Chasing The Dead

Chapter Fifty-One

By the time Rossi arrived at the Blue Ridge Mobile Home Park, a perimeter marked off with yellow crime scene tape had been established, interviews of neighbors had begun, and an assistant coroner had completed a preliminary examination of the body.

“You’re going to love this,” Gardiner Harris said when Rossi got out of his car.

“A dead body on my day off. What’s not to love?”

“Guess who called it in.”

“Who?”

Harris pointed to a uniformed cop standing next to a patrol car. “Hey, Travis!”

The officer opened the rear car door and Alex Stone stepped out.

“Fuck me,” Rossi said.

“She found the body, a woman named Bethany Sutherland. Stone says she’s the sister of Joanie Sutherland, who’s the vic in one of your cases. And she says Joanie Sutherland’s daughter was living in the trailer. Name is Charlotte. Ten years old and autistic. Doesn’t say a word and likes to wander off. I got teams out looking for her, but so far, we got nothing.”

“I arrested a homeless guy named Jared Bell for raping and murdering Joanie Sutherland. She’s his PD. So what’s the connection to the sister getting killed?”

“Beats me. Stone says she’ll tell me when she tells you.”

“What can you tell me about the sister?”

“White female, thirty-three years old. Killed sometime last night by a blow to the left temple from a sharp, heavy object. CSI is about done inside the trailer. Thought you might want to get a look before we remove the body.”

“Thanks. I’ll do that first, then talk to Alex.”

“Alex, huh? You two on a first-name basis these days?”

“Trying not to be.”

Alex caught up to Rossi and Harris as they walked to the trailer.

“Aren’t you supposed to be home taking it easy or something?” Rossi asked her.

“I tried that. Didn’t work for me.”

“And finding dead bodies does?”

“It’s not like I was on a scavenger hunt and that was the next thing on the list.”

They reached the trailer, Rossi holding his hand up to Alex.

“Wait out here.”

“Look, I was here on Monday. Bethany is dead and Charlotte is missing, and even if she weren’t she doesn’t talk. I’m the only one who can tell you if something is missing.”

“She’s got you there,” Harris said.

Rossi sighed, shaking his head, and motioned for her to follow them. Alex stayed by the door as Rossi examined Bethany’s body and did a quick tour of the trailer.

“Okay, Counselor, what’s missing?”

Alex studied the layout, stopping at the ironing board leaning against the dishwasher. “There was an iron on the floor, but it’s gone.”

Harris said, “I didn’t see an iron. That fits with what the coroner told me. Sharp, heavy object. The killer could have clocked her with the pointed end of the iron.”

“The blow was to her left temple, so the killer was probably facing her, which means he was right-handed and strong enough to swing an iron weighing three or four pounds with enough force to kill her. Anything else missing, Alex?”

“Check the stack of mail on the counter. There should be five thousand dollars in an envelope underneath Bethany’s bank statement.”

Harris put on a pair of latex gloves and picked up each piece of mail by the corners.

“No cash.”

“Which,” Rossi said, “means Bethany stashed the money somewhere else or this was a robbery gone wrong that has nothing to do with Joanie Sutherland’s murder.”

“I think you’re wrong,” Alex said.

Rossi directed her outside. “And now I get to hear you tell me why I’m wrong.”

“I think Joanie and Bethany were killed by someone they were blackmailing.”

Rossi rolled his eyes. “Is that what this is about? You’re trying to use the sister’s murder to get your client off? Give me a break.”

He turned away. Alex grabbed his arm.

“Hey! Hear me out. There’s no way Joanie or Bethany could come up with that much cash.”

“So you’re saying Joanie got her hooks into a john with more money than sense and raised her rates in return for not telling his wife.”

“It was about sex in the beginning, but it turned into something more.”

“More than sex?” Harris asked. “What’s more than sex?”

“A child,” Alex said.

“Charlotte?” Rossi asked.

“Yeah. A wife might forgive her husband for going to a prostitute, but having a child with the prostitute is a lot harder to forgive and a lot more expensive if you throw in child support and treatment for autism. We find Charlotte’s father, we might find who killed Joanie and Bethany.”

Rossi looked back inside the trailer and then at Alex. “Okay. It’s possible.”

“You got any candidates for this father of the year?” Harris asked.

Alex hesitated, taking a deep breath. “It has to be someone with money or power or both, someone with more to lose than the average john.”

Rossi said, “That makes for a long list. Can you shorten it up?”

“I tried to but I struck out.”

“Who?” Rossi asked.

“Anthony Steele.”

“The judge? Christ! You’ve got to be kidding. What possible connection does he have to either one of them?”

“Joanie’s first arrest was in Clay County for shoplifting. Steele was the judge and he put her in diversion before she even had an attorney. Fast-forward to five years ago and Joanie is a hooker with a drug problem and Steele pays for her to go to Fresh Start for rehab.”

Rossi raised an eyebrow. “Out of his own pocket?”

“No. His family has a foundation, the Steele Family Foundation. They paid for it.”

“How do you know that?”

“Steele told me. When I saw him at Robin’s memorial yesterday I said that his name had come up when I reviewed Joanie’s arrest record. He said he didn’t remember her but he gave me a Voldemort look when I mentioned her name.”

“A Voldemort look?”

“Yeah, Voldemort is the bad guy in the Harry Potter books. He’s so scary that just saying his name out loud will ruin your day, and Steele acted like I ruined his. And then he calls me this morning and says he remembered Joanie and would I come to his chambers so he can tell me all about her.”

“And I’m guessing that instead of thanking him for taking the time to help you out, you accused him of murdering Joanie?”

Alex shrugged. “It sort of came up.”

“How’d he take that?”

“He laughed it off, said I was just doing my job and he thanked me for giving him something to talk about at dinner.”

“I’ll bet,” Rossi said, dipping his chin for a moment, his eyes narrowed in concentration. “Wait a second. Back up. What did you say the name of the foundation was?”

“The Steele Family Foundation, why?”

Rossi opened his phone and pulled up the spreadsheet Milton had e-mailed him, scrolling down until he found the entry that read SFF.

“Motherfucker.”

“What?”

“Tell me about your conversation with Judge Steele in his chambers and don’t leave anything out.”

Alex grimaced, suddenly woozy, her wounds throbbing. She grabbed a patio chair and eased herself into it.

“You should have stayed in bed. You okay?”

“Peachy. Let me think for a minute.” She took a breath. “Okay, I walked into his chambers, we said hello, he told me I looked like shit and I said I threw my back out. He said he’d been there because of how much his wife makes him work out. He was dressed down, khakis, no socks, that kind of thing. I asked him if the court had adopted a casual dress code and he said he could always put on his robe and that if I’d been there an hour earlier I’d have caught him in his workout clothes. His gear was in a bag on the floor-”

Rossi interrupted. “The bag. Tell me about the bag.”

Alex furrowed her brow. “I don’t know. It was a bag, you know, some kind of duffel.”

Rossi pulled up the airport video on his phone, freezing it on a close-up of the duffel bag. “Did it look like this?”

Alex took the phone, playing with the image, making it larger, then smaller. “Who’s that in the video?”

“We don’t know yet. Just focus on the bag. Does it look like the one you saw in Steele’s chambers?”

Alex played with the image some more, wrinkling her nose. “Could be. What’s that word on the bag? This image is too fuzzy for me to make it out.”

“Solutioneering, all lowercase.”

Alex nodded. “Yeah. There was something printed on his bag. That could have been it.”

Rossi’s face lit up, his eyes dancing. “How well did you know Robin Norris?”

“Like I told you before. We were good friends but in a professional way. I didn’t know much about her private life.”

“What about her and Judge Steele? Was there anything going on between them?”

“Not that I knew. . Wait, let me show you something. Meg Adler packed up Robin’s personal stuff from her office and I offered to drop it off at Robin’s house. It’s in my car. I’ll get it.”

Alex started to get up, but Rossi put his hand out.

“Keys.”

He brought her the box from her car, putting it at her feet.

“Show me.”

She retrieved the framed photograph of Robin and Judge Steele, handing it to Rossi.

“That was taken at the state bar convention earlier this year. The judge presented Robin with a service award. Later that night, I saw them having a drink, and they looked so cozy that I kidded Robin about it the next morning. She told me I was being ridiculous because he was married and she was close friends with both the judge and his wife.”

“Hmm. But she kept a picture of the two of them in her office.” Rossi turned the frame over, raising the clips holding the photograph in place, sliding it out, and turning it over. “I think she was a little closer to him than she was to his wife.”

He handed the photograph to Alex. There was an inscription on the back. This will have to do until the next time we can be alone.

“Is that Robin’s handwriting?” Rossi asked.

Alex shook her head. “No. It must be Judge Steele’s. Wow. Who’s that in the video?”

“Robin Norris’s killer.”

Rossi opened his phone and called Wheeler.

“Did you find out who was using the rooms on the west side of the motel?”

“Yeah,” Wheeler said. “Only one room was occupied. It belongs to someone with the initials SFF, but your buddy Milton swears on his life that he doesn’t know who that is.”

“I do. Meet me at the court of appeals.”