“Ugghhh!” the judge said, suddenly in our company. “Erin! Erin!” She waved a bench memo at Evan. I hoped for his sake that he was back on the hard stuff. “I’ve had it! I’ve had it! Since that mother of yours died, you can’t do anything right!”

“That’s it! I’ve had it!” Evan said, plagiarizing the judge. He stood up and, for the first time all year, towered over her. “You are such a bitch!” he howled. Kate moaned. Matthew and I didn’t move an inch.

“You will not talk to a federal—”

“Bitch. A federal bitch. And yes, I can—and will—talk to a federal bitch like that.” The judge furrowed her brow as she silently ran through her mental Rolodex of zingers.

Evan seized the moment to do the unthinkable. In one suave move, he bent forward, reached behind the judge’s head, and yanked her bun loose. A sea of pins came cascading down. Matthew and I gasped. The judge froze, like a playground bully whose jig was up.

“You know what,” Evan said, squatting to see the judge at eye level and victoriously clutching one bobby pin, “maybe you should go find your missing husband rather than sit around this crappy office all day insulting everyone.”

The four of us stared at her, awaiting a fury that never came. After what felt like two hours but was more like two minutes, the judge finally stirred. She patted her matted hair, hissed at Kate and marched back to the torture chamber.

The atmosphere in chambers had returned to its abnormally normal state when the first Bob sighting of the day took place. Judge Friedman received a call from her neighbor, whose teenage son had seen Bob walking into the Rittenhouse Starbucks “with nothing on but underwear and bathroom slippers. He was smiling.” The son apparently was on his way to basketball practice and didn’t have time to deal with it. Phone slam. No calls were made to Starbucks. No calls were made anywhere. Instead, the judge opened another brief and started reading.

The second sighting came about an hour later. The rabbi at the Friedmans’ temple called to tell the judge that it was great to see Bob “out and about” at the French bistro down the street, eating cheese and drinking wine. “Was he wearing underwear? Well, I’d assume so, but he also had on pants and a sweater. He waved when I knocked on the window. Why didn’t I get him out of there and take him home? Well, why would I? He looked pleased as punch.” The plot thickened. Where did the guy get the threads? The judge didn’t seem to care.

It was almost 5:30. Janet and Medieval Roy had split and there was no sign of the judge following them out. Finally, she picked up the phone.