Page 60 of Holding On

Then I decide to call her.

“Hi, Gretchen. I’m so sorry. But when judge Barr opened the safe, he took some papers out, and they’re just sitting on the bookcase now. I feel really awkward. He’s going be back soon, and I think he’s going to think I was looking at them or something. This is embarrassing. I just want to put them back.”

“There were papers in there? He never uses that safe for anything.” She sighs, apparently pissed there are papers she knows nothing about floating around in his office. I wait patiently, fingers crossed.

“It’ll just take a second,” I say.

She gives me three numbers: 17-34-30.

I can’t believe this is so easy.

With my heart pounding—and admittedly, slightly breathless—I pull the bookcase from the wall, scramble behind it, and position myself for easy access to the knob. I anticipate some false starts, but it opens with my first try.

There’s a click, and then the door swings open.

Inside, there are the two cases of jewelry, a manila folder, and a long black box, like a safety deposit box.

I lift it out swiftly and bring it to his desk near the window, just where the diamonds and necklace glittered a few hours before.

I can’t stand how hard my heart is beating when I lift the lid. The first thing I see is a black plastic spiral binder. When I flip it open, it’s filled with photographs of girls, teenagers. There are no names, but there are numbers under each girl and a dollar figure with what looks like a zip code. I take pictures on my phone, holding my breath with every shot.

Underneath is what looks like a leather booklet, maybe five by eight. Inside are numbers in columns. A budget? A ledger? I take twenty photos as fast as I can.

That’s it.

Nothing else. I look inside the safe again—empty. Even though both of these seem like a find, I’m disappointed.

The black box is heating up, lying on the desk in the sun, so I pick it up, and that’s when I hear something inside. I move it to the top of the bookcase and grab the letter opener off Barr’s desk again.

Sure enough, there’s a false bottom. I gently pry the left-hand corner up and remove a thin rectangle of metal.

There’s another manila folder, much older and discolored. I slip the contents onto the desk. It’s a police report, bi-folded and bundled with two rubber bands. I take out my camera and have to hold my breath again so my hands don’t shake. I need to spend every second photographing, but I can’t help but read some of it. It’s the paperwork for a DUI, right here—a breathalyzer score and a small letter from a Judge Stevens on letterhead.

This was the missing evidence. The evidence no one could find and that the officer lied about.

The outer office door opens. Gretchen’s keys jingle as she removes them from the lock.

I quickly fold the papers again and pull on the rubber bands, then slip them back in the black box and reset the false bottom, tapping it into place until I hear a gentle snap and nearly drop the whole thing.

Now she’s speaking on the phone to someone.

In one fluid motion, I replace the box, close the door, and roll the bookcase into place just as his office door starts to open.

“There you are,” she says, just as I step back, feigning surprise. “Did you get the thing to open?”

“Oh, yes.” I wave a hand at the bookcase as if I had almost forgotten. “I was just checking when he’s coming back. I can’t figure out how to look up his schedule electronically yet.”

“He’s due back now I believe.”

Just at that moment, Barr steps into his office.

His face is blank, his eyes like steel and his mouth set. Then he smiles that abortive smile that ends at the corners of his mouth.

For the next two hours, I’m not allowed out of his sight. It’s not that he’s suddenly on guard. Rather, Barr seems overly chatty, regaling me with stories of cases, law school, and his motorcycle trip down the strip of Baja, California. But I am aware I’m not running errands this afternoon or being sent to anyone’s office. I’m office-bound.

It’s when I’m putting away a property records book that a sliver of fear slides down my spine. There, above the bookcase next to Gretchen’s desk, is a wall of photos.

Some are of the courthouse, with exterior shots of the ground and interior ones of chambers. There’s a series of three black-and-white photographs of when the building was a bank. Then, right at eye level is a row of judges in full regalia.