Wilde Lake(68)

“Everybody rise,” the clerk says.

Later, Lu will describe what happens as a whoosh, more a sensation of noise than movement, then almost blinding pain as she hits the floor on her left side. She then hears gasps and screams, but all she knows is that her left arm hurts like a son of a bitch, as does her head, which is now being pounded on the floor—by Rudy Drysdale. It’s as if he flew from where he was standing, not quite ten feet away. He bangs her head once, twice, three times, then stands and races for the door, marshals in pursuit. Lu, dizzy and disoriented, struggles to sit up, and it seems, in her blurred vision, that Drysdale is surrounded by a halo of light, shimmering, almost suspended before the closed courtroom doors, so close to freedom. Yet the bailiff, who is old and rotund, has no problem grabbing him and throwing him to the ground, where he is quickly cuffed.

“Motion for a mistrial,” Fred screams at the judge. “Motion for a mistrial, Your Honor.”

His timing is a little disconcerting—he could at least pretend to care about Lu, who is feeling her head, her wrist, shocked that there’s no blood, nothing actually broken. But, hell, if Fred didn’t ask for a mistrial, she might. She doesn’t want to try a case in front of a jury that has just seen her flung to the floor like a rag doll, even if it does establish Rudy’s predilection for violence. Maybe this guy is mentally ill. What the hell was he trying to do? Fred’s been saying all along that Rudy’s desperate to get to trial as soon as possible, in hopes that he might be released. Yet he’s just delayed his own case by days, possibly weeks. And if the attack is reported in the press—luckily, there are no reporters here; the local reporter went home when it was clear there would be no opening statements—Fred might even demand a change of venue. With shaky fingertips, Lu traces the goose egg rising above her left ear. Rudy really could have killed her if he wanted. Had he come at Mary McNally this way? Did he intend to hurt Lu more seriously? No, he was focused on escape.

She hears a woman crying, saying his name over and over. Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. For some reason, Lu thinks of Cary Grant and almost starts to laugh. Is inappropriate laughter a symptom of concussion? Someone—the judge?—crouches down next to her and tells her not to move, to wait for paramedics. She shakes her head impatiently, then realizes it really hurts to shake her head.

“Lu,” a familiar voice says. “Lu. Can you hear me?”

Shit, her father is here. He must have sneaked in toward the end or she would have seen him before now.

“Lu,” he says. “Lu.” Mrs. Drysdale says Rudy, Rudy, Rudy. Lu senses that her father wants to hold her but is restraining himself, in part because he’s not a very huggy guy, but also because he doesn’t want to undermine her authority.

“How do you feel, child?” She should be angry at that word, child, but it makes her happy.

“I’m fine. It probably looked worse than it was. It was the first blow—when he jumped me and knocked me down—that really hurt. After that, it was more like he was trying to shake me and my head kept hitting the floor because he didn’t have a good hold on my shoulders.”

Having said it, she realizes it’s true. The impact of his body hitting hers, knocking her to the ground—that hurt like hell. But his hands on her throat, her shoulders—well, she’s known rougher, for sure.

Saying that to her father right now would probably not be all that comforting.



The EMT guys decide to let her go home, although with muttered imprecations about concussions, and while Lu scoffs at them, she finds herself unaccountably nervous as bedtime nears. She drinks cognac, knowing it’s a terrible idea—it will knock her out, only to have her wide-eyed at 3 A.M. Then it doesn’t knock her out anyway. She simply cannot sleep. It’s not that she experiences the attack when she closes her eyes. Instead, she has the strangest sense of déjà vu. That whooshing noise. A man running. Rudy at the door of the courtroom, so close to the outdoors for which he longed. Yes, the attack on her was a diversion, an attempt to throw the court into chaos. So why didn’t he then break for daylight, as the saying goes?

Because he’s crazy. But not crazy in the way that counts. Not crazy in the way that allows you not to be legally culpable for another person’s death. Lu is sure of one thing now—Rudy Drysdale knows how to blindside a person, can move fast when he wants to. And he had the strength to kill her if that’s what he wanted. Rudy Drysdale has killed.

But it wasn’t what he wanted, not today.

She checks the Internet, winces at the light of her laptop in the dark room. The story of the attack has made it to the news, but with no video, the TV stations can’t do much with it, and even the newspapers are hard-pressed to flesh it out. Her office has been asked what charges Drysdale will face. The answer, so far, issued through Andi, has been that Lu cares more about the charges he already faces for the murder of Mary McNally. What happened to her is unfortunate, but it cannot distract from the matter at hand: murder in the first, of a citizen, a woman who never harmed anyone.

Lu and her father agreed before he drove her home to spare Justin and Penelope the story for now. Easy enough for twelve hours. It’s not like they watch the news. Delightfully self-centered, they didn’t notice how slowly she was moving, like someone with potential whiplash. (Maybe she does have whiplash. It was, after all, a collision of sorts.) But she will have to tell them before school tomorrow, or risk a well-intentioned teacher asking them about it. She will downplay the incident as much as possible. It’s not as if she had a brush with death. There wasn’t even time for fear.