Free Out Of Time by Katy Munger Page B

answer. Only the small throbbing of a vein in his forehead gave away his distress.
    “I thought maybe you could help me,” I explained quickly when he remained silent. “I’ve been hired by the family as a last-ditch effort to try and clear her. But I can’t seem to find a shovel.”
    He stared at me even more intently. I had the uncomfortable feeling that I was being sized up for a cooking pot. “Brenda Polk told you about my calls, didn’t she?” he said abruptly. “She thinks I’m nuts and told you about it. But you want to make sure I’ve been certified before you write me off. Is that it?”
    I blinked. I had not been prepared for a frontal assault. I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances. I lied. “Not exactly,” I began.
    “I don’t believe you,” he interrupted quickly. “Tell me the truth or you’re out of here.”
    “Okay,” I admitted, taking a deep breath. “Brenda Polk thinks you’re nuts and I want to make sure you’ve been certified before I write you off.”
    He nodded in satisfaction. “In that case, we’re done. I don’t have time for crap like that these days.”
    “Who does have the time for Gail Honeycutt?” I asked, thinking of my hurried appointment with the D. A. earlier that morning. “It seems that everyone is running out of time on this case. Including me. But no one is running out faster than Gail.” I glared at him, irritated. “Well, in one month, Gail’s going to be dead and then the rest of us will have all the time in the world.”
    His feet fell abruptly from the desk. He leaned forward in his swivel chair. “I stand corrected,” he apologized as he scrutinized my face and somewhat unorthodox attire. I prefer to wear sheath dresses circa 1964, when I can find them, and that morning I had paired my favorite purple number with some lime-green sandals. Listen, I’d been in a hurry and how many of us own a pair of purple shoes that we would wear in public?
    I waited while he checked me out, determined not to crumple under the pressure. He wasn’t being rude, I decided. He had simply discarded the veneer of elaborate manners that disguises the curiosity of well-bred southerners. Either that, or he also had no time for such niceties these days.
    “I can tell a lot about a person just by looking at them,” he finally said, leaning back in his chair with a sigh. “That’s one thing I learned on the bench.”
    A short silence followed this pronouncement. I considered commiserating with him on the loss of his judgeship but discarded the notion as obvious pandering. I didn’t think he was the type who responded well to butt licking.
    “Judge Tillman, if you have any information on the Honeycutt case,” I tried instead, “I am begging you to share it with me. Please. I agreed to take the case because I’m a sucker for the underdog. Or maybe I’m just a sucker. I knew that the clock would be ticking the entire time, but let me tell you, it’s harder than I imagined hearing that clock tick away the hours. I don’t have a single lead and I have got to start somewhere.”
    Another long moment of silence dragged by before he spoke. “I might know something that could help,” he finally said. He stared out the window. “It wouldn’t do you much good without collaboration.”
    “Maybe you could tell me what it is,” I suggested. “And I could find the collaboration for you? I am, after all, a trained investigator.” Okay, I was fibbing about the “trained” part, but I still hoped to slip it by the human lie detector sitting before me.
    “It’s not that easy.” Tillman stared intently at me again, and I saw a spwidd I sawark of some long-forgotten passion flare in his eyes. Here was a man trying to convince himself that an intangible like justice didn’t matter. I knew the look only too well. I saw it in my mirror every time I fell in and out of love. If you can’t hold it, you can’t break it. Bullshit. That attitude never worked.