The courthouse tastes like old paper and metal. I breathe it in and swallow the reflex to narrate. My recorder stays zipped in the tote. My palms remember the board’s sliders and twitch anyway, but today the faders are the hinges on these heavy wooden doors, and I keep them at one: open enough to witness, closed enough to keep heat out.
Elena meets me outside Part 42 with two coffees and her hair pulled into a work-knot that defeats vanity and weather. “No streaming,” she says, handing me the cup.
“No audio,” I answer. “Written summary at most.”
“Good,” she says, and a word that small holds a whole covenant. The hallway hums with muffled elevators and the occasional heel strike. Downstairs, the vending machines breathe freon like bored dragons. I can still smell that burnt-sugar drift from the factory on the walk over, clinging faintly to my scarf; the city’s sweetness follows me into rooms that don’t deserve it.
We file in with a few reporters. The clerk’s voice carries starch. Phones off. No cameras. A deputy checks bags again for the ones who pretend they didn’t hear. The judge’s bench is raised but not theatrical; fluorescent panes dull any shine. I take the second row and rest my notebook on my knee. I’m not here to feed the Night Choir; I’m here to make sure quiet has a record.
They bring Lyle in through the side, shackles muted by thick socks. He scans the room with the blasé timing of a seasoned actor testing sightlines. He finds me on the second row and tries on a slow grin, a mask he’s worn down to silk. I look at the marble veining on the column behind him until he slides off my attention like rain.
The hearing opens with the chain. I learned to respect chains when I started labeling drives with a Sharpie in handwriting that could stand up in court. The ADA calls the first tech, a woman in navy with a barrette that catches exactly one fluorescent flicker as she sits. She swears in and lays down dates, times, custodians; her voice moves like thread through eyelets.
“Describe how you acquired the router labeled People’s Exhibit 7,” the ADA says.
“Seized under warrant from the Switchboard Van,” she says, and my stomach tenses, then loosens as she continues. “Device was unplugged by Detective Park, who gloved, bagged, and sealed with evidence label EP-04 at 01:12 hours, June 14th. I logged it at 02:03 hours. Tamper seal was intact on subsequent openings in the lab.”
My pen writes those timestamps by muscle memory. I don’t add color. I don’t add metaphor. I hear my own earlier swagger—season one—shrink to a dangerous whisper in my head. EP-04, not the smoking router. I underline Elena’s initials and breathe through my nose.
“Firmware hash?” the ADA asks.
“Matches the compiled image recovered from Locker 318,” the tech says. “Hash verification documented. Chain continuous.”
I picture the locker and the ring mold and the day my throat learned a new kind of dryness. The judge nods without flourish. Defense objects on foundation and is batted back with case law cool enough to put out a ten-story fire. The discussion stays clerical, not cinematic, which is the point. The point is boredom you can trust.
Next: the boat. A harbor officer in a brown suit that refuses to fit sits and places a sealed evidence bag on the ledge; inside, a GPS module stares like an unblinking bead. He testifies to the seizure, to the ping in the cache two days prior, to the transfer log with signatures like neat stitches.
“Walk us from dock to lab,” the ADA says.
“Dock at 19:42,” he says. “Photographed. Bagged. Seal 714329 affixed. Signed to Detective Park at 20:06. Transport to lab, intake 21:10. No breaks recorded.”
Defense tries to nibble at the seal number. The harbor officer reads it again without checking. The judge nods. Boredom prevails. I let my shoulders fall half an inch.
The boathouse evidence follows like a clean ledger: bolt, lock shards, microphone array, and the metronome whose click still lives in a muscle at the base of my skull. The ADA doesn’t lean on drama; she enumerates. I’ve made whole careers from enumerations dressed in velvet. Today I let the numbers wear their plain clothes.
Lyle shifts and catches the judge’s eye for attention he isn’t owed. The judge keeps the gaze only long enough to make a note. The clerks type. Screensavers don’t wake. No one gasps. The room refuses to feed him.
Defense angles toward narrative, the way a plant seeks a window. “Your Honor, we can’t ignore the media’s role—”
“We are not litigating the media,” the judge says, dry as printer paper. The words land like sandbags around the room, preventing flood. “Stick to evidentiary challenges.”
The Night Choir would have cheered the line. I don’t move. My pen ticks in the margin. I draw a little square—an off switch—then shade it in.
Elena takes the stand last. She swears in with a voice I know from long nights and bad coffee. Her jacket catches a thread on the armrest; her fingers free it without looking. The ADA leads her through the inventory like a slow walk through a familiar neighborhood. I map each stop to a day I’ve already lived.
“Detective Park, who took custody of the case contents at the Orpheum following the defendant’s arrest?” the ADA asks.
“I did,” Elena says. “I sealed items with my initials and logged them under case number 2711-Q. Items included the mask mold, the ledger, the remotes, and the flashed router.”
“Any breaks in chain?”
“No breaks.”
Defense attempts to salt the road. “Detective, do you host dumpling meetings with creators?”
Elena doesn’t blink. “I meet with civilians off the record to prevent harm, not to make shows.”
“Names?”
“No.”
“So we can’t verify whether those dumplings influenced—”
“Counselor,” the judge says, a single guardrail. “We’re not cross-examining a takeout menu. Move on.”
I choke on a laugh and let it dissolve. This is not an episode. This is a docket.
The ADA closes the chain with two strokes: hash, seal, signature. The judge reads from the bench with the patience of stone. “Foundations established. Exhibits admitted for purposes of this hearing. Bail is denied.” No thunderclap follows. The ceiling lights do not flare, and the cherubs that haunted us at the Orpheum are blessedly absent from this room.
Lyle smiles again, this time small, the way a magician smiles to himself when a hidden compartment shuts properly. He looks toward the gallery for the angle of a lens that isn’t there. The deputy reads the room and gives him nothing to play against.
“Next date,” the judge says, and the calendar stutters forward on tongues of clerks. Conspiracy and extortion are named primary, with pending counts carried like sealed envelopes to the next step. The words are dry, but they carry weight. My chest hears it first, then my spine.
We stand when told. Benches scrape in civil syncopation. The smell shifts from paper to wool as coats lift from laps. I tuck my press badge into my pocket so it won’t catch the eye of anyone shopping for quotes to set on fire.
In the corridor, the fluorescent cold meets the city’s warm breath. An older reporter leans toward me with a raised brow.
“No mics,” I say before she asks. “Written post. Five paragraphs. That’s it.” I keep moving, and my feet squeak politely in the long hall where sound goes to cool.
Elena catches up and walks beside me. We don’t talk until the stairwell door soft-closes behind us and the echo grants privacy.
I look at her and see her ribs move under the armor of routine. “How’s your heart?” I ask, not metaphorical, counting beats without a stethoscope.
“Serviceable,” she says, and I watch her exhale in a way I haven’t seen since the boathouse door opened. Her shoulders drop another half inch, the city loosening its grip.
“Bail denial,” I say, just to hear it.
“Bail denial,” she repeats, holding it like a stone still warm from sun. “Chain held. We’ll get to trial.”
The staircase smells like dust and lemon cleaner. I run my fingers along the chipped paint on the rail. I want to crib the judge’s line and stencil it on the studio glass: We are not litigating the media. I want to send it to every Night Choir group chat like a benediction. I do none of that.
“You going to say anything?” she asks.
“Typed-only post,” I say. “No audio, no push alert. I’ll link the court schedule and the resource list again. I’ll explain the charges—conspiracy, extortion—without adjectives.”
“Good,” she says. “I’ll text the DA that you’re keeping it quiet.”
“Tell her our quiet is a practice, not a favor,” I say, softer, not for credit, just to keep faith with the pledge I hung on our site.
We reach the ground-floor corridor, where a cluster of microphones has learned to live without me. The reporter from the tabloid wears a tie the shade of warning tape and asks for a reaction, any reaction. I let the question pool on the linoleum between us until thirst dies. Elena nods once, an escort without hands, and we pass.
Outside, the winter sun keeps its distance. The flood-swell creek behind the studio is blocks away, but I can feel it in my ankles the way sailors feel tide in their knees. I picture the sidewalks shining during full moon and cops and creators ducking under a leaky awning to share dumplings they won’t email about. On better nights, that wet shine reads like a new page; on the worst, it reads like a mirror.
“Text me if you need me to clarify anything before you post,” Elena says. “No quotes, but I can confirm times.”
“I’ll cross-check with the docket and your log,” I say. “EP-04 gets its due.”
The corner smells like bus brakes and pretzels, the city’s fragile perfume. I say goodbye and cut toward the subway, letting the tunnel erase rumor.
Back at the studio, the glass hum greets me like a cat pressed to a door. The aquarium whisper soothes and accuses. I keep the overheads low, the dimmer warm. The enamel cherub pin I once kept by the mouse pad sits in a bowl labeled RETIREMENTS; two Night Choir kids dropped theirs there last night with solemnity that made my throat sting. I touch the cool metal and decide not to melt it yet. Not until we etch the clinic plates.
I open a blank document and type a headline: Hearing Summary: Evidence Admitted, Bail Denied. I put my own name small and the date large. I write five paragraphs like laying bricks: the chain-of-custody testimony, the list of admitted exhibits, the judge’s sentences, the primary charges of conspiracy and extortion advancing, the next court date. I include a link to the court calendar and three resources for survivors. No adjectives except the ones the judge spoke. No clip to download. No music. No voice.
The Night Choir chat pings, polite but eager. We’ll take anything, one message reads. We trust you, another says. Trust expands and contracts like tide; I keep my feet planted and let it wash.
I hover over Publish and consider adding one more line about refusing spectacle. I delete the flourish before it exists. My cursor blinks. I press Post.
The studio doesn’t roar; it exhales. The analytics bar lags behind reality, which is merciful. I close the window and face the glass. The street beyond reflects back a person who once fed a market with confession arcs and now tries to feed a community with patience. I can live with the blur.
My phone buzzes with a text from an unknown number, then stops—no preview, just a badge. I turn the screen face down and listen to the room. Traffic like far surf. Vent fans counting measures. My own breath, steady.
Across town, the courthouse locks its doors for the night. In a cell, Lyle may smirk at concrete and rehearse a new myth for walls that do not applaud. I meet his imagined bow with an empty stage.
Tomorrow, defense will try a new angle, and sponsors will check their dashboards, and a young listener will ask me in a DM if justice is supposed to feel this quiet. I’ll answer when I can offer more than sentiment.
For now, I let the board stay dark and the pledge stay pinned. If I keep the mic off long enough for due process to do its slow work, will the crowd learn to hear outcome over performance—or will a louder host step up to the Orpheum’s broken cherubs and sell them salvation one more time?