Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller)

by Joel Goldman

“Was Jared prosecuted?”

  He tightened his grip on the hoop in the table, his knuckles whitening. “How could they when he was the only witness and they believed the story he told?”

  “What story was that?”

  Woodrell’s face twisted, his voice rising, his cheeks shuddering. “He said they were off the base and were kidnapped by the Taliban, that they made him watch while they raped Ali and then blew her brains out. And would have killed him too if they hadn’t been scared off by incoming fire from an Apache helicopter. By the time more troops got there, it was just Jared and my dead baby girl.”

  “Was there an autopsy?”

  He shook his head, puckering as if to spit, thinking better of it. “They put her in a box and sent her home. All we knew then was that she was killed in combat. I had to fight the army to get the rest of the story. By then it was too late to prove Jared raped her because we had her cremated.”

  “What makes you think Jared lied about what happened?”

  “His story never made any sense to me. What were they doing off base when they were supposedly kidnapped? When the helicopter showed up, why didn’t the Taliban put a bullet in Jared? And what about Ali’s e-mails? And why did the army stonewall me every time I asked questions? I’ll tell you why! They’re covering up for one of their own. That’s why!”

  Woodrell banged his cuffed fists on the table, hanging his head and crying. Alex reached across the table, covering his hands with hers. They stayed like that for a moment, until he gently shook her hands away, straightening and sniffling as tears rolled down his cheeks.

  Alex looked at Kalena. “Do you have a tissue?”

  Kalena was riveted on Woodrell, Alex’s question bringing her back. “Oh, yeah. Sorry,” she said, digging a tissue from her purse and handing it to Alex.

  Alex stood and leaned toward Woodrell, who sat stone still as she patted his face, muttering when she finished.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You had a terrible loss and that’s nothing to apologize for. Where do you live, Mathew?” she asked, moving their conversation back to the present.

  He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders. “Columbus, Ohio.”

  “When did you get to Kansas City?”

  “A few days ago.”

  “Why did you come here?”

  “The army wouldn’t do anything about Ali. I talked to the police at home and they said there was nothing they could do. No one would do anything and Jared was going to get away with murder, which meant it was up to me to do something. I owed that much to my daughter. I’ve been looking for Jared for the last two years. Even hired a private detective until I ran out of money. After he took my last dollar, he told me to set up a Google Alert for Jared’s name, so I did that, and when I saw the newspaper article saying that he’d been arrested, I got in my car.”

  “To do what?”

  He shrugged. “At first all I wanted to do was talk to him, to somehow make him tell me the truth and admit what he did to Ali. But when I got here, I realized that wouldn’t be enough. I had to make sure he paid. That’s why I went to see the judge handling his case. I wanted to tell him about Ali so he’d be sure Jared didn’t get off on some technicality. But the way Judge West yelled at you and me when he found us waiting for him in his office, I knew he wouldn’t listen. The man was as bad as the army.”

  Alex flinched when he mentioned finding her in Judge West’s chambers, stealing a glance at Kalena to see if she picked up on it, uncertain what to make of her blank expression. She sat back in her chair, wrapping it up with as much nonchalance as she could muster, one beat shy of saying “yada, yada, yada.”

  “So you robbed the liquor store in order to get arrested so you could deal with Jared on your own?”

  Woodrell nodded, his chin down, his gaze fixed on the table.

  Alex paused, her palms on the table. There was nothing more to be learned. His only proof that Jared had raped and murdered his daughter was a father’s pain. All she wanted was to get out of there without drawing more attention to herself and Judge West.

  “Mathew, I’m very sorry for your loss. I hope you’ll reconsider your decision not to seek counsel. A lawyer may be able to make a good argument about extenuating circumstances that the court could consider at sentencing.”

  He looked up at her, his face once again gray and waxy. “I’ve already been sentenced.”

  “I’m sure you feel that way. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose—”

  “No. You don’t understand. I have end-stage cancer. The doctors give me no more than a few months. I don’t think any lawyer could get me a better deal than that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ALEX, ROSSI, AND KALENA stood on the sidewalk outside the entrance to the jail. The storm had passed, leaving the air damp and chilled, the sky shot through with orange licks painted by the setting sun.

  “Well, that was a first for me,” Kalena said.

  “Which part?” Rossi asked. “All he wanted was justice for his daughter’s killer. He’s not the first father to want that.”

  “You know that’s not what I mean. The army investigated and said there was no case. Woodrell may not like it, but that’s the end of it. A lot of victims’ families get angry when they think the system blew it, but he’s the first I’ve seen that committed a crime so he could get put in jail and take his revenge.”

  “What’s he supposed to do?” Rossi asked.

  “Live with it,” Kalena said. “The system isn’t perfect, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “What about you, Counselor?” he said to Alex. “Bad guy gets off. What would you do?”

  Alex saw the glint of a smile in the corners of Rossi’s mouth and was determined not to let him provoke her the way he had when she ran into him at the Zoo. She pretended she was in court, where the first rule was to never let them see you sweat.

  “Like Kalena said, every lawyer knows the system isn’t perfect.”

  “Forget you’re a lawyer. Suppose the bad guy kills someone and gets off, and suppose you’re afraid now he’s gonna come after you or someone you love. Would you take a page out of Woodrell’s book?”

  Alex turned the question around. “Let’s try it this way. Remember that you’re a cop and the person you thought was guilty was acquitted. Would you respect the verdict or would you keep going after that person?”

  They stared at each other, neither giving ground.

  “Am I missing something here?” Kalena said. “I was talking about Woodrell. What are you guys talking about?”

  Alex looked at Rossi, letting him answer, daring him to tell an assistant prosecuting attorney that he was harassing her.

  Rossi shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “Yeah,” Alex said. “Just kicking around hypotheticals.”

  “Then try this one,” Kalena said. “Jared Bell is convicted—and that’s not the hypothetical part—and I put Woodrell on the stand at sentencing to tell his story. Even if your client wasn’t charged or convicted, Judge West can consider evidence that he raped and murdered Woodrell’s daughter when he imposes sentence.”

  “Hypothetically, he could, but it’s not likely. Not when the only evidence is the unsupported allegations of a father so distraught that he robbed a liquor store so he could try to kill my client.”

  “Maybe, but you and your client should consider the possibility. And, by the way, what did Judge West say to Woodrell that made him go off?”

  Kalena made her question sound more chatty than inquisitive, and Alex matched her tone, not mistaking her purpose, knowing that they hadn’t suddenly become gossiping girlfriends.

  “What can I say? Wild Bill was being Wild Bill.”

  “In his chambers?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hope you weren’t woodshedding the judge on one of my cases,” she said, an eyebrow raised in mock concern.

  “Are you kidding? Trying to have an ex parte chat with Wild Bill about a pen
ding case is like asking to get my ass kicked. I just wanted to tell him that my office may have to ask for some extensions because of Robin Norris’s death. Things are pretty crazy at the moment.”

  Kalena nodded. “And Woodrell just barged into West’s chambers? That must have been something to see.”

  “You saw him. He was a man on a mission. Besides, he had no way of knowing what a jerk Wild Bill can be.”

  “Was that before or after you ran into him on the courthouse steps?”

  Kalena wasn’t fooling Alex with her soft cross-examination, the kind of questioning that seems innocuous until the other shoe drops, and Alex wasn’t going to stick around for that. She glanced at her watch, shrugging like the answer was an insignificant detail.

  “Before. Hey, it’s almost seven o’clock and I’ve got to get home.”

  “Don’t you want to make sure your client is okay? I’ll take you back upstairs to make sure you won’t have a problem getting in to see him.”

  Alex gave her a tight-lipped smile. “Thanks, but you said he was all right, so that can wait until Monday, and if I don’t get home soon, Bonnie is going to kill me. We’re supposed to go see Robin’s kids tonight,” she said, hustling to her car before Kalena could take another shot at her.

  Rossi waited until Alex drove off.

  “What was that all about? She came in demanding to see her client and leaves without checking on him because you said he was okay?”

  “I could ask you the same thing about your little two-step with her.”

  Rossi gave her his flat cop street stare. “Don’t.”

  Kalena leaned her head back a fraction. “Okay,” she said, drawing it out. “What’s your first reaction, Detective, when someone forgets to mention an important part of a story?”

  “That they didn’t forget.”

  “Alex said she met Woodrell at the courthouse on Wednesday, but she didn’t say anything about meeting him in Judge West’s chambers. Why do you suppose she left that out?”

  “Because she didn’t want us to know she was having an ex parte conversation with the judge? So what? I thought you lawyers did that all the time.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Then what’s your point?”

  “Something strange happened in a case I’ve got with Alex. She showed up today at the initial appearance and she already had a copy of the investigative report and the complaint.”

  Rossi shrugged. “Why’s that so strange? Isn’t she entitled to that?”

  “Sure, but our office never provides it until the initial appearance, not before. It’s just weird. I asked her how she got the file and she said Meg Adler gave it to her.”

  “Who’s Meg Adler?”

  “She’s filling in for Robin Norris.”

  “Huh. Then why wasn’t Meg Adler talking to Judge West about getting more time instead of Alex?”

  “Fair question. According to Alex, Meg Adler found the file on Robin’s desk. There was a Post-it note with Alex’s name on it so she assumed Robin wanted to assign the case to Alex.”

  “Let me guess,” Rossi said. “It was the Jared Bell file?”

  Kalena stared at him, openmouthed. “How’d you know?”

  “It’s my case.”

  “I know that, but how did you know it was also Alex’s case?”

  Rossi filled her in on Robin’s last-second call to Alex, Wheeler’s reconstruction of the accident, and his visit at the scene with Alex.

  “If Robin was going to call anyone,” Rossi said, “she would have called 911, but she called Alex instead. My working theory is that Robin knew the identity of her killer and called to warn Alex that the killer would come after her.”

  “Did you tell Alex that?”

  “No. I walked her through the accident scene and let her put it together. She came to the same conclusion I did.”

  “What was her reaction?”

  Rossi stroked his chin. “Shock, disbelief—at first.”

  “Then what?”

  “I asked her what was going on between her and Robin that would make someone want to kill both of them. She says there was nothing going on, says their relationship was strictly professional and that Robin left her alone unless she fucked something up.”

  “So either she’s lying about their relationship or it’s one of their cases. Which do you think it is?”

  “Maybe both, but when I asked her what the last case was that Robin assigned to her, she almost messed herself.”

  Kalena nodded. “Jared Bell.”

  “Jared Bell. And now you tell me that someone sent the file to Robin ahead of schedule. Not a big thing by itself.”

  “But a lot of cases are about a bunch of little things that spin out of control.”

  “So how did Jared’s file end up on Robin Norris’s desk?”

  “I don’t know. My boss hung everyone in our office by the fingernails to find the leak, but no one knows how it happened.”

  Rossi thought for a moment. “Would Judge West have had access to the file?”

  “Of course. But why would he send it to Robin Norris?”

  “Who knows? But that could be another one of those little things, and since there are no rules against me having an ex parte conversation with the judge, I think I’ll ask him.”

  Kalena grinned. “He’s starting a trial on Monday. He’ll love it when you show up in his chambers.”

  “Why not? Who wouldn’t be glad to see me?”

  **

  Alex had no doubt that Kalena and Rossi would talk to Judge West about Mathew Woodrell and use that pretext to get the judge’s version of his conversation with her. She picked up her cell phone as soon as she rounded the corner heading away from the jail, intending to call him so they could get their stories straight, dropping her phone in her lap when she realized making that call would leave an electronic trail leading back to her.

  Heading south on Main Street, she pulled into the parking lot of a convenience store and bought a prepaid cell phone, worrying that she was becoming like one of her drug-dealer clients, glad to have learned a few of their lessons. Keeping her face down to avoid security cameras, she handed money to the cashier, pocketing the change and the phone.

  Back in her car, she drove further south. Months ago, Judge West had given her his unlisted phone number, telling her that it rang only in his home office and instructing her to use it only in emergencies. She clicked on the burner phone and tapped in the number. A woman answered on the fourth ring.

  “Who is this?”

  Caught off guard because no one other than the judge had ever answered her calls, Alex hit the brakes and was almost rear-ended by the driver behind her, who hit her instead with a blast of his horn and a raised middle finger. Waving her apologies, she drove on. The woman was agitated, her voice sharp and demanding. Though Alex had never spoken with the judge’s wife, she had no trouble imagining that this was how Millie West would sound.

  “Mrs. West?”

  “Yes. This is a private number. Now, who is this? If you’re selling something I’m hanging up.”

  “It’s Alex Stone. I’m calling for Judge West.”

  Millie didn’t respond, her silence making Alex wonder whether the call had been dropped.

  “Mrs. West? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, but my husband isn’t.”

  “Can you give me his cell phone number?”

  “If he wanted you to have it, you already would,” she said and hung up.

  Alex smacked her palm against the steering wheel, her attempt at clandestine communication an utter failure. She’d squandered the anonymity of her burner phone. Its number was now included in the call records of the judge’s phone, and his wife could identify her as its owner. She was reminded again how easy it was to make the stupid mistakes that landed her clients in prison.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  BONNIE WAS WAITING FOR ALEX when she got home, dressed, pressed, and ready to go in a pair of dark-wash skinny je
ans, a coral open-front blazer over a white silk blouse buttoned at the neck, the tail hanging over her jeans, and three-inch heels showing off her legs, as if they needed any help. Hands on her hips, she took one look at Alex and shook her head.

  “I’m not going anywhere with you looking like that. Where have you been? Never mind,” Bonnie said, raising a palm. “I don’t want to know. Take a shower and put on something clean. We’ll pay our respects to Robin’s family and then we’ll get something to eat. I’m famished, so get moving. Chop, chop,” she added, clapping her hands.

  Alex grinned, enjoying Bonnie’s dismay at her appearance. It was one of their rituals, Bonnie pretending to be annoyed, Alex pretending to be sorry, both of them keeping their tongues firmly in their cheeks.

  “On my way. I’ll be ready sooner if you lotion my back when I get out of the shower.”

  “Oh, no. If I do, the only thing we’ll be having for dinner is each other. Now, get moving, sister.”

  Standing in the shower, hot water pulsating on the back of her neck, she thought about the little game they’d played when she walked in the house. Their relationship was made of such moments. They were familiar and easy, like muscle memory, only for lovers. But this one was so out of sync with the day she’d had that she didn’t know what to make of it or Bonnie or them. She was absent the day they taught how to integrate murder and death threats into a quiet home life.

  She and Bonnie had always shared whatever was going on at work, dancing around client and patient confidentiality like most couples who swore their mates to secrecy, picking one up when things went wrong, patting the other on the back for a job well done. Intimacy wasn’t just about sex or just about their private life. It was about intertwining everything, blurring the line between where one of them ended and the other began.

  Alex worried that her life was becoming compartmentalized, Bonnie in one box, Dwayne Reed and Judge West in another, their box getting crowded with the additions of Hank Rossi, Jared Bell, Mathew Woodrell, Robin Norris, and her killer. She had tried convincing herself that Judge West was building this wall between her and Bonnie, but she knew that she was the one laying the bricks, each made of the secrets she was keeping from the woman she loved.