“It’ll strip away his legal standing before sundown today,” I said.

Mary folded her hands on the table and nodded.

“Then take it straight back to the court,” she said.

I drove back to the courthouse annex downtown and got there twenty minutes ahead of the ten o’clock deadline.

Douglas was waiting in the second-floor hallway right next to the clerk of courts’ filing window.

I took the signed four-page affidavit out of my leather tote and gave it to him.

He slid Mary’s affidavit into the front pocket of the thick motion folder and pushed the brass prong through the top.