“Yes.”
Pike looked toward chambers.
“Why aren’t you wearing your robe?”
Kathleen closed her eyes.
Elijah looked up.
“Because court does not start for another seventy-eight minutes.”
Pike swallowed.
“I didn’t recognize you.”
“That is clear.”
“I thought you were…”
Elijah raised one hand.
“Don’t.”
Pike stopped.
Elijah looked toward Kathleen.
“Who is supervising building security this morning?”
“Captain Samuel Briggs should be downstairs.”
“Please call him.”
Pike stepped forward.
“Judge, I can explain what happened.”
“You will have an opportunity.”
Relief flickered across Pike’s face.
Then Elijah continued.
“After the security footage and body camera are preserved.”
The relief vanished.
Kathleen reached for the courtroom phone.
Pike looked toward Maribel.
Elijah noticed.
“Ms. Torres.”
Maribel looked toward him.
“Yes, sir?”
“You were present from the time Officer Pike entered?”
“Yes.”
“You may be asked to give a statement.”
She nodded.
Pike rubbed his hand across his mouth.
“Judge Warren, this does not have to become something bigger than it is.”
Elijah looked toward him.
“What is it?”
“A misunderstanding.”
“You believed someone had entered a secured judicial area.”
“Yes.”
“That is serious.”
“I mean now that we know who you are.”
Elijah sat back.
“That is exactly the part I’m concerned about.”
Pike frowned.
“What?”
“You keep describing the mistake as almost removing a judge.”
Elijah gestured toward the gallery.
“What if I had been a staff attorney authorized to review files?”
Pike said nothing.
“A technician checking courtroom equipment?”
Silence.
“A clerk?”
Elijah looked toward Maribel.
“A maintenance employee?”
Pike’s mouth tightened.
“They wouldn’t normally sit in that chair.”
“Then asking who I was would have answered your concern.”
“You were somewhere you weren’t supposed to be.”
“I was somewhere you assumed I wasn’t supposed to be.”
Elijah paused.
“There is a difference.”
At 7:53, Captain Samuel Briggs entered.
He was Black, sixty, lean, and wore reading glasses he removed immediately after realizing something had gone wrong.
“Good morning, Your Honor.”
“Captain.”
Briggs looked toward Pike.
“What happened?”
Elijah pointed toward Kathleen.
“I would prefer you hear the sequence from somebody who entered near the end and had no role in starting it.”
Kathleen explained.
Pike walked in.
Saw Elijah.
Ordered him out.
Refused repeated suggestions to verify identity.
Threatened physical removal.
Began a countdown.
Reached for restraints.
Kathleen entered before physical contact occurred.
Briggs listened without interrupting.
Then he looked toward Pike.
“Accurate?”
Pike exhaled.
“Mostly.”
Elijah looked up.