I'm as disappointed as the next person that we don't get the introductions of Staudt and Hooper, but hey ho, sometimes that's life.
OOC: Me too. I'm so disappointed.
Really disappointed.OUT OF OBSCURITY: O.T. LOST SCENES 1Mildred Hooper set the small red watering can down beside the sink, a reminder to herself to refill it later. She would have done so now, except that she still had her nighttime toilette to see to, and she didn't much care for running a lot of water all around the home in a short span of time. For a similar reason she switched the kitchen light off even though she would be back down shortly. She turned the hall light on and proceeded up the thickly carpeted steps, passing photographs and newspaper clippings framed on the wall. In the water closet, a peach-tiled room that had felt quite a bit larger before she'd had the shower replaced with an honest bathtub, she washed her face, brushed her teeth (rinsing out the taste of toothpaste afterward, since she'd still have a mug before bed, but warm milk was good for the teeth, as anyone could tell you), clipped a too-eager strand of hair over her left ear, and took the evening ration. On the way back downstairs she stopped into the master bedroom just long enough to check in the nightstand drawer.
While the kettle heated, she occupied herself by mixing two scoops of the new seed in with the old bag. Her preferred brand had been out of stock at the store and it was careless to switch over diets completely with no gradation, as anyone could tell you. She took a mug of steaming milk into the living room, turning off the kitchen light behind her, and settled onto the couch next to the end table where Wiley and Harold were asleep in their cage. A vase of silver daisies sat on the coffee table where she set the mug before switching the television on.
Some ten minutes later the telephone rang.
She slid to the other end of the couch, nearest the fireplace, to pick up the receiver. She hadn't said hello when the caller started talking a blue streak. "Good evening, ma'am! I'm really sorry to bother you so late at night, ma'am, but we have an urgent question about your order for two hundred boxes of Girl Scout cookies. Ma'am, did you request the S'mores or the Samoas—?"
"I haven't ordered any Girl Scout cookies," Hooper said bluntly. She didn't want to be unkind to a girl who sounded no older than ten, but she also saw a benefit to heading this conversation off early.
"—because it's just that our receptionist is from Brooklyn, ma'am, and—"
"I'm afraid you're mistaken," Hooper loudly declared into the telephone, "or, young missie, this is a prank call. Either way, good night to you."
With this she made to put the handset down, but heard the girl yelp: "Sorry! I'm sorry, ma'am. It's not a prank call." When Hooper did not immediately hang up, but instead lifted the receiver back to her ear, the girl said: "I just wanted to talk to you for a little bit, I guess. Is that okay?"
"How did you get this number?"
"Yeah, just for a few minutes," continued the little girl's voice. "You might need to turn the television down a little, ma'am, I can hear it loud and clear from this end. I'm sorry if you were following along, but maybe I could summarize for you? I remember this episode, if TV Guide's got the listing right. Raymond Burr's character finds out he has kidney cancer and then Barbara Hale runs away to join the sideshow again. The prosthetic second head they made her wear as a child doesn't fit around her shoulders anymore, ma'am, so now it's just a sort of vestigial growth, ma'am, on her right thigh…"
Hooper leaned forward in her seat, her pale eyebrows creased. "Just who in heck are you?"
"Your friend! Your cute little friend, ma'am!" A giggle from the other end. "The voice isn't bad, huh? State-of-the-art audio work over here. Really special stuff. Back in the eighties, if I wanted to blackmail you, I'd have to
filter my voice like this woob wurb werg." On these words the voice changed abruptly into a garbled Satanic bass; then back again. "But now there are all kinds of options. This thing even does accents! Listen! 'Arr, matey! Top of the mornin' to ya! …Blimey!'"
On these words the caller hadn't adjusted their voice filter at all.
Hooper picked up the telephone, carried it across the room (the wire coming perilously close to knocking over the vase of daisies), and switched off the television. Without the white glow from the screen, the living room was now lit only by a floor lamp in the corner. Hooper, who could flatter herself to have quickly caught on to this person's way of yammering, repeated the only two words in the foregoing gobbledygook that mattered.
"Blackmail me."
"Oh… Did I say that?" asked the voice. "Sorry, Mildred, I didn't mean
you you. That one was for your esteemed colleague. Now, is he a Barry or a Barty? I haven't asked."
Hooper's eyes widened; however, still standing in front of the darkened television, she said carefully, "I'm quite certain whatever business you've got with Justice Staudt is between you and him, sure as rain."
"Well, you can throw out the almanac, because here we are. Wanna chat?"
Hooper was quiet for a moment.
Then she crossed back to the couch, tugging the telephone wire to clear the top of the daisies, and sat in her original position by the birdcage. She cleared her throat. "If this has anything to do with the trial, then you'll want to be advised that anonymous phone calls made to judge's house numbers are not considered admissible evidence."
"Ah. Then we're doing okay, since the last time you're going to hear me say 'Larry Odio' is this sentence. No, I was hoping to talk about Barty in a… broader framework. Did you ever wonder about him, Mildred?" By the way the stranger intoned this question, they were plainly going to lengths to make it sound as conspicuously faux-innocent as possible. The stolen voice helped.
"Less than you have, I'd guess," she replied. "What's to wonder? Justice Staudt and I have been close working companions for nearly thirty years."
"Sure, sure. No, absolutely. So – you wouldn't happen to know how he got his power, then?"
Hooper said nothing, but took a sip of the milk, which was cooling fast. The floor lamp hummed.
"Now, you, Mildred, you made it easy. 'Power stemming from a genetic mutation, manifesting at thirty-one years, five months, two weeks.'" There the caller's voice went oddly dead and flat, as if to call unnecessary attention to a fact Hooper already knew full well, that this was a recitation from a document. "On all the books. You went at it with total transparency. Blood samples, tissue samples, hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they've got one of your stools in a freezer somewhere. And you know what, good for you! Listen – I think that's admirable! But don't you call it a little weird that your buddy Barry's been so cagey about answering the same question? Where's
his doodie jar, is what I'd like to know."
Unable to help herself, and resigned to the only available terms in which Hooper could contextualize this stranger, she snapped, "I'll thank you to drop the vulgarity,
young missie."
"Sorry, Gam-Gam," said the stranger at once.
She pulled the celadon bathrobe more tightly around herself as a draft rattled the living room windows. "As to your question… Justice Staudt and I stand in respectful disagreement here. I believe in perfect transparency, as you say, while he maintains that Powers have a right to privacy in this regard, insofar as they pose no threat to society." Hooper sighed. "We've come to loggerheads over it in the past, but I've decided to honor his stance. That is the least I owe him as a friend and fellow citizen. Is that all? I'm tickled pink to have had a chance to help."
But the caller would not be deterred, showing, once again, a rare knack for carrying on a conversation through deaf ears. "Calling up electricity out of his hands… It's freshman year stuff for an elemental mage, I guess, but that's still something few people ever get the chance to study and fewer still actually manage to pick up. Do you think he's a mage, Mildred? Or, sorry, a 'wizard'? That's what they called them when you were my age, huh?"
"I'm perfectly sure it's no concern of mine. Good night to you. Bedbugs and all that!"
"Wait!" She had been ready again to drop the handset, but hesitated. "Sorry, Mildred. God, it's hard to drip with sarcasm in this voice, I just sound precious. I was messing with you. Happens I already know how Barty got his power. We've known for a long time, actually."
Then she had been right to give the caller one more chance.
"Is that so?" she asked quietly. "And just who are 'we'?"
The stranger tutted. "Now, ma'am, if I were at liberty to discuss my employers, I wouldn't be giving you my bestest Widdle Orphan Annie right now. But I can tell you they're no longer satisfied with the arrangement we've had with Barry. He's not exactly holding up his end. Started making some mouth sounds about going to the police, too. Anyways, suffice it to say, looks like we can't trust him anymore to play doll."
There was a pause.
"You get it? Because, instead of 'ball', 'doll', because I'm a little girl, and gender roles, and—"
"Well!" exclaimed Mildred. She had risen again and was pacing from end table to end table. "All this sounds like a real pickle for you. And your solution is… to give me a ring? Presuming that
I won't immediately go to the police?"
"What, rat us out? A woman of integrity like you?" The caller laughed again; this one, though, came out as no giggle even through the little girl filter, but as something rather ugly. "Listen: Barty's trash. That's all there is to it. This is just some housecleaning we've been putting off for a while. He was never going to get the happy ending he wanted. He's screwed things up too badly for himself, and lied to too many people, to hope for that. But you, Mildred, you're rock-solid. Dotted all your 'p's and 'q's, or whatever old people say. We don't like you, but, frankly, it's not worth the trouble to us to try to bring you down. Why not enjoy one last victory in your golden years? Then you can drink a toast with Raymond and Barb in heaven."
Hooper's lips pulled back in a dry, incredulous non-smile. "But not before you place a call about me to Justice Staudt's successor?"
The stranger faltered, but only for a moment. "Hey, you're suspicious. That's only fair. But what I'm proposing to you is not what we had with Barry. That was a long-term arrangement, and he knew full well there was gonna be some upkeep on his end. For you, Mildred, it's a different deal. A one-and-done. Afterward, no one will ever know we talked. All you need is to do one easy-peasy job for us. And what I'm offering you in return is… this phone call."
Hooper gave a small harrumph. Nevertheless, she had stopped pacing.
She gazed out through the translucent curtains at the sparsely lit street, thinking about how Staudt had left her with egg on her face by rejecting her opinion and entertaining the Summoner girl's ridiculous digression about Jacob Marshall. That line of inquiry had gone nowhere and accomplished nothing except, she was sure, to make this trial look like an even sorrier stunt in the eyes of her colleagues. How much longer was she going to let him disgrace her by attaching their names to such flimflam? And how much longer, at that, did they have, when the Butterfly could be anywhere by now, and his crony Sharpe had proven so adept at stalling for time by leading Staudt around by the nose?
A presiding judge had to keep one ear open for his advising judge or else fill them both up with bunk, as anyone could tell you. Otherwise, there might just as well not be two judges at all.
"Look," the stranger continued, "I know you can't trust me. This is tricky for both of us. I'm way better with the face-to-face pitch, believe me. But I'll tell you something else I know. I've judged your character. I'm pretty good at that. And if you didn't think it was
possible that what I've got to share with you is worth the risk, you'd have hung up ten minutes ago."
Hooper sat down for a final time, set the handset aside, and drank the stone-cold milk that remained in the mug. She picked the handset back up. "Why don't you keep talking, then," she said, "and whatever happens, happens."
"Uh-uh-uh. I told you the offer. If I keep talking, then we've already got a deal."
She nodded slowly, a gesture, of course, serving as affirmation only to herself.
"I'm well aware of that, dear."
"Oh! We're in business, then! I'm so glad to hear it, ma'am." The voice had brightened considerably; on the other side, she could hear the creak of a chair and a faint shuffling of paper. "Because you have been a very good Girl Scout."
* * *
The minivan stopped a couple of extra blocks up Rotheca Ave, beneath a neon-orange streetlight, and Commissioner Williams stepped out. Not to his surprise, a police car was already parked there. That left only the third car, which he'd beaten here by only a scant half a minute; a champagne-colored sedan pulled up behind the police car, at which time Officers Gould and O'Reilly exited onto the street. With brief salutes to Williams, they waited for the driver of the sedan to emerge as well. This was Justice Hooper, dressed in a dark green coat that nearly reached her ankles, who carefully shimmied out of her cramped driver's seat only to rummage around in the back for a checkered plastic bag. As Williams crossed the street to join them, he eyed the front windows of the houses on both sides, but it didn't look as though anyone in the neighborhood had taken an interest in their impromptu meeting.
"Perry! Hello, hello!" Hooper exclaimed when he drew close. "Oh, there's no need, thank you," she said to O'Reilly, who was offering to take the bag. She beamed around at all three of them. "Shall we?"
"You know the way," Williams said, somewhat unnecessarily – the GPS had informed him which house exactly was Justice Staudt's – but he felt it was only right that Hooper should lead. The four began to stroll up the street, the old woman more briskly than any of them.
"What a lovely evening," she declared, looking up to the night sky, which, for all that Williams could see, was exactly as cloudy as any other this time of year. He guessed that this was nothing more than a stall tactic before she continued: "I want to tell you all how grateful I am for meeting me on such short notice. Perry, I'm so very sorry to tear you away from the girls. And you, officers; I know everyone at the station is positively snowed under right now, even on this shift. Thank you for running around to indulge me." She looked to her left. "Good evening, Rachel. Is Porter settling in well?"
"Oh, he's doing great, ma'am," said Gould. "He's pretty much staked out every comfy surface in the house."
"Please bring him around again sometime," said Hooper with a smile. "He's a dear animal. And you, Miles. It's very good to see you, too. How's your mother?"
From her right side, O'Reilly answered, "Hanging in there, ma'am."
Hooper shook her head. "One of the girls in my book club is suffering, too. It's a heartless thing. She'll be in my prayers, Miles. Oh – wouldn't you know it, here we go."
They stood on the sidewalk outside a stately house of brick and wood, with a capacious front porch and a chimney looking more like a turret. The bushes were distinctly overgrown and vines were creeping up the stairs, but nevertheless, the home was very much in use, to judge from the lights glowing through the windows – nearly all of them, come to that.
"I guess he's not asleep yet. That's good," said Hooper, moving toward the porch.
"Not asleep yet?" it occurred to Williams to ask, as if on autopilot. Then he understood the meaning of his own question, and jogged up to stand between Hooper and the porch. "Hold on. You didn't
tell him we were coming?"
She smiled at him blankly. "Now why ever would I do that? The entire point of this meeting is that I'd like to ask Barty a few off-the-cuff questions. It'd be silly to let him know beforehand. That would give him an awful lot of time to prepare his cuffs!"
With that, Hooper made to mount the porch stairs, but Williams sidestepped to block her as cordially but decisively as he could. "All due respect, ma'am, when I want to catch someone by surprise, a phone call usually works."
"I have a point or two that would be impossible to discuss productively over the telephone," came her immediate reply. "I'm sorry, Perry, and I want to apologize again to all three of you, in fact—" (she directed this to Gould and O'Reilly, who were lingering behind them on the gravel walkway) "—but the conversation might be sensitive, and in the worst case…" She gave a sweeping gesture that distinctly looked to have begun from the hip. "I was afraid of being there with no defenses."
Williams caught Gould's and O'Reilly's eyes, sure they had noticed the same thing, and gave Hooper an incredulous look. "Ma'am, do you really anticipate a need for that?"
"Not urgently. But better safe than sorry, Commissioner, I'm sure you'll agree. I don't intend to provoke him, but there remains an outside chance he may do something unexpected. And, given his power against mine, I think you can all imagine how a dust-up between us would go!" She cocked her head and put on a weary Vaudeville grin. "Why, you'd find my socks up on the telephone wire and me in the next county!" This was enough to elicit a mild laugh from Gould, and even a smile from O'Reilly, but not enough to soften Williams's glare. He pointed at the other two.
"Be that as it may, you look to me to draw. And not a second before."
Hooper nodded. "Yes, of course. Perry's quite right. I wouldn't dream of suggesting otherwise. Stringent discipline!
That's your greatest contribution to the post, Perry. Poor Emerson was just a little patchier in that regard, if nobody minds my speaking ill of the damned." She put a black-gloved hand on her heart. "Anyhow, who could live with themselves after harming a hair on Bartholomew's head? So: keep the holsters heavy, please! And let's every one of us have a safe night, my colleague included." Then she marched up the steps, took hold of the bronze knocker, and rapped it against the door three times.
There was no response for a moment, during which time Williams spotted a rustling of the blinds in the nearest window (and suspected Hooper failed to notice the same, because she was staring straight at the door with the same fixed, polite smile), but in the end, the door cracked open: Justice Staudt appeared, or some of him in any case, tall and spindly, dressed in a bathrobe and striped pajama pants.
"Mildred! Perry… officers…" Staudt trailed off as he looked around at the assembled party on the porch, blinking. Then he forced a chuckle. "If I'm under arrest, I'd like to see a warrant!"
"Good evening, Bartholomew!" Hooper said brightly. "And, don't be silly, please. How are you?"
"This isn't an arrest, Staudt," Williams added behind her shoulder, speaking as much to one judge as to the other.
Staudt frowned, and failed to open the door any wider. "Pretty late to be stopping by. Unannounced."
Hooper half-turned to shoot Williams an expectant look, but he met her gaze without saying anything. As far as he was concerned, they could talk everything over right out here on the porch. There was a nice pinewood bench where everyone but him could squeeze in, and everything. She turned back, the smile restored. "Well, I took it in mind to shoot the breeze with you and Perry about how the trial's coming along. And you know me. I'm hopeless over the telephone. I thought we could all have ourselves a chat in person."
"All five of us?"
O'Reilly and Gould shifted uncomfortably. Hooper, though, would not be put off track. "With apologies to the commissioner, I didn't make it past seventy by skimping on protection when I go out after dark! We all love our city, Barty, but Winstone could always be safer." She looked behind them, back out onto the neighborhood street. "Yes, there's always more we could do to make it safer…"
Staudt followed her gaze and peered out into the darkness, too. One could be forgiven for a guess that they were both searching around in the hope of catching some imaginary criminal about to peel off from the shadows and dash up the lawn with a switchblade, but Williams had an idea Staudt was more likely trying to figure out where they had parked. The street on this block was empty; the driveways were generous in this part of town. Their three cars were well out of sight.
"Well, you'd better come in then," he said at last, pulling the door open wide and standing aside.
"Thank you, Bartholomew!" She bustled into the front hall, with the other three following behind. "Do we remove our shoes, or—?"
"Don't worry about it. Uh…" Staudt lingered at the landing of the polished wooden staircase until O'Reilly had stepped inside and closed the door, then mumbled "Let me go put something on" and hurried upstairs. Hooper doffed her gloves and hung her longcoat on the rack, revealing a white frilled blouse that looked to Williams as though it had seen most of the past century, then moved surefootedly into the living room, where she made herself comfortable at once in a high-backed armchair. While the other two officers hung back in the hallway, the commissioner followed her, looking around at the rich blue walls with white trim, the carpet with ornate coiling design elements common to native crafters, and the thin-spired chandelier on a hook. A Victrola in a mahogany stand occupied one corner. Williams took a spot on his feet by the brick fireplace.
"Do you know," said Hooper, "he's had this place for ten years, and I've known him more than three times that – and he's never invited me over?"
"That so?" Williams replied idly. He was examining the wall hangings, which told a curious story about Staudt's interests. One wall seemed to be a little shrine to classical cultures, with a glossy photograph framing three pyramids against a setting sun, a print of Egyptian art centered on a reed-limbed man in a chariot, and a contemporary piece in a vaguely art-nouveau style depicting a goddess with a bow and arrow in her hands and the moon over her shoulder. A second wall hosted two line drawings that could've been torn out of a Victorian zoological encyclopedia: a diagram of the body of a fox-like creature with a striped back and hindquarters, and another depicting the skeleton of some kind of frog or toad. Directly over the fireplace, however, hung the most personal items: an angular, Byzantine-looking crucifix and several pictures of Staudt with a woman Williams had met once or twice.
"Now, he and Rebekah
used to have me around to their little place in the south side. But after a while, it seemed all our get-togethers with friends were happening at my house, or in town. I'm not sure Rebekah liked having me over that much, if you want the honest truth." The old woman finished this in a thoughtful tone, then brightened again. "Oh, well! I've still sent her a card every Christmas. I don't believe in burned bridges," she told Williams. "There's nothing to do with a burned bridge but rebuild it, as anyone can tell you."
As she pulled a bottle of white wine from the plastic bag and set it on the coffee table before her, she mused: "Maybe it was only because I called her 'Becky'. I don't think anyone else did. But 'Barty and Becky', how could I refuse… Oh, now I don't like this." She was glowering down at a lemon-colored decorative bowl also sitting on the coffee table. "This bright yellow doesn't go with the blue at all. Are we in a department store?"
Williams, who was tireless with a roller but had no eye for color, didn’t bother to respond. All palette management in their household went by default to Monica, a video editor at WWST.
"No, that's really no good," said Hooper, but she broke off at the sound of Justice Staudt clattering back down the stairs. He reappeared in a collared shirt and sweater, stiff corduroy slacks, and dress shoes. Various bits and ends of the outfit were slightly askew. Gould and O'Reilly stepped back to allow him entry to the living room, where he stood awkwardly just inside the doorway.
"How can I help you all?"
Hooper gestured to the bottle in front of her. "Would you say yes to a nightcap? I don't drink, myself, but I figured it was only neighborly to bring a gift. Help yourself, Barty! And anyone else!"
"Oh, uh, I'm fine right now…" he said. Looking to Williams, he added, "Are you…?"
The commissioner shook his head. "I've had my beer for the evening."
Also, I haven't found a white wine yet that doesn't taste like cat piss, he privately added.
Staudt turned to the other two, both of whom declined. "Well, I'll crack it open tomorrow, then," he announced. "Thank you very much, Mildred."
She nodded, then indicated the sofa next to the doorway. "Please, sit down." Staudt looked to Williams for an uncertain moment, but Williams simply shrugged, leaning an elbow on the mantel and interlocking his fingers. Seeming to relent, Staudt took a seat and picked up the bottle, turning it over in his gaunt hands to examine the label. Hooper went on: "It really is such a lovely home."
"It's a nice place," Williams agreed curtly.
"You're very kind," said Staudt, not looking up.
Hooper sat beaming at him for another moment, then spoke again. "Well, now… day one of the trial is past us! How do you feel it's going, Barty?"
At this he sighed, set the bottle down, and made eye contact. "I'm not going to pretend I didn't find it a little frustrating. That Jacob Marshall really gummed the case up. And that's without even showing his face in court. It's a lucky break we managed to get ahold of him afterward…"
Hooper let out something between an unwitting cough and a purposeful huff.
"Color me surprised! To hear you complaining about Marshall now – you were quite willing to shrug off my objections and hear Silna out, you know!"
"But that's just it, Mildred," the other judge protested, straightening up in his seat. "I wish the cowboy hadn't turned up again precisely because I
can't rule out the possibility of his involvement. Not with anything like the certainty you seem to have, anyway. Are you going to begrudge my trying to be as careful as I possibly can?" he asked the room at large. "A boy's livelihood is on the line, here."
From the fireplace, Williams tsked. "A boy who's about as grateful for the benefit of your doubt as the scorpion was for getting a ride across the river, I'll promise you that."
"What does it matter? Sure, he's a stuck-up ingrate – I guess that makes him guilty?" Staudt insisted. "Am I the only one here who cares for the
truth about Antonio Sharpe?"
"Of course not, Barty. We all do." Hooper leaned back, resting her bony elbows on the high armrests, and steepled her fingers. She gave Staudt an appraising look. "It's just that I'd have also thought you'd care about how this trial would look on the international stage. If the Jacob Marshall inquiry turns out to be a red herring that drags out the proceedings for no reason, that's quite a black eye to your all-Power court. And on the first go-round!"
Staudt's face fell into a grimace. He gazed off toward the Victrola. After a beat of silence he muttered, "The principle is sound."
"I'm sorry?"
"History will vindicate me," he said loudly, and from there the words came on very quickly, as if committed to memory. "Power representation in court has been abysmal. Do you know, there was a Gallup poll just two years ago showing American Powers are less likely to divulge their status in a judicial proceeding than members of the Communist Party USA? If a trial with nothing but Powers can work, then a trial with
any number of Powers can work. It's about showing the next generation that there's nothing for them to be ashamed of."
"That's very admirable. I'm really very proud of you, Barty. You've emerged as a beacon of hope for Powers across this nation." Hooper let out a contented sigh. "Of course, it's awfully rare to be emerging in one's golden years like that, but better late than never, as anyone can tell you."
Staudt, who didn't give the appearance of having bought Hooper's pro-Power sentiments any more than Williams himself had, replied with a cautious "I suppose that's true."
Hooper went on, nodding. Her grin was wider than ever. "An inspiring figure… an impressive figure. There was something so very galvanizing about seeing you on that stage. Won't you show off your power for us, Barty?"
He stared at her.
"You've seen it plenty of times, Mil," he said.
"Right you are. And Perry's seen it, too?" Hooper turned to Williams, who nodded. "Yes, but I don't think Rachel and Miles have had the pleasure."
"Well, that's a shame, but you know, this is my house, not a music hall. I'd be happy to demonstrate for them another time."
Hooper went on as if she hadn't heard him. "I really do think that the way forward for Powers is to make tiny little connections with normal people as often as possible. Take every opportunity to show that they wouldn't hurt a fly. Everyone'll need to put in their fair share of effort, but
that will be the endeavor that chips away at the wall between Powers and the rest of us, brick by brick. Don't you agree? The smaller the group, the closer the connection. And the more intimate the setting…" She waved around at the living room before continuing. "Miles and Rachel have had some bad experiences with Powers in the past. Especially with that Marshall fellow. I'm sure they'd be happiest to leave here having seen what you can do, and knowing they can trust you." And with this, she pushed her spectacles up on her nose, adjusted her position, and settled still further into the cushion, sending an unequivocal message about just when the officers would be leaving here.
Staudt was squirming now. He shot the commissioner an entreating look, but Williams, who had just started to get the germ of an idea about why Hooper had asked him here tonight, said nothing. He only pushed away from the fireplace and stood slightly farther into the center of the room, his arms folded. From the hall, Gould and O'Reilly had pressed closer into the doorway, as close as subtlety allowed. Their open-faced expressions made it plain they were as interested in getting a look as Hooper was.
So Bartholomew Staudt clicked his tongue, said "I guess it couldn't hurt," and stood up.
He shut his eyes for a moment, opening and closing his hands, and taking regular breaths in and out. By and by, his wispy hair seemed to quiver and lift, though no more than a barely-perceptible centimeter off his scalp. He gave a sudden shudder, and sparks bounced from his hands. A crackling hum filled the air. Then two tiny, zigzagging rays of faintly violet-tinged electricity sprang from his palms and, almost faster than the eye could follow, joined into an arc between both hands. Wincing, his eyes still shut, Staudt brought his arms high and low, close and away, as the lightning flickered and forked a hundred times a second. Then he brought his palms together again, and the hum broke off.
But the room was silent only very briefly before Hooper started in with lively applause. The officers in the hall joined as well, though Williams only clapped his broad hands together a few times, watching the old man carefully. Staudt had sunk back onto the sofa with a red face which Williams could guess owed to something more than exertion.
"Wonderful! Oh, just peachy!" Hooper exclaimed, still clapping. She looked to Gould and O'Reilly. "You see what a rousing profile he makes? An image to stir the hearts and minds of our grandchildren! Yes, a Power really can make it to the loftiest office, if he only digs in his heels and puts every effort into winning the trust of a nation!" She relaxed back into her prior position, her hands now clasped neatly in her lap. "Now, could I see your scapular, please?"
Staudt blinked and swallowed. Williams frowned. For the first time, he noticed a thin black cord around the base of Staudt's neck, which was mostly obscured by his dishevelled collar. And then all of a sudden it seemed to Williams that he understood. He tensed instantly in place, waiting for the next move.
Staudt searched for words.
"Mildred," he said after a second. "You know me. I'm a religious man. I only take it off when I'm in the shower. I wear it to bed, even. Lord knows, I need protection in my sleep, at this age…"
"I don't doubt God as you know Him would frown on negligence, Bartholomew. But God as I know Him smiles on any action taken with a righteous purpose."
"I – this—" His hand went to his bosom. He looked again to Williams for help, with desperate eyes. "This is an irregular request about a highly private matter. I see no reason to—"
But Williams wasn't about to offer him a way out. The judge's refusal had all but confirmed his suspicion. He stepped forward heavily, looming beneath the chandelier, and offered an open palm.
"Let's have that scapular," he said.
Staudt seemed to shrink beneath his gaze. With hesitant glances at the wary officers in the hall and Hooper's nearly predacious smile, he tugged aside the collar of his shirt, lifted the object on the cord over his head, and held it out to the commissioner.
It wasn't a scapular. That much Williams could easily say even though he'd never held a scapular in his life; those were the province of some distinctly Old World branches of Christianity. The old guard of his own church back in South Carolina would've scoffed at such adornments. Still, he knew that a scapular should consist of two cloth squares, probably with pictures of Jesus stitched on them. A scapular did not consist of a small faded metal disc, with an engraving on the obverse that resembled the letter "n" rendered in an over-elaborate style with a curlicued tail, and an inscription in an unknown alphabet running around the perimeter of the other face.
Frowning, he handed it off to Hooper, who held it aloft and spun the disc slowly with a flick of her finger. "I see," she murmured. "Yes, a New Year's Eve baby, aren't you, I could never forget your birthday is on the 31st."
She clasped the amulet between her hands and rested them again on her lap. "Well, then," she said gently to Staudt, whose face was now very flushed. "You wouldn't mind giving us one little encore of your power."
At once he blustered: "It's – I can't just – you can't expect – exhausting – my age – takes time before I—"
"How right you are. Excuse me. Perry." Hooper turned in her seat to face Williams instead. "You're an early January, if I recall. Yes, I remember dropping by the station and happening in on a little shindig they threw for you. It must have been, oh, let me say, twenty eleven, or twenty twelve? Chocolate orange cake. Finger-licking good." She held out her hand with a smile. "Would you please put this on?"
"
No!"
Staudt had half-jumped out of his seat. Startled, Williams's hands flew forward as if to catch a full-body charge from the old man, while O'Reilly's and Gould's own hands instinctively fell to their hips – but in another instant it became obvious to everyone, including Staudt himself, that he wasn't about to try anything. He dropped back onto the sofa like a stone. Hooper, who hadn't even turned back to glance at him when he shouted, was still looking up at Williams with her hand outstretched.
Not meeting Staudt's eye, Williams took the amulet. He slipped the cord over his head; then, sensing dimly that this might be relevant, he undid the top button of his shirt and tucked the disc down until it was lying directly against his skin. Hooper observed his motions studiously through this.
"Now, Perry, we're dying with curiosity; do you feel any different?"
Williams stood for a moment in silence.
Then, "Not really," he admitted.
Before him, Hooper's face fell, while Staudt straightened up in his seat, looking relieved; in the hall, the officers exchanged a disappointed glance. Williams had just begun the act of reaching up to take the amulet back off when he paused.
There
was something different, some faint, indescribable sensation. As he held still and concentrated, the sensation came very slowly into focus, and he could begin to put words to it, although the first ones he thought of were a snatch of nonsense that could've come out of Carl Sandburg: it was as though a blanket of microscopic popcorn kernels was popping against his skin. Yes, he could feel it on every part of him exposed to the light, on his face and neck and hands – the tapping of a million million tiny motes on his flesh. It was insistent, ever more insistent by the second, yet delicate and even somehow soothing. And the feeling extended even further! Not just in the hands, where he felt the keenest attunement to this new sensation, but in the air around them as well, he could perceive the motion of a sea of particles, unthinkable in their number, all rattling around and colliding with each other at breakneck speeds. There was a pent-up energy to their turmoil that was just waiting to be released. All that Williams needed to do was impose a little order… He was good at that… It was simpler than he could have ever imagined, just to push a few particles this way, a few others that way, until—
A branch of electricity, no longer than a few inches at any of its extremes, flashed from the fingertips of his right hand, and then was gone.
The officers in the hall reared back, with a gasp from Gould and an expletive of surprise from O'Reilly. Hooper clapped her hands to her mouth, although her eyes unmistakably signalled joy rather than fear. Only Staudt remained motionless in his seat, his face saucer-eyed but set. If he had been flushed earlier, now his complexion was deadly pale.
"Well, you could knock me over with a feather!" Hooper exclaimed. "You're a natural, Commissioner, a sheer natural… I don't guess anyone's ever made it look easier! Yes, that amulet is the real McCoy, and no mistake…"
But Williams was only half-listening to her. He fell back against the wall beside the fireplace and caught himself on the mantel. A buzz was filling his ears, the popping sensation against his skin came through stronger than ever, and breath was coming to him only in harsh, stuttering bursts. From head to toe he was filled with a creeping tingle; meanwhile the disc was nearly vibrating against his breast. He watched Hooper's mouth move, but for a few seconds which felt like minutes he couldn't make out any of her words. Then the sensation started to recede, and her words took on a shape again.
"…quite a find. So, tell me, Barty: What do you have to say for yourself?"
Staudt was hunched over now, his elbows on his knees, staring down at the bottle of wine. He looked to have aged ten years in the last hour, years his face most certainly could not afford. When he spoke, it was in little more than a whisper.
"Mildred, what do you want me to say?"
She could have taken greater pains to hide the glee in her voice. "I think an apology is in order, first and foremost! An apology to me and to everyone here, if you please, for lying to us for four years, and instituting an all-Power court under false pretenses. Why not an apology to this nation itself, for the high crime of perjury—?"
"Oh, here come the crocodile tears for our poor nation," Staudt interrupted in a stronger, heated voice, though in a strictly literal sense it was his own eyes that were now looking watery. "That's what I was dreading. From the moment you strutted in, that's what I was dreading most of all. Your sanctimonious little smiles, your smug posturing in victory, those I know how to deal with. I've dealt with them just fine for three decades. But spare us the crocodile tears!"
Hooper recoiled, a hand on her heart. "Barty, you're cutting to me the quick," she stammered. "I can cope with everything else – the rest of this pain is necessary – but
that was uncalled for. How can you accuse me of insincerity, when I have never acted with anything but the best interests of Winstone and the Archipelago at heart?"
Staudt snorted derisively, and wiped his eyes.
"Ah, go on."
"This is an insult, Barty!" she exclaimed. Williams straightened up a bit; he was still laboring to breathe, but he was captured by the unprecedented sight of Justice Hooper letting her composure slip even slightly. "You know how hard I've worked to attain my position, you know how deeply I cherish this city and our legal community – why else would it be such a bruise, to find out what a mockery you've made of your office—"
"Right! Of course, of course. Mildred Hooper, the savior of Winstone!" Staudt spread his arms wide theatrically. "You can spare me that, too."
When she missed the opportunity to come back with a quick rejoinder, he pressed on. "You never even realized what a perfect hand you'd been dealt. A natural power, but such a useless one that no one could ever see you as a threat? The kind of gift tailor-made to win trust from the anti camp, even as your own kind would've welcomed you too?" He jerked his head in Williams's direction, though without taking his eyes off her. "You want to talk about 'the wall between Powers and the rest of us'… Lord, what a hypocrite. That should have been
you, Mildred, standing on top of that wall, laying down ladders on both sides! Don't you see what good you could have done?" His posture sank slightly as he scrutinized Hooper's expression. He paused a moment before continuing: "But you sold out your own people just to get in good with the bigots. I only wish I knew why."
Hooper sat still. She said quietly, "Bartholomew."
"I can't imagine it was bribery," said Staudt, shaking his head. "No, not the way you live… unless you're stuffing it all in a safe under the bed so you can die on top of more money than most people in the Archipelago will ever see. What was it, Mildred? Plain old envy?"
She dropped her gaze. His tear-daubed face lit up. He pounced.
"Oh, is that it? Jealous of the Powers running around out there, wreaking their will on the world? Bitter about the fact that next to them, you'd practically never stopped being one of us? Lord, I know that feeling. I'm not reproaching you. I wanted the same thing." He pointed a skinny finger. "But you know what the difference is between us, Mildred? I did something about it. I wanted a power and, damn it,
I got one. You took that desire and crumpled it up and threw it aside in some dark room in your heart. No wonder you had to take it out on the rest of them."
"You got one," Williams repeated abruptly. His perception had levelled out again, and his breathing returned to normal. He stepped forward. "How? Who gave you the amulet?"
Staudt looked up at him again, but this time there wasn't a trace of the fear he had shown earlier: Here was a man who had adapted very quickly to the state of having nothing left to lose. "Why don't you ask that piece of filth strolling around in court today? The one dressed up in his best Matlock."
Williams's brow furrowed. "It was Fascere?"
Staudt let out a low laugh. "It feels good to say it! Better than I expected. To think that Korean huckster would have
paid me to get that off my chest. And here I am doing it for free. Ohh…" He leaned all the way back against the sofa, letting his arms fall limply to either side. He smiled down his chin at the commissioner. "Don't miss the boat on retirement, Perry. The first year you get the notion is the year you should hand in your notice."
"Fascere gave you the amulet? In exchange for what?"
"Can't you guess? Favors," said Staudt. "A pardon here, a lighter sentence there, a good word on the file for someone already in custody over there… Not so much for their own operatives. They tend to keep their heads down. I was always surprised by who Fascere tried to protect. Sometimes they would even let me know I was holding onto one of their
enemies that they wanted to see walk…" He shrugged, bringing his hands together onto his lap. "It was all about who they were hoping to do business with," he concluded.
Williams needed a minute to process this. There were two immediate reactions jostling for prominence, but one, a mixture of disappointment and embarrassment – he had been so sure he knew why Staudt had signed Nopcsa on, enough to confidently declare him Staudt's flunky, and the mind-reader had smiled and nodded the whole time, knowing full well that Staudt was
his flunky after all – lost out to the other, a slow-stewing indignation.
"So you mean to tell me that
every one of the Powered wretches, delinquents, and reprobates you turned back out onto the streets of my city was some valued Fascere trade associate?" he demanded of Staudt. "That I've been breaking my back for four years cleaning up your messes so those snakes could grow fat and happy?"
"No, I don't mean to tell you that, you cretin," the old man snapped, starting up in his seat. "I'd be surprised if the Fascere Order meddled in one in ten of my cases. They weren't looking to manage my whole damn career. They just wanted a token where it counted." He jabbed an open hand toward the armchair.
"And you're twice the fool if you don't think they've got their hooks into
her now, too!"
All eyes flashed to Hooper, but she had evidently regained her composure in her uncharacteristically long stretch of silence. She sniffed, adjusted her spectacles, and declared: "Stuff and nonsense. I worked out the source of Barty's power perfectly well by myself, thank you."
Williams stood back and folded his arms, inviting her to continue. She needed no urging, however. "It was a comment Sharpe snuck in about the playing card left at the Felice Potabile. That put me in mind of
Tomoe vs. the City of Winstone, 1993. An out-of-town miscreant brought before the court for illegally peddling magical artifacts, including an enchanted Tarot deck that our brave men and women in blue—" (she punctuated this with a prim little nod toward Gould and O'Reilly in the hall) "—had to take great risk to repossess from Lucio Giarrettiera. Then I got that silly little harebrained idea: why couldn't a similar object explain Bartholomew's power? The statistics don't favor such late-in-life emergences, you know.
"Well, and what object could it be, granting his lightning powers? Something he'd want to keep on him at all times… except when he was around water, of course." Smiling at Staudt, Hooper upturned one finger to point at the ceiling. "Do you suppose if we went and turned your bedroom upside-down, we'd find the
real scapular you used to wear, Barty? Before Becky left you?"
When a stunned Staudt made no response, she continued. "Now, if you'd taken that thing off and kept using your power after all, I would have been quite prepared to scurry out the door with my tail between my legs. But you can understand, I'm sure, how important I felt it was to check my little hunch. After all, a regular joe running an all-Power court would be like an atheist leading the Crusades!" Hooper let out a pointed laugh after this, though she did so alone. Staudt glared at her.
"What an extraordinary 'little hunch'," he grumbled. "What timing. Williams, I'm telling you, you want a word with that cockroach on the prosecution. Not that I imagine he doesn't have a perfect cover story. Lord knows the Order's good at hiding their tracks."
As a matter of fact, Williams
didn't particularly want a word with that cockroach, not now or indeed ever for the rest of his life, but: "I'll talk to him."
"Yes, please do, Commissioner. It's important that we leave no stone unturned in verifying the Fascere Order's influence over Barty." Hooper turned to peep over the back of the armchair at Williams standing partially behind her. "But I'm afraid you got a little confused, there. Caught up in the moment, no doubt. You guessed that every Power Barty's been lenient toward in the last four years was involved with Fascere. That's ignoring the fact that his lamb-like streak goes back much longer than a few years. Plainly, the Fascere Order was only trying to profit from a pattern they already saw well underway."
Turning back to Staudt, she leaned forward, eyebrows high, grinning from ear to ear. "So how about it, Barty? Just what made you fall in love with Powers? Why – this is your chance to spread the good word! Maybe we'll all walk out of here agreeing with you! Go on!"
Staudt stared bitterly at her, rubbing his forehead.
"Love? You think it's love that drove me?" He shut his eyes and let out a puff of air. "I really don't know which of you is stupider." Then he stood up. Gould and O'Reilly moved to block the doorway, but it was immediately apparent Staudt wasn't meaning to run. He crossed slowly to the other end of the room and laid his hands on the Victrola stand.
"Sure – I guess I love the Powers who turned Salcester into a sheet of paper. I love the Power who blew Neo Tech City to smithereens, and the one who dropped an atom bomb's worth of energy on Porrthet. That's right, of course, I love the Power who used an entire string of towns as a chalkboard for his message in fire. The Power who bombed a smiley face onto Whelkshore. The Power we can thank for giving posterity the phrase 'Marmont Magician's Massacre'. And let's not forget the ones who smeared blood all over this city just last year."
He rounded on Hooper with a light in his eyes that hadn't been there before. For a moment, Williams could've believed Staudt was a Power after all, because he well and truly did look now as if he were about to throw a thunderbolt at her head. "Your people have dug their boots in our faces whenever they've pleased. And you don't think they're going to strike again? How much longer do we have before it comes to all-out warfare between humans and Powers? A decade? A year? Lord, the audacity of a South Pole Summoner showing her face right here in town – what do you think
that means? They're scouting, gearing up for another attack on our nation!" He waved a hand as though brushing the thought aside. "And that's just one sect. We've got an idea where the Summoners hide, but Powers are all over the world. How could we possibly defeat them? Yes, we have the numbers, but what good are numbers when half of them can take out a city block, and one in a dozen could raze a city whole if they felt like it?
"So when I saw that green-haired whelp's name on the forms, I signed. Of course I signed. Anything to keep them calm. Anything to keep the peace for another day. Do you know why I pretended to be one of them, you idiot woman?" he barked at Hooper, who was flat against the back of her chair. "Because when the war comes,
I know which side is going to come out on top! And you, with your high-and-mighty talk about 'the wall'… you, who could have done more than any of us to keep your people mollified for a generation, and did everything you could to provoke their rage against us instead… a Judas like you is going to be the first one up against that wall!" He shot a teeth-bared scowl at Williams. "And your attack dog won't be far back in line, unless he's already dead on the street!"
Something cracked and flared in Williams. Bellowing, he lunged toward Staudt, throwing his fists up – and in the same instant, he saw those fists blaze with a veinlike web of electric streaks – a splitting crash was heard and white-hot jagged rays flew in all directions from his hands—
He stopped short, leaning back into the balls of his feet. His hands fell to his sides. Staudt had quailed under his advance, but his look of terror slowly sagged into a weary half-smile.
"Careful now, Williams…
Careful now. You see how easy it is?"
Blood was rushing to Williams's head; sparks were bouncing in his eyes. His view of Staudt seemed to warp and contract as if looking through the wrong end of a telescope. Mouth open, but wordless, he trudged half-backward to an unadorned wooden chair sitting by the windows. As he did so, his fish-eye vision passed over Hooper, clutching the armrest and back of her chair and staring at him with trepidation; and over the officers in the hall, hastily puttering with their holsters in a way that told him unambiguously they had just had their guns drawn on him. He plummeted into the chair and leaned forward, pressing his hands to his temples. The pelting of the particles against his skin was unbearable.
Hooper rose up in her white frilled blouse like a ghost.
Her expression, too, had changed back into a smile.
"Well, Bartholomew," she announced, "I think we can safely say you've shown your true colors tonight." She turned to O'Reilly and Gould. "Officers?"
"Am I being detained?" Staudt asked dully. It was a question that the two in the hallway were plainly wondering as well, as they lingered on the threshold between rooms.
"Certainly not. Arrests are for cutthroats and hoodlums. As for you, an esteemed justice of the Archipelago Supreme Court…" Hooper spread her hands wide. "I simply thought you might appreciate the chance to hitch a ride down to the station and put a few comments on the record sooner rather than later."
Staudt gave a bitter laugh. "And if I refuse? Who do I call to get you assholes out of my house?"
"Oh, why, if you'd rather not come along, then we'll be right out of your hair," said Hooper. "Enjoy your evening… Of course, I admit, I'll probably need to draft an email to the Council as soon as I get home. My sense is that the best thing to do is deal with this problem lickety-split. On the other hand, naturally, if you'd like to get your side of the story out there first, I'd be pleased as punch to step aside and let you have your say!"
This was enough to defeat Staudt: He gaped around at Hooper, Williams, and the officers, finally muttered "I'm getting my lawyer", and pushed between Gould and O'Reilly into the hallway, where he snatched his wallet, phone, and keys from a bowl by the door and threw his own chalk-grey coat on.
"I'm terribly sorry for all this, Barty!" she sang after him. "If I could go back four years and set things on a different path, I surely would – and I can only imagine, so would you—"
Staudt scoffed. "Again the lizard weeps. Mildred, forget it. I couldn't care less if my career is finished, I regret nothing! Everything I did, I did to keep them from turning Winstone into the next blank slash on the map. My only regret goes a damn sight farther back than four years, you harpy – I wish I'd never favored you with so much as a handshake!" With this he flung open the door and stumped out, most likely meaning to slam it behind him, although in practice Gould caught the doorknob with a quick motion and she and O'Reilly followed him out to escort him to the police car.
Williams buried his face in his hands, willing the migraine away. Though his fingers he found himself gazing at a tiny, very slightly smoking black spot in the carpet. He sat still for a moment, listening to Hooper creak across the hallway floorboards, then to the sound of swishing fabric.
When he looked up again she was standing over him.
"Well, Perry, if you don't mind."
He stared at her.
"Hm?"
She reached out a hand. "The amulet, please."
"Oh – uh – right…" And Williams carefully shrugged the cord over his head. When the metal disc left his breast, the hailstorm of particles against his skin instantly ceased. He let out a breath; even though his head and body were still aching from within, the end of the assault from outside was a great relief. Still, he didn't hand the amulet back to her right away. There was no harm in turning it over in his palm a few times, to take another look at the curling symbol on the front, and the unknown, archaic-looking script on the back. What language was this? He could almost mistake it for ancient Greek, but no, not quite, he was pretty sure he knew the look of that alphabet… Maybe that little anthropology professor Lans, or someone else at U Win, would recognize it…
"
Perry."
"Yeah – here."
She took the checkered plastic bag from the coffee table, dropped the amulet inside, wrapped it over itself several times, and tucked it into an inner pocket of her longcoat. She hummed under her breath all the while. The commissioner meant to get up and prepare to leave, but something kept him in his seat; his legs still felt light, and there was an awful crawling around his stomach.
"I guess we can kiss the trial goodbye," he managed to say, at length. "Or we're in for a delay, at least. And here I was hoping to haul Sharpe out of the city by the end of the month…"
"I wouldn't worry about that."
He almost laughed. "'Wouldn't worry'? A grenade just blew up in our faces and you wouldn't worry?"
"Should circumstances arise such that the presiding judge is found unfit to sit in court," said Hooper calmly, buttoning up her coat, "the advising judge is authorized to assume his role on all trials he is currently overseeing. Precedent for that process goes back at least as far as the Fujioka & Melville trials of, oh, 1965, or '66, I might say."
"But this isn't a damned
chest cold. Staudt's been lying to the city since before he even hatched this all-Power court idea—"
"Yes, a legitimate conflict of interest is appropriate grounds to suspend a trial until an entirely new pair of judges can be appointed. That's
Torosian vs. the City of New Ellis, 1971. Justice Torosian felt that she had been ejected from a major case unfairly and sued the city. The court ruled that her business ties were sufficient to warrant her ouster, and rejected the suit. I happen to remember it very well." With a distant look on her face, Hooper smiled. "I provided expert testimony on the subject myself."
"And this isn't a legitimate conflict of interest?" he asked skeptically.
She was pacing the room now.
"Why, this is a horse of a different color altogether. Did Barty mention the Butterfly at all just now? Lawrence Odio? I brought up Antonio Sharpe's name, but I'm sure he didn't. In what way does this turn of events bear on Sharpe's innocence or guilt?"
Williams pressed on: "All the same, he admitted the Fascere Order's been breathing down his neck, and they've got one
in the courtroom."
"Oh, I don't think it's a mystery anymore why Staudt signed on Mr. Nopcsa. That much I'll give you. But what does the Order want here? Clearly not to go to bat for Sharpe, or they'd be playing defense. I think it's quite reasonable to assume for the moment they sent Mr. Nopcsa as a power play against Staudt, nothing more…" She trailed off, then raised her hands in a "don't ask me" gesture. "Of course – I say this – but we all know I could be a little behind the times! Tell me, Perry," she said, coming to a stop before him, "do you have reason to think there could be any connection between the Fascere Order and Lawrence Odio?"
The commissioner was silent, reflecting on the conversation he'd had with Mr. Nopcsa a day prior. Doubtless he'd been off his footing against the mind-reader – even further off, in fact, he knew now, than he'd realized at the time. All the same, the experience of his years on the force (along with raising two daughters, come to that) had trained Williams in distinguishing between
feigned apathy toward a loaded topic, and the real deal. And there was no way to feign the brand of studied, contemptuous indifference Mr. Nopcsa had brought into the room with him. Whatever Fascere's game was, Williams stood firm by his assessment of the other day:
"I see that I can add you to the list of people who're just so eager to impress me with their devil-may-care attitude, they forgot to give a goddamn whether or not we bring in Larry Odio's killer…"He looked up. "No. I don't."
"Well, there you go. It's something we'll have to look into tomorrow, but I don't know of any reason to discommend Mr. Nopcsa as a capable prosecutor on the Sharpe case, as long as he's not sharing a courtroom with Bartholomew Staudt." Hooper chuckled, drew a cloth from her pocket, and took off her spectacles. "He's a crackerjack, isn't he? Went after Sharpe like a hound on the scent while that Silna schoolgirl couldn't stop flapping the name 'Jacob Marshall' around. Even if he
is a grubby Fascere gold-digger, I can't much say I don't like him."
Williams clapped his bare head.
"Fucking Christ… this has 'mistrial' written all over it."
Hooper paused from wiping the lenses to glare at him. "I'll thank you to mind that language, Perry."
"Right, ma'am," he muttered sullenly.
She huffed very slightly under her breath and put the spectacles back on. "We'll see," she added. "I have a few ideas on how to present this to the Council. Anyhow, if we can gather enough information to pin down the Butterfly, then what's to fear from a mistrial? I'll entrust him and Sharpe to your vigilant care until we can carry out a proper trial of the Butterfly himself. That ought to do the trick."
Williams gave an inconclusive grunt. He checked his watch, only to find the digital display a garbled mess. In a mild yet sudden panic he fumbled around in his jacket for his phone, but it was still in working order, thank god. The hour was late. There wouldn't be much sleep for him tonight, although the hope that Monica was already out and that he wouldn't have to explain this to her until breakfast was some comfort, at least. He put the phone away with a grimace. Neither his head nor his stomach had stopped churning.
"What's wrong, Perry? You still look troubled." Hooper shook her head instructively. "It's no good crying over spilled milk, you know."
He pursed his lips, but in the end, admitted: "I've got to think there was a better way to do this."
Her eyebrows rose. "And yet you came," she said. "You answered my summons, and even agreed to call Rachel and Miles from the station. You could have told me to go to bed and talk to you again in the morning. And you had to know there weren't so many likely outcomes when three police officers walked into Barty's house after dusk. Still, you came."
She offered her black-gloved hand again, whose meaning he understood. Despite the fact that to put any of his actual weight into her arm would probably snap it off like a pretzel stick, Williams took her hand anyway as a formality while he made an ungainly job of getting to his feet.
She beamed up at the face of the commissioner, once again towering over her. She patted his arm.
"You're a good man, Perry. A proper kind of a man speaks slowly, but when it comes to something he cares about… something he
wishes done… he moves with the sure speed of a soldier. That's the kind of a man you are."
He stared down at her, at a loss for words.
It was little surprise that she broke the silence first. She blinked and jerked her head in an exaggerated double-take. "Heavens to betsy, I was about to forget! Commissioner, would you mind heading up and turning the upstairs lights off? It looked as if he had quite a few on when we came in. I'll take the ones down here." Hooper looked across the hallway into the rooms beyond, her fists on her hips. She drew a heavy sigh. "I'm not entirely sure Bartholomew will be coming back to stay here tonight. And I'd really be in such a stew about it if we were responsible for one extra penny on his electricity bill."
On his way upstairs, Williams paused to watch through the railing as she picked up the yellow bowl on the coffee table. Holding it in both hands, she frowned at it for a moment, then tapped it with her index finger. A tiny pinkish-red blotch appeared where she had tapped, then grew, trickling gradually to the base and rim of the bowl, and all around the sides. The color rippled over and over itself as it spread, until, at the point when it had covered the entire bowl, it fell still and smooth. Hooper held out the bowl, now the soft hue of a brick, against the royal blue wall. "That's much better," she said.