Cast the First Stone (Red Lake Series Book 2)

by Rich Foster

“He knew the brakes were bad. If you drive a car drunk and kill people you are guilty. If someone drives a dangerous vehicle and kills people, that person is guilty too. Don’t you see, we are all guilty, somewhere, somehow, terrible things occur for which we are guilty? People die every day because we, you, me, all of us do nothing. Are we going to kill everyone who commits a sin of omission?”

  “He deserves to die.”

  “And he will, I have no doubt. But that is the law’s job, not yours. You are becoming the same as him.”

  Calley slapped him. As she screamed, “I’m nothing like Goodman!” Anger flashed in her eyes and the words.

  “You’re abusing pills, drinking too much, driving stoned, neglecting your kids, biting their heads off because you are angry, when they are most in need of love, but worst of all you are just another angry killer!”

  “I didn’t kill anyone.” Calley mumbled the words.

  “You would have. There was no hesitation in your hold on this gun.” Lucas waved it for emphasis. He breathed deeply, willing himself to calm down. At last he spoke, slowly stressing each word, “You will lose everything, your job, your freedom, your kids, and their love. Calley, look at me.” Reluctantly, she looked up. “Grace has described you before Jason died. You don’t even resemble that person anymore. You are losing who you are. Do you really want to become one of the Robert Goodman’s of this world?”

  Calley gnawed at her knuckle.

  “My God, what am I supposed to do with you?” he asked exasperated. I should have turned you over to the police, but that would have put you in prison for five years.”

  She said nothing.

  “Will you swear to me, you won’t try that again? Will you swear by Jason, Ruthie, God and anything else you value that if I let you go you won’t try to kill Goodman again?”

  The pause stretched out. She could easily lie but Lucas doubted she would with Ruthie in the oath.”

  “Okay, but I’ll still wish him dead every moment of my day.”

  Lucas sat down, relieved but frustrated. After a lengthy pause he spoke softly.

  “You have to let it go.”

  Calley turned away and paced the room. “How do I let Ruthie go? How do I let go of her blood dripping on my hands? Why should I let that go?”

  “Because it is destroying you and it will destroy every single relationship you have. You are helping Goodman to ruin your life.”

  “My life is nothing.”

  “Tell that to Caleb, Jacob and Sarah.”

  “So it’s forgive and forget?”

  “No, you’ll never forget, some stains will never wash out. But if you don’t learn how to forgive, who you are will surely die.”

  “I can’t forgive. I won’t!”

  Lucas put his hand in his face and massaged his temples. The words to reach her remained elusive. She was becoming another fatality that started back with the bus. Like the proverbial pebble in the water the repercussions continued to roll out and reflect back off of people’s lives, making ever more complex patterns of cause and effect, creating evermore disasters.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  What he suspected might have occurred in the courthouse both frightened and worried Sheriff Gaines. Upon returning to his office he immediately ordered new security precautions for the courthouse. All bags and purses would be searched for the duration of the trial. If the deputy at the door had concerns, he was empowered to deny any person admittance to the court.

  Finishing that, he reviewed reports. One from Detective Egan caught his eyes. There had a hit on the serial numbers of the pistol found in the lake. Gaines buzzed Egan. “Come on in to my office.”

  A moment later Egan took the chair across from Gaines.

  “The gun was sold thirty years ago to a man in Beaumont. He registered it. Twenty-eight years ago he reported it stolen during a burglary. Once again we have police reports. Six months later a known felon was busted using the same M.O. as in the former crime. The perpetrator used a glass cutter on the window, left behind the big stuff, and took anything he could black market. He also wrote an obscenity on the bathroom window. They got him from a latent print on the toilet handle. I guess the guy had a weak bladder.

  The Beaumont Police got a search warrant for his house. They turned up a pile of stolen goods but not the first guy’s gun. The thief cut a plea deal and he went down for three years on felony count.”

  “Well that’s a fine tale Pat, but that gun hasn’t been in the lake for twenty years, what else do you have?”

  “I ran the guy through the system, he’s doing time for an Internet scam. He took computer training during one of frequent prison stays and decided it was easier to steal with a mouse click than by breaking and entering.

  So I drove up north to state prison at Harmon. The guy was willing to talk when he heard it was a murder case. He told me he’s stolen so much crap that he couldn’t tell me where most of it went, but this case he remembered. He swore the cop who busted him took the gun, but it never turned up in evidence at the trial.”

  “So who was the cop? And is he still around?”

  “No he’s dead.” Egan was drawing it out a little. He liked to surprise Gaines, but Gavin knew this.

  “Cut to the chase Pat. You didn’t go through all this to tell me the gun’s a dead end.”

  “Shortly, after the bust, the cop’s partner quit the police force and went to law school. Eventually, his family connections won him a judgeship. Adam Kellner, now deceased.”

  Gaines stroked his mustache. “So, Kellner snagged himself a throw away piece. I know a lot of guys used to carry one. If he was dirty back then, maybe he didn’t change. That opens more possibilities. Supposing, he wasn’t as straight and narrow as he seemed.”

  “So…” Egan was thinking aloud. “The gun came from the house, so the shooting wasn’t premeditated. Kellner was naked so it was someone he knew intimately. The wife came home by chance so she was just a victim, wrong place, wrong time.”

  “Agreed.” said Gaines picking up the train of thought. “Kellner’s squeaky clean publicly, but he’s probably having an affair with some broad.”

  “Could be a guy. That’s not something most judges would want to spread around the courthouse.”

  “Point taken. The martini was spilled, so they had a fight, the shooter grabbed the gun from the nightstand and; pow, pow, pow.” Gaines made a shooting motion with his finger.

  “Downstairs he or she meets the wife and has to finish cleaning house.”

  “And the gun was in the lake, so whoever tossed it, came by boat.”

  “We really dropped the ball on this one Pat. That damn thumbprint threw us off. It tied in so nicely. We never even ran the stuff from the crime scene through the lab, did we?”

  Egan shook his head no. “The Mason Fork’s killing was locked up so we didn’t waste the resources?”

  “Run them now. Let’s see what forensics vacuumed up. You can bet it won’t be Goodman’s DNA.”

  “Okay. We better canvass the neighbors who can see the Kellner’s dock. If the judge was having an affair it probably wasn’t the first time they played house.”

  *

  Will Farron dropped by the church office to tell Lucas about the board meeting Sunday night.

  “You can sure piss people off Lucas James. Tempers were high. There was an immediate motion to send you back to Tacoma. The vote was tied four to four.”

  Lucas smiled. From Will’s attitude he assumed the story had a happier ending.

  “Then we really got to talking, arguing and damned near fighting. The meeting went on for three hours. It was more a gestalt group, than a board meeting. We talked about things we never touched before. We admitted things we were afraid to face. By twelve-thirty at night the vote was eight to nothing for you to stay. You did good Lucas.”

  “Thank you, Will.”

  “Don’t kid yourself, Reverend. I voted against you the first time. I hated what you had to say. But once I
accepted it, I knew you were right.”

  The two men shook hands across the desk.

  “See you Sunday.”

  Lucas watched as Will walked toward his car. Calley’s jeep careened into the lot. It lurched to a stop by the portico. Her body pushed a bow wave of anger before her. She moved from his line of sight. Behind her Sarah climbed slowly out of the Cherokee Jeep, head down, following her mother.

  Calley flung his office door as she stormed in.

  “You took my daughter to see that animal’s child again!” she shouted.

  “And?” Lucas asked with his hands spread out.

  “I don’t want Sarah being friends with her. She’s from bad blood. Besides, it’s disrespectful to Ruthie.”

  “I suppose Robert would tell June the same thing, it’s disrespectful to Lisa and May.”

  “Don’t give me that shit! It’s not the same!”

  Calley breath came hard.

  “What do you have against an eight year old girl who is crippled and lonely?” he queried.

  “Don’t try to make me feel guilty!”

  “Hate her father if you must, but why hate her? How about if you come with me and you tell June why Sarah and she shouldn’t be friends.”

  “I don’t want Sarah seeing her!”

  Sarah’s face came around the jamb. Calley saw Lucas’s eyes shift and spun around. “I told you to stay in the car!”

  Sarah appeared truculent. “Why can’t I see her? I thought we are supposed to forgive those who hurt us?”

  “It’s not the same. Now get out to the car.”

  The girl left. Soon, Lucas saw her outside his window trudging to the car. He said nothing.

  “I’m not going to see her.”

  “What about loving your enemies?”

  “That’s for better people than me.”

  “First, June Goodman is not your enemy. Secondly, you owe me Calley Haskell or you’d be sitting in jail right now. Do this as a favor, just once.”

  Calley studied the floor, as she looked up she rolled her eyes.

  “I assume you mean that veiled threat as an order. You’re more a Major than a Reverend, Lucas James.”

  Calley left. Lucas smiled, thinking to himself, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

  *

  Lucas kept Calley away from the trial.

  If she had something to say to Goodman, she could say it when he was sentenced, he thought. But, Calley was speaking to him by pen. Not a day passed without her sending him an epistle of vitriol and hate. These letters made Goodman feel closer than ever to her. They shared a common bond of loss and hate.

  The prosecution rested. Brent Carlson tried to make a defense. He called Sheriff Gaines to the stand. He questioned him about Robert’s behavior on the day his wife and daughter were hit by the bus. Gaines scarcely began describing Goodman’s assault on Jason’s corpse, when Goodman leapt, to his feet.

  “Lets cut the crap! I’m not crazy and the son-of-a-bitch had it coming.”

  Judge Mannering hammered her gavel while futilely demanding order in the court.

  “They all had it coming! I should’ve shot every last one of them. Then strangely he paused, “except for the girl, I shouldn’t of shot the girl.”

  Mannering tried to regain order, the spectators were talking, reporters wrote copy, and Carlson demanded a side bar with the judge.

  At the bench he demanded, “You have to strike his comments from the records. He was out of order.”

  The prosecution countered, “He freely admitted to the killings.”

  “He wasn’t testifying Judge, you have to throw his comments out.”

  Judge Mannering sent the counsels back to their tables, like boxers to their corners in the ring.

  “Do you wish to change your plea from not guilty to guilty, Mr. Goodman?”

  “If it means I won’t have to listen to this Cretan anymore, then I’d say yes.”

  Brent Carlson threw his hands up in disgust and sat down.

  “Are you entering a guilty plea?”

  “No, they deserved it, but I rest my case.”

  Brent put his face down on the defense table. He knew there are some things you never recover from, his legal career was over.

  Shortly, Judge Mannering ordered final arguments commence in the morning.

  The next day the prosecution ran through the litany of evidence. Brent summed up that Goodman was a victim of stress. Robert yelled for him to shut up so Brent quit his summation. By ten-thirty the jury had received their instructions from the judge. They left for the deliberations room. Expecting as them to be quick, no one left the courthouse. The jury came back with a verdict in thirteen minutes.

  “Have you reached a verdict Madam Foreman?”

  “Yes we have Your Honor. Guilty on all counts.”

  Goodman took a swing at the back of Brent Carlson’s head and shouting, “Stupid effing lawyers.” Bailiffs restrained him in handcuffs.

  Judge Mannering, was pleased to be disposed of the case. Sentencing was set for November 15th. She left for her chambers, Goodman returned to jail, and Brent Carlson went in search of a drink.

  *

  Pat Egan found late October was not a good month to search for a boat. Two of the four houses that held a view of the Kellner’s dock were locked up for the season. The couple at the third house had no recollections to share. Boats came and boats went, they said. At the fourth house he had better success.

  The man described a tri-hull that was anchored off numerous times. Occasionally, he saw the boat tied alongside the Kellner’s dock. Or as he added, “I think it was the same one.”

  He had seen a woman swim to the dock from the boat. Other than saying she was fit, he could add nothing. She had worn a swim cap that covered her hair, besides his eyes were weak. When asked if he would recognize her or the boat, he said probably not, it was just a woman and a boat.

  Egan despaired. A tri-hull outboard narrowed down Egan’s possibilities to hundreds, perhaps thousands of boats. Then, as Egan was walking away, the old man added as an afterthought, “The hull was dark, black or Navy blue.”

  Boats were out of the water for the winter. Not only were there warehouses where boats were stored on racks, there were also dozen of private boathouses where the boat might hang on davits safe from both eyes and ice. Egan and Gaines operated on the assumption that the shooter was from town, not a summer visitor. The killer’s boat was probably docked in the water, not pulled by trailer to the lake.

  Egan worked the boat yards with floating docks; he asked if they knew of dark tri-hulls from neighboring houses. After a week he had a list of thirty possible boats, three boatyards to go, and no guarantee the boat he wanted was one of those mentioned. He wished Red Lake were smaller.

  Monday morning he resumed his footwork. At Cody Marine he drew a blank on dark tri-hulls. The man in the office suggested Egan talk to the water patrol. Pat felt foolish for overlooking this obvious lead. During the summer, the sheriff’s office ran patrol boats, to keep drunks off the lake.

  He found Jimmy Hughes doing his off-season duty, tagging cars at expired parking meters. When asked about dark hulled boats, Hughes held up his citation book. “Hell Pat, I just stop and ticket them. Sometimes I have to take a guy in and then I’d tow the boat, but most of the time I have no idea where the boats come from.”

  “But when you ticket them, how do you mark where the violation occurred? It’s not like you can say the corner of Maple and Elm?”

  “Usually I note a physical reference, like a point or a buoy number. It helps my recall if it goes to court. But for the record I enter the GPS location of the citation.”

  It seemed like a long shot, but Egan knew most criminals sped away from the scene of a crime. More robbers were stopped for their get-away driving than because the police thought they were currently wanted.

  At the records office he pulled the citations for July. Out on the water, people seldom carr
ied ID’s so tickets were written to the boat unless someone was arrested. Egan found twelve citations issued the day of the Kellner killings. Five were written after four, two were written near La Salle Point, and one was for a dark blue tri-hull. The boat operator was speeding in a no wake zone.

  Pat ran the numbers through the Department of Motor Vehicles database. It came back as registered to Wilson Chamberlain III. The address was a residence on the lake.

  He drove across town and out the shore road to the house. It was situated on an expanse of grass behind wrought iron gates. He pressed the call buzzer. No one answered and the gates didn’t budge. He was ready to leave when a golf cart with an elderly man at the wheel rolled down the brick-paved drive. The cart pulled up at a cautious distance from the gates.

  “Mr. Chamberlain?” Egan asked.

  The man shook his head no. “I’m the caretaker. Mr. Chamberlain’s not here this time of year.” The caretakers voice carried a hint of the Northeast in it, possibly Maine, Egan thought.

  “Do you know where I can reach him?”

  “He’s traveling. He will be back in West Palm Beach later next month.”

  Pat shoved his card through the gate. “When you hear from him, would you have him call me?”

  The gatekeeper nodded his assent. He pushed the card into his pocket, where it remained, being quickly forgotten.

  *

  Lucas was kept busy. A steady stream of people wanted to talk as the church faced up to its failings. Small groups were formed. People came together and shared their lives. They moved beyond the normal social function of American church life.

  On the personal side of his life, he found himself being drawn to Calley, on an emotional level. He invested a great deal of time in her and her children. Along with Grace, they became an unofficial extended family, wandering in and out of each others homes and frequently sharing meals.

  Yet Calley still struggled. Lucas knew of her letter writing. He urged her to stop; there was nothing healthy in doing it. She ignored him. But with her grudging consent, Lucas took Sarah to visit June several times during the month.