Chapter 26The morning after Barbara's arrest, Brian sat at the counsel table in Department 316 as the thin-faced judge, who couldn't have been over forty by Brian's assessment, stared down at them over wire-rimmed glasses from his elevated vantage point behind the bench. The seal of the State of California was perched on the wall behind him, between the Stars and Stripes on one side and the prominent bear of the state flag on the other. Every seat in the courtroom, including the jury box, was occupied by the worried faces of defendants about to be arraigned, watching the judge attentively before he had uttered his first word, and lawyers clad in blue suits and red ties, displaying expressions of boredom or impatience.
Judge Alfred Byers looked up from the paperwork that had consumed him f
