The Guilty by Gabriel Boutros Read Free Book Online

tired, as if all the life had gone out of him. All his stock answers to Jeannie’s questions seemed weak and inappropriate.
    The spell that held them both in place, staring at each other wordlessly, was broken when the door opened and the constable stuck his head into the room.
    “Sorry to interrupt, but number six just got here. The judge wants you to start right away.”
    Bratt still couldn’t pull his gaze away from Jeannie. He couldn’t leave this situation unresolved, yet there was no more time to talk.
    “I think we really need to talk about this some more, OK? Tonight, when we get home. Please?”
    She didn’t answer him. Instead, she silently turned and walked out the door ahead of him and was quickly gone down the corridor. He knew that she could have made some sort of peace with him if she had wanted to, but she preferred leaving him twisting in the wind. Her bitterness would not let her turn back. Now he would have to put all thoughts of this argument behind him and get back to court. They were waiting for him.
    A few minutes later, Robert Bratt stood at the broad desk that passed for a lectern in the courtroom, his shoulders bowed under the weight of the guilt his daughter had laid on him. He watched as the twelve jurors, eight women and four men, entered the room and took their seats. Several of them glanced over in his direction. Their cheerful expressions revealed that, having watched him at work for two months, they were expecting him to put on a good show for them this morning. At least two of the female jurors smiled at him, and not for the first time during the trial.   
    The room was now fairly full. A few journalists occupied the front row. Nancy Morin, whose frown of concern still lingered, sat just behind them. Around her sat various retirees and unemployed types that had drifted in during the weeks of the trial’s progress and ended up coming back for each new episode.
    Yet Bratt just continued to stand, silent and motionless, totally unaffected by the people in the court or their expectations of him. He stood so impassively, while the jurors entered and the judge settled everyone in the courtroom down, that his client surely felt confident that Bratt was focusing on the job at hand, blocking out all the irrelevant distractions around him.
    As it so happened, Bratt’s mind was so unfocussed on the case he was about to plead that Judge Smythe had to clear his throat meaningfully twice, and finally call out Bratt’s name, ever so politely, in order to get the lawyer’s attention.  
    This finally brought Bratt back from his reverie, and he saw that they were all waiting for him to start. A momentary look of confusion flashed across his face, then it was gone. He was aware of what he was there to do, but a sort of mental inertia was keeping him from getting started, as Jeannie’s words continued to ring in his ears.
    He looked over the twelve still-patient faces before him and realized that he was going to look like a fool if he didn’t say something soon. He tried to will his daughter’s tear-filled voice to leave him in peace just long enough for him to get through the morning.
    Slowly, a sense of detached calm came over him. He began to feel like a disinterested observer with no stake in what was happening. He felt no pressure on himself at all, and he stood perceptibly straighter. He managed to let all of Jeannie’s arguments fade away quietly, until the sound of her voice in his memory was just so much background noise.  
    Then, as if nothing else in the world could have been on his mind, he smiled the casually handsome smile he reserved for juries and women he hoped to seduce. He greeted the jurors with a bright “Good morning, everyone,” and they greeted him back cheerfully, relieved, perhaps, that all was back to normal.
    To his left, Sam Brenton shifted uncomfortably in his seat, realizing that his presence in the courtroom had just become superfluous. Bratt’s hands, soft