"Could you speak up so that the reporter can correctly transcribe your reply, Mr. Simms?"

"I said, no, I did not."

"I don't understand, Mr. Simms. You say you were happily married for fifteen years, that you were in love with your wife, and when she seemed to be having some kind of trouble, for the very first time in your marriage she's troubled, and you took no action to help her. Is that correct?"

The courtroom was so quiet that when someone cleared their throat, it was very distracting. Nat looked at Albright hoping for a signal. I glanced at Albright who was reading his notes, unaware that Nat wanted coaching. Nat shifted in his chair and gave a calloused response.

"Look, Rebecca was living The Life of Riley. What kind of problems could she have that are real problems? It was all a bunch of bull."

"I see. Well, maybe she had a problem with your adulterous behavior."

"Objection!" Albright said.

"Sustained," Judge Shelby said. "Counsel will avoid conjecture."

"It's not conjecture, your honor. I'd like to enter into evidence the following: over two hundred fifty receipts from various motels in the Highway 17 locale, twenty-five hundred dollars of SunCom cell phone bills for calls made between Nat Simm's cell phone and Charlene Johnson's cell phone and receipts from various adult novelty stores, including the purchases of edible panties and flavored massage oil."

The clerk, a lovely lady who probably ironed altar linens for the bishop of Charleston, took a deep breath and accepted the first box.

Nat smirked, and unfortunately for him, at that moment the judge was fixated on his face. His smirk ratcheted her ire up about ten notches. Harry Albright stared at the ceiling in dismay.

"Mr. Simms?" the judge said. "Would you like to give us an explanation for these expenditures?"

"Uh, uh...well, you see, your honor, Charlene Johnson has been working for my family's business for many years. And she gets these headaches. Real bad headaches. Just terrible for her."

"Yes?" the judge said as though she were waiting for the first drop of ketchup to leave the newly opened bottle.

"Yes, well, we, um, that is, I would send her off to a nearby motel to rest because she lives all the way up the road in Orangeburg and..."

Judge Shelby rested the side of her face on the heel of her hand and stared at Nat.

"Do you realize that you are under oath, Mr. Simms?" she said.

"Yes. Yes, I do."

"And do you know what it means to testify under oath, Mr. Simms?"

"Yes."

"Just so there will be no confusion, Mr. Simms, it means you have to tell the truth or you will be found in contempt of court, fined and sent to jail. Now, would counsel like to repeat the question? What was the question anyway?"

"Uh, Judge, actually you were asking the questions. But I guess I could pick it up with another," I said and turned back to face Nat. "Mr. Simms, are you now or were you ever engaged in an extramarital affair with Charlene Johnson?"

"Uh, uh, not really. I mean, we spent some time together. We were friends and I could talk to her about anything. When Rebecca started going all crazy she would listen to me and try to help me figure out what to do. I never meant for Charlene to think there was anything more to it than that. You know how women always want more than you want to give, right?"

Judge Shelby and I exchanged the incredulous kind of look that only two women can when confronted with a low-down lying dog of a chauvinist.

I took a breath, crossed my arms and looked at Nat Simms in the eye. "All I'm looking for here is a yes or no answer. We will get to the details later. So is it a yes or a no, Mr. Simms?"

"I would have to say it's a no. Yes, it's a no."

"Excuse me," Judge Shelby said, "was that a no?"

"That is correct, your honor," I said.

Judge Shelby made a note for herself, probably noting Nat's lie, and looked up for us to continue.

"Mr. Simms, how do you account for the purchase of the edible panties and the flavored massage oil?"

Judge Shelby closed her eyes for a brief moment and shook her head.

"Oh, that? Those were gag gifts for a buddy of mine. He was getting married and we gave him a bachelor party."

The judge made another note for herself.

I said, "All right then. Your honor? I'd like to enter the following into evidence: these are charges and receipts for a number of plastic surgery procedures-breast augmentation, collagen implants for the chin and cheeks, abdominoplasty, which is a tummy tuck, gluteoplasty, a surgical lifting of the buttocks, rhinoplasty, which is a nose job, a series of twenty-eight sessions of microdermabrasion to remove sun damage from the face, neck and decollete"-I paused for a breath and continued-"a series of ten sessions of Botox injections, otoplasty, which is the surgical procedure of pinning back of protruding ears and a bill for dental resurfacing of the teeth. All of these procedures were performed on Charlene Johnson and paid for by Nat Simms."

"Great heavens!" the judge said in a gasp. "Is this true, Mr. Simms?"

"Look, Judge, I can explain..."

"Please do!"

Well, Nat went on with some new cock-and-bull story about how Charlene had never had good dental care. Her family lived out in the country and didn't have access to a good dentist. And her ears had always bugged her, and her nose too. Once she got those things fixed she got it in her mind that she wanted to start appearing in the television ads for the business with him, since the old man said he didn't want to do them anymore, that he was getting too damn old to have his face up there on the television set while decent people were trying to eat their supper. She thought better bosoms might give her some star quality.

Nat said he didn't have the heart to tell her that she would probably never make a TV ad with him, but he helped her, he said, because he felt sorry for her and that was all there was to it. Yep, that was all there was to it.

Nat continued his prattle and the entire courtroom listened, jaws dropped and eyes wide. Just when the growing collective of minds gathered thought we had heard the headlines of tomorrow's National Enquirer, the courtroom door swung open and there was Charlene Johnson. She was handcuffed and nearly hyperventilating in resentment and the language of her new improved body spoke volumes-she was as proud of herself as a Las Vegas showgirl and as angry a woman as I had ever seen. A rumble of commentary broke out and Judge Shelby slammed her gavel for order.

I couldn't wait to get Charlene on the witness stand.

TWENTY.

THE DETAILS.

THERE was a little chaos, and then the courtroom settled down. Charlene was brought before the judge. As she made her way toward the bench, head tossed back in defiance, there was a pronounced pump to the swing in her backyard. Every eye was on her bright pink clinging jersey dress, which left little to the imagination. Her black patent leather pumps had three-inch heels and tied around the ankle. The surgeon had taken her gravity-defying breasts to awe-inspiring dimensions and had given new definition to the term booty. I imagined the rear landscaping was intended for balance as much as anything else. Lord knows, if she hadn't been anchored into those shoes and toting ballast in the northeast quadrant to equal the southwest, friends and family would've made another career picking her up off the floor.

Good taste had taken a holiday.

Once again, as the snickering and whispering reached a new crescendo, Judge Shelby found it necessary to restore order with a whack of her gavel. Try as she did to maintain a straight face, the smile of judgmental self-righteousness crept into the corners of her mouth. Even Sandra Day O'Connor would've tossed the court a perceptible sign of amusement.

Nat was still on the witness stand and I told him he could step down for the moment.

"Are you Charlene Johnson?" Judge Shelby said.

"Yeah, and I don't understand why you all had to drag me into this. I ain't..."

"You were subpoenaed, Ms. Johnson, obviously as a hostile witness..."

"I ain't gonna get in the middle of his shit..."

"You will refrain from the use of foul language in the courtroom..."

"Well, that's all this is, you know..."

"And you will not interrupt the judge."

Charlene became silent and turned to face Nat, seething with anger.

Charlene, who had great difficulty with the whole concept of speaking only when spoken to said, "You wanna know what's going on here? I'll tell you plain and simple. This man is a bas-"

The judge held up her hand as a sign for Charlene to stop talking, then sighed with the war-weary face of a judge who has done battle with all manner of wronged women and who held particular disdain for those who lacked reasonable decorum.

"Counselor? Shall we swear in your witness?"

"By all means," I said.

This wasn't the order in which I intended to take the testimony of my witnesses, but several factors came into play. Charlene was looking like a flight risk. Before she caught the next plane to Hawaii, I wanted her on the record. Second, Charlene was obviously furious with Nat and ready to napalm his credibility. It was best to capture her point of view while the napalm was still fresh and frothy. And last, I didn't want her found in contempt of court, hustled off to a holding cell, building a temper tantrum the size of the Sears Tower and then refusing to testify. That would've been a disaster. Besides, Judge Shelby was smart enough to put all the pieces together without me following my prearranged menu.

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth..."

"Yew ken betcha yer bottom dollar on that!"

"Please answer I do."

"I do."

As I gathered my thoughts to begin interrogating Charlene, I thought to myself, Oh, my God in heaven, this is a first. I've got a certifiable nut bag on the stand and there's no predicting and very little controlling what will happen! But I took comfort in the fact that Shelby was a cool head and if things started getting crazy, she'd call a halt to it. I approached the bench.

I went through the normal beginning questions for the benefit of the transcript and the folks in the peanut gallery and looked back to see Julian slip through the door and stand against the back wall. He was going to love this, I thought.

"So, Ms. Johnson, can you describe the nature of your relationship with Nat Simms?"

"Right here in front of all these uptight people?"

Charlene smiled from ear to ear and the air thickened with rumbles of guffaws and snickers. A slam of the gavel quieted things down.

An unsmiling Judge Shelby turned to Charlene. "The witness will kindly answer the question without trying to entertain the courtroom."

Charlene closed her eyes and shrugged her shoulders. "I worked for him."

I cleared my throat and began again. "And the length of your employ?"

"Over seven years. I came to work for him right out of high school. First I was answering phones in the service department, and then I got myself promoted up to the receptionist in the sales department. Now I organize contracts, titles, leases and everything else that has to do with buying a car after the salesman has cut the deal."

I decided to start out with a bomb and let old Charlene know that she was near the edge of the cliff.

"Okay, let me understand this a little more fully, Ms. Johnson. If someone comes into Simms Autoworld and buys a car, you're the person who gives him the contract to sign..."

"Right, right, right, and I try to sell him extended warranty if it's a used car and all that stuff."

"And how successful are you at selling extended warranties? I mean, don't people generally resist those?"

"Objection! The question is irrelevant!"

"Where are we going here, Ms. Thurmond?"

"I am trying to establish the character of the witness, the level of her responsibility and her value to the business. We know she has longevity with the company, but I gotta tell you, your honor, if you'll just indulge me for a few minutes, the reason for this line of questioning will become clear."

"Overruled."

"Thank you," I said and turned back to Charlene. I had to look away again because her eye makeup was applied with such gusto it was off-putting. I couldn't imagine how a woman could even get that much mascara on normal lashes. They looked like awnings. Ridiculous.

"Does that mean I should answer the question?"

"Please. Just tell the court how successful you were in selling extended warranties."

"Well, before I got my new titties, I wasn't too good at it at all." Gasping and laughter filled the air. Then, in a moment of unbridled horror for the genteel, she actually cupped her synthetic mammaries.

The gavel slammed once more, and Judge Shelby said, "Ms. Johnson, this is the last time I am going to remind you not to use coarse and vulgar language or to behave in a coarse and vulgar manner in my courtroom. The next time you say something so crass or make a motion so crass, you will be fined in contempt of court and sit in county jail for thirty days. Is that clear?" She shook her head and looked at me. "Proceed."

"I'm sure your breast augmentation helped your confidence and, therefore, your sales. But before we discuss your various plastic surgery procedures, I'm wondering about something else. Did you ever have the occasion to receive a deposit check from a customer simply made out to Nat Simms and not Simms's Autoworld?"

"Of course, it happened all the time." Charlene's face was blood red. Maybe it was sinking in that this wasn't a joke or a show.

"And what did you do with those checks?"

"Objection!"

I felt like saying, Oh, put a sock in it, Harry, but I looked to the judge, who understood exactly where I was going, and she said, "Overruled."

Charlene sat there wondering if answering the question would implicate her in a crime.

"Please answer the question, Ms. Johnson."

"Nope. I ain't got a lawyer, and if I tell the truth I might get myself in trouble, so I ain't answering that question."

Harry and Nat were whispering to each other.

"You have to answer the question, Ms. Johnson," I said.