Twist of Fate – A Jack West Novel (Jack West Mystery Book 1)

by Deanna King

  “Yeah, ya think?”

  Jack smiled. “She’d better, or I’ll never call her again for the scoop.”

  “Blackmail, Jack…”—he laughed—“I like it.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Good Lord, Jack, I thought Judge Carlson was going to either pee her panties or break out in song and dance. She hates Wolff.”

  “I guess she knew something wasn’t right even way back then, and maybe she followed his less-than-honest career.”

  “Hey, is Yao’s detail still on the judge’s house?”

  “Yeah, he sent word for them to stick around, you know, in case it gets crazy.”

  The judge’s house was rich—even the bricks and the glass looked expensive—and it was an affluent quiet neighborhood. Affluent neighborhoods were taking a beating, first the Stegwig murders, now this. Guess having money did not mean a thing, could not save your life or keep you out of jail.

  Yao’s detail sat across the street, the four of them all did a silent head nod acknowledgment.

  Jack’s boots and Lucky’s shoes clicked on the concrete drive. Any other noise heard might have been the faint chattering of a squirrel. He hoped to avoid screeching ambulances and the sounds of police sirens, jarring the neighborhood into a frenzy.

  Jack rang the bell, and they waited. No answer, no nothing. He rapped on the door harder, and Lucky hollered out, “Judge Wolff, we need to talk.”

  . . .

  He heard the bell and the knock, then he picked up the finest bourbon money could buy and poured another glassful. He shot the entire glass, it burned, he didn’t care, so he poured another, and then he set the glass on the desk, no longer caring whether a coaster protected the cherry wood desk or not. He had the pictures out and they were scattered all over the top of the desk, and as before, the colors were quite vivid. He closed his eyes, reliving the memory of the fantastic sex and the night that haunted him. What she had allowed him to do, it had all been unbelievable, and that warm feeling behind his zipper began to spread, just as it always did. What a fantastic piece of ass she had been. Damn it, he was getting a hard-on. More than thirty years later and he had never stopped dreaming of her. No other woman ever gave him that much pleasure. God knew he had his share of women—hell, he was still searching for a woman like her. Once you have had that kind of sex, it gets into your veins, you cannot stop, or at least he could not.

  The dungeon—his favorite place—now he would never go again, it was over. He did not give a rat’s ass about the wife, just his kids, and the one grandkid. Last night he had written them all a good-bye letter and mailed them out. Then he sent his non-fucking, sexless wife off to Florida to see her mother. She had been a meal ticket only. He poured his fifth glass of the finest Kentucky bourbon and picked up a picture of the dead hooker with him lying on top of her, and lifted his glass. “Here’s to you, JoAnn, your fine sweet-ass pussy was the best I ever had.” He chugged the drink, and then sat back in his big executive chair and stared at the revolver he had laid out on the desk.

  . . .

  “Jack, try the door.”

  The doorknob turned, it was unlocked.

  “Don’t call out, it’ll spook him,” Jack’s voice was a whisper. “Leave your gun holstered, I don’t want him to feel threatened.”

  Motioning for Lucky to go to the right, Jack went to the left, clearing each room they entered, working their way toward the back. The house was massive. Lucky passed through the formal dining and into a dream kitchen, walked out the second door, and heard Jack’s voice.

  “Judge Wolff, here you are. Detective Luck, we’re back here, in the judge’s office.”

  Lucky followed Jack’s voice down the hallway and to the judge’s home office.

  “Hey, Judge, everyone’s been wondering where you are,” Lucky said, eyeing the revolver on his desk. He shot his eyes at Jack.

  “Judge Wolff,” Jack began, but Wolff cut him off.

  “No, not anymore…” His speech was a bit slurred, and Jack saw the bourbon bottle on his desk and the glass next to it. “Ain’t Judgish anymore,” he slurred his words. “Just plain old Troy Wolfffff…” he ran together a string of f’s.

  While Jack had his attention, Lucky undid the strap on his holster and eased his gun out.

  “Detective Luck, I may be a little drunk, but I ain’t smashed yet and I ain’t blind either.”

  “Yeah, I know, what say I take the gun off your desk? Since you’ve been drinking, we don’t want anybody to get hurt.” Lucky took a small step toward the desk and did not put his gun back in the holster. Jack had him in his peripheral vision.

  “No. It’s my gun, gonna need it here a minute, my life’s over now.” He picked up the half-full glass of bourbon and chugged it back, then picked up the bottle to pour another.

  “Drinking’s not going to give you a very steady hand, Troy, why not hand me the bottle and let Lucky get the gun, we don’t want anything bad to happen.”

  “Lookie, Jack, it already did, but it was a fuckin’ accident, it was. I didn’t know I was pulling so hard, the woman was the best piece of ass I’ve ever had, and she was a lunatic, like me, I didn’t want her dead…I wanted to keep fucking her.”

  “Okay, I get it, it was an accident. But what you’re doing now ain’t necessary.” Jack took a step toward the desk. He hoped he was appealing to the drunken side of Wolff, the not quite rational side.

  “Jack, I ain’t stupid, hell, I’m a judge, and I know the laws, backward and backward. I mean forward. Besides, my torrid life will be splashed in the news, can’t have that. My darkest secret aired out for the public. No, Jack, if I can’t have it all, then I’d rather be dead.”

  Lucky took another step, but Wolff saw him, and his hand covered the revolver on the desk. A drunken judge and a loaded revolver didn’t make for an ideal situation.

  “Troy!” Jack hollered. “You know how it is, you’ll get a fair trial, and maybe we can keep some of this information sealed. But you know we have to do our jobs, haven’t you told us that for years now?”

  Troy’s head whipped around. “Yeah, well, I never thought I’d be one of your zhobs, Zach…I mean, Jack,” he slurred his words.

  Lucky took another calculated step toward the desk, wondering if the judge’s reflexes would be impaired due to the alcohol in his system. It didn’t matter, he was going take the chance. It could be his last chance before Judge Wolff picked up the gun and pulled the trigger.

  Troy Wolff’s reaction was near choreographed, his right hand on top of the desk slid over and his middle finger looped around the trigger guard. He pulled it toward him, and in one swift motion, he had the gun up, aimed at Lucky.

  Lucky put his hands up, his gun in his right hand. “Whoa, give me the gun, Troy, before someone gets hurt.”

  “Back off then.” He sounded sober, although Jack knew he wasn’t.

  Lucky took a quarter-step.

  Wolff had the gun up, his eyes not veering from Lucky’s, and with his left hand, he picked up one of the pictures, but didn’t look at Jack as he spoke.

  “See, here is the proof, but I’m telling you it was a goddamn accident and I have paid all these years for being a fucking patsy. They controlled me, don’t you see that?”

  “Then let’s go with that, that’s your defense, maybe you can beat the rap.”

  “Jack, stop, I know what you have, you think I don’t hear things? The city of Houston will crucify me, and you know what the worst part is, Jack?”

  “No, Troy, you fucking wanna tell me what the worst part is, you wanna tell that hooker what the worst part is? Jesus, Troy, you think it’s all about you, you bastard.” J
ack had let his voice get louder with every word, which had surprised Wolff; he wasn’t used to anyone ever screaming at him, and he jerked his head around to look at Jack.

  Lucky jumped on that single opportunity and lunged toward the desk in a sidestep, his left hand close to Wolff’s right hand, which he had propped on top of the desk holding the gun. For a man who had been drinking, his reactions were swift. Pulling the gun out of Lucky’s reach, he pointed to where Jack was standing.

  Time slowed to a crawl, so slow that everything was in slow motion and it felt surreal.

  Lucky’s left hand hit the top of the desk, Wolff’s body turned to the left, as he took the gun around the front of his body to keep it out of Lucky’s reach. Jack sidestepped to his left, getting out of the line of fire in case the gun went off. Hell, a drunk was holding it.

  This threw Lucky off balance; he began toppling over on top of the desk, knocking over the half-empty bottle of bourbon. His hand slid across the top, sending eight-by-ten photos flying off the desk, and his hand hit Wolff in the right elbow sending the revolver upward toward the ceiling. Lucky’s gun hit the top of the desk as he tried to keep his balance.

  The gunshot put it all back on real time and at regular speed. Jack, who had been moving out of the way and to the left of the desk, reached for his gun. Lucky had hit the floor, but not before half his upper body had crashed into Wolff, dumping him over in his chair.

  “Lucky, you hit?” Jack couldn’t see if he was or not and had no idea who shot what or who.

  “No, and I didn’t get a shot off either, where’s Wolff’s gun?” Stepping back to the right, Jack saw that Wolff wasn’t moving.

  “Check it out, Jack, I’m okay.” Lucky hauled himself off the floor.

  Jack stepped around to the back of the chair that had dumped a drunken Troy Wolff over, who was now laying with the left side of his face smashed to the floor. Squatting, Jack put his fingers on Wolff’s neck, checking for a pulse. He was alive.

  “Troy, can you hear me?”

  A drunken voice sounded out. “Oh crap, I shot myself.” He had pulled the trigger and how he had shot himself in his left knee was anyone’s guess.

  . . .

  Paramedics had Troy strapped on a gurney, and as the gurney wheeled by, he stuck his right hand out and grabbed Jack’s arm. Jack looked at his arm, then at the judge’s face.

  “Jack, I would’ve liked to have been a good and moral man like you.”

  Jack didn’t say a word, as he pulled his arm from the man’s grasp. He looked up at the paramedics. “Get him out of here.”

  . . .

  The Next Day

  The captain had summoned Jack to his office. As usual when he walked in, Captain Yao was on the phone, and he pointed to a chair for him to take a seat.

  “Uh-huh, she will. Sure, Chief, I’ll have Jack sit with her, go over all the details.” He looked at Jack as he spoke again. “He’s in my office now, I’ll tell him. Yeah, we’ll talk later.” Captain Yao hung up the phone.

  “How are you, Jack?”

  “I’m doing okay, a little tired, last few days have been nonstop, but you know that.”

  “You heard me tell the chief that I’m going to have Tessa Coy come over, and you and she will go over the details of the cases. Tell her I want to see her article before it goes to press, no argument or I’ll get the chief and the mayor involved.”

  “Sure, Davis, by the way, Bennie called this morning, the DNA results are in.”

  “Well?”

  “The touch DNA off the scarf and the DNA on the cup from Antone’s are a match. It was him.”

  Davis Yao nodded. “One more piece of concrete evidence, Jack. The man’s going away, even if all those years ago it was an accident, he covered it up, or at least let them cover it up, and he didn’t say a word.”

  “Wolff had some of the most damning evidence himself. The pictures we confiscated at his home. Don’t know where the originals are, I’m sure he was being blackmailed in some manner.”

  “Guess it won’t matter any longer. One thing I don’t want leaked out, shared, or otherwise talked about are those pictures, just keep them under lock and key. Some freaking scandal magazine will splash them all over Houston if they get them, hell, all over Texas. Houston’s gonna be rocked enough by this. Don’t need to add pictures to the story.”

  Jack leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. “Yeah, this did turn Houston on its ear, guess we gave it a crazy spin all right.”

  “Hell, Jack, we’ve survived floods and hurricanes, and eventually this will die out, be a faded memory. But what Homicide did, what you and your team did, well, I gotta say, in all my years it’s never been done before.”

  “What’s that, Davis?”

  “Solve three cold cases and a new murder, all at the same time. At least that’s all we’ll report. We’re going to close the case on the Scottie Buccella murder as solved. Ian Simpson will die in his own personal hell in that old folk’s home. As far as Bullard’s part in the alleged killing of Simpson’s son, we’re leaving that as it is—a one-car accident. Homicide has a new record that no other homicide team has ever accomplished. The chief is busting his damn buttons over this.”

  “Thanks, we were all just doing our jobs, but it does feel good, I’ll have to admit.”

  “You said Wolff said something to you, what was it?”

  “Huh, he said he would have liked to have been a good and moral man like me.”

  “Jack, hell, I’d give my right nut to have twenty men just like you.”

  “Thanks, Davis, coming from you, that means a lot to me.”

  “Jack, take a few days, you and Luck won’t draw a call unless it is necessary. Relax and be ready to come back refreshed.”

  “Sounds like a good idea, Cap, think I’ll do that.”

  . . .

  Peaceful and quiet, it was nice. He sat on the concrete bench adorned with angels and sat the paper bag next to him. Looking at the headstone, he spoke. “Cole, sorry I’ve missed a few days, been covered up with work. You’ve been in my thoughts always, and I know you know that.”

  He leaned back, closed his eyes, and inhaled the fresh air, smelling the freshly cut grass. A few birds chirping were the single sounds he heard. Opening his eyes, he smiled at the headstone.

  “You know, bro, we never had a beer together. I wasn’t old enough to drink before you…well, you know.”

  Reaching into the bag, he pulled out two cans of Miller Highlife; he popped the tab on the first one then he stood up and set it on the small ledge of the headstone, leaning it against the empty flower vase.

  Sitting back on the bench, he took the other beer and popped the top.

  “Remember last time I was here I told you I’d have a surprise for you, well, this is it, our first drink together.”

  Jack lifted the beer up, looked at his big brother’s headstone, smiled, and said, “Here’s to you, big brother. Cheers.”

  The End

  About the Author

  Twist of Fate – A Jack West Novel is the official debut novel for Deanna King, and this is only the beginning of her plans for multiple books for her “Jack West” series. Jack is going to be very busy over the next few years! Deanna lives in Texas with her husband Travis, her biggest fan, and two completely spoiled little dogs.

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