Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) (33 page)
Read Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) Online
Authors: Joel Goldman
Tags: #Mystery, #legal thriller, #Thriller
“What happened?”
“He about shit a brick and she started laughing, I mean cackling like a witch with a new broomstick on Halloween, and wouldn’t stop. He finally had to take her into another a room and give her a pill to calm her down. Then he comes back and tells me that she made the picture and sent it to me. I asked him why she’d do something like that and he said she’s bipolar and doesn’t always take her meds and when she doesn’t she goes kind of crazy.”
“Maybe that explains the disorderly conduct thing.”
“It does. But it doesn’t explain why she’d jack around with this photograph or how she even got ahold of the file photographs in the first place.”
“How did Judge West explain that?”
“He said there were copies of the pictures in the court file. He had the file at the ranch during the trial and that’s when she must have done it. I told him that explains the how but not the why, and you won’t believe what he said.”
“Try me.”
“He said that being bipolar and not taking her meds makes his wife paranoid and she became convinced that you and the judge were having an affair and that this was her way of getting even with both of you. She made sure her prints would be found so that he’d know what she’d done.”
Alex shook her head. “I’m stunned.”
“I know. It’s crazy. But here’s the really crazy part. How’d Millie know to put you in that picture in just the right way to prove that you murdered Dwayne Reed? I mean, if she wanted to embarrass you and the judge, why not doctor up some naked pictures of the two of you?”
Alex took a deep breath, letting it out. “I don’t know. I guess you’d have to ask her.”
“Kind of hard now that she blew her brains out. Besides, I don’t think she could tell me how your fingerprints also ended up on the photograph.”
There it was. Rossi wasn’t going to leave her alone. No matter that she’d helped him solve three murders. No matter that she and Bonnie had nearly been killed. No matter anything. Weariness swept over her. She couldn’t do this anymore. She couldn’t keep running from Dwayne Reed while she slept and from Rossi while she was awake.
“Go ahead. Ask me.”
“Did you shoot Dwayne Reed in self-defense?”
Alex flattened her hands on her desk and looked him in the eye. “No. I shot him and put his gun in his hand and pulled the trigger to make it look like he fired first.”
“What was going on between you and Judge West?”
Alex took another deep breath. “West had been shading cases in favor of the prosecution for years but doing it in ways that would stand up on appeal. He saw how upset I was after I got Dwayne acquitted and he murdered that family and he recruited me to throw my really awful clients under the bus without doing a bad enough job to give them grounds to appeal based on ineffective assistance of counsel. That night I ran into you at the Zoo, I’d been at his horse farm. I told him I was out, that I wasn’t going to do it anymore. He handed me that photograph in an envelope just like you did. That’s how my prints got on it. He told me he’d ruin me if I backed out. Then he told me Jared Bell would be my next case and that he’d use the photograph if I didn’t make sure Jared was convicted. I still don’t know how he knew about Jared.”
“Interesting thing about that. Kalena told me about Robin getting Jared’s file ahead of schedule. She said no one in her office was responsible. West could have done it but we couldn’t figure out why he would, so I asked him. He admitted giving the file to Robin but said she asked him for it.”
“And you believed that?”
“Until Judge Steele told me different. When he heard on the news that a prostitute’s body had been found in Liberty Park, he was afraid it was Joanie even though her identity hadn’t been released. The only good news was that we’d arrested Jared. Steele was scared that Sonia might have killed Joanie and he called Judge West and asked him about the case.”
“He must have known what West was doing.”
“He did. They were hunting buddies, and West got drunk one night on a hunting trip and told Steele enough that he figured it out.”
“Did Steele tell him about Sonia?”
“Not directly. He just made it clear that this was one case that needed to go away in a hurry, and West said he’d take care of it. I don’t know if or how he made sure you were assigned to the case. West might have been telling the truth about that or he might have had something on Robin. We may never know for certain. What we do know is that you didn’t go along with West.”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Why not?”
Alex pursed her lips. “I hated what I’d become and I didn’t want to be that person anymore, and I was willing to let whatever was going to happen, happen.”
Rossi nodded and then stared out the window, lost in thought for a minute. “I guess you know what Bonnie pulled on me, that thing with the lawsuit?”
“Don’t blame her. She was just trying to help me. You don’t have anything to worry about. It was total bullshit. There isn’t going to be a lawsuit.”
“I know that. I checked up on the family members of those men. I don’t know who she had at your house, but they definitely weren’t who she said they were.”
“Now what?”
He picked up the photograph. “Nothing. This thing between you and me, it’s over.”
Alex was wide-eyed. “Why?”
“Bonnie was right. I probably didn’t have to kill those men, but I did. And the cops who investigated the shootings, well, let’s just say they take care of their own. After I left your house that day, I went home and got drunk, and when I sobered up, I realized something.”
“What’s that?”
“All this time I was chasing after you, I was really chasing the dead, and I’m done doing that.”
**
Alex went home. Bonnie was waiting for her with a bottle of their favorite wine, ready to toast Alex’s first day in her new job, until Alex’s cell phone chirped with a text. It was from Claire Mason, her law school mentor and the lawyer who had defended her when she was charged with murdering Dwayne Reed. Alex opened her phone and read the text.
“Who texted you?”
“Claire.”
“What did she want?”
“You know she’s part of that national group of defense lawyers who’ve volunteered to defend the detainees at Guantanamo?”
“Yes.”
“Here.” She handed Bonnie the phone. “Read it.”
Bonnie read the text aloud.
“I need you. Come to Guantanamo as soon as you can. And bring Bonnie.”
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For Greyson Simone
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A number of people were instrumental in creating
Chasing the Dead
. Carie Allen is an outstanding Public Defender who patiently answered all my questions about criminal law and procedure. Any mistakes on these matters are all mine. Tim Dowd did a terrific job educating me about motor vehicle accident reconstruction and reconstructing an accident that plays a pivotal role in the story.
My editor, Kristen Weber,
www.kristenweber.com
, and my copyeditor, Eileen Chetti,
[email protected]
, gave me invaluable feedback and advice and made
Stone Cold
a better book.
Jeroen ten Berge,
www.jeroentenberge.com
, continues to create the best book covers in the business.
Thanks to Jason Chatraw who did a great job formatting the book for the Kindle. You can find him at
www.GreenE-Books.com
. And, thanks to Ross Burck for his terrific work formatting the print edition. You can find Ross at
[email protected]
.
And thanks to all the people who read advance reader copies and shared their feedback with me.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joel Goldman
is the author of the Edgar and Shamus nominated Lou Mason thrillers, the Jack Davis thrillers and the Alex Stone thrillers. He lives with his wife and two dogs in Leawood, KS. He was a trial lawyer for twenty-eight years. He wrote his first thriller after one of his partners complained about another partner, prompting him to write a mystery, kill the son-of-a-bitch off in the first chapter and spend the rest of the book figuring out who did it. And he never looked back.
NOVELS & SHORT STORIES
BY JOEL GOLDMAN
THE LOU MASON THRILLERS
THE JACK DAVIS THRILLERS
THE ALEX STONE THRILLERS
THE DEAD MAN SERIES BY WILLIAM RABKIN & LEE GOLDBERG
SHORT STORIES
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Elizabeth Wenig
When two of his partners are killed, corruption, sex and murder fill trial lawyer Lou Mason’s docket as he tracks the killer. Will Lou be the next victim? Find out in
Motion To Kill
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Amarillo Globe-News
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Lou Mason is back and this time it’s personal when his surrogate father, Homicide Detective Harry Ryman, arrests his best friend, Wilson “Blues” Bluestone, Jr. for murder. Mason unearths secrets someone will do anything to keep as he closes in on a desperate killer, setting himself up as the next target. Goldman goes Grisham one better!
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Move over John Grisham! Joel Goldman is in the courthouse!
If you like the knockout suspense of Michael Connelly and the gritty “who done its” by Linda Fairstein, you’ll love Joel Goldman’s
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