Due Justice (24 page)

But this was the first time he'd ever said anything overtly threatening to me. It was so out of character, so inappropriate and so unjudicial, that I wasn't totally sure I'd heard him correctly. I
was
tired. I
was
stressed. My visceral response seemed extreme. Could I have misunderstood?

“Are you threatening me, CJ? And if you are, are
you
threatening me or is this a message from someone else?” I asked him coldly.

He'd reached the door. Had his hand on the knob. But he watched me like a sniper. “Don't take that tone with me, Wilhelmina. I'm trying to give you some good advice. If you don't want to take it, the risk is yours.”

He slammed the door on his way out. Hard enough to knock one of the ancient framed photographs off the wall. It hit the floor, landed on a weak corner, and burst apart, sending glass shards everywhere.

Too bad it wasn't the little dweeb's head that shattered.

Margret rushed in. The alarm on her face was almost comical. “What happened?”

“Old glass, I guess. Do we have a broom? I'll take care of it,” I said.

She replied, “That's ridiculous. Go get coffee. Leave it to me.”

When I returned, all traces of the broken glass were gone. The spot where the old photo once hung showed the most god-awful green blank spot. The thing was almost as big as CJ. If it had landed on his head, he might literally have shattered, just as I'd wished.

The silly thought cheered me up. Along with the Cuban Coffee, good cheer cleared my head. But the situation was as murky as ever.

“Why did CJ give me that warning?” I asked myself aloud.

Heeding Grandma's warning about answers, I skipped speculation and went right ahead with questions.

“Does he think I've disgraced his precious court? Does he hold me somehow responsible for Junior's recent loss of face? Does someone who once contributed heavily to his reelection campaigns ask him for the favor?”

He has aspirations to higher office. Maybe it's a black mark against him if he can't keep his junior justices in line, and he won't be considered for the Court of Appeals?

If so, that would be most unfortunate.

The only chance I had of getting rid of him was the Peter Principle: get him kicked upstairs.

It was quite a while before I figured out the real reason for his warning, and it was I who had to be hit over the head with it even then.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

Tampa, Florida

Friday 5:30 p.m.

January 22, 1999

A FINE SNIT IS a terrible thing to waste.

I picked up the telephone and called Ben Hathaway.

He was as cool to me as I was to him. I asked him what news he had of Carly and he told me that an ongoing police investigation was none of my business.

“If you want me to keep out of it, you'll tell me what you found, if you found anything,” I snapped back.

“You'll keep out of it if I tell you to keep out of it, federal judge or not!” and he slammed down the phone.

I slammed down my receiver immediately afterwards. What a shame he couldn't hear it.

Now what?

“Go home, Willa. You're exhausted. You're fighting with everyone. That's not like you. Go home.”

My face frowned quickly of its own accord. Grandma never said whether it was insane to answer questions never asked aloud. Yet the truth was obvious not only to CJ. As much as it pained me to agree with him on anything, I was exhausted.

On the way home, I concluded Hathaway must have nothing to report. If he'd found Carly or knew where she was, he would have been only too happy to tell me.

In fact, she'd be in custody if he'd found her.

Small comfort. I'd grown weary of not knowing what the hell was going on.

I wasn't conscious of it, but somehow, Greta decided it would be a good idea to drive by Michael Morgan's house instead of going immediately home. I found myself driving west on Kennedy to Westshore, turning south and into the Beach Park subdivision, scouting the address imprinted on my memory.

The house itself was old and fairly small, a typical Florida ranch perched on an ordinary South Tampa lot. A Beach Park address, but not one of the more glamorous homes in the neighborhood. When it turned over, the house would likely be a tear-down.

Like me, Morgan's killer must have been cursing his luck; like so many homes in Florida, Morgan's had no attached garage. The west side of the house was exposed and visible.

Anyone could have seen a black car in the driveway, just as the witness told the police.

Greta pulled up the length of the driveway to the back of the carport. No matter. Exposed and visible.

Tried the side entry door; discovered it unlocked.

It took me about two seconds to decide.

Greta is distinctive, and someone would notice. But I was already here and Morgan was already dead and I was already obstructing justice as well as in trouble with the CJ.

What more could I risk?

So I went in through the side door.

Opened directly into the kitchen. I ducked under the crime lab's yellow plastic tape to enter.

Morgan's kitchen held an oak drop-leaf table set parallel to the door, maybe forty-two inches round when the leaves were up, and two matching oak chairs. Splattered blood and grey matter marred the wall behind the chair facing the door. The chair was snugged against the wall now and from the mess, seemed to have been in that position at the time of death.

The opposite chair, closest to the door, was tucked close to the table. Unoccupied at the time of the murder? Or replaced afterward?

Had the killer stood right inside this side door and pulled the trigger?

Or had they been seated across from each other at the table when he did it?

No doubt blood spatter experts would determine the answer. But my experience said it could have gone either way.

The door jamb didn't appear tampered or damaged. Nor did the door. Locks not forced either open or closed, I'd say. Black fingerprinting dust all over the knob now, but not before the murder. No obvious finger prints lifted. The killer wore gloves? Suggested premeditation. Or maybe wiped in cleanup if the murder had been more spontaneous?

The dining room stood north of the kitchen and contained formal furniture. Chair seats had been slashed, but the china cabinet seemed undamaged. Doors open, but dishes remained in place. Had the room and its contents been dusted for prints? Had the evidence vacuum been run over the floors? Nothing seemed particularly clean. Hell, I wasn't even sure if the Tampa police had an evidence vacuum.

The living room visible through the dining room's open archway. A total shambles. Seat cushions and seat backs were ripped to shreds. The chairs and the love seat turned over, and the bottoms slashed, too. Books strewn everywhere, bindings cracked and open.

Quickly walked through the rest of the house. Every room was similarly destroyed. Whatever the searcher sought, there was no reason to believe he'd found it. Otherwise, why destroy the remaining hiding places?

I'd been inside five full minutes. How much more time would I have?

I went outside and looked around the grounds. Impossible to tell if Dr. Morgan's carport had always looked like a tornado victim cyclone or the mess resulted from a continuing search.

Since no one had shown up to arrest me yet, I returned to the house to work through the murder.

If Dr. Morgan was seated at the kitchen table with whoever killed him in the chair opposite, the body either remained in the chair after death or fell to the floor near the back wall.

Then, the body was moved out of the house through the side door.

The distance from the chair to the exit was about ten feet; from the exit to the car's trunk maybe another fifteen feet.

Logistically, moving the body to the door shouldn't have been too strenuous. He could have dragged Morgan along the floor. I squatted for a closer look between the Spanish tiles. Although the grout was already a dark brown, something had stained it in the right locations. Could have been blood. Maybe a cooking spill. The crime lab would apply sophisticated tests to find out.

The hard part would have been moving the body from the kitchen floor into the trunk of the car without being seen. Had to be done at night. The area was much too open for daylight skullduggery. This was an affluent neighborhood, though. Maybe the neighbors worked away from home during daylight hours.

In either case, it would have to be done quickly. Discovery became more probable with each passing moment.

That thought caused me to check my watch again. I'd been here eleven minutes now. Weren't Tampa PD response times a lot shorter than that?

A car trunk is at least four feet off the ground. With the advent of weight lifting as a national pastime, most people could probably manage to lift 175 pounds three feet off the ground, even without the extra strength adrenaline flow you'd have to have to kill Morgan in the first place.

But it wouldn't be easy and it had to be fast.

After he got the body into the trunk, the rest could have been done in the relative privacy of the killer's garage, assuming he had one. If not a garage, then some private location. No other way he could have bound that body in absolute confidence he wouldn't be interrupted.

So where did he get the concrete and the clothesline?

Sixteen minutes. Really? No one had reported me yet? Perhaps Morgan's Tampa neighbors were less nosy than I'd assumed.

Another pass through the house. No clothesline. But through the bedroom window I saw a storage shed in the back yard and dashed out there for a quick look.

Nothing inside the shed. Behind it, though.

Eureka.

Broken grey concrete patio stones under the trash cans. Six missing. Small enough and light enough for easy handling and heavy enough to weigh down the body. And who would notice them missing after the homeowner died? This had to be the source of the concrete weights.

But finding patio stones of just the right size that wouldn't be missed is a lot of luck to count on. The killer had to be someone who knew he'd find those materials easily available. Meaning someone very familiar with the house.

Nineteen minutes since I'd parked Greta in the carport. Still no sirens. Huh?

I felt sure I'd found everything knowable from Morgan's physical surroundings. But I wouldn't get another chance.

I dashed back inside for one more look around.

Something else bothered me about the scene. Such a mess. But something not right about that mess. What? I couldn't put my finger on the problem. It was there, though. I could feel it.

Twenty-two minutes. Good grief. What the hell was Tampa PD doing?

I hurried to Greta; snatched the disposable camera from her miniscule glove compartment. Snapped quick pictures. Kitchen, dining room, living room, master bedroom and den. The pictures would distort the scene, but better than trusting memory for the details.

Something wasn't right here, and I resolved to let my unconscious work on what that something was.

Twenty-seven minutes. Pushed my luck as far as I was willing to go.

But when this was over, I planned a long chat with Ben Hathaway.

Dropped the film off for overnight developing on the way home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Tampa, Florida

Saturday 2:15

January 23, 1999

RUNNING LATE. STOPPED BY to pick up the developed film and stuffed it in Greta's glove box with all the other essential junk I had in there. No time to examine the photos now.

I'd invited Dr. Carolyn Young to Great Oaks. Easier to play my home course. Less thinking required, more time for my planned inquisition.

We'd agreed to meet at the clubhouse at 2:30 p.m. when the course would be nearly empty and she could, as she put it, help me improve my game. Dressed like a golf magazine advertisement in pink and green, she stood tapping her pricey spikes on the pavement out front when I dashed up.

“Sorry—”

“Never mind. We've loaded your clubs. Shoes, too. Let's go,” she said. Strode toward the cart.

I didn't dare take a minute to pee.

Carolyn Young might have been 55 years old, but she sure didn't look it. If her smooth skin, firm breasts, and great legs were the result of modern medicine, I wanted some. I suspected her patients felt the same way. A perfect advertisement for her plastic surgery practice.

She commandeered the wheel; “I'm in charge” attitude apparent in every movement. Nothing about her was tentative. No idle chit-chat, either.

When we arrived at the first tee, she instructed, leaving no room for negotiation.

“Take the first shot. I'll check your swing.”

After my respectable tee shot, she said, “Your swing isn't bad. You're too tense.”