Victoria seemed tired, he thought, her eyes bloodshot, her hair not quite up to its usual standards. Sleepless night? Not sharing her bed, he didn't know. The fatigue-if that's what it was-softened her edges, made her more vulnerable, and, if possible, even more desirable. She was wearing a brown double-breasted pinstripe jacket with a wide collar and a matching below-the-knee skirt. To Steve, it had an expensive, handmade by nuns in the Swiss Alps look.

Zinkavich said: "I call upon the Pet.i.tioner to disclose if he knows the whereabouts of Mr. Rufus Thigpen."

Steve kept quiet. He had a lawyer to take the heat.

"Judging from Mr. Thigpen's rap sheet," Victoria said, "he's probably in jail somewhere."

Yes! Exactly what he would have said, Steve thought, if he were counsel instead of a litigant. He was proud of Victoria. She'd come so far so quickly.

"Just call a witness, Z, so we can move this along," the judge said.

Zinkavich frowned. "In that event, Your Honor, the state calls Janice Solomon."

Hearing his sister's name sent creepy crawlies up Steve's spine. Thigpen's disappearance was part of the bargain, part of what he'd paid for. But Janice could still double-cross him on the witness stand.

His sister frumped her way into the courtroom, avoiding Steve's gaze. She wore a shapeless print dress that stopped just above her ankles and white socks with sandals. She carried a soft leather purse big enough to hold twenty kilos of hash. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail and was held in place by a psychedelic orange scrunchy. Behind her granny gla.s.ses, her dark eyes seemed distant, as if focused on a place her body had left but her mind had lingered. The overall impression, Steve thought, was of a woman who ate too many Cheetos and drank too many c.o.kes, between bouts of inhaling, injecting, and smoking an array of exotic substances.

After Janice was sworn in, Zinkavich took her through the preliminaries. She was Steve Solomon's sister, two years older. Grew up on Miami Beach, expelled from high school for repeated drug use, attended a combination school-and-dairy-farm for troubled kids in rural Pennsylvania. Tossed out for growing marijuana in an alfalfa field and running a semipro brothel in the barn. Arrested a dozen times for drugs, larceny, and disorderly conduct, plus once for criminal mischief when she squatted on the roof of a police cruiser and peed on the windshield. She didn't really know who fathered Bobby. It could have been this crackhead in Ocala who used to beat the s.h.i.t out of her. Or this trucker who gave her a lift to Pensacola in return for spreading her legs at a rest stop just off the Loxley exit of the I-10.

Hanging out all the dirty laundry on direct examination. It was the only way to keep your opponent from smearing your witness on cross, Steve knew. Though he was a pompous p.r.i.c.k with a vicious mean streak, Zinkavich was not stupid, and so far, he was doing everything right.

Steve stole a glance at Victoria. Ordinarily poker-faced in the courtroom-just as he'd taught her-she seemed both astonished and disgusted at his sister's life story. Judge Rolle never blinked. The judge had heard far worse, Steve figured. But at the same time, he wondered whether some maternity-ward nurse had screwed up thirty-seven years ago. Maybe his real sister was a distinguished researcher with a PhD, working in a lab somewhere, on the verge of curing cancer.

Zinkavich waddled close to the witness stand. "What facilitated your appearance here today?"

"You facilitated my b.u.t.t out of jail," Janice replied.

"Did I make any promises to you in return for your testimony?"

"You said you could get me time served and early parole."

"On what condition?"

"If I told the truth," Janice said.

Steve tried to relax but could not. Any second, she could torpedo him.

Zinkavich pointed a chubby finger at him: "Does your brother, Stephen Solomon, have a history of violence?"

"A long history," Janice said.

Oh, s.h.i.t. Here it comes.

She had taken his money. Now she was going to bury him with it.

"Please elaborate, Ms. Solomon," Zinkavich said.

"When I was fourteen, Arnie Lipschitz called me a 'fat wh.o.r.e,' and Stevie kicked the living p.i.s.s out of him."

"Not quite what I meant."

"I wasn't fat then."

"Forget Arnie Lipschitz. Did your brother ever strike you?"

"He wouldn't have the b.a.l.l.s."

Zinkavich seemed surprised. "He never beat you up?"

"I've carried a blade since I was twelve. I woulda circ.u.mcised him a second time."

Zinkavich stared a long moment at Janice. This couldn't have been the way they had practiced it. Steve eased out a breath, but just a bit. With Janice, you never knew when the blade would come out.

"What about drug use?" Zinkavich asked. "Did you ever see your brother use illicit drugs?"

"Yeah, sure."

Zinkavich smiled. Back on script. "When was that?"

"About the same time as the deal with Lipschitz. I gave Stevie some pot, and afterward he ate like half a gallon of pistachio ice cream and threw his guts up."

"Anything more recent?"

"Nah. That cured him. He never even smoked a cigarette after that."

Zinkavich's tongue flicked over his upper lip. Something had happened between rehearsal and opening night. "Drawing your attention to last January, Ms. Solomon, were you living on a farm in the Panhandle?"

"A farm?" Her smile displayed stained teeth. "Yeah, me and my friends were growing a cash crop there."

"Did there come a time when your brother removed your son from your care and custody?"

"You mean, did Stevie take Bobby? Yeah."

"And did your brother do so by force and violence?"

Janice shrugged, her fleshy chin jiggling. "I was like totally wasted that night."

Though his feet were planted on the floor, Zinkavich swayed back and forth, like a rabbi praying at the Wailing Wall. "Come now, Ms. Solomon. Are you saying you don't remember that night?"

"I remember it was sleeting that day, froze my a.s.s off."

"And that night, what happened when your brother showed up?"

"I don't know, man. I was in the house doing Ecstasy. You'll have to ask Rufe."

"That would be Rufus Thigpen?"

"Yeah, Rufus the Doofus."

"Where is Mr. Thigpen today?"

"I think he went up to Delray to score some Special K. You know, ketamine."

Zinkavich forced a smile, as if all state witnesses skip court to indulge in illegal activities. "What did Mr. Thigpen tell you about his encounter with your brother that fateful night?"

"Objection, hearsay," Victoria said.

"Sustained," the judge said.

"Your Honor, if I could voir dire the witness," Zinkavich said, "I believe the evidence can come in under the excited utterance exception."

"Knock yourself out," the judge said.

"Ms. Solomon, without telling us what Mr. Thigpen said, what was his condition when you spoke to him that night?"

"Rufe's skull was split open."

"Aha," Zinkavich said. An opening.

"Hasn't made him any smarter, I can tell you that," she continued.

"And you saw Mr. Thigpen in this injured state after his encounter with your brother?"

"Yeah."

"Did Mr. Thigpen speak to you?"

"Yeah."

"And when he spoke, was he excited, agitated, or angry?"

"He was p.i.s.sed."

"Did he raise his voice?"

"As much as he could. He was bleeding like a stuck pig."

Zinkavich turned toward the judge. "I believe we've met the threshold for the excited utterance exception to the hearsay rule."

Victoria started to object, but Steve placed a hand on her arm. "Let it go," he whispered.

"Why?"

Steve gave her his innocent shrug, but she looked at him with cold suspicion.

"Hearing no objection," Judge Rolle said, "I a.s.sume the Pet.i.tioner is as curious as the Court to hear the next exchange. Proceed."

Zinkavich lowered his voice into what he must have considered his profound tone. "Just what did Mr. Thigpen say to you, as he lay there, bleeding like a stuck pig?"

"Rufe looked up at me and said, 'You stupid c.u.n.t. You locked the kid in the dog cage but never padlocked the shed.'"

Zinkavich's mouth dropped open wide enough to inhale a Krispy Kreme. Judge Rolle c.o.c.ked her head toward Janice as if listening a second time to something she didn't believe she'd heard the first time. The only sound in the courtroom was the whir of the ventilation system.

No one moved.

Not Victoria.

Or Zinkavich.

Or Judge Rolle.

Steve shot glances at each of them. People with their own lives. Bills to pay, cars to service, doctors to visit. The whole mundane routine of daily life. But in this moment-frozen in time, like a fossil preserved in amber-their minds focused on the same image. An image, he was sure, that would come back to them, as it had to him, time and again.

An innocent child locked in a dog cage in a shed.

Finally, the judge said: "You say there was sleet that day?"

"Turned the yard into a skating rink," Janice said.

The judge chewed on the eraser of her pencil. "How was your son dressed?"

"Underpants and a sweatshirt. I guess." When the judge stared hard at her, Janice added: "I was pretty messed up those days."

"That shed have any heat?"

Janice shook her head.

"Judge, I object to your taking over my questioning," Zinkavich said.

"Sit down and stay down. You're done."

Steve knew that the judge had heard tales of children disciplined with lighted cigarettes, starved in homes with full pantries, and subjected to s.e.xual torture. Judges, cops, medical examiners see horrific wrongs, and after a while, he supposed, their minds create buffers to protect them from psychic pain. But do you ever really lose the ability to be shocked and sickened by cruelty to children?

"Now, cutting through the bulls.h.i.t," the judge continued, "your brother came to this farm where you were high on drugs and your son was confined like an animal, unclothed and freezing. There was an altercation with Mr. Thigpen, who is also a drug abuser, after which your brother took your son to his home, where he's raising him in apparent comfort and safety."

"Yeah. That's about right."

"Your Honor, I must protest," Zinkavich said.

"Then do it somewhere else." The judge leaned toward Janice. "Ms. Solomon, I want you to put yourself in my place for a moment."

"Not if I have to wear that blue schmatte you got on."

"Between making your son a ward of the state or giving your brother guardianship rights, what would you do?"

The question of the day, Steve thought.

The hundred-thousand-dollar question.