The Littlest Prosecutor novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Cross-Examination

Uncle Desmond questions Faye, and the six-year-old's memory breaks her alibi, until Grandfather ends the hearing.

"Patrick," Uncle Desmond said. "Say that again, slowly."

"She scratched it on the gate," Daddy said.

He still wasn't looking at me.

Uncle Desmond nodded.

"Then I have some questions for the witness," he said. "Birdie, come sit by me."

Daddy let go of me.

I climbed down and walked around the table, and Uncle Desmond lifted me onto the chair beside his.

His big hand rested on my back.

It was warm, and my words got a little looser.

"Faye," he said, very friendly. "Where were you at three-forty this afternoon?"

"Yoga," Faye said right away. "Until four. Ask anyone."

"Birdie," Uncle Desmond said. "Where was Faye at three-forty?"

"In the upstairs hall," I said.

My voice shook, but I kept going.

"The clock by the stairs had both hands pointing down and a little bit left. That's three-forty."

Uncle Desmond's eyebrows went up.

"Can you read a clock?" the second uncle asked.

"Since August," I said. "It's an analog clock. It has a pendulum."

The third uncle made a small noise into his napkin.

"What was she wearing?" Uncle Desmond asked.

"The blue cardigan," I said. "The one with the second button missing."

Faye laughed, high and tinkly.

"Oh, Birdie. I wore this pink one all day."

She picked at the sleeve of the pink cardigan she had on.

Nobody laughed with her.

"Where is the blue one now?" Uncle Desmond asked.

"In the laundry basket," I said. "She changed when we got home. I heard the dryer."

The housekeeper was standing by the kitchen door with a dish towel.

She was the quietest person in the house, and she had been standing there the whole time.

"It's in the basket," she said. "Faye changed at three o'clock. I took the pink one out of the closet for her."

"I came home early," Faye said. "I forgot. I had a headache."

"At three you were home," Uncle Desmond said. "At three-forty you were at yoga until four. Which one is it?"

"Desmond, this is ridiculous."

"I agree," he said. "I'm asking anyway."

The second uncle stood up.

"I'll go check the basket."

"I'll check the bathroom," said the fourth uncle, who was the only one of them who did family law, and who looked the most tired.

They went upstairs.

Nobody at the table talked.

I looked at Faye, and she looked at me.

She was still smiling, but her hand was squeezing her napkin so hard her knuckles had turned white.

I had seen those knuckles before, in the hallway.

"Birdie," Uncle Desmond said quietly. "Is there anything else we'd find?"

"A button," I said. "In the soap dish. It fell off when she grabbed my hand."

The uncles came back down in less than two minutes.

The second uncle held up a blue cardigan with a missing button and a bit of loose thread.

The fourth uncle opened his palm.

In it was a small, round, blue button.

"Soap dish," he said. "Second-floor bathroom."

It was the best thing I had ever seen in my whole life.

Faye's face went still, then fell apart for just a second.

Then she smoothed it back together.

"A button on a sink," she said. "That proves nothing. She's six. She plays with things."

"Faye," Uncle Desmond said, "who was in the bathroom with Birdie at three-forty?"

"Nobody was in the bathroom."

"Then why is your button in it?"

Faye opened her mouth.

At the head of the table, a chair scraped.

It was Grandpa Ambrose.

He was eighty, and he used a cane, and when he stood up, every one of his sons sat up straighter.

He had been quiet all through dinner.

He had been listening with his hands folded over the top of the cane.

"That is enough," he said.

His voice was not loud.

It had never needed to be.

"The child is overtired. It is late, and this has become a circus."

"Dad," said Uncle Desmond. "We have a button, a cardigan, a witness and a time."

"We have a six-year-old with a scratch and a candy," Grandpa said. "We do not put family on trial over a candy."

He turned and looked at Faye.

"Faye is family," he said.

And Faye, with her wet, shining eyes, put her hand over her heart and smiled at him.

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