My Demon Husband novel · Chapter 14 of 32

Chapter 14: Every Beam

I didn't wave back.

I turned around and opened my folder.

Malphas's hand came down on my shoulder, cold through my cardigan.

"Breathe," he said.

"I am breathing."

"You're breathing like a kettle."

"All rise," said the officer.

It was the same judge from the young mother's hearing.

He sat down, looked at the gallery full of tenants in their good shirts, and then he looked at me.

"Ms. Kimball," he said. "Again."

"Yes, Your Honor."

"You're not a lawyer."

"No, sir. I'm an owner. Half of the Larkspur is mine. I'm appearing for myself."

He looked at the paper in front of him for a long moment.

"So it says," he said. "All right. The city may begin."

Greaves's lawyer stood up at the other table.

He was representing the city's side as an interested party, which made the old men in the third row mutter.

He called the inspector.

The inspector sat in the witness chair with his briefcase on his knees.

He told the room that he had inspected the Larkspur on Wednesday the sixteenth at two in the afternoon.

He said the basement beams were soft with rot. He said he could push a screwdriver into them.

He said the wiring was cloth-wrapped and older than his grandfather.

He said the building could come down in the first heavy rain.

Somebody in the gallery said, "Liar," and the officer told them to hush.

"Ms. Kimball," the judge said. "Do you have a witness?"

"I do. The man who built it."

The lawyer laughed.

"Your Honor, the building is a hundred years old."

"Then he'll have a lot to say," I said.

Malphas stood up behind me.

He walked to the witness chair, and the officer handed him the Bible to swear on.

Malphas looked at it.

He put his hand flat on top of the table beside it instead.

"I'll swear on the house," he said.

The judge looked at him over his glasses.

"Name?"

"Malphas."

"First or last?"

"Both."

"He's famous," said Lacey from the gallery, very loud. "Like a singer."

The whole room laughed, even the officer.

The judge rubbed his eyes.

"Go ahead, Mr. Malphas. You built the building?"

"I set every beam in the basement," Malphas said. "There are forty-two. Douglas fir, twelve inches by twelve, cut in 1925 and dried for a year before I touched them."

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