The Kydd rushes into the courtroom and almost runs down the center aisle. He’s a half hour late. He nods at Nicky and Nicky waves to him as if greeting the Messiah. The Kydd stares at the empty judge’s bench as he heads for our table. He loosens his tie, a man freeing himself from a noose.

“He’s not here?” The Kydd can hardly believe it.

“Not yet,” I tell him.

“Merry Christmas,” Harry adds.

“The electricity went out,” the Kydd says. “My alarm didn’t go off.”

This happened more than once last winter, during our joint tenure with the DA’s office. It was the Kydd’s first winter on the Cape, his first winter north of the Mason-Dixon line, for that matter. I explained to him several times that ocean winds wreak havoc with overhead wires. On Cape Cod, I told him, wintertime electricity is a gamble. A battery-operated alarm clock is a must. Obviously, he wasn’t listening.

I roll my eyes at him. “You’re not in Georgia anymore, Toto.”

He ignores me.

Harry tosses his head toward Nicky. “Does he have the twenty-two thousand?”

The Kydd closes his eyes and releases a long sigh, shaking his head. He pulls a chair up to our table and drops into it, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “Turns out child support isn’t the only unpaid bill. He owes more on the damned truck than it’s worth.”

Harry laughs. “That’s a shock,” he says. “So what’s he got?”

“Half. He borrowed it from his parents. That’s all they had.”

“His parents?” I steal another glance at Nicky. “He has parents? How old are they?”

The Kydd rests his chin on his hands. “Old.”

Harry lets out a soft whistle. “Stealing from the elderly to give to the children-all the while patronizing Zeke’s.” He leans forward on his elbows and shakes his head. “I don’t see a happy ending here, Kydd. Judge Leon Long isn’t going to like this version of Robin Hood.”

The Kydd waves him off with both hands, then points his pen at the empty bench. “Speaking of Judge Leon Long, where the hell is he?”

Harry grins. “Think, Kydd. And take a look at your calendar.”

The Kydd pulls a monthly planner from his briefcase, opens to December, then laughs out loud. “Damn,” he says, “I wanted to watch.”

“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “Geraldine will memorize the details, and she’ll share them-a hundred times-with anyone who will listen. It’ll be May before she stops raving about Judge Leon Long’s annual obstruction of justice, his blatant disregard for the county’s coffers.”

As if on cue, Geraldine blasts through the back doors and strides down the center aisle, sending men and women alike fleeing from her path. She opens the gate to the inner sanctum and slams it shut behind her. The room falls silent.

Stanley jumps to his feet, but Geraldine doesn’t acknowledge him. Instead, she stops at the defense table and points out the window, toward the District Courthouse. “I need a judge.”

Harry leans back in his chair, smiling at her. “Get in line.”

“I’m not kidding,” she says. “If he’s going to play this little game every year, he needs to show the hell up.”

“He’s already over there,” I tell her. “He’s not here. He’s probably waiting for you.”

“He’s not over there,” she snaps. “I just left. It’s standing room only in that courtroom and there’s no goddamn judge. He told the magistrate to stay home, and now he hasn’t shown up.”

Harry straightens in his chair, his smile erased. My stomach tightens and I get to my feet, though I’m not sure why.

Geraldine heads toward chambers, Stanley on her heels like a nervous poodle. She pounds on the door. No answer. She looks toward Joey Kelsey and arches her eyebrows. Joey checks his cheat sheet-even he doesn’t know what he expects to find there, I’m sure-then shrugs.

Geraldine opens the door and disappears, but Stanley doesn’t follow. He freezes in the doorway and screams.

I’m in chambers before I realize I’ve moved. The judge’s desk chair is swiveled toward the door. Judge Leon Long is sprawled on the floor in front of it. Facedown on the plush carpeting. A knife in his back.

Geraldine slams the phone into its cradle. Simultaneously, it seems, screaming sirens fill the air. The fire station is adjacent to the Barnstable County Complex, just on the other side of the parking lot. Help should be here in minutes.

Harry and the Kydd stand side by side in the doorway to Judge Leon Long’s chambers, forming a human blockade against the press corps. Even so, bright lights from television cameras and erupting flashbulbs flood the room. Photographers strain against one another for a shot of Judge Long’s prostrate form, more than a few of them standing on chairs. From behind them, faceless reporters shout questions to Geraldine and me.

“Is the judge dead?”

He’s not, but we don’t say so. I am unable to speak. Geraldine, I think, simply chooses not to.

“Is he breathing?”

He is. I’m on my knees beside him, holding his hand in both of mine, forcing myself to find words, to urge him to hang on. His pulse is weak but detectable, even to an amateur like me. “You’re going to be okay,” I whisper. I don’t recognize my own voice. “Help is coming. You’re going to be fine.”

I hope I sound more certain than I am.

Court officers shout directions above the chaos in the courtroom, and Harry and the Kydd abandon their post. Seconds later, four emergency medical technicians appear, three men and a woman. They crowd into the small chambers, two of them steering a stainless steel gurney, the others carting sacks of equipment into the room, unpacking as they move.

Geraldine and I back up against the wall and inch along it toward the doorway, careful to avoid the working technicians and their gear. We emerge into the courtroom to find Harry, the Kydd, and Stanley lined up in front of the judge’s bench in stunned silence. Joey Kelsey is backed against the jury box, eyes glazed. All four of them look paralyzed.

A barrage of Barnstable police officers has already arrived and they’ve pushed the throng of noisy onlookers-press corps included-behind the bar and into the gallery. The crowd is worked up, almost panicked, and the photographers continue shooting, random pictures of utter chaos, it seems. The reporters are still pelting Geraldine and me with questions. We’re still mute.

Two court officers lead Buck Hammond toward the side door, his cuffs and shackles back in place. Buck’s expression tells me that someone, probably one of his escorts, has filled him in. His gaze meets mine as he approaches the doorway. His eyes ask his questions before the door closes behind him. Why Judge Long? And why now?

The police clear a path down the center aisle just in time. The EMTs hustle through, one at each end of the gurney, the others on either side of it, holding IV bags above their shoulders. One of the bag holders, the woman, relays information into a two-way radio as she runs down the center aisle beside Judge Long’s motionless body. They disappear into the hallway and the courtroom’s back doors slam shut behind them.

Abruptly, the room is silent, its occupants still.

Stanley is the first to emerge from paralysis. He walks slowly from the judge’s bench toward the gallery, stepping on the plush carpeting carefully, as if precariously balanced on a high wire. His lower jaw hangs slack and his breathing is quick, shallow. His mud brown eyes bulge from their tiny sockets. He raises one hand and points a stubby index finger at Nicky Patterson.

“You,” Stanley whispers.

Nicky is still in his original front-row seat. His eyes grow wide as Stanley approaches, and he clutches his envelope, as if he thinks Stanley might take it from him.

“It was you.” Stanley’s voice is louder now. He continues to point at Nicky, but his eyes dart around the room.