Isolated Judgment

by Jonathan Watkins

  “When did you even buy this stuff?” she asked for the second time.

  Darren’s weight shifted above her and she felt the cloth-and-Velcro cuff around her right thigh tighten as he pulled her into the position he desired.

  “Shush,” he said. “I’ll be doing the interrogating, ma’am.”

  “I like ‘miss’ better. ‘Miss’ is young.”

  “You know, I do have a gag, Izzy.”

  The cuff on her left leg drew back. She gave a soft tug on the handcuffs and heard them rattle against the headboard post above her head. She envisioned herself as he saw her from above, and felt her cheeks flush hot in embarrassment.

  “This game sucks,” she said, not for the first time since they’d gotten back to Darren’s penthouse apartment atop the Fort Sheldon Tower.

  But then he was suddenly paying her attention, slowly at first, and the game didn’t suck anymore. He grew more insistent, and his caresses became firm, unyielding. He was invisible, but real. He was inside her, but silent. When she cried out, he slowed and relented until her dizziness subsided. Then he quickened, his hands bunched in her hair, driving her back up toward the peak from which she had only just descended. It went on for a long time, rising and ebbing, rising again, and somewhere in the blind ecstasy of it all, Issabella realized a truth: She had won their game after all.

  * * *

  “Be firm,” Issabella said, “but not insolent. Can you do that?”

  Darren had his cell pinned between his ear and his shoulder as he guided his little rental boat across the lake. The sky was clear and vibrant, the sun hanging in the noon hour. Then rental had a surprisingly powerful outboard motor. He was skipping over the meager waves, the humid lake air blowing his dark curls around his face.

  “I think we already went over all this,” he said into the cell.

  “I wasn’t reassured,” she admitted. “Reassure me that we aren’t making a retired state supreme court judge so mad at us that we’ll be working in fast food this time next year.”

  Darren chuckled.

  “Kiddo, I’m independently wealthy,” he said. “But if it comes to that, I promise to come see you at the drive-through regularly.”

  “No insults,” she said. “Just firm that we’re resigning. We couldn’t find anything, and we’re bowing out graciously. Give the retainer back. Make apologies. No insults.”

  “So, no insulting him?”

  “Please.”

  “You know, kiddo, you should have come with me. It really is a beautiful day for puttering around the lake. I could have exercised my bedroom rights in this charming little boat. Have you ever been ravaged in an aluminum boat?”

  Ahead, he could make out a sliver of land on the horizon. The Wailing Isle.

  “Ravished, you mean.”

  “Hmm. Do I?”

  “As nice as that sounds, I have to go talk Sour Twan into a prison sentence. You know, the boring real cases that keep the lights on. You should try one some time. They involve paperwork and disappointment. No insults.”

  “No insults,” he agreed.

  “Okay.”

  They hung up and Darren smiled into the rush of wind, his large eyes bright with anticipation. The boat hummed along toward the island while he constructed a string of pointed, insufferably insulting things to tell Judge Prosner.

  * * *

  He found Sam in the work shed, curled up near the stool where Ludolf had sat while Darren got the old man drunk enough to talk about his youth in Vienna. When Darren appeared at the entrance, Sam leapt up and bounded over to him, his tail beating the air furiously. The yellow lab licked his fingertips happily and scampered around until Darren found a large bag of dog food and poured a heap of it into a stainless steel bowl near the workbench.

  Sam ate enthusiastically while Darren took the bowl’s twin and filled it with water from the shed’s sink. He set the bowl of water down next to Sam, straightened and blinked around the shed’s interior like he was seeing it for the first time.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” he said after a while. “Jesus, I was scared I’d find you like the others.”

  Sam slopped water around, looked up at Darren with his dripping snout then went back to drinking noisily.

  “Is it wrong, do you think? To be more scared that a dog is killed than a man? I don’t know. But I’m really glad to see you, Sam.”

  Again, Sam peered up at Darren and cocked his head like he had an unvoiced question.

  “It’s okay,” Darren said. “Lou told me your name is Sam. I guess Chester was your cover story. Or maybe I just made it up. Either way, you’re a sight for sore eyes, Sam.”

  Darren sat heavily on the stool. Then, remembering his first time in the shed, he reached up and started searching through the tools and cans that littered the shelves above the workbench. Eventually he found a half-finished pint of Ludolf’s whiskey. He unscrewed the cap, took a long swallow and pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  Flipping it open, Darren thumbed through the menu. He searched the Contact List. There was only one number. He searched the “Recent Calls.” There was only one.

  Darren called that number. The phone rang seven times before there was a clicking sound and his brother, Luther, answered.

  “It’s done? I expected you to call yesterday.”

  Darren stared into the distance, unblinking.

  “Hello? Say something.”

  Darren set the cell on the workbench and took another long pull off the whiskey. He grimaced against the sting of it, took another swallow and set the bottle down. He lifted the cell back up, put it to his ear and closed his eyes.

  He saw Judge Prosner, collapsed across the floor in front of his wheelchair, as frail and light as a bundle of sticks thrown to the ground. He saw the blood trail that led out to Daniel’s grave. Ludolf, his face a ruin of blood. The stranger in the lilac tracksuit, lying in grass grown brown from his dried insides. He saw himself, shaking, mad with confusion, drawing the stranger’s cell phone out of the man’s pocket. He’d wandered aimlessly around the island after that, wild with outrage and unanswerable questions.

  In the eastern woods, Darren found the little cavern of the Wailing Woman. It was as Ludolf had described—small enough to be a rabbit’s den, its walls lined in milky crystal. Her home was empty and silent.

  Only after he’d regained some sense of balance had he checked the shed and found that, thankfully, the one truly innocent soul on the island had been spared devastation.

  “I think maybe you need a lawyer, brother,” he said into the cell. “But not me. Whatever this is—this bloody mess you’ve left behind—I’ll be on the other side of the courtroom when they burn you and that fucking cabal you call a law firm down to the ground.”

  Darren enjoyed the long silence that followed. He imagined Luther in his high perch atop Chicago’s rarified real estate, the titan of international power-deals growing pale as understanding sank in.

  “Darren,” Luther breathed in a strangled whisper.

  “Bingo.”

  “This...this needs to be handled delicately, Darren. We need to be calm right now. Both of us.”

  Sam seemed to get his fill of food and water. His snout still dripping, he pressed himself against Darren’s legs and slapped the stool legs with his tail. Darren bent down and scratched Sam’s ears.

  “Here’s what I know,” Darren said. “A judge and a wanted war criminal are dead. So is the killer you sent in here. Somewhere, there’s a tackle box full of what I’m guessing are the heirlooms of Vienna Jews. Is that where you come in, Luther? Hunting baubles for someone powerful enough to buy you?”

  “That’s a lot to piece together. It’s also something you want to extricate yourself from, Darren. We need to talk about getting you out of this situation. It do
esn’t involve whatever you were doing for the Judge.”

  Darren’s laughter was devoid of humor.

  “It kind of does,” he said. “That man was my client, Luther. You know how I feel about my clients.”

  Another long silence. When Luther’s voice returned, there was a resignation in it—a recognition that there would be no mutual understanding reached today.

  “The jewelry?” he said.

  “Gone. I don’t know where. There’s a little boat tied up that wasn’t here the last time. I’m guessing it belongs to your dead goon, but I haven’t checked it.”

  “And the chief of police?”

  “Ah,” Darren said and clicked his tongue across the roof of his mouth. “I see. That’s where you came in. Chief Fish made a mistake.”

  “Yes. Is he still involved?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “We can salvage this, Darren. If we work together, right now.”

  Darren bit back something ugly and got up off the stool. He walked out into the afternoon sunlight. Sam trailed behind him agreeably.

  “Izzy doesn’t know about you,” he said, once he was outside. “I...I don’t know why. No, that’s not true. I never told her about you because I’m ashamed of you, Luther. Somewhere deep down, I didn’t want her to think I could be related to a man who does what you do. What our family has always done. Like, if she knew, she’d think that somehow the taint that’s staining you could maybe stain me, too. You understand what I’m saying?”

  “No.” Luther sighed, and Darren could see his brother’s exasperated expression as clearly as if they were standing face-to-face. “I need you to go look in that boat, Darren. If the jewelry is there...”

  “I’m going to tell her,” Darren said. “She loves me, and I was stupid to think your existence could put that in peril. I’m going to tell her everything about you and the Fletcher family business. And when I’m done, we’re going to ruin you, Luther. I promise you that.”

  “For God’s sake, Darren—”

  “I’m calling the cops when I hang up,” Darren said. “I hope there are plenty of walls between you and the thug you sent out here to murder people, Luther. For your sake. Consider this the last fair warning I give you. You should have known what it would mean when you decided to kill my client, dear brother.”

  Luther was shouting something, but Darren flipped the phone shut on it. He walked back into the shed and found an oily rag on the bench. Over the next several minutes, the cell got wiped down and placed back in the pocket of the man in the lilac jumpsuit. Ludolf’s eyes got pushed gently closed. The Judge’s copy of their fee agreement got folded and slipped into his suit coat pocket. The authorities got called.

  Darren waited on the dock at the edge of the island. The little boat was there, tied up on the other side of the dock from the Learned Hand and Darren’s rental. He thought he could see a flash of something shiny inside it from where he stood. Maybe a tackle box, he mused, but he didn’t go and check. That bit of business he’d leave to the cops.

  He stared into the blue distance until the red flashing lights of the police boats appeared in his view. Sam trotted little circles in front of him and pushed his nose against Darren’s hand. Darren crouched down on his heels and ran his fingers through the dog’s fur.

  “Okay, we have to get our stories straight,” he said. “One: We don’t know who is in that grave. The Judge hired me and Izzy to redo his will and put his financial affairs in order. No letting slip about sword killers or stolen Jewish jewelry. You don’t have to say anything. I’m good at lying to cops, so you just play dumb. Cool? Cool. Two: You’re my dog. Right? You came with me, and you’re coming home with me. Is that a deal?”

  Sam sneezed and started licking his crotch with an unseemly enthusiasm.

  “Izzy probably won’t care for that kind of behavior, you know.”

  * * * * *

  To purchase and read more books

  by Jonathan Watkins, please visit his website here or at http://brightandfletcher.blogspot.com

  Turn the page for a sneak preview of A DEVIL’S BARGAIN, the next book in the BRIGHT & FLETCHER MYSTERIES, coming from Jonathan Watkins and Carina Press in February 2016

  Coming soon from Carina Press

  and Jonathan Watkins

  When you bargain with the devil, you’d better win. Read on for a sneak preview of

  A DEVIL’S BARGAIN, the next book

  in Jonathan Watkins’s

  BRIGHT & FLETCHER MYSTERIES

  One

  Issabella Bright was only half way to sleep when she felt the emptiness beside her. She opened her eyes and patted the mattress where Darren Fletcher had lain the last time she’d been awake enough to know it.

  The bedside alarm clock told her it was just shy of midnight. She sat up and rubbed her eyes with her palms. She went downstairs. The kitchen light was on, but she was still alone. Through its window-wall the living room was softly aglow with the lights of downtown Detroit. Sam, the yellow Labrador Darren had rescued from the private island of a murdered client, was curled up on the sofa, asleep. Darren was not there.

  She found him out on the ivy-draped terrace of the penthouse apartment. The traffic along the Ambassador Bridge was light at this hour, moving unimpeded. Beyond it, she could see that one of Windsor’s casinos was aiming a spotlight machine up at the cloud cover. The three shafts of light it produced swam and danced in unison.

  “That’s kind of pretty,” she said.

  Darren was sitting in one of the wrought-iron chairs, wearing only a pair of cotton pajama bottoms. His long legs were stretched out straight in front him and crossed at the ankles, his fingers knit together across the flat plane of his stomach. Beneath his head of dark, unkempt curls, his eyes were darker still and heavy with brooding. On the table beside him were an untouched vodka and tonic, his phone, and a letter-sized envelope.

  “I guess it kind of is,” he agreed.

  Issabella sat in the chair nearest him.

  “What’s in the letter?”

  Darren looked down at the envelope and frowned. He reached out and she thought he was going to pick it up, but instead he lifted the drink to his lips.

  “You can read it if you want,” he said and took a sip. “It came this afternoon. I was putting off reading it. I don’t know why. I already knew what it said, more or less.”

  She picked up the envelope and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. When she unfolded it, the first thing she saw was the bold, formal font of the letterhead.

  The Fletcher Group.

  Issabella read the contents of the letter beneath it:

  Darren,

  A friend of mine who would know such things just informed me that the Justice Department will politely decline your repeated demands that they investigate our family’s firm. Apparently they, like every other agency you have petitioned, found that there are no grounds whatsoever to indulge your personal, slanderous vendetta. Expect a letter from them soon.

  I have no doubt you will be dismayed to learn that your quest to ruin everything our forefathers built has failed. Alas, I cannot share your disappointment. Some of us still believe that serving the interests of this nation is a worthwhile endeavor.

  This missive is not meant as an exercise in gloating. I write to you in the hope that you now fully accept that your quest is at an end. There is no investigation forthcoming. Not from any court, nor from any State or Federal agency. If you can manage it, please summon the maturity to move on. Swatting your efforts aside has grown tedious and I detest tedium almost as much as I detest your self-righteous indignation at the simple, albei
t harsh, realities of the world.

  From here on out, I think we would be best served by an accord. Let us agree that we need not concern ourselves with the other in any future matter. I will continue the good work that bears our family’s name, as I have ever done. For your part, feel free to continue mucking about in that sewer you ran off to years ago.

  Your brother,

  Luther

  Issabella re-folded the venomous note and slipped it back into its envelope before tossing it on the table. She sighed and watched the headlights running back and forth along the bridge for a while.

  “You know, I think maybe he really did mean to gloat,” she said.

  “Just a bit,” Darren agreed.

  “He writes like a Victorian.”

  “You should hear him talk. When I told him I was going to be a public defender in Detroit instead of taking a desk with the Fletcher Group he used the words wastrel and scion.”

  “Did he pronounce them right?”

  “Hell if I know. It’s the only time I’ve ever heard them out loud.”

  “I bet that fancy talk gets him all the girls.”

  Darren finally grew a slight smile and he took her hand in his.

  “Actually, it turns out I was better at that.”

  “Much. You shouldn’t let him get to you like this. Brooding and resentful is exactly what he wants.”

  Darren took a second sip of his drink and set it back on the table.

  “It’s not the letter. Not really,” he said.

  “Then what?”

  “What it reminded me of. I saw it in the mail and it occurred to me that I haven’t gotten any green envelopes for almost a year now.”

  “That’s a good thing, though,” she said.

  “Is it?”

  “I think so. I think it probably means James Klodd is dead, Darren.

  He fell silent, and Issabella was glad for it. There had been occasions over the couple of years they’d been together when she had woken as she had tonight, inexplicably alone in the bed.