Long Shadows

Chapter 27

It had been a shitty thing to do to White, Decker knew. And he’d still done it. He had his reasons. He didn’t know if they were good ones, but they were his.

And he’d gotten an idea in his head and had decided to just run with it. Alone. For him, sometimes alone was best.

He drove to Cummins’s gated community and used his credentials to clear security; the same guard was there.

“Any of that stuff I dropped off help you guys?” the man asked.

“Working on it,” said Decker as he tapped the gas and sped off.

The forensics team was still at the house. He put on his gloves and booties and made a beeline for the bedroom. The bodies had been removed but he had had Helen Jacobs email him the pictures of the deceased from the crime scene.

His personal cloud had been percolating last night and early this morning. And when he had laid one memory plate on top of another, a number of inconsistencies had popped up. That was why he was here.

He opened the door of a bedroom down the hall from the judge’s. It was as neat as a pin, a place for everything and everything in its place. He could tell this was Tyler Davidson’s room only because of the two footballs perched on a shelf and some high school textbooks set out on a desk.

This looks nothing like my old teenager bedroom. I was a slob back then and still am. But Tyler was clearly focused and organized, at least while he was with his mom.

He returned to the judge’s bedroom, sat in a chair, and took in the space, slowly, one section at a time. He slipped out his phone and went through the photos of Judge Cummins, one image at a time, from her toenails to her fingernails, hair, face, and clothing. He went into the bathroom and made a careful search of the drawers, counters, and cabinets. He did the same with her closet.

Then he sat in the same chair and looked at the images of the slain Alan Draymont. The twin bullet holes in his chest. The suit. All the rest.

One memory frame after another slipped through his mental process, with every discrepancy noted and analyzed.

Okay, I can finally feel it coming together.

He went downstairs and looked in the dishwasher and saw what he thought he would. The same for the recycling bin. The forensics team had made a note of all this, but no one had put it all together yet. Until now. Things were becoming apparent to him that he should have seen before.

Because you’ve half-assed this case up to this point, that’s why.

Draymont had known Alice Lancer. He had been to her home. That was not unusual — they did work together. She was the one who had been tagged as knowing about Draymont’s assignment with Cummins, and the threats. But his place had been tossed. And Lancer was missing. And so was Patty Kelly. He knew of no connection among the three of them, though he was now certain there had to be one.

Based on his memory analysis and what he had found here, he phoned Helen Jacobs and asked her a question. Then he asked her a more detailed query for which she did not have the answer.

“I’ll get right on that,” she had said, almost apologetically.

He had already checked the list of contents of the bathroom trash can made by the forensic team, and what he thought should have been on that list wasn’t.

He stared down at the toilet.

Yep, probably flushed.

And if he was right about all this, the case would take on a whole different dimension.

Decker walked out of the house and saw Doris Kline lifting some groceries out of an old-model yellow Mercedes convertible.

“Need some help?” he asked.

She turned and saw him. “Sure, save me a trip.”

He grabbed two bags while she carried one. His bags clinked. He looked in them to see the bottles of vodka, scotch, and gin. The lady apparently liked them all. He saw several boxes of crackers and a wedge of cheese poking out of her bag.

“Having a party?” he asked as he followed her into the house.

She looked at him slyly. “Yeah, a party of one, unless you’re interested.”

“On duty, sorry. Besides, I don’t think it would go well with the eggs I had for breakfast.”

He set the bags down on the kitchen table and looked around the space. Dark, not overly clean, dated furnishings, and just a sad air all around.

He glanced at her to find Kline watching him.

“What did you expect?” she said. “I told you my ex had the better lawyer. I got the house and he got the cash. Now he’s traveling the world making whoopie while I can barely pay a high schooler to cut the grass.”

“Doesn’t seem fair.”

“I was stupid. Still trusted him after he cheated on me, more than once. My fault.”

“I think the fault lies with him.”

She unscrewed a bottle of vodka and poured it into a glass. She added some tonic and mixed it with her finger. “I knew I liked you. Have you found out who killed Julia?”

“Working on it. Did you ever see Cummins and Draymont together?”

“Draymont is the dead guy?”

“Yes.”

“Sure, I mean, he was over some nights the last few weeks.”

“Some nights? So, not every night.”

“Well, his car wasn’t there those nights, so I just assumed he wasn’t, either.”

Decker sat down at the table and eyed her. “I know she was your friend, but I need to ask you something.”

She sat down across from him and sipped on her drink while she gave him a knowing look. “You want to know if they were having sex?”

“Yes, but what made you think that?”

“He was young and handsome and she was still young and lovely and single and alone. I would’ve jumped into bed with that guy in a heartbeat. The men around here are mostly bald and fat. And all they want to do is play golf. Makes you lose faith in the American male.”

“Anything more specific?”

She looked at him with a coy expression. “Just things that maybe a woman picks up on that men never do.”

Decker sat back. “Let me tell you what I picked up on. He wasn’t wearing a tie. Everyone in a suit at Gamma Protection does apparently. At that hour, he was in the house, not outside. There were two wineglasses in the dishwasher and an empty bottle of merlot in the recycling bin. The judge had makeup, lipstick, and perfume on when she was killed. I don’t think she was asleep at all. The fingernail and toenail polish she was wearing was the same color as the bottle on her bathroom counter. She’d put it on that night, presumably, which you wouldn’t really do unless you were expecting someone. It was a particularly hot shade of cherry red. It was also on one of the wineglasses.”

Kline smiled. “Go on, Agent Decker. You’re just hitting your stride, I can tell.”

“There were clothes on the floor of her closet, all items of lingerie, as though she was thinking about what to wear that night. Some tissues were in the wastebasket with lipstick marks on them. Same color the judge was wearing. That was probably either the judge wiping off excess, or Draymont getting rid of kiss marks on his face. The bed covers were really messed up and the mattress was several inches off-kilter from the box springs. We thought that represented a struggle with her killer. But now I think it was two people being energetically intimate.”

“At least she had fun before she left this world,” said Kline thoughtfully, her lips trembling. She composed herself with a long drink from her glass. “And I must say, you’re very observant. For my part, I had just seen a couple of times the way they looked at each other. And when I asked Julia about him she went overboard explaining how it was all professional. Which led me to think, ‘She doth protest too much.’”

“You didn’t tell us that yesterday.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Our questions were pretty general.”

She lifted her glass. “Well, now you know.”

“The security gate log showed Draymont arriving around eight that night. Was that his usual time?”

“Around that. Actually, I don’t think he was here last week at all. And he’d been at her home two days before he was killed. At least I saw his car.”

“Do you know when your other neighbors the Perlmans are getting back today?”

“Their flight gets in around eleven. They’ll probably be here around twelve thirty or so.”

“Have you told them about Judge Cummins?”

She shook her head. “I... I didn’t have the heart to. Maya and Julia were very close. It’s not something you want to do over the phone.” She finished her drink. “So, what will you do with that information?”

“Keep digging like I always do. The truth is worth it.”

And as he left her, Decker reflected that it actually felt good to say that.