A Specter of Justice

by Mark de Castrique

  Pendleton’s hard expression faltered as he calculated whether I too could be capable of murder.

  Fingernails dug into my wrist. With feral tenacity, Eileen took matters under her own control as she fought to loosen my grip.

  “No.” I struggled to pull her up.

  She clawed at my wrist, digging her talons deeper until they pinched nerves and tendons. I felt my fingers opening.

  “Tell her to stop,” I shouted at Pendleton.

  “Do it,” she screeched. She violently jerked her body back and forth.

  My fingers yielded. She fell through the mist and landed with a sickening smack on the pavement.

  I turned, leveling the Kimber at Pendleton. He stared at me, his face pale as a ghost’s. Then from somewhere deep inside, a sob of unspeakable sorrow welled up. He twisted as he lunged toward the wall with Hewitt’s body.

  I fired at his upper chest, the only clean shot I had. The bullet caught him in the left shoulder and his arm went limp. Hewitt toppled onto the wall. I fired again, this time at his center mass. The impact of the forty-five caliber slug knocked him back. Hewitt rolled toward the edge.

  I leaped forward, grabbing for Hewitt’s belt. Somehow, sheer will kept Pendleton on his feet. He looked over the wall at the sprawled body of his sister.

  Then he jumped.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Less than a week ago, Helen’s Bridge had been bathed in blue and red flashing lights as Molly’s body dangled from the end of rope. Now the bridge was once again aglow as police vehicles and ambulances surrounded two bodies that lay side by side in the middle of the road.

  I stayed on top of the bridge, clutching Hewitt’s belt until Nakayla pried my fingers loose.

  “It’s all right, Sam,” she whispered. “We’ve got him.”

  “He’s drugged. They were going to hang him.”

  “Let the EMTs take care of him. Come with me.” She grabbed my arm, and then looked more closely. “We’ll have them clean those scratches.”

  Newly took my other arm and together they helped me to my feet.

  “My gun’s here somewhere. You’ll need it for the investigation.”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Newly said. “One thing at a time. Let’s get you checked out and then we can talk.”

  “How did you know to come?” I asked him.

  “Nakayla called.”

  “I found your note,” she said.

  “I love you?”

  “Yes. Written on the back of the copy of the credit card receipt for the rope and two grappling hooks. You’d underlined the number two, and I put two and two together. Where would they use another hook?”

  I stopped and kissed her.

  Newly cleared his throat. “You want me to wait in the car?”

  “No,” Nakayla said. “Get his statement so I can take him home.”

  When we reached the road, Tuck Efird ran up to me.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I gestured up Windswept Drive. “I think you’ll find their car at the top of the hill in one of the condominium lots. Probably a rental. I’m pretty sure Angela drove it up after dropping off Peterson and Hewitt. He dragged Hewitt from the closest switchback to the bridge.”

  “Donaldson’s scratched up all right,” Efird said. “They put him in a Hawaiian shirt like in McPhillips’ picture. And Peterson’s wearing military shoe covers matching our scrap.”

  “Peterson got inside our inner circle where he could get whatever he needed,” I said. “I’m sure he copied the credit card information from his access to the office or Cory’s purse. He could have collected strands of Hewitt’s hair, seen him wear all manner of Hawaiian shirts he could buy and have on standby, and then he knew Cory’s schedule for when it was safe to have the dress and hardware delivered to her address.”

  “He faked us out at the Grove Park,” Efird said. “He parked where the surveillance camera could see the back of the van, but he could exit from the passenger’s side. We’ll never know but I bet Lenore’s car was parked up there. He could take the walkie-talkie and her car to bring Molly’s body to the bridge. He still communicated with everyone, saying he was at the Grove Park, and because no cell towers were involved, his exact location couldn’t be tracked. The bartender at the Sunset Terrace only remembered Peterson was there at some point in the evening.”

  Efird’s theory sounded spot on.

  “And the untraceable walkie-talkies destroyed Hewitt’s alibi,” I said. “We couldn’t confirm his location because, unlike Peterson, there was no surveillance camera on his van at the time Molly was thrown from the bridge.”

  Efird turned to Newly. “If everything’s under control here, I’ll take Al and Ted up to check on those cars.”

  “Go ahead,” Newly said.

  “You should find a key on Angela’s body,” I said.

  Efird stepped a few yards toward the cluster of police cars. Then he abruptly returned and stood toe-to-toe with me. “We’ve had our differences, Sam. And you know why. I still can’t stand Donaldson. But you did a hell of a job.”

  He offered his hand. Blue lights flickered across his exhausted face and I could read the toll the case had taken. He’d loved Molly and been denied confronting her killers.

  I shook his hand. “We worked together, Tuck. We both wanted the truth.”

  I sat in back of Newly’s car with Nakayla beside me and recounted everything that happened since I arrived on the mountain. Newly ran an audio recorder and let me talk uninterrupted.

  When I’d finished, he flipped off the device. “I’ll get this typed and you can sign it tomorrow or sometime over the next few days. Anything unaccounted for?”

  “I’ll have to think about it,” I said. “Once Peterson and Cory became a couple, he had the opportunity to collect the evidence planted on Hewitt’s property, obtain the credit card information, and exploit the fundraiser plans to murder Molly and Lenore. Molly’s death was meant to throw us off, to focus the investigation on the Atwoods. He claimed Molly showed up at Lenore’s at the wrong time Friday morning. Maybe. But the extra rope, hook, and dress undercut that argument. And Molly’s assignment at the remote bridge location made her the easiest target.”

  “Do you know of anything slipping between the cracks?”

  I thought for a moment more about the confrontation on the bridge. “I also think Peterson was lying about his deliberate sabotage of Clyde Atwood’s case. He went scarlet when I testified about my cell phone call with Heather. I’ve never known anyone who could command blood to rush to his face. He could have learned from Cory later that Hewitt had schooled D.A. Carter and then claimed to have known it before the trial.”

  “Why lie?” Newly asked.

  “I think he wanted my respect. Even at the end.” I put my arm around Nakayla. “Something Nakayla noticed before I did. I’d been a chief warrant officer, a tool of the prosecution. He saw everything through that lens. Better for ten innocent people to be convicted than one guilty be freed to wreak havoc in the world. It was important to him that I understood his story. I understand that he and his sister were doomed the moment Kyle Duncan walked into their mother’s house.”

  “No,” Newly said. “The moment Kyle Duncan walked out of an Asheville courtroom.”

  I said nothing.

  Efird rapped on Newly’s window and the detective lowered it.

  “We found the car,” Efird said. “A Chevy Malibu rented in Hendersonville with Tennessee plates. We also found a syringe and ketamine in the glove compartment. That’s how they sedated Donaldson.”

  Ketamine. I knew it was primarily used by veterinarians as an anesthetic. It was also infamous as a date-rape drug. Because ketamine breaks down so quickly into other chemicals, a positive trace is difficult unless the blood test specifically targets it.

  “I notifi
ed the hospital so they can treat Donaldson accordingly,” Efird continued. “We found a suicide note in Peterson’s pocket signed by Donaldson. Peterson must have planned to leave it at the scene.”

  “I doubt if Hewitt will remember much,” I said. “But the drug does make you compliant.”

  “He needs to know he came within inches of rolling off that bridge wall to his death,” Efird said. “Maybe he’ll think twice about who he takes as a client.”

  “Are we done?” Nakayla asked.

  “Yes,” Newly said. “Take him home.”

  I wondered which one, Nakayla’s house or my apartment? Then I realized it didn’t matter as long as she was with me.

  ***

  The hospital kept Hewitt Donaldson overnight and into late the next afternoon for observation. Shirley and Cory never left his bedside. I slept for twelve hours, physically and mentally exhausted from the ordeal. Saturday afternoon I went by the police station to sign my statement. I learned that Hewitt had been abducted shortly after leaving the Kenilworth, the scene of Lenore’s abandoned car. Peterson had forced him into the trunk of his vehicle at gunpoint, and then injected him with the first dose of ketamine. After that, Hewitt had only foggy memories of being in the dark until transferred from one trunk to another. He had no recollection of being dragged to the bridge or how perilously close he’d come to hanging.

  On Monday morning, Nakayla and I drove to his house. He came to the front door, still in his pajamas and with his hair tangled like the beaters of an electric mixer had been run through it.

  He held a screwdriver in his hand. “I was just putting this away. Come in. Would you like some coffee?”

  Nakayla and I both took a cup and then we sat at his kitchen table. He looked at my bandaged wrist.

  “Detective Newland showed me your statement, Sam. You saved my life. Such as it is.”

  “We got to the truth. I just wish it had been sooner for your sake.”

  “Yeah, for my sake,” he repeated without conviction. His eyes filled with tears and he looked away. Nakayla and I sipped our coffee in silence.

  “I’m going to take a little time off,” Hewitt said, still not looking at us.

  “I think that’s good,” Nakayla said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  He snapped his head around. “Maybe I haven’t been through enough!” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bark at you. I need to do a little thinking. Shirley and Cory can keep the office running, and I can work on some appeals that are pending. Keep enough cash coming through to cover their salaries. But it’s time I stepped back and looked at the big picture.”

  I gazed beyond him to the screwdriver lying on the kitchen counter.

  “I think that’s wise,” I said. I nudged Nakayla’s knee under the table. “When you’re ready to talk, we’re here to listen.”

  We left him sitting at the table.

  “Is he all right?” Nakayla asked as we let ourselves out the front door.

  “He will be. He’ll be different. For a while at least.” I took her hand. “I want to check something.”

  I led her to Hewitt’s garage. The Jaguar was backed in close to the door, but not so close that we couldn’t see that there was no license plate. We walked to the roll-out trashcan positioned up against the side of the garage. I lifted the lid.

  Lying atop the trash was Hewitt’s vanity plate. He’d bent it in half. Facing up were the letters GIL-T.

  Acknowledgments

  Although Sam, Nakayla, and their friends and adversaries are fictitious, they are accompanied in this tale by the spectral presence of characters who might have once walked the streets and hills of Asheville but are now enshrined by decades of folklore. Each of the stories presented during the fundraising ghost tour are part of the canon of Asheville’s rich encounters with spirits from the other side. I’ve never met any of these dearly departed, but I apologize to them for any misquotes or misrepresentations I might have made in describing their lives, their deaths, or their current ethereal whereabouts. Please do not contact me for corrections.

  As for the living, thanks to my editor, Barbara Peters, who helps trim away the dead parts of my stories; to JAG officer Jonathan DeMille for insights into the realm of military judicial process; and to Linda, Melissa, Pete, and Lindsay for reading the early manuscript.

  I’m grateful to Rob Rosenwald and the Poisoned Pen Press staff for their guidance, support, and talent that make working with them such a pleasure.

  Finally, I must acknowledge the City of Asheville and its diversity of people for providing such a great setting. Come see them. Bring your dog, have a brew, and maybe you’ll see a ghost or two!

  Mark de Castrique

  March, 2015

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