“You’re right, Judge Knott.” His voice was icy cold. “This night never happened.” He glared at Allen. “You can thank her that I’m not going to press charges against you.” Then, with as much dignity as he could muster, he marched up the steps and back toward the hotel.
“Bastard,” Allen said cheerfully, rubbing the knuckles of his right hand.
“Did you really have to hit him that hard?” I asked. “Twice?”
“He won’t taking no for an answer, was he? Seems like you oughta be thanking me.”
“Why? I can take care of myself.”
“Yeah? Didn’t look that way to me.”
“Where did you fly in from anyhow?”
“I’m an angel, darlin’. Your guardian angel, didn’t you know that? So how come he thought he could snuggle up to you?”
“It’s a long story,” I said wearily.
“Well, less’n you want to go in while he’s still roaming around looking for ice, you got time to tell me one.” He stopped at the foot of the lifeguard stand and started up the ladder. “Just let me get my cigarettes.”
So that was the smoke I’d smelled earlier and it was how he’d landed on Blackstone’s back. I followed him up the ladder. If we were going to kill some time, might as well have a gull’s-eye view of the water.
With a roof and railings, the structure was more like a deer stand than a single chair on stilts, which was why I hadn’t noticed him sitting up here so still and quiet.
“Lots of room here on the bench,” Allen said, when I sat down on the floor with my back against a post.
“I’m fine here, thank you. Why didn’t you say something when I passed below you before?”
“I sorta thought you wanted to be alone for a while. Figured I’d catch you on your way in and then that SOB showed up right behind you. Hunkered down over there and waited for you to come back.”
For some reason that freaked me out a little. I was ready to see the encounter as the result of one too many drinks, but to follow me from the hotel and wait to see whether I was alone or meeting someone? Maybe I was luckier than I realized that Allen had been watching.
He lit his cigarette, inhaled deeply, and leaned back. “So what was that about pottery, darlin’?”
“Don’t call me—” I caught myself and bit back the rest of my words. It would be ungrateful not to cut him a little slack right now. Instead, I told him about my first run-in with Blackstone, exaggerating enough to have him shaking his head in amusement at the end.
“I could almost feel sorry for that poor slob.”
“Don’t waste your tears,” I said. “Now it’s your turn. Tell me everything you know about Pete Jeffreys.”
“You asking as a judge or off the record?”
“Off the record,” I assured him. A man who carries diaper wipes in his pocket has to be a good daddy and who knew what kind of mother his third ex-wife was.
(“
Hesitantly at first, and then more confidently, he fleshed out the story of the Jamerson Labs tech that he’d seduced and how she’d told him Jeffreys had tempted her to fake some of the blood tests for his clients.
“He was real sneaky about it. Never right-out asked her to do it and never paid her a dime himself, but the men she helped sure did. So then when he got to be a judge and I was fighting Katy for my young’uns, I figured he might see things my way if I offered to put new gutters on his house, if you know what I mean.”
I knew what he meant. “How much did it cost you?”
He shrugged. “I’d’ve paid a lot more.”
In the end, he didn’t add a thing of substance to what I’d already heard. The clients Jeffreys had nudged toward Jamerson Labs, the burned child, the murdered college kid, the DWI dismissals, the solicitation for campaign donations in open court?
Yesterday’s news.
Without a complaint from the attorneys who’d heard the solicitation or a confession from those he’d taken bribes from, the rest was circumstantial and nothing for which he could be held criminally culpable. But a pattern was emerging and it would have been only a matter of time before he came to the attention of the State Bar, which could and would have censured him and called on the chief justice to remove him from the bench.
“When he brought Judge Blankenthorpe over to meet you that night, what was that about?”
“Showing off. Acting like I was a millionaire who give him some big bucks for his campaign and maybe he could talk me into throwing a little her way when she has to run. Like I give a good goddamn for a judge that’s got nothing to do with me.” He cocked his head at me. “So when you running again, darlin’?”
CHAPTER
18
Drifting off to sleep a little later, I drowsily found myself remembering Fitz’s exact words at lunch yesterday. He
