Antiques Roadkill -1 - Barbara Allan by Barbara Allan

Author:Barbara Allan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780758272799
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2006-03-09T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Tools Rush In

If nothing else, traffic court serves as a reminder that the average midwesterner is still in abject fear of the law’s long arm. The anxiety in the air was palpable—you could almost hear the knees knocking.

I sat with Mother and Mr. Ekhardt in a secondary courtroom of the Serenity Courthouse; the much larger trial room—reserved for murders and mayhem, where Mr. Ekhardt had won many a high-profile case—was located on the top floor. In my opinion, traffic court should have been moved up to those spacious digs, considering how all of us were stuffed into these pews like ancient frat boys cramming phone booths—granted, horizontal ones, but we’d have set a campus record, if this had been a campus.

Every walk of life was represented this morning: young, old, rich, poor, white, black, Asian, Hispanic … all equal in the eyes of the law (that’s the story), all equal in their sweat-inducing fear (no question), waiting for the gavel of fate (nobody here was thinking “justice”) to fall.

I was wearing a sleeveless retro floral-print dress by Too Cool and Brandy-affordable lime rubber Juicy Couture thongs. Mr. Ekhardt looked the elder statesman in his navy pin-striped suit, crisp white shirt, and red-patterned tie with elegant pearl stickpin.

But the getup Mother had chosen to don was as mysterious as what goes on in the books her mystery reading group tackles. She might have been an old frontier schoolmarm in the shapeless, austere gray skirt and jacket, high-necked blouse, and cameo-brooch, her thick, wavy, silver hair pulled back in a severe bun. Maybe she wanted to appear forthright and upstanding before the judge.

Hey, it worked for Lizzie Borden.

This much I knew about Mother, however: she had a reason for everything … even if it wasn’t always clear, or logical, or even sane. But there would always be a reason. …

I had the feeling Mother felt very much at home here. This was, after all, a theater of sorts, the players talking among themselves, sotto voce, defendants going over their alibis, family members expressing concern, lawyers explaining procedure … the side door next to the judge’s bench opened and an official-looking woman in a brown uniform entered.

She may have been attractive once, but years of unpleasantness—from her job, initially, from herself, later on—had taken a toll, etching permanent scowl lines on her spade-shaped face.

The official woman planted herself next to the American flag and barked,” Quiet!”

Pin-drop silence followed as she slowly scanned the room like the Alien trying to sense potential lunch in a dark spaceship. That she was chewing gum in a cow/cud manner took the edge off for me, but it was pretty chilling nonetheless.

Finally she said, in a wholly unnecessarily nasty way, “This is a courtroom and deserves respect!”

Then from the pack an anonymous voice (it sounded a lot like mine) said, “Then why are you chewing gum?”

“Who said that?” the court clerk snapped.

Everyone looked around, including me. Frowning, my expression seemed to say, “Yeah—yeah, who said that? How rude!”

“One more outburst,” the woman threatened, “and I’m going to clear the courtroom.

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