Chapter 23: The Gavel

Laney's POV

The president of the Gallow Kings died on the table at County at ten past three.

I was in the hallway when the surgeon came out and shook his head.

I had held that man's insides together with my bare hands until the ambulance came.

He had stood in front of a bullet for a woman he had tried to cheat.

I did not know what to do with that, so I carried it with me.

On Friday, the Crows held the hearing in the east bay of the shop.

The west bay was a black shell, but the east bay had its roof.

Boone had set a long table under the lights with a folding chair at each end.

At the head of the table sat Boone, in his cut, with a ball-peen hammer next to his hand.

At the foot sat Hank's empty chair, with his reading glasses folded on the seat.

He was awake in the unit at County, grumbling at the nurses.

The Crows stood along the walls, and four Gallow Kings stood by the door in their cuts.

The man who had pulled his gun on the second was one of them.

"Bring them in," Boone said.

They brought in Carl first, with a black eye and his hands zip-tied in front of him.

A detective in a rumpled blazer stood behind him with a notebook.

Trent came next, on his own feet, in a borrowed shirt.

Winona came last, because I had asked her to come.

She walked in with her locket in her fist and her face swollen, and she did not look at anyone.

Boone lifted the hammer and set it down once on the wood.

"We're not a court," he said. "We say what we know, in front of the people it happened to."

"And then?" Carl said.