Here She Lies

apple. When Bobby saw me, he smiled so eagerly it made me a little nervous. (Lexy, I assumed, was with Mrs. Boardman again at the inn.) I waited with Elias in a group of cordoned-off seats toward the front of the courtroom. The edges of my metal chair were sticky with spilled soda and the airsmelled, inexplicably, like roses. I watched the judge dispense justice with razor-sharp efficiency to man after man, woman after woman. Nine defendants preceded me and all but one were sent back to prison accompanied by a guard. When a teenage boy with white-boy dreadlocks and a snake tattoo rising out of his shirt collar was turned back to his cell, the tidy couple beside Bobby left the courtroom in tears. After forty minutes my name was called and I took my place at Elias’s side before the bench.
    Judge Leonard Hersey seemed young, about forty, with thin blond hair, aviator glasses and a blond goatee. He towered over us behind his large, elevated desk. I heard the shuffle of his quick perusal of some papers — presumably my file — before he looked over and down at me with Aegean blue eyes.
    “Anais Milliken-Goodman?” He pronounced my name correctly.
    “Yes, Your Honor.”
    “Good morning, Mr. Stormier,” the judge said, addressing Elias.
    It was already past noon, I thought, willing myself to keep quiet by fixing my eyes on a jagged scratch that ran horizontally about six inches across the front of the judge’s wooden desk.
    “Good morning, Judge Hersey,” Elias answered.
    The judge glanced at his watch. “Proceed.”
    Elias laid out the facts one by one, then deftly connected them like pieces of a puzzle. He concluded by flicking on a proverbial light so you could see the puzzle’s picture: “Either one of the sisters could theoretically be guilty of the murder, and with nothing butcircumstantial evidence, the charge against my client will not prove tenable before a jury. It will waste the court’s time and the state’s money. Therefore I request that Your Honor consider the immediate dismissal of this case.”
    Judge Hersey looked from Elias to me to my file and back to me.
    “What do you say, Ms. Milliken-Goodman?”
    “I’m innocent,” I said, “of everything.”
    “So you think your twin sister is guilty — of everything?”
    My eyes found that safe, deep, comforting scratch — that burrow in the wood that was indisputably there — and with all my strength I brought them back to the judge’s vivid eyes. I nodded.
    “The transcript needs a spoken word,” he said.
    “Yes.”
    “Are you prepared to testify against your sister in a trial, if so called?”
    And here, I admit, I lied: “Yes.” I knew that if a case against me wouldn’t hold up in court without tangible evidence, it wouldn’t hold up against Julie either. In truth, I didn’t know if I would be capable of bringing myself to testify against her. Though if it came to it, if I had to, I supposed I would.
    “All right, then,” Judge Hersey said. “Dismissed. Next!”
    The whole thing took about four minutes. And I was free.
    Bobby greeted me with a hug and kept one arm around me as he shook Elias’s hand, saying, “Thank you. Thank you .”
    “All I did was sort out the facts,” Elias said, but he was smiling, victorious, even a little proud. “And don’t thank me too much. I’ll be sending you a bill.”
    We all laughed. Elias said good-bye and left us alone in the wide hallway outside the courtroom. Well, not alone — Gabe Lazare was waiting for us near the elevator. I hadn’t noticed him in the courtroom; he must have slipped in and stood in the back by the door.
    “Congratulations,” he said.
    “Gee, thanks.” I disengaged my arm from Bobby’s and pushed the DOWN button.
    “I’m sorry,” Lazare said.
    I jabbed the button again and looked at him. He was just one man, standing there in a cheap blue suit with badly dyed hair. It was hard to blame him for getting so excited about doing his job.
    “Because of the blood and the witness,” he said, “we had no choice.”
    “Why didn’t your forensics people notice sooner that the blood had been frozen?” I asked. “That’s what I keep wondering.”
    “I have the same question,” he said, “but you were a flight risk and so we arrested you as soon as we could. This is a complicated case because you and Julie look so much—”
    “Don’t say it.” I stepped closer to Lazare and kissed his cheek. It was the second time I’d kissed him, but now,