Interest of Justice Read online

  “Yours…too,” he said, managing a smile. “See, I…want to keep…my strength up, so…I crawl…from room…to room. Then I get…in my bed and then…out of my bed.”

  “Really?” she said. “You never told me you did that, Emmet.”

  “Look,” he said, unstrapping a large pair of knee pads attached to his frail legs with Velcro, “did you…think I went roller…skating with these? Want…to borrow…them?”

  Lara laughed. She needed to get back to work. Then, she thought, she could put some of this out of her mind. Emmet was always working, either on his physical therapy or his computers. Most people were put off by his appearance, his illness. Some even mistakenly thought he was retarded. But they were wrong, dead wrong. The frail young man with the wasted body and the thick glasses was brilliant. His software programs were unrivaled anywhere in the country. His disease was advanced but not to the point that he didn’t have some muscle control. He could certainly work hour after hour, day after day, put in more hours than most healthy people.

  But eventually he would die. He knew that fact well. He lived with it hanging over his head.

  “Can I…do…something?” he said, his wrists jutting out awkwardly. “I want…to help you, Lara.” He had spotted her distress. Emmet knew she was hurting.

  Lara loved this man. There was something about him that exuded personal strength and power in the midst of physical infirmity—like a high-performance engine in an old, beat-up car. It shot right from his eyes. If people only took the time to look, they’d see it.

  She looked around the room for a chair and then decided she should return to the condo in case Josh returned. “You could give me a hug,” she finally said. She needed to touch someone, feel their body heat. She needed to borrow their strength.

  She walked over to his wheelchair and leaned down and kissed his forehead lightly. He tried to raise his arm, but it fell back on the edge of the chair, too weak from his exercises even to hold her. Lara pressed her body against his and held it there. This was an Emmet hug.

  “Thanks,” she said. “I feel better already.”

  Emmet smiled with his eyes. Lara smiled back.

  “I’m so…sorry…about your sister.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I’m sorry too, Emmet. About as sorry as a person can get.” For a few moments he managed to maintain eye contact, and then his eyes drifted away involuntarily. She didn’t have to explain pain and sorrow to him. Emmet knew all there was to know. She quietly let herself out of the apartment as he turned back to the computer. As she walked out the door, she heard the soft tap, tap, tapping of his pen on the keyboard.

  Still no Josh. Lara was beginning to get very concerned now. God forbid, she thought, what if something terrible had happened to him? Did boys his age do this all the time—just disappear for hours?

  She didn’t touch the boxes of pawn tickets in the entryway, but she did start reviewing the copies of the phone records that Rickerson had given her.

  The list of numbers and names of people who had been called from the residence in San Clemente was extensive and varied. The investigators had managed to get the names and addresses from the telephone company, and she studied the list carefully, trying to see if she recognized any of them as old friends of Ivory’s or anyone she might have mentioned through the years.

  A number of the names she did recognize, or at least, she recognized the businesses where the phones were located that had been called. A lot of the numbers were to hotels, some in Orange County, some in Los Angeles. Lara shuddered. Only one reason for these calls, she thought. Clients. No names were listed next to these numbers. Once the calls were transferred from the switchboard, they were impossible to trace.

  The calls to public officials were puzzling, to say the least. There was a call to the man who was superintendent of the Orange County School District and a call to a man she recognized as president of the Anaheim Chamber of Commerce.

  Then she started thinking, rubbing her forehead. One fact had to be the starting point for all speculation, a fact that Rickerson knew all too well. The fact that there was no forced entry. Whoever had killed Sam and Ivory was someone they knew well enough to allow them entrance to the residence. And she really couldn’t stretch her imagination far enough to believe that Ivory had clients over and “serviced” them, as Rickerson had called it, with Sam in the house. But then again, she might be wrong. What did she know about this type of activity? Her mind was full of unanswered questions, not just about the murder, but the life her sister was secretly leading. What kind of man would allow his wife to do something like this? A cheap, slimy asshole like Sam, she thought, wishing that he were still alive so she could kill him herself. He had taken advantage of Ivory’s lack of intelligence, her lack of self-confidence, her immaturity. He had probably plied her with drugs and praised her every time she turned a trick like a damn dog. He was a parasite, a predator. All her life, people had taken advantage of Ivory. As sad as it was to consider, her sister would do anything to win people’s approval. Everyone’s approval but that of her own sister. After Lara had threatened to take Josh away, Ivory had never sought her approval again.

  Josh still hadn’t returned, and Lara walked to the window and peered through the curtains. She was about to give up and call the police when the front door opened and in he walked, pushing his bike over the door frame.

  “Where in God’s name have you been?” she said, almost screaming at him. “I was worried sick. You should have left me a note or something.”

  He tossed his shaggy head of hair and glared at her; his skin was glistening with perspiration. “Well, I came back and you weren’t here, so I went back out.”

  “Okay,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m sorry I screamed at you. I was just worried, that’s all. You can’t go running around in this neighborhood. You could get hurt.”

  “So what?” he sneered, suddenly erupting in anger. “What’s it to you?”

  Lara brushed her hair off her face and walked over to him. “Look, Josh, we have to make this work. You’re all I have and I’m all you have. That’s the way it is, whether you like it or not.”

  “You’re ugly. You look like a witch. This place is a dump. I hate it here. I want my stuff…my friends…I want to go home.”

  As tough a facade as he was presenting, Lara could see his chest heaving and knew he was about to break down. “You can cry, Josh. Don’t be ashamed to cry. I know how awful you feel.” She paused, shuffling her feet around on the small entry way. “I made an appointment for you to talk to Dr. Werner again.”

  “I’m not going,” he shouted. “I told you I’m not going to that stupid shrink. I hate him. I’m not crazy. You can’t make me. I’ll run away. I’ll…”

  He grabbed the handlebars of the bike and started to push it back out the open door. Lara reached for his shirt and accidentally ended up with a handful of his hair. “Stop right there,” she ordered him. “You’re not going out again. It’s almost dark. There’s a lot of crime around here. I won’t allow it.”

  “Let go of my fucking hair. You’re a bitch. You look like that horror woman…Elvira…Mistress of the Dark. Let go of me.”

  Lara took some deep breaths and held onto his hair. “I’ll let go as soon as you promise me you won’t go back out. Do you promise?” she said, pulling on his hair enough that his forehead fell backward and she could peer down into his eyes. If this was what it took to control a teenage boy, keep him from getting hurt, then this is the way it would have to be.

  The door was still standing open and Josh was really yelling now like she was killing him. “Let go of me,” he shrieked. “You’re scalping me. Okay, I promise. Just let go.”

  Lara released him and he snapped his head back up. Then both of them stood there and stared, their mouths falling open in unison. Only a few feet away on the sidewalk, watching the whole scene intently, were two women. As soon as Lara looked at them, they stepped toward the door to the condo. One of the wo
men had short blond hair and was as skinny as a twig.

  “I’m Lucille Rambling,” she said, extending her hand, “and this is Madeline Murphy. Judge Sander-stone, I presume?”

  Lara felt her stomach do about five cartwheels and for a moment thought she was going to be sick. She shook the woman’s hand and then dropped it. It was cold and limp.

  “We’re from the Social Services Department, Judge Sanderstone,” the woman said. “We’re here about your nephew.”

  Lara hadn’t taken the time to make the bed or pick up the condo that morning. Josh had most of his clothes spread all over the floor in the living room. When the two women from Social Services walked into the room, the skinny blonde turned up her nose and stepped over the mess.

  “Uh, Judge Sanderstone,” Lucille Rambling said, “we need to see your nephew’s bedroom, the place he will be sleeping while he’s staying with you.”

  Quickly, Lara tried to think. This was it. She could let them take him. Letting them take him would certainly be easier than what she was going through. Josh was just standing there with a surly expression on his face. “In here,” she said without even thinking. “His bedroom is right in here. Of course, I have a large house in Irvine. We’ll be moving back in there in a few days.”

  The women walked into the bedroom and looked around, peeking into the small bathroom and then walking back to the living room. “Is there another room here?” the other woman said. “You know, another bedroom.” She was craning her neck around toward the kitchen.

  “No,” Lara said self-consciously. “This is it.”

  “Humph,” she said. “Then where do you sleep?”

  “I sleep on the sofa…here. I let Josh have the bedroom.”

  “You did not,” he said, narrowing his eyes, “you’re lying. You didn’t give me the bedroom except that one night. I’ve been sleeping on that stupid sofa. It’s a bitch, man.”

  Lara’s shoulders fell. If he’d just kept his mouth shut, maybe they wouldn’t have known about the sleeping arrangements and would have overlooked the scene they walked into at the door. But possibly it was for the best, she told herself. The child seemed to despise her anyway, and she was a nervous wreck.

  “Why don’t we step outside?” Ms. Rambling said.

  “Fine,” Lara said, shifting her eyes to Josh. See, she wanted to tell him, see what you did.

  “Look,” Lucille Rambling said once they were outside and the door was shut. “We’re certain your intentions are good in wanting to care for your sister’s child, but there are certain criteria that must be met for us to allow him to remain here. One of these is that he has his own room. He’s a teenage boy and he needs his privacy.”

  “I understand,” Lara said, “but surely there’s some flexibility in all rules.” She kept glancing back at the door. For some reason she felt a tug on her heart. She didn’t want to let him go. “I told you we will be moving back to my house in Irvine, and Josh will have his own room. In fact, we could do that now if that would rectify the situation.”

  “I’m sorry,” the blonde continued, exchanging a knowing glance with the other woman. “Investigator Bradshaw at the San Clemente Police Department informed us that you were hiding out here, that they feel you are in some kind of jeopardy. I don’t think that you should take your nephew back somewhere where he would be at risk.”

  “Of course not,” Lara said quickly, wondering who this Bradshaw was. If he kept telling everyone where she was, she wouldn’t be hiding out anywhere much longer. “I could possibly rent a bigger place in this same complex. It might take me a few days to arrange it, but I’m certain I could.”

  “We can’t allow the boy to stay here. We’ll have to find a placement for him, and then when your situation changes, you can contact us and we’ll do another evaluation. Believe me, it’s far better for all concerned that he remains with you, yet it must be within our guidelines.” She paused and then continued, her face softening somewhat, her voice almost a whisper. “The Social Services agency is under close scrutiny right now, Judge Sanderstone. I know you’re aware of the Adams case. The agency director has instructed us to enforce the rules with no exceptions. And that exchange we saw between you and your nephew…well, maybe you could both benefit from a cooling-out period.”

  Lara dropped her head. She thought of throwing her weight around, insisting that they leave Josh with her. But no, she decided, an exercise in authority would make these women even more determined to take Josh away. Lara might be a judge, but in this situation Lucille Rambling and Madeline Murphy held all the cards.

  “Why don’t you get his things together?” Madeline Murphy told Lara. “We’ll be taking him now.”

  “Look, the funeral is Monday. Why don’t you let him stay here until then, and I’ll work on getting another place? Besides, they’re looking right now for the man that did this. As soon as they find him, we can go home.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  Lara refused to look at the two women, her eyes on the concrete walk. “Thanks. Thanks a whole hell of a lot.” As soon as she said it, she regretted it.

  “There’s no reason for you to get snippy with us, Judge Sanderstone. We’re only doing our job…surely—”

  “Excuse me,” she said to the woman, finally raising her eyes. “I thought possibly after all he’s gone through, you might see the benefit of his being with a close relative. You know, bending the rules somewhat to fit the situation.”

  Madeline Murphy had mousy brown hair and thick glasses; her eyes were so small they looked like shiny black beads. “I wouldn’t talk about bending the rules if I were you, Judge Sanderstone, not from what we’ve heard.”

  Sirens started squealing on the street in front of the complex. First, there were black-and-whites racing by, and then an ambulance raced by. The noise was so loud, they couldn’t even speak. A few moments later, a fire truck rolled by. This was real impressive, Lara thought. All she needed now was someone to go running past her doorway with a sawed-off shotgun. Great neighborhood, she thought. Super place for a kid.

  Finally the sirens stopped. “What do you mean to imply, Ms. Murphy?” Lara knew just what the woman was talking about, the fact that she’d talked law enforcement out of going after Sam, covered him inadvertently while he was involved in criminal activities. She remembered all too well her little chat with Evergreen.

  “Never mind,” the woman said. “Please, just get the boy ready and we’ll be on our way. We’ll wait out here. Send him out.” The woman reached into her purse and handed Lara her card. “We are sorry about your sister,” she said. “Call us when you get situated in a larger place.”

  Lara went inside and shut the door behind her, leaning back against it. Josh stuck his head out of the small kitchen.

  “Are those old biddies gone?”

  Lara sighed. “Those old biddies, huh?”

  “Yeah, boy, were they ugly.” He laughed and made a face. “Look, I’m starving. We don’t have any food at all here, not even a cookie. You’ve got to go to the store.”

  “I thought I was the Mistress of the Dark?”

  “Sorry,” he said and gave her a lopsided grin. “I was in a bad mood, okay?” As soon as the smile appeared, it fell away.

  “Well, unfortunately, Josh, or fortunately for you, depending on how you look at it, since you don’t want to stay with me—”

  “Wait,” he said. A shadow passed over his eyes as he walked into the living room and plunked down in a chair. “I’ll stay, okay? I told you I was just upset.”

  “They won’t let you stay. I don’t have the right situation for you…a room and all. And they saw the little argument we had in living color. I have to pack your things. They’re waiting.”

  “No,” he said, springing to his feet. “What’re they going to do to me? They can’t take me away somewhere. I said I’d stay here with you.”

  He was blinking rapidly and Lara saw the tears gathering in his eyes. She started toward him and h
e disappeared into the kitchen. He really wanted to stay with her. She was shocked. More than anything, she was touched. “Josh,” she said softly, “I’ll take care of it. I’ll figure out something, okay? You may have to stay in a foster home for a day or two, but I promise I’ll get you as soon as I can. We’re going to have the services Monday. Maybe I can have it arranged by then.”

  Josh had his forehead pressed to the refrigerator door. “You’ll never get me. Why would you want to? I called you names. I…I’m not a good person.”

  Lara walked up behind him. “Josh, I understand…please believe me. I wouldn’t give up on you simply because you called me names.”

  His body began shaking and Lara reached out tentatively to touch him, stroke his hair. When he didn’t resist, she moved even closer, as if she were about to pet a wild animal. Now she was so close that she could smell his hair, his skin, his sweaty boy odor. He didn’t move and kept his forehead against the refrigerator door.

  “I miss my mom…” he said, his voice weak and frail now. “I keep having these nightmares that she’s calling to me…begging me to help her and I can’t find her. I look all over the house, in every single room, and she isn’t there.”

  Gently, Lara turned him around and wrapped him in her arms. She felt a powerful surge of emotion, one so strong that she had to grit her teeth and lean into it, like a person walking in gale-force winds.

  “Look,” she said, pushing herself away from him, “look at me.” She let forth a nervous laugh. She wiped her eyes with her fingers. “And I never cry.”

  All of a sudden his hand reached out for her, almost in slow motion, only touching a single strand of her hair as he studied her face. Then his hand fell away and dropped to his side.

  As quickly as it had come, the moment was gone.

  Josh walked out of the kitchen and started throwing the few things he had in a pile on the floor.

  “I’ll get you a sack or something,” Lara said, heading back to the kitchen.