Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

17

A judge who takes money [for a decision] against the life or property of a man is deprived of his property and deported to an island.

—Paulus (early 3rd century AD)

Even though Fitz could not respond, once Martha had seen him and touched him, she let their son Chad persuade her to return to the hotel for the night. She planned to transfer to a hotel nearer the hospital the next day.

As we waited with her at the entrance for Chad to bring the car around, I said, “You have my number, so call if there’s anything at all that we can do.”

Martha’s not normally a physically demonstrative person, but I got a warm hug and a “Thanks, sugar” before her son whisked her away.

Chelsea Ann was silent on our drive through Wilmington’s dark tree-lined streets. Away from the center of town, all was quiet until after we crossed the causeway that led over to the beach where vacationers were hanging out at the main intersection, spilling out into the street from the clubs.

“So what’s the verdict?” I asked her as we maneuvered around the cars full of vacationing teenagers that were cruising back and forth.

She didn’t pretend not to understand. “I don’t know, Deborah. Another lawman?”

Her ex-husband was an ATF agent.

“I’ve been down that road before. Gary Edwards seems like a real sweetie. Cute, smart. But I’m in Raleigh and he’s down here. When would we really get to know each other?”

“It’s only a ninety-minute drive,” I reminded her.

“And we both know that a lawman’s life is not his own. Look how often Dwight has to bail on you and he’s right there in Dobbs.”

“Sam’s erratic schedule wasn’t why y’all split up,” I said.

“No, but it certainly didn’t help that he never seemed to be around when I wanted him,” she argued. “Oh, well, why am I even talking like this? It’s not as if Gary’s even asked me out yet.”

“And if he does?”

She grinned. “Oh, what the heck? I’ll probably go. Why not? How I Spent My Summer Vacation. Better a summer fling with him than with a married judge, right?”

Which led us back to earlier speculations about a pair of fifty-something colleagues. He is from the mountains, she’s from the Triangle. Both married, yet they never bring their spouses to the conferences. They discovered each other three years ago when they sat together during the sessions and talked animatedly during the breaks. At every conference since, they sit on opposite sides of the room, they don’t speak during the morning breaks, and they don’t go out to lunch together; but it’s been noticed that they don’t stay at the conference hotels and that one car pulls into the parking lot within minutes of the other. They both plead poverty and kids in college as a reason to book somewhere cheaper, yet somehow it’s never at the motel where all the other budget-minded judges stay.

“Like judges have more personal judgment than ordinary mortals,” my internal preacher murmured.

The pragmatist nodded. “And like nobody noticed when you and Chuck Teach—”

“Never mind,” I told them firmly.

“It’s not Sam I miss so much,” Chelsea Ann said, interrupting my thoughts. “It’s having someone put his arms around me and kiss me like I’m special and necessary to him that I miss. I miss being in love, Deborah. Forty-two years. That’s what Martha and Fitz have had. That’s what I want.”

Me, too, I thought and patted the hand-carved knob on my gear shift that Dwight had given me so I’d always have a handy piece of wood to touch for luck.

When we reached the hotel, the moon was a huge silvery blue disc playing hide-and-seek with fluffy white clouds that barely dimmed its brightness.

I was feeling the need for some fresh air after our hours in the hospital. “Want to take a walk on the beach?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry, I’m really tired. And Rosemary’s probably going to want to talk.”

We rode up in the elevator together and I went straight to my room, but all I had to do was open the French doors and step out into that amazing moonlight and it was too much to resist. I quickly changed into a long-sleeved tee, slacks, and sneakers, and was soon back downstairs.

Although the bar was now closed, out on the terrace there were still people seated at the small tables or in rocking chairs. Nursing their final drinks, they spoke in low tones, as if equally reluctant to go inside and end this lovely night. One or two spoke to me when I passed but I wasn’t looking for company and cut across the pool area and down the planked walkway to the steps that led to the beach. A young couple—honeymooners?—were making out in one of the hot tubs, oblivious to the world and certainly to me.

I walked down the steps to the sand. A whiff of cigarette smoke drifted past on the warm night air and I looked around for the source, but the beach was deserted so far as I could tell.

I took off my sneakers and tucked them under the steps beside the lifeguard stand. The tide was low again and a wide band of hard sand made walking easy. Not that I was out to do a marathon or anything. Although the moon was so near full that nothing could completely blot out its light, more clouds had drifted in from the west and they hid its face for minutes at a time.

As I walked, I thought about how complicated it all was. Life. Love. Why some marriages worked and others failed. Chelsea Ann was a funny, impulsively warm-hearted friend and I still liked her ex-husband Sam. I had known them both long enough to remember when they had genuinely loved each other. Where had their love gone?

And Rosemary and Dave. Almost twenty years down the drain. But that I could understand. She had thanked her sister for not saying “I told you so,” after Chelsea Ann berated her for telling that cute little waitress that Dave could give her the names of some SBI agents, but sheesh! It’s all very noble to forgive your cheating husband, but you don’t immediately turn around and give him the contact numbers of a Playboy bunny, do you?

And dear Martha and Fitz. If she should lose him, it would be through no fault of her own.

I paused to wait for the moon to come back out from behind a cloud that was as dark as my worry for Fitz. There wasn’t a mean bone in his body, so why the hell would anyone deliberately try to kill him? And could Pete Jeffreys’s death possibly be linked?

By now, pleasantly tired, I had retraced my steps until I was almost back in front of the lifeguard stand. I sat down on the dry sand and rested my chin on my knees as I stared out at the slow-rolling waves and rewound the tape on Saturday night.

I saw Jeffreys’s run-in with Stone Hamilton’s dog, I saw Martha’s refusal to shake his hand coupled with Fitz’s amiable clasp, I watched him speak to Allen Stancil, then introduce Cynthia Blankenthorpe to Allen. I saw Reid and his friend Bill’s distaste for Jeffreys and the way Jeffreys snubbed me after I’d shared a drink with those two. I heard Blankenthorpe’s annoyance at being stuck with his bill when she knew he’d just made a cash withdrawal of three hundred dollars at an ATM.

So where was the connection to the hit-and-run, assuming there was a connection?

No one admitted seeing Jeffreys after Fitz saw him entering the men’s room alone and—

“Hey, wait a minute!” cried the pragmatist. “Quick! Hit the pause button.”

“Those were not Fitz’s exact words,” the preacher agreed, peering at the screen.

Before I could figure out what had snagged my subconscious attention, a voice said, “Deborah? Deborah Knott?” and I jumped three feet.

“Sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

The moon had once again emerged from the clouds, and there was plenty of light to recognize Judge Will Blackstone, who continued to apologize for startling me.

“That’s okay. I just didn’t hear you come up.”

“Somebody told me you were here and I’ve spent all day looking you. You’re not avoiding me, are you?” he asked.

“Of course not. Good to see you,” I murmured inanely, the automatic pleasantry out of my mouth before I could stop it. At the moment, he was the last person it’d be good to see.

I started to stand, but he sat down heavily, clutching at my arm as he went so that I was unbalanced and almost landed on top of him, which set off another flurry of apologies from both of us.

“And I wanted to be so cool,” he laughed. He got to his feet and helped me up. “I hoped to see you at the fall conference so I could apologize for what happened last spring. I guess I came on too strong, too fast.”

“Yeah, well, I think we both misjudged the situation.”

He laughed at my unintended pun and held out his hand. “No hard feelings?”

“No hard feelings.”

We shook on it and Blackstone said, “Good. This conference is weird enough without that. First Pete Jeffreys and now Judge Fitzhume.”

“That’s right. You’re over there near the Triad. Did you know Jeffreys?”

“We were at a new-judges school together, but I can’t say we were friends or anything. I thought he was rather lightweight and, not to speak ill of the dead or anything, a little bent.”

“Yeah, that does seem to be the consensus, doesn’t it?”

“Fitzhume, on the other hand—you were there, weren’t you? When someone ran him down?”

I nodded.

“Is he going to be okay?”

I told him what the surgeon had said and while we talked we ambled back across the wide expanse of sand, winding up at the lifeguard stand and the steps where I’d left my shoes.

“Well…” I said as I sat down on a step to put them on.

“You’re not going in, are you?”

“It’s getting late and our first session’s at eight-thirty, remember?”

“It’s not that late,” he argued as he sat down beside me. “And just look at that moon.”

He leaned back on his elbows and turned his face up to the sky. “Do you ever get dizzy when you look up like this and the clouds are moving so fast over the face of the moon?”

Amused, I followed his example and yes, it was disorienting the way light and shadow came together and broke apart until it seemed as if it were the moon that was racing across the dark star-studded blue and not the clouds. So absorbed by that beauty was I that before I knew what was happening, Will Blackstone had slipped an arm around me and kissed me gently on the cheek.

“Hey!” I jerked away indignantly and sprang to my feet.

“I’m sorry,” he said with a boyish grin. “You looked so beautiful with the moon in your eyes and on your hair that I couldn’t resist. Please, can’t we start over again?”

“No, Will, I’m—”

“You said no hard feelings, but I still have feelings for you. And whether or not you admit it now, you had feelings for me last spring. You didn’t come home with me just to see my pottery collection.”

“That was then, this is now. Besides, I’m married.”

It was as if he didn’t hear me. I stepped back when he stood up, but he put his arms around me. His breath was hot against my face as he tried to kiss me and I caught a whiff of whiskey.

“Are you crazy?” I cried, trying to pull away. “Let me go! Now!”

“Don’t be like that, Deborah, honey.” His arms tightened around me. “You know you like me. You were the one came on to me first, remember?”

His arms were starting to remind me of octopus tentacles. No matter how I struggled, as soon as I got one hand free, another arm seemed to grab me there and hold me fast. Just as I was ready to put a knee in his groin or bite his nose, a large dark shape landed on his back and the three of us went sprawling. Blackwood jumped up with his fists flailing, then I heard an oompf as he took a punch in the stomach and another to his eye.

He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, and Allen Stancil said, “Want me to go ahead and kill ’im for you, darlin’?”

“No, that’s okay,” I told him.

Blackstone groaned and fumbled for his cell phone. “I’m calling 911, you asshole. You don’t know it, but you just assaulted a judge.”

“And what were you doing?” Allen asked ominously. “Didn’t you hear this judge say no?”

He grabbed the phone and started to throw it in the ocean, then paused and offered it to me. “Less’n you want to call the police yourself, darlin’?”

Testosterone was so thick in the air I almost choked on it.

“Could you both just calm down?” I took the phone and handed it back to Blackstone. “I’m sorry if we got our signals crossed last year, Will, but get over it. Chalk it up to experience and let’s both act like professionals and forget that tonight ever happened, okay?”

“My nose is bleeding,” he muttered sulkily.

I had no tissues on me and looked at Allen. He hesitated, then pulled a small packet from his pocket and held it out to Blackstone with an odd look on his face.

“What the hell is that?” Blackstone asked suspiciously.

“It’s—um—uh—a diaper wipe.” Allen sounded embarrassed. “But it’ll take care of blood, too.”

“A diaper wipe? ” Blackstone sneered. He clearly wanted to refuse, but a fresh trickle of blood snaked down his lip. He grabbed the packet, tore it open, shook out the moist towelette, and held it to his nose.

“Look, Will,” I said, but he waved me off before I could continue to make nice.

“You’re right, Judge Knott.” His voice was icy cold. “This night never happened.” He glared at Allen. “You can thank her that I’m not going to press charges against you.” Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he marched up the steps and back toward the hotel.

“Bastard,” Allen said cheerfully, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand.

“Did you really have to hit him that hard?” I asked. “Twice?”

“He won’t taking no for an answer, was he? Seems like you oughta be thanking me.”

“Why? I can take care of myself.”

“Yeah? Didn’t look that way to me.”

“Where did you fly in from anyhow?”

“I’m an angel, darlin’. Your guardian angel, didn’t you know that? So how come he thought he could snuggle up to you?”

“It’s a long story,” I said wearily.

“Well, less’n you want to go in while he’s still roaming around looking for ice, you got time to tell me one.” He stopped at the foot of the lifeguard stand and started up the ladder. “Just let me get my cigarettes.”

So that was the smoke I’d smelled earlier and it was how he’d landed on Blackstone’s back. I followed him up the ladder. If we were going to kill some time, might as well have a gull’s-eye view of the water.

With a roof and railings, the structure was more like a deer stand than a single chair on stilts, which was why I hadn’t noticed him sitting up here so still and quiet.

“Lots of room here on the bench,” Allen said, when I sat down on the floor with my back against a post.

“I’m fine here, thank you. Why didn’t you say something when I passed below you before?”

“I sorta thought you wanted to be alone for a while. Figured I’d catch you on your way in and then that SOB showed up right behind you. Hunkered down over there and waited for you to come back.”

For some reason that freaked me out a little. I was ready to see the encounter as the result of one too many drinks, but to follow me from the hotel and wait to see whether I was alone or meeting someone? Maybe I was luckier than I realized that Allen had been watching.

He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and leaned back. “So what was that about pottery, darlin’?”

“Don’t call me—” I caught myself and bit back the rest of my words. It would be ungrateful not to cut him a little slack right now. Instead, I told him about my first run-in with Blackstone, exaggerating enough to have him shaking his head in amusement at the end.

“I could almost feel sorry for that poor slob.”

“Don’t waste your tears,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me everything you know about Pete Jeffreys.”

“You asking as a judge or off the record?”

“Off the record,” I assured him. A man who carries diaper wipes in his pocket has to be a good daddy and who knew what kind of mother his third ex-wife was.

(“Or fourth,” whispered the preacher. “If we count you.”)

Hesitantly at first, and then more confidently, he fleshed out the story of the Jamerson Labs tech that he’d seduced and how she’d told him Jeffreys had tempted her to fake some of the blood tests for his clients.

“He was real sneaky about it. Never right-out asked her to do it and never paid her a dime himself, but the men she helped sure did. So then when he got to be a judge and I was fighting Katy for my young’uns, I figured he might see things my way if I offered to put new gutters on his house, if you know what I mean.”

I knew what he meant. “How much did it cost you?”

He shrugged. “I’d’ve paid a lot more.”

In the end, he didn’t add a thing of substance to what I’d already heard. The clients Jeffreys had nudged toward Jamerson Labs, the burned child, the murdered college kid, the DWI dismissals, the solicitation for campaign donations in open court?

Yesterday’s news.

Without a complaint from the attorneys who’d heard the solicitation or a confession from those he’d taken bribes from, the rest was circumstantial and nothing for which he could be held criminally culpable. But a pattern was emerging and it would have been only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the State Bar, which could and would have censured him and called on the chief justice to remove him from the bench.

“When he brought Judge Blankenthorpe over to meet you that night, what was that about?”

“Showing off. Acting like I was a millionaire who give him some big bucks for his campaign and maybe he could talk me into throwing a little her way when she has to run. Like I give a good goddamn for a judge that’s got nothing to do with me.” He cocked his head at me. “So when you running again, darlin’?”