Free Bad To The Bone by Katy Munger Page B

motion to grant his client full
custody of the girl—and Miss Bledsoe's lawyer didn't make a
peep."
    "So the father got custody?" I asked,
confused.
    The court reporter shook her head. "Judge
Poe decided to bring in a court-appointed child psychiatrist to
interview the little girl. The doctor spent all afternoon with
Tiffany. The next morning he testified that it would be detrimental
for Tiffany to be deprived of her mother's presence during the next
six years."
    "What happened then?"
    "Robert Price started whispering to his
lawyer, and then his lawyer jumped up and asked if he could
question the psychiatrist again. But all he asked was one thing:
would joint custody provide the little girl with enough contact
with her mother? The shrink said yes. And that was when Price's
lawyer said they wanted to amend their motion to request joint
custody instead of sole custody."
    "Robert Price suggested joint custody
because the shrink thought it was best for Tiffany?"
    She nodded. "That was another reason why I
thought he really cared about his daughter. No matter what
happened, no matter how much money his wife asked for, no matter
how horrible her lawyer acted, Mr. Price never lost his temper. He
just sat there calmly while his lawyer worked out the
arrangements."
    "So Price was allowed to see Tiffany after
the custody hearing was over?"
    "Oh, sure. He was supposed to see her every
other week. And every other major holiday."
    "Poor kid," I murmured. "She must have felt
like a Ping- Pong ball."
    "He had stuff on her," my companion
whispered suddenly, her thin lips barely moving. "I know he
did."
    "Robert Price had something on Tawny
Bledsoe?"
    She nodded emphatically. “Toward the end,
whenever her lawyer would make some outrageous demand, his lawyer
would call a sidebar conference, they'd whisper, and then her
lawyer would either drop his motion or soften his demands. She
didn't like it at all, let me tell you. She was used to getting her
own way, that woman was. You could tell just by looking at
her."
    "Who was in the courtroom?" I asked,
wondering why Price had not made his information public. Who had he
been protecting? "Was Tiffany there?"
    "Sometimes," the court reporter said. "Not
always. Only if the judge wanted to question her. But the
grandmother was there both days."
    "The grandmother on which side?" I
asked.
    "I think maybe she was his mother. Since she
was colored."
    And here I was the professional
detective.
    "Anyone else?" I asked, wondering where
Tawny's family had been.
    "Mr. Price's sister took the little girl in
and out of the courtroom."
    "No one from Tawny's side of the
family?"
    The woman shifted uncomfortably. "I don't
think her family was very happy she had married him."
    In that case, they sure as hell weren't
thrilled about it now.
    "So, who is Joe Scurlock?" I asked,
remembering the man who had started to testify, then been stopped
by Tawny's lawyer.
    The court reporter shook her head. "I don't
know. He never came back into the courtroom."
    I changed the subject. "How easy is it to
fake a court order?" I was thinking about the fat stack of
documents Tawny had given me that first day in my office.
    The woman pushed her untouched lettuce to
the edges of her plate. "It's real easy these days, what with word
processing. Except for the seal. That would be hard to fake without
going through a lot of trouble."
    "But the seal only appears on the final
page?" I asked.
    She nodded.
    "So someone could use the back page from a
prior court order and attach it to forged front pages?" I
asked.
    She looked perplexed. "I guess. But why
would anyone do that?"
    Oh, to fake out some cracker girl PI who
doesn't know her ass from a hole in the ground, I thought.
    "Just speculating," I said out loud. "How
about some dessert? Maybe pie?"
    "Oh, no. I'm getting fat," she protested.
"My husband left me after I gained too much weight when the kids
were born. So I lost forty pounds after the divorce and I want to
keep it off. In case I