The morning went by very slowly for Milt. He hadn’t seen time dragging like this since he had been in the fourth grade.

It took fifteen or twenty minutes to question each juror, and half of them were rejected for one reason or another, and then the whole process started all over again. He tried to pay some attention to the book he’d brought with him, but didn’t have much luck.

It took all morning to select seven jurors; fourteen were to be called, in case alternates were needed. At this rate, the jury selection looked like it was going to take the rest of the day, and Milt wasn’t sure how he was going to survive it. He had never been so bored in all his life.

Finally, after what seemed like it had been days, the judge called a halt to the proceedings. “Let’s break for lunch,” he said. “Everyone should be back here at one-thirty, and there will be a roll called.”

It was good that there were several restaurants within walking distance; Milt didn’t want to risk having to find another parking space and be late. There was something about that judge that made Milt think he didn’t put up with much nonsense.

The restaurants were all crowded; apparently most of the courthouse emptied there for lunch at the same time. It’s just too damn bad I don’t have a sub shop here, he thought. Talk about a land-office business! It might be something to think about, although he suspected that the building rents would be pretty high.

He was back in plenty of time, although things didn’t go any quicker in the afternoon. It was after four before the final juror had been selected. If this was how long it took to select a jury, how long was the trial going to last?

At least he would be able to get out of here, although that meant going home to Maxine. He wondered if she was feeling any better. Had Petra ever shown up? Was the house still standing? Good questions, all of them.

He figured that they were about done, but after the last juror was seated, one of the attorneys turned to the judge. “Your honor,” he said. “In view of the amount of publicity generated by this case, the defense requests that the jury be sequestered so they may not be influence by news media reports.”

“Your honor,” the other attorney said. “I find the counselor’s suggestion valid, and would agree to a request to have the jury sequestered.”

“So ordered,” the judge said. He turned to the jury and went on. “Ladies and gentlemen, having you sequestered means that we want to keep you from hearing outside opinions and that your focus stay on what happens in this courtroom. That means that you will not be allowed to go home after the trial starts in the morning, and it may take several days. You will not be allowed to have cell phones or computers, although you will be allowed limited supervised calling privileges. You will not be allowed to read newspapers, nor watch television, although we have a good library of DVDs for you to entertain yourselves when court is not in session. We have a suite of rooms here in the courthouse, and your meals will be provided. When you return in the morning, bring enough changes of clothes to get you through a week. I cannot guarantee that the trial will go that long, and I have to tell you that it could be longer. I realize this may put some strain on your personal lives, but in the interest of fairness to both the accused and the state, I feel it’s best that we do it this way.”

He looked at the jury and went on. “Be here at eight o’clock tomorrow morning with your luggage and personal items. Do not be late, or you will face thirty days across the street for contempt of court.”

Oh, shit, Milt thought, and he was sure there were thirteen other opinions on the jury that agreed with that statement. This was going to be a major pain in the ass.

On the other hand, it’s a perfect excuse to be away from both Maxine and Petra. Maybe in a few days they’ll both have cooled down enough to talk sense. Besides, he wouldn’t have Maxine calling every ten minutes to whine about something.

When he looked at it that way, it almost seemed like a vacation.

Walt Benson happened to be busy on other business around the courthouse, but his back was hurting him from being on his feet too long, and he thought he’d sit down for a minute. Since the jury selection was going on in the Zimmerman murder case, he thought he’d catch a few minutes of that.

He knew that sometimes the questioning could get interesting, if only to a lawyer, and it was always fun to watch people trying to get out of serving on a jury, especially if a trial was supposed to go on for a long time.

He was too late for the actual jury selection process, but was sitting in the back of the courtroom when both the prosecution and the defense called for the jury to be sequestered. He knew that would not be any fun for any of them; being a sequestered juror was a step up from being a prisoner at the jail across the street, but only a single step up. Those people were going to be in for a very dull time.

He didn’t want to cause any distraction by getting up and leaving, so he waited for the judge to finish his statement, and for the jurors to file out glumly, as if they knew what was coming. He recognized one of the jurors; he knew him from somewhere, but couldn’t quite place it.

Then it hit him. As soon as the jury left, he left too, but as soon as he was outside the building he turned on his cell phone and called Royce Palmer, who was still in his office. He and Royce hadn’t had a lot of contact and each of them wanted it that way, but this was too good to pass up. “Hey, Royce,” he said, “Walt Benson here.”

“What’s up, Walt?”

“I’m just outside the courthouse where they just selected the jury in the Zimmerman murder. Guess who’s on the jury and is going to be sequestered for the next few days, starting at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“You’re kidding me,” he heard Royce laugh.

“Nope, Milt Wilson. I thought you’d like to know.”

“I sure am,” he laughed again. “Thanks for tipping me off, Walt.”

Royce knew what that meant, and it was that there wouldn’t be much that Milt could do to affect things for a few days. What’s more, he might even not know much about what was going on. Having him get selected for jury duty had been sheer luck, but Royce was not one to pass up the opportunity.

There wasn’t much that Milt could have done about what was happening to his business even if he had known about it, but this was going to make it even worse. Things would be going to hell in a handbasket for days before he would even be aware that there was a problem! When he did realize there was a problem, there wouldn’t be anything he could do to recover!

Was there anything Royce could do to make the pain even worse? He couldn’t think of anything major. Oh, there were a few little things he could do but they wouldn’t change anything much. Maybe Milt getting selected to sit on that jury was a sign that he was really doing the right thing.

Lee Hammond was glad to be back in the office. All he had to do was to file his reports for the day, and then he could go home, have a few beers, and unwind. It would have been nice to head back up to the cabin and drown a few more worms, since this was a nice time of the year to do it, but he didn’t have enough time. Oh well, he thought. Only four more days till the weekend.

Sid Crandall was waiting for him when he walked in. “Did you get that Wilson deal settled?” he asked. “I’ve had several media calls on it today.”

“About as settled as I can get them,” he replied. “I inspected both the stores where the vomiting incidents took place, and wrote them both up. Mostly it was minor stuff, but there were a few major items that earned them a red tag. I could only find stuff for yellow tags at the other stores, and not very many of them.”

“Good,” Crandall said. “I’ll get out a news release the first thing in the morning. That ought to get the media off our collective asses for a while.”

Petra’s car was not in the driveway when Milt arrived home. He wasn’t sure if that was good or bad, or anything about how Maxine would be acting. He didn’t want to bet it would be good, either way.

Sure enough, Maxine was waiting for him when he walked in the door. “Have you seen Petra?” she asked even before he could get the door closed. “She hasn’t been around all day, and I’m worried about her.”

“Haven’t seen or heard anything,” he replied. “Look, Maxine, she was not very happy with you. You know that. I wouldn’t blame her if she decided to stay away for a while.”

“But I’m her mother!” Maxine replied, her voice going up half an octave and getting some of that nutcase sound to it that Milt was all too familiar with. “She needs me! I need to talk to her. She needs to understand that this isn’t the disaster that she thinks it is. She needs to know that she can still have a big, glorious wedding to remember for the rest of her life.”

“Maxine, I hate to tell you this, but I think she’s going to need another few days to cool off before she’ll even want to talk to you, and then I think you’d better not mention the word ‘wedding’ unless you really want to get her upset.”

“But I’m her mother! I need to talk to her, to console her, to make her understand that things will be all right. Can’t you do something to help me find her?”

“No, not really,” he said, getting tired of the rant already. In fact, he’d been tired of it days before, even weeks before. “I don’t know where she is and she might be a long way away. She might have some idea of where Barry is and . . .”

“My god, I can’t have her getting back together with that scum and having them get married without my being around! That would just kill me! I don’t know . . .”

“If she finds him, I don’t think she plans on marrying him,” Milt snickered. “In fact, she said something about nailing his balls to the mantle. But Maxine, I’m not going to have time to do much about it for a few days.”

“But Milt! She’s your daughter! You have to do something!”

“I’m not going to be able to do anything for the next few days,” he protested. “You didn’t even ask how my jury duty went. Well, I got stuck with being on the jury for the Zimmerman murder, and it’s going to take a few days.”

“Oh, dear,” she said, at least not on the subject of Petra or weddings for an instant. “Wasn’t there some way you could get out of it so you could help me with Petra?”

“Not without spending thirty days in the county jail,” he said. “What’s worse, we’re going to be sequestered for the length of the trial.”

“Sequestered? What does that mean?”

“It means that we’re going to have to stay at the courthouse, and that we won’t be able to call out very much. We won’t be seeing newspapers or TV, either. I have to be there at eight tomorrow morning with clothes for a week, and the trial could go on longer than that, or at least that’s what we were told.”

“There’s no way you could get out of it?”

“Not that I could see.” This clearly was going to be a long evening.

“My God, what am I going to do about Petra without your help?”

“I don’t know and I don’t know what to tell you, other than to relax and let things cool down,” he shrugged. “Nothing is going to get solved by you being hyper about it. Have you taken the meds you were given at the hospital today?”

He could see that was heading for another big rant when the phone rang. “Maybe it’s Petra!” she said excitedly as she ran to answer it.

The disappointment on her face was evident after a few seconds. “It’s for you,” she said. “Mary Ann Hartley, something about her store. Can’t it wait?”

“I better find out,” he said, trying to be reasonable. “It might be something important.” He took the phone from her and said, “Hi, Mary Ann. What’s up?”

“Oh, Mr. Wilson, I’m glad I finally caught up with you,” she replied, sounding almost as frantic as Maxine. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you all day.”

“I was at the courthouse. They don’t let you have cell phones there, and I left mine off. What’s up?”

“Mr. Wilson, the man from the health department came by for a surprise inspection, and he red-tagged the place.”

“Red-tagged it?”

“He made us close up. We didn’t open today at all. Sylvia and I tried to clean up some of his complaints the best we could, but we can’t do everything. I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to get a refrigeration guy in here, and I don’t know what we’re going to do about the rats.”

“Rats? He found rats?”

“He wrote us up for having a rat infestation. I haven’t seen any sign of rats, because if I had I would have been out of there so quick it wouldn’t be funny. I hate rats. I mean, I hate rats.”

“Oh, shit,” he said, stopping to think. This could have happened at a worse time, but not much worse. “I’m going to be stuck with jury duty for a few days, so there’s no putting it off until tomorrow. I better see what I have to do so you can get things rolling while I’m tied up. Where are you now?”

“I’m at home, but I can be at the store in half an hour.”

“It’ll take me about that long. I’ll meet you there and see what we can do. See you in a few.”

He hung up the phone to the sound of Maxine yelling, “My God, Milt! You’re not going to leave me now, are you? I need you! Petra needs you! I need you to find her so I can talk to her.”

“I hate to say this, Maxine, but this is real important,” he said, trying to gather his thoughts. “The health department came by and red-tagged our best store, just closed it up. That means we’re going to lose a lot of income if I can’t get things back up and running, and I’m going to play hell doing it if I’m sitting on that damn jury.”

“But Milt! This is important.”

“This is important, too,” he said firmly. “What’s more, I need that store open if I ever hope to be able to pay off all the money that was pissed away on the wedding. Do you have any idea how deep in the hole we are after that?”

“No, but I thought we had all we needed.”

“It was a reach, but I thought we could manage it if nothing went wrong. Now something’s gone wrong, and I need to deal with it, or there won’t be any paying for the wedding or any house for us to live in, either.”

“It can’t be that bad!”

“Do you want to bet? If I can get this fixed fairly quickly, and do it without having to have my hands on it very much, we might be able to wiggle out of this mess. Now, you’re going to have to settle down and help me instead of freaking out over the wedding, or we’re going to be living in a cardboard box someplace, and I’m not kidding you.”

“All right, but if you can, try to find Petra, will you?”

Milt gratefully retreated to the car, just dead sure that Maxine still had no idea of the situation they were in. They really weren’t that bad off, for now, but he knew it could easily take a couple of weeks to get the Peavine Street store reopened, and it would just be bleeding money all the time. It wouldn’t take much more going wrong for the situation to get considerably worse.

As he rolled down the street he turned his cell phone on. There was a note stuck to the bulletin board of his office about a guy who did twenty-four hour refrigeration repair, but he didn’t remember the number, so at least the Haviland Avenue store was still open and the manager could get it for him. He never even got the chance to dial the number when the cell phone gave its ugly buzz. Now what the hell? It was probably Maxine again, he thought, whining about wanting me to find Petra, and I’ve had all of that I can handle.

But it might be something else, so he answered it.

“Hi, Milt,” he heard Marcie, the manager of the Sullivan Center store say. “I’ve been trying to get hold of you for a while.”

“Yeah, my cell phone has been off,” he replied, his heart sinking. This was obviously more bad news.

“Milt, I hate to say this, but the health department inspector was in this morning and he red-tagged the place and made us close up.”

“Oh, shit,” he said. What else could go wrong?

All he could do was tell her that he’d meet her after he got done at Peavine Street.

If the phone call from Marcie wasn’t enough bad news after the call from Mary Ann, his heart sunk even lower when he wheeled into the Peavine Street store. The old, long closed drive-in next door wasn’t the espresso and bagel place he’d been led to believe, but a place called “Hot Dog Hut” – and it was busy! There was literally a line of people out the door buying hot dogs, mostly parents with kids dressed in ball uniforms, parents buying their kids hot dogs when they should have been buying them subs from the now-closed store!

How the hell had that happened?

Mary Ann was in the closed store waiting for him. He went over the bitch list the inspector had left behind, he knew enough about health department rules to tell that a lot of the items were pure bullshit. The bastard must have had his shorts on too tight this morning, he guessed, and that was probably what had happened at Sullivan Center, too. Still, each of the items had to be dealt with or the store wouldn’t reopen.

“Mary Ann,” he said, “I’ve got jury duty and won’t be available for a few days, so you’re going to have to be the one to deal with this stuff. I made some calls and I’ve already got a refrigeration guy coming in the morning. I don’t remember the number of the pest control guy, but have Gerald at Haviland Avenue get it out of my file. Deal with this stuff, and if you have any questions, ask him. I’ll try to get hold of him and tell him he can act in my place.”

“OK, Milt,” she said. “I’m sorry this had to happen. I mean, I feel like I let you down.”

“There’s nothing you could have done,” he said. “This stuff happens, and you just have to learn to deal with it.”

“I guess,” she said. “What should I do about this new Sandy’s Super Subs store up the street?”

“What’s this? I never heard of a Sandy’s Super Subs.”

“I didn’t realize it until yesterday, but a new sub shop opened up a block up the street yesterday. That’s what it’s called. After we had to close this morning, I poked my nose in there, and Milt, they have introductory specials that are way under what we’ve been charging. Everything is half off, but their regular price is lower than ours.”

“Oh, shit. You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. I don’t know how they can sell them that low, and they look like they’re pretty good subs.”

“Oh, shit,” he said again. “I don’t think we’re exactly overcharging now, but there’s not a lot of room to cut prices, either. Look, if you can get open again before I’m done with jury duty, cut the regular price to match theirs. If they’re giving them away as an introductory special, they can’t keep that crap up for long.”

“Just long enough to snap up our regular customers with us being closed,” she shook her head. “I mean, that and the hot dog place.”

This is gonna hurt, Milt thought. There is no way in hell that this isn’t gonna hurt. I can’t cut prices very much or I’m going to be in the toilet as it is, and with everything else, including all the money that was pissed away on the wedding, I don’t have much reserve.

The hell of it is, he thought, is that I’ve still got Marcie to deal with, so I’ll just bet this isn’t all the bad news. What the hell am I going to do?

It was a very slow day for Petra. She watched a little TV, but couldn’t get interested in it. After a while, she got in her car and drove by her father’s house just on the odd chance that he might be home, but of course he wasn’t.

She thought about driving over to the mall and wandering around to check things out like she had done when she was in high school, but that had no appeal to her.

Over the course of the afternoon she went by her father’s house a couple more times, but there was still no sign of him. That wasn’t unexpected, since she knew he worked a lot of hours.

But then, after dinnertime, she got an answer when she rang his doorbell. He came to the door; when he saw her, he said, “Hi, Petra. How are you doing?”

“Pretty bad,” she replied. “Can I come in?”

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