Hand of Justice (Mara Brent Legal Thriller Series Book 3)

by Robin James

  “So there’s no way to tell whether all of these people were intended targets, or it started against just one …”

  “We’ll get there,” Sam said. “At least, I hope. At Chris’s house, based on the positioning of the bodies, I really think Jenny Sutter or Ben Watson was shot first. Chris and the daughter, Skylar, walked in on it. It’s the sloppiest of the three crime scenes. The most missed shots. Patty and Mark were far more surgical killings.”

  “The Sutter Seven,” Kenya said. “You’ve heard that’s what the press is calling this already?”

  “Catchy,” Clancy said, rolling his eyes. “We gotta be perfect on this one, everyone. This county has taken far too much heat. Sam, make sure your people coordinate every warrant through Kenya’s office. No matter what happens, we’re gonna have the eyes of the A.G.’s office on us. They’re already calling. Pretty soon these meetings are going to have to include them.”

  “I’m not worried about that,” Sam said. “Right now, the more help the better.”

  “Mara’s running point from my office,” Kenya said. “If it comes to it ... if ... when an arrest is made, this will be her case.”

  My heart swelled at the confidence Kenya bestowed on me. We both knew if this went to trial, it would be the biggest, most high-profile case Waynetown had ever seen. A terrible way to make it on the map, but we were all of one mind.

  “Good,” Sam said, echoing Kenya’s confidence.

  “Do you have any promising leads so far?” I asked.

  “About a dozen,” Sam answered. “More money, more problems is the biggest one. These people were millionaires. I gotta admit that shocked even me. They didn’t live like it. The Sutters are simple. Salt of the earth.”

  “You never know until you know,” Kenya said.

  “Yeah,” Sam agreed. “I’ve got an interview first thing in the morning. Patty Sutter’s daughter is anxious to talk to me. She’s coming up from Nashville where she lives now. Can you clear your schedule and sit in on this one, Mara?”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “That’s a standing order,” Kenya chimed in. “Mara, I need you on this full time. Anything else on your plate we’re off-loading. Hojo, that’s why you’re here. Get with Mara later today and have her get you up to speed on the rest of her caseload.”

  Hojo sat a little straighter in his chair. This was news to him. To me, too. But, for the next few months, it seemed I would live, eat, sleep, and breathe the Sutter murders.

  So would Sam. Realization hit him the same time it did me.

  “That’s all I have for now. Sheriff, do you have a plan for how often you want to meet?”

  “Wednesday mornings until there’s an arrest. More if something breaks. You let me know if anything comes of the daughter. Um, Patty Sutter’s daughter. What’s her name?”

  Sam looked down at his notes. “Devina Francis. She’s not a Sutter. Patty was the second wife of C.J. Sutter. Devina, Dev, she calls herself, is from a previous relationship.”

  Clancy nodded. “More money, more problems,” he said. “Let me guess. Old C.J. left more to the second wife than he did the kids or some such.”

  “We’ll find out,” Sam said.

  “I’ll pull whatever probate records there are on C.J. Sutter,” I said. “When did he die?”

  “Two years ago,” Sam said.

  “Got it,” I said. “I’ll let you know what I find out before the daughter gets here.”

  “Good,” he said. “That way I’ll know if she’s conveniently leaving anything out or being kept in the dark. She’s coming in at ten a.m. Can you be ready by then?”

  “Absolutely,” I said, knowing it was going to be a long night, followed by a long day in a series of many more.

  “Okay,” Clancy said. “That’s enough for now. Everybody go home and get some rest. We all need fresh eyes in the morning.”

  We filed out of the room one by one. The rest of my office staff attempted to look busy. Like the rest of the town, they were on pins and needles waiting for something, anything that could make sense of what happened out on Redmond Road. I’d been at this long enough to know that might never come.

  5

  Caro had C.J. Sutter’s probate court file couriered over to my house. I got home by six and hoped I could keep that schedule over the next few weeks. Will needed it. He needed me.

  My ten-year-old son wasn’t at the kitchen island when I walked in. My sister-in-law Kat waited for me there. I didn’t like her expression.

  “Everything okay?” I asked. I’d gotten no calls from Will’s school. Since Jason moved out for good, I held my breath a lot, waiting for something to come to a head with our son.

  “He has ... questions,” Kat said. “I told him you’d answer what you could when you got home.”

  She had her tablet in front of her. Kat turned the screen toward me. She pulled up a story about the Sutter murders from Monday’s press conference.

  “I found these in his room,” she said. Kat had a stack of paper. Printouts from news stories about the Sutter case.

  “Damn,” I said. I’d been down this road with Will before. If we weren’t careful, Will would let certain events consume his thoughts to the point of obsession. Some were distant enough to be mostly harmless. His go-to was the Titanic disaster and the J.F.K. assassination. Two years ago, though, he’d pulled his own hair out enough to make a bald spot on one side when he started reading about an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

  I took the papers and walked up to Will’s room. He sat cross-legged on the floor with a newly printed stack of papers. More news stories about the Sutters.

  “Hey, guy,” I said. “Whatcha got there?”

  “They were home,” he said. “Don’t you find it strange that they were all home?”

  “Will,” I said. I sat down slowly, keeping some distance between us. I wanted to put my arms around him and pull him to me but knew that would be too much stimulation right now.

  “Why wouldn’t they have an alarm system?” he said. “Everyone will ask that. Only if it was someone they knew, it wouldn’t have mattered. Did they have a doorbell camera on any of the houses? Have the police checked that?”

  “Will,” I said. “I know this is awful. Awful things do happen sometimes.”

  He finally made eye contact. “Do you think Mrs. Sutter saw them kill her daughter?”

  “Oh, Will,” I said. I reached for the papers in his hands. He jerked away, keeping them in a vice-like grip.

  “Honey,” I said. “You’re safe. You’re here with me right now. Nobody is going to hurt you.”

  “They can tell a lot from the trajectory of the bullets,” he said. “They’ll know where the perpetrators were standing. It had to be more than one. Have ballistics come back? Do they know if it was all from the same weapon? It was probably a nine millimeter, like a Luger? I mean, if it was all from one weapon, the killer would have had to reload.”

  “Will,” I said sharply. “Look at me. Right at my eyes.”

  He clenched his jaw and cocked his head.

  “Will,” I said, trying to keep my tone more even. “Right here. You and me. Where are you right now?”

  Slowly, he brought his eyes up to mine.

  “I’m in my room,” he said.

  “What’s under you?” I asked.

  “The carpet. I think maybe I want wood floors. Not actual wood. They make synthetic that’s easier to clean.”

  “Okay,” I said. “We can talk about that. What does your carpet feel like? Is it hard or soft?”

  “It’s soft,” he said. “We picked out shag. But I was only five. Dad said it would be softer in between my toes.”

  “He was right.” I smiled. Will’s shoulders dropped a little.

  “What’s the moon doing tonight?” I asked.

  “It’s a quarter moon,” he said. “Two more days of that.”

  “That’s your favorite anyway,” I said. “You like it better than a full moon.”


  “It’s easier to look at,” he said. “And I can see more stars.”

  “Right,” I said.

  I reached out and took the papers from Will’s hand. This time, he relaxed his grip and let me.

  Breathe in. Breathe out.

  “Where are you right now, buddy?” I asked.

  “I’m here,” he said. It was a game we began playing when he was very little. If I could bring Will out of his own head and into the room, he could find his breath again. His center. It didn’t always work. I said a silent thank you that tonight, it had.

  “Aunt Kat made meatloaf,” he said.

  “Did you eat yet?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “I wanted to eat with you. We thought you might be late.”

  “No,” I said. “Not late.”

  Then, my son reached out and held my hand. I tried not to so much as breathe too hard. Slowly, deliberately, we got up and walked out into the hallway together.

  No. I was not late tonight. No matter what happened with the Sutter case, I knew I could not afford to be late coming home to Will, maybe ever again.

  6

  “You okay with being in the observation room?” Sam asked me.

  “Of course,” I answered. I was about to say something else when a door opened down the hallway.

  “That’s gotta be her,” Sam whispered.

  “She” was in her mid-twenties. Pretty, with short brown hair and wide eyes filled with tears. She held her companion’s hand in a death grip. He was tall, lumbering, actually. Heavy-set with a boyish face, he was gentle with her, whispering something in her ear as he pulled her close.

  “Ms. Francis?” Sam said, stepping away from me. He gave me a quick gesture. I slipped inside of the nearest doorway. The observation room. I took a chair near the large one-way mirror, giving me an unobstructed view of the interview room on the other side.

  After a moment or two of muffled voices from the hallway, Sam led Devina Francis and her companion inside. He shut the door, looked my way, then seated the woman and her friend after they both declined any refreshments.

  I took a notepad and pen out of my briefcase. “You mind if I record our conversation?” Sam asked.

  “No,” she said. “Anything you need.” She was more composed now.

  “Okay,” Sam started. “Just for recording purposes then, why don’t you tell me your name again.”

  “Devina Francis,” she said, leaning forward, closer to the small black voice recorder Sam had placed in the center of the table. “But it’s just Dev. And this is Owen Stevic, my boyfriend.”

  Owen stayed silent at her side but kept a steadying arm around Dev’s shoulders. She leaned against him.

  “Dev,” Sam continued. “I’m so sorry for your loss. When we’re through here, if there’s anything you need in town, just let me know. Do you have a place to stay?”

  She nodded. “I still have friends here. Thank you.”

  “Good,” Sam said. “Just because we’re recording, can you tell me how you’re related to the Sutter family?”

  “Patty Sutter is my mom,” she said, her lips trembling. “She married C.J. Sutter, my stepdad, twelve years ago when I was thirteen.”

  “Got it,” Sam said. “I’m just trying to keep the family tree straight.”

  “It’s a big one,” she said. “C.J., my stepdad, was the oldest of three. Um ... Uncle Chris was in the middle, I think.”

  “You’re speaking of Christopher Sutter, one of the other victims?”

  “Yes,” she said. “They lived in the house closest to the road. C.J.’s house ... the one my mom lives … lived … in was to the west, set back a ways. Then the house where Kevin was living was to the east. Grandma George and Uncle Lou still live in the big house on the north side of the property. There’s a woods between them and then the cornfields on the east and west borders.”

  “I understand,” Sam said. He’d pulled out a map of the Sutter farm. Dev marked the homes with Xs as she spoke. “Dev, when you called me, you said you thought you had information about a likely motive for these killings. Can you tell me about that?”

  She shifted in her chair. Sam kept a box of tissues on the table. Owen reached for one and handed it to Dev just before she burst into tears again. I respected his strong, silent presence and felt grateful she had someone to support her in what had to be one of the worst days of her life.

  “My stepdad, C.J., died a little over two years ago. He had lung cancer. Before that, he was helping run the Sutter store with Kevin. Kevin’s dad Tom was another cousin. I think C.J.’s dad, Chet, and Kevin’s grandpa ... er ... Grandpa Lou were brothers.”

  “I’ve noticed all the family members I’ve spoken to refer to Lou Sutter as Grandpa Lou, is that right?” Sam asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “Grandpa Lou and Grandma George. They’re the last of that generation. The original brothers who opened the store back in the forties. All the other brothers were dead long before my mom married into the family.”

  “I see,” Sam said. “So how was your mother’s relationship with C.J.’s family after he passed?”

  “Awful,” she said. “That’s what I need you to know. Like I said, C.J. and Kevin were running the store pretty much. C.J.’s other sister moved away and didn’t have much involvement. I never really knew her. Claudia, I think her name was. We all worked there at one time or another. I think every Sutter kid worked behind the counter at the store as a first job.”

  Sam smiled. “I remember. My dad took me in when I was a kid a few times. I remember C.J. too. Big guy. Big smile. Big laugh.”

  This got a laugh out of Dev. “He was all that. Just a big heart, too. Big talker. He got so thin toward the end of his life. It was a hard way to go. He was sick for a really long time. And that’s the thing. It was my mom by his side through all of that. They had ... it wasn’t always easy between them. They were separated for a while. Right after I graduated from high school my mom left him. C.J. cheated on her a lot. But when he got sick, they worked through it. She was there for him.”

  “And that didn’t sit well with the other family members?” Sam asked.

  “They are very close knit,” she said. “My mom was always the outsider. C.J. has two grown kids from his first marriage, Gary and Toby. They don’t even live in Waynetown anymore. Never wanted anything to do with the store beyond working there when they were kids. They’re a fair bit older than me. In their forties. We were never close. But they hated my mom. I mean, hated her.”

  I had C.J. Sutter’s probate file in front of me. I’d tabbed a few things and made a note to bring them to Sam’s attention.

  “Where was your mom in all this when the store was sold to Verde?” Sam asked, making me smile. It was the exact question I would have asked at that exact moment.

  “C.J. and Kevin were the legal partners when that sale went through. I told you, they were the only ones who wanted anything to do with the day to day. Maybe ten years ago, C.J. and Kevin bought C.J.’s sister and Chris out of the business. I don’t know for how much. But they drew up papers. I remember my mom and C.J. talking about it a lot when it was all happening. He wanted to make sure they got a fair share and all that. He wanted it to be all legal.”

  She started to cry again. The door to the observation room quietly opened. Sheriff Clancy stepped in.

  “How’s it going?” he whispered.

  I turned my notepad toward him and pointed to the items I’d flagged in C.J. Sutter’s probate filings. Clancy’s eyebrows went up, and he shook his head.

  “There was a big fight after C.J. died,” Dev said to Sam. “The money Verde gave them for the store was crazy. It was an offer-they-couldn’t-refuse kind of thing. If you ask me, that money was poison. Everybody was fighting with everybody else. C.J.’s sister and Chris thought they should be cut in, even though they really had nothing to do with that store anymore. Not legally. Not practically. When they sold their interest, they sold their interest. They got a bunch
of lawyers involved at first.”

  “How much was the sale?” Sam asked.

  I had the figures in front of me and pointed to them again for Clancy’s benefit.

  “Two million dollars,” Dev answered. “C.J. was the one who negotiated it. They offered, I think, close to half of that at first. C.J. threw the two-million-dollar figure out, never thinking Verde would bite. But they did. The thing is, these pot businesses have a limit on the amount of money they can put in the bank. They’re loaded with cash. And that property, you know it, of course. It’s right at the exit on I-75. And nothing else was available. So, they gave C.J. and Kevin what they asked for.”

  “So C.J.’s cut was a million dollars,” Sam said.

  “Yes,” she said. “And he was kicking himself, thinking he should have asked for more. But by then, he was getting sicker. That was the other thing besides not being healthy enough to actually run the business. C.J. saw it as a way to make sure my mom was taken care of after he was gone. He knew he was dying. He was kind of keeping it from my mom, or thought he was. But she knew.”

  “C.J. died, what, three months after the sale went through?” Sam asked.

  “That sounds about right. And then things really got ugly after that. C.J. left a hundred thousand bucks to each of his sons, Gary and Toby. He left the rest to my mom. They didn’t take that well. There was a huge, awful fight at C.J.’s funeral.”

  “I never heard anything about that,” Sam said.

  “They had a private one,” Dev said. “Just for family. It got physical. Claudia’s husband actually went after my stepbrother Toby and my cousin Kevin. Kevin’s mom’s boyfriend went after Uncle Chris. Skylar was fighting with Kevin’s sister, Nikki. It was a mess. I thought Grandma George was going to have a heart attack. It broke her heart seeing all the nephews and grandkids ripping each other up like that. Thankfully, Grandpa Lou didn’t really know what was going on.”