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

  Ed shook his head. “I’m really sorry, Detective, but we didn’t notice a thing. And with the TV on, we likely wouldn’t hear anything, either, unless it was a really loud noise.”

  Hernandez asked the question that was on the tip of my tongue. “What about this morning?”

  “I don’t get up as early as I used to.” Ed smiled, clearly enjoying his retirement lifestyle. “I slept until almost 7:30, and once I got up, I didn’t even look outside. I got some coffee and watched one of the morning shows. My wife leaves for work around 7:45. She works up the road, at an office building just north of Wadsworth and Hampden. It doesn’t take her too long to get there. I asked her about this morning as well. She didn’t see anybody out this morning when she was in the kitchen, or when she left for work.” He turned to look at the other houses on the street. “It’s a very nice neighborhood, and it stays quiet.”

  Hernandez paused, then said, “Officer Yoder said you had something to tell us.”

  “Uh, yes.” Ed stared at us and seemed unsure how to proceed. He took his hands out of his pockets and scratched those bushy eyebrows. “Yeah, something occurred to me when I was talking to the officer.” He smiled at Yoder. “About a week ago I was outside working in the garage. It was dark, and I saw headlights on the street, and a car pulled up to Warren’s house. I saw Warren get out, and then I realized he must’ve gotten an Uber lift. I heard him talking to the driver. He was a little loud, and I think a little drunk.” He hesitated.

  Hernandez tipped his head, eyes wide. “Is that unusual?”

  Ed nodded vigorously. “You have to understand, Warren and his wife were both very quiet, very reserved. I don’t think I ever saw him drink anything, and nobody in the neighborhood saw or heard either one of them drinking much, let alone being drunk.” He blushed. “I shouldn’t say everybody, but I’ve talked to the Drakes across the street,” he pointed to a ranch house directly across from his house, “and they’d never seen the Nakamuras drink. And one time Warren’s daughter said that her parents didn’t drink much at all. She said her father had told her that when he was younger, he’d gotten drunk once, and he hated it. I think he liked to stay in control. So, for me at least, it was very surprising to see Warren like that.” Ed frowned. “And for him to go out somewhere drinking, and then have to get a ride home, that just seems completely out of character.”

  I thought about how neat and orderly the house was. That seemed to fit with Warren as a teetotaler. A car drove by, and Ed waved at the driver, then looked back at us.

  Hernandez pondered everything Ed had said for a moment. “Did you talk to Warren after that, or find out if he’d gotten drunk, and why?”

  Ed shook his head. “No. I saw him a few days later, and that’s not something that I would mention. I think he would’ve been really embarrassed if I had said anything, and he didn’t say a word about it.” He held up a finger. “But here’s the other interesting thing. When Warren got out of the car that night, I heard him ask the driver if they’d been followed.” Another small shrug. “I mean, maybe it’s nothing, but it sounded strange at the time, and now that he’s been murdered, maybe someone was after him?”

  Hernandez glanced at me. I immediately wondered that, too.

  “Do you know where the judge had gone that night?” Hernandez asked.

  Ed frowned. “I have no idea.”

  “That’s okay,” Hernandez said. “Do you know what night that was?”

  “Let me think. Wednesday. I’m sure of it, because I go grocery shopping Wednesdays.”

  Hernandez made note of that. “Speaking of someone being after the judge, did he ever talk about making anybody upset, maybe on some of the trials he presided over?”

  Ed shook his head. “No, not that I ever heard. When Warren and I would talk, it was usually about politics or gardening. I don’t know if you looked in his back yard, but it’s beautiful, landscaped as a Japanese garden. He’s so good with his plants and flowers, I asked him for some tips. I never heard him talk much about his trials, or anything that he did at work. I don’t even know how long he’d been a judge.”

  “What else did you hear the judge say to the Uber driver?” Hernandez asked.

  “That was it. I heard him pay the driver, thank him for getting him home, and then the car drove off. Warren went in his house, and I didn’t see him the rest of the night.”

  “Did you see anybody around his house that night?” Hernandez pressed.

  Ed squinted at the trees again. “No. I wrapped up my work in the garage, and the only people I saw were the neighbors that live down at the corner, Frank and Edie. They were out for a late-night walk, and I waved to them. Otherwise, it was a quiet evening, pretty warm for this time of year, so I was taking advantage of it. I went inside and cleaned up, and then I watched the evening news. I have no idea what Warren did for the rest of the evening. Probably slept it off.”

  It was disappointing that Ed hadn’t seen or heard anything the night he saw Nakamura come home, but definitely not unusual. Most people don’t pay attention to what happens around their neighborhoods. Plus, most folks have their houses closed up with the TV or music on.

  “So nobody suspicious around here lately?” Hernandez asked.

  “Sorry, I don’t know,” Ed said. “I’ll make sure to ask my wife if she noticed anything, but I think she would’ve told me.”

  “You’ve met the judge’s kids?” Hernandez asked.

  “Yes,” Ed said. “His daughters are quiet, but nice. Kelsey lives here, and she looked after her dad.” He frowned. “This will be so hard for them. Such a shame.”

  “Yes,” Hernandez murmured.

  Chapter Fifteen

  We watched Ed Renfro walk back to his house, and then Hernandez turned to me.

  “What do you think?”

  I put a hand to my brow to shield the sun. “Let’s see if we can find anybody to corroborate what he said about Nakamura and his drinking. I don’t want to go off thinking that the judge never drinks, and then we find out it’s just that Ed Renfro didn’t really know the truth about that.” I gathered my thoughts. “Did anybody ask Nakamura’s kids about that?”

  He shook his head. “I talked to Kelsey, their older daughter, but I didn’t ask her specifically about that.” He gave a sheepish shrug. “I didn’t know to ask.”

  “You didn’t know it might be important.” I looked at Yoder, then pointed toward Ed Renfro’s house. “Did what he told us match with what he told you?”

  Yoder nodded. “Yeah, that was it. He filled in a bit, but that was the gist of it.”

  “Good,” I said.

  Yoder glanced between us, then took a couple of steps back. “I’ll keep working through the neighborhood.” With that, he spun on his heel and walked down the street.

  I glanced around the front yard. “What else did Nakamura’s daughter say about her dad?”

  Hernandez scratched at his ear and thought about that. “Once she got past the shock of her father’s death, she was quiet, a little reserved. He held up a finger. “Tell you what, she lives close by. Want me to call to see if she can come back over? She was having a hard time when she was first here, having trouble talking about her dad. Maybe she could give us a little more info now.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to talk to her,” I said. “In the meantime, let me make a few phone calls. You have people interviewing Nakamura’s staff?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, I sent a couple of detectives there.”

  “Good.” I thought about that. “I’ll want to interview Nakamura’s staff, and McCleary’s, if I can find the time. I want to know if the judges knew each other, if their staff talked to each other, see if there’s anything in common with the two judges.” I raised my eyebrows. “You said you have somebody getting a warrant for Nakamura’s electronics, right?”

  “Yeah, they’re working on that now.”

  “Good.” I nodded approvingly. “Once we have those, we’ll get a tech to scan his phone records and
compare to McCleary’s, see if there are any common numbers between the two judges.”

  “A scan of the recs will make it easier to see if there’s commonality.”

  “Give me a minute to make some calls,” I said.

  “I’ll see if Nakamura’s daughter can come back over.”

  Hernandez stood in the driveway and dialed a number, and I went back into Nakamura’s house. The uniform at the door logged me in again, and I went into the kitchen to make some calls. A faint odor hung in the air, fish and oil, as I looked around while on the phone. I tried Spats and he didn’t answer, so I left a message for him to call me. Then I called a detective who was working with McCleary’s staff and told him to ask them whether the judge knew anything about Nakamura. As I talked, I peeked in all the cupboards but didn’t find any alcohol. By the time I finished clarifying what all I needed from the detectives, I heard Hernandez and a female voice at the front door. Then Hernandez came into the kitchen escorting a young woman with shoulder-length black hair and Asian features. Her eyes were red, her mouth turned down with grief, in stark contrast to the girlish tight jeans and perky pink blouse she wore. Hernandez introduced me.

  “Detective Hernandez said you wanted to talk to me,” Kelsey began, “and I’m happy to talk to you, but I did tell Detective Hernandez everything I can think of.”

  I nodded. “I’m so sorry for your loss.” It was the best I could offer, and it was lame. She nodded her head. “I’m sorry to ask you to do this again, but I’d like to ask you some questions. It would help me to hear firsthand what you have to say. You might think of something that you forgot to tell Detective Hernandez.”

  She moved over to an island, then tapped a chair. “Is it okay if I sit down?”

  At this point, the forensics team had gone through the entire house, so it didn’t matter anymore. I nodded. She pulled out a bar stool and hoisted herself onto it, which actually gave her more height. She laced her hands together and looked at me.

  “Tell me about your father,” I said.

  She smiled proudly. “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met. You know he’s a judge, right?”

  “Yes, I’m aware of that.”

  Hernandez leaned against the refrigerator and let Kelsey and me talk.

  Her expression softened as she thought about her father. “He worked very hard all his life. He was a prosecuting attorney, and then from there, he decided he wanted to be a judge, and he worked to get appointed. I thought he looked so cool in his black gown, sitting up on the bench.”

  “You saw him preside over trials?”

  She nodded. “Well, I first saw him when he was a prosecuting attorney. The trials I watched were actually kind of boring, but I liked to watch my dad. He didn’t raise his voice or anything like that. He was soft-spoken, but he had a way that made you really listen. When he became a judge, I attended a few of his trials. Sometimes he seemed so intent on everything, and other times I thought he looked like he was going to fall asleep.” She laughed, a small thing. “But then I realized he didn’t miss a thing.” Another little laugh. “Not bad for a man who grew up poor in southeast Colorado.”

  “That’s where your family’s from?”

  She shifted and leaned back. “They’re actually from San Francisco, and then my great-grandparents were brought to an internment camp in Granada. That’s in southeast Colorado. My great-grandparents owned a grocery store, and they had everything taken away from them. It was hard after the war, bad memories, so they moved from Granada to a small town near the Kansas border, and that’s where my father was born. He worked his way through college, and that’s where he met my mother. They got married, and he went to law school. They moved to Denver, and stayed here. His parents moved in about twenty years ago. That was a bit stressful, and I think it stretched my parents, financially, but they made it through that. My grandparents passed away about ten years ago, and then Mom a few years ago.”

  “I know, I’m sorry,” I murmured.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly. Then she got choked up and cleared her throat. “I didn’t think that I’d have to be dealing with my father’s death so soon. He seemed so healthy, so much going for him, and I just can’t …” She couldn’t finish the sentence and brushed tears out of her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” I said. “Take your time.”

  She nodded and took a minute to gather herself. The house was quiet, just the sound from the fountain in the hall. She finally drew in a breath and let it out slowly. “Dad was about to retire. He’d been a judge for almost twenty years, and although he enjoyed it, he really loved his home and his gardens. Have you looked around?”

  “Yes,” I said. “The back yard is beautiful.”

  She beamed with pride. “I thought it was a lot of work, quite frankly, but he loved puttering around, planting flowers and trimming bushes. He was an early riser, and he’d get up and get the paper, and if it was nice, he’d sit on the back porch with a cup of coffee and read the paper from front to back. In the evenings, he’d just sit and listen to the sounds of the neighborhood.”

  “That sounds lovely.”

  “He had a good sense of humor, too, but he was careful about letting that side show. His humor was dry, but then sometimes he’d tell the dumbest jokes. But just the way he told them made you laugh.”

  After a brief silence, I eased the conversation toward what the neighbor, Ed Renfro, had said. “Did your father socialize much?”

  She shook her head. “No. Both my parents kept to themselves. Don’t get me wrong, they were both wonderful people, they just didn’t like to go out with friends that much. They enjoyed playing Shogi – Japanese chess – and Mahjongg. They liked to watch old movies. They went out to eat every Friday night, and they’d pick a different restaurant each time, and then they would come home and watch a movie. They walked the neighborhood early every morning, even if it was cold or snowy, although my father stopped doing that once she passed away. And they liked to go to San Francisco in the fall to visit my sister. She has two young boys, and my dad loved seeing them all. Other than that, they tended to stay home.”

  “Do you have kids?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not married, no kids.”

  “Did either of your parents drink much?”

  She shook her head. “No, neither one of them drank.”

  “Not at all?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe the occasional glass of wine when they went out to dinner, but never more than one glass. They never drank at home, and I never saw either one of them even tipsy.”

  “I see,” I said. “Did your father mention going out last Wednesday night, where he may have had too much to drink?”

  Her eyes widened. “No, he didn’t. And that doesn’t sound like him at all.”

  She seemed to be confirming what Ed Renfro had said. Had Nakamura gotten drunk that night, and if so, why? What was going on that he would do something seemingly so out of character?

  I went on. “Did your father mention that he was worried about anything lately? Anybody that might have had a grudge against him?”

  She shook her head and looked at Hernandez. “No. I told Detective Hernandez the same thing. Granted, I didn’t talk to people that he worked with, but from what I knew, Dad didn’t have any problems at the courthouse. Mom would’ve said something, too, and she never did.”

  “What about since then?” I asked pointedly.

  “If there were any problems with anybody, I didn’t hear of it.”

  I glanced out a window to the street. “Any issues with any of his neighbors?”

  “No. Like I said, Dad kept to himself, and I don’t think he had any problems with anybody.” She held up her hands. “Why would he? He was quiet, a nice man. He had a kind word for everyone, and he’d help you out, if you needed it.”

  “So as far as you know, no one threatened your father?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry, I don’t k
now of anybody who would’ve wanted to harm him, or … kill … him.”

  “Have you heard of Olivia Hartnell or Victor Marko?”

  She stared at me, puzzled. “No, should I?”

  “Your father didn’t mention either of them?”

  “No.” She looked at Hernandez again, then at me. “What’s this about?”

  “Just following up on something else,” I said.

  “I’m sorry.” She bit her lip, stifled some emotion. “When will we be able to have access to Dad’s house? My sister will be coming into town later tonight, and we thought she’d want to look around.”

  I glanced at Hernandez, and he gave a subtle nod. I turned back to her.

  “We’ve done everything here, and once we leave, you can enter the house. We appreciate your giving us the time that we needed here.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I just can’t believe this happened.”

  I’d heard that statement so many times before, and every single time I wished that someone hadn’t needed to say it, or that I had some comforting words to say in response.

  She stared at her hands for a minute, then made eye contact with me. “Do you need anything else?”

  I shook my head and thanked her for her time, then gave her a business card in case she needed to contact me. She slid off the stool and walked quietly out of the kitchen. When she left, I turned to Hernandez.

  “So the judge went out, and he possibly got drunk last Wednesday night. And if that’s the case, it’s definitely unusual,” he said.

  “Yes,” I said. “And, if Ed Renfro heard correctly, the judge was worried that somebody was following him.” I looked around the kitchen. “A man who was quiet and nice, with no enemies, is shot in his den. Something doesn’t add up.”

  “What?” Hernandez said.

  I shrugged. “Good question.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “We need to figure out who that Uber driver is,” I said to Hernandez. “I want to find out where Nakamura was last Wednesday night, if he met anybody, and why he was out drinking when supposedly he never drinks. And why he thought someone was following him.”