Fighting Chance(21)

“It would explain why they don’t have enough security tape footage to know what actually happened,” Kasey said.

“Honestly, it was just so odd. I mean, all the cameras, and the paint, and then I got to the door and her name was on it and I thought I’d just go in and see. And there he was, sitting in all that blood and with that gavel in his hand.”

“And you screamed your head off,” Kasey said.

“Not at the beginning,” Janice said. “At the beginning I just stared at it. I was trying to remember it. It’s like you always told us. Keep as much of the evidence as you can secure. So I did. Except there really wasn’t much evidence that I could get my hands on, but I took some notes. And it was a good thing I did, too, because, well, look at this.”

Janice hiked up her poncho just a little and flipped at the base of her skirt. It was encrusted with something dark and hard, and the dark and hard stuff went up the skirt proper almost to her waist.

“Blood,” Kasey said.

“Her blood,” Janice said. “I have no idea how it happened. It got very crazy and there were tons of people wandering around even before the police got there and there was blood everywhere and the next thing I knew, there was blood on my skirt. And then, well, you know how things get. They just got worse.”

“Did you also post a video to YouTube?”

“Oh! The video! I heard about that, but I didn’t get a chance to see it. A video of that man murdering Martha Handling. They were all talking about it after a while. It’s supposed to be absolutely gruesome. But I thought that was a security tape.”

“No,” Kasey said. “I’ve seen it. The one thing it is almost certainly not is a security tape.”

“Well, I can’t tell you,” Janice said. “I’ve got no idea. But there’s something else. And I can’t help feeling a little guilty. Except not guilty, if you know what I mean.”

Kasey looked unmistakably puzzled.

Janice plowed on: “It’s better this way, don’t you see? Murder is a terrible thing, and that man is a priest on top of everything, but Martha Handling is dead and that means that almost every juvenile defendant in the system is going to be better off. There isn’t another judge in the system that’s as harsh as Martha Handling was, at least not in Philadelphia. So maybe it was a pretty fair trade.”

“A pretty fair trade,” Kasey said.

Janice tossed her head. It didn’t work so well as when she was younger. It had no effect on Kasey Holbrook at all.

“Sometimes,” Janice said, “I think we’re just too polite. We want to act like ladies. Sometimes I think that ending injustice directly is the only thing that will ever work.”

2

When Mark Granby left the courthouse, he started walking in a straight line. He was lucky. He was out and on the street when the first cop cars pulled up, their sirens screaming and their tires squealing and the whole world stopping to watch what they did next. It was one of those moments that no one in their lives is supposed to have. He felt like he was in an action movie. There he was, the villain, right there, standing on the edge of the crowd and watching the chaos unfold.

Mark liked action movies, as far as that went, but he’d never thought they bore much resemblance to reality. Real villains wouldn’t stand around and watch. He was sure of it. Real villains would get their business done and get the hell out of Dodge as soon as possible.

Mark had been standing on the curb when the police cars pulled up because he hadn’t been able to figure out what he was supposed to do next. He did not consider himself a victim. He had done absolutely nothing but find the body and not report it to anybody. That might be against the law, but it wasn’t some kind of big moral deal.

If he ever got stuck having to answer questions about it, that was what he would tell them—that and nothing else. They would never be able to prove anything else, no matter how hard they tried. He was pretty sure they would never be able to prove he was in the room in the first place, unless they were already looking for him. He had left fingerprints. He had left fingerprints everywhere. He hadn’t been able to help himself.

He walked and walked, always going in a straight line, never paying attention to anything he didn’t have to. He had no idea how long he had been walking. He had no idea where he was. The only thing he was sure of was that he hadn’t found it, and if he hadn’t found it, somebody else would.

He had reached the point where he wasn’t really breathing anymore. His chest hurt. He felt as if it were about to crack open. He had never been in really good shape. These days he was in really bad shape, except that he wasn’t all that overweight, at least as overweight as people he worked with.