by Libby Howard
“I’m sorry, what?” Drat. For the second time I’d completely missed what Officer Perkins had asked. She sighed, giving me a long-suffering look.
“Tell me about your conversation with the decedent’s daughter.”
I told her we’d mostly discussed the viability of the appellate court candidates, including her father.
Officer Perkins blinked and looked up at me with wide eyes. “He was nominated for the opening? Judge Reynolds?”
I nodded and let her know the other candidates as she made notes.
“Did any of them have a problem with Judge Reynolds?”
I lifted my palms. “I really don’t know. I don’t exactly run in these social circles. I know a few of the judges, lawyers, and officers from my town and my county, but most of these people I’ve only just met tonight. I can say that I didn’t witness any altercations, and I’m pretty sure security would have been on top of it if there had been any.”
Officer Perkins made a few notes, and I thought about the other candidates. Horace Barnes was just as vocal as Judge Reynolds, although at the opposite end of the political spectrum. I couldn’t see Horace getting worked up enough to bludgeon someone to death, though. Then there was Trent Elliott, who I knew nothing about other than he was most likely the front-runner. Since he worked here, he probably knew about the upstairs restroom, but I couldn’t think of a reason he’d have to kill Rhett Reynolds. Judge Beck certainly hadn’t killed the man. That left Elaine Stallman, the sole female candidate, but I didn’t even think she’d attended tonight, let alone had any motive to kill Reynolds.
But Irene O’Donnell… As unlikely a suspect as I thought her to be, she seemed to have both motive and opportunity. Oh, and I’d almost forgotten the spurned lover Helen Dixon—as well as her ex-husband who was an appellate court judge and had to be hating that the man who’d cuckolded him was a candidate to serve beside him at the appellate court.
Most likely there would end up being a dozen other suspects as well—ones that I was completely unaware of. I’m sure there were other lawyers like Irene who’d run afoul of Judge Reynolds’ rulings as well as the families and friends of those who’d stood before his bench. Heck, maybe there was another spurned lover or two out there who Helen Dixon had replaced and who wanted to stick a knife in Judge Reynolds or slam him upside the head with something heavy in a quiet second-floor bathroom.
“Oh no! Has anyone told his daughter, Ruby?” I asked Officer Perkins. I’d liked the woman and the affection between her and her father was apparent. How horrible that Ruby’s father had been murdered.
The citizens in his county would grieve as well. From what Ruby said, they’d demand justice. This homicide was likely to blow up into a political nightmare. The longer it took the police to find the murderer, the more citizens who loved and supported Judge Reynolds would start their own witch hunts. And a county of vocal and active voters who were especially motivated to grab torches and pitchforks might stir someone into vigilante justice.
That, we did not need.
Chapter 5
Someone had told Ruby Reynolds. I knew this because I found her across the street at the bar, crying.
Officer Perkins had wrapped up our interview, escorted me to collect my wrap, then escorted me straight to the door where several officers waited until I left, then locked the door behind me. I stood for a few seconds shivering on the steps and wondering what I was supposed to do. Judge Beck had the valet ticket for the SUV. I hadn’t memorized the license plate, so there was no sense in me trying to bribe the valets into bringing it around for me without the ticket. I contemplated calling an Uber as the judge had jokingly thought I’d done earlier, but saw that there was a little pub across the street open and decided two glasses of wine wasn’t nearly enough for what I’d gone through tonight.
I darted across the wide street, wincing at what the heavily salted road was doing to my nice leather shoes. Wrestling open the heavy door to the pub, I paused a moment to let my eyes adjust to the dim light, and immediately saw Ruby at the bar.
The only other people in the pub were a couple in close, intimate conversation at a back table, and a thin man cradling a pint, his eyes fixed on whatever sport seemed to be playing on the bar’s television screen.
I sat down beside Ruby and waved to the bartender, ordering myself a beer.
She glanced over at me, her mascara smeared and her eyes red. “Did you hear what happened?”
I nodded, not sure if it would do any good to tell her I was the one who’d found him. “Yes. I’m gathering the police already spoke to you?”
She stared down at her beer. “I wondered what the heck was going on when dozens of uniformed officers started pouring into the place. When the police chief got up on stage and told us all that they were going to need to speak to each of us individually, that’s when I started worrying about why I hadn’t seen Dad in a while.”
I didn’t know what to do so I reached over and patted her hand, blinking in surprise when she gripped my fingers in hers.
“Usually they interview the bigwigs first so they don’t go ballistic and raise a fuss, but that entire party was bigwigs. Well, most of the party. When they came and got me first, I felt like I was going to throw up. Somehow I just knew. They asked me if anyone at the party had argued with Dad, if anyone held a grudge against him. They wanted to know who was the last person I’d seen talking to him, as well as who I’d been with the last few hours.”
I sucked in a breath. “Surely they didn’t think you did it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe they wanted to see if I would verify anyone’s alibi. After they were done, they offered to give me a ride home since they said they’d need to process Dad’s car for possible evidence. I was so numb and confused. How could I go home when Dad’s body was still there? It would be like I was leaving him. And I guess a part of me didn’t believe it. So I told them I didn’t need a ride, got my coat, and came over here. I sat by the front window so I could see if he walked out, if they were lying, but after a while it kind of sunk in.”
I looked out the window at the line of police cars, the officers guarding the cordoned-off area, the occasional guest leaving the party, stumbling down the stairs in shock with their valet ticket in hand.
“He’s really dead, isn’t he?” she whispered.
I gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Ruby, I’m so sorry. Yes, your father died.”
“Murdered.” She drained the remaining beer in her glass and motioned for another. “If he’d just had a sudden heart attack, or a freak accident, I think I could cope, but murdered…. Actually no, it’s not the way he died, it’s the suddenness of it that feels like someone stabbed me in the chest. I was just talking to him a few hours ago. He was warm and alive and laughing. And now he’s gone.”
There was such a rawness to her voice that my heart twisted. “I too lost someone I dearly loved this year. I know sympathy doesn’t do anything to help the pain of grief, but I’m so sorry for your loss, Ruby. So very sorry.”
She began to cry once more, this time silent tears that rolled down her face as her chest shook. “He’s gone. He was the most important person in my life. He was the reason I went into law, the reason I dedicated my career to helping those who needed justice and couldn’t always afford it. Growing up, he was the only stable parent I had. He was my rock, my father, and he’s gone. I’ll never see him again. I’ll never get a text from him late at night, meet him for coffee first thing in the morning, have that ridiculously horrible vegan Thanksgiving dinner with him. I’ll never see him again. Never.”
I got the feeling that expressions of faith and assurances of a life after death wouldn’t be appropriate. Not everyone was Christian, not everyone was all that religious, and not everyone believed in an afterlife. So instead of the expression of sympathy and hope I might have given at a church funeral, I reached out to hug her tight, letting her cry on my shoulder as I rubbed her back.
Finally she sat back, w
iping her eyes on a bar napkin and smearing her make-up even more. There was a full pint in front of her, and she lifted it in the air. “To Dad. He was the most honorable man I ever knew. I hope I can follow in his footsteps and make him proud.”
I was pretty sure Rhett Reynolds was proud of his daughter, but I clinked her glass with mine and echoed “To your father.”
We sipped our beer in silence for a moment, then Ruby turned to me. “Can I ask who you lost? If that’s too personal, I understand. I just wondered who you’d loved and lost this year.”
“Eli. My husband.” I told her about the day we’d met, the day he’d proposed. I told her about buying the big Victorian house in Locust Point and how we’d loved rehabbing it and making friends with the neighbors.
I told her about the accident, how things had changed as well as the moments of joy we continued to share together. My life with Eli had been a huge bouquet of those joyful moments, not at all tarnished by the little bumps that happen in even the most loving of marriages.
“I’m sorry for your loss, but it sounds as if you had a wonderful life together.”
I nodded. “We did, but I’m only sixty. I’ve got a whole second life ahead of me without Eli, and I owe it to me as well as him to live…live it the best I can.”
I’d almost said “to live and love again”. I glanced across the street, thinking of Judge Beck and wondering how much longer he’d be inside.
“Does it still hurt to think of him? Your husband, I mean?” Ruby asked.
“Some days it hurts. Sometimes I remember the life we shared and I don’t think at all about his death, just gratitude that I spent so much of my life by his side. I believe the pain will continue to ease with time, but I’m sure there will always be moments where I remember something special the two of us did, and the ache will come back just as strong.”
She nodded, then took another sip of her beer. “I wish I knew more. The police wouldn’t tell me what happened to him or even where he was. Did someone shoot him? Poison him? I keep thinking all of these horrible things.”
I took a few breaths, wondering again if I should tell her or not. Finally I decided that in her place, I’d want to know.
“I…I’m actually the one who found him, Ruby.” I shut my eyes, envisioning once more the man on the restroom floor, the spreading pool of blood, the red splattered against the back wall and the full-length mirror. He must have been killed right before I’d gotten there. Maybe if I’d been just a few minutes earlier—although if I’d been a few minutes earlier there might have been two corpses on the floor of that restroom.
Ruby turned to face me with a startled expression. “You found him? Oh my God, Kay! That must have been so horrible for you. Can you tell me what happened? Where did you find him? What happened to him?”
I might have been about to mess up a police investigation, but Officer Perkins hadn’t told me to keep quiet about anything. Besides, Ruby was his daughter. She deserved to know.
“The line to the women’s room was ridiculous and I had to use the facilities. One of the ladies told me there was an elevator in the back of the atrium that I could take to the second floor, and that there was a restroom up there. When I went in, I saw your father on the floor. So I called…for help.”
Now that the shock of the event was starting to recede, I was embarrassed that my first call had been to Judge Beck and not the police. I was a capable independent woman. There was no reason for me to reach out to a man to help me like some seventies’ romance heroine.
But I knew if I rewound time, I’d make the same decision. There was something about Judge Beck that made me want to reach out to him when bad things happened. Maybe it was because so many evenings we’d talked about my work and his work. Maybe it was how significant he and his children had become to me. Maybe it was because he was smart, capable, strong, and level-headed. I’d come to lean on him the same way I’d done with Eli. As a partner, an equal. As someone who clicked like a puzzle piece in my life, who worked with me as if we were two halves of a whole. Was it wrong to turn to a friend when a crisis occurred? Daisy and I did the same for each other, and Judge Beck had become just as important to me as my best friend.
More, if I were completely honest with myself.
“What happened to my father?” Ruby’s voice was horrified whisper.
I wasn’t about to give her the gory details, especially not when she was still in shock over her father’s sudden loss. “The medical examiner will know better than me. I’m sure they’ll let you know as soon as they have a cause of death.”
Ruby stared at her beer for a moment. “But they knew it was murder? Why would someone do that to him?”
I sighed and stared at my own drink, wondering if another beer was a good idea or not. “I don’t know. Maybe he surprised someone doing a criminal act. Maybe someone who was angry at him ambushed him in the restroom. Maybe he was meeting someone up there and they didn’t like what he said. The police will figure it out and catch whoever did this.”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Helen. She couldn’t believe it was over. She’d left her husband of twenty years for Dad, left everything for him, and he was breaking up with her. He told me yesterday it was over between them, but Helen didn’t seem to be accepting that. He was worried that she’d make a scene tonight. I was kind of surprised she didn’t. Actually she was cool and totally ignored him from what I saw, but maybe she saw him going upstairs and snuck up to take her revenge….”
“But why would he have been using the upstairs bathroom?” I asked. “The line for the men’s downstairs wasn’t long. There was no reason for him to go up there unless he was either meeting someone, or looking for something, or…I don’t know.”
“What in the world would he be looking for in an upstairs bathroom, though?” Ruby asked.
“Maybe he wasn’t looking for something in the bathroom,” I mused. “Maybe he was looking for something in one of the offices and he heard someone coming and hid in the bathroom.”
She shook her head. “He’s a judge, not a private investigator. Plus I’m pretty sure those offices are all locked. Dad was pretty radical, but I don’t think he would have risked a breaking and entering charge to steal something from a locked office.”
Perhaps not, but there were some things serious enough to make anyone cross the line and risk their career over.
“So let’s talk about the good times you and your father had. You said you really admired him. What were the issues that he was passionate about? The things you loved most about him?”
Ruby smiled, clearly happy to think of something besides her father’s murder. “He believed that almost everyone deserved a chance at redemption, but that they had to pay the price for their crime first. He was big on consistent sentencing, regardless of whether the accused had a high-priced attorney, glowing references, or gave a stirring speech about how they’d learned their lesson.”
I nodded, thinking of Irene O’Donnell’s frustration about her DWI clients.
“He was a stickler for ethics. Anything that hinted at a conflict of interest, people paying others off, or swapping favors incensed him. He truly felt that justice should be blind and hated that politics so often intersected with the judicial system.”
“Sounds like someone who might have upset a lot of people in high places,” I murmured.
Ruby shrugged. “Not really. The county locals adored him, police and mayor included. Most people at the state level just considered him eccentric. Yes, he was vocal about corruption in law enforcement, and he ruffled feathers, but he worked for general reform and didn’t target anyone in particular. Besides, it’s not like anything he said or did threatened anyone’s career way out in Polefax County like we are.”
Except for Irene O’Donnell.
“Well, except for Irene O’Donnell,” Ruby said, as if she were reading my mind.
“She was pretty drunk when I talked to her earlier,” I commented.
“Sometim
es alcohol makes people even more angry, and washes away any self-control they might normally have. Plus drunk people can still shoot a gun. Or stab someone.”
I kept my mouth firmly shut, knowing the police wouldn’t be happy if I mentioned a possible cause of death.
“Helen wasn’t drunk,” she added. “Her husband either. You know Judge Dixon used to work in that building, although that was probably almost twenty years ago.”
I blinked in surprise, trying to wrestle my brain around that fact. How many of the attendees used to work in the building or currently did? Judge Dixon. Irene O’Donnell. Trent Elliott. Even if they didn’t work here, how many lawyers, judges, and politicians had been in and out of the building, meeting with the lawyers of SMS&C? Or whatever other companies were on the other floors?
My phone buzzed and I looked down to see a text from Judge Beck.
Where are you? They said you’d left, but I have the ticket for the car.
I looked over at Ruby, before I responded.
Across the street at the pub. Ruby is here—Judge Reynolds’ daughter. She doesn’t have a way home. Can we give her a ride?
I made a quick motion telling the bartender to give us the check. My phone buzzed again.
The police didn’t arrange for her to have a ride? Where does she live?
Polefax County meant she could be an hour or two west of Locust Point. It wasn’t fair to ask the judge to drive four additional hours when he had kids at home waiting for him. But still, I felt terrible for the woman, and she was stuck here without a car.
“Where do you live?” I asked Ruby. “Can I call you an Uber or arrange for a car service to take you home? Do you have friends to stay with you tonight? Someone you can call? I really don’t think you should be alone tonight.”
