Bloodline (Sue Thomas FBEye)

Bloodline - Chapter Three

Myles was glad to return to work on Monday morning. Two more days before Thomas' return... before they all heaved a collective sign of relief.

"You have an admirer, Myles." A rosy shade of pink coloured Tara's cheeks.

He followed her dreamy gaze to a bouquet of white Lily.

It wasn't his birthday, and he couldn't think of any other occasions to explain the gift. He picked up the small envelope and froze. It was addressed to Special Agent Philip Myles Leland III.

"It's him."

His colleagues surrounded his desk.

Lowering his voice, Myles read the note. "Why do some federal judges dismiss more cases than others? Love and justice are blind."

"A riddle?" D wasn't impressed, and Myles couldn't blame him. "Who is he? The joker?"

"Let's see what I can dig up." Note in hand, Tara returned to her computer.

Aside from Jack's frequent phone calls to and from Thomas, Myles enjoyed a relatively calm atmosphere to work on an old report.

"Oh, boy," Tara squealed, her excitement palpable across the bullpen. "You need to see this."

"Let's go in the conference room."

Except for Lucy, Jack ushered all of them down the hallway. At the rate they were using it, someone should considered renaming it the Hudson Room.

By the time Myles closed the door behind him, Tara was jumping up and down like a kangaroo. Did she hit the jackpot with her search, or did koala boy's hand stroking the small of her back cause a surge of adrenaline?

"Out with it, Tara." Patience was something Jack had misplaced in the mountains.

"I began by searching for the federal judges who dismissed the most cases last year, starting with the most recent ones. I was going to go back three, five and ten years, but—"

"Tara, no detour, please." Two more days, and Jack would be the one ready for vacations.

"The federal judge with the second highest number of dismissed cases last year was Arthur Taylor, and on Friday afternoon, judge Taylor shipped your two Mexican teenagers home without indicting them."

"But they smuggled explosive inside the country." D shook his head in disbelief. "He couldn't have dismissed the charges against them, could he?"

"He said the teenagers were guilty of trying to enter the United States illegally by producing fake passports and using a stolen vehicle. He left it up to the Mexican authorities to deal with the stolen property."

"Is that a new change in foreign policy that we haven't been made aware of?" Frustrated like the rest of them, Bobby began pacing the room. "Did he sign the kids' death warrant, or did he just return them into Alvarez's folds?"

"I don't know, but the love and justice quote intrigued me, so I looked into his personal life. Taylor is married to old political money. Five years ago, a reporter published a racy photo of the judge with a young woman who was neither his wife nor daughter. The scandal nearly derailed his career down a cliff. The young woman in question denied knowing the judge and produced documents proving she was in Mexico at the time of the alleged picture."

"Mexico? How convenient?" Jack wasn't the only one who didn't buy the coincidence.

"Must be the warm weather," Tara quipped. "Anyway, since I didn't find anything suspicious in Arthur Taylor's records, I looked into that mystery woman's life. Her name is Annette Norrie. She lives in San Francisco with her two young sons. No father is listed on their birth certificates, but she named them Arthur Norrie and Taylor Norrie."