Emily had anything to do with the murder and she needs an advocate.”
“You think her aunt is going to let her go to prison?”
“I think her aunt is a prosecutor, not a cop. Doesn’t matter if the kid goes to prison or not. What matters is clearing her name.”
And that was the crux of it, Connor suddenly realized. He’d lived for years under a cast of suspicion. He didn’t want a young, impressionable kid to suffer through the same. And from what he knew of Crystal Montgomery, he didn’t see any support coming from her direction. And Julia? She might want to protect her niece, but did she think the kid was innocent or guilty?
“Aw, hell. If Carina were here she’d blab to you anyway. You always were her favorite.” Patrick pushed away from his desk, walked around, and collapsed into his chair. “I’m really going out on a limb here, Connor.”
“I know,” he said quietly. “I’m going to tell you something off the record, okay? Montgomery raped his stepdaughter when she was thirteen years old. The kid has needed help, but no one saw it. Not me, not her aunt, and certainly not her mother. If I can help…dammit, I’m going to.”
“I’ll deny I said anything to you, not that anyone would believe me,” Patrick mumbled. “This is what we have so far. The security system is state-of-the-art and I can’t get anything out of it other than log-in and log-out times. I need the programmer to pull out more information. What we know is that Emily Montgomery’s code opened the garage at four thirty-five yesterday afternoon. We know that she entered the house at five twenty-nine.”
“Where was she for that hour?”
“Who knows? The garage door closed at five twenty-nine as well. What was she doing for nearly one hour in the garage? Or did she walk around the grounds of the house?”
“When did the judge arrive home?”
“Two-eighteen. Parked in the garage. Door closed at two-nineteen. Entered house at two twenty-one. What I can’t get without help from the programmer is whether any other doors or windows-other than the two coded entrances-were opened between two twenty-one and five twenty-nine.”
“Time of death?”
“Don’t know, don’t want to know. I’m looking at the technology. I’ll give Will and Gage the facts. It’s up to them to fit those facts into the puzzle of the investigation.”
“What about security cameras?”
“No tape. Just live feed.” Patrick paused. “I have one other thing, but I haven’t told the investigative team yet, so keep this to yourself until I talk to Will after the autopsy. The judge logged onto his computer at two forty- three yesterday. Retrieved e-mail, responded to a couple of messages up until three thirty-nine when he opened a message and started to respond. He never finished. It was still on his screen when I retrieved the computers early this morning.” He picked up a coffee mug, drank, grimaced, and put it back down. “Want some coffee?”
“No thanks.”
“Yes you do.” He stood, stared at his desk, then said, “The pot’s downstairs. It might take me a few minutes.”
Connor didn’t miss his meaning.
When Patrick closed the door, Connor went through the folders on his desk. The case file was easy to find-it was labeled in Patrick’s thick block letters: MONTGOMERY HOMICIDE.
He flipped open the file. The security logs were on top, the information Patrick had just given Connor. Connor wrote down the times and facts, flipped rapidly through the papers. Stopped when he saw a series of e-mails.
The content chilled Connor’s blood.
Connor knew Patrick would have another copy of the e-mails stored on his computer, so he glanced at the window-the blinds were closed-and pulled the message from the file, folded the paper, and put it in his back pocket. He skimmed the other e-mails, all to and from the group “Wishlist” taken off Emily’s computer. There were hundreds, most seemed innocuous and chatty. The “justice” thread was disturbing-several people wrote about killing.
As the messages continued, they became more corrupted with missing or odd characters. Patrick must have run an undelete program to extract them. Connor flipped quickly, looking for Emily’s name, and found nothing else that would incriminate her. The first message was damning enough.
Near the bottom of the stack his eye caught one familiar word.
He pulled the Judson message, pocketed it, and left Patrick’s office.
Time to go to the library and search the newspaper archives. Who was Judson?
As soon as Connor saw the article about the high school principal’s murder, he remembered the case. Paul Judson, fifty-seven, opened the front door of his house and was shot in the face with a nine millimeter. Dead after the first shot, but the killer hit him again in the other eye.
The cops had looked hard at Billy Thompson, a high school senior who’d lost his basketball scholarship after Judson accused him of cheating. But Billy ended up having a solid alibi. No arrest had been made, and the case was still open.
Connor drove out to the south end of the city, close to the Tijuana border, to talk to Billy at the auto repair shop where he worked. Connor knew Billy well from the youth center. The last thing Billy needed was the cops all over him. The kid was clean, but he didn’t like authority, and after what happened with Judson, Connor couldn’t blame him. Still, Connor had no doubt that Billy had written the message about “Jackass Judson.” It sounded just like him.
Six feet five inches of lean black muscle, Billy Thompson looked older than a nineteen-year-old almost- basketball player. His head was shaved and his hands were huge. Connor waited while Billy finished with a customer before walking over to him.
“Hey, Billy.” He stuck out his hand and Billy slapped it front, back, and then slammed his knuckles.
“What’s up, Kincaid?” Billy asked. “Problem with your truck?”
“No, I just need to talk to you about something.”
Billy narrowed his eyes. “You sound like a cop again.”
“You can take the cop out of the precinct, but…” Connor smiled. Billy didn’t. He crossed his arms.
“What do you want me for?”
Connor wasn’t going to bullshit Billy. He’d been through enough crap in his life. “It’s about Judson.”
Billy’s face froze, and his body seemed to double in size.
“I have nothing to say.”
“I know. But this is important. Someone else is being railroaded for a murder they didn’t commit, and I think there might be a connection.”
That was enough to at least get Billy to relax a bit.
“Why should I?”
“Because you want to.”
Billy blew out a long breath and led Connor into the back where he had a small office. A basketball rested on
