Justice Betrayed

by Patricia Bradley

  She made it as far as the door before he spoke.

  “Don’t leave.”

  Something in his voice turned her around.

  “I know what today is, and I’m sure you’re reliving finding her in the library.”

  Great. He’d remembered while she’d tried to forget.

  “Besides, you haven’t told me what you want.”

  Always practical. Well, she could be too. “I need you to sign a search warrant.” Did she detect disappointment in his eyes?

  “Do you have it with you?”

  “Of course.” She pulled it from her bag and handed it to him. “You trained me well.”

  “Get another cup of coffee while I look it over.”

  She grabbed her mug and took it to the kitchen. “Would you like your cup topped off?” she called.

  When he declined, she returned to the table and sat down.

  He pushed the signed affidavit toward her. “You had a full day yesterday. Any word on the mysterious powder?”

  “You haven’t been told yet?” She figured the US Marshal had already informed him. “It was ricin.”

  His cup rattled in the saucer when he set it down hard. “What? Homemade?”

  “I don’t know.” She knew he was thinking of the case in Mississippi where a senator had received a letter containing a low-grade ricin that the sender had home-brewed.

  “Who have you angered enough to try and kill you in such a horrible way?”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault.”

  “I’m just stating the obvious, not blaming you.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. He had a way of making it sound as though he was.

  Footsteps rustled behind Rachel and she turned. “Erin?”

  “Rachel! When did you come? Have you seen Terri? Can I wear your cross necklace now?”

  Behind Erin was Gran, and Rachel stood to give them both a hug. If only she could have her grandmother’s porcelain skin and unruffled spirit when she was in her eighties. “I didn’t know you were staying over,” she said to her grandmother.

  “It was your father’s idea after Erin nodded off to sleep on the daybed, and we decided not to awaken her,” she said. “Terri said you were taking her back to the group home around five. We should be at my place by then.”

  Gran had been friends with Erin and Terri’s mother, and she had often helped out with Erin before their mother’s death, so it’d been natural for her to continue to help Terri with the girl. Rachel corrected herself. Erin was a woman even though her simple ways made it hard to think of her as anything other than a girl.

  “I should be able to wrap up everything in time to pick her up.” She unfastened the cross around her neck and slipped it around Erin’s. “Just until I see you tonight, so don’t lose it.”

  “I won’t. Gran said you might go to church with us today,” Erin said.

  “Ah, not today,” she said. It’d been a while since she’d gone to church. Not that she had anything against it, she was just so busy. “I have to work.”

  “You’re not supposed to work on Sunday.”

  “I know, honey. But sometimes I have to.”

  Erin shook her head. “You always say that.”

  “Erin’s right. We miss you at church.” Gran’s smile was gentle, but her words were pointed. “How are you today?”

  “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me. You and the Judge raised me to come back like Rocky Balboa.”

  Gran patted her arm. “Sometimes I think we did too good a job.”

  “Never. I want to be you when I grow up.” Rachel kissed her grandmother’s soft cheek. “Gotta go, work is calling.”

  She picked up the warrant and nodded to her father. “Thanks. I owe you one.”

  The amused glint in his eyes told her he’d be calling in her debt. Knowing him, it would be when she least wanted to repay it.

  She checked her watch on the way back to her car. There was time to swing by Elmwood Cemetery before she met Boone. Sunday morning traffic was light, and her mind shifted into automatic as she traveled the familiar route. It wasn’t long before she exited I-240 and drove over the narrow bridge leading into the cemetery.

  She parked beside her mother’s grave and got out of the car, immediately noticing that even the shade of the old oak tree had not kept the flowers from wilting in the heat. Rachel reached back in the car for a bottle of water and then took her time walking past the two rows of headstones to the grave. The daisies valiantly tried to stand, but their curled petals wouldn’t last much longer. Should have brought fresh ones. She poured the water into the copper vase. That should hold them today.

  For a minute she bowed her head and tried to say a brief prayer. After a couple of attempts, she gave up. Sometimes she just wished she could cry, but the tears wouldn’t come either.

  Voices carried on the faint breeze, and Rachel shaded her eyes, looking across the rolling hills filled with headstones to see where they were coming from. There, beside a backhoe she hadn’t noticed, were two men, one walking to some nearby shade. The machine sat near the edge of a newly dug grave.

  The dry grass crunched under her feet as she walked down the hill to the graveside.

  An older black gentleman leaned on his shovel near the hole. “Mornin’, ma’am.”

  “Good morning.” The earthy scent from the mound of red clay hung in the air. “I didn’t think they dug graves on Sunday.”

  “This here’s not an ordinary grave. Coroner will be here directly. And the other police. That one over there,” he said, pointing to the man leaning against an elm tree, “he’s watching to make sure nobody comes here and steals the body away.”

  She glanced toward the tree, then back at the man. “You’re exhuming someone?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said again. “Seems the remains have to be examined again since they found evidence he’d been poisoned.”

  “That’s terrible.” She glanced at the headstone. The man had died ten years ago. That was a long time for the truth to be buried.

  “Yes, ma’am, it is. But God has a way of bringing truth to light and giving peace to those who need it.”

  She took a step back. Had he read her mind? Then she realized he was responding to her comment about it being terrible. “Well . . .” She didn’t quite know what to say. “Have a nice day” seemed a little much. “Don’t get too hot.”

  “You too, ma’am. And don’t forget, the truth will set you free.”

  Rachel turned and walked back up the hill, his words echoing in her mind. She stood for one last minute, staring at the fading bouquet before she knelt in front of the headstone and brushed her fingers across her mother’s name. Why didn’t God exhume the darkness in her past? Give her peace?

  The jackhammer sound of a woodpecker drumming on metal intruded on her thoughts. She sat back on her heels and looked up. The crazy bird was attacking the overhead light fixture. When he continued, she stood and dusted the grass from her knees. As she walked to her car, she glanced at the exhumation down the hill. Maybe she didn’t have peace because she wouldn’t let God in.

  20

  AFTER REVIEWING RACHEL’S CASES, Boone had driven to Randy Culver’s middle-class neighborhood. While he waited for Rachel to bring the search warrant, he interviewed a few people who weren’t on their way out the door to church. All said the singer was a quiet neighbor who was rarely home. No one knew of any family he had, and they said he never entertained.

  “How is Culver?” Rachel asked when she arrived.

  “Still in a coma,” he said, using the key he’d gotten from the singer’s personal effects at the hospital to enter the house.

  “I hope he makes it.” She followed him inside. “Do you think we’ll find anything here?”

  “You never know.”

  Rachel appeared unduly reserved. He pushed open the door and entered the small living room with a formal dining area on one end that reminded him of the house he grew up in. “Anything bothering y
ou?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Then she sighed and said, “I googled ricin. When do you think we’ll get a full report?”

  “Should be later today. US Marshals have been called in on the case because your father’s a federal judge.”

  “Do you think my dad was the target?”

  “If it weren’t for the text you received warning you off the case, I would believe he’s a more likely target than you. I pulled all your cases this morning and didn’t see anything that warrants someone wanting to kill you. I’ve been trying to see how it fits in with Vegas’s murder and the attempt on Culver.” He shot her a questioning gaze. “I’m wondering if the killer thinks Vegas told you something.”

  “How would he know Vic came to see me, unless . . .”

  “The killer could have been following Vegas.”

  “Vic did mention he thought he knew who killed Harrison Foxx, but he wouldn’t say who. And thinking that Dad might be the target doesn’t make me feel any better.” Rachel looked around. “Where do you want me to start?”

  “Here in the living room.” He understood her fear. “I want to check the refrigerator for his insulin.”

  The galley kitchen revealed Culver was no neat freak. Dishes sat unwashed in the sink and he’d left a box of Cheerios open on the counter. When Boone opened the refrigerator, he found three bottles of insulin, two still unopened. And none of them were Humulin R U-500.

  He picked up the box containing Lantus. He’d researched the drug, and normally it was administered once a day. Boone figured the singer had last used it Friday night. And since he hadn’t gone into a coma then, it’d been okay. Someone either came to the house and switched the bottles, or switched it last night at Blues & Such. Either way, it took a person with nerves of steel, especially if it happened at the club.

  He joined Rachel in the search of the house. An hour later, they’d found nothing that indicated a motive for someone trying to kill the singer. Rachel had discovered his bank statements in a bedroom that had been turned into an office, and when they finished going over them, Boone said, “A Christmas club account, savings, and checking. Did you find any other accounts?”

  “No. And all the deposits are from reputable companies,” Rachel said. “So it doesn’t look like he was running drugs or blackmailing anyone.”

  “How about family? Any mention of anyone we can contact?”

  “Not here.”

  Boone stared at the balance on the savings account. He wished his balance looked as healthy. “I’m surprised that impersonating Elvis pays so well.”

  “He also drove a truck, but from what I gathered on the internet, he’s done pretty well as an entertainer. And don’t forget he’s been in it for over seventeen years. I want to check something right quick.” She opened the browser on her phone and typed, then blinked and looked closer at the screen. “Did you know the grand prize for the Supreme Elvis contest is twenty thousand dollars?”

  “You’re kidding. So, it’s possible someone could have been jealous.”

  “A couple of the people I talked to last night indicated he was the top pick. Maybe this attempt isn’t connected to Vic’s murder.”

  It was something to think about. “I’d like to go over everything that’s happened in the last forty-eight hours, starting with Vic Vegas’s visit to you.” Boone’s stomach growled and he checked his watch. Only eleven? Didn’t matter. He was hungry. “Do you want to grab a sandwich and take it back to the CJC?”

  “Sure.” She took out her phone again. “Panera or McAlister’s? I’ll order ahead.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Rachel laid out their sandwiches and chips on the table in the conference room while Boone found a whiteboard and rolled it in.

  After he finished his sandwich, he grabbed a bag of chips and walked to the board. “Tell me everything Vic Vegas said to you Friday.”

  Rachel laid her half-eaten panini on a napkin and flipped through her notebook. “He asked me to investigate Harrison Foxx’s case.”

  He wrote Harrison Foxx on the whiteboard. “Why you?”

  “Said it would be personal to me since my mother knew Harrison.” She looked up. “Mom attended Humes High with him during her freshman and sophomore year.”

  “Humes? Didn’t you say that was where Elvis went?”

  “Yeah, many years earlier. Gramps—my grandfather—went there as well. It’s where he met my grandmother, and he wanted his daughter to attend there. He and Nana fought about it. Humes wasn’t in the best part of town, and they were living in a ritzier section of Memphis by then. She thought Mom should attend Miss Hutchinson’s School for Girls, and she did after he died.”

  He added Gabby Winslow’s name to the board and turned around. The blood drained from Rachel’s face. “You okay?”

  She took a breath. “Yeah. Just seeing her name up there . . . I don’t know. I stopped by her grave today. It’s so hard to believe it’s been seventeen years.”

  The pain in her eyes pierced his heart. If only there was some way he could make today easier—instead he’d made it worse. “I would have met you there if you’d let me know.”

  “I know.” She shifted her gaze to the half sandwich on the table. She pushed it back where she could have room to work. Then she picked up the photo Vegas had given her. “It’s just the timing of Vic’s murder and the attempt on Randy’s life . . . Why this close to the anniversary of her death?”

  She raised her gaze, and this time her hazel eyes had the shiny look of unshed tears behind them. He searched for something to say. “I—”

  “I’m sorry.” Rachel laid the photo on the table. “This isn’t your problem, and you don’t have time to babysit me.” She squared her shoulders. “Let’s get back to work.”

  Unsure of what to say, Boone studied the photo. He hadn’t really noticed Gabby Winslow before, since he’d been paying more attention to the Elvis impersonators. Dressed in a flowing silver gown, she posed on the other side of Harrison Foxx as her daughter handed him the trophy. A beautiful woman, Gabby appeared to be in her midthirties. He didn’t have to look up and compare their features to know Rachel bore a striking resemblance to her mother. High cheekbones, the same square jawline, the full lips with a Cupid’s bow . . . “I’m sorry you haven’t had closure on her death.”

  “Thanks.” She avoided his eyes. “One day I will find her killer. It’s why I became a cop over my father’s objections—and that should have been my answer last night when you asked.”

  “I still don’t understand why he isn’t proud of you being a police officer.”

  “It’s not that he isn’t proud of me. He just always expected me to become a lawyer like him, and I did for a while. When I couldn’t stand being one any longer . . . you can see that he didn’t take it well when I resigned. By then Corey had died, and I didn’t care.”

  Boone had known Rachel’s husband. Corey Sloan had been a ruthless defense attorney that Boone had tangled with in court on more than one occasion. Knowing Rachel now, it was hard to see the two as a couple.

  Boone examined the photo again. Gabby Winslow had died the night it was taken. Harrison Foxx, a few days later. And now Vic Vegas was dead, Randy Culver lay near death, and an attempt had been made on Rachel’s life.

  He pointed to the fourth man, Daryl Cook. “I interviewed him last night. Lives in Las Vegas. Has his own Elvis show at one of the casinos.”

  Rachel nodded. “According to some of the other performers, he runs a close second to Randy Culver in popularity.”

  Boone tapped the photo. What was the common denominator? “What if your mother’s case wasn’t a burglary? What if someone used the other burglaries in the area to cover a motive to kill her? And Foxx’s murder is connected to hers?”

  She stiffened and shifted her gaze toward the board again.

  “That’s reaching,” she said with a shake of her head. “The detectives who investigated her case couldn’t find a motive for murder other than the burgla
ry, and so far, I can’t either. They even checked out my dad because my parents were separated. The detectives ruled him out after he had an ironclad alibi—he was in a bar with at least twenty-five witnesses who swore he never left after he arrived at ten thirty that night. And he volunteered to take a lie detector test and passed it.”

  “Why were they separated?”

  She hesitated. “The Judge was, still is, a workaholic, and Mom got tired of being by herself. About a month before she . . .” Rachel looked toward the window, then back at him. “Anyway, they were seeing a counselor. One other thing in his favor was Mom didn’t have a big insurance policy listing him as beneficiary. It was the other way around—he had a million-dollar policy on his life, payable to her.”

  “No enemies? No women jealous of her?”

  Rachel shook her head. “She wasn’t the type to attract enemies.”

  He finished off his bag of chips. “I’m going to leave her name up there, if for no other reason than her case has never been solved, and Foxx died only a few days later. Have you uncovered a motive for his death?”

  “I don’t have his case file yet. I meant to call Brad Hollister yesterday when we finished with the competition at the gym, but we got the call on Vic Vegas.”

  Had it just been twenty-four hours since the competition? The look on her face mirrored his thoughts. He’d worked with Brad in Homicide before his friend transferred to the Cold Case Unit. “I’ll give him a call right now.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were in the cold case storage room, sorting through files that were grouped together according to years.

  “Here it is,” Rachel said. She held up a manila envelope.

  “Doesn’t look like there’s much in it.”

  Back in the conference room, they dumped the contents on the table. A few photographs, investigation reports, and that was it.

  “Do you know the investigating officers?” Rachel asked.

  Boone glanced to see who the detectives were. Les Fields and Joe Takenaka. “Both were working Homicide when I joined the force. Don’t remember much about Fields, except he died a few years ago. Worked with Takenaka before he retired. A good man. Usually thorough. Unfortunately, he recently passed away as well, so no help there.”