Isolated Judgment

by Jonathan Watkins

  Roy had never been an eloquent man, even before the electrocution, but he still had to bite back the urge to say something about irony.

  “How many cops do you have here?”

  None, Roy thought. But we got a few security guards who think they’re cops.

  “Hey, man, I’m asking—”

  “Five,” Roy snapped, and immediately knew his mistake. Five cops couldn’t keep enough shifts covered to justify a physical department on the island. He didn’t know why he’d lied. It was stupid and impulsive. Why lowball the number of cops? It wasn’t going to help him. And if this turned into some sort of a hostage situation, with the hoodie staring out the window at every cop on the island bouncing around on the lawn, then he’d know Roy had lied to him.

  Jesus H. Christ, Roy. You just hit the silent alarm button. You’re the dumb blonde on the bank floor, ain’t you?

  “Well, five is five too many.” The man sneered, and peeked back out the window. “You just stay sitting right there. Right? Once that cop is gone, I’m gone. Until then, you just sit tight like you are, bro.”

  Bro.

  Roy had thought the man looked young, even though the hood over his head and the weird beard had made pinning an age down difficult. But the “bro” clinched it, and Roy was certain he was being held prisoner in his home by a twentysomething.

  He didn’t know why, but the realization reined in some of the fear that was galloping around inside him. He took his eyes off the window and looked the kid over. He stopped thinking of the blade as a knife when he saw the big T-shaped handle.

  That’s a dagger.

  One of the rings on the kid’s hand was a dragon, and the others were large and blocky like the kind Roy had worn for a few weeks in the eighties when he was in his teens and played around with the idea of being a goth. He’d gone right back to his jeans and baseball caps once it was clear that being smart enough to recognize that The Cure didn’t suck was about the only benefit of social exile.

  Roy noticed the kid was wearing leather bracelets. They were thick, thicker than belt leather, and had little metal studs running up the sides.

  Like Conan. He’s wearing Conan-things on his arms.

  That spurred the fear back into its wild-eyed, frothing charge through his already frail nervous system. A guy breezes in through your screen door and points a weird knife at you, it’s bad news. But he might be sane, still. A guy busts in your home and points a dagger at you while he’s wearing Conan bracelets? As far as Roy was concerned, that meant the kid was probably taking his marching orders exclusively from an angry voice in his own head.

  For the first time since sitting down, Roy allowed himself the idea of lunging at the kid and getting the knife away. But even as the prospect threatened to grow real in his mind, he abandoned it. Riding the lightning with a little industrial air conditioner had earned him a very lackadaisical early retirement, but it had also left him frail. He shook with little tremors, the vision in his left eye was half what it used to be and he was weak enough in his limbs that snagging anything more than a medium-sized lake bass meant he had to cut his line and give up the fight before it started.

  Roy looked at the man’s wide shoulders and thick build. The blood-smeared hoodie was oversized and loose, but even so Roy had the distinct impression he was somebody who worked out a lot.

  Don’t start lying to yourself now, Roy. This guy might have a head full of crackers, but he could have kicked you around the room when you were in your prime. Sit right here and let’s just see if he leaves.

  “Wait. Here we go,” the man said, more to himself than to Roy. He was still peering out the corner of the window. “I think he’s taking off. Good. Get walking, dude. Oh. Oh, shit. Come on! Seriously?”

  He threw his hands up in the air and stalked around in a tight circle.

  “Why’d you leave it in the boat?” he whined. “Why the hell did you do that? Why?”

  He rushed back over to the window again, watched anxiously for a few seconds, then seemed to deflate. His shoulders hunched and he leaned back against the wall, bleak resignation filling his eyes.

  “Son of a bitch,” he whispered. “It’s all just gone to shit. Every last little bit.”

  Roy cleared his throat. He took a long breath in through his nose and focused on the words.

  “What...what’s wrong?”

  The man didn’t answer. He was staring at the ceiling and just looming there a few feet from Roy. He seemed lost in the process of tallying up all the things that had, apparently, gone to shit.

  “You...” Roy said. “D-d-do you wah-ant...money?”

  That got his attention, and he stared at Roy in surprise.

  “Well...no, man,” he admitted. “I ain’t here to rob you.”

  “You won’t ki-ki—”

  “I ain’t going to hurt you. I told you that already. Okay, we have to do this fast, because I’m out of here, dude. You got any rope around this place?”

  Roy felt himself staring, but couldn’t think of anything to say. His hands trembled on the table in front of him and he was poised in that panicky, time-stopped moment when the animal part of the brain makes the decision to fight or flee. Very clearly, he saw himself in the muddy bottom of the lake, bound in the twine from his garage. His eyes were big white pools with no pupils, and the lake bass were doing triumphant little circles around him.

  The man in the hoodie barked with laughter and shook his head.

  “Holy shit,” he gasped. “No, man! To tie you up. I can’t leave you able to call that cop. What’s wrong with you? What’d you think? I was going to like ritual murder you or some shit?”

  Roy swallowed with a dry click and managed a nervous grin.

  “Suh-suh-sorry.”

  “It’s cool. I’d be freaking out if I was you, too. So, where’s some rope? We’ll get you tied up, then you and me are done.”

  Twenty-seven minutes later, the bloody lunatic with the barbarian bracelets was gone and Roy was tied hand and foot on his living room couch.

  Roy listened to him start the engine of Roy’s Ford Escort wagon. He heard the tires crunch over the gravel of his driveway, and then he was alone. On the television across the room, a young Al Pacino was brandishing an assault rifle and herding a group of bank employees into the vault.

  You’re shitting me.

  The guy in the hoodie had turned the television on for Roy as an afterthought, right before disappearing out the front door. He’d given Roy one of those little upthrusting chin gestures, like he was saying, It’s cool. No need to thank me. Bros look out for each other.

  Roy watched Al Pacino’s character make increasingly bad decisions with the police negotiator. In the end, when Al’s accomplice got shot to death on an airport tarmac, Roy admitted to himself that, really, the day he got electrocuted was still the worst day of his life.

  Chapter Four

  Issabella was exhausted. She stifled a deep howler of a yawn with her fist and offered Judge Prosner what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

  “He’ll be just a minute.”

  The two of them were seated at a large antique dining table that to Issabella’s untrained eye looked like it must have come from someplace like Bavaria or...she didn’t know...some little European hamlet where there was a kindly old woodworker with a thick white mustache who made heavy, ornate and beautiful tables. The walls of the room were hung with oil paintings of nature scenes and bounding stags. They looked to be as old as the table.

  The Judge was huddled under a thick blanket in his wheelchair. Stooped and wizened as he was, his one good eye was bright and alert since waking from his late morning nap. It swiveled around in its socket to peer at her.

  “I should have anticipated he would complicate matters,” he said. “Darren Fletcher’s on my islan
d less than half a day and already Ludolf has been rendered useless to me. He had important work to do, Ms. Bright. I needed him sober. And if not sober, at the very least I needed him awake.”

  “I really am sorry. I’m sure he’ll be right with us.”

  Fifteen silent and uncomfortable minutes plodded by before Darren appeared in a doorway behind her. Moving quickly, he set a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and hash browns in front of Issabella. He leaned down long enough to touch his lips to the top of her head, set an identical plate down in front of the Judge and was gone through the door again. Two more such trips brought orange juice, condiments, a plate covered with wedges of cantaloupe and a pot of coffee. Darren sat across the table from Issabella with his own plate of food, tucked a cloth napkin into his collar and began to eat with real enthusiasm.

  She watched him for a second, a whiskered and bleary-eyed man in a wrinkled suit, scarfing down breakfast food and draining half a cup of coffee in one swallow. She didn’t know why, but the sight of him just then was endearing to her. He seemed content.

  He saw her staring at him, and Darren offered her a wink.

  “Eggs get cold fast, kid.”

  She smiled and ate.

  Judge Prosner made no move to touch his plate of food. His good eye stared unblinkingly at Darren, and his thin, lipless mouth bent into a frown of disapproval.

  “Was this a mistake?” he said. “Are you really still the buffoon I voted to disbar three years ago? Chelsea assured me otherwise. She was nothing less than glowing in her recommendation of you, Mr. Fletcher. Was she wrong?”

  Darren didn’t immediately acknowledge the question. He finished his cup of coffee, refilled it and wiped at his mouth with his napkin. Then he turned to the Judge and fixed him with an expression that made Issabella inwardly wince. She’d seen it before—the steady, intent gaze. It was the face Darren put on when he wasn’t interested in playing with someone. When he was feeling playful, Darren had a wide variety of affectations he could pull out as he saw fit. He was most fond of appearing chatty and carefree, or sometimes even bungling and scatterbrained. They were roles he played to get people to lower their guard. If he had played the buffoon in front of Judge Prosner and the disciplinary committee three years ago, it was doubtless because that was the role he’d decided would best serve him. And, by all accounts, it had.

  “It’s a little late in the day for lectures,” Darren said. “I don’t care what you think of me, Judge. I didn’t care what you thought of me back then, to be frank. I’ve always regarded you as the very worst sort of judge. In fact—”

  Issabella took a sip of her orange juice, her eyes shooting back and forth between Darren and the Judge. She had no intention of becoming involved in whatever this was. The retainer was in her pocket, and from what she and Darren had pieced together while standing over the dead body of Daniel Prosner, the Judge was in no position to fire them and seek new counsel.

  “—I was appalled that you were part of the panel reviewing my advertising practices,” Darren kept on. “But it doesn’t matter. You retained us because you want us to find out who killed your nephew. Fair enough. The wrinkle, though, is this: You’re not planning to notify the authorities that he’s dead. That’s why I’m sitting here eating scrambled eggs with you. You’re having Lou bury your nephew on this island without saying a peep to the cops.”

  Judge Prosner bristled and pointed a spidery finger at Darren.

  “That confidentiality agreement is as binding to you as it is to Ms. Bright.”

  Darren waved a dismissive hand in the air.

  “You needed someone who’d look into a murder and not give a damn if you broke all those ethical rules you were so ready to recite to me at the committee hearing. I guess there hasn’t been a need to write one up about harboring a wanted Nazi collaborator. Not that it wouldn’t still ruin your legacy, because it certainly would.”

  “Ludolf was no collaborator.” The Judge sniffed disdainfully, as if the notion were a pest to be swatted at idly. “He was a boy who saved my life. He nursed me for seven days, Mr. Fletcher. And then he led me to safety. His life here is repayment on that debt.”

  Darren shrugged. “Maybe it is that simple. Maybe not. Either way, it’s why Chief Fish or the State cops aren’t traipsing around your island with questions on their lips. You and Ludolf would immediately be suspects. And suspects in a homicide get their lives examined very thoroughly. The old man Chief Fish knows as Lou would be found to actually be Ludolf Bohm—a man hiding from the Israelis. That’s the case, isn’t it? Never mind. You don’t have to say it out loud, Judge. Like I said, I don’t particularly care. So eat your food and let’s just agree on one thing: Judge Hodgens didn’t pick me. You did. Far as I’m concerned, it’s the one decision you’ve managed to get right.”

  Darren shoveled another forkful of hash browns into his mouth, chewed and beamed a satisfied grin at her from across the table. Judge Prosner was frozen in a state of silent, thunderstruck indignation. His good eye remained trained on Darren, and if it had been a gun the whiskered lawyer would have been facedown in his eggs.

  Issabella leaned over and lightly rested her hand on the Judge’s. He blinked, as if snapped out of a trance, and regarded her with confusion.

  “Seriously,” she whispered, “the eggs are ah-may-zing. He won’t tell me what he puts in them. And really, it’s kind of nice not knowing. Like a mystery. Coffee, Your Honor?”

  The Judge deflated, seeming to accept that the impertinence of Darren’s statements didn’t invalidate their accuracy. Or maybe, she guessed as she poured from the pot, he was just very old and very tired, no longer the fearsome fire-and-brimstone legend of the bench.

  There was little in his appearance that suggested he was the same man who was infamous for regarding the Fourth Amendment as a fiction dreamed up by the ACLU, and who had baldly thrown around the word sodomite in the written holding of a landmark marriage equality case. Now he appeared a shadow of that controversial firebrand—a frail old man tucked under blankets and surrounded by dusty emblems of family wealth.

  He sipped the coffee she poured for him and began to take small bites of his eggs.

  Okay, she thought, once the silence in the room had persisted long enough that she was confident no more outbursts were imminent. Time for the heavy stuff.

  “Heavy stuff” was what Issabella had, over time, come to label the ugly questions she often found herself asking her criminal defendant clients. Defense lawyers who didn’t grill their clients even more thoroughly than the cops were defense lawyers who got ambushed and booby-trapped at trial. Clients always lied. Always. You grilled anyway, and hoped to catch as many of the lies as you could before a jury was in the room listening.

  “Your Honor,” she said, “where were you when your nephew was killed?”

  Judge Prosner’s fork was halfway between the plate and his mouth. He set it back down on the plate and nodded once.

  “Good,” he said. “Yes. You need information.”

  “We do.”

  “I was in my room, reading. Of course, I don’t know exactly when Daniel was murdered, but from what Ludolf and I can surmise, it was near dusk. We all three ate here in this room for dinner. Daniel cleared the plates, as he had become the housekeeper since moving in a year ago. I retired to read before bed. Ludolf fetched Sam and gave him a bath in the basement laundry tub. It was only an hour or so later when Ludolf found Daniel. I heard nothing.”

  “Does Daniel have any siblings?”

  “None. And, as near as I can tell, no friends. I am...was his only remaining family. When I finally persuaded him to come and live here, it was my way of honoring his mother’s memory. If not for that, I would not have asked. He refused to grow up.”

  Darren perked up and said, “Lou kept saying that. What exactly does it mean?”

  When
the Judge answered, he addressed Issabella, as if further conversation with Darren was out of the question.

  “He never held a job more than a month or so. He was forever in college. The University of Michigan. Granted, it’s a fine enough institution. But as far as I could glean, he was still a junior there at the age of forty. Mostly, I think, he loitered in coffeehouses and smoked marijuana. He was a layabout.”

  Darren had relaxed since finishing his meal, leaning away from the table and resting his head against the back of the chair. He closed his eyes and said “Who inherits this place when you die?”

  “A charitable foundation. It will become a retreat for Scouts and foster children.”

  “Really? What happens to Lou if you go first?”

  “A trust exists. He will not want,” the Judge snapped and pushed his plate away. “No more. Neither Ludolf nor I had anything to do with this. You should look through Daniel’s room. Whatever is there is yours to examine or take with you.”

  He turned his head and peered at Darren, the animosity plain on his face.

  “I wasn’t wrong,” the Judge insisted, and Darren stirred, opening his eyes. “You treated your profession with disdain then, and I suspect you still do. You deserved to be disbarred, and I do not apologize.”

  “I don’t need an apology, Judge. What—”

  “Let me finish. You have it right about this rotten business. There will be no authorities allowed on this island. Ludolf will bury Daniel, and if it is ever discovered what we’ve done I’m confident Ludolf and myself will be long dead. Find out who murdered my sister’s son and bring their identity to me. Concern yourself with nothing else. Can you do this?”

  Darren seemed to consider it. He was silent a little while, then looked at Issabella.

  “You’re comfortable with this, Izzy?”

  She didn’t have an answer ready. Up until now, she hadn’t directly addressed the ethical questions of the Judge’s unique request.