Chapter 2 - Noah Was Somebody’s Messenger
I cleared the courtroom.
Not dramatically.
Court staff moved the afternoon docket.
Counsel received new dates.
The two officers escorted Noah not to an interrogation room, but to the judge's conference room where a juvenile-services liaison could sit with him.
I recused myself from making any determination about how he'd entered the restricted corridor.
The box had just turned my personal history into evidence.
I was not going to pretend a robe fixed that.
Cole stood near the prosecution table while everyone left.
“You should go too,” I said.
He looked at the completed laurel still in my hand.
“You need to log that.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn't be handling it.”
“I know.”
“You knocked my hand away.”
“I also know that.”
He looked irritated that I wasn't defending myself.
Good.
“Did your father know Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“That isn't new.”
“No.”
“What happened at 11:40?”
His face tightened.
“I don't know.”
“You reacted.”
“Because Noah said my father.”
“You reacted before that.”
Cole stared toward the closed courtroom doors.
I waited.
He finally said:
“I recognized the box.”
That got me.
“From where?”
“I don't know exactly.”
“Try.”
“My father's house.”
My fingers tightened.
“When?”
“Years ago.”
“Was the laurel inside?”
“I never opened it.”
“How do you know it's the same box?”
“Dark walnut. Brass corner. Blue lining.”
“You never opened it but you know the lining.”
Cole closed his eyes.
Good.
He had caught himself.
“When did you open it?”
“After Dad died.”
Samuel Cole had died nine years earlier.
“How long did you have it?”
“Maybe twenty minutes.”
“What was inside?”
“Not the laurel.”
“What?”
“Papers.”
Of course.
“About Thomas?”
Cole didn't answer.
“Aaron.”
“Some.”
“What happened to them?”
His jaw tightened.
“I put them back.”
“Where is the box now?”
“I thought it was gone.”
“Gone how?”
“My sister cleared Dad's house.”
“Did you ask?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn't want it.”
That was not the same as not knowing what it meant.
I looked down at the box.
“Then somebody found your father's box, emptied it, put Thomas's laurel inside, and sent it into my courtroom using a child.”
Cole said nothing.
The last part bothered both of us.
Good.
I went to see Noah.
His mother had arrived.
Lena Brooks came into the conference room still wearing scrubs beneath a winter coat.
She crossed straight to her son.
Noah stood.
She hugged him.
Then she turned on Detective Cole before realizing he wasn't there.
She settled for me.
“Why was my son in handcuffs?”
“He wasn't.”
“The school secretary said police had him.”
“He is not accused of a crime.”
“Then why was he brought into a courtroom?”
“Because I made a bad decision.”
That stopped her.
I sat opposite her.
“When Detective Cole said the box was found in a restricted area, I let my history with the object become more important than the fact Noah is ten.”
Lena looked toward the box now sealed in an evidence sleeve on the side table.
“What is it?”
“Something from my family.”
Noah looked at me.
“Is the man your brother?”
Lena turned sharply.
“What man?”
We explained.
Not every detail.
Enough.
Lena's face became furious.
“He asked a child to carry evidence into a courthouse?”
Noah interrupted.
“He didn't say evidence.”
“I know, baby.”
“He said it was hers.”
“I know.”
I asked Noah:
“How did you meet him?”
“At the café downstairs.”
“Today?”
“Tuesday.”
“What happened Tuesday?”
Noah had been at the courthouse with Lena because she had an appointment in a custody matter involving her sister.
He wandered no farther than the public café while Lena completed paperwork with an advocate.
The older man noticed Noah searching underneath tables for a backpack.
He helped him find it.
Nothing sinister.
Nothing secret.
Then today Noah saw him again outside the building.
“He remembered me.”
“What did he say?”
“That I could help him return something.”
Lena looked sick.
“He used you.”
Noah's face changed.
Children understand that word too quickly.
I corrected carefully.
“He asked you to do something he should have asked an adult to do.”
Noah looked at his shoes.
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you where the restricted hallway was?”
“He said to ask the officer by the old elevators where Judge Carter's private entrance was.”
That was different from sneaking him through.
Noah had asked.
The officer misunderstood and directed him toward an administrative corridor.
Cole found him before he reached chambers.
Human error.
Still irresponsible.
“What did the man look like?”
Gray hair.
Dark coat.
Tall.
Glasses.
Nothing useful.
“Scar?”
Noah thought.
“No.”
“Ring?”
“No.”
“Did he have an accent?”
“No.”
Then Noah said:
“He was missing part of one finger.”
I froze.
“Which hand?”
“Left.”
Lena looked at me.
“What?”
Thomas Carter had lost the tip of his left ring finger in a table-saw accident when he was nineteen.
I stood so quickly my chair scraped the floor.
Lena's eyes narrowed.
“Is that your brother?”
“I don't know.”
“You just looked like you know.”
“I know my brother had that injury.”
“Was he dangerous?”
“No.”
Then I stopped.
Thirty-one years.
People change.
“I don't know who he is now.”
Better.
Noah said:
“He didn't seem dangerous.”
Lena kissed the top of his head.
“That's not a job you get to have.”
Noah nodded.
Then he looked at me.
“He said something else.”
My pulse changed.
“What?”
“He said you would remember Courtroom Seventeen.”
I did.
The old courthouse had been renovated twice.
Courtroom Seventeen no longer existed.
May you like
But thirty-one years ago, it was where my father presided.
And it was the last place I ever saw my brother.
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