Murder One

by Robert Dugoni

  She walked back into the living room. “I knew he drank, but I didn’t know how much. It turned out to be vodka, and a lot of it. He was very good at hiding it, which made it even more difficult to detect. I also began to suspect that he was gay, or at least bisexual. Our sex life became virtually nonexistent, and if I confronted him, he blamed my career, said I was never home, that I was ‘wed to the law’ and always too tired. I was wed to the law. I had no choice. I had no husband.”

  He let her go on, sensing it to also be cathartic.

  “I began to realize that I had been something to further his career. When we met, he was on the University of Washington faculty. He wanted to be chief of the psychiatry department. He sat on national boards. He needed the appearance of stability and normalcy, and he needed my income. Whenever I confronted him on things like where he’d been or how much he’d drunk, he would bully me, tell me I didn’t know what I was talking about, then he’d begin to play intellectual chess games with me, turn it around, say I was the one with the problems. I discovered large cash withdrawals, and so I began to hide income from him, to protect me and Carly.”

  She walked back into the kitchen and pulled mugs and the sugar bowl from the cabinet.

  Sloane followed, leaning against the counter. “He said he filed for divorce.”

  “Of course he did.” She shrugged. “I threw him out, and he saw the writing on the wall. After dozens of phone calls, he realized I wasn’t going to capitulate. It infuriated him. So he went on the offensive and filed for divorce. He thought he was going to get a huge chunk of money.” She pulled open the refrigerator in search of the cream. “Then he began a systematic campaign to prove I was unfit to be a mother. He knew exactly what symptoms and behavior to tell the attorneys and the child-custody evaluators to convince them I was mentally unstable.” She closed the door. “Did I fight back? Did I hire a private investigator? You bet I did. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you when the well-being of your child is at stake?”

  Sloane thought of his fight with Tina’s parents in the battle for custody over Jake after her death. He had fought back, and he had been willing to do just about anything for Jake, including giving custody to his biological father so as not to hurt him further.

  “Leenie was everything to me. I wasn’t going to give her to a man who drank and had shown little interest in actually being a father. Did I set him up?” She frowned. “Please. He set himself up. He was having a relationship with one of his patients. I had to get tested for venereal diseases. Do you know . . .” She shook her head. The emotions finally caught up with her. She pinched tea into a strainer, but tears leaked down her cheeks. “It was humiliating.”

  “I’m sorry you’re going through this again.” He held her. “But this is not all bad, you know. It shows a bias. It creates serious doubt as to his credibility.”

  “It’s a part of my life I had hoped was behind me forever. To have it come back now, and in a public arena, is just . . . It brings back a lot of bad memories. I want to move forward.”

  “You will,” he said, knowing whether she actually would or not was squarely in his hands.

  CAPITOL HILL

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Kozlowski flinched, heart hammering in his chest. He recognized the accent but not the voice. A large dark-skinned man stood with his hands thrust in the pockets of a black leather car coat, the collar turned up, a black knit hat pulled low on his forehead.

  “Who are you?” Kozlowski felt out of breath from the cold and the adrenaline rush.

  “Just a man who enjoys a nice evening.”

  “How do you know me?”

  The man pointed to Berta. “I think your dog is finished.”

  Berta tugged on the leash, ready to move on. The man reached inside his coat, and it caused Kozlowski to take a precautionary step backward. The man removed several plastic bags, the kind used for groceries at the local supermarkets. “You look to be in need of assistance.”

  Kozlowski hesitated, but when the man shook the bag, he took it and slowly stooped to clean up Berta’s mess.

  The man sighed, his breath marking the cold air. “Such is life, Judge, is it not, that we are always cleaning up someone else’s shit.”

  Kozlowski wound the top of the bag into a knot. “What is it you want?”

  “Just to walk.” The man pointed at Berta. “Is never good to keep a woman waiting, no? Especially one who is kept inside so many hours a day.”

  Kozlowski felt his stomach grip. He looked about, hoping to see . . . whom? What could he do? Cry out for help? Even if a police officer appeared at that very moment, as in some predictable movie scene, what would he say? No. He’d built this pile of shit. No one else could clean it up.

  He walked west on Aloha. Ordinarily, he turned on Federal, but Broadway, one block farther to the west, was a much busier street and likely to have more foot traffic. If the man meant him harm, the presence of others might dissuade him. But the man stopped at the corner of Aloha and Federal. “Is this not your normal way, Judge?”

  Resigned, Kozlowski turned. “Why don’t you tell me what it is you think you want?”

  The man smiled. “I think I want your help.”

  “I can’t help you.”

  “Don’t be so quick to decide. I want only as you helped Vladimir Kurkov, Ivan Alekseev, and of course, Filyp, God rest his soul.”

  Kozlowski felt a wave of panic. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The man stopped. Though Kozlowski stood three inches over six feet, he had to look up at him. “I will call on you again, Judge. And when I do, you will help—or it will be much more than your dog’s shit that you are cleaning up.”

  He stepped from the curb into the street and disappeared around the corner.

  QUEEN ANNE HILL

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Sloane slid from the bed, careful not to wake her, slipped on a robe, and went back downstairs, where he had left his briefcase. He turned on the light over the dining room table and pulled out his notes for his voir dire—questions he would ask the jurors to try to determine their predispositions, anything from what they read to how they felt about certain topics in the news. He had always been able to sense each juror’s predilections, never felt the need for help, but this time he had hired a jury consultant and spent several hours with her earlier in the week, going over possible lines of inquiry. It would be dicey. If he asked questions concerning people taking matters into their own hands, it could very well leave the impression that Barclay had done just that. But since that was exactly the seed Cerrabone would attempt to plant in their minds, Sloane needed to know how strongly they felt about the subject. Their feelings on Carly’s drug use were also significant. Many in the general public would have little sympathy for a heroin addict. It wasn’t as if she’d been hit by a drunk driver.

  Feeling overwhelmed and in need of fresh air, he unlocked the glass door and slid it open. When he did, it triggered the alarm, a persistent beep. He rushed across the room to the control panel at the right of the front door, but it took him a moment to enter the corresponding numbers for the letters leenie. When he had, the alarm silenced.

  Barclay made her way down the stairs, slipping on her robe. “Is everything okay?”

  The telephone rang. She moved to the alcove near the kitchen and answered it. “The password is Leenie. This is the owner, Barclay Reid. Thank you for calling.”

  She walked back into the living room.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I got up to do some work and felt the need for some fresh air. I forgot about the alarm.”

  “Are you all right?” He didn’t know what to say.

  “David?”

  “I can’t guarantee you I’m going to win.”

  She took his hand. “Come back to bed,” she said. “You’re ready. You know you are. Just trust your ability. I’ve seen it. I know what you can do.”

  TWENTY

  TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2011

&nb
sp; KING COUNTY COURTHOUSE

  SEATTLE, WASHINGTON

  Judge Reuben Underwood proved a man of his word. Sloane had been in trials where the jury selection slogged on for days. Not this trial. Despite the large number of people automatically disqualified because they claimed to have read newspaper accounts or seen television reports on Barclay Reid’s arrest—some lying to avoid their civic duty—by the end of the day they had more or less selected a pool of fourteen jurors. Twelve would decide Barclay’s fate, with two alternates, though which two would not be determined until a random draw just before Underwood sent them to deliberate. The procedure prevented any claim that the alternates had paid less attention to the evidence than the selected twelve.

  Underwood’s efficiency was the proverbial good news and bad news for Sloane—the bad news being the Bekins boxes of documents the state had dumped, as promised, at Sloane’s office that morning. Because Pendergrass would try the case with Sloane, he had been in the courtroom during the jury selection. That meant they would have to go through the documents at night, while trying to otherwise prepare for trial. Sloane could have objected and sought a continuance, but he sensed Underwood had been the type of attorney who never sought an indulgence from the court or from opposing counsel and hadn’t changed his demeanor—or his view of attorneys who did—since winning election to the bench. Trials were a bitch. Suck it up and deal with it. Sloane would lose points even for asking.

  So Sloane was not exactly eager when Jenkins came into the war room early that evening and told him they needed to take a drive. But when Jenkins used the word “need,” he meant it, and Sloane didn’t argue. Jenkins had been out late most nights and then again early mornings, watching Kozlowski.

  “Go,” Barclay said to him. “I can go through the documents; I know them better than anyone, anyway.”

  Inside Jenkins’s Buick, Sloane asked, “How can you be sure? You’ve been following him for weeks. Why tonight?”

  Jenkins adjusted one of the vents as the heat kicked in. Sloane felt it flutter his suit pants and warm his shins. “Let’s just say I think the judge has a little more motivation tonight than in the past.”

  “Do I want to ask how you know that?”

  “Nope.”

  Sloane looked around the neighborhood. “I thought he lived in an apartment on Thomas.”

  “He does. But tonight he’s on the move, and he didn’t even give his poor dog a chance to relieve herself. I hope she leaves him a present on his pillow.” Jenkins inserted the earpiece that had been dangling over the back of his ear. “You have a bead on our pigeon?”

  “Alex?” Sloane asked.

  Jenkins raised a hand to silence him, listened a moment longer, then said, “On our way. Let me know if he moves.”

  “She’s following the judge?”

  “She’s not following him. He’s landed. She’s watching him. And apparently, he’s not alone.”

  “Why is she watching him?”

  “Because he might recognize me.”

  Sloane started to ask why, then decided against it. “I don’t want to know,” he said.

  FUEL COFFEE

  CAPITOL HILL

  Julio Cruz took a seat at a table near the window and had only begun to sip his coffee when he saw the champagne-colored Lexus attempt to parallel-park across the street. That Judge Myron Kozlowski had driven the four blocks from his apartment rather than walk the poodle was a further indication something had him spooked, though the judge would not discuss what when he had called Cruz, sounding panicked, and asked for a meeting. Cruz had heard the sound of city traffic, indicating that the judge had left his office to make the call on his cell. Familiar with the area from his prior visits, Cruz suggested the small coffee shop close to the judge’s apartment. The windows faced the tree-lined street, allowing Cruz to keep an eye on who else might be around.

  The decor was coffee brown—the floor, walls, ceiling. Newspapers lay scattered about, mostly the weekly papers with advertising in the back for “massages” and other paid services. Books flopped to the side on a shelf along one wall, and the tables and chairs, a hodgepodge mix, looked like somebody had picked them up individually at a flea market. Together, they gave the place that grunge feel Cruz had read about Seattle. But the coffee was strong, and the burnt-bitter smell of roasted coffee beans reminded him of warmer climates. Cruz thought it was bad enough that Seattle got rain in the summer, but the cold was killing him. Cold in Miami meant putting on a T-shirt. Tonight he had left his hotel dressed like he was going skiing, wearing a knit hat, gloves, and a thick jacket, all of which rested on the chair beside him, not to mention the waterproof boots and long johns beneath his blue jeans and flannel shirt. He looked like a freaking lumberjack.

  Kozlowski finally parked the car on his third attempt, though the back end still stuck out farther from the sidewalk than the front. As he walked across the street, he caught sight of Cruz in the window and quickened his pace, gaze so fixed that he nearly T-boned the woman walking down the sidewalk. She paused, apparently realizing the judge was not about to slow his pace, and allowed him to enter in front of her. The man had to be seriously spooked to not notice a creature like her. With flowing black hair, a navy blue peacoat, and blue jeans sprayed over legs that could wrap around a man’s head twice, she would have been something special even in Miami, which specialized in gorgeous chiquitas. In Seattle she was like a winter goddess, so hot she’d melt the snow. Cruz couldn’t help but stare as she followed the judge into the coffee shop and walked to the counter holding a novel in a leather-gloved hand.

  Kozlowski had apparently come straight from his chambers, still wearing a suit and tie, though he had tugged the knot down and undone the top button of his shirt. The man looked sickly, more so than normal. His skin had the yellow-gray tone that reminded Cruz of his father’s complexion from the chemotherapy treatments. Dark bags sagged beneath his eyes, and his shock of white hair looked as if he had recently wrung his hands through it.

  Kozlowski removed his overcoat, fumbled with the scarf, and finally threw both over the back of a chair before sitting.

  “Evening, Judge.” Cruz turned to admire the vision with the heart-shaped butt at the counter.

  Kozlowski looked quickly about the interior and leaned forward, speaking in a hushed tone. “How many times have I told you not to use my title or my name?”

  His sour, acidic-smelling breath overwhelmed even the aroma of the coffee. Cruz pulled back. Pathetic, really, to see a man who wielded so much power from the bench, and seemed to relish doing so, act like a beaten dog—cowering in fear. “Relax, Judge. This place isn’t exactly hopping at the moment.”

  “Are you responsible for Vasiliev’s death?”

  Cruz stroked the beginnings of the black beard he’d decided to grow for the winter, but with the itching, he was now rethinking. “Let me ask you, Judge, why would I go to so much trouble to keep Vasiliev on the street if I was intent on killing him?”

  The tufts of eyebrows protruded forward. “Then who did?”

  The woman took her book and an espresso to a table by the window. She gave Cruz a quick glance and a hint of a smile. She was toying with him, but it still made his heart flutter. He was not the man he had been in his youth, when the smile would have been an invitation to join her. Now it served as a warning: “You can’t touch this no more, old man.” Sad but true. Cruz would likely die of a heart attack before he got his pants unbuttoned.

  He shifted his eyes to Kozlowski. “If you believe everything you read in the papers, it was the attorney.”

  Kozlowski sat back and let out a held breath. “I did what I was asked to do.”

  Cruz shook his head, reached inside the pocket of his jacket on the chair, and tossed an envelope on the table. The flap opened, revealing the edges of several hundred-dollar bills.

  Kozlowski shoved the envelope inside his suit jacket, eyes wide.

  “This is the end of it. I’m finished.”

 
“Who says you’re not?”

  “The man who followed me last night?”

  That got Cruz’s attention. “What are you talking about? What man? Are you being paranoid, Judge?”

  “If I am, I think I have a pretty good goddamn reason to be.”

  “Calm down. Tell me what happened.”

  “I was out walking Bertie. He appeared out of the dark is what happened.”

  “What did he say? Did he give you a name?”

  Kozlowski remained irritated. “I don’t think he was carrying any business cards, Julio.”

  “Easy, Judge, don’t be casting no stones from that glass house of yours. Tell me what this man wanted?”

  The judge ran a hand over his face, like someone trying to wipe away the fatigue.

  “He said he wanted me to help him—like I helped Kurkov, Alekseev, and Vasiliev.”

  Cruz leaned forward. “He used their names?”

  “He had an accent, Russian, and he was big. Very big.” Cruz thought of Chelyakov, but that was before the judge added, “And he was dark-skinned.”

  “He was black?”

  “I couldn’t tell. He was wearing a ski hat, jacket, gloves. All I could see was his face. And it was dark.”

  “His face was dark or it was dark out?”

  “Both. He could have been Hispanic.”

  “But he had an accent.”

  “Yes, he had an accent.”

  Cruz didn’t know any Hispanic or black Russians, and he certainly didn’t know the man the judge had described. But if he used the three names, it was a problem.

  Cruz stood.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be in touch. But you might want to find another place to walk Bertie.”

  Charles Jenkins pressed his finger to his ear. “Speak to me.” He sat up and put his hand on the key, which he had left in the ignition. His eyes remained fixed through the windshield on the front entrance to the coffee shop. “I got him.”

  The short man exiting the coffee shop did so in a hurry, carrying a thick ski jacket. He had a beard. “I’m assuming that’s not Kozlowski,” Sloane said.