“So you think he’s on his way to his cabin in Finger Lakes?”
“As far as we can tell, that’s where he’s headed.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m assuming you’re planning on setting up some surveillance on his cabin.”
“Right.”
“There’s no physical evidence for you to do otherwise, is there?”
“No, not unless I’m able to grab one of the judge’s running shoes and match it to the footprints around Lizzie’s car.”
Lockett was quiet for a second or two, and for a moment, I thought he’d taken my remark seriously, and he was about to remind me to use caution once again, but instead he said, “You still haven’t said anything to the detectives about Judge Woodard being at the courthouse in Centralia when Lizzie was up there, have you?"
“No, I figured they’d find it out for themselves soon enough.”
When I saw Charlie give me a surprised look, I realized my withholding that information from the police didn’t sit well with him.
So be it.
Lockett said, “You might want to think about updating the detectives on what you’ve found out about the judge. I know the senator didn’t want you to do anything that would jeopardize the judge’s hearing with the Judiciary Committee, especially if he’s innocent in Lizzie’s disappearance, but I’m beginning to feel events have moved beyond that now.”
“Those are my feelings as well. Depending on what happens when the judge gets up to his cabin, I’ll give the detectives a call.”
“Before you hang up, I wanted you to know Senator Allen and his wife are coming to Columbia tomorrow.”
“I thought he’d wait until Lizzie was found before he made an appearance. What made him decide to come now?”
“It’s a case of Senator Allen’s campaign manager telling him his constituents are voicing disapproval at his apparent lack of concern for Lizzie’s well-being. So, as of an hour ago, the senator and Nelda will hop on a plane tomorrow morning and meet with the Police Chief in person tomorrow afternoon. The senator won’t hold a press conference while he’s there, but his campaign manager will make sure plenty of photographs are taken.”
“Is there anything I need to do about his visit?”
“I’ll let you know tomorrow.”
* * * *
Highway 63 was a well-traveled road, so it hadn’t been hard for me to stay three or four cars behind the judge’s Cadillac on the four-lane highway between Jefferson City and Columbia.
However, once the judge took the turnoff up to his cabin on the other side of Columbia, there wasn’t much traffic, so I had to drop back to make sure he wouldn’t suspect someone of tailing him.
“The judge’s cabin is just up ahead,” I told Charlie. “We’ll drive past it, then come back and park in a small grove of trees on the other side of the road. When I was up here yesterday, it looked like the perfect spot to set up some surveillance.”
Charlie said he agreed, and as we drove past the judge’s cabin a few seconds later, we saw his car was parked in the driveway.
I drove about half a mile up the road, made a U-turn, and doubled back the way I’d come, pulling off the side of the road into a wooded area across the road from where the judge’s cabin was located.
Once I’d shut off the engine, Charlie said, “Shouldn’t you call the CPD detectives now and let them know you suspect Judge Woodard of being involved in Lizzie’s disappearance? I realize you weren’t that sure yesterday, but if you want my opinion, I’d say it’s time to bring them up to speed on what you’ve discovered about the judge’s connection to Lizzie.”
I didn’t immediately respond to Charlie because at that moment, we were both watching as Judge Woodard came out the front door of his cabin, walked over to his car, and popped open the trunk.
At first, it was impossible to tell what he was doing, but a few seconds later, we saw him pulling a bulky item out of his trunk. “What’s he got there?” Charlie asked.
“It looks like a painter’s tarp,” I said.
“So you think he’s doing a little painting in his cabin?”
“Does Judge Woodard strike you as the type of person who does his own painting?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
We watched the judge for a few seconds, and then I said, “Here’s what’s about to happen, Charlie. As soon as he gets back inside, I’m going to make my way over to his cabin and see what he’s about to do with that tarp. In the meantime—”
“I don’t believe that’s—”
“—in the meantime, you’re going to call Detective Connor Ross, the lead detective with the CPD, and tell him what we’ve found out about Judge Woodard so far. If you have to, use your credentials as a former cop to urge him to pay the judge a visit.”
“You know you’ll be trespassing if you set foot on the judge’s property.”
“I’m willing to take that chance, but don’t worry, I’ll be back here before the CPD shows up.”
I wasn’t sure Charlie believed me.
I wasn’t sure I believed me either.
* * * *
After exiting the vehicle, I trekked through the woods until I was fifty yards beyond the judge’s property, and then I crossed the road.
By doing so, I was able to approach the judge’s cabin on the east side where there was only one small window.
Since the panes in that window contained frosted glass, I didn’t believe I was in any danger of being seen from inside the cabin.
After creeping along the side of the house, I peered around the corner to see what was at the rear of the judge’s property.
It was all natural landscaping; there was no swimming pool or playground equipment.
The only thing back there was a patio with a firepit and some outdoor furniture.
The patio doors appeared to be the sliding variety, the kind that were easy to pop open, so I ducked under what I assumed to be the kitchen window and cautiously moved towards the patio from that direction, pressing myself along the outside wall and easing my way up to the doors so I could take a peek inside.
As compared to where I was standing in the sunlight, the house looked dark, and it took me a few seconds to see inside.
When I did, I realized the judge was spreading the tarp out on the dining room floor. However, there were no paint cans, brushes, or rollers to be seen.
Besides that, the judge didn’t have the look of a man about to start a painting project.
Instead, he looked slightly confused, maybe even a little dazed.
I glanced down at my watch to see how much time had passed since I’d left Charlie in the car talking to the CPD.
Not that long.
Definitely not long enough for Detectives Ross and Springer to show up on the judge’s doorstep in the next ten minutes.
I wasn’t sure what to do.
But I knew I wasn’t leaving.
* * * *
A minute or so later, after the judge had smoothed out the edges of the tarp, he turned and walked out of the kitchen.
Almost without thinking, I quickly walked over and tried the sliding doors on the patio. For a second, I thought they were locked, but then the one on the left gave way and slid open.
I stepped inside.
I was tempted to slip into the utility room off to my right and wait for the judge to return to the dining room.
However, a few seconds later, I thought I heard the judge talking to someone, and after removing my weapon from my holster, I decided instead of waiting in the utility room, I’d follow the sound of his voice.
The room next to the kitchen was the living room, but it was empty. After giving the room a cursory look, I entered the hallway.
There were four doors in the hallway.
The one immediately to my right was dark, but I could see some bunk beds inside, so I figured it was a kid’s bedroom.
The door next to it led to a bathroom, and the room next to it was another bedroom.
/> The bedroom door at the end of the hallway was partially open.
That’s where the voices were coming from.
As I crept up to the door, I realized what I was hearing was a one-sided conversation.
The judge was doing all the talking.
No one was responding.
“This is your own fault,” he said. “You shouldn’t have lied to me. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t lied to me.”
I glanced inside the room.
The judge had his back to me.
He was sitting on the edge of a king-sized bed holding a hypodermic needle in his right hand, while speaking to someone lying on the bed who was curled up in a fetal position.
As the judge shifted his weight to lean across the bed, I was able to see the features of the person lying there.
It was Lizzie Allen.
Chapter 26
I eased my way inside the room. However, Lizzie Allen didn’t see me. She was out cold. The judge, on the other hand, must have sensed my presence, because he jerked around before I barely made it past the threshold.
I leveled my gun at him and said, “What have you done to Lizzie?”
He looked startled, but then he quickly reacted and grabbed Lizzie’s arm, pulling it toward him with the needle hovering just above her forearm. “Place your weapon on the bed, or I swear I’ll give her this lethal dose of morphine.”
I hesitated.
He made a movement toward her arm, and I immediately reached over and laid my weapon at the foot of the bed.
“Smart move, Mylas.”
He gestured toward a chair a few feet away from him. “Now walk over there and have a seat.”
“What’s going on, Judge?” I asked, as I sat down. “What have you done to Lizzie?”
He let out a humorless laugh. “Nothing. She’s been in la-la land ever since she got here. I made sure of that.”
“Why was Lizzie here in the first place?”
His eyes narrowed. “The question is why are you here? And where’s your partner?”
I eyed the needle in the judge’s hand. I figured if I could just keep him talking until the police arrived, everything would be okay.
I shrugged. “Charlie and I drove to Jefferson City in separate cars. He’s probably back at our hotel in Columbia by now, but when I left your office, I remembered you owned a cabin up here at Finger Lakes, so I decided to drive up here and check it out.”
“Check it out? Don’t you mean break in?”
“I saw you carrying a tarp inside, and since I was a little suspicious why you didn’t show concern for Lizzie when I mentioned her name during our visit, I invited myself inside.”
“You should have let it go. Now you’ve created a second problem for me and an even bigger problem for yourself.”
“Why was Lizzie a problem for you?”
He took a deep breath. “She wouldn’t have been a problem for me if she hadn’t lied to me about who she was. When she requested an interview with me for The Columbian a few days ago, I granted her the request because I thought she was just a journalism student who was eager to interview a future federal judge.”
“But then you found out she was Senator Allen’s daughter?”
He nodded. “I was thinking about contacting Senator Allen to see how soon my hearings would start, and since I wanted to be sociable and ask him about his family, I did some research on him. That’s when I ran across a recent family photo and realized Lizzie Allen was the senator’s daughter.”
“What difference did that make?”
“When Lizzie interviewed me, she asked me some questions I wasn’t expecting. She said she’d heard some rumors about my gambling. I was afraid she might decide to mention those rumors to her father, so I called her on Monday and offered to do a follow-up interview with her. I told her I had to be at the courthouse in Centralia that afternoon, and she could interview me there.”
“That wasn’t the truth, was it? You didn’t have to be at the courthouse in Centralia on Monday afternoon.”
He shook his head. “No, not really. I texted her when I got there and told her where to park, and then I texted her again and told her my business wasn’t taking me as long as I expected, and I suggested she follow me over to my cabin where we could have some privacy.”
“What was your objective in inviting her here?”
“My objective was to find out where she’d gotten her information about my gambling habits. I planned to dissuade her from using that information in her article. When I was a prosecutor, I was always pretty good at shredding a witness’s testimony, so I figured that’s what I’d do with her source.”
I took note of the fact the judge no longer had the needle pointed at Lizzie’s arm. He’d lowered the syringe to his side when he began telling me about Lizzie’s article.
That gave me hope, and I started plotting how I could wrestle the needle away from him.
Nothing immediately came to mind.
* * * *
Judge Woodard described Lizzie’s reaction when he asked her not to publish the interview until after the hearings were over.
“She refused to do what I asked,” he said, looking agitated. “In fact, I had a feeling she wanted to ruin my career.”
I motioned toward the bed. “So you decided to drug her?”
“She’d already let it slip out she hadn’t told anyone where she was going, so I put a little something in her iced tea to make her sleepy until I decided what to do with her.”
“Come on, Judge. We both know you’ve been giving her something stronger than sleeping pills for the last three days.”
He shrugged. “While I was deciding what to do about her, I remembered I had a stash of pain medication in the safe in my office. I’d put it there when my mother-in-law was receiving end-of-life care from a hospice nurse a few years ago. I brought it here to the cabin, and when Lizzie started waking up on Tuesday morning, I gave her a small dose.”
He reached up and ran his finger underneath his right eye.
“She hadn’t been as sedated as I thought she was, and she tried to fight me when I was giving her the injection. I think she must have scratched my cornea. It’s been bothering me ever since.”
As the judge began rubbing his eye, I saw my chance and made a grab for the needle.
As I was trying to wrestle the syringe from his hand, he loosened his grip, and it fell to the floor.
Together, we both made a grab for my gun at the foot of the bed.
He got to it first and pointed it at my head.
* * * *
As I waited for him to pull the trigger, I suddenly realized I wasn’t ready to die. I wasn’t ready to leave my life behind.
Worst of all, I wasn’t prepared to die.
I wasn’t prepared to die, because I didn’t think I’d go to heaven.
I asked God for help, something I’d never done before.
For a few seconds, I felt calmer.
A split second later, Charlie burst in the room with his gun drawn.
“Drop the weapon,” he yelled.
When the judge jerked his head around to look at Charlie, I immediately reached over and grabbed the gun out of his hand.
The judge slumped to the floor and raised both hands in defeat.
“Okay, I’m done,” he said, as Charlie moved towards him.
I reached down and picked the syringe up off the floor. “He was about to give Lizzie a lethal dose of morphine.”
Charlie tilted his head in her direction while keeping his gun pointed at the judge. “She doesn’t look that good. Is she okay?”
He was right.
Lizzie didn’t look that good.
In fact, she looked really bad. Her hair was matted to the side of her face, her skin was ashen, and her lips were cracked and bleeding.
I sat down beside her so I could listen to her breathing.
It was slow and labored.
After brushing her hair away from her
face, I said, “No, I don’t think she’s okay. We need to call an ambulance ASAP.”
“Detectives Ross and Springer are on their way. Why don’t I keep an eye on the judge while you call an ambulance?”
After making the call, I walked in the living room to wait for the detectives. They arrived a few minutes later, along with several policemen and other law enforcement personnel.
Once I’d given the detectives a description of how events had unfolded, we headed back to the bedroom.
The judge started mumbling incoherently to himself almost as soon as Detective Springer began reading him his Miranda rights.
A few minutes later, after the detective had put a set of handcuffs on him, a couple of policemen came in and took the judge away.
He was still mumbling to himself.
Meanwhile, Detective Ross sat down beside Lizzie and began taking her pulse.
His head was shaking as he got up and walked over to the corner of the room where Charlie and I were standing. “Her pulse is weak, and her breathing isn’t that great.”
“I can’t believe the judge did this to her,” I said.
“Why did he do this to her?” Charlie asked.
After repeating what the judge had told me, Ross asked, “When did you suspect Judge Woodard was responsible for her disappearance?”
“After Charlie and I paid him a visit a few hours ago, and he didn’t tell me Lizzie had interviewed him last week.”
Ross appeared skeptical of my answer, and I thought for sure he was about to question me further, but then the ambulance arrived, and the detective went over to speak with the medical personnel.
When they brought the rolling stretcher in, Charlie and I left the bedroom and walked out on the front porch of the cabin.
As we stood there watching them wheel Lizzie away, Charlie slapped me on the back and said, “You found her, Mylas. Good job.”
I didn’t say anything.
I felt too lousy about what had happened to Lizzie.
One Day Gone Page 24