Sasha McCandless 02 - Inadvertent Disclosure

by Melissa F. Miller

  “What’s the basis of the suit?”

  Jed snickered around a mouthful of pie. “Those other dirtbags—the commissioners—are holding up the oil and gas people who are so desperate to get their precious gas out. Take Heather Price. She runs her husband’s trucking company. Heather opposed some of their permits. Then, suddenly Big Sky has an exclusive contract with her company to truck out the gas. Guess who gets their permits all of a sudden? That sort of thing. I guess the drillers figure since they’re scratching everyone’s back, they should get a scratch once in a while, too. But, last month, at the meeting, the commissioners accepted a petition from that McAllister kid and a bunch of hunters and fishers to consider a ban on drilling. They didn’t vote to ban it, mind you, they just voted to vote on it. The oil and gas people got their panties in a twist and ran over to the courthouse to file some kinda petition that the vote would be invalid if they held it. Seems like they’re right about that. The commissioners shouldn’t be able to interfere with any business they want. They’re worse than gangsters.”

  “So, you’re anti-fracking and anti-banning fracking?”

  Jed let out a genuine laugh. “Marla used to say I’m anti-everybody and anti-everything. I suspect she was right about that, except for this here pie.”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Sasha left her misanthropic client’s home feeling good about her case. She thought she’d made it clear to Jed that he’d have to tone down the swearing and the anger some at his upcoming hearing if he wanted to testify. Truth be told, though, she thought a little righteous indignation would be fitting the circumstances. She’d just have to keep him on a tight leash.

  April in Pennsylvania is rarely balmy, but the afternoon sun was warm enough that she cracked the windows and let the air in as she drove back toward Springport. She even hummed along to the radio, which seemed to be limited to country music at the moment. Country singers told the best stories, she thought, as she listened to the Dixie Chicks sing about a traveling soldier.

  As she hummed, a name popped into her head: Heather Price. The commissioner Jed had mentioned. She’d encountered that name before. But where? She searched her memory but before she could make a connection, her cell phone rang. She glanced down at the display. It was Connelly.

  She turned down the volume on the radio and activated the hands-free setup through the car. She hated the delay that the Bluetooth caused but not as much as she would have hated running over someone because she was on her phone.

  “Hey.”

  “Hi, beautiful. How’d your meeting go with your new boyfriend?”

  She laughed. “As well as could be expected, I think. I just left. Should be back home by seven or so.”

  “Excellent. Do you want fish tacos or my Thai chicken and noodles for dinner?”

  “The chicken and noodles with the peanut sauce?”

  “That’s the one.”

  It was too hard to pick, what with the belly full of pie.

  “Chef’s choice,” she told him.

  He groaned, as she knew he would. Connelly didn’t like it when she punted on the decision making.

  “Listen,” she cut him off. “Does the name Heather Price mean anything to you?”

  There was a pause while he considered it. “No. Should it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  A beeping sound filled the car through the speakers.

  “Shoot,” Sasha said, “I have another call. I’ll call you back.”

  “Okay. I love you.”

  “Bye!

  She depressed the button to switch over to the other call and hoped he’d think she hadn’t heard the profession of love.

  Recently, Connelly had started randomly telling her he loved her. She wasn’t sure what to do about it. For now, it was another decision to punt on.

  Because she had swapped calls, her phone didn’t display the caller.

  “Sasha McCandless.”

  “Ms. McCandless, this is Gavin Russell.”

  “What can I do for you, Deputy Russell?”

  She wondered if he had located Jay.

  He cleared his throat. “Are you still out at Jed’s?”

  “No, I just left.”

  “Could you stop by the courthouse on your way through town? It’s important.”

  “Is this about Jay and Danny Trees?”

  “No, ma’am, it’s not.”

  She worked to keep the irritation out of her voice. “Well, I’m fresh out of gobs, deputy, so—”

  “Judge Paulson’s been shot.”

  “Shot? Is he okay?”

  “No, ma’am. He’s dead.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Russell was waiting for her on the sidewalk in front of the courthouse. When she pulled up, he waved her into an official parking space. She parked the car and sat there for a minute before getting out. It seemed impossible to her that the judge was dead. It hadn’t been three hours since their encounter in the street.

  She stepped out of the car into the fading light of the late afternoon and her eyes were drawn to the clock tower and its all-seeing Lady Justice.

  The deputy hustled over to her. It was the fastest she’d seen him move.

  “Thanks for coming,” he said in a strained voice.

  “Of course. But, like I said on the phone, I don’t see how I can be of any help. We exchanged pleasantries about the desserts at the diner. That was about it.” She left out the mention of Lady Justice because it seemed somehow private in retrospect.

  “I understand. But the sheriff heard that the two of you had a chat this afternoon and he asked me to have you come in.”

  “The sheriff? Surely the state police aren’t trying to push a murder investigation off on your office?”

  Russell gave a dry laugh. “Oh, no, you can be sure the Dogwood Station will be swarming all over this. That’s why Sheriff Stickley wanted me to talk to you before we inform them.”

  “You haven’t reported the judge’s death to the police yet?”

  “No, ma’am. Sheriff Stickley has been specifically instructed not to do so until the AG and Justice Bermann have given him the go-ahead. They should be here soon. Another twenty minutes, maybe.”

  “The Pennsylvania Attorney General and the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court are coming here personally?”

  “A sitting judge has been murdered, Ms. McCandless. Of course they are. Do you really think that pair would pass up all the media coverage this will generate—in an election year, no less?” His voice was thick with sarcasm, but he kept his expression neutral.

  He led her up the stairs and through the lobby, bypassing the metal detector.

  “Stairs okay with you?” he asked.

  “They’re preferable, actually,” she answered.

  They didn’t speak as they climbed the stairs and walked through the too-quiet hallway to the sheriff’s office.

  Not until they were at Russell’s desk, with the office door closed, did he say, “Sheriff’s in the judge’s chambers now. You feel up to going over there after you walk me through your conversation with the judge?”

  “That’s where it happened? In chambers?”

  “Yep. Judge Paulson was a creature of habit. Every afternoon, he walked over to Bob’s for a slice of pie. Then, he walked around the square—he called it his daily constitutional. Then, if he wasn’t on the bench, he stood at his big window overlooking the square and dictated opinions and orders into a handheld dictaphone until the sun set. After he watched the sunset, he put the dictaphone tapes on his secretary’s desk, locked up the office, and walked home.”

  “He was the only judge in the county. Wasn’t he on the bench most days?”

  Russell shook his head. “Most mornings. He never scheduled arguments or sentencing in the afternoons. So he was only in court in the afternoons if he had a jury trial. And we don’t have any scheduled this week.”

  “Okay, so he was looking out his window?”

  “Right. Judgin
g by where we found him, he was looking out toward the park. We found one 120-grain Nosler Partition bullet in chambers. He took a clean hit, through and through.”

  Russell caught her blank look. “That’s a bullet for a hunting rifle. A really heavy bullet.”

  “Okay, the judge was shot through his second-story window with a hunting rifle?”

  “That’s how it appears.”

  “How far away could the shooter have been?”

  “Depends on the gun and the trajectory. We’ll need to get a firearms forensics expert, but take the 257 Weatherby Magnum, for example. With the factory loads using that bullet, a decent shot—not a great shot, mind you—would be accurate from about 100 yards.”

  Sasha’s ignorance about guns was rivaled only by her lack of spatial ability. “Uh, so three hundred feet. Where would that put the shooter?”

  “Can’t say until we talk to someone with ballistics expertise.”

  “But you think it was a hunter?”

  Russell passed a hand through his hair in frustration. “I guess so. I also think that the list of hunters in the county pretty much overlaps almost one hundred percent with the list of able-bodied people in the county. Only exceptions being Danny Trees and his group.”

  Sasha watched him work through it.

  He chewed on the inside of his cheek, then said, “Course, if it was PORE, then they’d sure want us to think it was a hunter, wouldn’t they?”

  Sasha shrugged. She was a commercial litigator not a homicide detective.

  “I still don’t understand why the court wouldn’t just turn this over to the state police. No offense.”

  “He shrugged back at her. “None taken. I’d love to, personally. But, I have my orders.”

  “Who found the judge?”

  “His secretary, Gloria Burke. She thought she heard a thump from inside around 2:15 and knocked on the door to make sure the judge was okay. He didn’t answer. She gave it a minute and knocked again. When he still didn’t answer, she opened the door. And there he was, sprawled on the carpet with a hole in his head and most of his face missing. Glass shards from the window were all over the place. Between the solid door and thick carpet, it’s a surprise she heard anything.”

  Sasha closed her eyes. It had been six months since she’d seen a murder victim. The owner of the apartment where she’d met Connelly—a guy in his twenties—had been beaten until his head was bashed in and then tossed in a dumpster by two Russian thugs. She and Connelly had found him. Days later, she had watched as her mentor’s widow stabbed one of her clients, puncturing her lung. The client had died at Sasha’s feet with frothy blood bubbling from her lips. That had been an unusually bad week.

  But the image of the kid in the dumpster, wrapped in a blood-soaked sheet, that’s what was imprinted on her brain. He was who she saw sometimes as she was falling asleep. She hoped the judge’s secretary wouldn’t have a similarly gruesome bedtime image.

  When she opened them, Russell was staring at her, worried. “You okay?”

  “Sure.” She smiled. She hoped it didn’t look as forced as it felt.

  “Why don’t I get us some coffee and you can tell me about your chat with Judge Paulson.”

  “Fine.”

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Before Russell could make good on his promise of coffee, the sheriff called and ordered his deputy to meet him in the judge’s chambers and to bring Sasha along.

  They walked over slowly. On the way, Sasha relayed her conversation with the judge. When she mentioned the speeding pickup truck that had nearly hit them, Russell perked up.

  “Did you get a look at the driver?”

  “No. The truck was going too fast.”

  “Did Judge Paulson do or say anything that indicated he thought the truck might have been gunning for him?”

  Sasha thought a minute. “No.”

  She decided not to hold anything back from the deputy. “But, he did say something strange. After the truck went by, he pointed out the statue of Lady Justice on the clock tower and said it wasn’t blindfolded.”

  “So?”

  “So, Lady Justice is usually depicted wearing a blindfold. It signifies that justice is blind. Everyone’s on equal footing before the law.”

  “Okay?” Russell was looking at her with a harassed expression, like she needed to get to her point.

  “The Judge seemed to suggest that wasn’t the case locally. Or maybe that’s what he was suggesting. I’m not sure.”

  Russell dismissed the idea with a small frown. “Let’s get back to the truck. Did you see the license plate? Maybe get a partial?”

  Sasha shook her head. “No, sorry.” She pictured the truck. “It did have a gun rack in the back, though.”

  “Like a hunter would have?”

  “Just like that,” she said as they approached the door to the late judge’s chambers.

  The door was ajar. Russell nudged it inward and then stood back to let her go through first. Inside was a reception area. A middle-aged woman with tight cropped curly hair sat miserably at the desk. Her eyes were rimmed with red and she clutched a twisted tissue in one hand. She looked up when Russell passed through the doorway.

  “Gloria,” he said, touching the brim of his hat. “How are you holding up?”

  “Oh, Gavin. This is so horrible. I can’t even believe it. They just took his body out.” Her voice broke, but she didn’t seem to have any tears left.

  “Me neither. Gloria, this is Sasha McCandless, she’s an—”

  The woman cut him off and addressed Sasha. “You’re the attorney from Pittsburgh who was up here on the discovery motion last week. Judge Paulson appointed you to represent Mr. Craybill, too. I recognize the name.”

  Sasha was impressed the secretary hadn’t shut down after the shock of finding her murdered boss.

  Russell inclined his head toward the inner door, leading to the judge’s private office. “Is Stinky still back there?”

  The secretary choked out a laugh. “He’s there.”

  Sasha arched a brow at the nickname, and Gloria came to Russell’s defense.

  “You’ll understand when you meet him.”

  As if he’d been summoned by the mention of his name, just then a perfectly nondescript man poked his head through the door. He was neither young nor old; fat nor thin; tall nor short; handsome nor ugly. He just was.

  “Russell, get in here. Gloria, don’t go anywhere.”

  The sheriff disappeared back into the interior office. Russell swallowed a sigh and gestured for Sasha to follow him. He patted the secretary’s shoulder as he walked by her.

  Sasha stopped beside her and said, “I’m so sorry about Judge Paulson, Mrs. Burke. And I’m so sorry for what you must be going through.

  Gloria gave her a wobbly smile. “Thank you.”

  As soon as Sasha stepped into the judge’s office she realized she’d been wrong. Sheriff Stickley wasn’t completely nondescript. He had one characteristic that stood out: he exuded horrific body odor. For a split second she thought it might have been the scent of death lingering at the scene, but when the sheriff pumped her hand in greeting, it disturbed the air around him, leaving no question that he was the source of the smell.

  Sasha’s nose burned but she managed not to recoil.

  “Attorney McCandless,” he said in a too-hearty, politician’s voice, “it’s a pleasure to meet you, although I wish the circumstances were different. Carl Stickley.”

  Sasha freed her hand. “Nice to meet you, Sheriff. Although I was just telling Deputy Russell, I don’t think I can add anything to your investigation, so I’ll just get out of your way and . . .”

  He cut her off. “I’m afraid I can’t let you leave.”

  “Can’t let me? Am I being detained?”

  His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “No, no, of course not. It’s nothing like that. No, Attorney General Griggs and Chief Justice Bermann are on their way. They’d just like to talk to you.”

&
nbsp; Sasha’d had enough. “With all due respect, Sheriff, I can’t wait for them. I have a law practice to get back to. I’m terribly sorry about Judge Paulson. He seemed like a man of great integrity, and I certainly hope you catch whomever shot him. But, this tragedy has nothing to do with me. I’m just passing through your lovely town. And now it’s time for me to go.”

  Stickley motioned with his head, and Russell moved to stand between Sasha and the door.

  Russell made a pained face at her.

  She ignored him and focused on the sheriff. “So, I am being detained, then? Fine. I want an attorney.”

  Stickley’s nostrils flared, but before he could answer, Sasha heard a commotion in the reception area.

  It was the fuss that attended the arrival of two powerful men. Gloria’s chair scraping across the floor as she hopped up to greet them. The murmur of excited voices floating in from the hallway. And the soft thud of expensive dress shoes crossing the office floor.

  She turned around and came face to face with the most senior judge and the highest-ranking law enforcement officer in the commonwealth.

  The supreme court justice spoke first. “So, you’ve invoked your right to counsel, eh, Ms. McCandless? Will a doddering old fool like me do?”

  Unlike Stickley, Justice Bermann gave her a smile that lit up his entire face. His eyes crinkled and he chuckled at his own self-deprecating joke.

  “Justice Bermann, it’s truly an honor to meet you, sir. And, you, as well, Mr. Griggs. I just heard you speak at the civil RICO CLE in Pittsburgh. Fascinating.”

  If Sasha’s time working at Prescott & Talbott had taught her anything it was how to handle a roomful of titans. During high-level meetings of the powerful business executives who were their clients, the attorneys at Prescott & Talbott took great pains to ensure that each CEO left thinking that he or she had been the most important of the VIPs present. The fact that she’d recently suffered through a mind-numbing CLE at which the attorney general had delivered a droning keynote was a stroke of luck.

  Both men beamed.

  Russell caught her eye and raised his brow to let her know he was on to her.