She gave the seated rows of people a stern, teacherly look that suggested she had once expected better of them and had long since been disappointed.
“Powell, handle this!” McMillan said.
He couldn’t talk to Martin that way! Martin was doing everything he could to gently get them out of there—if McMillan wanted anything more drastic done, he could have done it himself and held all the protesters in contempt to have them carted away in handcuffs.
He just didn’t want to make himself look bad by taking such harsh measures against a peaceful assembly of AARP members, but he was willing to ask Martin to look bad on his behalf.
Well. Tiffani wouldn’t have it. Martin was a much better man than McMillan—miles better—and he shouldn’t have to play the bad guy, not even for a minute.
She switched on the audio recorder on her phone. Technically private recordings weren’t allowed, but she didn’t want to miss a word in her transcripts, especially not of something this good.
Then she stood up.
“Do you have a brochure?” Tiffani said brightly.
The grandmotherly woman gave her a long, appraising stare. Tiffani must have passed whatever test had been in that look, because the woman rooted around in her purse for a moment and came up with a glossy, multi-paged brochure. She handed it over.
“Thanks,” Tiffani said. “I’m passionate about this too. My stepdaughter,” at the last moment she edited out “and her boyfriend,” not wanting to risk scandalizing anyone, “lives in one of the old Steeplechase buildings, and those are always at risk of being torn down.”
“Well, they are hideous,” one of the protesters in back muttered.
They were.
The woman in front shushed them. “They’re not hideous, they’re history.”
“And they’re hers,” Tiffani said. “That’s what Sterling needs—for people to feel ownership of the town’s architectural history. When they do, you won’t be able to find enough chairs to host everyone who will want to come to one of your meetings. Isn’t that right, ladies and gentlemen?”
She said this last bit over her shoulder to the assembled Sterling public, who—poor people—had only come there wanting a little innocent scandal. Right now they probably felt like they were being volunteered for a biweekly commitment.
Martin started a wave of applause, making it spread throughout the courtroom by, Tiffani was convinced, sheer force of will.
The Historical Society woman actually blushed. “Well, that’s very nice. That’s certainly more of a response than we’ve gotten before.” She raised her voice. “We will be outside the courthouse today as you exit, taking down signatures and handing out more brochures. Remember, make new Sterling but keep the old, one is silver and other gold!”
Except you could literally have sterling silver, Tiffani thought, and not sterling gold... but Jillian really did love that creepy, ugly townhouse. Tiffani would never in a million years understand why, but she did.
If it would make her stepdaughter happy, Tiffani would support keeping all the ugly old buildings in the world.
“Come on, ma’am,” Martin said, offering the elderly woman his arm. “I can show you where to make additional copies of your brochures if you start to run out.”
“Thank you, young man. And you, young lady. It’s good to see that someone here knows how to properly handle the concerns of aggrieved citizens. Unlike you, Terry!” She directed that last bit solely at Judge McMillan, who now looked as though he wanted to disappear into his robes.
Terry?
“He used to be my neighbor,” the woman said to the room. “And believe you me, back when he was toddling around after all of us older children begging us to let him play, he didn’t seem so high and mighty then.”
This would make for such an entertaining transcript, Tiffani thought, and then she had a marvelous idea.
*
As much as she liked the idea of permanently recording Judge McMillan getting taken down a peg or two, she was willing to sacrifice that pleasure for the greater good. Or, in this case, the good of not having to tiptoe around McMillan for the rest of the trial.
She transcribed her notes during the afternoon’s recess and then went to the judge’s chambers.
McMillan let her in but said at once, “None of that was any of your concern, Ms. Marcus!”
“No, Your Honor, I’m aware of that. And I’m sure M—Deputy Chief Powell would have gotten everyone out in a nice, orderly fashion right away. I only involved myself because of the transcripts.”
From the look on his face, McMillan had spent even more time thinking about the transcripts than Tiffani had.