Best Kept Secrets

by Sandra Brown

  “Why would I dispose of it?”

  “Because if someone came along later—an investigator like me—it would be easy and believable to pass off its disappearance as a clerical error. Better to be accused of sloppy bookkeeping than miscarriage of justice.”

  “You are obnoxious, Miss Gaither,” he said stiffly. “Like most avengers, you’re reacting emotionally, and have no basis whatsoever for your horrid allegations.”

  “Nevertheless, this is what I intend to present to the grand jury. Actually, I’m doing you a favor by telling you what I have. You’ll be able to consult with your attorney ahead of time about the answers you will give. Or will you take the Fifth?”

  “I won’t need to do either.”

  “Do you want to call your lawyer now? I’ll gladly wait.”

  “I don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Then I’ll proceed. Angus asked you for a favor. You asked for one in return.”

  “Junior Minton married my daughter because he loved her.”

  “I find that impossible to believe, Judge Wallace, since he’s told me himself that he asked my mother to marry him the night she was killed.”

  “I can’t explain his fickleness.”

  “I can. Junior was the trade-off for your ruling on Gooney Bud.”

  “The district attorney’s office—”

  “He was on vacation in Canada at the time. I confirmed that with his widow this morning. His assistant had enough evidence to arraign Bud Hicks for murder.”

  “A trial jury would have convicted him, too.”

  “I disagree, but we’ll never know. You prevented that.” She drew a deep breath. “Who was Angus protecting—himself, Junior, or Reede?”

  “No one.”

  “He must have told you when he called that morning.”

  “He didn’t call.”

  “He had to have called as soon as Hicks was arrested. What did Angus tell you?”

  “He didn’t tell me anything. I never heard from him.”

  She came out of her chair and leaned over his desk. “He must have said, ‘Look, Joe, I’ve gotten myself in a jam here.’ Or, ‘Junior’s taken this boys-will-be-boys thing a little too far this time,’ or ‘Can you help Reede out? He’s like a son to me.’ Isn’t that what happened?”

  “No, never.”

  “You might have argued that you couldn’t do it. You probably asked for time to think about it. Being the nice guy that he is, Angus granted you a few hours to mull it over. That’s when you came back saying that you would do this little favor for him in exchange for a marriage between Stacey and Junior.”

  “I won’t have you—”

  “Maybe you even discussed your dilemma with her and Mrs. Wallace.”

  “This is defamation of—”

  “Or maybe Stacey was the one to suggest the terms of the deal.”

  “Stacey never knew anything about it!”

  He shot out of his chair and stood nose to nose with Alex, shouting the words in her face. When he realized what he’d admitted, he blinked, wet his lips, then eased away from her and turned his back. Nervously, he ran his fingers over the row of brass studs on the back of his leather chair. It had been a gift from his daughter, his only child.

  “You knew how much Stacey loved Junior Minton.”

  “Yes,” he said softly. “I knew that she loved him more than he deserved.”

  “And that her affection wasn’t returned.”

  “Yes.”

  “And that Junior slept with her whenever he felt like it. You thought you had better protect her reputation and the possibility of an unwanted pregnancy by getting her married as soon as possible.”

  The judge’s shoulders slumped forward and he answered in a low, heartbroken voice. “Yes.”

  Alex closed her eyes and let go a long, silent breath. Tension ebbed from her like a wave receding from the shore. “Judge Wallace, who killed my mother? Who was Angus protecting when he asked you to hustle Buddy Hicks through the legal system?”

  He faced her. “I don’t know. As God is my witness, I don’t. I swear it on my years as a judge.”

  She believed him and said so. As unobtrusively as possible, she collected her things. When she reached the door of his office, he spoke her name in a thin voice.

  “Yes?”

  “If this ever comes to trial, will it be essential to your case for all this to come out in court?”

  “I’m afraid so. I’m sorry.”

  “Stacey…” He paused to clear his throat. “I wasn’t lying when I said she didn’t know about my agreement with Angus.”

  Alex repeated, “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded gravely. She stepped into the anteroom and closed the door behind her. The secretary shot her a resentful look, which wasn’t entirely undeserved. She had badgered him into telling the truth. It had been necessary, but she hadn’t enjoyed doing it.

  She was waiting for the elevator when she heard the gunshot. “Oh, God, no.” She whispered the words, but wasn’t even aware of saying them as she dropped her briefcase and raced back toward the end of the corridor. Mrs. Lipscomb was at the door to his office. Alex shoved her aside and ran in ahead of her.

  What she saw brought her to an abrupt halt. Her scream froze in her throat, but the secretary’s echoed through the chamber and into the hallways.

  Chapter 41

  A stream of secretaries, bailiffs, and other courthouse employees had gathered at the door of Judge Wallace’s chambers within sixty seconds of the gunshot.

  Reede, the first person to make it upstairs from the basement, shouldered his way through them, barking orders to the deputies who had followed him. “Clear everybody out!”

  He instructed one to call an ambulance and another to cordon off the hallway. He placed a comforting arm around Mrs. Lipscomb, who was weeping hysterically, and commissioned Imogene, Pat Chastain’s secretary, to take her away. He then bore down on Alex.

  “Go to my office, lock yourself in, and stay there, understand?” She stared back at him blankly. “Understand?” he repeated loudly, giving her a shake. Still incapable of speech, she nodded.

  To another deputy, he said, “See that she gets to my office. Don’t let anybody in.”

  The officer led her away. Before she left the judge’s chambers, she saw Reede look toward the grisly sight at the desk. He ran his hand through his hair and muttered, “Shit.”

  In his office on the lower level, Alex passed the time by pacing, weeping, gnashing her teeth, staring into space. She agonized in her own private hell over Judge Joseph Wallace’s suicide.

  Her head was pounding so fiercely, the stitches in her scalp felt like they would pop. She had failed to bring along her medication. A frantic search through the sheriff’s desk didn’t even produce an aspirin tablet. Was the man totally immune to pain?

  She was light-headed and nauseated and her hands refused to get warm, though they perspired profusely. The ancient plaster ceiling conducted every sound from above, but she couldn’t identify them. There was an endless parade of footsteps. The office provided her refuge from the confusion, but she was desperate to know what was happening in the rooms and hallways overhead.

  She was chin deep in despair. The facts pointed toward an inexorable truth that she didn’t want to acknowledge. Judge Wallace’s confession to a cover-up further implicated her chief suspects.

  Caught in a bind, Angus would have looked out for himself without feeling any remorse. By the same token, he would have bribed the judge in order to protect Junior, and probably done no less for Reede. But of the three, which had actually gone into the stable that night and murdered Celina?

  When Reede flung open the door, Alex whirled around, startled. She’d been staring out the window. She didn’t know how long she had waited in the room, but she realized suddenly that it was getting dark outside when he flipped on the light switch. She was still ignorant of what was transpiring upstairs and at the front of the courthouse.

&nbs
p; Reede gave her a hard look, but said nothing. He poured himself a cup of coffee and sipped from it several times. “Why is it lately that every time something happens in this town, you’re involved?”

  Tears instantly formed in her eyes. One moment they weren’t there, the next they were heavily pushing against her eyelids. She aimed a shaking index finger at his chest. “Don’t, Reede. I didn’t know that—”

  “That when you backed Joe Wallace into a corner he’d blow his brains out. Well, that’s what happened, baby. They’re dripping over the edge of his desk.”

  “Shut up.”

  “We found clumps of hair and tissue on the opposite wall.”

  She covered her mouth, swallowing a scream behind her hands. Turning her back on him, she shuddered uncontrollably. When he touched her, she flinched, but his hands were firm on her shoulders as he turned her around and pulled her against his chest.

  “Hush now, it’s done.” His chest expanded against her cheek as he drew in a deep breath. “Forget it.”

  She shoved herself away. “Forget it? A man is dead. It’s my fault.”

  “Did you pull the trigger?”

  “No.”

  “Then, it’s not your fault.”

  There was a knock at the door. “Who is it?” Reede asked crossly. When the deputy identified himself, Reede told him to come in. He signaled Alex into a chair while the deputy rolled a sheet of paper into the typewriter. She looked at Reede in bewilderment.

  “We have to take your statement,” he said.

  “Now?”

  “Best to get it over with. Ready?” he asked the deputy and got a nod. “Okay, Alex, what happened?”

  She dabbed her face with a tissue before she began. As briefly as possible, she told what had transpired in the judge’s chambers, being careful not to mention any names or issues that had been discussed.

  “I left his office and got as far as the elevator.” She stared down at the soggy Kleenex that she’d been mutilating between her hands. “Then, I heard the shot.”

  “You ran back in?”

  “Yes. He was slumped over. His head was lying on his desk. I saw blood and… and knew what he’d done.”

  “Did you see the pistol?” She shook her head. Reede said to the deputy, “Make a note that she answered no and that she couldn’t have seen it because it had fallen from the victim’s right hand to the floor. That’s all for now.” The deputy discreetly withdrew. Reede waited several moments. His foot swung to and fro from the corner of the desk where he was seated. “What did you and the judge talk about?”

  “Celina’s murder. I accused him of tampering with evidence and accepting a bribe.”

  “Serious allegations. How did he respond?”

  “He admitted it.”

  He took something out of his shirt pocket and tossed it onto his desk. The sterling-silver scalpel landed with a dull, metallic sound. It had oxidized, but was otherwise clean.

  Alex recoiled from the sight of it. “Where’d you get that?”

  “From the judge’s left hand.”

  They exchanged a long stare. Finally, Reede said, “It was his instrument of self-abuse, kept in his desk drawer, a constant reminder that he was corruptible. Knowing how proud he was of his years on the bench, it’s no wonder he cashed in. He’d rather blow off the side of his head than watch his career be ruined.”

  “Is that all you can say?”

  “What do you expect me to say?”

  “I expect you to ask me who bribed him? With what? Why?” Her tearful eyes dried instantly. “You already know, don’t you?”

  He eased himself off the desk and stood up. “I wasn’t born yesterday, Alex.”

  “So, you know that Angus got Judge Wallace to lock Gooney Bud away, presumably as Celina’s murderer, in exchange for Junior marrying Stacey.”

  “Where does that leave you?” Planting his hands on his hips, he loomed above her. “It’s speculation. You can’t prove it. Neither of them would have been stupid enough to record a conversation to that effect, if one did take place. Nobody wrote anything down. There’s enough reasonable doubt there for downtown Dallas to fit into. A man’s dead, his reputation as a fine judge has been shot to hell, and you’ve still got nothing to base a murder rap on.”

  He tapped his chest, his fingertips making angry stabs at his shirt. “I had to drive to the judge’s house and notify Stacey that her old man had emptied his head onto his desk because of your loosely based charges that would probably have been no-billed by the grand jury.”

  He stopped and regained control of his temper. “Before I get really pissed off at you, I suggest we get out of here and go someplace where it’s safe.”

  “Safe? For whom?”

  “For you, dammit. Haven’t the repercussions of this sunk in yet? Pat Chastain’s near cardiac arrest. Greg Harper has already called three times today, wanting to know if you could possibly have had anything to do with this prominent and respected judge’s suicide. Stacey is incoherent with grief, but in her lucid moments, she’s cursing you to perdition.

  “We’ve got Plummet and his army of crazies out there on the courthouse steps, carrying pickets that say this is just the beginning of the end. All this chaos is because of you and your half-baked murder case, Counselor.”

  Alex felt as though her chest was going to cave in, but she fought back. “Was I supposed to let Wallace go free just because he was a really nice guy?”

  “There are more subtle ways to handle delicate situations like that, Alex.”

  “But, no one handled it at all!” she cried. “Is that your philosophy of the law, Sheriff Lambert? Some rules don’t apply to people? When a friend of yours crosses over, do you conveniently look the other way? Apparently so. Case in point—Nora Gail Burton and her whorehouse. Does that same exclusion from justice apply to you, as well?”

  He didn’t answer. Instead, he went to the door and opened it, saying curtly, “Let’s go.”

  She stepped into the hallway with him; he steered her toward the rear elevator. “Pat loaned me his wife’s car,” she told him. “It’s parked out front.”

  “I know. There’s a swarm of reporters camped right beside it, all of them eager to know the gory details of the judge’s suicide. I’m sneaking you out the back door.”

  They left the building unseen. It was completely dark outside, and Alex wondered what time it was.

  They were halfway between the building and the parking lot when a form disengaged itself from the shadows and blocked their path.

  “Stacey,” Reede exclaimed softly. Subconsciously, his hand closed around the butt of his pistol, although he didn’t remove it from the holster.

  “I thought I’d catch you trying to hide.”

  Stacey’s eyes were fixed on Alex. The hatred in them made Alex want to cower against Reede for protection, but she maintained her proud stance. “Before you say anything, Stacey, I want you to know that I’m terribly sorry about your father.”

  “Are you?”

  “Very sorry.”

  Stacey shivered, whether with cold or revulsion, Alex couldn’t tell. “You came here to ruin him. Instead of being sorry, you should feel very proud of yourself.”

  “I had nothing to do with your father’s past mistakes.”

  “You’re the reason for the whole mess! Why couldn’t you just leave him alone?” Stacey cried, her voice cracking. “What happened twenty-five years ago wasn’t important to anybody but you. He was old. He planned to retire in a few months anyway. What harm was he doing you?”

  Alex remembered the judge’s last words to her. Stacey hadn’t known about the shady deal he had struck on her behalf. Alex could spare her that pain, at least until she’d had time to absorb the shock of her father’s death. “I can’t discuss the case with you. I’m sorry.”

  “Case? Case? This was never about a case. This was about your trashy mother, who used and manipulated people—men—until someone got tired of it and killed her.” Her
eyes narrowed threateningly and she took a malevolent step closer. “You’re just like her, stirring up trouble, a user of people and a whore!”

  She launched herself at Alex, but Reede stepped between them, catching Stacey against his chest and holding her there until her rage was spent and she was clinging to him weakly, sobbing.

  He stroked her back and murmured words of comfort. Behind her back, he passed Alex the keys to his Blazer. She took them and let herself in, locking the door behind her. Watching through the windshield, she saw him lead Stacey around the corner of the building and out of sight. Several minutes later, he came jogging back. She unlocked the door for him and he climbed in.

  “Will she be all right?” Alex asked.

  “Yeah. I turned her over to some friends. They’ll see that she gets home. Someone will stay with her tonight.” His lips narrowed into a bitter line. “Of course, the man she wants isn’t there for her.”

  “Her father?”

  He shook his head. “Junior.”

  Because it was all so pitifully sad, Alex began to cry again.

  Chapter 42

  She didn’t raise her head until the Blazer jounced over a chuckhole. She tried to get her bearings by looking through the windshield, but it was a dark night, and the road had no markings. “Where are we going?”

  “My place.” No sooner had he said it than his headlights picked up the house.

  “Why?”

  He cut the truck’s engine. “Because I’m afraid to let you out of my sight. People turn up dead or wounded when I do.”

  He left her sitting in the truck while he went to unlock the front door. She thought about driving off, but he’d taken the keys. In some ways, Alex was relieved she’d been robbed of taking the initiative. She wanted to defy him, but didn’t have the physical or mental energy. Tiredly, she pushed open the Blazer’s door and got out.

  The house looked different at night. Like a woman’s face, it fared better under soft lighting that helped camouflage its flaws. Reede had gone in ahead of her and turned on a lamp. He was crouched in front of the fireplace, putting a long match to the kindling beneath the stacked logs.