“I’d like that, but I’m not sure I can get away. I’ll let you know, okay?”
“Sure. You’ve got my cell number. Talk to you later.”
Tam watched Julia hurry off. Yeah, J.D.’s sister was okay. J.D. was right about Julia and Zoe, but the resemblance was not just in looks, with all their dark hair and delicate features, but in other ways as well. She looked forward to getting to know Julia better. Actually, that couldn’t happen too soon. She watched Will and Julia disappear into Judge Lockhart’s chambers, and then she sighed and went back to the interminable waiting.
Chapter 6
Pleased that she’d bumped into Tam Lovelady, Julia had a feeling that in time they were going to be a great homicide team. She had never worked with a female partner, but they seemed to fit together well. She hoped Tam would soon be available. The task force could use her help. Even after this short time, she was feeling more than comfortable teaming up with Brannock, too. Their investigatory techniques were pretty well matched. At least, so far, and a lot more than she had thought they would be when they’d first met. Despite the fact that not much was adding up yet, Will was running a tight ship.
“Jane Cansell’s ready for us. They said we could use the judge’s private office for the interview,” Will said as soon as Julia reached him.
“Okay, let’s just hope this lady’s more forthcoming than his wife was,” Julia answered. “She can’t be any more unlikable.”
Once they reached the portal to Lucien Lockhart’s private inner sanctum, it didn’t take Julia long to locate Jane Cansell. Loud weeping could be heard through the door. Once inside, she and Will found Lockhart’s clerk/ lover/mourner sobbing like crazy in the judge’s high-back chair, her face hidden in her folded arms where they rested on top of his magnificent mahogany desk. Will and Julia looked at each other. This was not the most optimal moment to interview the woman, but sometimes roiling emotions left a person less guarded in their revelations. Maybe Jane would be one of them. First off, they needed to get her to turn off the waterworks and settle down. That was the trick.
When Jane sensed their presence, she lifted her head and stared at them as if they had their weapons out, their laser target indicators focused on her forehead. Puffy, bloodshot eyes—blotchy, pale skin—disheveled, tinted blond hair—nope, she did not look picture-perfect. She looked like she’d been crying all night, or all year. It occurred to Julia that Jane Cansell was the first person they’d met who showed any real sadness for the judge’s grotesque mutilation and violent death. Maybe that was the most telling thing they’d found out yet.
The poor woman was truly distraught, however, and Julia walked around the desk and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Ms. Cansell, if you’re not up to this interview, we can wait awhile. Until you feel better and are up to talking. We understand this is an extremely difficult time for you.”
“No, no, I’m okay. I know why y’all are here. I want to help you. Please sit down.”
Will and Julia took the two comfortable, chocolate-brown upholstered chairs across from the desk. Jane sat up and ran both hands through her short, highlighted brown hair. “I just can’t accept this, I really can’t.”
Jane Cansell was attractive and very petite, probably barely five feet tall, and she looked younger than she really was. Court employment records obtained by Will stated that she was forty-nine, but her tear-ravaged skin was clear and unwrinkled—whether thanks to good genes, face-lifts, or Botox, Julia didn’t know. Jane looked haggard now, the loss of sleep showing on her face. But her emotions seemed genuine. She was grieving for Lucien Lockhart, all right. It seemed the man did have one person in the world who cared about him.
“My name is Julia Cass. I’m a detective with the Chattanooga PD.”
“You’re new, then. I know most of the officers down there.” Jane was dabbing at her tears with a tissue now, smearing her heavy black mascara but trying her best to gain control.
“Yes, I just started. After this case, I’m slated to work with Tam Lovelady.”
“I know her. She’s Chief Mullins’s daughter.”
“That’s right.” Julia nodded and gestured at Will. “This is TBI Special Agent Will Brannock. He’s in charge of this investigation.”
“We already know each other,” Will told her. “I’m sorry for your loss, Janie.”
Janie? Julia wondered if Jane used to be a flight attendant, and therefore right down Will’s landing strip. Somehow she didn’t think so. In fact, she wasn’t at all sure anymore that he was quite the lascivious Lothario she’d first branded him. If he was, no one around him seemed to know it.
Jane said, “Tell me, Will, do you know anything yet? Who could do this awful, awful thing?”
“That’s what we’re here to find out. Do you have anything you can tell us?”
Jane averted her eyes, looking guilty, an obvious sign that if she knew anything, she wasn’t sure she wanted to tell them. “He has enemies, true. All judges do. But to do this kind of thing to him. Oh my God, I can’t believe anyone could be so, my God . . . be so . . . savage.” She looked back at Julia, tears springing up again. “Is it true, Detective? What they’re saying? That the killer cut out . . .” Her voice fading, Jane couldn’t finish her question.
“We’re not at liberty to discuss that aspect of the case right now, Ms. Cansell,” Julia told her. “But we really need you to be honest with us. It’s very important.”
Tugging another tissue out of the blue Puffs Plus box on her lap, Jane tried again to gain control of her grief. “It’s just such a shock to me, all of it. Out of the blue, you understand?”
Will said, “Of course we do, Janie. But I’m afraid I’m going to have to speak plainly to you. Is that okay? You do understand why we have to ask you these questions, right?”
“Yes.” Despite her answer, she looked wary and afraid, as though she wished she were somewhere far, far away from her two interrogators. Tibet, maybe.
“We were told that you’ve been having a long-term sexual affair with the judge. Is that true?”
At Will’s blunt words, shock suffused Jane Cansell’s face, followed by a swift rush of blood-red color. Tears swiftly went on hold. “Will, who told you such a thing?”
“Iris Lockhart.”
“Is it true?” Julia asked again.
Appearing mortified, Jane stared down at her hands. She was engaging now in a lot of wringing of hands and squeezing of fingers and twisting of the four expensive diamond rings she wore. One was a wedding band. “Yes. It’s true.”
“How serious was it?” Julia asked.
“I loved him. I tried to break it off many times, but I just couldn’t do it. I’m so weak when it comes to Lucien. He was like cocaine to me. An addiction I couldn’t break. Oh, my husband’s going to be so hurt if he finds this out.”
“You are aware that he had other women?” Will asked her, but he looked and acted sympathetic, maybe even embarrassed at having to ask these questions.
“Yes, he liked to tell me about them. Making me jealous amused him.”
Not just a jerk, but a cruel jerk, Julia thought, disgusted. There were going to be dozens of suspects in this case, mostly abused and spurned women. Any one of them could have finally had enough, snapped, and gotten even with Lucien Lockhart in a very deadly way. Even gentle, heartbroken little Jane, sitting so distraught before them. Maybe she came off so distraught because she had just cut out her lover’s tongue in a fit of rage and now wished she hadn’t.
“Where were you night before last?” asked Will, seemingly right on cue.
“Oh my Lord, y’all don’t think I had anything to do with this? That I would hurt him, butcher him, like people are saying?”
“It sounds to us like he enjoyed hurting you, saying things to make you angry and unhappy.” Will stared down at her. “Everybody’s got a breaking point. People snap. Even good and decent people.”
“I’d never hurt him. I loved him. And he loved me, in his
own kind of way.”
Julia was thinking it was in his own kind of nasty, selfish, and manipulative way, but she smiled encouragingly. This woman was extremely fragile. Maybe not particularly bright or emotionally stable, but fragile. “Was your affair current?” she asked.
“Yes. Things weren’t like they were at first when we spent every weekend together. It had come to maybe once a month, when he’d ask me to meet him at a hotel and spend a few hours there. Like you said, Iris knew all about me. She didn’t care. All she cares about is the prestige she got for being his wife.”
“What about your working relationship, here at the court?” Will asked.
“It was good. I took care of all his judicial paperwork. He doesn’t trust anybody else in the office. He doesn’t—I mean, didn’t—trust much of anybody.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not the most, well, not the easiest person to work for. He treats people as if they were his own personal property. Just ask around. Nobody likes him here at the criminal court.”
Will leaned forward, searching her face. “Yet you protect him and make excuses for his behavior.”
“No, I don’t. I don’t make excuses. I know what he is . . .” Her tired eyes overflowed. “Was. I couldn’t help it.”
“Are any of these coworkers capable of killing him?”
“Some speak openly about how much they hate him.”
“Who?”
“The bailiff, for one.”
“The name?”
“Charlie Sinclair.”
Julia stiffened when she heard the name. Will noticed and sent her a questioning look. She intentionally relaxed her tensed shoulders but couldn’t stop the rush of anger at Jane Cansell’s implication of her old friend. Charlie Sinclair was the guy who had trained both Cathy Axelrod and Julia to work with service dogs. He was a nice guy, a good friend. If he disliked the judge, the judge deserved it. By all counts, Charlie wasn’t the only one. Julia had heard he had taken a job as a bailiff after he retired from the Tennessee State Police. He had taught both Julia and Cathy everything they knew about dog handling. There was no way he could have been involved in such a horrific crime. No way.
Eager to defend her friend, Julia jumped right in. “What makes you think Charlie Sinclair could be a person of interest?”
“Just his attitude toward the judge. They clashed constantly, but for some reason, the judge seemed to cut Charlie some slack. No matter how outspoken Charlie got.”
“Did Charlie ever make a verbal threat?”
“Not in so many words. He just made it known that he didn’t think the judge handled criminal cases very well. Went so far as to question his integrity. You’d think he was an attorney the way he argued law with the judge.”
If Charlie had training in the law, Julia had certainly never heard anything about it. Charlie was another bright spot in her move to Chattanooga. She loved the guy almost like a father, and he was still actively training and boarding service dogs. Cathy was working part-time for him. If anyone could give her the truth about Lucien Lockhart, it was Charlie Sinclair.
“Was there ever any kind of physical confrontation between the two men?” Will asked, slanting Julia another curious look.
“Oh no. Both of them were too smart for something like that. In fact, I suspect they respected each other in some bizarre alpha male sort of way.”
“What about the judge’s cases? Any of them go down with any notable or particularly violent threats?”
“There was one. A gang member on trial for armed robbery. He yelled curses and said Lucien’d get payback for railroading him. Lucien slapped him with several days in jail for contempt.”
“What gang?”
“I don’t recall. It had the name of a street in it. And a number.”
Will looked more interested. “Battle Street Ten?”
“Yes, sir. That’s it, I believe.”
“What’s this gangbanger’s name? Do you remember?”
“Jesus Remos. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison, no chance of parole.”
“He’s in prison now?”
“As far as I know.”
“Were there any reprisals against Judge Lockhart by the Battle Street gang?”
“I don’t know. There were a bunch of them who came to court for the trial. They all sat in the back together in their black pants and hoodies and their tattoos and black head scarves. We were all a little scared. Not Lucien. He stared them down, not the least bit intimidated.”
“And now he’s dead,” Julia pointed out.
“I had a feeling gangbangers might be involved,” Will said. “We’ll check it out as soon as we get done here.”
“Anything else you want to tell us?” Julia studied Jane’s face. She was in control now, but her eyes were strained and troubled and horribly red.
“I just want you to catch whoever did this to Lucien. He didn’t deserve to die that way.”
Will took over again. “What do you know about Lucien’s relationship with his wife?”
“You mean, was she capable of murdering him?”
“Yeah.”
Jane hesitated, looking from Julia to Will and back again. “I think she’s a mean, ruthless bitch who probably caused him to look for comfort with me and other women. Could she have killed him? I think she could. I think she could take a knife and carve up anybody without batting an eye. Except for those ugly little dogs of hers. She treats them better than the people in her life.”
So there you go, Julia thought, honesty at its most caustic. “What about the housekeeper? The girl named Maria Bota? How does Iris treat her?”
“Like crap. Lucien was always having to protect that poor child from Iris’s cruelty.”
“Is Maria also Lucien’s lover?” Julia asked.
“I don’t know. I doubt it. She wasn’t his type.”
Julia thought that nearly anyone and everyone appeared to be Lucien Lockhart’s type, with a few extra points for large breasts and extra-mini miniskirts. “What about your coworkers here at the court?”
“He didn’t socialize with many people. The other judges liked to have lawyers in their chambers, to talk and joke around and gossip with. Lucien never did that. Believe it or not, Charlie was the one that he spent the most time with. You know, at lunch or during jury deliberations. I think he just liked to jab at him. But Charlie gave him back everything he could handle. Charlie is a highly intelligent man.”
That was true. Charlie was nobody’s fool. He would be able to tell them the truth about what was going on here at the criminal courts. Other than him, Julia wasn’t sure she could believe anything anybody had told her so far.
Charlie Sinclair sat waiting in the back row of Judge Lockhart’s empty criminal courtroom. He had seen Julia Cass go into Lucien’s chambers. He also knew Jane Cansell was in there, blubbering and moaning for that bastard while she waited to talk to the police. He’d been eager for Julia to show up all day. Once he’d heard the news that Lucien had been murdered, it had just been a matter of time. He was anxious to see Julia again. She had always been one of his favorite students; a good girl, a good cop, and a good dog handler. She had gotten Jasper from him when the bloodhound was a puppy around eight weeks old. That old dog was now the best working canine that Charlie had ever seen. Julia had trained him well.
Under Julia’s tutelage, Jasper had become one of the most decorated police dogs in the country. Julia was a born canine handler, better even than he and Cathy were. Having her working his dogs was going to be great for his business, and for her. If he could get her to sign on with him. True, she had never been quite the same since Bobby Crismon died. Blamed herself for his death, but that was Julia. She had been getting cozy with the guy, just starting to think about dating him, when he was shot to death right in front of her. She had barely survived the incident herself. That had been nearly three years ago. But sometimes he could still see the shadow of that night haunting her eyes. He knew how she felt. S
onia had been gone for over a decade now, but he still thought about her, still reached across the bed when he awoke during the night to pull her close, only to grasp cold and empty sheets.
It was strange that the three of them, he and Julia and Cathy, had all ended up together in Chattanooga. Cathy had left Nashville when she’d met and married Lonnie Axelrod. And now Julia had come to town, too. He knew it was mainly because of J.D. Cass. Her brother was well-known and well thought of in the Chattanooga law enforcement and legal communities. Charlie knew him a little bit, and he had seen the similarities between him and his sister right off the bat.
Ten minutes later, Julia appeared in the doorway leading into the courtroom from Lucien Lockhart’s inner offices. He waved, and she headed in his direction. She looked as good as ever, trim and fit and pretty as a picture. All that long hair was caught back in a tight bun, which was the way she usually wore it when working. She reached him, gave him a tight hug and kiss on the cheek, and over her shoulder he saw Will Brannock’s face dissolve into surprise, quickly followed by a frown. Charlie knew Will, too—another crack TBI special agent, but a man who kept to himself and didn’t have a lot to say. Unlike J.D., who was always friendly and ready to sit down and shoot the bull with Charlie.
“Man, it’s good to see you again,” Julia was saying to him. “How have you been?”
“I’m good. A little shocked about the judge. Nobody can believe it actually happened.”
“Yeah, it happened, all right. I got assigned to the case within an hour of leaving the airport.”
“No joke? Lucky you, right? You got Jasper here yet?”
“Oh yes. He’s at J.D.’s house at the moment, but I’m going to live out at Cathy’s place where Jasper can run free and enjoy the fresh air.”
“I heard about that. In that apartment she’s got over the boat dock, isn’t it?”
“Yes. She said it’s stayed empty since her husband’s mother passed away a few years ago. She insisted I move in, and I didn’t want to crowd J.D. and Zoe, so I took her up on it.”
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