Free The Glass Harmonica by Russell Wangersky Page B

on its tripod, and it would be back down to the police cells to wait for the prison van to make its trundling tour around the city, picking prisoners up from the police station, the lock-up and the courts.
    At Ron’s bail hearing, Ballard sat in the back of the court, not saying a word, his eyes flat and gathering. Ballard and Liz weren’t even sitting together—that didn’t mean anything, Ron thought—and Ballard’s face hadn’t changed when Liz said her piece from the witness box.
    And, Ron thought, what a piece that had been.
    Liz had somehow made herself look even smaller up there on the stand, made her voice tremble like she was afraid, stopping and looking down a lot. At first it was short answers, only a few words at a time, the Crown chiding her along like he was trying to pull the story out of her piece by piece. For Ron, it was like watching an accomplished actor on stage. He almost believed he was listening to a completely different person than the Liz he knew.
    Once, she even built a shuddering, almost full-stop sigh right into the middle of a sentence, and Ron knew every single man in the room—even the judge—was somehow leaning towards her, ready to protect her if something suddenly happened. Like they could rip their shirts right open and the big Superman S would be there on their chests, Ron thought. Every one of them like John Wayne in an old movie, waiting to say, “Need a hand, little lady?” while knocking him down and putting a few boots in for good measure.
    He wanted to jump up then, jump up and shout that Liz wasn’t really like that at all, that she was just saying whatever they wanted her to say, but his lawyer seemed to realize what was about to happen and looked across at him, shaking his head, the motion keeping Ron in his chair. It was good advice. Whenever Ron moved the least little bit in the prisoner’s box, it was like the air in the courtroom changed, the sheriff ’s officers leaning in slightly towards him. They looked almost as if they were swelling up inside their white shirts, getting ready for trouble, and everyone in the room, from the lawyers to the clerks, seemed to react to their cue.
    It was like magic, he thought: every single thing Liz said was true, yet when you took it all together, none of it was. It was like things had all been taken out of order and then rearranged to reach a different and specific conclusion, and when Liz was finished talking, Ron sat in the prisoner’s box for a moment, stunned, not completely sure whether or not he was supposed to applaud.
    Then, when it was Ron’s turn on the stand, briefly, his words turned to ashes before he could get them out properly. The judge was looking down at the desk in front of him. He didn’t seem to notice Ron was speaking, and immediately refused bail, banging his gavel once before standing up in a swirl of black robe and red sash. He left the court without speaking another word.
    It was when he was getting his handcuffs put back on that Ron was suddenly completely certain that Liz was involved with Ballard, that at least one other person in the courtroom probably now knew all about orange juice and faked shyness and sharp, savage teeth.
    Ron knew Liz. He just knew.
    He knew the truth from the way she kept cutting in close next to Ballard, knew at once that she was keeping an orbit too small and proscribed to be anything but deliberately gravitational. Her hands didn’t actually touch the police officer, but at the same time she came carefully close, close enough that, watching, Ron could remember the delicate thrill of those hands, a feeling on his skin that involved both warmth and something like a gentle, constant vibration.
    The door closed behind them while the sheriff ’s officers were pulling him down out of the prisoner’s box.
    He could imagine the sound of her panting in Ballard’s arms, and tried hard to shake the sound from his