I’d rather not go into it.”
“But you must. I insist.”
“Are all you psychologists so inquisitive?”
“Are all you lawyers so tight-lipped? Come on. You don’t have to tell me what the K.O. stands for. Just give me the rest of the story.”
Kay smiled in good natured defeat. “Okay. Edited version. My mother’s small like me. Her doctor warned her that there were bound to be complications in any pregnancy. She’s a medical researcher herself and knew to take the warning seriously. She planned me carefully, even scheduling her delivery for when my dad would be back from his engineering job in Saudi Arabia. Unfortunately, I decided to be born at seven months and threw off all her careful planning. Caught unawares and out of the range of immediate medical attention, she...lapsed into a coma.”
Her voice had dropped and gotten even softer than usual with that last detail. As if of its own accord, his hand covered hers. “But she did eventually get medical attention and you both came out of it all right?”
“Yes, but because of the delay, she was unconscious for several days. With my father out of the country, that left my aunt, Loony Luddie, the only one available to put a name on my birth certificate.”
“Loony Luddie?”
“Not that Aunt Luddie’s really loony, you understand. She’s actually a sweetie. It’s just that she has a very simple and rather lighthearted view of life.”
“So your name ended up reflecting that simple, lighthearted view?”
“You could say that.”
“Of course!” Damian exclaimed, catching on. “K.O. aren’t initials for a girl’s name. Your loony Aunt Luddie named you K.O. because you knocked out your mother when you were born!”
That small frown reappeared between her eyebrows. “Damn it, Dr. Damian Steele, you are entirely too clever.”
Damian chuckled at her peeved response to his accurate guess. “So, now that I know, will you rely on my discretion, or shall we cut wrists and join our blood in a solemn pact of secrecy?”
She smiled as their eyes met for the warmth of a moment. Then she withdrew her hand uneasily from beneath his and dropped her eyes again to the papers on the table, tugging at her right earlobe once more.
Damian could feel the residual warmth of her hand and her smile. She got more alluring by the minute, inside and out. Too bad things were the way they were. On the other hand, maybe it was just as well. Kay didn’t strike him as the casual kind, and he wasn’t interested in a commitment.
He resolutely rested his gaze on the burly bailiff, who was now pacing in front of the closed door to the judge’s chambers, as the second hand on Damian’s watch wound down to the half hour.
“Could this Croghan be attempting some legal tactic by being late?”
Kay kept her eyes on her papers this time. “Can’t think of what he could hope to gain. There are neither jury nor spectators present to impress. And if he ends up making his entrance after the judge, I very much doubt the kind of impression he’s likely to leave on His Honor will be a beneficial one. Ingle should emerge any second now.”
Right on cue, the big bailiff straightened as the door to the judge’s chambers opened. The bailiff’s voice rose in a squeaky tenor, quite in contrast with his bulk. “All rise and come to order. The court of Judge Frederick I. Ingle III is now in session.”
Damian got to his feet beside Kay as His Honor exited his private chambers. Ingle wore the traditional black robe of his exalted position. But that’s all that he wore that was traditional.
On the judge’s feet were white tennis shoes with fluorescent orange laces. A gold loop dangled from his left earlobe, while a diamond stud flashed from his right nostril. A stiff, white mohawk bifurcated his otherwise shiny skull.
None of the courtroom personnel paid any notice to His Honor’s unusual appearance. They had, obviously, already been initiated. Ingle perched upon his chair with a black-winged sweep. He wore a defiant smirk as he sent Kay and Damian an amused, piercing stare, as though daring them to say something about his getup.
Damian had to stifle a smile. He heard Kay clearing her throat beside him and guessed she was having to do the same thing.
Kay had filled him in on the judge’s reaction to the critical reviews his novel had received. Damian understood that Ingle was probably attempting to put some color into his life with this unusual garb.
The judge’s eyes swung to the plaintiff’s table, which stood empty. “Where is the—”
“Right here, Your Honor,” an industrial-size voice yelled from the back of the courtroom.
Damian swung around to see the rear doors bang open as a large, barrel-chested man with a bubble of black hair and a neat-as-a-pin, full black beard crashed into the courtroom.
Crashed was definitely the word. The doors whacked against the walls, vibrating from the force of being shoved so violently apart. The newcomer strutted down the aisle like the ringmaster of a circus.
He looked every bit the part, too. He wore a red cape over an improbable double-breasted, three-piece white suit, from which dangled an enormous gold pocket watch and chain. Golden rings glistened from every finger.
His dress and manner were so startling that it took a moment for Damian to notice the woman the lawyer had in tow. She was plump, looked fifty-something, with a wide face, short neck, thin, straggly gray-brown hair and a somewhat bewildered look in her large, faded brown eyes. Damian immediately recognized Mrs. Fedora Nye from her interview on the evening news a few days ago.
“Your Honor,” the bearded man began as he proceeded to the front of the courtroom. “I am Rodney Croghan, representing Mrs. Fedora Nye, the plaintiff in this very serious matter before you this morning. Please excuse our slightly tardy entrance, but we were meeting with the press.”
“The press?” Judge Ingle repeated, his voice rising in obvious interest. His Honor had apparently missed the TV news coverage.
Croghan had reached the plaintiff’s table. He withdrew Mrs. Nye’s limp hand from the crook of his arm and beamed at the bench with a full set of flashing teeth.
“Yes, Your Honor. The press is very interested in this case.”
He paused to untie the string at the top of his cape and then to whisk off the garment with a dramatic sweep that set his gold pocket watch to swinging and clanging against his belt buckle.
Between this attorney and this judge, Damian knew he would be hard-pressed to decide which one displayed the most obsessive need to be different, to be noticed.
“The press is interested in this case?” Ingle asked.
“I was just meeting with a local station about the possibility of filming the trial and broadcasting it live,” Croghan’s all-too-loud voice announced.
Damian watched as the judge’s bushy eyebrows rose in even more interest. “Broadcasting it live, you say? Well, well. One of my cases on television.”
“Your
