No Controlling Legal Authority Ch. 27: Courtroom Christmas
"Well, I guess it's OK," Deputy Suggs muttered as he unlocked the courthouse door and held it open for Anne to enter the darkened hallway. "I know he'll be glad to see that," he said nodding at the package under her arm. She had showed him the label inscription, sort of like a safe conduct pass, which he recognized warranted her immediate admission. "I'd sure like to know where it's been all these years; I bet we searched the courthouse a dozen times looking for that thing. Your new here so you wouldn't know, but there were five or six lawyers around town who were claiming that old Judge Montcastle wanted them to have that robe. They was figuring that, if they could show up with his robe, they could claim that he wanted them to have his seat on the bench, too, and that'd be a big boost for `em come election time."
"Tell you what, Deputy," she responded stepping into the building, "I promised not to tell anyone but Caleb, er, ah, I mean, Judge Montcastle, where it came from, but you can ask him about it later if you want."
"That'll be alright, ma'am," the deputy said with a grin. "I've been figuring that it would be turnin' up eventually, especially now that young Caleb's took to the bench and got his feet wet a little, and there ain't no trick to guessin' where it's been."
"What do you mean you can guess where it's been?" she challenged him, but she cut her eyes toward the package just to be sure a wayward clue hadn't escaped her notice.
"It's got the smell of that expensive French perfume on it, Miss," he replied wrinkling his nose like a puppy sniffing a bush, "that's strong enough to run most of the women in town out of Sunday mornin' church services, if you know what I mean."
"Oh," she gasped in surprise. She had forgotten how the heavy sweet scent of lilac had assailed her the minute she set foot inside Miss Kate's boarding house, because, in the ensuing days, she had grown accustomed to the smell and no longer noticed it.
"I'll just be heading back to the station, Miss," he grinned at her while touching the bill of his service cap in a casual, two fingered, salute. The Judge's office is at the top of the stairs, third door on the left. Y'all have a merry Christmas."
"Wait," she called after him, catching the door to prevent it from closing.
"Yes'm" he said, turning toward her.
"Please, don't say anything to anybody, about the robe, I mean."
"Don't you worry yourself about that, little lady. I bodyguarded old Judge Montcastle the last fifteen years he was on the bench, so there's not many of his secrets I don't know, and there ain't nobody alive that can say he learned one of them secrets from me. Now, you just run on up those stairs and give Judge Caleb his robe; it'll be good to see it back in action, kinda like old times."
"Thank you," she sighed, visibly relieved, "and a very merry Christmas to you too Deputy."
"'Night, ma'am," he said as he turned to go, and in the twinkling of an eye, like Santa disappearing up a chimney, he vanished into the shadows.
The door to Caleb's chambers was open and light was spilling from the doorway into the empty hall at the top of the stairs. Anne tiptoed toward the light, passing, along the way, a door which was inscribed with gilt lettering reading, "Judge Caleb Montcastle, Public Entrance," and beyond that another door with the inscription, "Court Library, NO Public Admittance." A little further, an empty metal folding chair had been pushed against the wall next to the open door and it was blocking her way like a silent sentry. She crept to the chair and peeked around the doorframe.
A glance confirmed that indeed Caleb was hard at work. Law books were strewn around the room, some open, others closed, and there were books stacked in piles on every flat surface. There were law books in chairs, and on the floor in discrete, towering stacks. There were opened books spread edge to edge across the entire breadth of the couch, and, of course, his desk had become the repository of so many volumes that she nearly had to stand on tiptoe just to establish his presence behind the towers of books.
Caleb was reclining in his chair with his feet propped on his desk, and he was studying an open volume in his lap. He had one pencil stuck behind his ear, and he was nibbling the eraser on another as he read. His hair was tousled and mostly sticking straight up like he had run his fingers through it and forgot to pat it down afterward. He had a sort of windblown, unshaven and disheveled, little boy look about him that was only partly offset by the presence of a dress shirt and a loosened necktie. A plate with what she guessed was part of a peanut butter sandwich tottered precariously atop an exceptionally tall stack of books on the corner of his desk. On an adjacent stack, which was nearly as lofty as its neighbor, a glass with the solidified remnants of what might have been milk was poised for imminent catastrophe like a high diver on a platform over an empty pool.
Anne loosened her belt and unbuttoned her trenchcoat, allowing the lapels to fall open freely to uncover the alluring ensemble that Miss Kate had helped her select for the occasion. Kate, she recalled, had brushed aside her concerns with a laugh, saying "Zee cashmere sweater wis zee tres belle décolletage veel have heem panting and snorting, Cherie, and zee rouge mini-skirt ees like zee cape of zee bullfighter, n'est pas; zee one look at vous een zis and he weel charge like zee bull.
She placed her package in the chair beside the door, checking, first, to be sure it couldn't be seen from within Caleb's office, and then, a little self-consciously, she ran her palms down the front of her skirt to smooth out any wrinkles and followed that bit of preening by slipping her thumbs inside her waist-band and tugging her skirt a little higher up her thighs.
"You look MAAAARVALOUS, daaaaling, simply MAAAARVALOUS," one of her many inner voices purred in her mind as she teased her plunging neckline to reveal a couple of additional inches of cleavage, and immediately the image of Billy Crystal materialized in her imagination like a genie coming out of a bottle.
"Where's Sam and Danny and the others?" she queried her tuxedoed comic character anxiously as he took a position behind a podium of crackling carnal flames. "They better not start messin' with my switches."
"Don't worry, kid, your switches are safe with me," Billy chortled wickedly and then, as he threw his arm forward in a widely sweeping, grand gesture, he proclaimed, "They're all here, everybody, waiting for the show to begin, daaaling, and what a crowd it is."
"Where? I don't see anybody," she said, eyeing him suspiciously.
"It's dark; I had 'em turn the house lights down so we could see the show better," Billy cackled, and then, turning to the audience he yelled so loudly that Anne feared the sound of his voice would rouse Caleb, "What'd ya say, everybody; let's give it up for Miss Anne, the sweetest little pussy, in all of…where?" He cupped his hand behind his ear and leaned expectantly toward the audience waiting for a response.
"Wisconsin," Danny Devito's unmistakable voice rang out followed immediately by a cacophony of laughter, shouting, whistling and generalized caterwauling.
"Shut up, you moron, that's cheese," Billy only half-seriously scolded the heckling Devito.
Anne strained to hear Devito's response, however the persisting tumult drowned him out, but Billy, hand still cupping his ear, shook his head dismissively and called out, "No, it does NOT smell like Limburger, you idiot. So, what do you say, folks…the best pussy where?"
The rafters shook with the vibration of a thousand stomping feet and the thunderous roar of clapping hands and a half a thousand voices rose in triumphant unison to chant, "Posey's Bend, Posey's Bend."
Billy glanced over his shoulder and shrugged, "Sorry 'bout that, kid; guess that'll have to do ya till the show gets started anyway."
"That'll do quite nicely for the time being," she smiled modestly, tapping her knuckles lightly against the frosted glass of the chamber door and calling out softly, "Caleb?"
"Hello!" he answered in a startled voice, yanking his feet off his desk and jerking upright in his chair. He squinted, looking into the shadows where the sound originated, and tried to identify the source of the interruption.
"It's just me, Caleb," she said reassuringly as she stepped into the light in the richly paneled office. Perfect lighting, she thought, as her shapely bare legs flashed a flattering golden bronze in the muted glow.
