Sand Sharks dk-15 Read online

  I saw Jeffreys’s run-in with Stone Hamilton’s dog, I saw Martha’s refusal to shake his hand coupled with Fitz’s amiable clasp, I watched him speak to Allen Stancil, then introduce Cynthia Blankenthorpe to Allen. I saw Reid and his friend Bill’s distaste for Jeffreys and the way Jeffreys snubbed me after I’d shared a drink with those two. I heard Blankenthorpe’s annoyance at being stuck with his bill when she knew he’d just made a cash withdrawal of three hundred dollars at an ATM.

  So where was the connection to the hit-and-run, assuming there was a connection?

  No one admitted seeing Jeffreys after Fitz saw him entering the men’s room alone and—

  “Hey, wait a minute!” cried the pragmatist. “Quick! Hit the pause button.”

  “Those were not Fitz’s exact words,” the preacher agreed, peering at the screen.

  Before I could figure out what had snagged my subconscious attention, a voice said, “Deborah? Deborah Knott?” and I jumped three feet.

  “Sorry,” the man said. “I didn’t mean to spook you.”

  The moon had once again emerged from the clouds, and there was plenty of light to recognize Judge Will Blackstone, who continued to apologize for startling me.

  “That’s okay. I just didn’t hear you come up.”

  “Somebody told me you were here and I’ve spent all day looking you. You’re not avoiding me, are you?” he asked.

  “Of course not. Good to see you,” I murmured inanely, the automatic pleasantry out of my mouth before I could stop it. At the moment, he was the last person it’d be good to see.

  I started to stand, but he sat down heavily, clutching at my arm as he went so that I was unbalanced and almost landed on top of him, which set off another flurry of apologies from both of us.

  “And I wanted to be so cool,” he laughed. He got to his feet and helped me up. “I hoped to see you at the fall conference so I could apologize for what happened last spring. I guess I came on too strong, too fast.”

  “Yeah, well, I think we both misjudged the situation.”

  He laughed at my unintended pun and held out his hand. “No hard feelings?”

  “No hard feelings.”

  We shook on it and Blackstone said, “Good. This conference is weird enough without that. First Pete Jeffreys and now Judge Fitzhume.”

  “That’s right. You’re over there near the Triad. Did you know Jeffreys?”

  “We were at a new-judges school together, but I can’t say we were friends or anything. I thought he was rather lightweight and, not to speak ill of the dead or anything, a little bent.”

  “Yeah, that does seem to be the consensus, doesn’t it?”

  “Fitzhume, on the other hand—you were there, weren’t you? When someone ran him down?”

  I nodded.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  I told him what the surgeon had said and while we talked we ambled back across the wide expanse of sand, winding up at the lifeguard stand and the steps where I’d left my shoes.

  “Well…” I said as I sat down on a step to put them on.

  “You’re not going in, are you?”

  “It’s getting late and our first session’s at eight-thirty, remember?”

  “It’s not that late,” he argued as he sat down beside me. “And just look at that moon.”

  He leaned back on his elbows and turned his face up to the sky. “Do you ever get dizzy when you look up like this and the clouds are moving so fast over the face of the moon?”

  Amused, I followed his example and yes, it was disorienting the way light and shadow came together and broke apart until it seemed as if it were the moon that was racing across the dark star-studded blue and not the clouds. So absorbed by that beauty was I that before I knew what was happening, Will Blackstone had slipped an arm around me and kissed me gently on the cheek.

  “Hey!” I jerked away indignantly and sprang to my feet.

  “I’m sorry,” he said with a boyish grin. “You looked so beautiful with the moon in your eyes and on your hair that I couldn’t resist. Please, can’t we start over again?”

  “No, Will, I’m—”

  “You said no hard feelings, but I still have feelings for you. And whether or not you admit it now, you had feelings for me last spring. You didn’t come home with me just to see my pottery collection.”

  “That was then, this is now. Besides, I’m married.”

  It was as if he didn’t hear me. I stepped back when he stood up, but he put his arms around me. His breath was hot against my face as he tried to kiss me and I caught a whiff of whiskey.

  “Are you crazy?” I cried, trying to pull away. “Let me go! Now!”

  “Don’t be like that, Deborah, honey.” His arms tightened around me. “You know you like me. You were the one came on to me first, remember?”

  His arms were starting to remind me of octopus tentacles. No matter how I struggled, as soon as I got one hand free, another arm seemed to grab me there and hold me fast. Just as I was ready to put a knee in his groin or bite his nose, a large dark shape landed on his back and the three of us went sprawling. Blackwood jumped up with his fists flailing, then I heard an oompf as he took a punch in the stomach and another to his eye.

  He collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath, and Allen Stancil said, “Want me to go ahead and kill ’im for you, darlin’?”

  “No, that’s okay,” I told him.

  Blackstone groaned and fumbled for his cell phone. “I’m calling 911, you asshole. You don’t know it, but you just assaulted a judge.”

  “And what were you doing?” Allen asked ominously. “Didn’t you hear this judge say no?”

  He grabbed the phone and started to throw it in the ocean, then paused and offered it to me. “Less’n you want to call the police yourself, darlin’?”

  Testosterone was so thick in the air I almost choked on it.

  “Could you both just calm down?” I took the phone and handed it back to Blackstone. “I’m sorry if we got our signals crossed last year, Will, but get over it. Chalk it up to experience and let’s both act like professionals and forget that tonight ever happened, okay?”

  “My nose is bleeding,” he muttered sulkily.

  I had no tissues on me and looked at Allen. He hesitated, then pulled a small packet from his pocket and held it out to Blackstone with an odd look on his face.

  “What the hell is that?” Blackstone asked suspiciously.

  “It’s—um—uh—a diaper wipe.” Allen sounded embarrassed. “But it’ll take care of blood, too.”

  “A diaper wipe? ” Blackstone sneered. He clearly wanted to refuse, but a fresh trickle of blood snaked down his lip. He grabbed the packet, tore it open, shook out the moist towelette, and held it to his nose.

  “Look, Will,” I said, but he waved me off before I could continue to make nice.

  “You’re right, Judge Knott.” His voice was icy cold. “This night never happened.” He glared at Allen. “You can thank her that I’m not going to press charges against you.” Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he marched up the steps and back toward the hotel.

  “Bastard,” Allen said cheerfully, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand.

  “Did you really have to hit him that hard?” I asked. “Twice?”

  “He won’t taking no for an answer, was he? Seems like you oughta be thanking me.”

  “Why? I can take care of myself.”

  “Yeah? Didn’t look that way to me.”

  “Where did you fly in from anyhow?”

  “I’m an angel, darlin’. Your guardian angel, didn’t you know that? So how come he thought he could snuggle up to you?”

  “It’s a long story,” I said wearily.

  “Well, less’n you want to go in while he’s still roaming around looking for ice, you got time to tell me one.” He stopped at the foot of the lifeguard stand and started up the ladder. “Just let me get my cigarettes.”

  So that was the smoke I’d smell
ed earlier and it was how he’d landed on Blackstone’s back. I followed him up the ladder. If we were going to kill some time, might as well have a gull’s-eye view of the water.

  With a roof and railings, the structure was more like a deer stand than a single chair on stilts, which was why I hadn’t noticed him sitting up here so still and quiet.

  “Lots of room here on the bench,” Allen said, when I sat down on the floor with my back against a post.

  “I’m fine here, thank you. Why didn’t you say something when I passed below you before?”

  “I sorta thought you wanted to be alone for a while. Figured I’d catch you on your way in and then that SOB showed up right behind you. Hunkered down over there and waited for you to come back.”

  For some reason that freaked me out a little. I was ready to see the encounter as the result of one too many drinks, but to follow me from the hotel and wait to see whether I was alone or meeting someone? Maybe I was luckier than I realized that Allen had been watching.

  He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and leaned back. “So what was that about pottery, darlin’?”

  “Don’t call me—” I caught myself and bit back the rest of my words. It would be ungrateful not to cut him a little slack right now. Instead, I told him about my first run-in with Blackstone, exaggerating enough to have him shaking his head in amusement at the end.

  “I could almost feel sorry for that poor slob.”

  “Don’t waste your tears,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me everything you know about Pete Jeffreys.”

  “You asking as a judge or off the record?”

  “Off the record,” I assured him. A man who carries diaper wipes in his pocket has to be a good daddy and who knew what kind of mother his third ex-wife was.

  (“Or fourth,” whispered the preacher. “If we count you.”)

  Hesitantly at first, and then more confidently, he fleshed out the story of the Jamerson Labs tech that he’d seduced and how she’d told him Jeffreys had tempted her to fake some of the blood tests for his clients.

  “He was real sneaky about it. Never right-out asked her to do it and never paid her a dime himself, but the men she helped sure did. So then when he got to be a judge and I was fighting Katy for my young’uns, I figured he might see things my way if I offered to put new gutters on his house, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew what he meant. “How much did it cost you?”

  He shrugged. “I’d’ve paid a lot more.”

  In the end, he didn’t add a thing of substance to what I’d already heard. The clients Jeffreys had nudged toward Jamerson Labs, the burned child, the murdered college kid, the DWI dismissals, the solicitation for campaign donations in open court?

  Yesterday’s news.

  Without a complaint from the attorneys who’d heard the solicitation or a confession from those he’d taken bribes from, the rest was circumstantial and nothing for which he could be held criminally culpable. But a pattern was emerging and it would have been only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the State Bar, which could and would have censured him and called on the chief justice to remove him from the bench.

  “When he brought Judge Blankenthorpe over to meet you that night, what was that about?”

  “Showing off. Acting like I was a millionaire who give him some big bucks for his campaign and maybe he could talk me into throwing a little her way when she has to run. Like I give a good goddamn for a judge that’s got nothing to do with me.” He cocked his head at me. “So when you running again, darlin’?”

  CHAPTER

  18

  A court is defined to be a place wherein justice is judicially administered.

  —Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780)

  Drifting off to sleep a little later, I drowsily found myself remembering Fitz’s exact words at lunch yesterday. He had talked about almost bumping into Pete Jeffreys at the restroom door. When I asked if anyone else was there, he had said, “Nobody I knew, but—”

  It was at that point that the very sexy and very stupid Jenna had returned with our drinks. By the time she got our orders sorted out, the conversation had moved on.

  “But”?

  How would Fitz have finished that sentence if she hadn’t distracted him?

  “But someone else was there”?

  Someone he didn’t know but who recognized him?

  Someone who realized Fitz hadn’t yet mentioned him and who was afraid that he might if the police questioned everyone again?

  Someone who thought he could get rid of the only person who could link him to Jeffreys’s death?

  I looked at the illuminated dial of the clock radio on the nightstand. It only confirmed what I knew: that it was much too late to call Detective Edwards. I lay back down and closed my eyes.

  Sleep eventually came, but it was filled with restless, uneasy dreams in which the hit-and-run became the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Instead of a red car, Fitz was gored and tossed through the air by a huge red bull to fall broken and trampled on the ground.

  It was a relief to wake up before the alarm went off at seven. Before Dwight was awake, too. I apologized for calling so early.

  “That’s okay,” he said through a half-muffled yawn. “I need to be up.”

  He was sympathetic about Fitz. Even though they’ve never met, he’s heard me mention the Fitzhumes often enough to know how concerned I was. I told him my theory about why Fitz was hit and for once he didn’t suggest that I mind my own business.

  “Did you tell Edwards?” he asked.

  “Not yet. I only remembered it after midnight when I was already in bed.”

  “You’d better call him right away. He might want to put a guard on your friend’s hospital room.”

  “He’s not in a room. He’s in intensive care.”

  “Good. He should be safe there for the time being.”

  “You really think—?”

  “Hell, Deb’rah, I don’t know. But if it was me, I’d rather not chance it. Besides, maybe he said something to his wife. Edwards needs to be told. Now.”

  He said it so forcefully that immediately after we finished talking, I scrolled through my contact list for Gary Edwards’s number.

  It rang four times before a groggy male voice said, “Edwards here.”

  Again I found myself apologizing for calling so early, “But I thought you ought to know,” I said and told him what I’d told Dwight.

  Sleepy as he was, he immediately connected the dots and thanked me for calling. “And yeah, I’ll put a man on ICU.”

  “Any luck in finding the car?” I asked.

  “Not yet. We were able to make out a couple of the numbers and we’re running it through our databases. No matches so far.”

  We hung up and I hesitated over my next call. I didn’t want to chance waking Martha in case she had been able to sleep, but I was too worried about Fitz to let it go. There was a phone book in the drawer of the nightstand and I found a number for the hospital, dialed it, and asked for intensive care.

  The ICU nurse who answered was very pleasant, but very firm that she could not give me any information about Fitz.

  “Even if I tell you I’m his niece?”

  “Are you his niece?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  She clearly didn’t believe me, but she must have heard the worry in my voice because she kindly told me that there was no change in his condition.

  “No change is good, right?” I said. “Means he’s not deteriorating?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. Even if you are his niece, you’ll have to speak to his doctor about that.”

  Click.

  That’s okay, I thought, as I showered and dressed. No change means no change for the worse. I’d take that as a positive sign.

  Downstairs, a breakfast buffet of sweet rolls and fresh fruit had been set up for us in the large lobby outside the main halls. In normal times the place buzzes with cheerful talk, bursts of laughter, and
lots of politicking and logrolling. In normal times sunlight shines through the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the east side of that wide corridor. Today the mood was as glum as the weather.

  The light clouds that raced across the moon last night had stalled and thickened into dark gray. There had been thunder and lightning before dawn, and now the rain had settled in as if it meant to keep falling for forty days and forty nights.

  At 8:30, balancing coffee cups and plates of fruit, we took our seats at the long rows of narrow tables as our president, Joe Buckner from Chapel Hill, called us to order. He gave us the update on Fitz: “He’s in intensive care at New Hanover Regional downtown. His condition’s stable, but serious. No visitors and no flowers, but Martha asks that you keep him in your hearts and in your prayers, which we certainly do.”

  As for Pete Jeffreys, there were no suspects yet in his death, “And again, our hearts and prayers go out to his family.”

  “Does he have any?” I whispered to Chelsea Ann, who was seated beside me at a front table.

  “Ex-wife, but no kids,” she whispered back. “Don’t know about siblings or parents.”

  Buckner recognized the recently retired and recently appointed emergency judges and asked the chief district judges to introduce to us those newly on the bench in their districts.

  Next came Chief Justice Sarah Parker of our supreme court, who spoke to our salary needs and the bills that were currently before the general assembly in Raleigh. I wondered if that young reporter from the local NPR station had interviewed her yet. She also touched on the problems of alcoholism and depression among some judges and attorneys, but commended our court system for its professionalism and overall lack of corruption.

  I hope she’s right and that judges like Pete Jeffreys are a tiny, tiny minority.

  Justice Parker was followed by John Smith, the director of the Administrative Office of the Courts, who spoke about the updated technology being put into place, everything from e-filing to e-citations.

  Finally, the executive director of judicial standards spoke to us on campaign ethics and what we could and couldn’t do.

  When the mid-morning break arrived, I was more than ready for it.