Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) (18 page)

“I’d like Uncle Tony and Aunt Sonia to stay,” Donny said, turning to Rossi. “Uncle Tony is a judge and Aunt Sonia was our mom’s lawyer.”

Norris glared at his son, squeezing his arm. “You always took your mother’s side.”

Donny yanked his arm free, his jaw clenched. “That’s because there never was another side.”

“You little punk! I oughta . . .” Norris raised his hand, palm flat, his face crimson.

Rossi grabbed Norris’s wrist before he could hit Donny.

“I’d take the judge’s advice if I were you, Mr. Norris.”

Norris raised his other hand, this time in surrender. “Okay, okay. Let’s not everybody get excited.” Rossi released him. Norris brushed his hands down his sleeves and straightened his collar. “So I’m getting thrown out of my own house again. I guess some things never change.”

Rossi walked outside with him.

“I don’t need a damn escort,” Norris said.

“Just want to make sure you get to your car okay.”

“So I don’t come back inside and kick your ass?”

“So I don’t cuff you, throw you in the back of my car, and let you spend the night cooling off in jail.”

“Big man when you got a gun and all I’ve got is a . . .”

“Hangover and a bad attitude,” Rossi said. “So shut the fuck up and get your ass out of here while you still can.”

Norris climbed into a white Ford Escort parked on the curb and drove off. Rossi waited until he was gone, memorizing the license plate.

Everyone, including Kim, was gathered around the dining room table when Rossi returned. The judge rose to meet him.

“I’m Anthony Steele, and this is my wife, Sonia,” he said, putting his hand on her shoulder.

She looked up at Rossi. “You handled that very well, Detective. Ted Norris is a nasty drunk.”

“I’m convinced,” Rossi said. “What’s your relationship to the family, Your Honor?”

“No need to be so formal, Detective. We’re not in court. Robin was one of our closest friends. Sonia and I were young marrieds when we started law school. Robin was in our study group and we’ve been friends ever since.”

“We’ve known them all our lives,” Donny said. “They’ve always been Uncle Tony and Aunt Sonia to us.”

“I’m a trusts and estates lawyer,” Sonia said. “I wrote Robin’s estate plan and I’m helping the kids sort through the process. Fortunately, Robin took out a substantial term life policy when she was young enough to afford it. There will be enough for all the children’s education and a little something to get them started after they graduate.”

“Did their father know about the policy?” Rossi asked.

“At the time, yes. They both had policies making each other the beneficiary. Robin made the kids the beneficiary after the divorce. I don’t know whether she ever told Ted.”

“So,” Judge Steele said, “what brings two detectives out on a Friday night to talk about a traffic accident?”

Rossi had delivered enough bad news to know that people responded to it in many different ways. Some were so shocked they couldn’t speak. Some fell apart, crying or fainting. And some buried their reaction under a masquerade of calm that others mistook for grace under fire but that Rossi knew, more often than not, was the calm before the storm.

He took a seat at the table and looked around, making eye contact with each of the children. Donny and Rachel returned the look, their hands folded on the table and steady, oblivious to what was to come. Carrie blinked away tears, hands in her lap. Josh shifted in his chair, unable to get comfortable. Kim stared at him, dry-eyed and expectant, as if she knew what he was going to say and that it was bad. He didn’t disappoint her.

“Your mother was murdered.”

Chapter Thirty-One

ALEX SAT AT THEIR KITCHEN TABLE watching the dawn break. She’d been there all night after confessing to Bonnie, sleeping in fits and starts, her head on her arms, jolting upright at her latest nightmare. She’d left nothing out, telling Bonnie everything beginning with her confession that she hadn’t killed Dwayne Reed in self-defense and ending with buying the burner phone. Bonnie had listened, drawing out the details like she was taking a thorough history from a reluctant patient, not editorializing, just making certain she got the information she needed for a diagnosis.

Alex didn’t cry and Bonnie didn’t yell. They were more than civil. They were professional, Bonnie going over everything again and again, Alex reminding her they’d covered all of that, Bonnie saying yes but she was just trying to understand. They’d opened a bottle of wine when they began but neither took a sip. Bonnie turned to coffee as the enormity of what Alex had done became apparent.

“Is that it? Is that everything?” Bonnie asked after three hours.

The knots in Alex’s back and neck had unraveled the more she talked, draining her tension and anxiety, leaving her limp and depleted. But now that it was Bonnie’s turn to react, whether to console, condemn, or forgive, her muscles began to tighten and twist again.

“Yes,” she said, stiffening. “That’s all of it.”

Bonnie sat back in her chair, cradling her coffee cup, eyebrows raised, mouth pursed in contemplation.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“I know,” Alex said.

Bonnie set the cup on the table, running both hands through her hair, then around her neck, crossing her arms over her chest and shaking her head, letting out a long breath.

“I mean, I don’t even know where to begin.”

“You don’t have to begin. This is all on me.”

“What’s that even supposed to mean?” Bonnie asked, her flat-faced clinical detachment giving way to anger and anguish. “How could this all possibly be on you? You could lose your job, your law license, and probably go to jail, and, oh, by the way, someone may try to kill you, and you don’t think this doesn’t affect me? Or us?”

Alex wrapped her arms around her middle, rocking back and forth. “Of course it does. But I’m taking the responsibility.”

“How?” Bonnie asked, throwing up her arms, her voice rising. “Are you going to start packing a gun and wearing body armor until Rossi catches Robin’s killer? Are you going to turn yourself in for murdering Dwayne Reed? What would be the point of that? It’s not like I haven’t heard of double jeopardy. Are you going to turn in your law license and rat out Judge West? Are you going to quit your job and check into rehab like politicians and celebrities who totally fuck up their lives? Maybe you’ll find a twelve-step program for people who make the biggest fucking mistakes! Hi, my name is Alex and I’m a moron! Just exactly how are you going to take responsibility, because I’d really like to know?”

Alex stopped rocking, dropping her hands in her lap and hanging her head. She was too worn-out to cry. All she could do was take Bonnie’s body blows like a punching bag.

“I don’t know.”

“And what about us? Are you planning some grand noble gesture like breaking up with me so when this shit storm hits—and it is going to hit sooner or later—none of it blows back on me?”

Alex raised her head. She’d thought of nothing else during her confession because it was the only thing she could think of to protect Bonnie.

“I’ll be out today.”

Bonnie stood, planting one hand on the table, cupping Alex’s chin with the other and squeezing.

“Like hell you will. No way am I letting you off that easy.”

Bonnie’s cell rang before Alex could respond. Bonnie answered, listening and shaking her head.

“Christ! I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She clicked off the call. “School bus carrying a bunch of kids back from a high school football game got T-boned by a fire truck. I don’t know when I’ll get back, but you better be here when I do.”

She picked up her purse and ran for the door, racing back to kiss Alex on the forehead.

“We’ll figure this out. Don’t ask me how, but we will.”

In the morning light, Alex knew Bonnie was wrong. Bleary-eyed from lack of sleep, she could see clearly enough to know that much. She wouldn’t expose Bonnie to a killer, but that wasn’t the only harsh reality they faced. No one’s well of forgiveness was that deep. No one could live with someone who’d done what she’d done. And even if Bonnie never uttered a word of reproof, never brought up any of her sins again, Alex knew she’d forfeited Bonnie’s trust. That would corrode their relationship as surely as anything else, and Alex wouldn’t put Bonnie through that. She wrote her a note, packed a bag, and walked out.

Chapter Thirty-Two

ALEX SPENT MONDAY MORNING staring out her office window trying to not to think about anything. Not after the weekend she’d had.

She didn’t want to think about the conversation she had with Judge West when he called her early Saturday. On her cell phone. Not on her burner phone, his indifference to leaving an electronic trail that tied them together another reminder that, as far as he was concerned, she was the one at risk in their relationship, not him. He listened as she told him what to say if Rossi and Wheeler showed up in his chambers, hanging up without comment when she finished, giving no indication whether he would back her up or throw her under the bus.

She didn’t want to think about the judge’s photograph of her kneeling over Dwayne Reed’s body. With everything else that had been happening, she’d had no time to deal with it, flashing on an image of Judge West handing it to Rossi, clenching her eyes until the image faded in an explosion of starbursts. Even if the photo was a fake, by the time she proved it, all anyone would remember would be that damning pose.

It was harder still not to think about the conversation she had when Bonnie called her after returning from the hospital and finding the note Alex had left for her. It was brief, but that hadn’t made it easy.

“Come home,” Bonnie said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“You read my note. You know why.”

“Don’t do this, Alex. Please. We’ll figure something out.”

“Remember the first time you took me to the ER? You showed me around, showed me all the crash carts and other equipment and introduced me to all the doctors and nurses and staff?”

“Of course I remember.”

“And there was that guy, the chief or head of the ER, what was his name?”

“Adelson. Barney Adelson.”

“Right. So you’re showing me all of that and bragging about what a great job the trauma unit does, and Dr. Adelson interrupts and says something that I’ve never forgotten. Do you remember what he said?”

Bonnie sighed. “Some things can’t be fixed.”

Desperate to find another way but certain there wasn’t, Alex cried, choking as she spoke.

“And this is one of them. I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

Alex had ignored Bonnie’s steady stream of texts and voice messages since then, and when her phone buzzed with yet another, she turned it off, stuffed it in her pants pocket, and resumed staring out the window.

A mountain of work was sitting on her desk, correspondence to answer, motions to respond to, drafts of pleadings to review, and research to read. She’d thought that plunging into work would get her focused on something productive, but she’d been wrong. The best she could do at the moment was to stare out the window, unfocused and unseeing.

Grace Canfield broke the spell, rapping her knuckles on Alex’s open door, a file folder in one hand.

“I’d say I was sorry for interrupting, but I’d be lying,” Grace said. “You think all that work is going to get done by itself?”

Alex swiveled her chair around and gave Grace a weak smile. “A girl can dream, can’t she?”

Grace shook her head. “Unh-uh. Look at you, all down in the mouth. What happened to Little Miss Piss and Vinegar from last Friday? You were all dolled up and ready for the ball and now you got your lip stuck out like your dog died.”

“My dog is fine.”

“But you aren’t. You and Bonnie have a fight?”

Alex leaned her head to one side, sighing. “You could say that. We broke up.”

Grace took one of the chairs in front of Alex’s desk. “Oh, honey, I’m so sorry. You two were so good together. Isn’t there something you can to do to patch things up?”

Alex shook her head. “No. It’s time to move on, and you’re right about the work.”

“Is that your way of telling me it’s none of my business and to butt out?”

“Yeah. I’d appreciate that.”

“You can appreciate it all you want, but I’ll tell you one last thing. I haven’t seen two people more in love or better suited to each other than you and Bonnie, and that’s something worth fighting for. I don’t care what happened between the two of you; it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“That’s actually two things, maybe three, but thanks. What’s up?”

Grace shoved the piles of paper on the desk out of the way, making room for the file she’d been carrying, then setting it in front of Alex.

“Here’s what I found on Joanie Sutherland. She’s been in the system since she was thirteen. She specialized in the
P
s.”

“Possession and prostitution,” Alex said.

“You got it. She’s been in the county lockup half a dozen times but never gone away.”

“If she was a prostitute, that could help us on the rape charge. The coroner says he found genital trauma and Jared says their sex was consensual. So maybe Joanie had rough sex with one of her other johns earlier that evening. You think you can talk to some of the women who work Independence Avenue, maybe get a line on any of her johns?”

“My church is doing outreach to those girls. I’ll find out who to talk to.”

“Grace, you are too good for words. I don’t know another investigator who could turn her church into a source. What else did you find out about Joanie?”

“She was twenty-eight years old. Been to rehab a couple of times. Grew up in Northeast.”

“Where was she living?”

“She spent a lot of time on the street, but she stayed some with her sister, Bethany, in a mobile home park just off of Blue Ridge.”

“Where’s that?”

Grace opened the file and pointed to the address. “Pull it up on Google Maps.”

Alex punched in the address, hunching her shoulders and leaning toward the monitor as she zoomed in and out.

“How about that?”