A Century of Great Suspense Stories

Carrying Concealed Lisa Scottoline

Some reviewers have noted that Lisa Scottoline has brought back the Jean Arthur kind of female protagonist, Arthur being the bright, comely, sardonic heroine of some of Hollywood’s best screwball romances. There is at least one other similarity between Scottoline’s heroines and Jean Arthur’s characters. Despite the surface humor, they manage to convey an undercurrent of very real feelings. Without resorting to sentimentality, the Scottoline-Arthur heroine adds real emotional power to the sometimes frothy story lines. No small feat. Scottoline brings her own charms and talents to the legal thriller.

It was almost seven o’clock in the morning and Assistant District Attorney Tom Moran was late for court. He shaved lethally fast, slipped into his suitpants, and pinwheeled into his pinstriped jacket, all the time rehearsing his cross-examination in a continuous loop. If Tom didn’t break this witness today, he’d lose for sure. He jumped into his wingtips and sprinted downstairs, his tie flying behind him.

Tom hit the hardwood running and snatched his briefcase from the floor like it was a baton on the final leg. He had perfected his handoff at St. Joe’s Prep and could still hear the roar of the crowd cheering him toward the tape. WEEEAAAH! Then Tom realized that it wasn’t cheering he heard, it was one of the twins crying in the kitchen. At three months old, the babies cried a lot. Gastric reflux, Marie called it, but Tom didn’t think these two words should ever appear together.

He stopped in his tracks at the front door, his hand on the brass knob. The crying from the kitchen intensified. Tom checked his watch. 7:12 a.m. A tsunami of guilt washed over him. He had worked all night at the office, and Marie had been alone with the twins. He couldn’t leave without checking on her. Tom dropped his briefcase and dashed into the kitchen, where he froze in disbelief. Marie was asleep standing up, rocking the crying infant in sagging arms. “Honey, wake up!” he shouted.

Marie’s eyelids fluttered open. “Does it come in navy?” she asked, drowsy.

“Marie, wake up, wake up.” Tom rushed across the room and grabbed the wailing baby. It was Ashley, who was his favorite of the twins, even though Marie made him swear not to have a favorite. “You were sleeping.”

“No, I was shopping,” she said. Marie leaned against the kitchen counter, dark shadows encircling her blue eyes and her strawberry-blonde hair uncombed. She hadn’t lost the weight from the babies yet and wore a tentlike chenille robe over her Eagles T-shirt. She wasn’t the girl he married, but Tom was too sensitive a guy to expect that. It would be nice to have sex again, however.

“Sit down, you look exhausted,” Tom said. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

“I’m fine. Fine, really. I slept a little. Really.” Marie sank into a chair, bumping into the kitchen table. Pink pacifiers rocked on its pine surface and an empty plastic bottle rolled onto the floor. In the middle of the table like a human centerpiece was the other twin, Brittany, slumbering through the ruckus in a quilted baby chair. Marie raked her fingers through her hair. “Ashley’s cold is worse, she’s coughing and wheezing. I had her on the nebulizer three times last night.”

“What’s a nebulizer?”

“That thing.” Marie waved a hand at a grayish machine on the counter. A clear plastic tube snaked from the machine, and at the end of the tube was a small plastic cup like a doll’s oxygen mask. “Got it yesterday from the pediatrician, but it didn’t help. I have to take her in again, and the pediatrician’s in his Cherry Hill office tomorrow. I mean, today.”

“Cherry Hill?” Tom felt terrible for her. “How will you get two babies to Cherry Hill? You’re beat.”

“I’ll do it somehow, I have to. Ashley’s not really a problem, if I could find someone to sit with Brittany.”

“What about your mom? Can’t she help?”

“On Tuesday? Her golf day?”

Tom bit his tongue. His bitchy mother-in-law, St. Teresa of the Perpetual Cigarette. “How about your sister?”

“Out of town.”

“Again?” His sister-in-law was never around when she wasn’t borrowing money. Damn. Tom jiggled Ashley and winced against the racket. The baby was so loud he couldn’t hear himself think. “I wish I could help you,” Tom said, and suddenly Marie looked up at him, her eyes full of adoration. It was the way she used to look at him. Back when they had sex.

“You can?” Marie asked, with a relieved smile. “But you’re on trial.”

“What?” Tom said, confused. Brittany was screaming full-throttle, and he still had his mind on the sex part.

“Tom, how can you take Brittany if you’re on trial?”

“Take who?”

“Brittany.” Marie was still giving him the love face, and Tom swallowed hard.

“Me take Brittany?”

“I thought that was what you said.” Marie’s love face dropped like a mask. “You’d take Brittany for the day so I could take Ashley to the pediatrician. Isn’t that what you said?”

What? Was she insane? “Right. Absolutely. Sure.” How could Tom say no? He didn’t have time to think about it. He’d figure something out. The D.A.’s office had 34,350 secretaries. One of them had to be lactating.

“This is so wonderful of you, Tom. I’m at my wit’s end. You sure you can do this?”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s not a problem. Nothing is a problem.” Tom felt sick inside. He didn’t want to think about how much time an infant would add to his trip downtown. It took an hour to get one strapped like a paratrooper into the car seat.

“But you have your big case today, don’t you?”

“Don’t worry, you take care of Ashley. I’m late. I have to go,” Tom said. He off-loaded Ashley into Marie’s lap and unhooked Brittany from her baby chair. Her head flopped to one side and her non-skid feet drooped in her fuzzy pink sleeper. He boosted her onto his shoulder and kissed his wife on the cheek. “Am I a hero or what?”

“Take the diaper bag.”

“Heroes don’t need diaper bags,” Tom said, and hurried out of the kitchen with the baby, trying not to get slobber on his suit.

“Take my car!” Marie called after him. “The keys are on the hall table!”

“Gotcha!” Tom called back, and scurried into the hall, genuflecting to pick up his briefcase and Marie’s keys. He bolted out the door into the sun, running in a cramped position so Brittany’s head wouldn’t bump around. Lucky it was spring, a warm morning, and Brittany was warm enough in her sleeper, the body bag for babies.

Tom dashed across the lawn to Marie’s huge Ford Expedition, the only car larger than their home, chirped it unlocked, and threw his briefcase in ahead of him. Then he popped the baby off his shoulder and into her car seat, facing backward in the passenger seat. Her head bobbled slightly but her eyes didn’t open as he fumbled with the woven straps, then ended up tying them in a knot. He didn’t have time to get fancy.

Tom jumped in beside the baby, started the ignition, and roared out of the driveway, his hand on Brittany’s tummy. Her minuscule chest rose and fell with a reassuring regularity. Her fleecy sleeper felt warm and soft. She smelled milky and sweet. She slept, well, like a baby.

Tom smiled. This was going to be a piece of cake.

“WWWWAAAAAAAHH!” Brittany wailed, and a thoroughly shaken Tom Moran skidded to a stop at the NO PARKING — TOW ZONE sign in front of the Office of the District Attorney. “WWWWAAAAAAAHH!” Shock waves of sound bounced around the Ford, reverberating off the windshield and walls. Tom thought his eardrums would explode.

“Shh, honey, don’t cry, shhh,” he said, struggling with the knot on the car seat. His fingers shook. His skull pounded. His brain hurt. “It’s okay, quiet now, please be quiet.” Tom couldn’t hear himself speak, but he saw his lips moving in the rearview mirror.

“WWWAAAHHHH!” Brittany cried. She squeezed her eyes shut. Her face had gone dangerously red. Her mouth was a wet trumpet of sound, blasting like Gabriel’s horn.

Tom broke into a sweat. He glanced at the car’s digital clock. 8:21. He had to be in court by 9:00. He couldn’t take her into the office hysterical. He didn’t have time to wait. What’s a lawyer to do?

“WWWAAAHHH!”

Tom looked frantically around the car. Wasn’t there anything here to amuse her? Baby toys, plastic links, things that squeaked? Tom checked everywhere, covering his ears. Nothing. Damn! Marie was too damn neat. His gaze fell on the ignition. Keys! The babies loved their Fisher-Price keys. Tom yanked his keys out of the ignition and jingled them in front of Brittany’s face like a mobile from Pep Boys. “Keys! Keys, Brit!” he yelped.

“WAAH!” The baby kept crying, and Tom jingled harder.

“Keys! Look, Brit! Keys! You love keys! These are the real thing! The others are knockoffs!”

“Waah!” Brittany cried, but her heart wasn’t in it anymore. She was watching the keys, her eyes brimming with unspilled tears.

“Look! Genuine keys! Supply limited! Order now!” Tom bounced the keys around, and the baby finally made a kitten’s swipe at them. “Yes!” Tom exclaimed and handed her the keys. Her lower lip buckled as she struggled to hold them, cross-eyed with absorption. Tom looped a baby finger through the keychain to hold them on, and her crying ceased as quickly as it had started. “Thank you, Jesus,” Tom said.

He slipped Brittany from the car seat, grabbed his briefcase, and jumped out of the car. He didn’t bother to lock it, he couldn’t risk taking the keys from Brittany. Let the punks steal the car; let the cops tow it. He was only one man. Tom whirled through the revolving door, babe in arms, and got the hoped-for response from Luz Diaz, the knockout receptionist.

“A baby! You brought one of the babies!” she squealed, her lipsticked lips parting in delight. Luz had a black mane of oiled curls and a body that had never borne children, which was undoubtedly why she was so happy to see this one.

“Luz, this is Brittany! Say hello!” Tom hurried past the packed waiting area and thrust Brittany in the arms of a startled Luz. Possession was nine tenths of the law.

“Oooh, she’s so pretty, so pretty.” Luz smiled down at the pink bundle, then her face fell. “Tom, she’s eating car keys.”

“She loves car keys.” Tom glanced at the big clock on the wall. Its hand ticked onto 8:29. “Don’t touch her car keys.”

“But she’s got them in her mouth,” Luz said, horrified, and Tom looked down. Brittany was sucking on an ignition key. So what? When he was little, he ate worms.

“Listen, Luz, you gotta help me. I have to go to court and I need you to take Brittany, just for the day.”

“What?” Luz looked at Tom like he was nuts. “I’m at the front desk. I can’t do that.”

“Then give her to somebody who can.”

“Who?”

“Somebody you trust. One of the other secretaries. Just not Janine.” Tom knew all about Janine. She kept sex toys in the drawer.

“I can’t do that.” Luz pushed Brittany back into Tom’s arms. “I need this job. Ask one of the girls in your unit, upstairs.”

“Okay, okay, fine. Thanks anyway.” He hustled Brittany from the front desk and hurried down the corridor, flying past his colleagues who were going in the opposite direction. To court, childless.

“Moran, aren’t you supposed to be trying Ranelle?” Stan Kullman asked, squeezing past him with two trial bags.

“I do it all,” Tom called back, on his way to the staircase. He was running out of time. Maybe one of the girls in the Major Trials Unit could help. His secretary was on vacation this week, since he was on trial. Tom bounded up the stairs two-by-two, cradling Brittany’s head. She was starting to whimper again. The jingling had vanished. God knew where the car keys were.

Tom reached the second floor and scurried past the secretaries’ desks, which were empty. Everybody was in the coffee room, where he’d be if he didn’t have a murder case to win and a baby to unload. Tom took a hard left into the tiny room, fragrant with the aromas of coffee and perfume. “It’s a girl!” Tom said to the group, who flocked around Brittany, cooing.

“She’s so little!” Rachel said.

“She’s so cute!” Sandy said.

“She’s so good!” Franca said.

“She’s the best baby in the world,” Tom said, smiling. “She’s little and cute and sweet. She sleeps a lot. She loves keys. Can anybody baby-sit her today?”

The secretaries looked at Tom like he was nuts. “Tom, we work here,” Rachel said. She was an older woman, and her tone was kind yet stern. “We can’t just drop everything and baby-sit for the day.”

“Maybe you could take turns, an hour for each of you? I’ll pay, I swear. I’ll pay anything. Each of you. Overtime.”

Rachel shook her graying head. “She’s an infant, Tom. She needs complete attention. I can’t type with her on my lap, you know.” Behind her, Sandy and Franca and Judy nodded in agreement, which panicked Tom. They were all turning against him.

“But it’s an emergency. I need help, and she’s no trouble. She sleeps all the time. Well, a lot, anyway.”

“My boss is away,” chirped a voice from the back, and Tom’s heart leapt with hope.

“Who said that?” he asked, on tiptoe, and the crowd parted, revealing a black leather minidress and a pair of spike heels. Janine. Our Lady of the Handcuffs. Tom’s mouth went dry. He looked from the black leather to the pink fleece. “Uh, no thanks, maybe I can handle this,” he said, and fled the coffee room.

Brittany whined as Tom ran down the corridor, his mind working furiously. The wall clock was a blur. 8:42. Tom had to think of something fast. He ducked into his office, slammed his door closed with his heel, dropped his briefcase on the floor, and set Brittany down on a soft pile of correspondence, which was when he smelled it. Babypoop. No wonder Brittany was fussing. She was knee-deep in shit. Now she knew what it was like to be an assistant district attorney.

Tom unzipped her sleeper and took her feet out, exposing her Pampers diaper. The stench was assault and battery. The sight was cruel and unusual. Brittany would need a new diaper and new clothes. Tom reached for the diaper bag, but there was none. “God help me,” he murmured, but he didn’t have time to think, only to react.

Tom took off the soggy diaper and sleeper, ripped some legal paper from a pad to wipe the baby clean, and rolled the mess into a basketball and shot it into the wastebasket. Brittany, smooth as a cherub, kicked her feet and calmed instantly, which almost made her his new favorite.

But she was naked. How could Tom palm off a naked baby, still a little sticky? He needed a diaper. He’d have to make one. Go! He grabbed a suppression motion, good for nothing anyway, and ripped it into four strips, lengthwise. Then he took one of the strips and stuck it between the baby’s legs like a loincloth. “Well, it’s a brief, isn’t it?” he said to Brittany, who smiled even though she’d heard that one.

But how to hold the diaper up? A rubber band was too small. Eureka! Tom grabbed his tape dispenser, yanked out an endless strip of Scotch tape, and wrapped it around Brittany’s waist. She kicked happily all the while, then shivered visibly. “You cold?” Tom asked and frowned. There wasn’t anything on the baby’s legs.

Tom kicked off his shoes, tore off his black socks, and slipped one over Brittany’s left leg and one over her right. Then he stapled the socks to the briefs and checked his desk clock. 8:47. The courthouse was fifteen minutes away. He sweated bullets, and Brittany wriggled on the correspondence, making her legal diaper crackle. Her tiny face squinched into a frown, and her mouth opened and closed like a puppy. Uh-oh. Tom knew what that meant. She was hungry.

Damn it! Some things couldn’t be improvised. Nursing, for one, and maybe that was it in toto. Tom thought a minute. Brittany was too young for solid food. The only liquid around was half-&-half. That was no good. What did Marie give her when they were out of breast milk? Tea. Tom was a tea drinker, he had plenty of tea around.

He scooted behind his desk, splashed some water from a plastic pitcher into a Styrofoam cup, and plopped his immersion coil inside with a Lipton’s teabag. Tom put on his shoes as the clock hand moved to 9:01. Come on. He tested the water with a fingertip. Not too hot, not too cold. Perfect! And he cooks, too!

Tom plucked the coil and teabag from the cup and scurried with the brew back to Brittany, whose bow-shaped lips were making sucking sounds. He scooped up the baby and raised the cup, then stopped stupidly in midair. What was he thinking? Tom had fed the twins enough times to know they weren’t drinking from Styrofoam yet. Hmm. Another hurdle, but Tom had been quite a hurdler in his day.

“Got it!” he said. Tom grabbed a brown coffee stirrer from his desk, wiped it clean on his pants, and dipped it in the tea. He held his finger over the top until the skinny straw was full, then he brought the straw over to Brittany, cradled in the crook of his arm.

“Down the hatch, honey,” Tom said. He removed his finger from the top of the straw and released the tea into her mouth. The baby’s face contorted almost immediately and she looked about to cry, then her lips latched onto the coffee stirrer as easily as a nipple.

“That’s my girl,” Tom cooed, then went down for another strawful and let it trickle into the baby’s mouth. She took it, sucking eagerly, and was on her third helping when the phone rang. Tom let it ring, then reconsidered. Maybe it was one of the secretaries, regretting her professionalism. He hit the speakerphone button.

“Moran, you there?” bellowed a man’s powerful voice, and Tom jumped, leaking Lipton’s all over Brittany’s briefs. On the telephone was Bill Masterson, the district attorney himself. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Tom would have dropped to his knees but he had a baby to feed. “Moran, you there?” Masterson boomed.

“Yes, sire. I mean, sir.”

“You there, Moran? You in your office, Moran?”

“I am, sir.”

“What the fuck are you doing there? You’re not supposed to be there. You’re supposed to be in court. You, in your office? What the fuck, Moran?”

“I, uh, had to get some exhibits.”

“I don’t care. You think I care? I don’t get it. You’re trying the case but you’re in your office. I’m at the courthouse. You’re not here.”

Gulp. “You’re at the courthouse, sir?”

“I’m here but you’re there. I’m at the courthouse but you’re at the office. Why does this always happen with you, Moran?”

“I’ll be leaving right away, sir.”

“What the fuck are you doing in your office? You’re supposed to be in court, not in your office. I’m not trying the case but I’m in court. You’re trying the case but you’re at the office. I don’t get it, do you? Moran? Why?”

“I’ll be right over, sir. I’m on my way.”

“What the fuck, Moran?” Masterson said, without further elaboration, then hung up.

Tom punched the Off button in a panic. Masterson would be watching the trial today. Holy Shit. Tom had to get to court. Now. He looked helplessly at Brittany, nestled in a manger of correspondence, dressed in black socks and a losing brief. He couldn’t leave her here. He couldn’t park her with anybody. He was her father. She was gurgling happily, her tummy temporarily full.

There was only one choice.

Tom approached the reception area carrying his briefcase in one hand and a large black trial bag in the other. The lawyer’s bag was as wide as a salesman’s sample case, which wasn’t a bad analogy, and stuffed with shredded exhibits had proved an ample crib for Brittany, who rested quietly on its flat bottom. A careful observer would have noticed the airholes punched in the top of the briefcase, but none of the people seated in the waiting room were careful observers. They were Commonwealth witnesses, after all. They saw what they were told to see.

“Tom, where’s the baby?” Luz asked, as Tom walked by.

“All taken care of,” he answered. He whirled out the revolving door and hit the pavement just in time to see Marie’s Ford Expedition being towed down the street in traffic. Tom closed his eyes in prayer, then squared his shoulders. He’d lost the keys anyway. He hailed a cab.

“Yo!” Tom shouted, and a Yellow cab pulled up. Tom and his bags got in. “Criminal Justice Center,” he said, closing the door.

“Weee,” came a sound from the trial bag.

“What was ’at?” the cabbie asked. He was a squat older man in need of a shave, with a soiled Phillies cap pulled low on his forehead.

“Nothing.”

“I heard something. I heard like a squeak.”

“It’s my shoes, they’re new,” Tom said, but he knew it would happen again. Brittany would never last through the day in the trial bag. But Tom was an experienced father. He knew what to do. “Stop at that store and wait for me,” he said, pointing, and the cab pulled up at the curbside.

Tom jumped out with the trial bag and burst into the store, squinting at his watch on the run. 9:11. Where was the goddamn aisle? Tom forced himself to think. It was a chain, and the layout was the same in every store. He ran to 4D, grabbed the package from the shelf, and hustled to the cashier, where he forked over a ten-dollar bill. “Keep the change,” Tom said.

“Weee,” said the bag. And they both fled the store.

Tom leapt back into the cab, set the trial bag on the floor, unlatched its brass locks, and plucked Brittany from its bottom.

She emerged writhing, looking vaguely colicky. Tom was just in the nick of time.

“Your shoes, huh?” said the cabbie.

“It’s not what it looks like.”

“Sure it is.”

“Drive.”

The cab lurched off, and Tom set the baby on his lap. He grabbed his bag and reached inside for his purchase, then tore off the cellophane with his teeth and shoved a spare finger through the thin cardboard top. INFANTS’ TYLENOL, read the pink pastel carton, and underneath, “Suspension Drops.”

Tom ripped the safety seal off the bottle with his teeth, then did the same to the tiny plastic dropper. One dropper of Tylenol would buy him three hours of slumbering baby. Tom felt a pang of conscience, but it was a necessity. It wouldn’t hurt her, it would just make her sleep. With one dose now and one at lunch, Brittany wouldn’t wake up until the jury came back with a conviction.

“Where’d you get the baby?” asked the driver, a wary eye on the rearview.

“It’s mine.”

“What are you doin’ with her in the suitcase?”

“None of your business.”

“No man is an island, buddy.”

“Talk to me when you have twins, professor.” Tom took the dropper, plunged it into the bottle, and extracted a dropper of Day-Glo-pink sleeping potion. The fill line on the dropper read.8 milliliters, but Tom had no idea how much a milliliter was. He just knew it was what Marie gave them.

“So what’sa matter with the baby, she sick?” the cabbie asked.

“No, just sleepy.”

“Baby don’t look sleepy.”

“Well, she is,” Tom shot back, defensive. He squirted a dropperful of cherry-flavored syrup into the baby’s mouth, and Brittany swallowed, apparently happily. “Good girl,” Tom said. What a kid! He gave her a quick good-night kiss and stuck her back in the bag just as the cab pulled up in front of the Criminal Justice Center. Tom dug for a ten and handed it to the driver. “Keep the change,” he said, but the cabbie turned and scowled at him.

“It’s blood money,” he snarled, so Tom threw the bill in the front seat, leapt out with the bags, and slammed the door behind him.

The sidewalk in front of the Criminal Justice Center was thick with cops in blue uniforms, talking and smoking, waiting to testify. Tom normally felt welcome among them, but things were different now that he’d become a borderline child abuser. One of the uniforms waved at him, and Tom acknowledged him with a jittery nod, then escaped inside the courthouse with his living luggage.

The lobby was jammed, with long lines leading to the metal detectors. The courthouse clock read 9:14. Oh, no. He was late. Tom barreled through the crowd as politely as possible. If he didn’t get his ass upstairs, he’d be held in contempt. Fined. Fired.

He picked up his pace and hurried to the lawyers’ entrance on the far side of the security desk. As a member of the bar, Tom could bypass the detectors and the security personnel, which was the only way he could smuggle his own offspring into a courtroom. No security officer had planned for that contingency, probably because no lawyer would be boneheaded enough to try it. Overestimating lawyers was not a smart thing to do.

Tom crossed the marble floor to the elevators. A throng of three-piece suits waited in front of the modern brass-lacquered doors, and Tom got bumped by a defense lawyer. “Hey, watch it,” Tom said.

“It’s not his fault,” said the defense lawyer, and Tom turned away as the elevator doors opened. To protect his cargo, he let the others rush into the cab and stepped inside last. The doors closed almost on Tom’s nose, so he got a good look at himself in the mirrored insides of the doors. A tall, lanky Irishman with rumpled dark hair and blue eyes as guilty as a felon’s, carrying a briefcase of exhibits and a trial bag of baby. What kind of father was he? Stuffing his kid in a bag? Drugging her with cherry gunk? Having a favorite in the first place? Tom had a lot of confessing to do.

Ping! went the elevator, and Tom got off into an even bigger mob. Second floor, the Ranelle case. Tom used to think of it as his “baby” until now. He wedged his way into the crowd of reporters, lawyers, witnesses, and spectators who didn’t get a seat in the morning’s lottery. On the far side of the throng was Masterson, standing above the crowd like the power forward he used to be at Bishop Neumann.

Tom’s stomach churned. His hands sweated. He was going to lose, he was going to be disbarred, and his child would have memories of being locked in darkness. Also he’d lost Marie’s car keys. Tom shuddered, then shook it off.

“Fashionably late, eh, Moran?” Masterson boomed, his hail-fellow manner disguising how furious he must be. Tom, for once grateful for Masterson’s phoniness, made his way over to his boss as casually as if he were at a cocktail party.

“Shall we go?” Tom said, with ersatz confidence.

“Sure,” the district attorney said, surprised, and Tom threaded his way to Courtroom 206, ducking reporters and their questions. He wasn’t the grandstanding type, which meant he’d eventually wash out as an A.D.A. Tom was one of those guys who became a prosecutor because he wanted to do good. Several were still left. In the world.

“Any comment, Mr. Moran?” the reporters asked, notebooks at the ready. “What will you do today, Tom?” “What’s your strategy for Hammer, Mr. Moran?” “Think you can get a conviction?”

“No comment,” Tom said, holding his trial bag close to his side. None of the investigative reporters seemed to notice the airholes in the bag. Not a Geraldo among them.

“Of course he’ll get a conviction, friends,” Masterson boomed, spreading his arms as the reporters swarmed to him. “How can you doubt one of our best and brightest?”

Tom left them behind and entered the courtroom, where his trials were just beginning.

Tom hated every sterile inch of Courtroom 206, which looked just like all the other courtrooms in the new Criminal Justice Center. It was sleek, modern, and spacious, with muted gray fabric covering the walls, and a dais, jury box, and gallery pews of gleaming rosewood. Tom preferred the old courtrooms in City Hall, a creaky Victorian dowager of a building, with grimy brass sconces and dusty radiators that rattled. Tom liked things to stay the same. He wished they still held mass in Latin.

He shifted unhappily in his slippery chair at the prosecution table. His trial bag snoozed next to him, and Tom kept the toe of his wingtip protectively near the end with the baby’s head. He had already determined he wouldn’t travel far from the table during his cross, even if he had to sacrifice the theatrics. Brittany’s cerebellum was more important. Tom had some priorities.

He tried to compose himself during the defense examination of the witness. In the morning’s confusion, his careful preparation of the night before had flown from his head and he’d accidentally left his notes under Brittany in the trial bag. Tom sighed. At least the baby was asleep. He forced himself to forget about Brittany and focus on the direct examination by the defense.

“That’s right, I work part-time in the rifle range,” the witness was saying. The witness, Elwood “Elvis” Fahey, was a low-rent punk with a coke-white pallor and jet-black hair. He looked scrawny on the stand in a black windbreaker that said MEMBERS ONLY on the pocket. Tom wondered what club Elvis was a member of, and made a mental note not to join.

“What do you do in the rifle range, sir?” asked defense counsel Dan Harrison. Harrison was a trim forty, on the short side but natty in a tan Italian suit, no vent, that draped just right on the shoulders and broke on the instep. Lawyers who defended drug dealers always wore Italian. It was like MEMBERS ONLY with a law degree. MEMBERS OF THE BAR ONLY.

“At the shootin’ range? I clean up, hand out the earphones, help out, stuff like that.”

Harrison nodded. “This is a steady, gainful employment for you, sir?”

“Sure. For three years. Three days a week. Regular.”

“And you met the decedent, Guillermo Juarez, at the rifle range, did you not?”

“Yeah. We got to be friends, me and Chicken Bill.”

Harrison winced. “By ‘Chicken Bill’ are you referring to the decendent, Guillermo Juarez?”

“Yeah. Guillermo is the de-, the dece-, the dead guy.” Elvis answered, laughing with a deep-throated huh huh huh.

The jurors didn’t find this amusing, though their hearts weren’t bleeding for the decedent either. A conscientious group of nine women and three men, the jury had already heard testimony that Chicken Bill had been a crack dealer. Nobody was crying over his demise, least of all the defendant, James Ranelle, who listened quietly, his sweet face covered with freckles and his cropped hair the color of barbecued potato chips. Ranelle looked more altar boy than drug dealer, but Tom wasn’t fooled. He was a better Catholic than most.

“Now, sir,” Harrison continued, “would you tell the jury, in your own words, what happened to Chicken Bill on the night of August 12, at around eleven o’clock in the evening?”

“Well,” Elvis began, and grabbed the microphone like his namesake. He had been in and out of prison, and his many court appearances had sharpened his skills as an entertainer. “I hear a gunshot downstairs, and I wake up and run down the stairs.”

“Where were you at the time, sir?”

“In the bedroom, sleepin’. I hear the noise and I run downstairs and all hell’s breaking loose. Everything’s real bright. There’s big flames everywhere. I see smoke. I smell gasoline. It’s all orange and real hot. I know right off it’s a fire.”

Tom made a note. The genius club.

“And what were the other inhabitants of the house doing, sir?”

“They’re shoutin’, yellin’, runnin’ out the door.” Elvis waved his hands, to add courtroom drama. “Sammy and his girl Raytel, then Jamal. They all get out in a hurry, so they don’t get a hotfoot.”

“When did you see Chicken Bill, sir?”

“Right when I come down. He was just lying on the floor. I went up to him to see if he was okay, but he was half dead.”

“And what did you do, sir, when you found Chicken Bill dying on the floor?”

“I lifted him up, like, and held him in my arms. Like a cradle.”

“And did you say anything to him, sir?”

“I sure did. I axed him, ‘Who did this fire, Chicken? Did you see who did this fire?’ ”

“And did Chicken Bill answer you?”

Tom sprung to his wingtips. “Objection, hearsay, Your Honor,” he said, and Harrison did a custom-tailored half-turn toward the bench.

“Your Honor,” Harrison argued, “I believe this testimony falls within the dying-declaration exception to the hearsay rule. Chicken Bill — Mr. Juarez — was clearly in extremis at the time he made the statement.”

A dying declaration? Tom couldn’t believe his ears. He hadn’t seen a case with a dying declaration since evidence class. You didn’t have to be a member of anything to think up this whopper. It was so absurd, all Tom could say was, “A dying declaration. Your Honor?”

“A dying declaration, Mr. Harrison?” Judge Amelio Canova repeated, only slower. Canova was a short, sluggish sixty-five, and his smooth bald head stretched from his robe like a turtle’s, craning over his papers on the dais.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Harrison said. “Our experts yesterday testified as to his approximate time of death, if you recall. Mr. Juarez perished from third-degree burns at or about 11 P.M. Any statement he made to the witness falls squarely within this well-accepted exception to the hearsay rule.”

Judge Canova blinked, heavy-lidded. “I’ll permit it,” he said wearily, and Tom sank into his chair.

Harrison turned back to his witness. “Now, sir, before the prosecutor interrupted you, you were about to tell the jury what Chicken Bill said, as he lay dying.”

“Yes, I was.” Elvis straightened at the microphone. “It’s like this, Chicken can barely talk, his throat is all burned up, and he’s, like, whispering. He says to me, ‘Cowboy Ron did this to me, Elvis. Cowboy Ron did this fire.’ ”

The jurors reacted, shifting in their seats and sneaking glances at each other. They didn’t like Elvis but Tom knew they’d find it difficult to completely discount his testimony later. Elvis was the only witness, and the defense had put up a chorus line of experts. Tom had seen expert witnesses seduce even the smartest juries. They were like hookers in lab coats.

It made Tom’s blood boil. He knew the way the murder went down, he just had to prove it; Ranelle had torched a competing crackhouse, run by Chicken Bill. Chicken Bill got dead as desired, and everybody else got out alive, including Elvis, who instantly perceived that the murder of his friend was the opportunity of a lifetime. If Elvis helped Ranelle beat the murder rap, he’d have a new job with Ranelle’s organization. One man’s ceiling is another man’s floor, even in crackhouses.

Harrison leaned on the witness box. “Did you know who Chicken Bill meant by Cowboy Ron, sir?”

“Yes, he meant the dude wore a cowboy hat, a brown cowboy hat. Lived a block away.”

“And, to the best of your knowledge, is this Cowboy Ron known to be a drug dealer?”

“Yes, far as I know. Cowboy Ron competed with Chicken Bill.”

“Is Cowboy Ron in the courtroom this morning, sir?”

Elvis’s bedroom eyes swept the courtroom, for show. “No, sir.”

“Is the defendant James Ranelle also known as Cowboy Ron?”

“No. The defendant ain’t Cowboy Ron. Cowboy Ron is somebody else. Cowboy Ron ain’t here today.”

“I see.” Harrison lingered with a frown before the jury box. He was pretending to think, but Tom knew he was only pausing to let the testimony sink in. Harrison hadn’t had an unrehearsed moment in his life. It made him a superb defense lawyer. “I have no further questions,” Harrison said. “Thank you, sir.”

Tom rose quickly to his feet. “If I may cross-examine, Your Honor,” he said, then stopped as the law clerk murmured in the judge’s ear.

Judge Canova peered down from the dais, waving a wrinkled hand. “Not quite yet, Mr. Moran. Sit down, please.”

Tom resettled in his chair and glanced over at Harrison, who looked pleased at the defense table. Any interruption would only give the testimony time to set, like concrete.

“Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,” Judge Canova said, turning to them, “please excuse me for just a minute or two. I have a brief matter to attend to in chambers, and since I’ll be gone but a minute, I won’t put you to the trouble of dismissing you and bringing you back in again. Please stand by, as they say on the television.” The jury smiled, and the judge shuffled from the dais and out the side door.

The jurors relaxed when Judge Canova left, but Tom didn’t. As long as they were in the box, he was on show. Harrison turned to make fake-conversation with Ranelle, who stayed in character as a candidate for the priesthood. Tom struggled to remember his outline of the night before. He was grateful for the recess, but worried, too. He didn’t have much time left on the Tylenol, did he? He snuck a peek at his watch. 10:15.

Tom told himself to relax. He wouldn’t start to worry until 11:45. And that was a long way off.

But at 11:45, the judge was still out. The jury was dozing in the jury box. The bailiff was reading the sports page. The courtroom reporter was cleaning the black keys of her steno machine with a Q-tip. The gallery conversed quietly among themselves. The courtroom was in a state of suspended animation.

Except for Tom, who was in a state of panic. His shirt was soaked under his jacket. His legal pad was full of scribbles. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. Suddenly he heard a rustling in the trial bag. Holy Christ. Was Brittany waking up?

Tom bent over and unlocked the trial bag as casually as possible. A square of fluorescent light fell on the baby’s face. She squirmed in the sudden brightness and her blue eyes flared open. Tom snapped the lid closed. Oh, no. What was he going to do? Where was the judge?

Tom looked around in desperation. Masterson, sitting in the front row of the gallery, leaned over the bar of the court and handed him a note. Tom read it with a shaking hand:

Tom shoved the note into his pocket and closed his eyes in pain. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. I lost my notes. I locked my baby in a briefcase. I don’t know how much a milliliter is. He opened his eyes just as Judge Canova entered the courtroom, his face etched with contrition.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the judge said, even before he reached his leather chair, “I must beg your forgiveness. I was detained on an emergency administrative matter and kept thinking it would be over in just five minutes. Well, you know how that is,” he said, sitting down with a red face. The jurors smiled indulgently, and Judge Canova gestured to Tom. “Mr. Moran, please pick up where we left off. I’d like to get something accomplished before we dismiss for lunch, at twelve-thirty.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” Tom edged forward on his seat, unsteady. He had to come up with a killer cross-examination before Brittany exploded. “Now, uh, Mr. Fahey, you were at the home of Chicken Bill on the night in question, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Did you live at that home?”

“No. I just visited.”

“Why did you visit there?”

Elvis glanced at Harrison, who didn’t object. “Just because.”

“Because why?” Tom rose, finding his footing next to the trial bag, which rustled softly again. It must have been Brittany’s briefs, crackling around her legs. His heart raced in his chest.

“I just kind of hung at Chicken Bill’s.”

“By ‘hung,’ you mean smoked crack, don’t you?”

“Objection!” Harrison yelped, leaping to his Gucci loafers.

“Your Honor,” Tom said, “defense counsel opened the door on this testimony yesterday. The witness is an admitted crack user, and the prosecution is entitled to impeach.”

“Sustained,” Judge Canova said. He banged his gavel halfheartedly, but the sound provoked more rustling from the trial bag and a quiet, though unmistakable, baby yawn. Tom glanced around nervously. No one seemed to notice the sound. He was the only one close enough to hear it. How long would his luck hold out? And his baby?

“Uh, Mr. Fahey,” Tom said, wiping his forehead, “you said you ran down the stairs when you heard the gunshot, and you smelled gasoline.”

“Yeah.”

“Did you see where the gasoline came from?”

“No, it was all on the floor, on fire.”

“Did you see anyone throw the gasoline in the house?”

“No.”

“Did you see anyone shoot the gasoline to ignite it?”

“No.”

“So the only way you know who the perpetrator of this crime is, is because Chicken Bill told you?”

“Yeah, he told me hisself.”

“Weee,” said the trial bag softly, and Tom gulped. Harrison looked over at the sound, and Tom coughed twice.

“Mr. Fahey,” he continued, clearing his throat, “you testified that people were running out the door, isn’t that right?”

“Yeah. They’re runnin’, screamin’, crying.”

“Weee,” repeated the trial bag, and Tom started hacking away like he had tuberculosis.

Judge Canova stretched out his neck in concern. “Mr. Moran, perhaps you should pause for some water.”

“No, sure, well,” Tom stammered. “Actually, Your Honor, if we broke for lunch, I could compose myself.”

Judge Canova shook his head slowly. “I’d rather not, counsel. Let’s do as much as we can. Please proceed. Perhaps some water will help.”

“Yes, Your Honor,” Tom said, a sickening feeling at the pit of his stomach. He choked down his water and glanced at the trial bag, which began to wobble slightly on the carpet. Tom froze. Brittany was awake, squirming inside the bag. She was hungry. She was thirsty. She was wearing an evidentiary motion.

“Please proceed, Mr. Moran,” Judge Canova repeated.

“Yes, sir.” Tom said, setting down his glass. “Mr. Fahey, you were downstairs with the screaming and the crying, correct?”

“Yeah. Everybody was yellin’, runnin’ for their lives.”

“Weee,” insisted the bag, and Harrison looked over again, arching an eyebrow.

“Mr. Fahey,” Tom said loudly, to mask the sound, “you ran down the stairs to Chicken Bill’s side, is that correct?”

“Yeah, he’s lying there, all messed up. All burnt up, yeah.”

“Weee,” said the bag, and Tom coughed again. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the courtroom sketch artist stop her drawing. A reporter blinked, holding his steno pad. The front pew of the gallery was looking in the direction of the trial bag. Soon Masterson would hear. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

“And you asked Chicken Bill who started the fire?”

“Yeah.”

“Weeaah,” said the bag, slightly louder than before, and Tom watched helplessly as the court reporter startled at the sound. Two of the jurors in the front row exchanged puzzled looks. Tom’s heart jumped to his throat. What was he going to do? His coughing fit didn’t work. Maybe if he just ignored it. He walked away from the bag to distance himself from it.

“Mr. Fahey,” Tom asked, standing before the witness, “is it your testimony that Chicken Bill named Cowboy Ron as the perpetrator?”

“Yeah. That’s what he said. Cowboy Ron did the crime.” Elvis nodded in the direction of his new employer, but Ranelle was staring at the trial bag.

“Weeah, weeah,” said the bag, but Tom pretended not to hear. Behind him, he glimpsed Masterson shifting angrily in his pew.

“And while he was telling you who set the fire, the others were yelling and screaming?”

“Yes.”

“WeeAh, weeAHHH,” said the bag, getting hungrier, and the bailiff cocked his head at the noise. Next to him, the law clerk giggled, and the jurors in the back row were looking around, their heads swiveling toward the fussing.

Tom plowed ahead, apparently oblivious. “And they were running out the door, Mr. Fahey?”

“Yeah.”

“WeeeeeAHHH,” the bag said, a decibel louder. The jury was completely distracted by the noise, and even Judge Canova was adjusting his hearing aid. Then Tom realized something. Everybody could hear Brittany but Elvis.

“How did you hear what Chicken Bill said, with all that noise?” Tom said quickly, following a hunch.

“I heard him just fine.”

“You heard him just fine, despite the screaming and yelling?”

“Yeah.”

“Over the noise of the fire? The panic? The confusion?”

“Yeah.”

“Weeeaaahhhh,” fussed the trial bag, and only Elvis didn’t react.

“Even though Chicken Bill was injured, near death, and speaking in a whisper?”

“I heard him,” Elvis insisted, though he didn’t flinch at the wailing that set the entire jury looking from the trial bag to Elvis and back again. Judge Canova craned over the dais and signaled to the bailiff. Suddenly Tom knew what to do.

“Don’t you work in a firing range, Mr. Fahey?” he asked.

“Yeah, for three years. I clean up.”

“You work while gunshots are being fired, correct?”

“Sure.” Elvis snickered. “That’s why they call it a firin’ range.”

“You don’t wear earphones when you clean up, do you, Mr. Fahey?”

“No way. Them things are for wussies.” Elvis huh huh huhed at the jury, but again, they weren’t laughing. They were grave, beginning to understand. Tom was giving them a reason to reject Elvis’s testimony and they were going to take it. The gallery murmured among themselves. Masterson broke into a grin.

“Objection!” Harrison said, loud enough for Elvis to hear, but Judge Canova waved the defense lawyer into his seat.

“Mr. Fahey, isn’t it a fact that your hearing has been impaired from your job at the firing range, so much so that you couldn’t hear what Chicken Bill was saying to you?”

“Whut?” Elvis said, and just then the trial bag broke into an earsplitting cry.

“I have no further questions.” Tom said, and rushed to rescue his co-counsel.

Later, Tom and Marie dozed on the patchwork quilt over their bed, completely dressed. The babies had finally stopped fussing, and snuggled between them. Ashley snored slightly as she slept, her breathing still congested. Brittany slumbered quietly. A golden glow emanated from a porcelain lamp on the night table. The alarm clock read 2:13 A.M. It was so late. Tom wanted to turn off the light but he was too exhausted to do even that.

“You sure you won’t get fired, hon?” Marie murmured, half asleep.

“Nah. I’m a hero.”

“I knew that already,” she said, and stretched her toe to touch his, still barefoot.

“Is this sex?” Tom asked.

“Yes.”

“Funny. I remember it differently,” Tom said, and Marie burst into laughter. Tom closed his eyes, listening to his wife laughing and his children snoring, and realized suddenly that heaven itself was only a slight variation on this scene, with somebody to turn out the light for you.

Then he fell soundly asleep.