"What's this about?" Willie asked.
"We needed to ask him some routine questions about the attack on Justice Moss," Keith answered.
"Well, I can't just give out that information, even if you are with the FBI. You need to talk to the Clerk's office or someone on our police force."
"You're right," Maggie said. "By the way, were you in the building when Justice Moss was attacked?"
"I already talked about this to one of our police officers. They'll have a report."
"I'm sure they do. But while we're here . . ."
"I was working out in the gym."
"Do you know where Mr. Peterson was?"
"No."
"Did anyone see you while you were working out?"
"Do you mean, do I have an alibi witness? No. And I've already told all this to the police."
"We appreciate that, Ms. Horst," Maggie said. "We'll follow your suggestion and get Mr. Peterson's address from the Clerk. And we'd appreciate it if you didn't call him to say we're on our way."
An hour after securing a search warrant, Keith Evans and Maggie Sparks parked outside Kyle Peterson's apartment building and waited for backup. The attorney lived in a new condominium complex a few miles over the state line in Bethesda, Maryland. A Starbucks, a sushi restaurant, and other establishments catering to young professionals stood on either side of the entrance. When the backup arrived, Sparks went inside and flashed her ID at the security guard. After getting a master key, Evans, Sparks, and four more armed agents rode the elevator to the eighth floor.
"Mr. Peterson," Evans called out after pressing the doorbell twice. When there was still no response, Evans nodded at Sparks, who inserted the key and eased open the door.
Guns drawn, the agents stepped cautiously into a spacious living room with sliding glass doors that opened onto a narrow balcony and found themselves surrounded by chaos. Bookshelves had been overturned, their contents strewn across the floor. A glass coffee table had been turned on its side, and a lamp, its bulb still glowing, lay on a faux Persian rug. In the kitchen, cabinet doors had been flung open, and cookware and shards of glass covered the floor.
"This does not look good," Evans muttered.
"You think?" Sparks whispered back.
The agents spread out and edged toward a narrow hall. At the end was a closed door. Evans took a deep breath and pushed it inward. The bedroom was a wreck. Closets and drawers were open and clothes littered the room.
"Fuck," Evans said as he holstered his gun. The curse had been elicited by the nude body sprawled across the black silk sheets on Kyle Peterson's bed. Duct tape sealed his mouth, and Peterson's hands had been cuffed behind him, causing his back to arch. The law clerk's body was disfigured by burn marks and razor cuts.
"Keith!"
Evans turned and saw an agent pointing at something in Peterson's closet. He and Sparks walked over and looked down at a stack of racist propaganda: newsletters from white-supremacist groups mixed with neo-Nazi literature and anti-Semitic tracts.
"Pardon the pun," Evans said, "but it looks like our boy was a closet racist."
"What's that?" Maggie asked as she pointed toward a black mound stuffed into a corner of the closet.
Keith prodded it with his toe, and a black turtleneck flopped over, exposing a black ski mask and black slacks.
"It looks like Lezak did see Peterson stuff a ski mask into his attache," Maggie said. "Do you think his buddies decided they couldn't trust him when he muffed the hit on Moss?"
"That's one theory," Evans answered.
"What's another?" Sparks asked.
"I don't really have one, but Brad seems to. It's useless to press him. I know he'll tell us what he knows when he's ready. Right now, let's ask Justice Price about his law clerk."
"Ridiculous!" Millard Price said. "Kyle wasn't a racist."
"There's a lot of evidence to the contrary in his apartment."
"Then someone planted it. Do some police work. Check into his history. I've known him for years, and I've never seen him do anything or heard him utter a word that would make me believe he is--was--a bigot."
Price shook his head. He appeared to be genuinely shaken by the news that his clerk had been murdered.
"We will follow up, Justice Price, but we have a witness who saw Mr. Peterson stuffing a ski mask into his attache case right after Justice Moss was attacked, and we found the ski mask and clothing that matches the clothes the assailant wore in Mr. Peterson's apartment."
"I just can't believe it."
"It would explain how the killer disappeared," Maggie Sparks said. "All Peterson had to do was strip off his clothes in an area that wasn't covered by a surveillance camera, return to his office, and leave the Court as he would normally."
"Have you reviewed the tapes to see if that's what happened?" Price asked.
"We have someone on it right now."
"I'm betting you won't find any incriminating evidence on the tapes. This is a setup."
"So you never saw anything that would lead you to believe that Kyle Peterson would do something like this?" Maggie asked.
"That's what I've been telling you."
"I understand your reaction," Keith said. "When you work with someone every day, and you think you know him, and something like this happens, it can be very disconcerting. We get the same reaction from the neighbors of serial killers."
"It's inconceivable to me that Kyle was a racist, let alone a killer," Price insisted.
"I hope there's another explanation," Keith said. "We certainly won't stop investigating. Thank you for taking the time to talk to us."
"Of course."
"If you do think of something, please call," Maggie said as she handed the judge her card.
As soon as the door closed behind the agents, Price closed his eyes and leaned his head against the back of his chair. Dennis was behind this. He was sure of it. That poor young man. Kyle was a decent, hardworking sort. He didn't deserve this.
Price leaned forward and put his head in his hands. Was Kyle murdered by the person who tried to kill Felicia Moss? Price was overwhelmed with guilt because he was responsible for getting Masterson's assassin a job at the Court. Dennis had told him he needed someone to keep an eye on the case. He'd never said anything about the law clerk being a trained killer. If he'd only refused, Price thought. There probably weren't enough votes to grant cert in Woodruff. And what if the case did get a hearing? Was it worth killing people to keep the China Sea operation hidden?
Price ran a hand down the side of his face. He didn't know what to do. Maybe the killing was over. Maybe this insanity would stop if the FBI decided that Kyle was the person who tried to kill Felicia. If Audrey Stewart became a member of the Court, the Woodruff case would die, and everything would be OK. That was a hope he had to hang onto.
Chapter Fifty-three
When her phone rang, Daphne Haggard was getting ready to leave the police station to join Brett for dinner at Inverness's only Thai restaurant before attending a student production of Frost/Nixon. She checked her watch and debated whether to take the call. Her sense of duty trumped her hunger pangs.
"Is this Detective Daphne Haggard?"
"Speaking."
"I'm Jim Haynes, an orthopedic surgeon in Madison. I understand you're looking for the name of one of my patients."
"Does this concern an orthopedic appliance made by Orthosure?"
"Yes."
"Thank you for calling," Daphne said excitedly. "I am very interested in identifying your patient."
"What's this all about?" the surgeon asked.
Daphne told him how the appliance was discovered.
"God, that's terrible," Haynes said.
"It is, and I'm hoping you can give me the information we need to identify the victim."
"I can definitely do that."
Dr. Haynes gave Daphne a name and said that the patient would be twenty-eight now. They talked a few minutes more before Daphne thanked the doctor and end
ed the conversation. It was too late to do anything tonight, but Daphne finally had a name.
Chapter Fifty-four
Even though Kyle Peterson was dead, Brad was relieved to find a police officer sitting outside Justice Moss's chambers. If Kyle was part of a white-supremacist group, there was nothing to prevent them from making another attempt on his boss's life. But Brad was not convinced that Kyle was a racist. He could have been set up by the real killer, or he could have been the assassin, but his motive for trying to take out Justice Moss might have been tied to the Woodruff case.
"How was Texas?" Brad asked.
"I always get a kick out of talking to law students before the real world has corrupted them."
Brad laughed. "I never knew you were such a cynic."
"Life's knocked me back and forth between cynicism and optimism. I prefer the latter. Then I hear about Kyle Peterson, and I want to give up on people altogether. Do you think he was the person who tried to kill us?"
Brad hesitated.
"You have some doubts?" Moss asked.
"I think it's possible. Kyle was tall and lanky. His build is vaguely similar to the man I fought with. And they did find the clothes in his closet. What do you think?"
"I thought the man who attacked me was thinner than Peterson. I even entertained the thought that the killer might have been a woman."
Brad frowned. "I never thought of that."
Justice Moss shook her head. "I was looking at that gun. Then I was trying to pick it up. I only concentrated on the person who attacked me when I was trying to get off a shot, but he was up the ramp by then, some distance away. I just don't know."
"I guess we'll have to wait until the investigation is complete."
"I heard Peterson died very violently," Justice Moss said.
"That's what Keith--Agent Evans--told me. It sounded pretty gruesome."
"Does the FBI have any idea who killed him?"
"Their working hypothesis is that Kyle had a falling-out with the other people in the assassination plot."
"If Kyle was part of a white-supremacist group, it looks like I was wrong to suspect Millard of being involved with the attack. But what if Peterson isn't the assassin? What if the clothing was planted in his apartment by the real killer?"
"Harriet saw him putting the ski mask in his attache."
"I forgot about that." Justice Moss sighed. "Before Peterson was killed, I was certain of Millard's involvement in the attempt on my life. It made sense. What goes on in conference is secret. Not even you clerks know. That means that one of the justices had to have told the people who wanted me dead that I was responsible for deferring the vote on Woodruff. But my theory means nothing if the attempt on my life was for reasons having nothing to do with that case."
"That's true, but finding those racist tracts was pretty convenient. It offers a clear-cut explanation for an attack on an African American and closes the door on any further investigation into a link between the attack and Woodruff v. Oregon."
"You think Peterson was set up to derail our investigation?" Moss asked.
"He could still be the person who attacked you, but he might not be some kind of Aryan Nation, White Brotherhood assassin."
"Why the doubts?"
"We've discovered a link between Justice Price and the China Sea."
Brad told his boss about Dana's investigation in Oregon and the discovery of the TA Enterprises file in the subbasement. Then he showed Justice Moss the pictures Ginny had taken with her cell phone.
"It looks like Justice Price was upset about the possibility of Woodruff being granted cert because he's afraid that his part in the drug-smuggling operation will become public knowledge," Brad said.
"After seeing the pictures of the TA Enterprises file, I'm almost positive that Justice Price was involved with the China Sea in some capacity," Moss said.
"Proving his involvement or anything else that happened that night may be impossible, Judge. The ship is gone, along with the dead men and whatever was in the hold. Oswald and Swanson are dead, and God knows where the night watchman is or if he's alive. They're the only people who could give eyewitness testimony about the murders, and Oswald is the only person who had an opinion about the hashish. There's still Oswald's report about the hashish and the dead men, but that's also worthless as evidence without Oswald.
"And as far as the file in the subbasement is concerned, I'd be shocked if Dennis Masterson hasn't taken care of it. Our photos prove that Justice Price created the TA Enterprises shell corporation but there's nothing in the pictures that proves why he did it or ties the file to the China Sea.
"Finally, John Finley is dead, and his statements to Sarah Woodruff are hearsay. And, not to put too fine a point on it, a person facing execution is not the best witness if you are trying to prove someone else committed the crime."
"This is very disturbing," Felicia Moss said when he was done.
"Dana has gone as far with this as she can, and I think it's too dangerous for me to continue working on the matter. Dennis Masterson knows Ginny was poking around in the TA Enterprises file. The day she took the pictures, a man tried to kill her."
"Oh, my God," Moss said.
Brad told Justice Moss about the incident at the law firm. She looked grim as she listened.
"I should never have involved you," Moss said when Brad was done. "I don't know what I was thinking, especially when I thought Millard might have been behind the attack."
"It's time to confide in Keith Evans, Judge," Brad said. "We can trust him to be discreet. We're not detectives. Let Keith do his job. Dana's right. It's time for the amateurs to step down and let the professionals take over."
"I agree. You have no idea how grateful I am for your help, Brad, but in light of what you've told me, I definitely want you to cease any involvement in the matter."
"I will after I do one more thing. I don't think you should have any contact with the FBI. When we started this, you told me how much trouble you could get in if anyone found out that you were going outside the record to investigate a case that was in front of the Court. Let me brief Keith. I'll tell him that everything was my idea."
"How will you explain knowing about my motion to defer voting on the Woodruff cert petition and Millard's actions in the conference?"
Brad's brow furrowed. Then he brightened. "Wilhelmina Horst and Kyle Peterson both talked to me about the way Justice Price acted when he came back from the conference. I'll just say that Kyle told me. No one will be able to find out what he really did."
"All right, but as soon as you've briefed Agent Evans, you will shed your secret identity as an ace detective and revert to being a mild-mannered law clerk. That's an order. And until this is over, I'm giving you and Ms. Striker police protection."
Brad didn't make a single complaint about the order, and he was grateful that Ginny was going to be protected. He was anxious to back away from their investigation of international drug dealing and intrigue and go back to his peaceful humdrum existence.
Chapter Fifty-five
All during dinner and the play, Daphne's brain was swamped with ideas for discovering the identity of the person who had dismembered her victim. The body parts had been found in the forest surrounding the campus. That didn't mean that the victim had to be a student at Inverness, but she was young, so Daphne decided that the college registrar's office was not a bad place to start.
As soon as she got to work the next morning, Daphne placed the call and asked if the victim had been a student at the school. After some hemming and hawing about the confidentiality of student records and a few transfers to people further up the food chain, she learned that no one by that name had been a student at Inverness University. Daphne was disappointed until she remembered that the law school had a separate registrar's office. She slapped her palm against her forehead. "Of course, dummy," she murmured. "A twenty-eight-year-old would be in graduate school."
Rather than put up with the obstruction she k
new she'd encounter from the registrar, Daphne decided to pay a visit to the dean of the law school. Daphne had met Tom Ostgard on a number of occasions since moving to Inverness, and her Ivy League degree had given her the credibility she'd needed to convince him to let her co-teach a course in the law school's clinical program.
There had been heavy flurries that morning, and the stillness that accompanies the fall of fresh snow still cloaked Inverness. The children were in school and a lot of the townsfolk had chosen to stay indoors. The college students paid no attention to the cold and wandered across campus with red noses and cherry-colored cheeks.
The Robert M. La Follette School of Law was housed in a redbrick building that stood on the eastern edge of the campus, away from the undergraduate schools. It had been named for "Fighting Bob" La Follette, who was Wisconsin's twentieth governor and had served the state in the House of Representatives and Senate in the early part of the twentieth century. The dean's office was on the third floor, and Daphne climbed the stairs for the exercise, dodging students too engrossed in legal arguments to pay attention to where they were going.
Tom Ostgard, a nationally respected scholar in the area of property law, was a reed-thin man in his early sixties. He had a fringe of gray hair surrounding his shiny dome and wore wire-rimmed glasses that magnified his brown eyes.
"You're not here to arrest me, are you?" joked Ostgard, who was fascinated by Daphne's connection to a world of mayhem and disorder that he had never encountered.
Daphne smiled. "Have you been up to something I should know about?"
"Sadly, no. My life is still that of the dull academic. Seriously, though, what's up? You're going to teach next semester, aren't you?"
"I wouldn't miss it for the world. The students are great, and I love being back in academia."
"Then what can I do for you?"
"You know about the body parts we found in the woods?"
Ostgard sobered.
"We've made an identification, and I need to know if the victim was a law student. When I tried to get information out of the registrar's office at the college, it took me forever, so I thought I'd go to the top and see if you can cut through the red tape."
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