"Kate Wilhelm - Justice For Some" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wilhelm Kate)

Justice For Some by Kate Wilhelm

THE TROUBLE WAS that Sarah Drexler did not look like a judge. She knew it, and suspected that so
did everyone who came before her in court. She was forty-six and still had frizzy red hair, not as red as
it used to be, but unmistakably red, and she had freckles that she had long since stopped fighting, and
she was sturdy. Not fat, not even overweight, but sturdy, built for endurance, Blaine used to say. She
stood at her window overlooking the parking lot at the courthouse, and held the blind back to watch
heat patterns rise and rise and rise.

It was May, but Pendleton, Oregon, could be an inferno in May, or it could snow. This year, hell was
winning.

If it were snowing she would be even more dissatisfied; what she really wanted was idyllic May weather,
storybook, poetry May weather.

She let the Venetian blind close again when she heard the door opening behind her. Her fingers felt dirty.
The building was air-conditioned, but the blinds were always gritty, there was always pale grit on the
desk, on every flat surface, on her fingers now. She couldn't understand how it got inside, not just here in
the courthouse, but in her house, in the car, everywhere.

"They're ready," her secretary, Beatrice Wordley, said.

When Sarah turned to face her, she caught the gleam of delight in Beatrice's eyes. "Damnit all," she said,
going to her desk for a tissue. Beatrice nodded. She had been with Blaine and Sarah when they were in
private practice, then with Blaine here in the courthouse, and now with Sarah, altogether for nearly
twenty years. Her expression of glee said clearly that she knew as well as Sarah that Homer Wickham
was not willing to give any woman the authority to tell him the time of day, and that Homer Wickham
was due for a surprise. Sarah wiped her hands, tossed the tissue into the waste can, and stepped into the
hall outside her door.

She entered the conference room next to her office, and nodded pleasantly to the small group already
there, two attorneys, and Mr. and Mrs. Wickham, who wanted to kill each other. The conference room
was opulent compared to the office. Blaine had kept his surroundings nearly barren, nothing that wasn't
absolutely essential had been allowed, and she had done little to change that. But the conference room
had old-fashioned furniture, overstuffed chairs and sofas, a long scarred table with ladderback chairs,
ferns in pots. The ferns kept dying because the humidity was too low, but when they looked terminal,
new ones appeared; the old brown plants vanished as if by magic.

Everyone in the little group awaiting her had been sitting upright, stiffly uncomfortable in the comfortable
chairs. The two attorneys had risen with Sarah's entrance, and belatedly Johnny Weber hauled Mr.
Wickham to his feet. Mrs. Wickham glared at her husband and then nodded to Sarah. Sarah sat in her
own chair and said, "Thank you for coming. I wanted this informal conference before the hearing in
order to make a suggestion. Mr. Weber, Mr. Howell, please understand that this is an informal
proceeding."

The attorneys nodded.

"It is agreed that Mr. and Mrs. Wickham are exemplary parents, and the custody of the four children is
the major difficulty to be resolved."
Mr. Wickham shook himself and muttered, "And the house."