MEGAN HAD THOUGHT THAT perhaps, this being Christmas Eve, and everyone on earth having Christmassy activities to attend to, the county courthouse would be deserted. Wrong.
The courthouse was packed. Only one courtroom in the Family Division was open, only one judge was on duty, and roughly fifty billion people were jockeying for her attention. The small waiting room outside was jam-packed with mothers, fathers, and unhappy children who wanted to be anywhere but here on Christmas Eve. And of course each of them had a lawyer. Maybe two.
In short, it was a madhouse.
Megan found two seats in a relatively quiet corner and tucked Bonnie and Tommy away there. Before she had a chance to find a seat herself, her cell phone buzzed.
She pulled the phone out of her shoulder bag and flipped it open. “Megan McGee.”
“This is Barney Palmer, over at the police station. Toxicology.”
Megan glanced at Tommy out the corner of her eye. He was talking to his mother, unaware of what Megan was saying or doing.
She took a subtle step away and pressed the phone close against her ear. “Have you had a chance to test the food sample the police brought in?”
“Oh, yes. It’s not a time-consuming process. Especially not with such a plentiful sample. Sergeant Conner asked me to phone you the results. I can fax a copy of the report to your office.”
“That would be wonderful. But can you tell me over the phone?”
“You mean, the results?”
“Right. Was the food poisoned?”
She listened to several moments of staticky air. “I’m really not supposed to give this information out over the phone, but”—his voice dropped to a shadow of what it had been before—“the test was positive.”
“You mean—”
“That’s what I mean. The food was poisoned. Rat poison, we think. Enough to kill an elephant.”
Megan felt as if her heart had been crushed in someone’s fist. A cold chill rippled through her body. She had known all along that Carl was bad news, desperate, irrational. But somehow she had never quite believed he was capable of killing his own child.
Until now.
“You’re absolutely sure about this, Barney?”
“No doubt about it. When we have a sample this large to work with, it’s pretty impossible to make an error.”
Megan nodded. “Thanks for calling. I appreciate it.” She pushed the End button and disconnected the line.
Bonnie and Tommy still weren’t paying any attention to her, and she was glad for it. She would in time, of course, have to share this dreadful news with Bonnie, but not now. Not while Tommy was here. He had enough to handle without knowing that the dad who had kidnapped him had also tried to kill him.
“Will you two excuse me for a moment?” Megan decided to blaze a trail through the crowd so she could check in with the judge’s clerk. She was starting to make some progress when her feet suddenly disappeared out from under her.
She slammed down on the floor hard, briefcase first. “What the—”
Twisting her neck around, she saw nothing behind her except a boy, maybe ten or so, who was working a little too hard at not looking in her direction.
“Did you trip me?” Megan said in a voice more than sufficient to turn many heads, including the boy’s mother’s.
The kid continued to look away, suddenly very interested in the dot pattern in the ceiling panels.
“Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me.” Megan pushed herself to her feet. “Did you trip me?”
The boy’s mother, a large woman who seemed plenty stressed out already without taking on any additional problems, intervened. “I’m sure it was just an accident. There are so many people crowded into this tiny room.”
“If it was an accident, let him tell me so.” She placed her hand on the boy’s jaw and turned his head to face her. “How about it, kemo sabe? You think it’s funny to trip people?”
The boy affected a pained expression. “Mommy, she’s hurting me.”
The mother slapped Megan’s hand away. “Leave him alone!”
Megan was outraged. She wasn’t entirely sure why, but after all she had been through today, she didn’t need this. “Why are you defending him? He could kill someone like that.”
“You’re overreacting.”
“I don’t think I am.”
“Leave us alone!”
“Your kid is a menace!”
The mother’s voice was becoming fluttery and semi-hysterical. “I want you to leave us alone!”
“I want an apology.”
“If you don’t leave my son alone, I’ll call the police!”
“Call away. I may decide to file charges for battery!”
“All right, all right!” The boy squirmed around in his seat. “I’m sorry,” he said, under his breath. “I didn’t mean it. Exactly.”
“What, was it something I said? Something about my suit you didn’t like?”
The boy shrugged. “Nah, I was just bored.”
His mother patted the boy in a rough and rapid manner Megan suspected was not at all comforting. “We’ve been here since nine-thirty.”
“And you haven’t seen the judge yet?”
“Our lawyer hasn’t shown up. He keeps calling, making excuses. So we’re stuck waiting.”
Megan rubbed her hand against her brow. Been in this hellhole since nine-thirty? No wonder the kid was stir-crazy.
“Look.” Megan reached down to the bottom of her bag. “Ever seen one of these?” She pulled the ball-bearing contraption out and plopped it onto the kid’s lap.
“No.” He lifted one of the silver balls and let it crash down into the others, starting the chain reaction. “What does it do?”
“You’re doing it already.” Megan smiled at his mother. “Keep it. It may amuse him for a while.”
“Oh, we couldn’t possibly …”
“Please. I’ll be glad to get it off my hands.”
The mother reached for her own purse. “Then let me give you something.”
“That really isn’t necessary.”
The mother withdrew a large glass bottle filled with green liquid. “I got this last night at the office Christmas party. You know, one of those gag gift exchanges.”
Megan took the extra-large bottle of Listerine. “Boy, those gag gifts are some kind of funny, aren’t they?”
“I gave a giant-size roll-on Arrid Extra Dry.”
“That’s clever, too.” She dropped the mouthwash into her bag, which was now even heavier than before. “Well, thanks very much.”
The mother smiled and waved. “Merry Christmas.”
Megan waved back. “Ho, ho, ho.”
As it turned out, once they got in, the hearing took less than ten minutes. Judge Harris, a middle-aged career judge who knew her way around domestic law backwards and forwards, was particularly expeditious, in part no doubt due to the size of the horde outside. The judge would probably be on duty till midnight no matter what she did.
Megan put Bonnie on the stand to give a brief account of her nightmarish life since her breakup, of how Carl had stalked her and her son, threatened her, even tried to poison Tommy. Then, in a broken voice, barely able to speak, she told the horrific account of Carl’s visit to her home that morning, of punching her boyfriend and neighbor, of smashing his hand through the windowpane. Megan suspected Bonnie could’ve gotten her restraining order right then and there, but after Bonnie proceeded to recount Carl’s attempt to kidnap Tommy, there was no uncertainty about the outcome.
Just for good measure, Megan entered into evidence a copy of the police reports for each of the earlier incidents. And in return, she got an impressive-looking restraining order signed by the judge, prohibiting Carl Cantrell from coming near Bonnie, Tommy, or their home.
“I’ll schedule a formal hearing for three weeks from today,” Judge Harris said, marking the date on her calendar. “You’ll have to serve notice on her ex-husband before then.”
“I’ll take care of it, your honor,” Megan said, making notes.
“Do you have any idea where the man is?”
“No. But I’m hoping the police will find him. They do have his license-plate number.”
The judge nodded. “I hope so, too. For everybody’s sake.”