Twisted Judgment

by Nora Kane

  “You watched Cassie’s show, what do you think?”

  Sherry didn’t answer, but the look on her face told Margot the answer was yes.

  After a pause, Sherry told her, “She just wants you to be careful. I can give you the address, but you’re supposed to promise to be nice. She’s had a tough time lately.”

  “If Mal beats me to her, it will get even tougher.”

  Sherry recited an address. “You going to remember that?” she added when she noticed Margot wasn’t taking any notes.

  “Yeah,” Margot replied without mentioning the digital recorder in her purse that she was using to record their conversation.

  “Okay, I’m trusting you here. I want to do what’s best for Cassie.”

  “Good friends?”

  “Family. She’s my half-sister. Kind of, anyway. We were both products of first marriages, so we were sisters until my dad left her mom. Even though we’re not actually blood-related, we both liked each other better than we liked any of our biological family, so we kept in contact.”

  Margot left her whiskey on the bar along with the fifty and headed to the address Sherry had given her.

  Chapter 9

  According to Sherry, Cassie was holed up at a place called The Lucky Irish Motor Lodge. It was the kind of place that advertised color television and air conditioning as if they were luxuries. It was a step up from the Sand Piper, but it was a small step.

  While it may seem like a good place to hide and the clientele would be reluctant to say a word to the police, no one there would have any qualms about talking to the likes of the cartel if they could make a couple of bucks doing so. This also made it a good place for a trap. It didn’t seem like Sherry would set her up, but it wasn’t impossible either.

  Margot parked on the other side of the U-shaped motor lodge from Cassie’s unit and watched it for a few minutes. There was a light on, but other than that, she couldn’t tell anything about it.

  A woman dressed in a mini skirt and halter top emerged from the unit in front of her car. A well-dressed bald man came out next. He kept his head down and hustled off to his car. Margot got out as the woman closed the door to the unit.

  “You want to make some easy money?” Margot asked the woman, who looked like she was either in her late thirties or a hard-living late twenties.

  “I don’t usually get females, but sure.”

  Margot held out a twenty-dollar bill and said, “Would you knock on the door to unit twelve? Ask for Jimmy, then come back and tell me who answered?”

  “I don’t think anybody named Jimmy is in there. Some cute little thing was in there, last I checked.

  “Jet black hair?”

  “No, platinum blonde, clearly a dye job.”

  “Do you want the twenty or not?”

  “Of course I do,” she said as she reached for it.

  Margot moved it away and said, “Knock on the door first.”

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “Just knock on the door.”

  The woman shrugged and headed over that way. Margot went back to her car and watched her knock. No one opened the door, but Margot could tell some kind of conversation was going on.

  Margot got out of her car and held out the twenty. She moved it away when the woman reached for and asked, “Tell me what she said.”

  “Not much, just asked me what I wanted. When I asked for Jimmy, she said he wasn’t there. I asked if she was sure and she said yes.”

  “Did it sound like the girl with the platinum hair?”

  “I’d say so. I haven’t talked to that girl, but it sounded like a girl that age.”

  “Did you hear anybody else?”

  “You going to pay me?”

  Margot held the twenty out and the woman grabbed it. When she tried to pull it away, however, Margot held tight.

  “Did you hear anybody else?”

  “No.”

  Margot let go of the twenty.

  “That doesn’t mean there wasn’t someone else there, though.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I didn’t hear anybody else, but I did hear the girl whisper, ‘It’s not her, put that thing away,’ and I’m guessing she wasn’t talking to herself.”

  “Thanks,” Margot told her.

  She was tempted to pay her some more—she might have just saved Margot’s life—but since all this was coming out of her pocket, she decided the twenty was enough. Margot figured it was possible the thing Cassie asked her silent roommate to put away wasn’t a weapon, but she didn’t think the odds were good enough to bet her life on it.

  Margot wished Shaw had gotten back to her on Driver. If he was being straight up with her, she could call him for backup or just turn the whole thing over to the police.

  Thinking about back up made her sad to the point of near tears. Her old backup might be the one waiting to kill her, and her more current back-up was still in the ICU clinging to life.

  Margot went around the back and busted out the bathroom window for unit twelve with her baton. She put it back in her purse as she ran around the building and replaced it with her gun in one hand and the can of mace in the other.

  She hoped the other thing she remembered about the Lucky Irish Motor Lodge from her days as a cop hadn’t changed. She kicked the door just below the handle and it caved in enough so that the lock wasn’t really engaged with anything solid. Her next kick sent the door swinging open.

  Margot stepped inside to see Cassie tied up on the bed with her mouth gagged. Whoever was with her stepped into the bathroom to see who had broken the window.

  “What are you doing in there?” a male voice yelled from inside the bathroom. He stepped out and saw Margot standing there aiming her gun.

  She had expected Mal, but this guy was too short and too bald to be Mal. He was holding a gun, a Kimber .45 at his side.

  “Drop the gun,” Margot told him.

  “Did you break the window?” he asked.

  “I’m not going to tell you again.”

  “You looking for Mal? Maybe we can work together. Mal and I need to talk, and he’s not answering my calls.”

  “We can discuss that after you put down the gun.”

  “That’s not going to happen. You’re going to have to shoot me.”

  “Don’t be stupid, put it down.”

  He smiled. “Just like I thought. All talk.”

  He raised the gun. He was quick, but all Margot had to do was pull the trigger. She put two bullets in his chest while he put a bullet through the ceiling. He fell back into the bathroom.

  Margot could see his feet. Though they weren’t moving, he could be waiting for her to get in his sights. People didn’t usually get up after taking two forty caliber slugs to the chest, but for all she knew, he had a Kevlar vest under his shirt.

  Margot shot him in the foot. He didn’t move; he didn’t even let out a grunt. He was either totally impervious to pain, or he was dead. Margot figured dead, but she kept her gun ready anyway as she approached.

  She got a good look at him, and her assessment he wasn’t impervious to pain proved to be correct.

  Margot got out her phone to call Driver. She figured she’d find out if he was on her side or trying to screw her over by how he handled this situation. Even though she wasn’t sure about him, at least there was a chance he wouldn’t see this as an opportunity to throw her in jail.

  She was nine numbers into his ten-digit number when she decided she wanted to speak to Cassie before the police hauled her away. She undid the gag first.

  “Thank goodness you found me,” Cassie gasped.

  “Was he planning to kill me?” Margot demanded as she took her knife out of her purse and started cutting through the duct tape on Cassie’s wrists.

  “Most definitely.”

  “Then it seems they wanted me to find you.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what he wanted from me. You
were just a bonus.”

  “How did he know I was coming?”

  “He listened in on the call from Sherry. Sorry, I wish I was the kind of person who could keep my mouth shut with a gun to my head, but I’m not.”

  “No one is, so don’t beat yourself up about it,” Margot replied as she moved onto cutting the tape off her ankles. “What did they want from you?”

  “My source in the cartel.”

  Margot nodded, that made some sense.

  “You know what the worst part about that is?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t have a source in the cartel. I’m just making guesses based on public information.”

  “I kind of figured as much when you pegged me as some kind of Cartel super-assassin. Looks like you guessed right one too many times.”

  “I wish I knew which one was accurate. I’d post a retraction.”

  “Don’t count on them forgiving you anytime soon.”

  “I guess you would know all about that.”

  “Don’t remind me. Did Mal find you?”

  “No, it was Mr. Clean.”

  “Mr. Clean?”

  “The bald guy you killed. He reminded me of that commercial for floor cleaner with Mr. Clean.”

  “Yeah, I can see it. Is the fictional inside source why they were trying to kill you before?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but it seems reasonable.”

  “I don’t suppose he said anything about shooting Detective Radcliff or Detective Ames and Detective Burke?”

  “Is Radcliff your guy?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He’s been shot?”

  “Yeah, did Mr. Clean mention it?”

  “Not to me. Are they okay?”

  “No. Ames and Burke didn’t make it, and the jury is still out on Radcliff.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “Yesterday afternoon.”

  “It wasn’t him then. He grabbed me yesterday morning. If you don’t mind, I’d rather not say how we spent the afternoon.”

  Margot noticed the tears welling up in Cassie’s eyes and decided she really didn’t need the details.

  “Did you say Burke?” Cassie asked after a pause.

  “Yeah, he worked organized crime.”

  “I know. I didn’t have a source in the cartel, but I did have one in the police. How do you think I got crime scene photos?”

  “Burke?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I always figured you had a source in the cops. I wouldn’t have pegged you to have someone as high up as the OC task force.”

  “I can be something of an overachiever.”

  “What were you doing for him?”

  “Not what you’re thinking.”

  “What am I thinking?”

  “I’m guessing something sexual, but it wasn’t that. Believe it or not, that’s not the way I roll.”

  “Oddly enough, I totally believe it. What were you doing for him? He was putting his job on the line.”

  “I’m not sure he was. He wanted me to air stories he picked. He more or less scripted what he wanted me to say.”

  “He was planting stories on your show?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “He wouldn’t say, but I had the feeling it was task force approved. I’m guessing it was to get people to react. What that accomplished, I have no idea.”

  “Which stories?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “It might.”

  “There were a couple of them, none of them Cartel. One on your pal Harry Lee, which kind of made sense and another on your client Phoebe, which totally didn’t. I mean, I know she was screwing Harry Lee, but that’s not illegal. I don’t think she had anything to do with organized crime other than that.”

  “Tell me which episodes.”

  “It was the last story I did on Phoebe.”

  “Was I in it?”

  “No, that was at least two Phoebe stories ago.”

  “I quit watching before that.”

  “I’ll message you the link,” Cassie said. She looked over at Mr. Clean’s body in the bathroom. “Are you going to do something about that? I have to pee.”

  “Sorry, you’re going to have to wait a bit longer,” Margot told her as she finished dialing nine-one-one.

  After giving a brief explanation, Margot hung up and dialed Thaddius Wolf’s home number. Thaddius was a young up-and-coming hotshot lawyer for Brower and Associates. He and Margot had worked together on the Phoebe Masterson case and he seemed to like her. She’d have gone through Browers and Associates but with the late hour, all she’d be doing is leaving a message no one would get to until tomorrow. Given her current popularity with homicide detectives, her clear act of self-defense might be seen as cold-blooded murder, and Margot didn’t want to spend the night in jail. Especially if something changed in Radcliff’s status.

  Wolf didn’t answer. Margot left a message and hoped he wasn’t busy this evening.

  “Could you do me a favor?” Cassie asked as they waited for the police.

  “You mean other than saving your life?”

  “Yeah, this one’s a lot easier. Can you keep the part about Burke to yourself?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t think a lot of his peers would approve. I don’t know what good it would do to expose him at this point.”

  “And it might make it tough to find another one if they hear you gave up your last one.”

  “Yeah, that too. There’s not much upside for anybody really. Plus, if I don’t back up your story, it’s my word against yours and I think they like me better.”

  “After I saved you?”

  “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do.”

  “That’s very cold-blooded of you.”

  “It seems I’ve learned lately the world is a very cold-blooded place.”

  Margot couldn’t argue with that.

  Chapter 10

  “You were supposed to call me,” Driver said as they put Margot in the back of his car with cuffs on. He’d managed to convince Cranston to give him a few minutes alone with Margot.

  “It was a fluid situation. I didn’t think I could wait for you to show up.”