T. Bunn - The Great Divide

“I haven’t received official notice, but I assumed it would be one of Randall Walker’s lackeys.”

She shook her head. “Guess again.”

“So tell me.”

“Your old firm.” Another glance at the patrolman. “Your old nemesis.”

“Logan Kendall?” His heart squeezed. “You’re joking.”

“If you go look out the window, the black widow herself might still be wearing a furrow in the sidewalk.”

“Logan’s brought Suzie Rikkers with him?” Marcus hoped his smile looked more genuine than it felt. “What a pair.”

“Word has it they have filed just one pretrial motion.”

“I was wondering why the magistrate’s hearing was arranged for just two days after I filed.” But there was something he was missing here. He stared at the patrolman, was met with an utterly blank gaze. Then it hit him. “They’re going for immediate dismissal.”

“We think so.”

His thoughts spun while this retired patrolman watched him like a hawk. Marcus went over and offered his hand. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Marcus Glenwood.”

“Jim Bell. Nice to meet you, sir. The judge and Jenny here have had some good things to say about you.”

Marcus glanced back at Jenny, caught the tiny nod. Wondered what it meant. “That’s nice.”

Jenny said, “They’re also going to request sanctions be leveled against you. They want to bury you.” She waited, and when he did not react, she demanded, “Are you ready for this?”

His thoughts turned to the three boxes Kirsten had delivered two evenings ago. He had been halfway down the drive this morning before turning back and dumping them in the trunk. At the time he could not figure out why. “I think so.”

“Marcus,” Jenny hesitated, then chose her way forward with great care. “You could make an unofficial request for postponement. Give yourself more time to prepare.”

“It’s not necessary.”

“Are you certain? You really can’t afford-”

“We have to do what we can for Gloria Hall. You know the name?”

Jenny glanced at the patrolman before replying, “I’m not sure.”

“She’s gone missing. We are accusing New Horizons of being involved. The case is our only hope of pressuring them to give her up. It’s that simple. I can’t wait. Not a single day.”

When Jenny said nothing more, he started for the door. “I have to get some things from the trunk.”

The judge’s new chambers were at the end of a long hall, the only door along its entire length. Marcus resisted the urge to sprint down the corridor. He still had time. Everything was fine. He took the elevator to the lower level, and went out the back exit. He walked to the car and leaned upon the trunk. Somewhere overhead a bird chirped. Even that sounded calamitous.

He was not ready for this. None of it. Not for the pressures of a high-stakes court case, nor going up against his old nemesis, nor Suzie Rikkers. And especially not for having people as good and fine as the Halls depend on him. Marcus took a couple of hard breaths and resisted the urge to pound the trunk in helpless rage. The gift of sympathy from someone he admired as much as Judge Gladys Nicols made it even worse. Jenny Hail would never have brought up this matter except at the request of her boss. The evident pity behind Nicols’ move hit hard.

Marcus used his fists to push himself upright. He stared into a sky of impossible blue, wishing there were some way to dive straight up. Lose himself in that endless depth, just swim away from this world and all its impossible woes.

Jenny and the patrolman stood together by the window at the back of the reception area, engrossed in the scene below. Jenny said, “You were right.”

“The judge was the one who said Marcus would refuse to postpone,” Jim Bell responded. “I just agreed with her.”

“Okay, you were both right.”

Jim Bell shrugged his unconcern. “But you were right to ask.”

Jenny stared down at the man leaning over the trunk of his car. “Is he ill?”

“Absolutely.” The patrolman had the ability to claim any place he chose as his own, sturdy and rooted as a mountain. “Fellow’s got a heart torn right in two. If he wasn’t the kind of man the judge says he is, what he’s been through would have killed him stone dead.”

Jenny glanced at Bell. In the short time they had worked together, she was coming to consider him a friend. “What was it like, being a highway patrolman?”

“Lonely. Takes a special kind of man to drive down country roads in the middle of the night looking for trouble.” His beard was pierced by a quick little grin. “The crazy kind.”

Jenny turned back to the window. Marcus was inspecting the sky now, and appeared to be having trouble finding breath. “He sure looks ill to me.”

“I’ve seen it before.” Jim Bell’s voice held the quiet matter-of-factness of one who had seen almost everything. “Any random act of kindness is like a bullet to the chest.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it makes him want to feel. And all he’s got inside is more hurt than he can handle.” He turned to her then, placid gray eyes blank as a steel wall. “The judge is right to worry. I’ve had men under my command get hit hard like that. Most spend the rest of their lives looking for the right place to crash and burn.”

She turned from all he kept hidden inside that gaze, and watched Marcus struggle to fit a box under each arm. “I wonder if he’ll make it.”

“I reckon we’ll find out soon enough.” He walked away from the window, clearly having seen enough. “Shame the judge will be the one who has to shoot him down.”

The magistrate’s chambers were a smaller version of the judge’s but without the security. A case in federal district court first had to appear before a federal magistrate. This lower-level judge had the power to dismiss the case, rule on all nondispositive measures, even try it under certain provisions. Located on the third floor, these offices were as close as most federal cases ever came to a courtroom. For the few that measured up, the magistrate was then responsible for arranging the preparation of motions and setting the trial date.

Marcus arrived burdened by a bulky gym bag and two square boxes normally used for holding legal files. Suzie Rikkers turned and watched his entry. Logan Kendall did not. He was busy making time with the magistrate, talking about the Carolina Panthers’ recent loss. Though he had the body of a little Napoleon, Logan possessed the profile of a tight end-bony, determined, and fierce. Only a frustrated ballcarrier could put that much enthusiasm into something so nonessential.

“Hello, Marcus.” Magistrate Judge Bill Willoughby was a portly man with the distant, austere bearing of a priest. He offered his hand without rising. “How are you?”

“Fine, sir.”

“Take a seat there, please. Of course you know Ms. Rikkers and Logan here.”

“I read somewhere the Panthers’ former linebacker got himself arrested again.” Logan pointedly ignored the man now seated to his left. “Must still be trying to find himself, or whatever it was that made him run away in the first place. Crazy, if you ask me. They ought to make him do a little hard time.”

Suzie Rikkers’ suit was of standard legal-issue blue and not well-cut. It gaped about her hyper-thin frame. The flimsy hand-tied bow at Suzie’s neck looked clownish, as if she had knotted it in a desperate attempt to keep her shoulders from slipping through the neck of her blouse. Logan was as dapper as ever. “Hello, Suzie. Logan.”

Suzie said nothing. Logan made do with, “Marcus,” but did not turn from his jovial monologue. “Problem with guys like that, they don’t know how tough it is in the real world. Give him a season as a plumber’s assistant, take away the Rolls and the women, you’d see how hard he’d start pushing for the goal line.”