Judicious Murder

by Val Bruech

  If Sam was the old man’s gravy train, Cullerton had every reason to want him to live long and prosper. Except that Sam might have killed his grandson. And if he was smart enough to track Sam as the source of the money orders, was he smart enough to get into the courthouse and ambush him?

  “When did the payments start?”

  “Anthony was killed September fourteen. The first one came in October.”

  “Did you ever confront Sam about any of this?”

  Mr. Cullerton traced invisible designs on the ground with the business end of his cane. “I’ve thought long and hard ’bout what I’d say if we ever met,” he mused. “But he got his sack to carry and I got mine. I loved that boy more’n anything I’ve loved in all my life…”

  He couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. They trickled down the lines of his face, silent as deer slipping through the forest.

  “No,” he answered brokenly. “I let him go his way. Good Lord’s got a way of takin’ care of things, better’n mine.” He wiped his face with his sleeve.

  I wanted to disbelieve Cullerton, to find a flaw in his story.

  “What did you do with the money?” Maybe he spent it all on liquor and the lottery.

  “It’s all in a savings account. I haven’t spent a dime. My will says that when I die, half of it goes to Anthony’s father. He’s settled down now, over in Ohio. The other half will be in a college scholarship fund at Anthony’s high school. Lawyer set it up for me, Miller here in town.”

  “That’s very wise, Mr. Cullerton.”

  He nodded. “I think it’s best.”

  “Why don’t you use some of it for a vacation, or to fix up your place here?”

  His grin was like a jack-o’-lantern, more empty spaces than teeth. “Ain’t no place I want to go that bad, and it’s just me livin’ here. I like the house the way it is.”

  We lapsed into silence again.

  “It must be pretty tough to hear this, Judge Kendall being your friend and all,” Cullerton ventured, turning to face me.

  “How much did Sam send you?”

  He shook his head disapprovingly. “Is money all you lawyers ever think about?”

  I hoped he was being funny. “Mr. Cullerton, I have no desire to pry into your personal finances. Sam left a money trail. I’m trying to follow it, match up numbers, make sense out of things. If I know how much he sent you, I’ll know how much I still have to find. Maybe he sent you all of it.”

  Cullerton shook his head. “I don’t know ’bout no money trail, but I do know money’s not worth killin’ for. Anger…fear…jealousy…” He raised his eyebrows. “I’d be thinkin’ along those lines if I was you.”

  “I agree, but if I can figure out the money trail, I might find one of those motives.”

  “We all done things we ain’t proud of,” he rumbled on as if he hadn’t heard me. “I suspect your judge was tryin’ to buy his way out from feelin’ bad about Anthony. Most of the time, dealin’ with what you done ain’t as easy as writin’ a check.” He gave me a baleful look.

  “Have you told anyone else about the money orders?”

  “Haven’t told nobody. You the only one.”

  “Can we keep it just between us?”

  The throaty rumble escaped again. “Missy, I done kept it secret going on three years now. I kin keep it another thirty.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Cullerton.”

  The old man’s eyes drifted closed and he appeared to doze off. A sudden chilly breeze sent a shiver through me.

  “Are you okay, Mr. Cullerton?” I whispered.

  His eyes opened quickly, like the shutter of a camera. “Yeah, I’m okay.” A smile tried to raise the corners of his mouth. “I feel better now someone else knows.”

  I swallowed, wordless. The old man’s cane slipped to the ground. I handed it to him.

  “May I help you back into the house?”

  He looked up at the blue sky. “It’s nice out here. I think I’ll just set a few more minutes.”

  I dug out a card and handed it to him. “If the kids give you a hard time, call me.”

  He rubbed his thumb across the raised lettering.

  “Sure thing, Ms. Marshfield.”

  “I know this wasn’t easy, Mr. Cullerton. Thank you for telling me about Anthony.”

  His eyebrows raised slowly like a curtain over a stage. “Maybe I should be the one thankin’ you.”

  We sat on the porch as the shadows lengthened and the warmth ebbed. I didn’t want to say goodbye so I touched his hand in farewell and walked to the car. As I rolled past the house I glanced back at Cullerton. He was staring at the clouds, looking for someone he alone could see.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “I will not allow you to interrogate my friends. You are out of control.”

  “Betty, hang on a second. I didn’t ‘interrogate’ Agnes. I never intended to upset her, and I apologized. I had no idea she was still so torn up about Cooper’s death.”

  She spun her Starbucks cup around the table. “You wouldn’t intentionally hurt Agnes,” she admitted. “The problem is, you’re like a horse with the bit in its mouth. You run right over people, and they get hurt. Negligently, as you lawyers say, but hurt nonetheless. You need to remember people have feelings!”

  Somewhere deep inside a lid flew off. “I have feelings too!” I protested. “What do you think I am, some heartless monster?”

  She regarded me over the top of the cup. “No, of course not. But there’s a difference between a healthy emotional life and a temper.”

  On the drive back to Joliet from Cullerton’s, I had tried to reconcile the Sam I knew, brave and honest, with the one who was apparently guilty of vehicular homicide resulting in the death of Cullerton’s grandson Anthony. I went to a little place I knew of on the river and just sat and listened to the water. It was an intellectual exercise, not an emotional one, and I left with nothing resolved.

  “I’m a much better thinker than I am feeler,” I said after a minute. “In court, a big part of my job is swaying jurors’ emotions. Judges’ too. So I have to stay above it all. If I let my feelings show, it has to be for the right reason and with the right effect, you know?” I sought her eyes. “And it’s carried over into real life.”

  Betty squinted into my face like a botanist examining a unique plant life. “You have emotions—you’ve just pummeled them into submission. Let them rampage a bit…well, at least admit their existence and let them out of their box. That’s not too difficult.”

  I clutched my head. “First Kelly, now you. I’m surrounded by pop psychotherapists. Help!”

  “You’re surrounded by people who love you,” she retorted.

  I flung my arms outward. “I feel the love.”

  She looked at me like I was a car that inexplicably stopped running and she was considering kicking the tires. “Well, we don’t love you that much.”

  We lapsed into agreeable silence. I was perfectly happy in my own emotionally-challenged existence. Why would I change?

  “Susan, I’m fine with this topic, but I am curious. What does Cooper’s case have to do with anything?”

  I debated how to answer. Betty deserved honesty, to a point. I told her about the accusation against Malone. She had read the article in the paper.

  “Something about the proximity of Sam’s death and Malone’s suspension is…unsettling. Throw in that one of his cases was Cooper Hart’s DIH and it’s pretty intriguing.”

  “What possible connection could there be between Sam and Malone?”

  “I think Sam kept his own counsel on some things. As an attorney and then a judge, he was privy to information the rest of us have no clue about. If he somehow found out what Malone was doing, I wouldn’t put it past Sam to try to fix it.”

  We looked at each other, thinking the same question: had Sam been killed because he tried to remedy Malone’s injustices?

  “Susan, do you have proof of any of this?”

  “Nada,” I shook
my head dejectedly. “The truth is, it’s all speculation and guesswork on my part. I didn’t really want to tell you. I hope I did the right thing.”

  “You did,” she said reassuringly. “But this is definitely something Tite should know about.”

  “He knows,” I said. “He thinks I have an over-active imagination.” She stirred her coffee. “I’ve been gathering the records. Apparently there’s a lot of money I never knew about.”

  “From the firm?”

  “Yes. Theodore was very cooperative about giving me the documentation. I don’t think he suspects that I never knew.” She bit her lower lip. “Since Sam went on the bench, the firm’s paid him over eighty thousand dollars.”

  I whistled. Sam had been a founding partner of the firm, and the partnership agreement undoubtedly provided that a departing partner, depending on the reasons for the departure, got a piece of every fee generated for a specified period of time.

  “How about before he went on the bench?”

  “He got a regular salary, which matched the deposits into our checking account. Then every quarter the firm would pay a bonus, depending on revenues.”

  There wasn’t a delicate way to ask this question. “How much of all this did you know about?”

  Betty sighed. “I never had a clue about the eighty thousand since he went on the bench or the bonuses before that. I don’t think they made it into the checking account.”

  We cogitated, separate and somber.

  “He opened the Great Midwest account three years ago and he’s deposited roughly two hundred forty thousand dollars.”

  Hmm. When I had added up the deposits into Sam’s checkbook I got the same number. “Do you have copies of the checks?”

  “Yes. He wrote them all to himself.”

  I rotated my neck. The tendons popped like corn in hot oil.

  “What does all this mean?”

  It meant Sam had laundered money through the Great Midwest account and some, if not all of it, was in Digger Cullerton’s savings account.

  “Sam was hiding income so he could use it without your knowledge.”

  Betty drew back as if an habitually docile dog just tried to bite her hand. “Subtlety isn’t your strong suit, Susan.” She crushed her paper coffee cup in both hands. “But you’re right. I guess I had to hear it to make myself believe it.”

  “Betty, you knew him better than anyone. You must have some thoughts on all this.”

  “Thoughts.” Her eyes clouded. “I’ve thought about it till I’m blue in the face. I believe Sam used this money to somehow protect me from something…shield me.” She shook her head. “That’s the saddest part. If he didn’t know after all these years that I’m strong enough to handle whatever it is, I guess maybe he really didn’t know me.”

  I couldn’t tell where the pain in her voice ended and the bitterness began.

  “It’s time to tell the police about this.”

  “No!” I yelped.

  “What?”

  I leaned forward anxiously. “What I mean is, there’s nothing to connect this money with Sam’s death.”

  If this story leaked, the press would have a field day speculating about what Sam did with two hundred and forty thousand dollars. “It might get ugly.”

  She sighed heavily. “That’s what I’m trying to say. I guess you don’t understand either,” she said. “Susan, you’ve known us for what, three, four years?”

  I nodded. “Five, I think.”

  “The law was Sam’s tool for leaving this world a better place than he found it. Fortunately, he made a very good living at the same time, but that was never a priority. Whatever he did with all this money…” She covered the lower half of her face as if protecting herself from the stench of a dead and rotting animal. “He did it for a good reason.”

  I nodded mutely, the image of Anthony Cullerton lying dead on Stanley Street plastered in my head. “Betty, we need to keep this between us for a few more days.”

  “Is that what you’re advising me to do? Keep it quiet?”

  Time for a cell phone to ring, or maybe there’d be an earthquake.

  “Give me a couple days to go through the records from the firm,” I asked.

  She stared at me, or maybe through me.

  “All right. Two days. But you have to let me know what you find.”

  “Of course.”

  “When you find it.”

  Al, now Betty, were singing the same song to me. What had I done to deserve this treatment?

  “Right.”

  If Al found out about the Great Midwest account, he’d think he’d found the motherlode and would use his resources to track every dime. And if Digger and his payments came to light, I could see Ross try to pin the murder on the old man. I trusted Al’s instincts and integrity, but the powers that be might need a scapegoat.

  Betty and I separated, her to run errands, me to return to the office. I needed to find out exactly how much money Sam had sent Digger Cullerton in the anonymous money orders.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Malone’s small bungalow sat in a grid of cookie-cutter homes, remnants of the middle of the last century when men went to work and women found fulfillment ironing shirts and changing diapers. A decades-old Chevy Silverado with a smashed-in rear quarter panel called the driveway home. The lawn was mostly crabgrass, the landscaping was non-existent, no toys littered the front yard.

  I took up a vigil about four doors south of the sergeant’s house on the opposite side of the street. The next hour was a bevy of activity: a white-haired woman walked north, accompanied by two Chihuahuas, and a thermal-clad jogger labored by in the opposite direction.

  By six my bladder was groaning. No Porta-Potti in sight. What do real surveillance people do? I recalled a gas station on the main street a mile back and made a quick trip there. As I hustled back, Malone’s front door blew open and a burly form lurched out of the house and down the sidewalk. I drove past him, then swerved to the curb and peered into the rearview mirror. The fellow was a poster child for an aging cop: surly, grizzled, and rotund. It was either Malone or a former KGB agent in the Witness Protection Program.

  I abandoned the car and followed discreetly on foot. Three blocks later the shapeless hulk turned into a corner tavern. These blue-collar saloons dot the eastside like baseballs in the outfield after batting practice. I’ve found myself in one or another of these establishments on occasion and always left with the feeling that they’d be happy to scrimp by without my business.

  I waited to make sure Malone was settled in, then raced back to the car. I gunned it past his house, swerved around the corner and found the alley. I counted the dark garages till I got to the sixth one and squeezed the Acura in close to his bay door, leaving enough space for another car to pass.

  The sun was long gone. The city had erected vapor lights that cast a surreal yellow glow throughout the alley. A few homeowners had mounted outdoor lights on the top of their garages, but not Malone. He probably had a gun.

  Flashlight in hand, I exited the car. Malone’s house squatted in the late winter gloom. Pretending like I belonged there, I walked to his back gate and reached over to raise the latch. At that moment a white light blinked on at the rear of the house. I turned to cement for an instant, then shrank back into the alley. Perhaps a child was home or maybe the estranged wife was collecting her belongings. Didn’t matter. What was I doing here anyway? If this guy had any smarts, he wouldn’t keep stolen police reports or records of payoffs buried in his backyard.

  Certain now that the house was occupied, I was cured of any thought of unauthorized entry. My law license was safe for another day. But Malone’s garbage receptacle was outside the gate, in the public alley. It was thick, heavy plastic with a hinged lid, and far too tempting. I watched the house for signs of people leaving or glancing out the window, but all was quiet. I flipped the lid of the garbage receptacle open and aimed my light at the interior. Two black plastic trash bags were crammed tightly
inside. I tugged the top one loose, carried it awkwardly to my car and heaved it into the trunk. It was full but not terribly heavy.

  As I scurried back for the second bag, a merry little jangling sound cut through the silence. I peered into the darkness and was appalled to discover a giant canine prancing eagerly in my direction. Hopefully he was attached to a human being. I slid into the narrow space between the car and Malone’s garage and crouched down low, hoping the dog would find scents far more interesting than mine to pursue. The clinking noise abated. I got down on my knees and peered underneath the car. Six feet were visible: four furry ones and two shod in hiking boots. The dog was nosing around the opposite rear tire of my car. I remained as still as a stone in the desert, breathing in just enough oxygen to maintain life. Suddenly, without even glancing my way, the dog lurched across the alley on another search, the hiking boots stumbling to catch up. I waited until the jingle bells were too faint to be heard, then got up cautiously. The alley was deserted. I hoisted the second bag out of the garbage bin, flung it next to the first and slammed the trunk lid. I fumbled with my key ring, unable to find the ignition key. Finally I shook it free, but it wouldn’t fit into the slot. I jammed it, wiggled it, cursed at it, then coaxed it gently and finally it slid in. The car started immediately. It took every ounce of self-control I possessed to refrain from heavy-footing down the alley. Once I was safely on the street I covered the three blocks to the tavern in less than a minute.

  If the number of cars surrounding the tavern was any indication, business was gangbusters. I parked a half block away and brushed myself off, hoping I looked more like a lawyer than a garbage thief.

  A swinging sign proclaimed that I was about to enter The Hospitality Suite. Tiny red and green Christmas lights blinked cheery greetings despite the early spring weather. I pushed through the door and was greeted by low-pitched male rumbling and alcohol-driven guffaws. A loud and enthusiastic darts game occupied one corner. Both pool tables were busy. The remaining customers nestled at the bar. As the patrons became aware of my presence they stared unabashedly. The bartender gave me a cursory glance, decided I wasn’t an immediate threat, and continued pouring drinks. The noise level surged back to a congenial roar.