The Judgment [antikvár]

he jury came in just after four o'clock. It was Halloween, and they wanted to get home before dark. There wasn't anyone in Detroit who didn't want to get home before dark. It hadn't been much of a trial, just one day, although the charge of armed robbery was serious even in Detroit's Recorder's Court, where murder sometimes is considered small change. My man looked guilty, although there had been some question about identification. But the jury wasn't about to sit around and waste a whole lot of time arguing about it. They gave him the benefit of the doubt, under the circumstances, and acquitted him so they could leave early. Everyone told me I had done a good job, but they knew it was the clock that had really swung things in my-client's favor. I walked to the nearly empty parking garage and retrieved my car. There was a chill in the damp air. My footsteps echoed in the concrete silence of the place, and even traffic sounds outside the garage seemed muted, as though the entire city were creeping on cats' feet. It was an hour's drive back to Pickeral Point, the little city forty miles north of Detroit where I have my home and office, my private sanctuary on the banks of the St. Clair River. Detroit had once been my home, but that was