Deadly Judgment (Detective Sarah Spillman Mystery Series Book 5) Read online

  “Last Friday, right after work. We broke up, I called my neighbor to pick up the mail, then I took off.”

  “I see,” I said. “Would you mind if I spoke to your ex-girlfriend?”

  “No, no problem. Her name is Laura Davidson.” He told me her number, and I jotted it down.

  So far, his story matched what I’d heard from his neighbor with the shih tzu. “Isn’t it a little cold for camping?”

  He smiled. “I’ve got a Nissan Cube, where I can sleep in the back, and I did that.” He wasn’t very tall, and he probably fit fairly comfortably into the back of the Nissan. “I was out in the middle of nowhere, with no cell phone reception, which was the way I wanted it.” He looked at his cell phone sitting on a coffee table. “Who knew that something like this would happen while I was gone.”

  “Did you see anybody while you were out there?”

  He shook his head. “No. There are areas in the mountains where you can really get away from it all, and I did.”

  “You didn’t stay at a campground?”

  “I spent Monday and Tuesday nights at the Lost Lake Campground.”

  I made a note of that, so we could follow up. I tipped my head to the side. “And you drove back to Denver when?”

  “This morning. I’d lost the battery power on my phone, and when I realized that, I put it on the phone charger in the car. It wasn’t until I was closer to Denver that I even listened to the messages. That’s when I called the office and talked to Sheila Noonan, and she said I should call Detective Hernandez.”

  It all sounded plausible, and he seemed perfectly believable. “Did Sheila tell you anything else?”

  “Just what she knew about Warren’s death, which wasn’t much. We heard he was murdered, but we don’t even know how he died.” He looked at me expectantly.

  “We’re in the middle of our investigation, so we can’t release all the details yet.”

  “Sure,” he said, slightly disappointed. He stared at the floor for a second. “It’s crazy. I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  “How long have you worked for Judge Nakamura?”

  “It’s been about ten years now. I clerked for another judge that Warren knew, and when Warren’s previous clerk moved out of state, he hired me to take his place, gave me a clerkship. I’ve really enjoyed working for Warren, and I don’t know what I’m going to do now. He was a really nice man.”

  As he talked, his voice softened, and it was clear that he admired Nakamura a great deal.

  “You got along with the judge?” I asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “Warren hardly had a bad word for anyone, and I learned a lot from him. He was fair, and I never saw him inject his politics or his personal views into his trials. When he was working on a decision, he took everything about a case into account, and was careful and thoughtful. He worked hard to be impartial.”

  “Do you know Judge Raymond McCleary?”

  He thought about that. “I’ve heard of him, but I don’t think I ever met him. Why do you ask?”

  I realized that he probably hadn’t watched the news. “Judge McCleary was murdered Monday night.”

  “You’re kidding. Sheila didn’t mention that. And then Warren the next night?” His shock seemed genuine. “Do you think the same person murdered both of them?”

  I hesitated. “That’s what I’d like to find out.”

  He ran a hand over his face. “Wow. I go away for a few days, feeling like my world was crashing around me, and I come back and it’s only worse.”

  “Yes, I’m sure a lot of people are feeling that way now.”

  “I didn’t mean …” He went red again. “I mean … the families. It must be terrible.”

  “Yes.” I studied him. “Do you get along with Sheila?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, she’s nice. It’s been a good job, a good place to work.”

  “Had you noticed Judge Nakamura acting any different lately?”

  He thought about that as he looked at a geometric painting on the wall. “Not really.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “Sheila Noonan said that last Wednesday the judge got a phone call and mentioned something about AK.”

  “Yeah, I overheard the start of the conversation, and then he asked me to leave his office.”

  “Did he tell you what it was about?”

  He shook his head. “No, he didn’t say. After that, he did ask me to look up a previous trial.”

  “What trial?”

  “The Bradley trial.”

  “Scott Bradley?” I couldn’t believe it. Spats and I had talked to Judge Halloran about that case a few hours earlier. And then something else occurred to me. AK. Was that the initials for Alex Knight, the victim in the Bradley trial? I had missed that before.

  He nodded. “That’s the one.”

  “Why did he want it?”

  He was puzzled. “I don’t know, and that’s what was a little strange. This wasn’t even for a recent trial, it was for a case when he was the prosecuting attorney. I got the case file for him, and I didn’t think anything else of it.” He eyed me. “Is that significant?”

  “It could be. Where’s the file now?”

  “I would assume it’s at his office. I took it to him, and he had it on his desk, and he never asked me to return it.”

  I thought fast. “Did the judge ask you anything in particular about this case?”

  “No. As a matter of fact, I asked him about his interest in an old case, and he brushed me off.” He frowned. “You know, it was a little strange for him to do that. He’s not usually like that; he was unfailingly polite, he’ll share things with me. I didn’t think too much about it, but now with him …” His voice trailed off. “Well, now it makes me wonder why he wanted that file, and why he didn’t want to talk about it.”

  “I’m wondering the same thing,” I said. “Did he mention the names Damien Edison or Corey Dixon?”

  His mouth turned down. “Not that I recall.”

  “How did he act after he asked for the Bradley file?”

  He tapped a finger on his knee. “He may have been a little quieter than usual. It’s hard to say, because he could be very funny, but not so much lately.”

  “Was he worried about something?”

  He considered that. “Possibly. He could sometimes get quiet, though, so I didn’t think too much about it.” He glanced away, embarrassed. “And to be honest, with everything going on with my ex-girlfriend, I probably wasn’t paying as much attention to Warren as I might’ve another time. I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” His cell phone rang. We both looked at it, but he ignored it. “Did you notice any strangers around the office, see anyone following you, something like that?”

  He shook his head. “No. I don’t know of anybody who would’ve wanted to hurt Warren, let alone murder him. He really was a good man, and this just doesn’t make sense.”

  “And you’re sure the judge didn’t give any hint about anything going wrong?”

  He gnawed his lip. “I don’t remember anything. Other than his asking about that file, nothing seemed that unusual lately.”

  I went over the Felix Robinson case, and asked him if he knew anything about Felix, his sister, or Victor Marko. He insisted he didn’t.

  His cell phone beeped with a message. He looked at it, then at me.

  “I’m really sorry I missed your phone calls, or I would’ve come back sooner,” he said. “I’ll do anything to help you find who murdered Warren. Man, I can’t believe I came back to this. And I feel terrible for his family.”

  As I sat there, I wondered if I’d read him wrong. However, I did want to verify his story with his ex-girlfriend.

  “Is there anything else?” he asked.

  “Not right now.” I got up and thanked him for his time. He walked me to the door and looked outside.

  “I think it was warmer down south.” His voice sounded as if he wanted to leave the city again.

  “If you think of anything e
lse important, please call us,” I said.

  He said he would, and as soon as he shut his door, I was immediately on my phone. We needed to get back into Nakamura’s office to find the Bradley case file. As I walked to my car, I called Spats.

  “I just talked to Zack Newberry.” I couldn’t talk fast enough as I filled him in. “He says that Nakamura asked him to get the case file for Scott Bradley.”

  He swore. “That’s the trial that Judge Halloran presided over.”

  “Yes. And Nakamura was overheard saying something about AK. The murder victim was Alex Knight. What if ‘AK’ was for Alex Knight?”

  “Oh true.”

  “Can you get some of the detectives at the courthouse to go to Nakamura’s office and see if that file’s there?”

  “Give me a few minutes.”

  With that, he was gone. I went to the Escape and called Detective Lattimore.

  “I already talked to Crawford’s wife,” he said. “She confirms her husband didn’t receive any threatening notes. And he sent the video surveillance. I’m looking through it now, but I don’t see anything unusual. I’ll watch it all carefully, and let you know if there’s anything you should see.”

  “Thanks. I have one more thing for you.” I told him about Zack Newberry. “Could you follow up on his alibi?”

  “You got it.”

  I ended the call and sat for a minute, waiting for Spats to call back. He did, ten minutes later.

  “The Bradley file’s not in his office,” Spats said. “They searched all his desk drawers, and even the admin’s desk. That file isn’t in his office, it’s not back where it belongs, and neither are the case files for Damien Edison or Corey Dixon.”

  “Zack said Nakamura never asked him to return the Bradley file.” I thought for a second. “Was he just researching an old case? If so, why?

  “Or did he take it so no one else could find it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’m going to see if Nakamura’s daughter will let me check his house, see if it’s there. Something was special about the Bradley trial,” I said.

  “No kidding.”

  “Any luck on finding Dixon?”

  “He’s living with his sister. And he has an alibi for both nights. He was volunteering with her at a food bank. I’m going to head there to verify that, but I think his alibi is good.”

  “That’s one suspect down.”

  “Yep. Tell me what you find at Nakamura’s house, okay?”

  “I will.”

  I ended the call, got in touch with Nakamura’s daughter, Kelsey, and she agreed to meet me at his house. I was there in half an hour. She was waiting for me, and opened the door before I could knock.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again so soon.”

  “Thank you for meeting me here,” I said. “I need to look for a file that your father might’ve had.”

  “Let’s go into his office.”

  The small rock fountain in the entry still bubbled over the rocks, a haunting sound given the judge’s death. We went to Nakamura’s office, and I made a beeline to his desk. The drawers were locked.

  “Let me see if I can find a key,” Kelsey said. She left the room and returned a few minutes later with a silver key. She inserted it into a middle drawer, glanced at me, and turned it. Then she stepped back.

  I opened the drawer and glanced at her. She nodded, giving me permission to search it. I checked all the drawers and found the file tucked behind several other files. A sticky note was on top. I showed it to Kelsey.

  “That’s Dad’s handwriting,” she said.

  Nakamura had written Judge Halloran’s name on the sticky note, and inside the file were more typed notes about the case. The sticky note looked new. I set the file on the desk and searched for case files for the Damien Edison or Corey Dixon trials, but didn’t find them. I then checked the rest of the house, with Kelsey in tow. I ended up back in Nakamura’s office. I picked up the file.

  “I need to take this with me. It belongs at the courthouse.”

  “Sure,” she said. She rubbed a hand over her arm. “Do you need anything else?”

  “Not right now,” I said.

  I thanked her for her time, and as I was headed out the door, my phone rang. I answered as I got in the car.

  “Hey, Spillman,” Ernie said. “I’ve been trying to find Scott Bradley, and I can’t. He hasn’t reported to his parole officer for six months. They’ve issued a warrant for his arrest, and they’ve tried to track him down, but no luck. The parole officer had an address in east Denver, a cheap motel, but Bradley hasn’t been there in a couple of weeks. The manager said he’d been paying with cash, and he doesn’t know where Bradley went. So far, I can’t find anything on Bradley’s finances, no credit card trail that might tell us where he is.”

  I felt a rock in my stomach. “This isn’t good.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  I updated him on everything I’d been doing.

  “You think Judge Halloran – excuse me, Hank – was holding something back? Blowing smoke through all the folksy charm?” he asked when I finished.

  “I do.” I thought for a second. “Where are you at?”

  “The station.”

  “Spats is in Aurora, tracking down Dixon’s alibi. I want someone with me when I talk to Halloran again. I think he might know more than he told us.”

  “I can meet you there.”

  “I’ll see you soon.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A dark line of clouds hung in the sky as I turned onto Judge Halloran’s street in Golden. I saw Ernie’s sedan parked in front of Halloran’s house, and I screeched in behind it. I got out, and so did Ernie. He adjusted his coat.

  “It’s getting chilly.”

  I shivered as a gust of wind blew off the foothills down the street. “It’s almost spooky.”

  He frowned at me. “Don’t say that.”

  We both glanced around, wondering if a killer was lurking somewhere nearby, waiting for his opportunity.

  “I’ve got a detective at the station trying to track down Bradley,” Ernie said as we walked up the sidewalk to Halloran’s front porch. “We’re still hitting a dead end.”

  “What’s up with Bradley?” I shook my head. “Lots of parolees don’t show up for their parole meetings, for lots of reasons.”

  “Drugs,” Ernie said dryly.

  “Yeah, or because they’re breaking the law in some other way.” I frowned. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this one, though. Why wouldn’t Bradley show up for his parole meetings? What was he hiding?”

  I had a coat on, and I pulled it tight around me, not just against the chill wind, but to ward off an ominous feeling that crept up my back. I rang the bell, and a plump woman in slacks and a sweater opened the door and peered out at us.

  “Yes?” Then she saw Ernie’s badge and her eyes went wide. “You’re detectives? Is there a problem?” She was soft-spoken, a hint of concern wrapped in her question.

  I took the lead. “Is your husband here? I was here earlier today with another detective, and we’d like to talk to him again.”

  Before she could answer, I heard Judge Halloran’s voice. “Who is it, Betty?”

  He approached and saw us over her shoulder. He blinked, but didn’t seem surprised.

  “Detective,” he said as he looked at me. “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten your name.”

  “Spillman,” I said. I gestured at Ernie. “This is Detective Moore.”

  “Betty, let them in,” Halloran said. “It must be cold out there.”

  “Oh, of course, I’m so sorry.” She stepped back and let us into the foyer. Then she looked to the street. “Boy, that is a chilly wind, isn’t it?”

  I nodded at her. “Yes, it is.”

  Halloran looked at us, his expression slightly worried. “Betty, I think these two detectives need to talk to me, in private. I’ll take them to my office.”

  “Oh, I see,” Betty said. She looked b
etween Ernie and me. “Could I get you two anything to drink? A glass of water? Coffee?”

  We both shook our heads, although the coffee sounded tempting. “We need a few minutes with the judge,” I said.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Goodbye, dear.” Halloran kissed her on the cheek.

  “I’ll clean up in the kitchen first.” She stared at him. “Do you want me to wait?”

  He shook his head. “Go on. I’ll be fine.”

  She smiled, backed away, and went into the kitchen. A TV turned on, then the sound of dishes being put away.

  Halloran looked at us somberly. “Come with me to my office.”

  He turned and made his way down the hallway opposite the kitchen and took us to a small home office, not nearly as elegant as Judge Crawford’s. A desk was pressed against a corner, and a few bookcases were opposite it. A love seat sat under a window. I could see the Denver skyscrapers in the distance. Ernie took the love seat, and I sat on a nearby wingback chair. Halloran shut the door, then went to his desk chair, sank onto it, and swiveled around to look at us.

  “I didn’t think I’d be back so soon,” I said. “I assure you it’s important.”

  I couldn’t read his eyes. They seemed to be a mix of regret and resignation. He clasped his hands together over his ample belly, and he chose his words carefully.

  “I wondered when you would return,” he said.

  This was not what I expected. I eyed Ernie, and he shrugged, taken aback as well. “What do you mean? Why did you think we’d be back?”

  Halloran looked toward the door and a sad smile swept across his face, then vanished. “I’ve lived a good life. I’ve done a lot of things, and had a successful career as a judge.” I wasn’t sure where he was going with this, but I decided to let him speak. “However …” He blinked hard a few times. “I made one mistake, and I’ve had to live with that for a long time.”

  “What mistake?” I asked softly. I braced myself. Was I about to hear a confession? I debated whether to read him his rights. But then he might stop talking. Because of that, I decided to let him continue, what’s legally known as a spontaneous utterance. With that procedural leeway, I didn’t have to interrupt him to read him his rights. The room was quiet as he gathered his thoughts, just a slight rattling of the window pane from the wind outside.