Justice Denied - A Harper Ross Legal Thriller

by Rachel Sinclair

  It didn’t usually work, however, with the cops. It did work with jury arguments, though – show how illogical it would be for my client to kill somebody and then immediately call the cops. I got more than one person off with that very argument.

  More than one guilty person, I’m ashamed to say.

  “You mentioned earlier that his story didn’t add up. Why do you say that?”

  He shrugged. “It was just a hunch I had. I think that the little bastard was lying. He told me he was out at the supermarket buying fried chicken. That’s just about the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. The deli case closes at 9 at the local Hen House, if it stays open that late.”

  “Did he have fried chicken when he came in the door?”

  “Yeah. He had a little box of chicken, but I looked at it, and it was cold as ice. He bought some chicken, alright, but hours earlier. But he was eating it when we got there.”

  I made a note about that. I wondered why Michael went through the trouble of buying the chicken earlier and then try to tell the cops that he was out buying the chicken during the time the judge was killed. What a ridiculous story to tell, really.

  “What else struck you as odd?”

  “Nothing, really. I interviewed the mother and the daughter, and they both told me that Michael wouldn’t do something like that, but I have my doubts.”

  I sighed. “Tell me the truth. Did you just arrest him because you had nobody else to arrest for this crime? If it was a random intruder, as he told you it was, then it’s going to make your job much, much more difficult. And the media has been all over this case – you’re under a lot of pressure to make an arrest. It’s a federal judge who was bumped off. If you didn’t make an arrest, you would be hounded night and day until you had somebody in custody. So, there Michael Reynolds is, he looks good to you, and you arrest him for the crime. Boom, you’re done. Is that it? I mean, it’s obvious that he never confessed. There’s nothing in the file to suggest that he confessed.”

  I was disappointed. I thought that the police had so much more than this. But, it seemed like I hit the nail on the head – a federal judge was knocked off, and, if Michael’s story was to be believed, the culprit was a random intruder. It was much less work for the police to arrest Michael, so that was who they arrested.

  Nothing more than that, apparently.

  Officer Murphy’s silence spoke volumes. “Listen, Harper, I would like it if you didn’t judge me about this. We get a lot of pressure from the powers that be when things like this go down. Yes, Michael was convenient to arrest.”

  “And you guys aren’t looking at anybody else?”

  “No. We have our man.”

  I stood up. “Well, I guess we’re done here. Thanks for the donut.”

  I left his office feeling out of sorts and angry. I couldn’t believe that the Officer Murphy was so lazy as to just arrest the first person that he could, without doing the necessary work to find out who really did it. There were people with motives – anybody who had a case in front of Judge Sanders really had a motive to kill the judge. Yet the cops never even looked at any of them.

  Why?

  I went to the office. “Pearl, I need to get Christina Sanders in here for a deposition. She acted very peculiarly when I petitioned the court to exhume the body of the judge.”

  “On it,” she said. “What else do you need done?”

  “I need for you to take a closer look at all the cases that Judge Sanders had pending in front of him. And get Anna on the phone. I need for her to do some hacking work.”

  Pearl got busy doing all these things and I went into my office. I had an appointment to see Judge Johnson, who was Judge Sanders’ buddy. I had to find out more about the judge’s habits and to see if he had any suspicion on anybody who might have targeted the judge.

  Pearl came into my office. “I did all these things that you asked me to do. Let me take a closer look at the companies who are going to be in Judge Sanders’ court. I’ll give you a run down and let you know if I see anything suspicious.”

  “Thanks.”

  I stared out the window, looking at the Country Club Plaza below me. My mind was on Michael and Axel and Elmer and, somehow, these three men melded in my mind. Michael raped me, Elmer attacked me and Axel…sweet, lovely Axel. He was completely innocent of any crimes against me, yet I couldn’t bring myself to really love him because of men like Michael and Elmer and all the other men who had attacked me physically and mentally throughout the years.

  I had my first appointment with my therapist that evening. The first one in a long time. I was looking forward to it, yet dreading it all the same. I didn’t quite know what to tell her. I hoped that she could try to straighten me out. All that I knew was that I was confused about so many things in my life.

  I looked at my watch and realized that my appointment with Judge Johnson was coming up. “Pearl,” I said, “I need to go and talk to Judge Johnson. Keep looking over those cases and let me know if anything stands out for you. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “I will, girl. I’ll see you soon.”

  I got to the Federal Courthouse, went in and immediately got on the elevators. I went to the eighth floor, which was where Judge Johnson had his chambers. “Hello,” I said to the receptionist who was sitting behind the desk in the judge’s suite. “I have an appointment with Judge Johnson at four.”

  She nodded. “Harper Ross,” she said, looking at her appointment calendar. “He’s expecting you.”

  “Thanks.”

  I went back to the chambers and found Judge Johnson. He was an African-American man, about 6’5” and very slender. His head was shaved and he dressed impeccably. Even though he was always in his judge’s robe, and nobody really got a chance to see his actual clothing, he always made sure that his suits were pressed and clean, his shoes were buffed and he even had a little handkerchief in his pocket.

  “Hello Ms. Ross,” he said, standing up. “It’s good to see you.”

  “And you,” I said. “You’re looking well.”

  He nodded. “It’s difficult circumstances, but I’ve been holding my own. Holding my own. Please have a seat.”

  “Thank you.” I sat down. The chambers were opulent, much more opulent than the judge’s chambers on the state circuit court level. The ceilings were high, the walls were paneled in walnut and the windows were floor to ceiling. The room was enormous and, on two of the walls were bookshelves that had every legal book and treatise imaginable.

  “Now, what would you like to ask me about Robert?” he asked.

  I didn’t quite know how to approach this subject. I didn’t want to tell him my suspicions about the poison. “I haven’t been able to see Judge Sanders’ chambers,” I said. “So I wasn’t able to ascertain if he had anything in there, as far as drinks might go.”

  “Drinks,” he said carefully, as if he had no idea what I was getting at. “Like a water receptacle, that sort of thing? He did have one of those.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to know about his “water receptacle,” because there was no way the culprit could have poisoned that without risking poisoning everybody who drank from it. “No,” I said. “Did he have a liquor cabinet?”

  He furrowed his brow. “No. No, he didn’t. Some of the other judges do around here, but not Robert. He didn’t drink, as far as I know. At least, he didn’t drink while he was here.” He paused and looked at me for a beat. “Why do you ask?”

  “It’s just a question that I needed to ask. I also wanted to ask you if Judge Sanders has expressed any concern about anybody. Has he had any criminals in front of him who has threatened him? Are there any civil cases that he was concerned about?”

  Judge Johnson shook his head. “We all get criminals who threaten us. That comes with the territory, as you well know. But he hasn’t gotten any death threats. That much I can tell you. If he did, he could ask for security detail. As for civil cases, what are you asking? Are you wondering if maybe a
civil defendant or plaintiff might have been involved in his murder?”

  “It is something that I’m investigating,” I said.

  Judge Johnson chuckled. “You’ve been watching too much television, I’m afraid. I wouldn’t be too concerned about civil defendants putting a hit on any one of us.”

  “You don’t think that they would have motive? There are multi-million dollar lawsuits being filed in this court every day. Companies stand to lose that amount of money. Judge Sanders was known to be very pro-plaintiff and he routinely ruled against the large corporations. I can see a motive right there. It’s a motive that’s as old as time – greed.”

  Judge Johnson made a little temple with his fingers and then his face broke out into a smile. His smile was blinding, charming and disarming. He laughed again a little bit. “I suppose you’re right, Ms. Ross, but how are you going to figure that one out? He’s had hundreds of cases and hundreds more have been filed and have drawn him as a judge. It would be a needle in a haystack, really, to try to figure out which one of those companies might have had motive to kill Robert.” He shook his head. “Good luck with that. The police aren’t investigating this any more, because they’ve got their man.”

  “Yes. About that. What do you know about the relationship between Judge Sanders and Michael Reynolds? Did he talk much about that?”

  Judge Johnson furrowed his brow, like he was lost in thought. “He didn’t get along with him, I don’t think. He complained that Michael wasn’t treating his daughter very well. It seemed that Michael had a taste for the ladies.”

  “Did Christina know about this? That Michael was stepping out on her?”

  “I get the feeling that maybe she didn’t know so much about that. But Robert did. He had him followed. He hired a private investigator to follow Michael around. That was how he found out about Michael’s affairs. He was going to present Christina with this information, but I don’t think that he got the chance to do that.”

  I wrote down what he was saying. This actually sounded bad for Michael, especially if Robert and Michael had words about it. “Did Judge Sanders confront Michael with what he knew?”

  “Yes he did. Three days before he died, he told Michael that he had a dossier of information about him and the affairs he was having, and he was going to go to Christina and tell her everything.”

  “What was in his dossier?”

  “Pictures of him and his mistress out on the town. He wasn’t very discreet about it, either.”

  I cleared my throat. “Do you know who his mistress was?”

  He leaned forward. “Yes. Her name is Ariel Winthrop. She’s an heiress to the Winthrop diamond fortune.”

  Ariel Winthrop? I had seen her picture in the society section from time to time. She was married to another rich guy, a guy who was a trust fund baby. A playboy type who didn’t have to work. I suddenly knew that Michael Reynolds was somebody who got around quite a lot. So far, there were two mistresses that I knew about – Ariel Winthrop and Kayla Stone. I wondered if that was significant.

  I didn’t know. What was significant, as far as I was concerned, was that the judge and Michael had a strained relationship and that the judge was about to turn him in to Christina. The judge was about to reveal all to his daughter about Michael’s messing around.

  Might that be a reason for Michael to kill him?

  I knew the answer to that – people have killed for reasons such as that, and for much, much less. I made a note of that on my pad.

  “What else can you tell me about the relationship Michael had with Judge Sanders?”

  “Well, I do think that Robert never did approve of Michael, even before he realized that Michael was stepping out on Christina. He generally thought that Christina could have done much better than Michael. He personally thought that Michael wasn’t smart enough or kind enough to be with Christina. I know that Michael would berate Christina in front of people, such as in family gatherings. He would say rude things to her right in front of everyone, and, if he was angry, he would yell at her in front of everybody. Robert would never stand for that, of course, so he would berate Michael for yelling at Christina, and there was much tension in that family because of that dynamic.”

  I furiously made notes. “Were you present for any of this?”

  “No,” he said. “I was his best friend, however, so I heard all about these quarrels.”

  I nodded my head. Somehow, none of this actually surprised me. Michael obviously had poor impulse control. Anybody who would serially rape women could not boast about having excellent control over his emotions or impulses. I was slightly surprised, however, that Michael would show his crazy around his father-in-law.

  “What about Christina? Why would she put up with Michael’s bad behavior?”

  He shrugged. “The heart wants what it wants, I guess. I hardly think that Christina Sanders is the only woman who has fallen for a man who is beneath her in station and behavior. I doubt that she’ll be the last, either.”

  I leaned back in my chair. “Would you characterize Michael as being a bad boy?”

  He chuckled. “You mean like a guy who rides motorcycles, has tons of tattoos and drinks 45s while he rides through the streets?”

  I laughed, too. We seemed to have the same stereotype in our heads. “Yes, something like that. Except no motorcycle and, instead of wearing a leather jacket, he wears an Armani suit. He might have tattoos, though.”

  “I know. You’re talking about attitude. Did Michael have the attitude of a bad boy. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Then the answer is yes. And, from what Robert has expressed to me, Christina has a way of picking these types of men. Poor Robert was at his wit’s end about that. His beautiful daughter, educated at Yale, popular in her private school growing up – why she would always go for the loser, he never knew. That was how he termed these boys and men – as losers. Now, Michael isn’t exactly a loser, but his attitude made him one. I guess that some women just like men who will punish them somehow.”

  “How well do you know Christina?”

  “Not very well. I met her at some parties that Robert had in his house. I haven’t really spoken with her one on one, though.” He paused. “Why did you ask me earlier about the drinking thing?”

  I felt like I could confide my suspicions in him. He was going to find out sooner or later anyhow, as the autopsy was going to be performed and I had a good hunch that arsenic poison was going to show up in the judge’s system. “I think that he was being poisoned,” I said. “And I’m trying to figure out the source. I figured that if the judge had a certain bottle of liquor that he didn’t share with people, that would be the perfect vehicle for the poison. Other than that, I don’t know. It would have to have been done in his food and drink at his house. Which actually would lead me right back to Michael.”

  Not that this was a bad thing. I actually was hoping that the poisoning did take place at the judge’s house. That way I could build my case against Michael.

  But maybe not. There was always Christina. She possibly could the one who would poison her father. Why that would be, I didn’t quite know just yet. There was something there, and I was going to have to figure that out.

  The judge seemed to start thinking about my words. He was nodding his head and the expression on his face was that of somebody who was trying to access a distant memory. “You know, he does have a mini fridge in his chambers. Or he did have one. It was in a closet. He was a health nut, and he had this plastic jug in that refrigerator that he drank out of. It was some kind of green drink that he had made and brought into him fresh each week. He ordered it from the mail order and it was delivered to him. Nobody else drank that but him, mainly because nobody else liked that sort of thing. It had kale in it and broccoli and all sorts of green veggies.” He chuckled. “I hope you don’t mind my saying, but that stuff tasted nasty.”

  I laughed out loud and nodded my head. I knew th
e kind of drink he was talking about, and it was nasty. No doubt about it.

  “Was that the only thing that he more or less drank exclusively?”

  Judge Johnson paused, considering the question. “Yes,” he finally said. “That would be the only thing. But he also kept yogurts and cut-up vegetables and things like that in that refrigerator. He was very much a health nut.” He looked sad. “I guess that’s the irony of it all. You do all you can to make sure that you live to be a ripe old age, only to have somebody cut you down. It’s not fair.”

  No, it wasn’t fair. Life wasn’t fair, but being murdered in your prime really wasn’t fair.

  I stood up. “Thank you, Judge Johnson. I know that you have a lot of cases that you need to tend to, so I won’t take up any more of your time.”

  “Thank you for coming to see me,” he said. “I appreciate knowing that you’re being diligent in finding out who might have done this. If the police won’t do this kind of investigation, I’m very happy that somebody else is. You have to bring whoever did this to justice. There’s nothing worse than having justice denied.”

  I nodded my head, thinking that, if Michael somehow walked free from this case, it would be the ultimate case of justice denied. He deserved to be in prison, if not for the murder of Robert Sanders, then for the lives that he destroyed through his serial rapes and serial philandering.

  He was a bad guy, and I secretly hoped that I could be instrumental in hanging him for it.

  Twelve

  After work, I met my sister Albany, because she wanted to go to my therapist with me. I hadn’t seen my therapist in quite a long time, and I knew that seeing her would probably shake me up, so Albany wanted to come with me and wait in the waiting room while I poured my guts out.