by James Dobson
But she knew better. She knew they would find Victor’s car parked in his private space. And she knew something dreadful had happened to her husband.
“No. He must be here somewhere,” she insisted while running back out the front office door. “Victor!” she shouted to her left, then to her right. “Where are you, sweetheart?”
She heard the officer’s voice utter a muffled obscenity, drawing her back into Victor’s chambers.
She entered the office again. No sign of anyone. A moment of dread passed before she saw the open door of Victor’s private bathroom.
The officer stepped toward her without a word.
“What?” Rebecca asked urgently.
“Ms. Santiago, please, stay right where you are.”
“Why? What is it?”
He lowered his head like a rookie trying to recall the official protocol for nightmares.
“The judge.”
“You found him?” she asked, rushing past his protective blockade.
“Please, ma’am…”
It was too late. She saw what the officer had cursed. Victor, lying on the floor with eyes wide open as if staring at her from the realm of the dead. No blood or hangman’s rope. Just her husband’s empty form.
She fell onto his lifeless body, then tried lifting him to her breast. His corpse spurned the effort like a steadfast bag of sand. It was the first show of affection he hadn’t returned in three decades. And the last, Rebecca suddenly realized, that she would ever attempt.
Chapter Forty-Six
As soon as Tyler entered the detective wing of headquarters he came face-to-face with the last person he wanted to see.
“Cain,” Kory Sanders said with a solemn nod that carried a hint of derision. Tyler’s old rival clutched a mug of java while leaning against the wall beside a pretty young detective Tyler didn’t recognize. She added her own nod, then gave the once-over to the fumbling private investigator who had failed to prevent Judge Santiago’s assassination.
“Sanders,” Tyler responded flatly. “Seen Smitty this morning?”
Sanders tilted his head toward a hallway without a word before resuming whispered speculations about how badly Cain had botched the job or how dumb it had been for Smitty to assign such a big case to a washed-up former detective.
“Thanks,” Tyler said, lowering his eyes. If only they knew the whole embarrassing truth. He had actually found the suspect, had confronted him and followed him home. But rather than have Matthew Adams arrested Tyler pitied the guy and handed him the name of a defense attorney. Maybe the chief had been right in promoting Sanders instead of Tyler after all. Had Sanders ever made such a fatal miscalculation? Had anyone?
Tyler walked toward the conference room where he knew Smitty would be waiting.
As he approached the row of glass-walled offices Tyler spotted Jennifer McKay, who had already arrived. Of course she had. She must have been up much of the night trying to console a grief-stricken Rebecca Santiago. She looked even more exhausted than Tyler despite his aching back and stiff neck, compliments of the sofa. His only consolation was that Renee had felt bad after he told her about Smitty’s call.
“Oh no!” she had said. “When did it happen?”
“Last night,” Tyler explained while hurriedly zipping his pants and buttoning his shirt. “The judge’s wife and a cop found the body around one o’clock this morning.”
“That’s seven hours ago. Why didn’t they call sooner?” she asked.
Tyler was still asking himself the same question. Shouldn’t Smitty have had someone phone him immediately? No one knew more about the suspect. But then, Tyler reminded himself, he was no longer part of the force. Gathering evidence after an assassination was the domain of public officials, not private investigators who ranked one step above anonymous tipsters. Besides, obtaining an arrest warrant in the middle of the night and tracking down Matthew Adams would have been Smitty’s all-consuming priority.
As he approached the closed door Tyler noticed a third person in the room with Smitty and Jennifer, probably the officer who had been with Mrs. Santiago when they found the judge’s body. He looked even more spent than Jennifer.
Smitty waved Tyler in eagerly, as if he had been impatiently waiting to take an important next step in the process.
“Sorry it took so long to get here,” Tyler said. Of course he had come faster than anyone should have expected, his crumpled shirt and morning breath offering sufficient evidence of a mad rush. “I just got the call twenty minutes ago.”
“Close the door,” Smitty ordered.
Tyler obeyed. “Any trail yet?”
Smitty seemed confused by the question. “Trail?”
“On Matthew Adams’s location.”
Smitty looked at the other two, who must have already known what Tyler didn’t. “Didn’t they tell you on the phone?”
Tell him what? All Tyler knew was that Judge Santiago had been killed and that Smitty had wanted him in the conference room as soon as possible. He had assumed Smitty wanted help tracking down the fugitive. Not because Tyler was the best man for the job, but because he had been the last person to see Matthew Adams before letting him roam free for a midnight murder.
“We found Mr. Adams right where your message said he would be. He was at the home of an elderly gentleman named Hugh Gale. Of course, he claims to know nothing about the killing.”
“You questioned him already?” Tyler asked in stunned surprise. “Wait. You found him sitting at the house?”
“Yep. Not too bright, I gather. I mean, who commits murder and then returns to the same address he just gave to a guy investigating death threat letters?”
Tyler felt the rebuke. “Look, Smitty, I’m really sorry about—”
Smitty raised his hand to silence Tyler. “Not now.”
“I parked outside his house for several hours after—”
“I said not now.”
Tyler’s gut tightened at the realization he had let Smitty down. But his apology would need to wait. “So what was Matthew doing when you picked him up?”
“He told my guys he had been sitting in the front room reading most of the night.”
“Reading? Reading what?”
“An old Bible,” Smitty said. “Claims he was trying to find something to calm his nerves after meeting with you.”
“He told you we met?”
“He did. Said you suggested he wait at the house and expect our arrival. He seemed pretty calm until the officer said he was under arrest for the murder of Judge Victor Santiago. That’s when the guy went into a meltdown, claimed he knew nothing about any murder and that he never intended to hurt anyone. You know the litany.”
Tyler said nothing. Something didn’t fit. Why would a killer wait for the police to arrive, knowing a mountain of evidence existed to pinpoint him as the murderer? He had seen the letters. He had even confessed to writing most of them.
“Did you get much out of him?” Tyler asked.
“Not since he made his one phone call.”
“Defense lawyer?”
“Yep. Clammed up after that. I’m getting ready to go in and try again. I need more. All we have is circumstantial evidence right now. I’m hoping he’ll slip up and say something we can use in court. I need you to listen for anything that might feed the right line of questioning.”
“Certainly.”
“I’m especially interested in these,” Smitty said, handing Tyler two clear plastic bags. “We found them stuffed in a trash container just outside the judge’s chambers.”
Tyler examined the first bag. It contained a needle and a catheter about two feet long. The second held one of those clear bags hospitals use to hold IV fluids. It was empty except for small traces of a yellow liquid. The label read “PotassiPass.”
“I know this chemical,” Tyler said, remembering the brand name from the summary he had read of the Santos wrongful death case. “It’s the chemical NEXT Transition Services uses with clients.”
Smitty and Jennifer eyed one another as if the comment had confirmed their hunch.
“Who could get that for him?” Smitty asked.
“Who couldn’t?” the other officer said. “All you would need to do is find a transition clinic employee willing to swipe a bag for you.”
“Or take one out of a clinic yourself,” Smitty suggested.
Tyler didn’t follow.
“The suspect’s mother transitioned about a year back,” Smitty explained. “I bet he stole some of the serum then.”
Plausible, Tyler had to agree. But something still didn’t seem right. Why would Matthew have stolen transition chemicals months before he even knew Judge Santiago would be assigned the case?
He followed Smitty to the next room. Jennifer and the other officer joined him as they took their seats behind a two-way mirror. On the other side sat a clearly shaken Matthew Adams, who was fidgeting with a pencil. Tyler remembered the routine. Hand the uncooperative suspect a pencil and paper as you leave the interrogation room and suggest he write down a confession “for his own good” so the judge might go easy on him. The page appeared blank.
As Smitty walked out of the room Jennifer turned toward Tyler. “I owe you an apology,” she whispered.
He turned toward her dark form. “For what? I’m the one who blew this case.”
“I should have listened to you.” Tyler sensed tears of regret in her voice. “If I had warned the judge he would still be alive.”
“And you’d have lost your job,” Tyler said generously. “You did what he ordered you to do.”
She sighed. “Still.” A pause. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” Tyler said faintly while reaching to pat her slumping shoulders. “Me too.”
They saw Smitty closing the door behind him as he entered the brightness beyond the glass.
“There’s a sick irony in all of this,” Jennifer whispered in Tyler’s direction while awaiting Smitty’s first question. “The same drug used to transition Antonio Santos ended up killing the man who was about to decide in favor of the plaintiff.”
“What?” Tyler said. “He was going to come down in favor of NEXT? I thought he was leaning the other way.”
“So did most people,” Jennifer replied. “But I proofed his draft opinion. He was going to say NEXT did nothing wrong. The boy was an adult when he transitioned regardless of what day he applied. The law doesn’t require parental approval after eighteen.”
“So NEXT is off the hook?”
“Would have been. Now the appeal will get assigned to a new trio of judges. Could be months before that happens.”
Tyler looked through the glass at the nervous suspect. A few more days and Judge Santiago would have freed up Matthew’s urgently needed inheritance money. His mother’s estate would have been released thanks to NEXT’s successful appeal.
Then Tyler thought of Jeremy Santos, who wanted the court to confirm the malevolence of a system that had caused his brother’s and mother’s deaths. NEXT should pay for what it had done to the two people Jeremy loved more than anyone on earth. Ever since watching the gruesome footage taken at the clinic on the fateful day of their deaths, Tyler had unconsciously hoped the same.
“Do you have anything else to tell me?” Smitty was asking.
Matthew sat silent while biting the end of his pencil.
Smitty took the sheet of paper from in front of the suspect. Blank. “Nothing to write?”
“I told you already,” Matthew said in exhausted desperation. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“Well, someone did,” Smitty said. “Someone who, like you, goes by the pseudonym Manichean. Someone who, like you, wants to see NEXT win its appeal. And someone who, like you, had access to these.” Smitty tossed the plastic bags onto the table in front of Matthew. “Do you want to tell me where you got them?”
Matthew bent closer to examine the bags. He seemed to recognize the contents but appeared alarmed by their presence.
A sudden knock on the interrogation room door drew Smitty’s attention. “Sir,” a male voice called into the room, “I have the autopsy report.”
Smitty moved away from the table. Matthew seemed relieved by the momentary interruption, as if he needed time to figure out what was going on or how to spin his story.
Then Smitty reentered the room, reading what must have been a summary of key details from the autopsy. At the same moment the door to the observation room opened to receive a man holding what appeared to be an identical page.
“What’s he reading?” Jennifer asked in the man’s direction.
“Here,” he replied, handing the report to Jennifer. “Read for yourself.”
Tyler leaned toward Jennifer and squinted to make out the words.
CAUSE OF DEATH: Heart attack triggered by potassium chloride poisoning
TIME OF DEATH: 6:35 p.m.
Tyler jumped up from his chair with a start. All three pairs of eyes darted in his direction, then turned toward the sound of Smitty’s voice. “Where were you between six and eight o’clock last evening?” he was asking.
“We have the wrong man!” Tyler shouted toward the glass.
“What?” Jennifer said in unison with both officers.
“I said we have the wrong man.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I was questioning Matthew Adams near Bear Creek Lake at the time of the assassination!”
Chapter Forty-Seven
Evan Dimitri approached the same black limousine that had carried him to his corporate jet earlier in the day. A man wearing a cap stood beside the open door extending a much-needed glass of brandy that he accepted without a word before slipping inside. Then the driver trotted to the front of the vehicle and awaited instructions.
“Home,” Dimitri grunted.
It had been a long day meeting with a board of directors he neither needed nor liked. More of the same claptrap, fretting about matters he had completely in hand. Yes, profits had dipped slightly as a result of the NEXT appeal. Yes, the pending Tenth District ruling could sink all hope of hitting revenue targets. And yes, he did agree it would be wise to develop a short-term contingency plan while considering diversification options.
Dimitri hated the thought of how much time he had wasted addressing the board’s concerns. They needed to trust him. He knew exactly what had to be done. In fact, he had already set solutions in motion.
He glanced at the time. Might there be news so soon? Or had the police done a better job than usual of avoiding leaks? He tapped an icon embedded in his armrest to wake a flat screen positioned over the bar. Then he kicked off his shoes while taking a sip of his favorite post-nonsense drink. A query box appeared.
“Find any news about the NEXT appeal or Judge Victor Santiago,” he said. Almost instantaneously the two most recent stories appeared.
4:34 PM Breaking News
FEDERAL JUDGE FOUND DEAD IN DENVER CHAMBERS
6:21 PM Breaking News
PERSON OF INTEREST QUESTIONED IN SUSPECTED JUDICIAL ASSASSINATION
He watched the first clip. It revealed that one of the judges hearing the NEXT wrongful death case had died suddenly of an apparent heart attack. The same judge many political and corporate titans feared would tip the scales against the transition industry. Dimitri knew that Judge Santiago’s death, while tragic for the family, could be a boon to company stock when markets opened the following day. He smiled at the realization that profits, for now, remained safe from the unpredictable actions of a crusading judge.
The second clip revealed that someone “close to the case” said police had questioned an unnamed man with some connection to what they now feared might have been an assassination. No mention of any accomplices or a conspiracy. A probable lone killer.
Dimitri gave an approving nod in response to the sparse details before tapping an icon that prompted the voice of his ever-available assistant Kim.
“Yes, sir.”
“Get me Dean M
yerson.”
Moments later another voice came on the line. “You saw the news?”
“I did. Any surprises?”
A long silence. “Actually, yes. The suspect walked after questioning. I didn’t see that coming.”
Dimitri cursed. “He walked? Did they charge him?”
“Murder. But something happened during the interrogation that made them drop it down to suspected mail fraud. The Manichi guy’s lawyer demanded they release him to his oversight.”
“It’s pronounced Manichean,” Dimitri said, feeling a shade of concern. “What about our letter?”
“As far as I can tell they still think the guy wrote it.”
A look of reassurance came over Dimitri’s face. “Good. That’s perfect.” He took another sip of brandy.
“I guess,” Dean replied.
“Keep me posted if anything changes.”
“Will do, sir.”
Dimitri ended the call before summoning Kim back onto the line.
“I’m here, sir,” she said.
“I need you to draft a message to the board of directors. Tell them we’ve received word that a decision in the NEXT case will be delayed until they can assign a new team of judges. We can expect business as usual for the rest of the fiscal year.”
“Got it.”
“Send me a draft to proof later tonight.”
“As you wish,” she said before being cut off.
His short-term problem had been resolved, buying him time to finalize a longer-term growth strategy he had been considering for months. He felt a sudden surge of creative energy demanding he flesh out the concept further.
“Driver?”
“Sir?”
“I’ve changed my mind. Take me to the office.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Renee slid a covered plate in front of Tyler. He had offered to serve, but she had insisted he join her parents at the table and seemed excited about whatever gourmet bird food she had been preparing. He was trapped. But he didn’t mind. Not really. He had never found her more attractive.
