Chilling Effect (An Aroostine Higgins Novel Book 2)

by Melissa F. Miller

  “Sid, I have a trial tomorrow. I don’t like her.”

  “It’s not a trial. It’s a judgment circle.”

  “How did you already know that? Did she call you?”

  “Fat chance of that. Judge Orr doesn’t have much use for Main Justice or the Ninth Circuit, for that matter. As a matter of fact, I’m not sure she even feels particularly friendly toward the Supremes.”

  “So how’d you know about the judgment circle?”

  “The Office of Tribal Affairs has had a few run-ins with the good judge over her judgment circles; she’s infamous around there.”

  Great.

  “Well, I’m sort of in a spot here. You agreed to loan me out to the Chinook, and apparently they want to do it this way. Any pointers?”

  “Nope.”

  She’d say this much for Sid. He was an inveterate know-it-all when he knew something—to the point of being insufferable—but when he didn’t know, he admitted it up front and moved on with his life.

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  He was not, however, funny.

  “Good-bye, Sid.”

  “Good luck. You’re gonna need it.”

  She blew her hair out of her eyes and examined her phone’s display. The battery was low. Considering her makeshift workspace lacked a telephone, she couldn’t risk having the battery run all the way down and die. She dug around in her bag in search of the charger. She tossed the car keys and her wallet onto the table. The paper that the man at the diner had stuck under the windshield wiper was peeking out of the wallet. She found the charger and plugged it into the wall outlet.

  But instead of charging the phone, she pulled the scrap of paper from her wallet and dialed the number. She didn’t know how she was going to convince the man to tell her what he knew about the drones, but she had to. The phone rang for what seemed like minutes.

  Finally, he answered.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s Aroostine Higgins. Please don’t hang up.”

  He didn’t speak, but he didn’t hang up—she could hear him breathing.

  “Please, I know you’re afraid to talk to me. And I can’t make any promises, but I will do everything I can to protect you if you talk to me.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, Lee Buckmount is under house arrest for Isaac’s murder. The police are watching his every move. And the judge has scheduled the trial for tomorrow. It seems as if Buckmount’s going to plead guilty to the murder. All I need to do is connect him to the theft of the drones and the embezzlement.”

  “Well, if that’s what you need, I can’t help you anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Isaac wasn’t ever able to tie Buckmount to the drones. And he was the smartest guy I ever met. So, I don’t think it can be done.”

  He was talking. She may not have liked what he was saying, but he was talking.

  She grabbed a pen. “Let’s back up. What’s your name?”

  “No. I’ll talk to you off the record. I’m not testifying or giving a statement or anything like that.”

  She chewed on the pen. Ordinarily, she’d tell a source who wanted to remain anonymous to take a hike. The Department of Justice couldn’t risk relying on information if they couldn’t probe the source’s credibility. She reminded herself she wasn’t operating as an assistant US attorney at the moment—she was a lawyer bringing a case to the Tribal Court, which apparently had no rules.

  “That’s fine,” she agreed. “Can you tell me how you knew Isaac Palmer?”

  “Sure. We took accounting classes together at the community college in Redmond.”

  “You’re an accountant, too?”

  “Nah, I’m a bookkeeper. After we got our associate degrees, Isaac went on, got his CPA and everything. He loved numbers more than anybody I ever met. We used to study together back in the day and became friends. He could spot patterns and stuff real fast.”

  She had no idea what any of this had to do with military drones. But she scribbled it down anyway.

  “Okay. So he told you about the embezzlement?”

  “Yeah. He swore me to secrecy. He was worried about his girlfriend. She works at the casino, too, and he didn’t want her to get into trouble for what he was doing.”

  The fact that Isaac had described Ruby as his girlfriend made Aroostine’s heart ache.

  “Sure.”

  “He said the siphoned funds were almost embarrassingly easy to spot. It was like whoever did it was so arrogant and confident, they didn’t bother to really hide it. There’s lots of ways to fudge numbers that would make it hard to detect, but according to Isaac, this was sloppy work.”

  That description squared with what she knew about Buckmount—arrogant and confident.

  “And how’d the drones come into all this?”

  “So, Isaac told me about the money transfers because he had heard from some guy that Buckmount had stolen some drones from the testing facility—not any drones, military drones. Isaac was worried that the money in the offshore account was going to be used to buy black market bombs to arm them.”

  “Why? I mean, there are lots of things Buckmount might have wanted to use the money for? Why did Isaac jump to bombs?”

  “I’m not sure. Something the guy told him, maybe? Anyway, he asked me to look into it, on the down low.”

  “Why you?”

  “My brother works at the testing facility.”

  “And?”

  “So I told him I heard some drones had gone missing. He freaked out. He told me not to breathe a word to anyone about it because the military didn’t know and Buckmount Security was going nuts trying to find them before news got out.”

  “Did you tell Isaac this?”

  “Yeah. And I could tell it really bugged him. It didn’t make sense for Buckmount to steal the drones and then send his security people out to beat the bushes looking for them. Unless it was all an act.”

  “But that’s a risky bluff. The more people the security personnel questioned, the greater the chance word would spread about the theft, which would inevitably get back to the military base.”

  “That’s exactly what Isaac said. And the illogic of that drove him bonkers. He was a very logical, kind of regimented guy. Like, anal-retentive, I guess you’d say.”

  The reasonably prudent person.

  “I could see that bothering him. Yeah, when he called me, he made me walk through everything we knew one last time, trying to see whether we’d missed something, but we couldn’t think of anything.”

  He fell silent for a moment, and she listened to him breathing.

  Then he said, “Finally, Isaac decided that he’d leave the sleuthing to the FBI or whoever. He told me he was going to give you the spreadsheets and try to forget about the whole thing.”

  “Spreadsheets?” She sat up straighter and tried to stay calm. Joe had been right about Isaac.

  “Yeah. He said they’d show you everything you needed to know to trace the—You didn’t find spreadsheets at his house?”

  “No. I’m not sure how thoroughly the police searched it, though. They were looking for a gun, not a pile of papers.”

  The man laughed. “They won’t be a bunch of printouts. Isaac would have stored them electronically, on a flash drive or something.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Lady, I’m positive. Isaac considered hard copies to be nothing but clutter—it didn’t matter what it was. But something important, yeah, totally. He would have put it on one of his crazy, indestructible USB drives. He used these drives made out of some kind of metal alloy that’s fireproof, waterproof, and crushproof. That’s all he used; he wouldn’t trust those cheap ones you get for five bucks at the office supply store.”

  She asked, “If you had to guess, where do you think he would have hidden it?”

  “I dunno.” The man thought for a moment. “Maybe his car?”

  “His car?”

 
“Yeah, he loved that old thing. He called it his favorite thing in the whole world.”

  Hope and anticipation electrified her. Her left leg jittered. Pent-up energy and impatience were taking over.

  “His car. Great. Let me search his car. I’ll call you back if I don’t find it.”

  “You can if you want to, but I don’t have any other ideas, and I told you everything I know.”

  “Okay, thank you.” The words poured out in a rush, and she hurried to end the call. She grabbed the car keys from the desk and ran out of the room.

  She skidded to a stop just outside the door and stared down at the heavy, metal keychain ornament in her hand.

  A metal alloy. Indestructible. He loved his car.

  Heart thudding, she turned and walked slowly back into the conference room. She examined the cylinder. On first glance, it appeared to be a single piece of metal. But when she looked closely, she noticed a thin seam running around the bottom. She turned the bottom of the cylinder, below the seam, to the left. It moved. It made two whole revolutions and then unscrewed in her hand. The cylinder was a hollow tube. Attached to the base was a solid metal USB drive, made from the same material as the cylinder.

  She stared at her palm. All this time, she and Joe had been carrying around the evidence that had cost Isaac his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Aroostine slept in. She rarely slept past sunrise, but when she rolled over to eyeball the clock on the bedside table, she thought she’d misread it. She blinked. No, it really was nearly ten o’clock.

  She threw back the light blanket and padded out into the kitchen.

  “Morning, sunshine,” Joe said in an entirely too-chipper tone. He slid a mug of tea across the counter toward her.

  “Thanks.” She raised it to her lips, and the unmistakable, warm smell of cinnamon filled her nose. “Where’d you get this?”

  “Boom asked me yesterday what your comfort foods were. I told him cinnamon tea, oatmeal with blueberries, and dark chocolate.” He ticked off the items and gestured to a small basket near the stove. Then he placed a bowl of oatmeal in front of her. “How’d I do?”

  She smiled up at him, and mixed the fat blueberries floating on top of the oatmeal into the hot oats. “A-plus. That was nice of Boom.”

  He perched on the stool next to hers.

  “It was. He said he wanted to give us a token of appreciation. I got a basket, too, for helping him with his office project.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’d you get?”

  “Fresh roasted coffee, a six-pack of local beers, and an éclair the size of your face. The éclair’s long gone, but I figure we can take the chocolate and the beer back to the hotel with us tomorrow.” He sipped his coffee.

  “What did you do for him, anyway?”

  When she’d finally dragged herself home the night before, she collapsed into bed and was asleep within seconds. There’d been little time for chitchat.

  “I built a bunch of shelves. Easy stuff. He had all the materials there. He just needed someone to put them together.”

  “Well at least one of us was productive.” She frowned down at the oatmeal and pushed the bowl away.

  “I thought you said those spreadsheets prove the embezzlement case against Buckmount?”

  She nodded. “They do.” As the man had promised, Isaac’s documents provided a perfect road map. All she had to do was connect the dots.

  “And Buckmount’s going to plead guilty to Isaac’s murder and Ruby’s abduction?”

  “He is.”

  “So, it sounds like you’re in pretty good shape.”

  “Except for the drones. I have nothing on him for the drones. Or the break-in at Ruby’s.”

  He tilted her chin up. “Hey, you have to go to court with the facts you have. You aren’t a miracle worker.”

  He was right, but that didn’t change the fact that a stone of dread had lodged itself in her stomach. She had to shake her mood.

  “Let’s take a walk.”

  They hiked through the meadow. The day they fled their burning rental vehicle, they’d run straight through it until they hit the woods and then they turned right. This time, they made an immediate left and followed a narrow footpath.

  The path wound through the fields and then snaked down behind the police station. Joe and Aroostine didn’t speak. When the path was flat and wide, they walked side by side, hand in hand. When it narrowed or grew steeper, by unspoken agreement, Aroostine forged ahead and Joe followed.

  At the bottom, they reached a stream. Two men in their mid-twenties were fishing. They were shirtless despite the cool breeze. A cooler of beer sat between them.

  The men turned when they heard Joe and Aroostine approaching. One raised a hand in greeting.

  The other said, “You’re the attorney?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  She tilted her head. “For what?”

  “Judge Carole said you’re giving up your vacation to help us clean our house. You’re going to make it possible for us to heal a wound.”

  “Isaac’s death?” she asked.

  The man shook his head. “That, yes. But more than that. There’s been a rift between people like Lee and those who want a more traditional way—lots of fighting over whether we should sell shares in the casino, make a private offering, that sort of thing.”

  “I don’t know if what I do today will help repair that divide,” she told him.

  “It will,” his friend said. “You’ll see.”

  His line tightened, something beneath the surface of the water pulled it taut, and the men returned their attention to their fishing.

  “Good luck,” she said, as she and Joe started to walk on.

  “Thanks. We’re fishing for the dinner tonight. Hope we catch a bunch—otherwise, we’ll be contributing silverbacks.” He pointed down at the shiny beer cans and laughed.

  Aroostine walked on in silence for a few moments, then she turned to Joe.

  “These people are counting on me to do more than deliver a guilty verdict, Joe. They’re looking for justice to be restored.”

  He nodded. “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “But that’s not what I do—that’s not what the law does.” A plaintive note crept into her voice. The law was a set of rules and procedures, a tool. It wasn’t magic.

  “Well maybe it should be.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Aroostine smoothed back her hair and secured it in a low ponytail. Then she turned to Joe, who was sitting in the driver’s seat. He’d pulled into the spot next to Gordon’s BMW and killed the engine.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  He leaned over and brushed her lips with a quick kiss. “You’ll knock ‘em dead.”

  She managed a wan smile and grabbed her bag. She waited while he locked the car and then walked into the police station.

  She’d realized during their morning hike that she didn’t know where the courthouse was. When she called Boom to ask, he’d nearly dropped the phone, convulsing in laughter. Evidently, Carole convened court at her favorite picnic table. Unsure what one wears to a judgment circle held on the lawn, but fairly sure “a suit” was the wrong answer, she settled on a black skirt and a silver-and-white linen blouse.

  Joe took her hand as they mounted the stairs to the station. The doors were propped open. Inside, people were milling around. Kids chased each other up and down the hallways, laughing and shouting, while adults gripping reusable plastic containers full of salads, sides, and desserts gathered in clusters, chattering over the din of voices.

  Officer Hunt waved and pointed toward the back door. “Go on out,” he mouthed.

  The young female officer staffing the door greeted her with a wide smile and yanked it open.

  Aroostine took a deep breath and stepped outside. Joe tried to follow, but the officer held out a hand.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Carole asked us to have e
veryone wait inside so she can speak to the attorneys for a moment.”

  He nodded to Aroostine. “You’ve got this, Roo.”

  She winked at him and walked out onto the lawn.

  Carole was seated at the picnic bench, deep in conversation with Lee Buckmount. Apparently, the court had no problem with ex parte communications. Meanwhile, Gordon was flipping through a stack of papers, frowning down at them.

  Aroostine walked over and stood near his shoulder. He was looking at a printout of Isaac’s spreadsheets. She could only imagine the heartburn they were causing her opponent.

  “Good afternoon, Gordon.”

  He glanced up. “Aroostine. How are you this afternoon?”

  “Tired. A little bit apprehensive,” she answered honestly.

  He arched a brow at the admission. But then—perhaps because she’d broken the trial attorney’s creed of “never show weakness,” he nodded and said, “Me, too. These documents—these are bad.”

  “Is your client going to change his plea on the embezzlement charge?”

  Gordon pursed his lips like he tasted something sour. “I don’t think so. Carole’s talking to him about that right now.”

  They turned and watched the judge. She leaned forward and gestured with her hands, clearly trying to convince Buckmount of something. But his mouth was a hard line. He sat ramrod straight, arms crossed, neck stiff. Beside Aroostine, Gordon emitted a small sigh.

  The judge shook her head sadly and sat back. She looked over at Aroostine and Gordon and gestured for them to join the conversation.

  When they approached, she announced, “Lee’s steadfast in his position. You’re going to have to object to admission of the documents.”

  “Now or when everyone’s here?” Gordon asked mildly.

  She arched a silver eyebrow. “I’d normally do that in a sidebar before we start, but I’m inclined to let the circle decide the issue.”

  “The judgment circle makes evidentiary determinations?” Aroostine asked, hoping that she hadn’t actually gasped aloud. She’d hoped that she’d at least be able to argue the law to the judge on issues of what evidence could be considered, but apparently this was going to be a free-for-all.