by Libby Howard
“Bridgeville,” she replied, telling me the address. “It’s kinda late for me to call any friends. I’ve got a dog though, so I won’t be alone tonight.”
Bridgeville, I texted. If it’s too late or that’s too far, I can arrange for an Uber or something. Or I can offer her a room at our house, if that’s okay. Although she’s got a dog, and the poor thing probably needs to be let out.
That was a super long text, but I was blaming it on my frazzled nerves.
Ruby downed her beer. I frowned, worrying about sending her home alone with a car service after the shock she’d had. Would they walk her to the door? What if they ended up being some kind of creep that took advantage of a lone woman? I looked at my phone, thinking that if Judge Beck said he couldn’t give her a ride, I might have to go home with her, then take a taxi or Uber home in the morning myself.
Yes, of course we can take her home.
I felt a wave of relief. I’d just met this woman and I hadn’t been looking forward to spending the night in an unfamiliar house. I was glad that we’d be giving her a ride to her house, making sure she got in safely with her dog and a supply of water and aspirin. I’d call her tomorrow morning and make sure she was okay and my good Samaritan duty would be done for the week.
“Judge Beck and I can give you a ride home,” I told Ruby. “I’ll ask him to pull the SUV around for us. Do you have your coat?”
Ruby twisted around on her barstool, nearly falling off it. “It’s here. And thank you, but I don’t want to be a bother. Maybe I can just get a hotel or something, except Dolly… I could call Jessica next door and see if she can take care of her. She’s got a key for emergencies.”
“It’s no trouble, really,” I reassured her. “I think it would be better for you to be in your own home tonight surrounded by comforting familiarity and having Dolly by your side.”
Her eyes glistened again with tears. “Thank you. I’m so grateful. I don’t want to inconvenience you and Judge Beck, but it would be nice to be in my own home tonight.”
We sat in silence as we waited. I kept an eye out the front window for Judge Beck’s SUV, and paid the bill after asking the bartender for three bottles of water to go. I’d just finished signing the credit card receipt when I saw the black SUV pull up front.
“Our ride is here.” I reached out a hand to grip Ruby’s arm as she slid off the stool onto unsteady feet. Grabbing her coat, I helped her into it before putting on my own, then walked beside her as we made our way to the door.
Judge Beck had put the emergency flashers on his car that was sitting in a fire lane. He hopped out when he saw us, opening both the front and back passenger doors, and taking Ruby’s arm to help her into the vehicle. He said a few soft words of condolence, then handed her one of the waters and spread a blanket across her lap.
I was already in the car by the time he’d turned to me, so he closed both doors and walked around to the driver’s side, unbuttoning the jacket of his tux and loosening his tie as he climbed in. I handed him one of the waters, and he smiled his thanks, negotiating the SUV out into the traffic.
As we merged onto the highway, I peeked into the back seat to see Ruby sound asleep, her head against the window, the bottle of water unopened in her lap.
“Thank you for this,” I whispered to Judge Beck.
“I didn’t always agree with Reynolds, but he was a man of strong ethics, and I respect that. It’s the least I can do to make sure his daughter arrives home safely.”
I looked over at his profile, shadowed and lit only by the gold of the dashboard instrument lights and the occasional overhead ones on the highway. Something in my chest tightened, making me catch my breath.
“I wonder what happened to him.” I settled back in the heated seats, adjusting the vents so the warm air slid over me. “Who hated him so much to do that? And why was he in that upstairs bathroom?”
“Reynolds probably had as many people who hated him as loved him.” The judge glanced in the rearview mirror and continued. “Besides his ex-wife, he never had a relationship that lasted more than a few months. Helen Dixon lasted the longest, but I think that was because she was still married for a good bit of their affair.”
My shock must have shown on my face because Judge Beck chuckled. “I don’t believe he was a Lothario or anything, I just think Reynolds’ passion burned hot and fast. He fell hard without really knowing the object of his affection, and once the fire banked down to glowing embers, he realized he’d made a mistake.”
Call me old fashioned, but that bothered me. And it definitely bothered me that he’d had an affair with a married woman. Of course, Helen Dixon was even more to blame in that relationship since she was the one breaking her marriage vows.
“Do you think Helen could have killed him?” I asked.
The judge shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve seen enough heat-of-passion murders in my courtroom. Maybe he was dancing or flirting with someone at the party and Helen just snapped.”
“How about Irene O’Donnell?”
He glanced over at me, his expression amused. “You sure did learn a lot in one evening. Irene’s a shark, worried about her win ratios and billable hours. She wants partner and Reynolds’ rulings were definitely not helping that happen. I doubt she’d sink to murder, though.”
“Even if she were really drunk?” I asked.
He shot me another look. “What do you know?”
I squirmed. “She was plowed. We were at the bar and she told me that she wanted to hire me to dig up dirt on Judge Reynolds, to either get him unseated or possibly to blackmail him.”
The judge laughed at that. “There’s no blackmailing Reynolds. If there was anything in his past that came to light, then he’d admit it and take his lumps. And those residents in his county wouldn’t vote him out for anything. He could have run naked through the streets smoking a bong and they would have cheered for him.”
“But did Irene know that?” I asked.
“Once she sobered up, she would have realized it.” Judge Beck shook his head. “And I can’t see her murdering him. Yes, he was hindering her career goals, but it was just a delay. She’d be better off biding her time and getting reassigned to a different county once she got some seniority.”
I didn’t want to bring up Judge Dixon and a possible jealousy/revenge motive. It felt unseemly to accuse the man who might one day end up working side-by-side with Judge Beck, so instead I went another direction.
“Do you think one of the other candidates for the appellate court position did it?”
Judge Beck chuckled. “Like me? Convinced I’d never win on my own merit, I decided to clear the field starting with Reynolds.”
I swatted at him. “Not you! I mean one of the other candidates.”
“This probably sounds arrogant, but Reynolds was never a viable candidate. He wasn’t even close to a front-runner for the position. No one would gain from having him dead.”
I thought back on what I’d heard at the party and realized that Judge Beck was right. Barnes was being nominated because he was a well-known, nearly retired lawyer. Reynolds was being considered to appease his vocal constituents. The three main candidates in this race were Stallman, Elliott, and Judge Beck, and from what the lieutenant governor had hinted at, Judge Beck wasn’t anywhere near the top of that list of three.
Clearly there were a lot of things I didn’t know about Judge Rhett Reynolds’ life. The police would be the ones to solve this crime, not me. I’d probably read about an arrest in the papers a few months from now, and it would end up being someone he’d sent away looking for revenge, or an old girlfriend from the past. I was curious though, and when I got curious I had a hard time letting go of something. I guess it was the former journalist in me who always wanted to get the story, to get to the bottom of something, to scoop the competition.
I relaxed and sipped my water. It began to snow and Judge Beck switched on the wipers. Their rhythmic whoosh and the spiraling tunnel of snow lit up by the
headlights as we drove down the highway mesmerized me. I must have dozed off, because the next thing I remember was the SUV slowing to a stop in front of a split-level brick ranch house with a fenced-in yard.
“I’m so sorry,” I said rubbing my eyes and probably smearing mascara all over my face. “What terrible company I am. You had to drive the whole way with two sleeping women.”
“It’s fine. The quiet gave me time to think about some things. I am hoping that we can get Ruby up and in her house without having to carry her though. And if someone has to retrieve her keys from her purse, it’s got to be you. I know better than to ever go into a woman’s purse.”
“They’re always full of mousetraps and sanitary products,” I teased. “It’s good for men to be cautious of such things.”
Thankfully Ruby began to stir in the back seat, muttering something about being home already. She blinked open her eyes and as she took in Judge Beck and I, grief creased her face.
“I’ll walk you inside,” I told her.
“We’ll both walk you inside,” the judge insisted. I’d offered out of polite kindness, but at the tense note in Judge Beck’s voice, I realized something else. This woman’s father had been murdered, and we didn’t know why or who had done it. For all we knew, there could be someone waiting inside to attack Ruby as well.
Judge Beck put the SUV in park, and left it running, stepping out and surveying the house as I made sure Ruby could stand and walk. The snow had left several inches of light fluffy flakes that reminded me of old-fashioned laundry powder. Our breath billowed in the cold air, and I shivered even in my wrap. The sleep seemed to have cleared most of the beers from Ruby’s head, and she made her way to the front door under her own steam, the judge and I following.
There were no other tracks in the snow but ours. As we neared the door, a loud, frantic barking greeted us. Ruby fumbled with her keys, unlocking both the door and a deadbolt before pushing it open.
A dog danced out to greet us. It had the face of a pug, fur like a wire-haired terrier, and the body of a corgi. A whip-like tail beat against our legs and she gave the judge and I an enthusiastic sniff before returning to Ruby.
“Settle down, Dolly.” She bent down and hugged the dog, then stood and flicked on the lights in the house.”
“Does everything look in order?” Judge Beck asked her.
She nodded. “Yes. And Dolly would have let me know if there was someone else here. She’s not much in the way of a guard dog, but there’s no way anyone could hide from her.”
I dug a card out of my purse and handed it to her. “Can you call me tomorrow morning? Just to let me know everything is okay? I worry leaving you home alone tonight.”
Dolly ran off to pee a yellow spot in the snow while Ruby eyed the card. “I’ll be okay. I’m kinda numb right now, and tired. I’ll just curl up with Dolly and sleep, but I promise to call you in the morning.”
“If I can do anything to help, let me know,” I urged.
Dolly ran back on the porch, shook the snow off herself, then trotted inside. Ruby backed in the doorway, her hand on the knob. “I will. Thank you again for the ride home. I really appreciate it.”
Judge Beck and I said our goodbyes then made our way down the snowy walk, the judge taking my arm as I slid a little in my heels.
“I’m sure this is bringing back some terrible memories for you,” the judge mentioned.
For a moment I’d thought of all the murder victims I’d discovered over the last nine months. That party planner. The man across the street. The football star. The author. Was I becoming numb to all this, because although finding Rhett Reynolds in the second-floor bathroom had been horribly shocking, it hadn’t particularly brought on any nightmarish memories of other murder victims I’d come across this year.
“It’s not that long ago that you lost Eli,” Judge Beck added.
I felt a stab of guilt that I’d misunderstood him, thinking he meant memories of a grisly discovery and not grief.
“It’s different,” I told him as he opened the passenger door for me. “Eli didn’t die violently, and in a way I’d been partially grieving him for the last ten years.” Memories flooded me, as Judge Beck closed the door and walked around to climb in the driver’s side. “The day Eli died…”
The judge started the car and pulled out onto the road. “Go on.”
I took a breath. “The day he died seemed normal, just like any other day. He had a bit of weakness in his left side, but he’d been unable to walk and had problems with fine and gross motor skills since the accident, so I didn’t really think much about it. It wasn’t until later that I got concerned. I made a doctor’s appointment for the next day, but by dinner…he started talking gibberish and slurring his words. Eli had cognitive impairments from the accident, but not like this, and these things just don’t come out of nowhere ten years after an accident. I called 911, and by the time the ambulance arrived, I was in a state of panic.”
Judge Beck reached out to grip my hand, his gaze straight ahead as he guided the SUV out onto the main road.
I took a deep breath and let it out. “I knew it was bad from the way the EMTs were racing around. I rode with them to the hospital then waited while they frantically worked on him.”
He squeezed my hand. “But he didn’t make it?”
I looked out my window at the fields of freshly fallen snow. “He was on life support with no brain activity. Eli had medical directives, but they’d kept them on to give me time to say goodbye. I’d said goodbye so many times before—when he’d first had the accident, when there’d been terrifying complications in the hospital, that time he’d fallen trying to get into his wheelchair himself and hit his head on the corner of the bed. This time seemed easier. It seemed somehow right. From our first date I felt as if he was my soul mate, if you believe in that sort of thing. And although the accident changed him, I still loved him. It was a different kind of love, because in a way he was a different person, but I loved him.”
I felt Judge Beck tense, and we were silent until he pulled onto the highway.
“You’ve had two terrible losses, Kay,” he commented quietly. “The accident, and Eli’s death. Nothing in my life is comparable, so it feels disingenuous for me to claim to know how you felt. Both my parents are still alive. And my divorce is hardly comparable to a horrible accident or losing a spouse.”
Now it was me squeezing his hand. “Your divorce is a different sort of pain. And although I haven’t experienced that, I absolutely sympathize with what you’re going through.”
He let out a soft laugh and shook his head. “It feels self-indulgent to compare what I’m going through to what you have. Especially the accident. That morning after you came home from witnessing Holt’s accident, and told me about Eli’s… I can’t imagine how horrible that was for you. To love someone so, and to get that call in the morning. To go to the hospital, and not be sure if they were going to make it or not.”
Eli’s and my marriage hadn’t been a fairy tale. There had been arguments. There had been times when both of us had considered walking out. But ultimately we’d put in the hard work to stitch our lives together. I didn’t want to pass judgement on those who hadn’t made it work—especially Judge Beck and Heather. He’d confided in me the issues they’d faced, and there was no villain in that story, just two people who’d grown to want something different.
Then I remembered the terror of that early morning call, the frantic drive to the hospital, the tsunami of emotions as I waited see whether Eli would make it or not. The doctors had done all they could do. I’d stood there, staring at my husband, my beloved, wanting to somehow reverse time, or wake up from what must surely have been a nightmare.
“I know you’re a woman of faith,” Judge Beck commented. “I’m sure your prayers helped Eli pull through after the accident.”
My mind flashed back to ten years ago, and I held onto the judge’s hand as if it were a lifeline.
“I didn’t pr
ay,” I confessed, feeling as if I needed to be completely honest, as if the dimly lit interior of the SUV was some sort of sanctuary.
Did not praying during the most traumatic moment of my life make me a bad person? My husband had been in a hospital bed barely visible under all the tubes and monitors, not expected to last the night. I should have prayed, but I hadn’t.
I forced myself to look out at the wet, salted highway and not at Judge Beck. “I didn’t pray. I turned into some sort of Valkyrie. I stood at the end of Eli’s bed and envisioned myself facing down the Grim Reaper himself, telling him that he was not going to take my husband from me.”
It sounded weird, but that’s pretty much what I felt had happened. Everyone was grieving. Everyone was praying. But in the midst of all that, I’d grown strong, powerful, determined. If a skeletal man with a scythe had shown up at the hospital that night, I truly think I would have beat him down with an IV stand. Odd as it sounded, that night I felt that somehow, by the strength of my will alone, I could hold Death at bay.
But strength like that doesn’t last. Weeks, months, years later I was caring for a man who wasn’t really Eli. He was a man who I’d come to love over the ten years we’d had together, but he wasn’t the Eli I’d married. Maybe Death had won in that hospital room. Maybe when I wasn’t looking, the Grim Reaper had stolen away my husband and left me with only echoes of the man I’d loved.
I looked over and saw a hint of wistfulness in Judge Beck’s eyes as he glanced at me. “I always wanted that,” he said. “I know it sounds twisted but I always wanted someone who would love me so much that they’d face down Death, that they’d be strong when I couldn’t be. I wanted someone who would be by my bedside if the worst happened. I still want that. I want that and I want to be that for someone else. I thought I had that with Heather, but I guess not.”
I’d cried so much in the past few months—cried for Eli, cried for myself, cried for a past that was gone and a future I feared. Now I wanted to cry again, but this time for Judge Beck.
