“Well, hello, Theo,” said lovely Jenny, by far Theo’s favorite clerk in the entire courthouse.

“Hello, Jenny,” he said with a smile as he kept walking across the small room. He disappeared into a utility closet, came out the other side onto a landing which led to another hidden staircase. In decades past, this had been used to haul convicts from the jail to the main courtroom to face the wrath of the judges, but now it was seldom used. The old courthouse was a maze of cramped passageways and narrow staircases, and Theo knew every one of them.

He entered the courtroom from a side door next to the jury box. The place was buzzing with the nervous chatter of spectators about to see something dramatic. Uniformed guards milled about, chatting with one another and looking important. There was a crowd at the main door as people were still trying to get in. On the left side of the courtroom, in the third row behind the defense table, Theo saw a familiar face.

It was his uncle, Ike, and he was saving a seat for his favorite (and only) nephew. Theo wiggled and darted down the row and wedged himself into a tight spot next to Ike.

Chapter 2

Ike Boone had once been a lawyer. In fact, he had once been in the same offices as Theo’s parents. The three Boones had survived a rocky partnership until Ike ran afoul of the law and got himself into trouble, big trouble. So much trouble that the State Bar Association revoked his license to practice law. Now, he worked as an accountant and tax adviser to several small businesses in Strattenburg. He had no family to speak of and was generally an unhappy old man. He liked to think of himself as a loner, a misfit, a rebel who dressed like an old hippie and wore his long, white hair pulled back into a ponytail. On this day he was wearing typical Ike attire-ancient sandals with no socks, faded jeans, a red T-shirt under a checkered sports coat with frayed sleeves.