The Judge Who Stole Christmas by Randy Singer Page B

was next, and Dad was hard. Tiger covered a few more rows and decided to be practical. White underwear. His dad could always use some more underwear. Tiger grabbed a pack and threw them into his little basket. Not the most exciting gift, but Dad already had everything he wanted. Dad’s gift was history. Now for Lizzy. But what did you get for a baby?
    Searching for the perfect gift, Tiger made his way down the toy aisle. This was unbelievable, so many things to choose from! His eyes bugged out as he surveyed the mountains of cool stuff. A plastic snake. Action figures and little race cars. Dinosaurs and lizards. Hey, that would be a good idea—a lizard for Lizzie. But then . . . oh, my goodness!
    Tiger grabbed a package of two Wild West cowboy guns with rubber-tipped darts and everything. He thought about how much fun it would be, racing around the trailer, sneaking up on his dad. Bam! His dad would groan and stumble around and then fall down dead.
    He raced around the store hunting for Stinky. “C’mere a minute,” he said breathlessly.
    He dragged her back to the toy aisle and pointed out the guns. “Those are really cool,” he said.
    She turned up her nose. “I don’t like guns.”
    â€œNot for you, Stinky. I’m dus’ saying, if you were wondering what to get for me  . . .”
    Stinky, who had been using her body to protect her basket from Tiger’s efforts to peek, did not seem impressed. “Hannah, not Stinky,” she scolded. “And I already got yours.”
    â€œBut what if I don’t like it?”
    â€œI already showed Mom. She said you’ll like it.”
    â€œI really like guns,” Tiger said, leaning forward a little so he could sneak a look at what Stinky had in that basket.
    â€œNo peeking,” Stinky said, twisting so he couldn’t see. “’Sides, if I get you the guns, you’ll know what I got you. And that will take all the fun out of it.”
    Shucks. At least he had tried. But Stinky was a girl. What did she know about guns?
    Then another idea hit him. His dad weren’t no girl. And his daddy loved guns. His dad had as much fun as Tiger when they played with guns.
    After Stinky had disappeared around the end of the aisle, Tiger grabbed the guns and put them in his basket. Then he took out the underwear and, after checking for store clerks, placed them in the bin of plastic snakes.
    Boy, his dad would love these guns. And as Tiger knew better than most, you can make a few pair of used underwear go a long way.

Even though Jasmine had another final less than one day away, she spent almost the entire morning and early afternoon on Wednesday preparing for the show-cause hearing. True to his threats, Vince Harrod had filed the paperwork necessary to drag both the Town of Possum and Thomas Hammond back into court to answer for their conduct the night before. Because Ichabod already had a full docket on Wednesday, the hearing was not scheduled to begin until four in the afternoon.
    This time Thomas was a party and Jasmine was an attorney of record, with Arnold Ottmeyer serving as her supervising attorney. She sat at the defendant’s table with Ottmeyer, Mayor Frumpkin, and Thomas. Harrod, representing himself as a citizen of the Commonwealth of Virginia, sat alone at the plaintiff’s table.
    The short notice for the hearing didn’t seem to detract from attendance. More than half the seats were full, mostly with representatives of the media. A half hour before the hearing, the media satellite trucks had rolled into position.
    Jasmine straightened the pile of papers in front of her. Final exams were one thing, Ichabod quite another. She knew that Ichabod would come out swinging, especially if she’d seen the morning paper. “Possum Resident Flaunts Court Order,” the headline read.
    But Jasmine did have one thing going for her—an opinion by the U.S. Supreme Court— Capital