Sand Sharks

CHAPTER

21

I was aware of the difficult nature of the case.

Pliny (AD 62–113)

DETECTIVE GARY EDWARDS (TUESDAY MIDDAY, JUNE

17)

People had begun to filter back from lunch as Edwards followed Deborah Knott through the SandCastle’s lobby to the registration table set up at the archway that led to the meeting rooms. At the near end stood an easel with a whiteboard where judges could leave each other messages. The schedules for each day’s events were clipped to the top of the easel, and yesterday’s schedule was still there. She pointed to the bottom of the sheet where large letters proclaimed that a reception honoring Judge Fitzhume would take place at 6:30 at a clubhouse on the other side of the island.

“That’s been posted here all weekend,” she said. “I don’t suppose you have a picture of him?”

“Actually, I do,” said Edwards. When Andy Wall had joined him at Jonah’s, he had brought along an extra copy of the photo South Carolina’s DMV had sent them.

He listened as the judge showed it to the women working the table and asked if they had seen him hanging around the whiteboard on Sunday or Monday.

Blank looks.

She described Kyle Armstrong’s slender build and tentative manner in more detail and added, “He may be the one who ran Judge Fitzhume down,” which made them look at the picture even more closely.

“Poor Judge Fitz!” said the woman who seemed to be in charge of handing out the conference packets and information sheets. “I wish we could help, but with so many people in and out, unless he came over and asked a specific question, he’d’ve had to be wearing a hot pink tutu for us to notice him. Do hope they catch him though.”

Judge Knott handed him back the picture with a rueful smile. “I was so sure this was how he knew.”

“It’s still a logical premise,” Edwards assured her.

“Is there anything else I can do for you right now?”

“Well, it’d be helpful if you could refresh my memory and point out the Beechers and Judge Feinstein.”

“I think that’s Judge Beecher at the end of the hall,” she said and guided him through the judges who were gathering for the afternoon session.

As he trailed along behind her, he found himself thinking that Dwight Byrant was probably a lucky guy with this sexy, down-to-earth woman for a wife. Well liked by her peers, too, if one could judge by the warmth of the smiles that greeted her as they passed.

She paused a step away from a threesome who seemed to be one-upping each other on how to get delinquent dads to pay their child support.

“—and I told him I didn’t care how he paid his arrears, but he was going to be doing community service eight hours a day for no pay till they were. Two days of picking up trash along the highway and he found the money.”

“Yeah, I tell ’em, ‘Hey, I don’t have a problem. You’re the one with a problem,’ ” said a satanically handsome judge with a neatly trimmed Vandyke. “Five times out of eight they’ll come up with the money before you adjourn. Oh, hey there, Deborah! You want to talk to me?”

She smiled. “I always want to talk to you, Chuck, except that right now I want to meet Judge Beecher.”

Now that she had identified him, Edwards remembered that he was the one who couldn’t put many names on the diagram of Jonah’s porch tables. A middle-aged white man with a shock of graying black hair and polished rimless glasses, Beecher took the hand she offered him with a ready-to-be-amused look on his face.

“I’m Deborah Knott, District Eleven-C,” she said. “Welcome to the bench. How’re you liking the view?”

He smiled. “A little scary. Sure is different, isn’t it?”

“If you hold that thought, you’ll do fine. You remember Detective Edwards, don’t you?”

He nodded and Chuck Teach turned with a hopeful look. “Any news for us, Detective?”

“Soon, we hope,” he said, deliberately vague. “Wonder if I could speak to you a minute, Judge Beecher.”

As they moved off to one side, Judge Knott said she would try to find Feinstein for him.

“Have you and Judge Fitzhume met yet?” he asked.

Puzzled, Beecher shook his head. “No. I heard about his accident, of course. You know if he’s gonna be all right?”

“Too soon to say.”

“Damn shame.”

“He was at Jonah’s Saturday night.”

“That’s what they tell me, but he must have been a few tables away.”

“You didn’t see him in the restroom or outside it around nine-thirty that night?”

“No, once we got to the restaurant, I didn’t leave the table till we were all ready to leave.”

“What about your wife?”

“She went to the ladies’ room around eight.” He looked at Edwards sharply through those shiny glasses. “You gonna tell me what this is about?”

“Just tying up some loose ends, sir. He seems to have been the last one to definitely see Judge Jeffreys as he was leaving the men’s room and we were hoping that you could add to that.”

“What time was that?”

“Around nine-thirty.”

“Then I can’t help you there, Detective. My wife wasn’t feeling well and we left shortly before nine.”

“What about your waiter?”

“What about her?”

“Your waiter was a woman?”

Beecher nodded.

So much for that line of inquiry, Edwards thought as Beecher rejoined the others. He realized that he was going to have to go back to the restaurant and pinpoint precisely which tables Kyle Armstrong had served if he was going to have any luck linking the guy to Jeffreys.

Behind him, a voice said, “Detective Edwards? James Feinstein. Judge Knott said you wanted to speak to me?”

Again it was someone he had spoken to on Sunday and asked for his help on the seating diagrams. A wiry black man, mid-forties, with a long thin face and keen brown eyes set deep in their sockets. He wore a blue golf shirt tucked into khaki pants with creases so sharp he could have peeled an apple with them. Edwards remembered his first assessment of the man: someone who did not like to waste time and who did not easily suffer fools, a judge who knew the law inside out and probably would not have much sympathy for slackers who showed up in his courtroom.

“You wanted to ask if I know Judge Fitzhume?”

“Actually, sir, it was does he know you?”

“He does. Not in a social way. Our districts are widely separated, but we’ve served on a couple of committees together and have worked together for six or seven years.”

“Did you speak to him Saturday night?”

“Briefly. He passed by me on the way to the restroom. At least I assume that’s where he was headed. I stood up, we shook hands, said it was good to see each other. The usual. Then he went on and I sat back down. I didn’t notice when he returned.”

“What about Judge Jeffreys?”

Feinstein shook his head. “As I told you Sunday, I barely knew the man and I didn’t pay any attention to him. Now if you’ll excuse me?”

While they talked, the crowd had thinned and the judges ambled through the double doors and back into the meeting room.

Edwards looked around for Judge Knott and saw her at the front of the room in animated conversation with Judge Chelsea Ann Pierce. It was still a few minutes before two—not enough time to say anything meaningful to Judge Pierce even if he could think of anything meaningful to say.

Several stragglers hurried into the room and the last one in closed the door behind him, effectively putting an end to that problem for the moment.

As he rounded the corner into the main lobby, he called to check in with Andy Wall, who answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?” Edwards asked. “Get anything from Armstrong’s aunt?”

“I’m just leaving Castle Hayne,” Wall replied. “And yeah, I got every clever thing our boy’s said since he started talking. I’ve looked at scrapbooks of the school plays he was in. I’ve had to listen how Andy Griffith told her what a fine nephew she had and how he all but said that Ron Howard wouldn’t have had a chance to play Opie if little Kyle had been old enough to try out for the role. I’ve heard how sensitive he is and how upset he was when he didn’t get a part on—Jesus H, lady!”

There was a stream of steady swearing before Wall calmed down. “Sorry, pal. Some senior citizen, going about twenty miles an hour in this rain. She decided at the last minute that she really did want to get on the on-ramp here and almost rammed me.”

“So did you get anything useful out of the Rudd woman or not?” Edwards asked impatiently.

“ ’Fraid not. He calls her every Sunday, but he didn’t mention the murder and she was surprised to hear the judge had eaten at Jonah’s Saturday night. She’s also surprised that he’s moved without telling her. I thought for a minute we were gonna get lucky when she gave me his cell phone number. That we could locate him through it.”

“No?”

“Disconnected. But I’ve relayed the number to the office and Chip’s gonna get the guy’s records. And Mrs. Rudd did give me several good pictures of him. I asked her if she could think of who he might go to if he was in trouble. First she swears he’d come to her if he didn’t go home to Myrtle Beach. But then she said that he might go to her place down near Southport. She’s got a trailer down on the Intracoastal Waterway and her daughter lives there. She and Armstrong used to be good buddies before the daughter got sick.”

Edwards heard the sarcasm in Wall’s voice. “Sick?”

“She’s an alkie. Can’t hold a job and won’t go into rehab, so Mrs. Rudd lets her stay in the trailer. She’s grateful her daughter’s not into crack or meth, but she can’t stand to see her falling-down drunk, so she sends our boy down every week or so to take her a bag of groceries and some clean clothes. He was there Sunday evening, so what do you think? Should I run down and check it out? See if he’s there or if he’s told his cousin anything useful about the murder?”

“Might as well,” Edwards said. Southport was less than forty minutes away. “I’ll check out Jonah’s again. See if I can pick up anything new there. And maybe Judge Knott will find the connection between him and Jeffreys. Somebody, somewhere’s bound to have noticed something they haven’t told us yet.”

“Don’t hold your breath,” his partner said pessimistically.