“I’m a respected developer in this city.
You’re taking the word of an eight-year-old over mine?”
Judge Halloway did not look up from the orders he was signing.
“Mr.
Halstead,” he said, “I am taking the physical evidence documented by a child who was forced to protect his own mother from you.
You are under arrest for felony stalking, witness intimidation, child endangerment, and fraud.
Get him out of my courtroom.”
The double doors closed behind him, and the sound they made was very final.
I had imagined that moment more times than I would like to admit — the moment Lyle finally faced a consequence he could not buy or lawyer or intimidate his way out of.
In the imagining, I had always thought I would feel triumphant, vindicated, some clean bright flare of now you know how it feels. What I actually felt, watching the deputies walk him out, was something quieter and more complicated.