Justice Served: A Barkley and Parker Thriller

by Flowers, R. Barri

  At what price was the man’s success? Had he sold his soul to the devil? Been a party, willing or otherwise, to at least one murder and quite possibly a string of homicides?

  Stuart buzzed his secretary and told her to hold all his calls. Directing his attention to Nina, he asked calmly: “So what’s this all about? Surely you don’t still suspect that I had anything to do with Blake Wallace’s murder or that my car was somehow involved?”

  Nina regarded him shrewdly. “You tell me...”

  He looked befuddled. “Excuse me?”

  “Why don’t you start by telling me about your defending Esther Reynolds fifteen years ago after she killed her husband?” Nina said straightforwardly. She watched him react with surprise. “Then you might tell me about Judge Carole Cranston’s testimony during the trial and what your relationship is with these two women today. And last, I’d like to know if you think either or both might be capable of committing these vengeance murders that are sending shock waves throughout the city?”

  Stuart looked as if he had been frozen with his mouth half open. He stared at the questions for a moment or two before saying languorously: “Please, sit down...”

  Nina sat in a plush leather chair and watched as Stuart sat opposite her. She removed a small tape recorder from her purse and sat it on a walnut table between them.

  “Hope you don’t mind?” she said.

  “Actually, I do,” he said sternly. “I’ll answer your questions, but strictly off the record.”

  “Okay,” Nina muttered, expecting as much from the clever attorney. She put the recorder back in her purse, turning it on at the same time.

  “I defended Esther Reynolds because I believed she was justifiable in killing her husband,” Stuart said evenly. “The man had beaten her senseless for years. She reached the breaking point that day, feeling it was either him or her.”

  “So like a knight in shining armor, you came to the rescue and got her off on a charge of murder?”

  “No, detective—it wasn’t quite like that,” he responded tartly. “The jury got Ms. Reynolds off on self-defense.”

  “Thanks in large part, I assume, to Carole Cranston’s testimony?” Nina peered at him as Ray crossed her mind.

  Stuart batted his eyes. “I’d be lying if I said otherwise. Carole’s testimony was crucial to convincing the jury just what type of monster Esther Reynolds was married to.” He sighed. “Since you’re privy to this, I assume you also know that the two women have known each other since college?”

  “Best friends, I heard,” chirped Nina. Just how closely knit was their camaraderie?

  Without acknowledging this, Stuart said: “Well, Carole...Judge Cranston witnessed the abuse on more than one occasion and urged Esther to leave her husband. Unfortunately, by the time she did, it was too late. He was too far gone in his addiction to beating the living daylights out of her at his whim.”

  Nina chewed her lower lip. “Are you still in touch with either Ms. Reynolds or Carole Cranston today?” I think I pretty much know the answer to this one.

  Stuart hesitated. “Yes. I try to keep tabs on all my clients.”

  “But Carole Cranston was not your client.” Nina gazed at him, one brow raised. “Was she?”

  He crossed his legs nervously. “No, she wasn’t. But Ms. Cranston is a judge now,” he said as if she didn’t know. “And we run into each other from time to time in the courtroom.”

  Nina widened her eyes as she asked: “Were you aware that the judge witnessed her mother being beaten to death at the hands of her father?”

  Stuart’s mouth tightened. “I’m not sure I should answer that.”

  “I think maybe you should,” she strongly urged. “This is not an attorney-client privilege thing. And it could be related to a murder investigation.”

  He clasped his fingers. “All right. So I did know. What the hell does that have to do with anything?”

  “She told you?” Nina pressed.

  “Yeah,” he said reluctantly. “We became friends and Carole thought I ought to know. There’s no crime in that, detective.”

  “Never said there was, sir. The crimes came years later—like now.” Nina leaned toward him. “Were you and Carole Cranston ever lovers?” she asked bluntly.

  Stuart’s brow creased. “Now wait just a damned minute, Detective Parker,” he blasted. “My relationship with Carole Cranston is between her and me. I sure as hell am not going to allow you to trample over my personal life—or hers—for some sort of vicarious thrill! If you have anything else to ask me about the case you’re working on, do it. If not, then this meeting is over!”

  So they had been lovers. Nina read between the lines. Perhaps they still were and possibly in bed for conspiracy to commit murder against abusive men who hadn’t been held accountable for their sins.

  She doubted Barkley had any inkling about the long-term relationship between Carole Cranston and the very married Stuart Wolfe, whom Ray could be competing with for the judge’s affections.

  “I wasn’t trying to get into your pants,” Nina made abundantly clear, “or business. Or, for that matter, the judge’s sex life, per se. But I am trying to solve a number of brutal murders and need to work every angle. For instance, I’d like to know if you and Carole Cranston were still on friendly enough terms that she may have been able to borrow your car—since she doesn’t have one of her own—to go to that garage and beat to death Blake Wallace.”

  “That’s totally absurd!” Stuart insisted, narrowing his eyes into slits. “Do you honestly think I’d allow my car to be used by Carole Cranston—or anyone else—to commit murder?”

  Admittedly, Nina found it hard to fathom the high-flying attorney risking it all under such circumstances. But then, people did all types of unfathomable things when it came to love, lust, or past fond memories.

  She sucked in a deep breath. “In that case, I’m sure you won’t mind if we dust the car for prints and look for other evidence to indicate it may have been a party to one or more murders?”

  “You’re welcome to,” he said, regaining his cool demeanor. “You won’t find anything. There’s nothing there to find.”

  She stared at him, wondering if he was he that confident or simply misguided.

  “That notwithstanding,” Stuart added, upon further reflection, “I think it’s probably a good idea if you bring along a search warrant. I assume you and Detective Barkley have enough credible reasons and cause to convince a judge?”

  Nina suspected Stuart Wolfe knew this part would be an uphill battle. All she really had at this point were some rather loose circumstantial factors, at best, and her gut instincts. But the fact that he was exercising this option made her even more suspicious.

  “I think we have what we need to do just that,” she said assertively. “If it’s a search warrant you want, then you’ll have it.”

  Stuart stood up, glaring at her. “Your case is headed in the wrong direction, Detective Parker,” he blared. “If you seriously expect to be able to pin this vigilante killer rap on Carole Cranston or Esther Reynolds, then you’re sadly mistaken. These women, for all their past grief and victimization, should be applauded for the contributions they’ve made to society, not vilified by people who are supposed to be on their side of the street!”

  Nina knew from the look in his eyes that those people included women like her, who also happened to be an officer of the law. She felt slightly guilty, as though she had turned her back on African-American women who were trying to do some real good. But in reality, she knew this wasn’t about sisterhood or strides within the black community. It was about murder, plain and simple, and doing her job to see to it that a vindictive killer was brought to justice, even if she had to step on a few tender toes along the way.

  Nina stood and met Stuart Wolfe’s hardened gaze head on. “All I can say, Counselor, is that I honestly hope you’re right about these upstanding women. I wouldn’t want to see either end up behind bars as serial killers. But i
f you’re wrong, then it’s up to this woman to get a killer off the streets before she sets her sights on another target to murder.”

  Neither of them gave any ground in their positions, staring each other down as if to blink might somehow lessen the resolve.

  At the door, Nina added as an afterthought: “By the way, Mr. Wolfe, I’d suggest you keep your attorney handy. You just might need him—”

  In the corridor, she shut off the tape recorder, and deliberated.

  * * *

  It was half past four when Nina arrived back at the station. Her journey had yielded some surprising and disturbing results. Now came the hard part.

  Nina found Ray in his office doing paperwork, the one thing all cops dreaded most. Next to counting dead bodies due to murder. She wondered how to tell him what she had dug up without his knowledge or consent and what the fallout might be.

  I’ll just have to take my lumps and hope we can get beyond this.

  “What the hell are you doing here, Parker?” Ray asked, surprised. “If I’m not mistaken, didn’t you take the afternoon off after coming down with something?” He gave her a worried look. “Hope you didn’t think I couldn’t do without your bitching for even half a day?”

  Nina made no attempt to even smile at his halfhearted effort at humor. “I do feel somewhat sick to my stomach,” she told him. “But it has nothing to do with something I ate.”

  Ray cocked a brow. “So what does it have to do with?”

  She breathed in deeply. “Carole Cranston—”

  “Carole...” His voice stopped on a dime.

  Nina closed the door. She took the tape recorder from her purse and sat it on his desk. Gazing at her partner, she said solemnly: “You need to listen to this. Then we need to talk—”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Carole took advantage of the overcast, cool afternoon to run. It also gave her time to think about the direction her life was headed. Things between her and Ray had reached a point where she believed they might actually have a future. One that could include a committed relationship, love and devotion, or possibly even marriage—though both had been down that road before and were not likely to jump into something on a whim.

  Even children could not be ruled out, should they come out of love and a united front in giving them the best life possible.

  She considered that Vivian and Stuart had lost a child before ever having it. She had gone to visit them the day after the miscarriage and found that Vivian appeared to have all but recovered physically, though her mental state was still somewhat fragile.

  “I never knew it would hurt so bad,” Vivian had cried. “The baby was a part of my body, growing inside me. I don’t know if I can deal with this.”

  “You will,” Carole told her, “because you have to, Vivian. Life goes on, no matter what awful things happen. You’ll get another chance to have a child. Probably many more.”

  Vivian fixed her with sullen eyes. “I could never go through that again,” she declared. “I’m just not strong enough.”

  “It’ll take some time,” Carole said feelingly. “But you’ll be fine. You’re stronger than you think.”

  Was she really? Or would Vivian be on a downward slide for the rest of her life? Carole could picture her never quite recovering.

  Which begged the question: Had Vivian really wanted to have her baby? Or had the doctor been right in his suspicions that she found a way to avoid giving birth to a child that Stuart wanted far more than she did?

  Carole watched as Vivian fell asleep, then left the bedroom and headed down a solid oak spiral staircase and into the sunken living room with designer furniture and wall paintings that Stuart had commissioned some young local artists to do. She found Stuart standing near the window drinking a beer.

  “How is she?” he asked.

  “She’s still trying to come to terms with what happened.”

  “So am I,” Stuart muttered, eyes bloodshot from lack of sleep. “I wonder if I’m somehow being punished for talking Vivian into something she wanted no part of. Maybe it would have been easier if she had gone through with the termination. At least I wouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

  “Don’t, Stuart,” Carole scolded him as one might a child. “You’re not being punished; neither is she. You both made this decision together and fate intervened. There’s nothing you can do about it, other than use this as a positive step to move forward.”

  Stuart put the bottle to his mouth. “It’s hard,” he said bitterly. “You should know that better than anyone. How positive did you consider it when your old man took away your mother’s life with his brutal fists? This wounds me every bit as much.”

  Carole leveled her eyes at him. He had hit her where it hurt most. She had confided in him her most painful secret at a time when she needed to tell someone. Now he had shoved it in her face, as if to maliciously break her down. She could hardly compare the way he had lost his unborn child with the violent way she had been robbed of her mother. Yet Stuart had managed to believe the two were equal in their sheer agony.

  Realizing what he had done, sensing her thoughts, Stuart said regretfully: “I’m sorry, Carole. I didn’t mean that.”

  “Didn’t you?” she snapped. “I trusted you, Stuart. I thought you would understand. Now I’m beginning to wonder if you ever really did—”

  “I do understand everything you’ve gone through,” he promised, and put his arms around her protectively. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what the hell came over me. I guess I was only thinking about myself and reacting like a jerk when you were only trying to help. You know I’d never do anything to hurt you intentionally. Forgive me.”

  In spite of herself, Carole knew it wasn’t in Stuart’s nature to strike out at anyone who only wanted to be there for him as a friend. But it hadn’t changed the facts. He had used what she had given him against her when the opportunity presented itself. She was not sure she could, or should, ever trust someone in that way again.

  Including Ray.

  Caught in the whirl of past and present traumas, Carole had allowed herself to be held by Stuart longer than she should. Before she could break away, Vivian was standing there looking at them. The look in her eyes was one of dark despair, fresh pain, and stark betrayal.

  * * *

  Carole ran in steady strides beside the river, feeling the tension in her legs and the rapid pumping of her heart. She recalled Stuart trying to reassure his wife that nothing was going on; while at the same time trying to make apologies, as if there was anything to apologize for.

  As for Carole, she wanted only to get out of there as fast as she could, unable to breathe or think straight. But not before she made it perfectly clear to Vivian that she was the love of Stuart’s life. What Carole had with her husband was strictly in the past.

  Indeed, as though to hammer this point home to all concerned, Carole had announced unceremoniously that she was in love with another man.

  Now she wondered if it was true. Had she really fallen in love with Ray Barkley?

  Did he love her?

  Would it be enough for either of them?

  Maybe I’m only fooling myself.

  Carole began her cool down and considered if she was prepared to deal with her past.

  Could she ever feel comfortable telling Ray things she’d never wanted to tell anyone? Things she had told Stuart in a moment of weakness, which she now regretted.

  Might she feel the same way after confiding to Ray?

  If things continued to progress between them, could they actually have a family of their own one day that was not marred by domestic violence, homicide, and a lifetime of agony?

  By the time Carole returned to her condo, she was exhausted, but felt better about things. Including the future and its interesting possibilities.

  She took a shower and put on a halter top and shorts.

  The phone ringing gave her a start. She answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “It
’s Stuart. Thank goodness I’ve finally reached you.”

  She could hear the quiver in his voice. “What is it?”

  Carole listened as Stuart spoke of his meeting with Detective Parker. “I had to tell her some things I didn’t want to...about you—” There was a break in his voice. “She didn’t leave me much choice. You’ve got to believe that if there had been any other way—”

  Carole felt numb. It was as if she had managed, if only briefly, to block out all that hurt her. Now it all seemed to be coming back with a vengeance. She wondered if her secrets would finally cause the world she’d made for herself to crumble down around her like a house of clay.

  “I think Parker and your boyfriend may be coming your way next,” Stuart warned. “I just didn’t want you to be caught off guard—”

  Those last words were distant to Carole as she considered the information he had shared with the police about her past, their suspicions, and what might happen next.

  She heard the intercom ring, further drowning out what Stuart was saying. Walking to it, she punched the button. It was Ray.

  “We need to come up, Carole—” he said in a voice absent of emotion.

  We?

  Not just him? Meaning Detective Parker was downstairs, too.

  Carole worried that this was official police business.

  Were they planning to confront her with past sins?

  Could they have found something incriminating with respect to the vigilante on the loose? Something that would point the finger directly at her?

  Fear raced through Carole in that moment like a tornado passing through town, destroying everything in its path. She suddenly felt as if she were being victimized all over again. Only this time not as a child, but as a sitting judge.

  And perhaps a murder suspect.

  She said glumly to Stuart: “I think I may need an attorney—”

  CHAPTER FORTY

  Ray tried to come to grips with what Nina had just laid on him like cinder blocks.

  Carole had seen her mother murdered by her father.