this fact, Mr. Smoles.”
“Your Honor, I was not made aware—”
“You might have been if you hadn’t rushed into this case without doing any serious background work. As it is, it took me one interview to shatter your basic premise even before I had heard it. And you did not disappoint me. You leapt upon a chance to attach yourself to a wealthy young boy with obvious emotional problems, in order, I suspect, to suck his estate dry. You are now reaping what you sow, Mr. Smoles, and to quote Jackie Gleason, ‘How sweet it is.’ As I have said, I intend to refer your conduct in this matter to the Bar Association and the Board of Judicial Standards, along with all the supporting documents, including the transcript of our proceedings this morning. I fully expect you to be censured, but so far has your profession sunk in honor that I do not hold out the hope that you will be disbarred.”
He paused, took a drink of that clear cold liquid, savored it, and went on.
“Having satisfied myself as to Kate’s alibi, I asked Tig—Lieutenant Sutter—if he had managed anything equally conclusive with Mr. Featherlight, who, by the way, is not a convicted felon, having been charged in a DEA-related sting which was later dismissed, so in fact Mr. Featherligh
t has no criminal record of any kind. And his discharge from the Marine Corps is a General one, not a Dishonorable. Concerning his relations with the women of the Pavilion, I have no opinion other than to admit to a vague sense of envy. Tig was indeed able to establish that on the date in question, Mr. Featherlight was in attendance at the National Guard flight training facility near Gracie, and was actually sitting in a helicopter flight simulator at the time, where he was apparently failing to safely land a virtual Eurocopter AS350. It appears that Mr. Featherlight spends four days a week, twelve hours at a time, working towards achieving his Rotary-Wing Pilot Certification in the Air National Guard, for which I honor him.”
He paused here, took another long sip of his drink, sighed, and set it down. The clunk of the glass on the desk was the only sound other than the ticking of the Westinghouse at the far end of the courtroom.
“So, where does this leave us, Mr. Smoles? In the matter of the death of Alice Bayer, I have no opinion. I leave it to Lieutenant Sutter to sort that out. In the matter of the custody of Rainey Teague, I think you all may have anticipated my decision, but if not, I stand ready to hear your counterarguments, Mr. Duarte.”
“Your Honor, I’m happy to hear your decision, if I may stipulate a right to respond for the record?”
“You can and you just have. In the matter of Rainey Teague, I reaffirm and reinstate Mrs. Kate Kavanaugh as his legal guardian and return to her full custody of the boy and all his affairs, with a proviso. Kate, I understand that because of Rainey’s erratic behavior you and Nick were considering getting the lad medical attention. I think this is an excellent idea. Clearly the boy has run off the rails. God knows he has every reason. He needs to be looked at, and you need to do it as soon as possible. He’s in my chambers right now, if you wish to go and see him?”
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