In the Clearing Read Online Free

courtroom. Spectators and media filled the usually empty benches in the gallery. More people stood at the back of the room.
    Atticus Berkshire sat in the first bench. Any trace of the sympathetic father and grandfather had vanished. Berkshire’s silver curls were swept back from his forehead, just touching the collar of his blue pin-striped suit jacket. He was busy typing on an iPad, head down. An oscillating fan on the corner of the clerk’s oak counter swung from side to side. With each sweep, papers weighted down by her nameplate fluttered like the wings of a bird. There were no counsel tables—attorneys and their clients stood at the counter during what were typically brief hearings.
    At 2:30 p.m. Judge Mira Mairs entered from the right, strode between two burly corrections officers, and quickly took her seat. An American flag and the green flag of the state of Washington hung limply behind her. Ordinarily, Mairs would have been considered a good draw for the prosecution, but Mairs had forged a career prosecuting domestic violence cases against husbands and boyfriends, and Tracy feared she could be overly sympathetic to Angela Collins’s anticipated self-defense argument. Mairs instructed the clerk to call the case first, no doubt so she could get back to the normal afternoon routine.
    Angela Collins entered in white prison scrubs with the words “Ultra Security Inmate” stenciled on the back, her hands cuffed to a belly chain. After a visit to the hospital to treat the bump on her head with three stitches and to x-ray her jaw and ribs—both were negative—Collins had spent the night in jail. The cut near the corner of her mouth had scabbed over and looked to be turning a dark blue.
    Cerrabone stated his appearance. Mairs looked to Berkshire, who was whispering to his daughter. “Counselor, are you joining us this morning?”
    Berkshire straightened. “Indeed, Your Honor. Atticus Berkshire for the defendant, Angela Margaret Collins.”
    Mairs picked up the certification and folded her hair behind her ear. It flowed gently to her shoulders, as black as her judicial robe.
    “Your Honor,” Berkshire started. “If I may—”
    Mairs raised a hand but did not look up, turning over the pages and setting them on her desk as she read through the document. When she’d finished, she gathered the pages and tapped them on her desk to even them. “I’ve read the certification. Anything else to add?”
    “Yes, Your Honor,” Berkshire said.
    “From the State,” Mairs interrupted. “Anything else to add from the State?”
    “Yes, Your Honor,” Cerrabone said. “It has come to the State’s attention that in addition to what is set forth in the certification, the defendant and the deceased were involved in a contentious civil divorce that was set to go to trial next month after a failed mediation.”
    Cerrabone could have elaborated, but Tracy knew he preferred not to try his cases in the press. Berkshire had no such qualms.
    “A civil divorce my client initiated after years of mental and physical cruelty,” Berkshire said, becoming animated. “The shooting took place in Mrs. Collins’s residence after the deceased had moved out and had no legal right to be there. In fact, she had obtained a restraining order.”
    “There you have it,” Kins whispered to Tracy. “Self-defense. He was attacking with his back to her.”
    “Save your arguments, Counselor,” Mairs said. “I find that there’s probable cause to detain the defendant. Do you wish to be heard on bail or defer to the arraignment?”
    “The defense wishes to be heard,” Berkshire said.
    “The State objects to bail,” Cerrabone said. “This is a murder case.”
    “This is a self-defense case,” Berkshire said.
    Mairs lifted a palm as if to say “Have at it” and sat back in her chair.
    “As the State well knows,” Berkshire said, “every person in the state of Washington is entitled to bail. Mrs. Collins has not been convicted of any