The private lift beside the judicial entrance had stopped between the first and second floors. Facilities left a printed notice on the door and a telephone number no one answered before nine.
My clerk, Ruth Bennett, called while I stood beneath the notice with my coat over one arm.
“Use the public bank,” she said. “I'll send someone to meet you on five.”
“I know where I work.”
“I know. The building occasionally disagrees.”
I laughed and walked around to the main entrance.
At the corner, a woman asked whether she could bring a bottle of water inside. I told her security would explain the current rule. She had already asked two people and received different answers. We waited beneath the same dripping awning until the queue moved. I remember that now because uncertainty had seemed harmless while it belonged to a question about a plastic bottle.
It was raining in Bellhaven. People crowded beneath the security canopy, balancing documents, umbrellas, and the thin paper cups sold at the café across the street.
I wore a charcoal suit, an ivory shirt, and sensible shoes that had ceased to deserve the name. My robe was upstairs. My court identification was inside my briefcase behind a zipped divider.
At the screening station, I followed the same process as everyone else. The officer on duty recognized me after checking the credential, nodded, and returned it before I put it away.
There was nothing theatrical about it.
I had spent fifteen years as a public defender before my appointment six years earlier. Public corridors were familiar territory. I knew the benches where clients waited because they feared missing a call, the toilets where mothers changed into work uniforms after hearings, and the places where mobile reception disappeared.
I also knew I had stopped seeing some of those details as sharply after receiving chambers of my own.
The elevator was crowded. A man with a document box shifted to let me in. Someone asked whether the fifth floor was open to the public.
“Part of it,” I said. “Which office do you need?”
He showed me an appointment letter. I pointed out the room number and told him to follow the blue signs after leaving the lift.
On three, the doors opened.
A wheelchair user needed space to exit, so I stepped into the hall with two other passengers. The doors began closing before we could return.
I decided to take the stairs.
That was where Briggs saw me.
“Dark jacket. Stop.”
I looked behind me first.
When I realized he meant me, I turned.
“Can I help you?”
“Your name.”
“Vivian Archer.”
He moved closer.
“Try again.”
I thought I had misheard.
“Judge Vivian Archer. My courtroom is on five.”
He looked at the briefcase, then my clothes.
“I need identification.”
“For what purpose?”
“Because I'm asking.”
I could have opened the case immediately. I have considered that choice more times than anyone who later suggested it to me.
At the time, I was standing outside a public elevator in the building where I worked, being told that my name was an unacceptable answer.
I asked why he believed I needed to identify myself further.
He said a defendant was missing from court.
“I am not your defendant.”
“That's what they all say.”
I offered to have him contact chambers or ask a bailiff. I gave him Ruth's extension from memory.
He did not write it down.
“Put the case on the bench.”
“Am I being detained?”
“You're not going anywhere until we sort this out.”
“Then tell me the basis.”
His expression hardened at the legal language. I had seen that reaction before from officers who treated familiarity with rights as evidence of rehearsal.
He stepped across the path to the stairs.
I turned slightly, intending to create room rather than brush against him.
His hand closed around my upper arm.
I told him to let go.
He tightened his grip.
When I pulled my arm free, he reached again. I moved his wrist away from my body with my open hand.
The next movement came too quickly for me to prepare for it.
His right palm struck my left cheek.
My head turned. The briefcase slipped. Its clasp hit the floor and opened.
Somewhere in the corridor, someone said no.
Then Briggs began explaining that I had assaulted him.
Ruth stood when she saw my face.