Chapter 16: Yes, No, Thank You

The hearing was eight days later, on a gray Monday morning in a courtroom that smelled of wet wool.

I wore the navy dress Constance's lawyer had picked, and I carried a folder of Dawson's forwarded messages.

Margo sat at the other table in a white blouse with her hands folded, and she smiled at me once.

The deacon sat in the second row between Constance and Dawson, in a borrowed suit.

He had come back from Florida on Wednesday.

Since then he had eaten soup in Constance's kitchen and spoken to no one.

The judge was a heavy woman with half-glasses, and she read the petition while the room waited.

Then she looked up at me.

"Ms. Hargrove. Did you follow Ms. Winslow for six weeks?"

"No."

"Did you send her threatening messages from an unknown number?"

"No."

"Do you know whose number it was?"

Constance's lawyer touched my sleeve, which meant she wanted a plain answer and nothing more.

"Yes," I said.

The judge waited.

"Thank you," I added, and somebody behind me coughed to hide a laugh.

Constance's lawyer stood and handed up the deacon's statement, the messages and a printed page from the Winslow Events server.

The judge read all of it in a silence so long that Margo's lawyer began to shift in his chair.

"Counsel," the judge said at last. "This petition rests on a twenty-second video and an unknown number your client controls."

"Your Honor, my client believes she was frightened."

"I'm sure she does. The petition is denied."

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