Chapter 17: Preponderance of the Evidence

Erik wasn't moving. Christine could hardly think, her heart torn to pieces. She mopped his bloody face with her sleeve.

"Please, God. Oh, God, please!"

His eyelids fluttered. His gray irises rolled towards the sound of her voice then rolled back in his head. He groaned weakly, and bright, red blood bubbled from his mouth.

"Erik!"

His chest rose and fell rapidly. His fingers curled and tensed into claws, his elbows bent and his arms stiffened in unnatural angles. His body trembled.

Was this a medical emergency, or a supernatural crisis? Should she take him to an exorcism? She got under his left arm and tried to pull him up. He wouldn't stand. He was like a dead weight. Her shoes slipped in smears of blood.

Rapid footsteps echoed in the hallway. Someone was coming.

She gasped. How would she explain this to the cops? They would insist on taking Erik to a hospital. She was losing time.

Nasr Khan, dressed in a suit, rushed into the conference room and paused. His eyes widened at the overturned chairs and the blood streaks on the walls and the general mess.

"Mr. Khan! Help!"

He started at the sound of her voice. She and Erik were barely visible behind the conference table. He hurried over to them. Found his friend in the throes of what looked like an agonizing seizure.

"Erik! Oh, my God. We have to get him home. His circle—"

"We won't get him out of here looking like this. People will ask questions." Erik was painted with drying blood. His chin was coated in it, his hair was matted with it, his clawed hands and his entire back were streaked with it. She lit on an idea. "There's a trench coat. I saw it in the waiting room. And a fedora. Maybe they're still out there."

Khan rushed back down the hall and returned with the clothes. Together they got Erik dressed, though it wasn't easy with his stiff, bent arms. She raised the coat's wide collar to hide the judge's face, and Khan angled the fedora over his brow.

Another moan escaped Erik's throat, ending on a ghastly, nauseating gurgle.

"We need a cab," Khan said.

"He has a car. A black Volvo sedan." She fished in Erik's pants pockets for his set of keys.

"But where did he park?"

She found the keys, along with a parking validation ticket. "It's that parking lot down the block. He wrote the number 3 on the ticket; maybe he parked on the third floor?"

"Let's get him outside first. I'll get the car and pick you up."

Khan cursed behind the wheel as someone cut him off in traffic. He leaned on the horn.

Christine held Erik steady in the back seat and wiped more blood from his nose. Blood was also seeping from the corners of his dark eyes, sliding along his scars and falling onto her suit like gruesome tears. His eyes still rolled in their sockets. He still moaned in agony, and his hands were still curled in stiff, shaking claws.

Her judge might really die. And it would be the end of her world.

She eyed the traffic through the rain-mottled windshield. "You can't go faster?"

"Can't risk getting stopped by a cop," answered Khan. "I'm a convicted felon driving a judge's car. With the judge bloody and unconscious in the back seat. Just sit tight; we're almost at the bridge. Keep him warm." He turned up the heat.

"He should have recused," she said bitterly. "He could have stayed safe in his circle instead of coming to Manhattan for an inquest. But he just had to prove he's always fair."

Khan smiled at her in the rearview mirror. "I don't believe him. He hasn't been impartial with you in years. Remember how many adjournments he gave you on your case against Sherman Katz a few years ago? And when he talked to you in the hall after you lost against Chris Murphy?"

"You knew about all that?"

"Everyone knew."

Heat bloomed in her cheeks. "But… Those cases were a long time ago. We weren't together until around the time of the Post article."

Khan chuckled and steered the car up the ramp to the Willis Avenue bridge. Rain gusted over the windshield in sheets. "Don't worry, you're still a good lawyer, notwithstanding the extra help. That's probably what got his attention in the first place. He's not the sort to risk his career just to help a cute girl. He saw your compassion for the poor, and he saw your potential."

Erik's neck had begun to twitch, making it hard for her to keep the fedora from falling off his head. She pulled the hat down more firmly.

"He inspired me more than he knows. He's the reason I studied law." She wiped her eyes. "I once watched my father testify in Erik's court. Dad was a fire marshal, I went to watch him during spring break. Erik was so… so intelligent, but also very down to earth. Treated everyone respectfully, even the arsonist on trial. Lots of people—even judges—see someone living in poverty and think he somehow deserves it. But Erik had a completely open mind. No prejudices. I wanted a career helping people, and after watching Judge Delgado, I started thinking I should practice law."

Khan was quiet as they crossed the bridge and entered The Bronx. The windshield wipers beat a pensive rhythm on the glass.

"That's an interesting coincidence, isn't it?" he finally said. "Your father testified against arsonists, and the Post reporter was apparently murdered by one."

"...You think there's a connection?"

"There could be. It was definitely premeditated arson. They're saying he probably got through the metal detectors with just matches and some Banaca. What was his name?—Your father's, I mean."

"George Dale."

"I'll have some friends in the force cross-check his investigations with Erik's cases, and see what I get."

"And I have the name of the Post's source. A private investigator got it for me." She rummaged in her purse for her cellphone and re-read the text. "Deshawn Brown?"

Khan gave a low whistle.

"You know him?"

"Everyone's heard of Deshawn Brown," Khan replied. "You haven't? He went to prison for murder eight or nine years ago. He set his car on fire with his girlfriend locked inside. You were probably still away at college."

"Was Erik the trial judge?"

He nodded. "And I bet your father testified. And I bet Brown found out you were your father's daughter, and when he saw you with Erik the night of the reception, he thought of payback against both the fire marshal and the judge."

"The Post reporter must have figured out the connection, and was on his way to talk to Erik about it when Brown got to him first. But if Brown went to prison, then how—"

"Either he's on parole or he finished serving his sentence. If he escaped from prison, I'm sure it would've been in the news. We've got to get the police. I know a detective—well, he's now a lieutenant—in Erik's precinct. I'll take you and Erik to the house and then pay this guy a visit."