The Hanging Judge by Michael Ponsor Read Free Book Online Page A

…”
    But at this point, to everyone’s astonishment, Anne burst into an energetic rendition of “The Whiffenpoof Song”: “We are poor little sheep, who have lost their way!”
    Claire loudly joined her in the chorus, “Baa, baa, baa!”
    Novotny managed to absorb Anne’s interruption with reasonable grace. He patted his hostess lightly in the arm, saying, “Okay, Anne, point taken. Enough of this.”
    Norcross shook his head and muttered, “Lord, who invited me up onto the soap box?” There were nineteen standard ways to handle this kind of situation, and his brother, Raymond, would have known all of them. He couldn’t think of a single one.
    “You know,” Claire said, standing up, “I’ve got a pile of papers to grade tomorrow. I really do have to get going.” It dawned on the judge that she had made this announcement once or twice already, somewhere in the conversation. They’d lingered over dessert way too long.
    Claire put her hand on his shoulder and said, “Even we professors, sitting up in the bleachers, have to get up early sometimes.”
    While Norcross tried to recover from this zinger, and absorb the vibrating sensation on his shoulder where Claire had touched him, Novotny resumed poking.
    “I’m still curious, Your Honor,” he said. “In this fallible process of yours, how would you feel about putting your signature on an execution order?”
    “For the nth time, Gerry, I have to pass on that one.” He felt sick. Faye would have scorched him to cinders for a spotlight-hogging tirade like that. It was downright un-Midwestern. He’d certainly squandered all the capital his Donald Duck imitation had earned him with Claire. The businesslike way she smiled, shook hands, and headed off for her coat made him deeply, and foolishly, sad. It was only a dinner. It shouldn’t bother him. They’d talked, and that was that.
    In a kind of dream, he waved as the door closed behind her. Some minutes later, he heard her car’s engine harrumph to life and, as he dipped his head to gaze out the window, saw its lights shrinking down the driveway into the darkness.
    Conversation around the table resumed, mostly unheard by him for some time. He finished his wine. When his consciousness returned to the present, Norcross noticed Novotny’s blonde undergraduate staring at him again with the same intense expression.
    “I think Gerry is,” she began, glancing nervously sideways. “I mean, I think Professor Novotny is right. If it’s wrong, thumb …” She hesitated and spoke slowly. “Someone should put a stop to it. I mean, you’re the judge, aren’t you?”
    “I don’t make the laws, Tiffany.”
    “It’s Brittany, David,” Anne broke in, not unkindly, but with emphasis.
    “Brittany. Excuse me. I can’t always keep bad things from happening, Brittany. Sometimes my job is just to make them happen in an orderly way.”
    “Orderly? Is that what you call it?” Novotny asked. His eyes narrowed, and he took on the expression of a boxer moving in to land a knockout punch.
    But at that moment, the Pratts’ doorbell rang.
    Anne looked at her husband. “Jehovah’s Witnesses, at this hour?”
    “Deus ex machina, at any rate,” Dixwell said, glaring at the front hall with the hostility of a man who was being cheated out of something tasty.
    Anne went to the door and opened it. Claire had come back.
    Although the Norcross clan was Lutheran, and the judge still occasionally attended church services, he had never personally experienced a miracle before. Claire had come back, more beautiful than ever. Norcross, who’d felt rooted in place a minute earlier, now seemed to float up from his chair.
    “What happened?” he asked.
    She gave him a mildly distraught look, then dropped her eyes to the floor.
    “Well,” she said, speaking like someone who’d decided to face the guillotine as bravely as possible, “it’s slippery as hell out there, and I seem to have dinged your car.”
    “Really!” A flood