“So she reached for your hand, to touch you, for the thrill of it?”
I thought he was going to cry. “Yeah, I’m a hell of a man.”
“That’s her problem, not yours,” I whispered. “I’ve seen her actually rub herself up against men. I’ve always thought it odd.” I made a goofy face at him. “Lots of times she’s rubbed herself against Judge Donnettelli.”
My inner screwball seemed to put Peter at ease, and he croaked out a laugh. “Both Judge Haddes and Judge Donnettelli have that in common, they rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.”
Peter did like his wordplay.
I lowered my voice. “Did you ever hear any of the rubbees, or anyone else for that matter, threaten Judge Donnettelli?”
Peter guffawed. “Yeah, all the time. But not seriously. Last time I heard a threat, it was at an after-hours poker game. He raked in a bundle, and Wade Mazour slammed out with a scowl. If he’d looked my way, it would have singed my eyebrows.”
“Did you play?”
“I’m into making money, not losing it. I’d been working late and walked out after Wade.”
“But the infamous poker party was at your house.”
“By judicial order,” Peter said. His whole body tensed, and I could hear the resentment. It was as if fun Peter had left, and whatever remained spoke up. “I had played with the Judge once, and he owed me a bundle. I mean a Santa’s bag-type bundle. Donnettelli had always made good with other judges, but the lowly help didn’t rate with him.”
“So you quit playing.” I tried to pack all the approval I could into that sentence. I did everything short of saying atta boy.
Peter ripped the cape off and turned to face me. His usually handsome face was contorted into an angry sneer—a mask for obvious pain. “Since I refused to play, the bully rubbed my nose in it by ordering me to host the game at my house from now on.”
Peter sounded sincere, and he didn’t hesitate a bit to answer anything I asked him. That last evening in the Courthouse, my mood had been seriously tainted by elevator time with Donnettelli. I must have seen Peter through Donnettelli-stained lenses. Now, he looked like he still wanted to say something.
I’d had lots of practice making my expression accepting. A learned trait from having three sons.
A whole minute passed before Peter stood and leaned down to speak right into my ear. “You probably read in the paper that Judge Donnettelli phoned me around two in the morning—at the poker party.”
“Come here a minute.” I led him into the not-so-secret hallway, creating us some instant privacy, and Peter stood with his back against the door and looking altogether grateful.
“You told the police Judge Donnettelli was ranting about me,” I said.
Peter was the picture of a man with a guilty conscience. “They asked me directly what he’d said.” He scratched the back of his neck. “But they never asked me what else I heard, so I didn’t tell them. I haven’t told anyone.”
I subtly nodded, secretly willing him to trust me.
Peter looked me in the eye. “I heard a woman’s voice in the background.”
I must have looked like someone had flipped my off-switch. My thought processes shut down and my mouth hung open and my heart was making a hard drive to the finish line.
“I just wanted you to know,” Peter said, “that I don’t blame you.”
Somewhere in there, while I was still lost in my private episode of Black Mirror, Peter left. He didn’t say another word. He didn’t let me ask if he recognized the voice, or if he somehow thought it was me.
He just disappeared.
Damn.
Chapter Thirty-One
I was sure Peter thought telling me was the right thing to do, but it rocked me from the soles of my cowboy boots to the final layer of spray on the top of my hair. What if the police got ahold of that? And who could it have been? Jurisa?
Every now and then a girl needs to go home early, and for this girl, this was the day.
Carlye promised to give Dinkie-Do a ride home. (She’d named her car Herbini. I was okay to miss that ride.)
Armed with the house key and alarm code, Dinkie-Do promised a quiet arrival, and I had my own quiet arrival to make. I hit the reception desk first to let Trisha know I was leaving, and I could tell she was upset—or something. “Spill it, my friend,” I said. “What’s bothering you?”
“My old eyes must need a check-up, Judge. Peter Dune came here by way of Uber-Haddes.”
“No way,” I said. “That’s too far-fetched even for those two.” We giggled.
I had to get out of there.
On my way home, I stopped at the Salvation Army store, picked out a couple outfits, took them into the parking lot, and stomped them good. I already felt better.
It was barely five when I got home, so I dove into my closet for another makeover. I took my hair down, teased part of it and glopped on styling gel, went a little crazy with some bright lipstick and blue eyeshadow, and dressed in the battered, baggy khakis and a shirt.
Within ten minutes, I was on a stool at LaVerne’s Café and ordered the soup of the day. Two stools down, sat tiny Miss Stella dressed in pristine white.
After I’d been served and had a couple mouthfuls of what I hoped was split-pea, I pulled out ten twenty-dollar bills. I grinned and smiled and tried to ooze pride.
When Stella didn’t bite, I started sorting the bills into stacks and laughing out loud. Of course, the server came to shush me—all part of my master-sleuth plan—and I bragged like a banty rooster that I’d earned this money, and all I had to do was talk. I told the waitress I’d easily earned stacks of cash that totaled two-hundred American dollars just for telling a guy I saw the other guy go through a red light. HA!
That did it. Stella was gesturing and scoffing and cussing in some language I didn’t know. I told her to step off, old bag—okay, so I’m not up on street talk—I told her she couldn’t make ten cents if she tried.
Right away she was in my face boasting about a whopping five-hundred dollars she’d gotten for saying she’d heard a gunshot when she was walking her dog. She punctuated the sentence by giving me the finger.
That I understood. But, I was too happy to let one little finger deflate me. I phoned Sebastian and filled him in. He was on it. I was exhausted and zoomed home staying five miles over the speed limit so I wouldn’t get pulled over and arrived in record time.
When I finally entered my home, I didn’t stop for anything except to toss my clothes and crawl between my sheets. Propped up by pillows behind my back, I jotted down my Stella contact, including her finger, and everything Peter said into a bedside notebook and tossed it back on the nightstand. The pictures of it all were filed into my brain’s solitary confinement until further notice. I had other things to think about.
Top of my agenda: to open Laurel’s package.
Jimmy Jack seized the other half of my king-sized bed, where he batted about the turquoise ribbon curls on Laurel’s package.
“Sorry, my boy.” I tossed the ribbon off the package. He leaped toward it and tangled all four paws.
Jimmy Jack could always take my mind to a joyful place. I tore off the wrapping paper and focused on the thick manila envelope inside. Unmarked. I opened it and pulled out a stack of paper. Court documents. Register of Actions.
“Jimmy Jack, look at this.”
The furball ignored me.
I flipped through dozens of pages, scanned rows of cases. Docket entries of my cases and Donnettelli’s cases. I didn’t mourn his passing. I didn’t kill him; I didn’t even hurt him. Okay, I’d admit to thinking of ways to make him suffer, listed alphabetically, and cross-referenced by location.
For nearly two hours I worked through the papers and hadn’t realized any time had passed until I plugged my phone into the charging stand on the night table.
Two years of docket. Frenzied worry ran through me. What was Laurel saying? On a legal pad I made columns: Donnettelli Docket, Kikkra Docket. Under each heading, I entered cases, and I searched every page. Some cases were short, barely started. When I compared them, I came to the words: Cases Transferred.
I drew a third column, but something was missing, so I halved that column: Donnettelli to Kikkra and Kikkra to Donnettelli.
I reached to the stack of copied papers—the asbestos cases. I added a fourth column to isolate those.
Donnettelli had told me he was transferring all the asbestos cases. High-stakes cases for both sides. If he’d found a way to profit from them, who killed him and framed me? Why? Did he have an accomplice or an enemy or both? If somebody wanted him dead, oh well, but why involve me? All the shooter needed to do was cover his own tracks.
I needed to go back farther in the files, copy more, and determine how many more of my Orders he had changed. Damn, how long had he been changing Orders? He’d been a Judge for decades.
Chapter Thirty-Two
I’d like to think I remembered every decision I’d ever made, but there were too many to remember without looking at each file. Damn.
We had no process to transfer cases all over the place like this.
Wait. Untrue. Chief Judge could transfer cases under the radar. I’d thought it was only the asbestos cases he’d transferred. But—no—he was moving all kinds of cases. The freak was controlling decisions.
I never imagined he had that kind of audacity.
I sat back. Was that enough to get killed for, or to kill for? Who stood to gain? The asbestos cases are linked to me because they were on my docket; it could make me look guilty. If some of them are linked to Laurel or Palene, should they be suspects? Are we all targets of Donnettelli’s assassin?
A siren seared the air; red lights above the doors flashed. The smoke alarm! I snatched up the papers and my cat and dashed out the door toward the stairs. Wait. I ran back into my room, threw the closet doors open and grabbed my favorite three pairs of cowboy boots.
Jimmy Jack squealed.
I hugged my treasure to my chest, dashed to the stairwell, leaned on the oak banister and slid down to the second floor. Rounded a corner. Mounted the banister. Down to the first floor, through some bizarre cloud of blue-and-purple into the garage. From somewhere in the kitchen area, Dinkie-Do shrieked. Jimmy Jack scurried under a couch.
God help him! I dropped the rescued items. Without missing a step, I turned and shot back through the door, shut it tight behind me, and ran into the cloud.
“I’m sorry,” Dinkie-Do wailed. “I’m so sorry.”
I sneezed hard. Was the ceiling going to cave in?
Through bursts of smoky blue, gray, and purple, and glitter clouds I ran toward the sound of Dinkie-Do’s panicky voice. The odor of burned chalk jumped up and smacked my face. My eyes prickled, and I sneezed again.
An enormous cloud of blue-and-gold smoke mushroomed at me. I lunged backward, blinded. With both hands I sheltered stinging eyes, and my lungs strained for air. More sirens blasted outside.
But inside, silence settled on the room. I blinked and blinked. Glistening bits of dust flitted through the air, and it tasted like burned Kaopectate. I grabbed my cell. “Dinkie-Do, can you move?”
I thought he answered, but his voice was drowned out by the blaring horns of three very expensive pieces of heavy equipment that belonged to East Lansing’s Finest First Responders.
I ran for the front door before real-life heroes knocked it down with their real-life axes. As soon as I released the lock, three large men in heavy yellow coats dashed past me into the cloud.
I pointed the Chief toward the kitchen, and his crew charged forward. When he asked me what had happened, I was no help, and he followed his men. They’d find Dinkie-Do. He had to be okay. Police and EMS would help, too.
The final firefighter warned me to stay back, but I followed him toward the kitchen. My ears hurt from the blaring alarm. I couldn’t see Dinkie-Do. I couldn’t see more than a foot in front of my face. I couldn’t see my formerly immaculate chrome appliances. I blinked again, let tears wash the grit from my eyeballs, and gingerly wiped under my eyes.
Frozen bodies sat on the stools at my island. This mess felt and smelled like a Dinkie-Do fiasco. He’d conjured something, or it was another attack on me. My house could survive almost anything, but I couldn’t survive another arrest. Damn.
A firefighter appeared, cradling a glittery blue Dinkie-Do. A wheeled gurney received him, and an oxygen mask was placed over his face. The firefighter would survive despite glitter falling off his uniform. It was Dinkie-Do who worried me.
I fought hard not to bawl: you must be all right, Dinkie-Do. You must.
The large firefighter barked at me. “Outside. Now.” His voice was powerful, but not unkind. “Now.”
Normally not one to submit to masculine barking, I made an exception for the giant firefighter with the sharp ax. After all, they’d saved my . . . my Dinkie-Do. I snagged a tapestry, wrapped it around myself then ran into the front yard. Despite their distance, the neighbors—even one on horseback—were in full curiosity-mode.
I enjoyed watching law enforcement shoo away the gawking neighbors. I didn’t enjoy all the amused faces witnessing the chaos called my life. It seemed like longer, but within half an hour, after instructions on how to properly clean the vents and air out my house, a reminder to close all the open windows, and a vehement colorful refusal from Dinkie-Do to go to the hospital for a check-up, all uniforms were seated in their vehicles in various stages of egress.
The burly Fire Chief chuckled and waved from the high fire-truck window as the rig heaved out of the drive.
“Oh, Honey, your beautiful kitchen has a new glow. I’m so sorry my electric-rainbow-blue eye shadow exploded.” Dinkie-Do shuddered and glitter rained off him. “My new makeup line, well, developing is not an exact science, you know.”
I wrinkled my forehead at him.
“Too much glitter and a pinch of this and that—who knew?” Dinkie-Do shook his head. Glitter fell onto the driveway all around him. “Homemade glitter bomb. My bad.”
Bad may be useful. I wrapped my arm around Smurfie-Do. “Clean up the mess, and save me a few vials of the exploding blue stuff, will you? Guess my burglar alarm placed your new shadow in questionable-prowler category.”
“Honey, I’ll save you all you need as long as you promise to be extra careful.” Dinkie-Do clasped his hands together. “Those city employees are my new best friends. They all want salon appointments.”
“You scared my gizzard into the next county.” I couldn’t get enough air to yell. I suddenly realized I was dropping glitter of my own.
“Honey, that blue looks divine on you. Definite fashion yes-yes.”
I hoped it looked good with neon-orange jumpsuits. “I’ll contemplate that as I go to the garage to rescue my things and find Jimmy Jack.” I stopped and faced him. “When you figure out what caused this, let me know—without duplicating it.”
“Honey-girl, I’ll try.”
I circled back. “Any new guests you want to disclose before we return to inspect?”
“Ah, yes. My practice gals.” He grinned. “Such a treat to glam them up at your kitchen island.”
When I returned to the remnants of my kitchen, Smurf King was surrounded with cauldrons of color, spiked heels, and six inflatable adult-sized Plasti-gals in wigs. The island sat ten. I guessed two were a couple and the other four were awaiting dates. The “ladies” sat aligned in audience forum, and there were easels—some with paper, others with mirrors. The Plasti-gals were covered, a few bent.
My fists clenched as tightly as my teeth. “Mistook my gourmet kitchen for a Technicolor science lab, did you? We’re not zoned for Experiment 420.” I was already wearing the world’s biggest Fashi
on No-No on my ankle. “My house is a no-cloud zone.”
“Jiffy clean up,” Dinkie-Do said. “Pay me a no-never-mind.” Left hand on hip, he lassoed his right hand into his dimpled cheek. “No worries.”
“I’ve got nothin’ but worries.” My vital signs were heading home toward normal, and I thought it best to insert some space between my new boarder and moi. From the freezer, I grabbed my emergency box of Thin Mint Girl Scout Cookies. I’d brew tea upstairs while I steamed in a hot shower. My teacup bottom needed a crust of Australian Fairy Bread to dazzle me while I pondered and drank.
“Honey, before you depart,” Dinkie-Do’s voice dropped an octave. “There’s something you should know.”
He was entirely too serious for this to be anything good. “Is my life in imminent danger?”
He shook his head. “No, Honey.”
“Is your life in imminent danger?”
“Uh-uh.” Another negatory.
“Then this woman is headed to the third floor.” I strode toward the stairs, turned, retraced my steps, and scooped up Jimmy Jack. “What I need to know can wait till morning.”
Glittered blue shoulders drooped, he turned his back to me, and I gave in. Better to clear the air all the way. “Okay, spill. Two minutes.”
“Honey, this is probably not the ideal time to be bringing you my personal problems—”
Longish pause.
I gave him the finger-twirl for get on with it.
“Honey, it’s your friend, Laurel. The Judge,” Dinkie-Do said.
Now a long pause, given I was covered in Techni-color dust, and my eyeballs were melting. I willed Dinkie-Do to speak.
“Judge Laurel has a bit of a problem.” Now the Smurf was speed talking. “I mean, being your friend, I’d never officially report her.”
All Rise Page 13