The Littlest Prosecutor novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: The Rabbit

"That's my rabbit," I said.

Daddy jumped.

He looked down at me in the doorway, and he turned the phone face down against his chest, but it was too late.

"I saw it," I said. "It's his ear. It's the left one."

"Bird, go back to bed."

"No."

I said it in my courtroom voice.

He looked at me for a long moment, and then he went down the hall and knocked on Uncle Desmond's door.

Uncle Desmond opened it in a blue bathrobe with his hair standing up.

"What time is it?"

"Ten past three. Get your shoes."

"Pat, if this is about Denver, I already said I'd..."

"It's about a rabbit," said Daddy. "And I want a witness."

They were gone before Aunt Jo got her robe on.

She carried me down to the kitchen anyway and sat me on the counter with a blanket, and we did not wait the way people usually wait.

She turned on every light.

She took the old hair dryer out from under Grandpa's sink, with a stack of towels.

She laid them out on the table.

"He has to be dried slowly," she said. "Or his stuffing goes sour."

"He's already sour."

"Then we'll un-sour him."

At twenty to six, headlights swung across the kitchen window.

I was at the front door before Aunt Jo could say my name.

Daddy came up the porch steps with a black trash bag in both arms.

He held it out in front of him.

His sleeves were wet to the elbow.

His good shirt had a long brown stain down the front, and he had lost a button.

Uncle Desmond followed him, carrying nothing, with a look on his face I had only seen in court.

"Did she let you?" asked Aunt Jo.

"She stood in the doorway in her robe and watched me pick it up," said Daddy. "She didn't stop me."

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