Interest of Justice Read online

  “Judge Sanderstone…” He paused, his voice tense and uncertain. “Do you mind if I call you something else?”

  “Lara,” she said.

  “Lara,” he said, pronouncing it as Laura. Everyone did. “Let me tell you something here. Your brother-in-law was killed with a dumbbell. That dumbbell belonged to your nephew. And let me tell you something else, your nephew isn’t exactly a little boy. This kid is almost as big as me. Do you know what I’m saying?”

  She had no idea what he meant. So, Josh wasn’t a little kid anymore. What bearing did that have on all this nightmare? “Who killed my sister? Did the neighbors see anything? Did you find anything in the house?” Her voice started to rise, even though she tried to contain it. She had pushed these thoughts to the back of her mind, too painful to begin to deal with now. She couldn’t suppress them any longer.

  His voice was low and measured. “Take it easy, Lara. I know this is a terrible time for you, and please accept my deepest sympathy—the whole department’s, in fact—but surely you understand that we have to do our jobs here. We have to cover all the bases.”

  She was silent, thinking. What he had tried to say diplomatically now clicked into place. He had implied, in a roundabout way, that Josh could be responsible. That was absurd. Sure, patricide wasn’t uncommon. As awful as it was, it did occur. But her own nephew? Outrageous! Just the thought made her already churning stomach turn over and over like a ferris wheel.

  “Why don’t you come down and we’ll discuss all this in person?”

  “Fine,” she said.

  “What…did…he say?” Emmet asked once she had disconnected. She was just standing there staring into space.

  “He…oh, Emmet, I-I have to go and get my nephew. He thinks my nephew…” She just couldn’t say it. She walked over to Emmet and kissed his forehead and then rushed out the front door.

  The San Clemente Police Department was housed in a small, older building. It wasn’t a large department. San Clemente wasn’t a large town. Even if Richard Nixon had once resided here and people had heard the name, it was still what some people called the boonies, stuck in the middle between Los Angeles and San Diego. New housing tracts and shopping centers were springing to life here and there, but the town itself still looked like a small, beachy city, almost like a town found along the Eastern Seaboard.

  Rickerson had a cup of coffee in one hand and a soda in the other. The coffee looked disgusting, but he needed it. As long as it still moved in the cup, it was drinkable. The soda was for Josh, waiting alone in the interview room. He hoped like hell it wasn’t the kid who was responsible for the bloodbath in that bedroom. He had two kids of his own, and he hated it when he had to arrest young people on serious crimes. Oh, a little bust now and then for possession or drinking in public or a curfew violation didn’t bother him, but not a crime like this one. And this one was going to be big. It was going to make all the papers. The deceased weren’t notable. The female was a housewife; the husband owned a small pawnshop in the center of old San Clemente. But the relationship to a judge would do it, particularly since this judge had made all the papers already only a few weeks before. It was a red flag to the press. And if they got wind that the boy was a possible suspect, all hell would break loose.

  “Hey, Josh, brought you a soda, guy,” he said, knowing his smile would not bring another from the grim young man who sat in front of him, his long sandy blond hair falling onto his forehead and almost obscuring his eyes. He was a fairly attractive kid—clear skin, nice features, blue eyes. Under the circumstances, it was hard to tell what he was really like.

  The can of soda remained on the table. The boy didn’t reach for it. His body was angled forward in the chair, his shoulders slumped, his eyes glazed and puffy.

  “Okay, let’s start at the beginning. I know this is painful, son, and I’m sorry we have to do this, but we do. As soon as we’re through here, you can go home with your aunt and try to get some rest.”

  Josh blinked and licked his lips. “My aunt? I haven’t seen my aunt in…” He stopped himself and focused on a framed poster on the wall.

  “So, let’s get this over with. You came home from school and saw your stepfather’s truck parked in front of the house. You told the other officer that this was an unusual event—that he didn’t generally come home from the shop that early in the day. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  He looked at the boy with compassion. “Sorry, kid.” He continued, “You entered through the back door into the kitchen. Was it open or did you use your key?”

  “I used my key. We hide it above the door ledge.”

  Rickerson was reading from the officer’s notes and looked up at Josh. His eyes were wide, his mouth open. “You went to the refrigerator, got a soda, and then walked down the hall to your room. When you passed the master bedroom, the door was open and you saw the bodies. Is that right?”

  “Yeah.” Josh leaned forward in the chair, getting even closer to the table. His hands found the soda and he popped the cap, but didn’t take a drink. With a jerky movement he swiped the hair out of his eyes and continued to stare at the poster.

  “Tell me about the weights?” He looked directly into the boy’s eyes and tried to read his reaction. Nothing. Even the tone of his voice was almost flat.

  “The weights? What’re you talking about?”

  “You know, the set of weights your mom bought you for Christmas last year. Do you work out, Josh? You’ve got a nice build there, guy.”

  A small flicker of light went on in his eyes. “My dad was a body builder. My real dad. Yeah, I work out. How’d you know my mom bought me weights for Christmas?” He swallowed, choking up at the mention of his mother, almost ready to cry.

  “We found them in your room, son. One of them was missing—the twenty.”

  Josh turned to the detective and spoke without blinking. “The twenty?”

  “Yep, the twenty. It wasn’t with the rest of the set.”

  “Oh, yeah. What does this have to do with my mom?”

  “Why don’t you answer my question first and then I’ll answer yours. Sound fair?”

  “All my weights were in the box in my room where they always are. I kept them in my closet ‘cause Mom—” he stopped and coughed, a glint of moisture appearing in his eyes.

  “Please, go on.”

  Tears streamed from both his eyes. He made no move to wipe them away, and Rickerson pretended he didn’t see them. “My mom didn’t like them all over the floor in my room, see. She made me keep them in the box in the closet.”

  “So, the twenty was in your closet this morning when you left for school?”

  “Yeah, sure. I guess. I mean, I didn’t look. It was there the night before.” He sniffed. “I could have left it on the floor. I don’t remember.” The tears stopped and dried on his face. His face had been dusty and now there were streaks where the pale skin showed through and the dust had changed into muddy lines.

  “Well,” Rickerson said, “we didn’t find it there. We found all your weights in your closet, the twenty missing. But we found the twenty in your parents’ bedroom.”

  Josh’s gaze was penetrating, his reply sharp. “My mom’s bedroom. That wasn’t my dad. I told you. My dad is dead. That was my stepfather.”

  Rickerson leaned back in the chair, rubbing his stomach. It was popping and churning. He’d have to check on how the real father died. Something about this kid was beginning to make him wish he’d taken his vacation this week like he’d planned. But no. Joyce had seen to that. After almost twenty years of marriage, she had jumped up one morning and told him that she wanted to go back to college and get her engineering degree. Then a few months later, she had moved into her own apartment and left him with the two boys. But she kept insisting she didn’t want a divorce, and she called him every night and told him how much she missed him. She even made him promise that he wouldn’t tell a soul at the department. Women, he thought, twirling the gold wedding b
and on his left hand. Fucking woman. Right this very minute he could be stretched out on a beach in Hawaii instead of sitting here facing off with this kid.

  “Okay, Josh,” he said, “just answer this for me. Why would your twenty weight be in your parents’—excuse me—your mother and stepfather’s bedroom?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Can you think of any reason someone would do this to your mother and stepfather?” He certainly wouldn’t want to use the word parents again. One look from this kid was enough to make a clear impression on that one.

  “Because Sam was a bastard! I hated him, man. Everyone musta hated him ‘cept my mom.” Now he reached for the Coke and drank half the can in one swallow, setting what was left back on the table with a thud.

  “Did you kill them, Josh?” the detective said softly, knowing he was treading on shaky ground. He could question him about the murder as a witness, but he couldn’t interrogate him as a suspect until a parent or guardian arrived. But the opening was there and Rickerson found the temptation irresistible.

  “No,” Josh said, looking him straight in the eye. “I wish I’d killed Sam, though.”

  Rickerson sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Your mother? Know anyone that might have wanted to hurt your mother?”

  “Dunno. Sam maybe. He was always screaming at her.”

  “Did you ever see anyone at the house you didn’t recognize? Can you give us a list of their friends?”

  “I can’t remember, okay. They didn’t have a lot of friends.” A dark shadow passed over his face. He refused to look at the detective.

  “Did you see anything at all amiss or different when you came home today, before discovering the bodies?”

  “All I saw was Sam’s stupid truck. He never comes home in the middle of the day. And everything was all torn up like we were moving out or something.”

  Rickerson was tired and he was hungry. He was getting nowhere fast. The poor kid either didn’t know anything, or what he did know, he wasn’t telling. He stood and shoved the metal chair away from the table, placing his hands behind him and stretching his aching back. “Let’s go, kid. That’s it for today. Your aunt should be here any minute. She’s on the way to pick you up.”

  Josh stood as well. Rickerson walked to the door, then turned and glanced back. The boy just stood there. “Come on,” he said again. “Don’t want to stay in this room all night, do you?”

  “Why do I have to go to my aunt’s house? She’s a bitch. Why can’t I go back to my house and stay there? I need my bike…and my clothes—my things.”

  Rickerson just shrugged his shoulders. Tough situation, he thought. Nothing’s going to be easy in a case like this one, not now, not later. “It’s either your aunt’s house or juvenile hall until we find a foster home. Take your pick.” He didn’t wait for the boy to answer. The answer was evident. He walked out of the room and waited in the hall, leaning and resting his back a few seconds against the wall. A few minutes later the boy came out and shuffled behind him to his office. Did he kill the stepfather he hated, Rickerson asked himself, and then suffocate his own mother? Hard to tell at this point. He had enough doubts, however, to generate plenty of sleepless nights in the days to come. As far as Judge Sanderstone’s fears that someone was after her, he personally doubted it. A residential burglary was a far cry from a double homicide. He had officers canvassing the neighborhood, and hopefully forensics would come up with something they could sink their teeth into and run with. If not, it was going to be a bad one.

  In his own little world, he started when the young boy next to him spoke.

  “That’s her, isn’t it?” he said, watching as a bedraggled woman made her way down the hall.

  Rickerson looked up and saw Lara Sanderstone. “Don’t you even know her, son?” he whispered, wondering if the boy was okay. Surely he recognized his own aunt.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know her. I just forgot what she looked like, it’s been so long.” He cut his eyes to Rickerson. “I told you she was a bitch. That’s what my mom always said. She said we weren’t good enough for her. That she thought we were white trash and that’s why she stopped coming around.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Rickerson said. “Well, she’s a pretty smart lady. Why don’t you give her a chance?”

  As Lara got closer, Rickerson looked up and shook his head. He felt sorry for the woman. Nope, he sure didn’t want to be in her shoes right now. Sister and brother-in-law murdered; this gangly, bitter kid to deal with. She was a pretty woman, he thought, looking her up and down. Even under this kind of strain, there was an ethereal, unusual quality about her. But she looked small, vulnerable, broken. Not like the tough little prosecutor he remembered from her days in the D.A.‘s office.

  “Josh,” she said, seeing him and running to embrace him. “I’m so sorry, honey. I’m so sorry.” Then she finally pulled back and stared at him. “You’re so big…my God.” She put her hand over her mouth. He looked just like his father. It was like spinning back in time, back to the days when they were all in high school, the days when…She stopped herself, seeing the black look in his eyes, a look that passed right through her.

  Josh just stood there. He didn’t say a word.

  Chapter 7

  At the police station, Sergeant Rickerson called Lara aside, sending Josh down the hall to look at mug shots of possible suspects, anyone that he might have seen in the neighborhood or at his parents’ house. It was really just a way to diffuse the situation—the friction between the boy and his aunt. Josh had flatly refused to go home with her. “It might have been a mistake for you to come down here,” Rickerson said. They were standing in the corridor leading to the lobby. “This has been really tough for him, obviously. Why don’t you go home and I’ll talk some sense into him? Then I’ll either bring him to your place later or find a placement for him.”

  Lara still felt the sting of her nephew’s look. What she had seen in his eyes was pure hatred. She glanced at the detective and then looked away. Maybe he was right about the placement. “I don’t know anything about teenagers,” she said. “I’m not married, you know.”

  Rickerson ran his fingers through his already unruly red hair and then braced his back against the wall. “Yeah, well, I’m not sure I know that much myself, and I’ve got a few of my own. A kid’s a kid. That’s about it.”

  Although she was tempted to turn Josh over to Social Services, she couldn’t. “Please convince him to stay with me. Tell him I care. He’s my sister’s only child. I have to take him.” Lara reached into her purse for the rental receipt, gave him the address, and then something flashed in her mind—the last night she’d seen Ivory alive. “Someone was following my sister,” she blurted out, stepping into a doorway as an officer walked by. “She came to see me about two months ago, late at night. She was excited, frightened, but she refused to tell me what was going on.”

  “Did you call the police, get a description of the car or whatever?” Rickerson was alert and standing only inches from Lara, his breath and clothing reeking of cigar smoke even though he wasn’t smoking.

  “No, she wouldn’t tell me anything.” Lara looked down at the worn and scuffed linoleum. The floor must have been white at one time. Now it was an ugly shade of yellow. “We had an argument. I have no idea what was going on. I asked her to leave.”

  Ivory had been in trouble two months ago, the night she’d come to her house. In what way or over what she had no idea. She knew Ivory had problems. She should have understood. She should have tried to figure out what was going on. If she had, her sister might still be alive. Rickerson was staring at her. Beads of perspiration were popping out on her upper lip. She blotted them with her hand.

  “I’ll call the sheriffs department and see what they made of the break-in at your house,” he said, concerned about the woman standing beside him, more worried about her emotional state than any physical threats right now. “Nothing missing, huh?”

  “No, not that I could see,” Lara s
aid, leaning back against the whitewashed wall. “I mean, I didn’t go through everything. They told me to move out, so I moved out.”

  “I heard some of the details of this Henderson case, but not all. You said someone threatened you, one of the family members?”

  “The dead girl’s boyfriend,” Lara said, the words reverberating inside her head; she kept seeing Ivory on the floor in that room. Would someone refer to her as the dead girl’s sister? “I don’t remember exactly what he said. I mean, he called me a fucking bitch…said someone should kill my family or me…something like that. We weren’t on record then, so we don’t have it documented, but the D.A. was in the courtroom, the bailiff. A number of people were present.” Lara paused, not looking at the detective, her voice low. “I thought he was just distraught. It was a difficult situation.”

  “The medical examiner believes your sister was sexually assaulted prior to the suffocation.” He hated to say it, but she had to know.

  Lara looked up in shock. “No…Jesus Christ…she was raped. Ivory was raped.” Then she quickly pressed her lips together into a hard, thin line. Ivory was dead. That she was raped was incidental. But it went to the suffering, the agony she had endured in her final moments of life.

  “Wasn’t the Henderson girl raped?” Rickerson asked.

  Lara’s head shot up at the big detective. “God, yes…You can’t possibly think that the boyfriend would rape and murder Ivory to strike back at me? That would be insanity. All I did was rule on the law. My hands were tied.” The muscles in her face were twitching. She no longer cared what Rickerson or the officers passing them in the hall thought about her. Facing the wall, she pounded it with her fists. She then thought of something and spun around to face him. “Are they certain it wasn’t consensual? Maybe she and Sam had sex before she was killed.”

  Rickerson dropped his eyes. “Lara, the medical examiner said it was a rape. Pretty brutal from what he said. Numerous rips and tears in her vagina.” He paused, his eyes full of conviction. “Whoever did this, we’ll nab them. They’ll pay. Go home now. Call someone…a friend, a relative. There’s nothing you can do here.”