Cold Justice: A Judge Willa Carson Mystery (The Hunt for Justice)

by Diane Capri

  The eggs didn’t seem so tasty any more, and I pushed my plate away. “But the victim lived here. His car was traveling toward Pleasant Harbor, not away from it. How do you explain that?”

  “I can’t explain it, except to say that the killer must have known Richards’ plans for the day or somehow participated in them.” George finished his coffee, ate the rest of his toast and jam. The conversation didn’t seem to be affecting his appetite at all.

  My coffee was cold and the omelet congealed, half eaten and unappetizing now.

  Eventually, he pushed his empty plate aside. “You may not get more food for a while,” George told me in the same way a mother might scold a child.

  “I guess I’ll have to take my chances,” I replied.

  George refilled his coffee, offered me a fresh cup. I shook my head and pulled my parka over my shoulders. “We probably saw him out there. You realize that, right?”

  We’d seen snowmobilers skimming along the edge of the lake on the way into town north of the crime scene. At the time, I’d thought the riders were lucky to be enjoying fresh trails. After we found the Toyota’s flat tire, a more sinister image intruded.

  As if conjured by our conversation, I heard the unmistakable sound of a snowmobile pulling up out front. At first, I thought I was imagining it, but when the engine died, profound silence reinforced the prior noise.

  I looked toward the exit door. Stomping on the porch, probably the rider knocking snow off his boots. The level of tension in my body had escalated to the point where I almost jumped up to hide. As ridiculous as it seemed, it somehow felt possible that a killer was about to enter the room.

  George made no move to rise, but he must have sensed something. As he had back when we were in the car, he reached over and placed his hand on top of mine. This time, the gesture didn’t reassure.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The back door opened and an Eskimo powered through. A huge man, maybe three hundred pounds, wrapped from head to toe in navy blue down-filled Gortex. His face was covered by a black ski mask that revealed only his eyes, nose and mouth. Steam radiated off him. Oversized boots and gloves made his feet and hands look the size of tennis rackets. He stomped his boots to knock the last of the snow off onto the mat.

  When he pushed the fur-trimmed hood of his parka away from his head and yanked off the ski-mask, his face looked reddened by the cold. White skin with a few freckles. Brown hair, brown eyes, bushy brows. Totally ordinary. Which didn’t mean he was innocent.

  Witness after witness who testified in my courtroom describing a killer usually said, “He looked so normal.” Or, “He was such a nice man.”

  Sure he was nice and normal, until he deliberately caused a blowout of one of your tires and then executed you with a single bullet to the head.

  Could this guy have been today’s shooter?

  “Hello, folks!” he said to us, in a rather jovial way for a cold-blooded killer. “I see the bridge club is still at it. Those women have some stamina, don’t they?”

  He huffed and puffed with the effort of removing his snowmobile suit over the girth of his stomach. As he hung each piece of gear in a closet by the door, he kept talking. “I’m David Mason, one of the chefs here. I ran out of butter, if you can believe that.”

  He held up a grocery bag heavy with several pounds of something inside. Square boxes were evident inside the thin plastic bag once he’d finished uncovering himself and moved toward us. Ordinary butter in a normal grocery bag. That’s all.

  “Hope you’re enjoying the food,” he said.

  “We are, very much,” George replied and he stood and shook David’s hand and introduced us. “Is Marc with you?”

  “Marc had a family problem to take care of.”

  “Nothing serious, I hope,” George said.

  “I’m not sure. He asked me to make you comfortable and say he’d meet you at the cottage,” he glanced up at one of the high windows. I followed his gaze. “You might want to get going soon. Weather’s a mess out there. In fact, I see the president of the bridge club over there sitting with my wife. She should be heading home, too.”

  “He’s right, George,” I said, rising from the table and gathering my gear.

  “Let me walk you out,” David said.

  On the way to the exit, we stopped at one of the tables where four women were playing bridge. David laid a hand on one woman’s shoulder. “George and Willa Carson, this is my wife, Molly. And her sisters, Maureen Richards and Madeline Trevor, and our good friend Jeannine Montgomery.”

  Madeline Trevor gave me a strange look I couldn’t decipher, but the others were friendly enough. We smiled and nodded all around before David explained the blizzard. “You might want to get folks to wrap it up and head home while they can still get there,” he said.

  We paid the bill and trudged out to the parking lot along with everyone else.

  I started the Jeep and turned on the heat while George used the snowbrush to sweep off the windows. David might not have been the killer, but he drove a snowmobile and was out of the building for a while. I wasn’t ready to cross him off my list of suspects just yet. At least I’d talk to Marc about him first.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  As David had warned, the blizzard’s force had steadily increased while we were at the Cafe and now at least four inches of fresh snow covered the streets. Neither of us had driven on snow in years and no, it’s not like riding a bike.

  Marc Clayton lived in an historic Victorian mansion on Foxglove Street, not far from Eagle Creek. The mansion’s guesthouse would be our home for the week.

  George took it slow and easy and eventually, we reached our destination. Marc had said he’d be back later but had left the cottage door unlocked for us. We unpacked and tromped our way inside.

  I wandered around the charming cottage, examining everything, which didn’t take long. Two minutes to tour the entire place.

  A cheerful blaze burned in the fieldstone fireplace and freshly baked cookies scented the air. A single bedroom, small kitchen, one bath and an all-purpose room for everything else. The refrigerator had been stocked with my favorite Cuban coffee and the bar contained Glenfiddich scotch for George and Bombay Sapphire gin for me. Marc, an excellent host, had once again thought of everything.

  George had walked into the bedroom and plopped down on the bed. “Willa, this is supposed to be a vacation. I need a nap.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me, but I was most definitely not in the mood.

  For the next week, George and I would have more time together than we’d spent in years. When we’d planned the trip, we’d expected a romantic getaway, but romance and murder rarely mix. So much for plans.

  I laid down next to George on the bed and snuggled up for warmth, though. In a few minutes, he was snoring.

  When I closed my eyes, I could still see Leo Richards’ body slumped over the steering wheel of his Toyota, with a gaping hole in his head through which his life had blasted out.

  I imagined the young widow and the young fatherless daughter in mourning.

  They’d know by now. Someone would have delivered the horrible message that daddy would not be coming home. Their vague images solidified into vivid pictures behind my heavy eyelids. The stuff nightmares are made of.

  George slept and eventually I must have dozed off until a solid, continuous pounding on the cottage door pulled me back to the land of the living.

  My eyes popped open and I gave my head a quick, negative shake. I moved a little bit closer to George, but the space next to me was empty and the sheets were cold.

  Several more knocks suggested that whoever was at the door wasn’t about to leave and George wasn’t answering the summons for some reason.

  I pushed myself out of bed, slipped my feet into shoes, pulled my sweater tighter around my body and noted George’s absence from the tiny abode as I made my way to the front door.

  “Where the hell did he go?” I said to the empty room. I took a quick look around, but I didn
’t see a note.

  I pulled back the curtain and peeked out to see the blizzard was now causing a near white-out.

  A Michigan State Trooper stood on the porch poised to knock again. I yanked the door open and a strong gust pelted my body with icy snow.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Ma’am,” Trooper Kemp said. He was covered in snow, holding two tall hot cups in black gloved hands. He tipped his head in a gesture of respect and raised one of the cups in my direction. “May I come in? I brought the best coffee in town. I heard you were a caffeine addict.”

  “Heard from whom?” I asked as I stepped out of the way.

  When Kemp was inside and we were snugged up against the elements again, I opened my coffee and he opened the second cup for himself. The double whiff made me swoon. Someone in this town knew how to brew, thank God.

  “You must be feeling a little like Typhoid Mary right at the moment,” he said after a suitable time for savoring. I looked at him blankly. “You show up here for the first time in ten years and somebody ends up dead.”

  I said nothing.

  His tone was light, teasing. “Does this happen everywhere you go? Or just in Pleasant Harbor?”

  My gaze narrowed. So he’d been investigating me. Which is what I should have been doing to him and the victim instead of sleeping. While it was true that I’d had more brushes with murder than most judges, I was in no mood for his humor. I wanted some answers and I wanted them now.

  “You’ve figured out who I am, I take it?”

  “Yes ma’am, I have, United States District Judge Wilhelmina Carson. And I also know you have no jurisdiction here.” He simply stated the facts. His tone had not turned to belligerence. Yet. But I could feel him going in that direction, which was fine with me. Bring it on.

  The jousting restored my equilibrium a bit, although my brain remained fogged with sleep. “All right, then you know that I am not involved in any crimes.”

  “Never thought you were.”

  “So tell me what’s going on. I think I have a right to know, don’t you?”

  “Last time we met, I’d have said no, you don’t have a right to know. You’re a citizen here, like everybody else. You’re not even a witness. Nothing but a bystander who found a body. So I’d have said you were entitled to exactly nothing.”

  Hard to argue with the facts. “I hear a ‘but’ coming.”

  “But that was before I talked to Judge Trevor.” He flashed a canary-eating grin.

  The caffeine hadn’t kicked in yet so it took me half a beat longer than it should have to make the connection.

  Randy Trevor.

  I’d forgotten he was a judge here now. He was a couple of years senior to me at the firm in Detroit where we’d spent our attack-puppy lawyer years. We’d worked on cases together at the bottom of the totem pole before he and his wife, Madeline, decided to move north to Pleasant Harbor to be near both families. He figured he’d get a faster boost up the career ladder here in his home town and he’d been right. He was appointed to the bench long before I was. From time to time we’d chatted at legal events, but otherwise we hadn’t spoken to each other in years.

  And it must have been Madeline Trevor who was at the bridge club this afternoon. The woman who’d given me the strange look. The president who so intimidated the hostess. Probably her sisters at the table with her, too.

  Kemp nodded when he sensed I’d figured things out. Then he continued, “Judge Trevor wants to see you. He asked me to escort you to his chambers.”

  While it was true that I had no jurisdiction here, Randy Trevor couldn’t compel me to show up in his fiefdom, either. This was a request. Nothing more. Whether he phrased it like one or not. “Did he say why?”

  “No ma’am, he didn’t. But I suspect he’s looking for some experienced help here. We don’t have murders like this in Pleasant Harbor. This isn’t Detroit. Or even Tampa.” Kemp sipped his coffee while he waited for me to agree.

  “You’ve got resources at your disposal, surely.”

  “We do.”

  “Why not ask for assistance from one of your colleagues, then?”

  Kemp shrugged.

  Which was okay. I figured I knew the answer to this one. The situation was similar to a man asking for directions. A very powerful man. A man used to making decisions and telling people what to do. In other words, hell would absolutely freeze over before he’d admit to his colleagues that he needed anything, let alone ask for help on a case if he could get some secret talent off the books.

  Which meant I held all the control here. Or at least, control over the next couple of hours.

  The way I saw it, I could refuse, which was totally against my nature and wasn’t really an option. I’m not one to stand on the sidelines much. Randy Trevor would have remembered that about me. Option two: I could go into a meeting completely ignorant of the situation to joust with a man I didn’t really know any more and who did have jurisdiction and probably access to more information than I could get quickly on my own. Better choice: I could wheedle a bit more information from Trooper Kemp before I made up my mind.

  The warm coffee I held in my hands seemed to beckon me. I sat at the kitchen table and gestured Kemp toward the other chair as I sipped, stalling, running through things in my head.

  I hadn’t recovered from the bloody visions behind my closed eyelids during my nap. George had probably walked over to the mansion and he’d be back shortly. He’d be willing to drive in the blizzard, maybe. I loved to drive on the open road with the convertible top down on my car in Tampa. But driving in blizzards and whiteouts? No thanks.

  “You know what’s going on here, don’t you?” I asked. Kemp didn’t confirm, but he didn’t deny, either. He just drank his coffee and waited. “Don’t you think I deserve to be on an equal playing field with everyone else?”

  He took his gloves off and got comfortable in the chair, but he kept the big brimmed hat on. I watched him think about things.

  After a bit, he said, “Leo Richards, the fellow you found this morning? The murder victim?”

  I nodded.

  “The situation is a bit more curious than you know. Because he’s been missing for more than a year. Almost fourteen months, to be precise.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’d been having financial trouble on top of some other family problems and you know how that puts stress on a marriage. January was a year ago, he and his wife had a major blowout. Broken furniture, holes punched in the wall, the whole nine yards. Her sisters were there and all three of them were terrified. He left the house in anger, jumped into that Toyota SUV you almost slammed, and—” he shrugged again.

  “He didn’t even try to contact his child in all that time?”

  “Wife says not.”

  “What about his job?”

  “He had a partner in his hardware business who hasn’t seen him in the past fourteen months, either. David Mason. I believe you met him earlier today at Eagle Creek Cafe, didn’t you?” Kemp continued to drink his coffee but he watched me closely. How did he know where we ate lunch or that we met Mason?

  Somehow, his research on me had included where we went after we left him at the murder scene. That was the important piece of Intel.

  “Where did Richards go when he left town?”

  “We don’t know. Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Detroit. Wherever he could find a casino or a poker table, would be my guess,” Kemp said.

  “He was addicted to gambling?”

  Kemp nodded. “Caused him and his family no end of grief, I can tell you.”

  Probably created quite a few local enemies, too. Some of them might even be capable of murder. “Did you try to locate him after he disappeared?”

  “He’s a grown man. If he wants to desert his family, there’s no law against it as far as I know. Not the sort of thing we’d conduct a nation-wide manhunt over, anyway.”

  “Makes him a deadbeat dad and a sorry human being, though,” I said.
<
br />   “You got that right.”

  “Didn’t the wife try to find him?”

  “The family hired a couple of private investigators, I’m told. But they didn’t find the guy. People don’t want to be found, there are still lots of ways to hide in this country.”

  “If that’s what happened,” I said. People are kidnapped for ransom or human trafficking or any number of reasons. But Leo Richards might not fit those victim profiles. I’d need to know a lot more about him than I did now to figure that out.

  “Meaning what?”

  “There should have been a plane ticket or something,” I replied.

  “Maybe,” he shrugged again. He waited a beat, “Like I told you before, this is a small town. He didn’t come home and never went back to work and nobody has seen him since then. He’d ruined a lot of lives already. I’m not sure people cared much about him by then. Guy’s gone and good riddance, you know?”

  I took a sip of coffee and almost spit it back. Stone cold. I hated reheated coffee, but I needed warm liquid and now was not the time to get all precious about my caffeine. I popped the cup into the microwave for a couple of minutes.

  While I waited, I shook my head to clear it of sleep’s last cobwebs and asked, “Did you check the mileage? On the Toyota?”

  “Yes.”

  “Loquacious, aren’t you?”

  “I try.”

  I grinned. I didn’t want to like the guy, but it was hard not to. “And? What did you find out?”

  Kemp said, “Well, that’s a curious thing, too. The Toyota is about ten years old. Like most vehicles around here, it’s got a lot of miles on it. Close to two-hundred thousand. His wife says Leo had the vehicle serviced a few days or so before he disappeared. We checked with the mechanic. He said Leo always took good care of the Toyota and the mileage was close to two-hundred thousand last time he serviced it.”