A glimmer of possibility gleamed through the legal underbrush. A legal out no doubt inspired by the Book of Luke: “And which of you shall have an ass or an ox fallen into a pit, and will not straightway pull him out on the Sabbath day?”

I looked at Mr. Samuelson. “Sir, did you feel this was a real emergency?” I asked. “And that you had no other choices?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. I won’t going to leave my car there. Time I might could get somebody to fetch it, it’d be stripped down to the axles. They’s some bad people out here, Your Honor.”

“There is a legal term called the Doctrine of Emergency,” I said, “and it protects those who perform technically illegal acts during an emergency from the legal consequences of those acts. I hereby declare that Mr. Samuelson’s actions were covered by that doctrine. Case dismissed.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Harrold murmured quietly as he stepped down from the witness-box.

Tracy just shook her head and called her next case.

Hey, if it was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for the state of North Carolina.

I slipped my foot back into my shoe and that place at the base of my big toe protested. I decided then and there that these shoes weren’t going back into my closet. As soon as I got home, I was going to put them in the Goodwill box. Let somebody else wear them.

Somebody else?

One train of thought immediately coupled itself to another, and then another, till I had a whole line of freight cars pulling out of the station loaded with possibilities.

Well, damn!

Tracy moved into routine cases of excessive speed and seat belt violations, but I gave her only half my attention. The other half was chugging around the carnival lot as I remembered all I’d seen and heard these past few days. The things Tally and Dwight had told me, the things I’d gleaned from the Internet, the things I’d wondered about. All came together in such dovetailing clarity that it was all I could do to sit there and rule on these misdemeanors. I might not know why Braz was killed, but I had a pretty good idea why Polly Viscardi was.

While the ADA sorted through her shucks before calling the next case, I scribbled a note to Dwight and called the bailiff over. “Give this to Major Bryant, please, Mr. Overby. And if he’s not there, see if they can locate him?”

He nodded and went out, and for the next hour and forty-five minutes, I did my best to pay attention and dispense justice.

When I recessed at three for the afternoon break, Dwight was waiting outside in the hallway talking with Reid and my other former law partner, John Claude Lee. I’d’ve paid a nickel to have heard what Reid had to say to Dwight the first time they met after that Saturday morning sunrise surprise, but now was not the time to ask.