Pritchard blinked. "GPS coordinates get updated sometimes."
"Updated by who?"
"The county."
Kendrick handed him a printed letter, stamped, dated, and signed by the county surveyor's office. "This is from the county. It says the coordinates for this parcel haven't been updated since 2002. Not once in 22 years." He paused. "Would you like to revise your previous answer?"
Pritchard's hand began to shake. He looked at his water glass, but didn't drink from it. He looked at Hanson; Hanson was looking at the table. He looked at Blackwood; Blackwood's face was very still.
Kendrick reached into the briefcase again and pulled out three more sheets.
"These are surveys you did on three other properties Belmont has bought in the last four years: the Booker property, the Reed property, the Hightower-Bell property." He set them down one by one on the rail. "Same problem on every single one. Different distances—16 feet, 11 feet, 8 feet, 4 feet—different directions. But every time, the line moves in Belmont's favor." He looked Pritchard in the eye. "Mr. Pritchard, did somebody at Belmont tell you to start your measurements from the wrong place?" A pause. "Yes or no."
The courtroom did not breathe.
Pritchard's mouth opened. His eyes flicked involuntarily, helplessly, toward the bench—toward Judge Blackwood. Forty people saw it.
Hanson closed his eyes for one full second. When he opened them, his face had changed. He had in that second understood something he had been refusing to understand for two years: that Belmont had buried him in this case, and that he was a pawn who had simply not realized he was a pawn.
Pritchard finally answered, his voice small: "I... I was given coordinates to work from."
"By who?"
"By Belmont's project director. He told me the system had been updated. I had no reason to—"
Hanson stood up. "Your Honor, may we approach the bench?"
Blackwood's voice came down sharp. "No, Mr. Hanson, you may not. Sit down."
Hanson sat. But the look on his face was no longer the look of a man defending a client; it was the look of a man watching a crime in progress.
Kendrick let Pritchard step down. The surveyor walked back to his seat unsteadily, not making eye contact with anyone. He sat down in the second row and did not look up again for the rest of the proceedings.
Kendrick did not return to the respondent's table. He stood in the open space between the tables, set the briefcase down at his feet, opened it, and reached inside. He pulled out the index card. He read it once, quietly, to himself. He'd practiced this question in his grandmother's kitchen for six nights. He'd whispered it to himself before falling asleep. He'd written it on the inside of his palm in case his hands shook.
His hands were not shaking.
He turned slowly until he was facing the bench. He looked up at Judge Julia Blackwood.
"Your Honor, before you rule on this case, the record needs one more question. It isn't for any witness. It's for this court."
Blackwood's face hardened. "You're out of order, boy."
"With respect, Your Honor, I have a public document in my hand—a document filed by you every year with the state. Anybody can request it. I did." He held up page nine. "This document says that for the last four years, you have owned a stake in Belmont Holdings. $217,000."
He lowered the page.
"My question, Your Honor, is this:" A beat. "Every property Belmont takes, you make money. Every ruling in their favor, you make money. There's a rule in the state code. It says a judge can't decide a case if she has money in it." Another beat. "How can you decide this case fairly when you profit from the verdict?"
Silence.
The kind of silence that has weight, that presses on the chest, that makes a courtroom of 40 people feel suddenly like a single held breath. Judge Julia Blackwood's gavel hand, which had been raised, began to lower very slowly, like a light bulb dimming out. She did not speak.
In the back of the courtroom, Devon Marsh stood up. He was in his suit—the same one he'd worn the day six years ago that he'd filed the ethics complaint that had cost him his practice. His voice was calm, steady, the voice of a man who had been waiting a long time to say what he was about to say.
"Your Honor, Devon Marsh, North Carolina Bar, license active. The young man is correct on the law. The state code is mandatory, not optional." He paused. "Forty witnesses heard him. The court reporter has it on record." Another pause. "Your Honor, please do the right thing now."
He sat down. You could hear his suit jacket move against the wooden bench. You could hear it because nothing else in the room was making a sound.