“Just your run-of-the-mill district court judge who moonlights in an after-hours blues club,” Chelsea Ann had said.
“Oh great,” Rosemary said now. “They think we’re shooting scenes for that show.”
Chelsea Ann squinted at her watch. “Five more minutes,” she muttered, “and then we’re out of here even if I have to commandeer a squad car. I have a breakfast meeting first thing in the morning and y’all know what I’m like if I don’t get at least six hours of sleep.”
Almost as if he’d heard her, the lead detective came over to us.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, ladies… uh, ma’ams? Or is it Your Honors?” Amused by his own confusion, Detective Gary Edwards shook his head and smiled at us. “I’ve never addressed more than one judge at a time. Do y’all have a collective title?”
Cute.
Chelsea Ann, who’s currently between guys, sat up to give him a second and third look.
Early forties. Blond. Starting to beef up just a little through the waist.
And yeah, even though there’s now a wedding band on my own third finger, I found myself automatically checking out his.
No ring. No sign that he’d ever worn one.
Hmmmm.
(“
(The pragmatist shrugged.
Rosemary yawned and said, “Can we go now, Detective Edwards?”
“Sorry,” he said again. “I know you gave statements to the responding officer, but I need to hear it from Judge Knott myself if you don’t mind, ma’am.”
I did mind. I minded very much, but he pointed his own voice recorder at me and once again I had to tell the humiliating story of losing my dinner, which was how I had come to see Judge Jeffreys dead in the water.
“What about earlier?” Edwards asked. “Who was he seated with? Who didn’t like him?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know him that well and I didn’t pay much attention to him.” No way was I going to have him focus on Martha Fitzhume or Reid before I had a chance to find out why they thought Jeffreys was a prick. “He came by our table with one of the new judges, Judge Blankenthorpe from Charlotte. I think he was with her most of the evening.”
“She staying out at the conference hotel?” he asked.
“Probably. She was on the beach there this afternoon.”
Chelsea Ann and Rosemary offered up two or three more names of judges they’d seen with Jeffreys and I described his run-in with Stone Hamilton over Hamilton’s dog.
“Dog?” Edwards asked sharply. “Hamilton’s dog bit him?”
“Tried to. Or so Judge Jeffreys said. Hamilton didn’t think so. Anyhow, the dog was on a leash,” I said.
“You didn’t happen to notice what kind of a leash, did you?”
I shook my head and then winced as those marching drummers in my head banged their sticks against my temples.
“Blue,” Chelsea Ann said from her bench. “One of those retractable nylon bands. He used it to tie the dog to the railing while he ate. Why?”
Edwards walked back to her and said, “That’s what he was choked with.”
“Stone Hamilton’s leash?” Chelsea Ann fluffed her blonde hair back into its usual curls and shook her head. “Never. He and his group
“You a fan of his, Your Honor?”
“Absolutely, Detective Edwards.” She pulled out her keys and jingled them purposefully. “Now, if you’d just ask one of your men to move the tape so I can get my car out, I’d really appreciate it.”
He stepped back with a mock salute—“Yes, ma’am!”—and called over to tell one of the uniforms to let us leave.
Once we were in the car, I could see Chelsea Ann’s face in the rearview mirror. “Did you just twinkle at that Edwards guy?” I asked. “You did! You twinkled at him.”
As the uniformed officer lowered the tape at the exit of the parking lot and signaled for us to drive through, Chelsea Ann grinned and said, “So?”
Rosemary sighed and laid her head against the seat. “I thought you said that a chest for your new entry hall was the only thing you intended to bring back from the beach this year.”
Chelsea Ann gave her sister a reassuring pat on the arm. “I haven’t loaded him in my trunk,” she said. “Yet.”
CHAPTER
5
