The Second Chair

Planted in her seat, Wu was surprised when Brandt thanked the judge and sat down. He'd said what he'd come here to say, short and sweet.

Judge Johnson nodded and turned. "Ms. Wu?"

Wu tried to swallow but her mouth had gone dry. She knew that Brandt liked to keep his opponents off-balance and that one way to do this was to mess with their timing. But he'd still surprised her, catching her in mid-thought with such a bare-bones statement. Detained. End of story.

"Ms. Wu," Johnson repeated. "Would you care to make a reply?"

She got to her feet. "I'm sorry, your honor. I was just…" She stopped herself, willed her mind clear and started again. "Your honor, before we go any further, I'd like to request that the handcuffs be removed from my client's wrists."

"Request denied. I don't believe this hearing will take enough time to make the exercise worthwhile. Detention has been requested by petitioner." Johnson pulled his glasses down to the end of his nose and peered over them. "This is a double murder we're talking about. We detain on murder cases."

"Yes, your honor, I understand that," Wu said, "but Mr. Bartlett can by no stretch be considered a danger to the community…"

Over at his table, Brandt cracked, "As long as we don't give him back his gun."

Johnson whirled on him. "That's enough of that, Mr. Brandt."

"I'm sorry, your honor," Brandt said. "I was driven to it."

Johnson frowned. "Be that as it may, see that it doesn't happen again."

"Yes, your honor."

But, no doubt as he'd intended, Brandt's interruption had blindsided Wu. Again, she'd lost her focus, and stood waiting for the judge to say something.

"Go on, Ms. Wu," Johnson said.

She threw a fast look over at Brandt, who let his mouth twitch, a pastiche of a smile. Wu glanced at her client, then back to Johnson, and finally found the thread. "Your honor, the fact remains that Andrew is a minor, not an adult. A minor with no previous record."

"Your honor, if I may." Brandt, up again. "I spoke to Mr. Boscacci on this very point not an hour ago, and he informs me, as I've already indicated to the court, that he did not direct file as an adult based on the anticipation of a quick admission."

"Your honor," Wu said, "my client has no criminal history…"

"He does now," Brandt said.

Johnson stared hard at the prosecutor, a warning. Coming back to Wu, he pushed his glasses back to the bridge of his nose. "Ms. Wu, this hearing is concerned only with the continued detention of Mr. Bartlett, and I'm not hearing any argument from you on why I should overrule the petitioner's suggestion."

"Your honor." Wu took a breath. "My client has been living a normal life for two months since these murders took place. He has known he's a suspect for most of that time and has caused no civil disturbance of any kind, nor has he tried to flee."

"True," Johnson said, "but surely you are not arguing that knowing you're a possible suspect and actually being an arrested suspect are the same thing, are you?"

"No, your honor, but his parents are here in the courtroom today, waiting to take him home. There is no reason they shouldn't be able to do that. Surely there is no risk of flight. He has another two months in this school year, and he's an excellent student. Surely he poses no worse danger to the community than he has for the past two months while he's gone to school and lived at home."

Johnson showed nothing. Wu supposed he'd heard the same argument a thousand times. He straightened at the bench, turned to the prosecutor. "Counselor."

Brandt stood up slowly, turned to look past Wu squarely at Andrew Bartlett, then shook his head. Suddenly he pointed a finger at Andrew. His voice took on an edge. "That's not somebody's good little boy sitting over there. That's a man who's killed two people already this year, and the district attorney is not going to give him a chance to hurt anyone else."

Andrew started to come to his feet. "But I didn't," he cried out.

"Yes, you did," Brandt shot back. "You damn well did."

The judge cracked down his gavel. "Ms. Wu, no more of that from your client. Mr. Brandt, I'm warning you for the last time. No more outbursts, do you hear me? You address your remarks to the bench."

"Yes, your honor. I'm sorry."

"You've been sorry before, too. Don't let it happen again." Johnson made a notation in front of him and came back, fixing Wu with an impatient and angry glare, as if she'd been the one abusing the court's protocol. "Minor is ordered detained," Johnson said. "Bailiffs, take him back to the cabins."

And with that, Johnson tapped his gavel, stood and made his exit out the back door to the courtroom.

So abrupt was the decision and Johnson's disappearance that for a minute a dead calm settled over the courtroom. Wu's hand went to her stomach, where she felt a deep and sudden hollowness. Behind her, she heard Linda saying, "That's it? That can't be it. They're not letting him out?" Then, as Bailiff Nelson approached the table: "Wait a minute. Andrew!"

The boy whirled around in his seat to face his mother.

Wu held out a hand to the bailiff. "Please! Give us one minute, all right?"

In the gallery, Linda North had left her seat and was coming forward. She was nearly to the bullpen's railing and then suddenly Andrew, too, was on his feet. Nelson, though, had reached him. He growled "Uh, uh" and put a restraining hand on his shoulder with enough force to topple the chair and send him sprawling. With his handcuffs on, Andrew couldn't reach out to break his fall. His head hit the linoleum floor and for an instant he lay stu

"What are you doing?" Linda was now at the guardrail, and she screamed. "Leave him alone!"

"Linda!" Hal North, too, was out of his seat, coming up behind his wife.

The other bailiff, the young-looking one who'd been talking with the court reporter before the judge appeared, came from nowhere and insinuated himself in the space between Wu and Linda, blocking the mother's access to her son. "Take it easy," he said, holding up both his hands. "Easy. That's enough! Enough!" Then he turned to Nelson. "You, too, Ray. I'll take him."

"I got him," Nelson said with some heat.

"Go easy, then," the second bailiff retorted.

"It's okay, Mom! I'm okay." Andrew, from the floor. "I got caught off-balance, that's all. I'm fine."

On either side of him, the bailiffs seemed to have worked out their turf differences, and now raised Andrew to his feet.

"Let him go," Wu said. "You don't have to manhandle him."

The second bailiff turned and looked at her. Up close, she saw that the face, youthful and i

But Wu checked him. "That's already happened. I want that bump on his head looked at right away. I'll be along to see him in a few minutes, and I want him to have seen somebody by then. Is that clear?" Wu included them both in her sights. "And while we're at it, Officer," she said to the second bailiff, "what's your name?"

"Cottrell," he said. "Ray Cottrell."

She wrote it down on her legal pad, looked up again at both of them with a question. "You just called him…" She motioned to Nelson. "You just called him Ray."

"That's what his mother called him, too. What about it?"

Nothing, Wu realized, and said, "I'm holding you both responsible." Her threat didn't much instill the fear of God in either of them. The two men, unmoved, shared a glance. But then it was Nelson who touched Andrew's shoulder and said, "Let's go. Easy."