He walked back toward the house, flanked by Anton and Bradley. “We have a pool,” he heard Bradley say. “You should come swim.”
“I don’t know how,” Anton confessed, and David tensed, preparing himself for a wisecrack or, worse, an expression of incredulity from Bradley. But Brad only said, “I’ll show you how.” David looked down at the red-haired boy in admiration. Connor and Jan had raised one terrific kid.
“Can I go to Brad’s house?” Anton asked, tugging at David’s sleeve, and he hated himself for answering with a noncommittal “We’ll see.”
They found Delores, and she led Anton to the enormous buffet table. David tried to look at the banquet, with its conspicuous excess, from Anton’s eyes. What did it feel like to go from eating moldy cheese from a food pantry to this? Not for the first time, he admired the child’s equanimity, how he appeared to take things in his stride. Anton actually was better-behaved as he stood in the buffet line than many of the other children. David wondered if Delores was aware of it, too, the nobility that resided in this little boy whom fate had delivered to them.
“David.” Jan had come up behind him so quietly, he hadn’t heard her. “Connor told me that you were pretty upset earlier.” He opened his mouth to apologize, but she shushed him. “I just want to say that if I were in your shoes, I’d be pretty upset, too.” She leaned in toward him, and he could smell the alcohol on her breath. “I’m sick and tired of spending our tax money on these people,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned, they should lock the bitch away forever and let you keep that poor child.”
He took an involuntary step away from her. He loved Jan, but he was repulsed by what she was saying. He had been in the legal profession long enough to know that human behavior was complicated and unpredictable and that justice always had to be tempered with mercy. But she was looking at him expectantly, as if she wanted his gratitude for siding with him against her husband. Unsure what to say, he looked down at her and muttered, “Thanks.”
Before she could say another thing, he squeezed her shoulder, smiled, and stepped away to join his wife. “Hi,” he said softly, wishing he could burrow in to Delores and get away from all these people whom he had known and liked for years but who today were getting on his nerves. “Will you be ready soon?”
“You’re not eating?”
“I think not. It’s too hot.”
“Everything okay?”
“I think so . . . Jan is drunk.”
They exchanged a look. “Fifteen minutes,” Delores said. “And we’ll leave. Go say our goodbyes to Don and his wife.”
He walked around the enormous house looking for his host. Twice he spotted Connor, but each time both men looked away. He finally found Don ensconced among a group of local businessmen. “Thanks, Don,” he said. “Great party.”
“You’re not leaving?”
“Afraid so. Delores has a bad headache.”
“Aw, shit. That’s too bad.” They spoke for a few more minutes, and then David excused himself from the group.
“Don’t forget what we talked about,” Don called, and David gritted his teeth as he walked away. “I won’t,” he said without looking back.
It wasn’t until the three of them were in his car and heading home that David felt his body relax. Looking at Delores in the passenger seat and Anton asleep in the back, he smiled to himself. Screw Connor, Jan, Don, the whole lot of them. He knew that Anton was on loan to him for a very short while. He was bound and determined to enjoy every second they had together.
CHAPTER SIX
David was in his chambers, catching up on some paperwork, when there was a light, perfunctory knock on his open door. He looked up to see his colleague Bob Campbell. “You busy?” Bob asked.
“No, no, come on in,” David said as he capped his pen and rested it on the pile of papers on his desk. “I’m happy to take a break.”
“Good.” Bob lowered himself onto the wooden chair across from David. “Haven’t seen you much these past few weeks.”
“Yes, well.” David felt embarrassed. “Some of that is deliberate. I just thought it was better if we kept our distance until, you know, the Vesper case was resolved.”
There was an expression on Bob’s face that David couldn’t quite read. “Ah. I figured as much. Well, we don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
David stretched his arms above his head and leaned back in his chair. “Meaning?”
“Meaning, it’s over. I sentenced her this morning.”
A sudden heaviness came over David as he stared at Bob, who stared back, the small eyes under his dark, bushy eyebrows blinking rapidly. “Aren’t you going to ask me what the sentence was?” Bob asked at last.
David shrugged. At this point, he had reconciled himself to the matter. Four months or six, what did it matter? Anton would be back home, either way, before his mom had any realistic chance at rehabilitating herself.
But then a sliver of doubt entered his mind. The Family Division of the superior court, where Bob presided, was located on the sixth floor of the courthouse. His office in the Criminal Division was on the fourth. This was no ordinary drop-in. Bob had clearly made an effort to come see him.
“Are you going to tell me?” David asked. “Or is there some—”
“Two and a half,” Bob said abruptly.
David gripped the edge of his desk in an attempt to control his fury. “That’s ridiculous,” he snapped. “I’ve handed out sentences for animal abuse that were longer than that.”
Bob stared at him from under those expressive eyebrows. “Years.”
“What’s that?”
“Two and a half years. That’s what she got.”
David couldn’t trust himself to speak. He tried to, but his mouth moved wordlessly.
Bob grinned, clearly pleased with the impact of his words. “Wow, Dave. Never seen you speechless before.”
David’s head felt cloudy, even as a ray of happiness kept trying to pierce through. “How? I thought . . . Didn’t Connor agree to the plea bargain?”
“Sure. And it got her to plead guilty. Saved the court a lot of time and money.” Bob scowled suddenly. He has the most mercurial face, David thought absently. “Her plea bargain was with the prosecutor’s office,” Bob continued. “But I’m the goddamn judge. Nothing in the law says I couldn’t give her the maximum sentence.”
David felt as if air were being pumped into his lungs and he could breathe normally for the first time in weeks. He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, had been grieving the imminent loss of Anton ever since Don Smith’s party. “Was Connor upset?”
Bob looked at him incredulously. “Upset?” He rose from his chair, walked the few paces to shut the door to David’s office, and sat down again with a thump. “He was thrilled. If he was upset about anything, it was about upsetting you at that party.”