Chasing The Dead

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Alex, Rossi, and Kalena stood on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the jail. The storm had passed, leaving the air damp and chilled, the sky shot through with orange licks painted by the setting sun.

“Well, that was a first for me,” Kalena said.

“Which part?” Rossi asked. “All he wanted was justice for his daughter’s killer. He’s not the first father to want that.”

“You know that’s not what I mean. The army investigated and said there was no case. Woodrell may not like it, but that’s the end of it. A lot of victims’ families get angry when they think the system blew it, but he’s the first I’ve seen that committed a crime so he could get put in jail and take his revenge.”

“What’s he supposed to do?” Rossi asked.

“Live with it,” Kalena said. “The system isn’t perfect, but it’s all we’ve got.”

“What about you, Counselor?” he said to Alex. “Bad guy gets off. What would you do?”

Alex saw the glint of a smile in the corners of Rossi’s mouth and was determined not to let him provoke her the way he had when she ran into him at the Zoo. She pretended she was in court, where the first rule was to never let them see you sweat.

“Like Kalena said, every lawyer knows the system isn’t perfect.”

“Forget you’re a lawyer. Suppose the bad guy kills someone and gets off, and suppose you’re afraid now he’s gonna come after you or someone you love. Would you take a page out of Woodrell’s book?”

Alex turned the question around. “Let’s try it this way. Remember that you’re a cop and the person you thought was guilty was acquitted. Would you respect the verdict or would you keep going after that person?”

They stared at each other, neither giving ground.

“Am I missing something here?” Kalena said. “I was talking about Woodrell. What are you guys talking about?”

Alex looked at Rossi, letting him answer, daring him to tell an assistant prosecuting attorney that he was harassing her.

Rossi shook his head. “Nothing.”

“Yeah,” Alex said. “Just kicking around hypotheticals.”

“Then try this one,” Kalena said. “Jared Bell is convicted-and that’s not the hypothetical part-and I put Woodrell on the stand at sentencing to tell his story. Even if your client wasn’t charged or convicted, Judge West can consider evidence that he raped and murdered Woodrell’s daughter when he imposes sentence.”

“Hypothetically, he could, but it’s not likely. Not when the only evidence is the unsupported allegations of a father so distraught that he robbed a liquor store so he could try to kill my client.”

“Maybe, but you and your client should consider the possibility. And, by the way, what did Judge West say to Woodrell that made him go off?”

Kalena made her question sound more chatty than inquisitive, and Alex matched her tone, not mistaking her purpose, knowing that they hadn’t suddenly become gossiping girlfriends.

“What can I say? Wild Bill was being Wild Bill.”

“In his chambers?”

“Yeah.”

“I hope you weren’t woodshedding the judge on one of my cases,” she said, an eyebrow raised in mock concern.

“Are you kidding? Trying to have an ex parte chat with Wild Bill about a pending case is like asking to get my ass kicked. I just wanted to tell him that my office may have to ask for some extensions because of Robin Norris’s death. Things are pretty crazy at the moment.”

Kalena nodded. “And Woodrell just barged into West’s chambers? That must have been something to see.”

“You saw him. He was a man on a mission. Besides, he had no way of knowing what a jerk Wild Bill can be.”

“Was that before or after you ran into him on the courthouse steps?”

Kalena wasn’t fooling Alex with her soft cross-examination, the kind of questioning that seems innocuous until the other shoe drops, and Alex wasn’t going to stick around for that. She glanced at her watch, shrugging like the answer was an insignificant detail.

“Before. Hey, it’s almost seven o’clock and I’ve got to get home.”

“Don’t you want to make sure your client is okay? I’ll take you back upstairs to make sure you won’t have a problem getting in to see him.”

Alex gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks, but you said he was all right, so that can wait until Monday, and if I don’t get home soon, Bonnie is going to kill me. We’re supposed to go see Robin’s kids tonight,” she said, hustling to her car before Kalena could take another shot at her.

Rossi waited until Alex drove off.

“What was that all about? She came in demanding to see her client and leaves without checking on him because you said he was okay?”

“I could ask you the same thing about your little two-step with her.”

Rossi gave her his flat cop street stare. “Don’t.”

Kalena leaned her head back a fraction. “Okay,” she said, drawing it out. “What’s your first reaction, Detective, when someone forgets to mention an important part of a story?”

“That they didn’t forget.”

“Alex said she met Woodrell at the courthouse on Wednesday, but she didn’t say anything about meeting him in Judge West’s chambers. Why do you suppose she left that out?”

“Because she didn’t want us to know she was having an ex parte conversation with the judge? So what? I thought you lawyers did that all the time.”

“I don’t.”

“Then what’s your point?”

“Something strange happened in a case I’ve got with Alex. She showed up today at the initial appearance and she already had a copy of the investigative report and the complaint.”

Rossi shrugged. “Why’s that so strange? Isn’t she entitled to that?”

“Sure, but our office never provides it until the initial appearance, not before. It’s just weird. I asked her how she got the file and she said Meg Adler gave it to her.”

“Who’s Meg Adler?”

“She’s filling in for Robin Norris.”

“Huh. Then why wasn’t Meg Adler talking to Judge West about getting more time instead of Alex?”

“Fair question. According to Alex, Meg Adler found the file on Robin’s desk. There was a Post-it note with Alex’s name on it so she assumed Robin wanted to assign the case to Alex.”

“Let me guess,” Rossi said. “It was the Jared Bell file?”

Kalena stared at him, openmouthed. “How’d you know?”

“It’s my case.”

“I know that, but how did you know it was also Alex’s case?”

Rossi filled her in on Robin’s last-second call to Alex, Wheeler’s reconstruction of the accident, and his visit at the scene with Alex.

“If Robin was going to call anyone,” Rossi said, “she would have called 911, but she called Alex instead. My working theory is that Robin knew the identity of her killer and called to warn Alex that the killer would come after her.”

“Did you tell Alex that?”

“No. I walked her through the accident scene and let her put it together. She came to the same conclusion I did.”

“What was her reaction?”

Rossi stroked his chin. “Shock, disbelief-at first.”

“Then what?”

“I asked her what was going on between her and Robin that would make someone want to kill both of them. She says there was nothing going on, says their relationship was strictly professional and that Robin left her alone unless she fucked something up.”

“So either she’s lying about their relationship or it’s one of their cases. Which do you think it is?”

“Maybe both, but when I asked her what the last case was that Robin assigned to her, she almost messed herself.”

Kalena nodded. “Jared Bell.”

“Jared Bell. And now you tell me that someone sent the file to Robin ahead of schedule. Not a big thing by itself.”

“But a lot of cases are about a bunch of little things that spin out of control.”

“So how did Jared’s file end up on Robin Norris’s desk?”

“I don’t know. My boss hung everyone in our office by the fingernails to find the leak, but no one knows how it happened.”

Rossi thought for a moment. “Would Judge West have had access to the file?”

“Of course. But why would he send it to Robin Norris?”

“Who knows? But that could be another one of those little things, and since there are no rules against me having an ex parte conversation with the judge, I think I’ll ask him.”

Kalena grinned. “He’s starting a trial on Monday. He’ll love it when you show up in his chambers.”

“Why not? Who wouldn’t be glad to see me?”

Alex had no doubt that Kalena and Rossi would talk to Judge West about Mathew Woodrell and use that pretext to get the judge’s version of his conversation with her. She picked up her cell phone as soon as she rounded the corner heading away from the jail, intending to call him so they could get their stories straight, dropping her phone in her lap when she realized making that call would leave an electronic trail leading back to her.

Heading south on Main Street, she pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and bought a prepaid cell phone, worrying that she was becoming like one of her drug-dealer clients, glad to have learned a few of their lessons. Keeping her face down to avoid security cameras, she handed money to the cashier, pocketing the change and the phone.

Back in her car, she drove further south. Months ago, Judge West had given her his unlisted phone number, telling her that it rang only in his home office and instructing her to use it only in emergencies. She clicked on the burner phone and tapped in the number. A woman answered on the fourth ring.

“Who is this?”

Caught off guard because no one other than the judge had ever answered her calls, Alex hit the brakes and was almost rear-ended by the driver behind her, who hit her instead with a blast of his horn and a raised middle finger. Waving her apologies, she drove on. The woman was agitated, her voice sharp and demanding. Though Alex had never spoken with the judge’s wife, she had no trouble imagining that this was how Millie West would sound.

“Mrs. West?”

“Yes. This is a private number. Now, who is this? If you’re selling something I’m hanging up.”

“It’s Alex Stone. I’m calling for Judge West.”

Millie didn’t respond, her silence making Alex wonder whether the call had been dropped.

“Mrs. West? Are you still there?”

“Yes, but my husband isn’t.”

“Can you give me his cell phone number?”

“If he wanted you to have it, you already would,” she said and hung up.

Alex smacked her palm against the steering wheel, her attempt at clandestine communication an utter failure. She’d squandered the anonymity of her burner phone. Its number was now included in the call records of the judge’s phone, and his wife could identify her as its owner. She was reminded again how easy it was to make the stupid mistakes that landed her clients in prison.