make a difference, but because of the salary and the pension plan and it’s a first step toward higher office. He shoots from the hip with his rulings and half the time he doesn’t bother to read the whole case file. Just last fall, he put a guy on probation who was already on probation and hadn’t once reported to his probation officer. If he’d read the file, he would have seen an escalating pattern of criminal behavior—robbery, car theft, and a felony breaking and entering that was really a burglary because he broke into an occupied home at night.”
“Why didn’t Jeffreys keep him in jail for that?” I asked, since even first-time burglaries carry hefty jail time.
Bill shrugged. “He pleaded to the lesser charge and Jeffreys hadn’t read the file.”
“Is this the case where the guy left court and then murdered a girl?”
Grim-faced, Bill nodded. “Two days later he carjacked a waitress who was working her way through college. Raped and killed her and put her body in the trunk, then drove around for three days, using her credit cards and checkbook before he was picked up and they opened the trunk. He’ll probably get the death penalty when it comes to trial, but Jeffreys ought to be charged, too. Of course, he blames the DA and the probation officer for not alerting him to the guy’s record, but it was all there in front of him if he’d bothered to read it.”
“And now he wants to run for superior court,” Reid said, hotly indignant on his friend’s behalf.
“I guess everyone knows there’s no love lost between the two of you,” I said.
“After the way he helped screw up my life? Not that my ex didn’t do her share, too. She never exactly said I was gay, but she never came to my defense either. She just gave a little martyred smile and let the allegations stand so that our so-called friends wouldn’t blame her for catting around the courthouse on me.”
“She’s an attorney, too?”
He nodded. “That’s why I moved down here. I had to go back into practice, and I wasn’t going to stand up in a courtroom and call him ‘Your Honor’ after what he’d done. Besides, I didn’t want to keep running into my ex or one of her lovers every time I crossed the street. They’ll both get theirs one of these days but I wasn’t going to stay there and wait for it.”
“As far as Jeffreys is concerned, your wait’s over,” I said, speaking more flippantly than I felt. “He got his last night.”
“Huh?” said Reid.
“Someone strangled him last night in the parking lot near Jonah’s and threw him in the river.”
I kept my eyes on Bill’s face as I described the scene. The news seemed to surprise him, but then most lawyers have trained themselves to contain their emotions and to cultivate a poker face.
Both asked a dozen or more questions. In the end Reid leaned back in his chair and lifted his coffee cup as if toasting his friend. “They say you can’t go home again, but maybe now you can.”
“Not while Lisa’s still there,” Bill said grimly.
“One down, one to go.”
“Don’t joke,” I told Reid. “Once the police come up with a list of his enemies and learn that Bill was in the vicinity, they’ll want to know what time y’all left the restaurant last night.”
“Us? Oh hell, Deborah, you know we didn’t have anything to do with his death.”
“Well, as long as you can alibi each other,” I said. “You did drive back here together, right?” I said.
There was a split-second silence as the two men locked eyes.
“Actually,” said Bill, “we were in separate cars. Reid said he’d get the check and I needed to pick up some half-and-half for breakfast, so I left first and got here about thirty minutes before he did.”
“Where were you parked?”
“Up Ann Street, across from Jonah’s.”
“Did you see Pete Jeffreys in the parking lot?”
“No. When was he killed?”
I had to admit that I didn’t know. The last time I’d noticed him was right after I came back from talking with Reid. My cousin’s hostility to Jeffreys had been enough to make me look around for him to see if he’d suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. I now realized that the sour look he’d given me was probably because he’d seen me at Bill Hasselberger’s table.
As we ate, our talk turned from murder to gossip about mutual friends.
“So ol’ Fitz is finally retiring?” Reid said.
“And he’s being honored at a reception tomorrow night,” I told him. “Why don’t you come?”
“Maybe I will,” he said and entered the information as to where and when on his BlackBerry.
We’d finished eating and Reid began to make noises about getting down to Sunset Beach before lunch, so I thanked Bill for his hospitality and drove back to Wrightsville Beach.
I was halfway there before it hit me. Why had it taken Reid so long to pay the check that he’d gotten back to Bill’s house a half hour after Bill?
CHAPTER
7
