ALL THAT GLITTERS, chapter 1

Chapter 4

chapter 4

Pulling her cell phone, wallet, and her brother’s car keys out of the basket on the other side of the “screening square” by the back door of the courthouse, Lucky nudged Jake and told him what Sandy suggested. The woman officer holding the next door open for them watched as they rearranged what they could of their clothes to hide their faces. If only they had scarves with them – but who’d have guessed, from Boston’s weather, that Vermont would require so much winter clothing? Lucky sighed.

Giving an apologetic look to the guard, she picked up a couple of tourist-type magazines from a stack on a bench, handed one to Jake, and the two of them edged forward into the crowded courthouse hallway, holding the printed pages as if trying to read some directions. Fortunately, the press people – the ones wearing yellow tags dangling from lanyards – seemed focused on the front door, when they weren’t tapping their phone keyboards. Lucky caught Sandy’s eye, then moved quickly up the wide stairs, in the direction that the arrow pointed toward “Family Court.” A moment later, the three of them – Lucky, Sandy, Jake – reached the upstairs hallway and bolted into an alcove lined with shelves of green-bound law books and racks of newspapers.

“What are we doing up here?” Sandy asked right away, unzipping her black down-filled parka and giving Lucky a quick hug. “Your mother’s going to be down in the main court room, they said. District Court, right? Omigod, Lucky, how is your dad? Michelle’s been texting me but she went quiet about an hour ago.”

“She’s at work. The nurse said Dad’s drugged to make him sleep for recovery but he didn’t look all that bad. Is there another way we can get to that courtroom without going past the reporters?”

Jake interrupted. “There’s a back staircase too. Over there. But first catch me up, would you? Is Mom already here?”

Sandy shook her head. “I don’t think so. At least, I haven’t seen her.”

“She must be here,” Lucky disagreed. “The police officer at the hospital already checked. Let’s try inside the courtroom. Jake, who did you say the lawyer is that Uncle Mike got for Mom?”

Jack thumbed his phone and read off, “Ann Lemieux Davila. Sounds like Canadian and Spanish at once.”

“So let’s look for her, too. First priority Mom, second the lawyer, because if we can’t find Mom on our own, the lawyer probably knows where they’ve got her. Quiet now, don’t catch the reporters’ attention if we can help it.”

Tiptoeing down the narrow rear stairs, trying to hush each other by example, they ducked through a doorway marked “Counsel” and found themselves in a small red-curtained room crammed with padded chairs and school-style wooden desks. The next door took them into the courtroom, although clearly in the wrong place, near the front of the room where half a dozen people were standing. Jake pushed past Lucky and called out, “Mom!”

“Out, right now, that way,” said a police officer, pushing Jake toward the double-door exit at the upper end of the slanted floor.

Lucky grabbed Jake’s arm to stop him from pushing back and said quickly, “We’re sorry, we didn’t know which way to come in. That’s our mother. Please may we stay in here? We won’t get in the way.”

“All three of you? She’s your mother?” The guard checked their faces.

Sandy quickly said, “I’m their friend, it’s not my mother. Could I stay with them anyway? They need me.”

Lucky nodded, hoping her face looked honest and desperate, the way she felt. From the cluster of people around the large judge’s table, a woman called out, “With your permission, Your Honor, the defendant’s children are here and we’d like to have them present for this.”